Many thanks for the invitation and opportunity to input into this useful consultation. Please find attached my submission on behalf of Compassion in World Farming. There are five main points to this document:
1. Grain-based intensive animal agriculture can exacerbate food insecurity, poor human nutrition, greenhosue gas emissions and vulnerability to price schocks and other shocks from climate change. It also negtively impacts biodiversity, water shortages, pollution, livelihoods, food soverignty and reduces the resource base available to humans.
2. Extensive, land-based integrated farming, combined with a reduction in over-consumption of meat, food waste and losses, can offer great benefits to food security, nutrition, climate mitigation and adaptation, as well as bringing other benefits to people, the planet and farm animal welfare.
3. Production increases alone will not be sufficient to deliver food security, nutrition, mitigation and adaptation. Avoiding over-consumption of meat; addressing poverty and other factors must all play a part.
4. Research shows that current methodologies (such as Life-cycle Analysis) and commonly used metrics (such as water footprint rather than water use impacts) do not apply well to livestock agriculture. Other methodologies, such as Impact Assessment are needed to avoid unintended negative outcomes.
5. Food Security, nutrition and climate change mitigation and adaptation are all important, and sit within a wider network of interlocking issues and agendas, such as livelihoods, animal welfare, biodiversity, food soverignty, water and soil conservation, and so on. Developing, designing and implementing food systems for the future can be better optimised across a wider range of agendas and needs of people, the planet and farm animals, if each of these agendas is considered. Thus, farming which is all-agenda-smart (rather than just climate-smart) may be possible and preferable. Stakeholder-dialogue based planning for farming may be a useful approach to achieving optimal farming systems for a given region. Agro-ecology with the needs of humans and animals built in may provide a suitable farming model to work from.
Please do contact me if you require any further details.
Many thanks and best wishes for this work,
Emily Lewis-Brown, April 17th, 2015
On behalf of Compassion in World farming.
Emily Lewis-Brown