Sustainability and Food Production

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Evaluate the FAO/UN report on "livestock's long shadow" and related evidence, argument, and counter argument. What, if any, policy changes are warranted.

• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, "Livestock's Long Shadow" [1]
• The documentary "Cowspiracy" is based in part on this report and streams on Netflix.
• Grace Foundation Site, "Sustainable Table" [2]
• Scientific American article assessing organic farming as a food strategy. [3]
• The wiki page for "Livestock's Long Shadow" links to critics of the report. [4]
• Food Inc. is another documentary that points out some flaws in the food industry. It also can be found on Netflix. [5] - Sophie Oswald
• The "Sustainable Table--Organic Agriculture" article talks about organic food and the difference between organic and sustainable food. [6] -Savanah Van Citters
• This site provides a brief overview of the report and also summarizes ways to remedy the problem. [7] -Jordan Thurston
• This essay by Brian Henning offers an ethical viewpoint on the sustainability of the livestock industry. It identifies the harms from overconsumption of livestock, and, realizing the large problems these cause, also identifies solutions and remedies to the issue. [8] -Jordan Thurston
• The Food and Agriculture Organization defines Sustainable consumption and production in food and agriculture. [9]-Alex Neitz
• An interactive sustainable table that covers everything from where to eat in your area to policy and regulation. [10] - Alex Neitz
• This article looks at the production of methane and nitrous oxide from ruminants (cows) and possible solutions to reducing these emissions. [11] - Britta Pihl
• This article talks about what would happen if the whole world became vegetarians. Some positives are that it would create millions of square miles of available land as well as it would lower the risk of antibiotic-resistant infections. However, livestock production accounts for 1.4 percent of the world's total GDP, including 1.3 billion people's jobs, where 987 million of them are considered poor. [12] -Laura Moretti
• Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth talks about obsessive compulsive environment and food sustainability. -M. Pier
• Cowspiracy talks about how unsustainable raising livestock and eating animal products is for our environment. Kip Andersen, director, gives a lot of statistics about animal production's greenhouse gases emitted in comparison to those emitted from transportation methods and speaks to water consumption for many different markets, one being animal farming. Directly, Andersen tells the audience how much water goes into making one quarter-pounder hamburger and to what that much water consumption is equivalent. Cowspiracy is Andersen's way of telling us that eating animals and animal is neither sustainable nor beneficial for the environment. -M.Pier
• Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer is a great book and also gives a lot of insight into animals, food, and sustainability. -M.Pier