Which is more environmentally friendly: raising your own meat animals or buying meat from the store?
Answer:
Commercially raised, non organic, non free range meat is not very environmentally friendly (or humane). Animals raised in very close quarters produce more poop than the local environment can handle. Urine from feedlots seeps into ground water and pollutes the environment when there is too much of it. Production goals center around cost efficiency, not humane rearing practices or environmental friendliness.
If you raised animals for meat yourself, or bought it from a small family farm, there are lots of things that would make meat production more environmentally friendly:
By only raising a small number of animals, their feed could be supplemented by kitchen scraps, leftovers or food that would otherwise go to waste / to a landfill.
On a small scale, poop can be put in gardens or composted, every part of the animal carcass could be used, animals could be free ranged, more recycled equipment and products can be used in raising them, they might not be given growth hormone injections and you could choose organic food for them.
Small raisers are more likely to give their animals more humane care and butcher them humanely, because they have gotten to know their animals on a more individual basis.
i'd say buy it from the store, just do your research about the brands and companys and find the best. unless you'd be able to use every part of your own animal. most butcher companies can use the whole animal.
Buying locally is often times more friendly than the other options. Therefore, find meat that is "grown" within 200 miles from your store. This would probably be about the same as raising your own animal.
But to compare in an in-depth manner, you would need to answer a LOT of questions: how your store meat was "made" and how you might raise it, etc. Too complex for this analysis.
Best to stop eating meat because it has been well established that the land/water requirements for 1 cow compared with any other food makes it one of the worst value trade-offs.
In my opinion, no meat is more environmentally friendly!
but if vegetarianism isn't you, i believe that raising your own animals is better for the enviorment. plus, you know how the animals are treated and cared for!
Raising your own meat is always better at least you know what all goes into it ,
However you must raise meat in a sustainable manner so that the place gains in quality and not deminishes ,or you will make the same mistake as comercial operations ,
Cows are simply not sustainable animals ,they are too heavy ,their feet are too flat and they compact the ground,raise the salt to ther surface as well as require to much from the soil ,with their feed ,and self sustainable environment are destroyed for temporary ones that leave the place in a bad condition as a result.
Deer are much better ,(as are many other NATURAL animals ),they do not harm their Environment ,on the contrary,their pointed hooves help the ground with regrowth and they can live under the trees and eat a variety of food with out overgrazing the place ,
Other good animals to have are
for forrests Wild boars (delicious and self managing )fence of a piece of forrest
Partridge ,Pheasants ,Geese ,Silky and bantam chickens, Guinny fowl,(they dont rake the ground or destroy plants ,but run around and eat 70 % of all garden pest that are near the ground
Ducks (if you got ponds ).Iguanas ,
The most rediculous thing that ever happened as far as raising meat is concerned was for example the African grasslands which were packed solid with animals of all descriptions living on a great biodiversity of flora ,and in a selfsustainable manner ,with out supervision and kept in optimum coondition by the predators.
The then Insane farming comunity killed the animals that were on it ,and exchanged this warehouse of meat for compartively few cows ,changed the flora for a few species of grass ,and proceeded to turn the whole place slowly into a dessert.
So raise you own meat by all means ,but think autosuficiency and sustainability ,the concept HAS to improve with time to keep pace with your own expansion .
here are some directions concerning sustainability
PERMACULTURE
Permaculture is a world recognised earth friendly movement and tends to include people that practice the concept and are active in the field.
the Permaculture designers manual by Bill Mollison,which cost about 40 dollars.
and is the best all round book you can get,on Environmental design,.(tagiari publishing, tagariadmin@southcom.com.au)
some other writers that are on the internet are
david Holmgren
Larry Santoyo
Kirk Hanson
Masanobu Fukuaka has written ,
One-Straw Revolution
The Road Back to Nature
The Natural Way of Farming
http://www.context.org/iclib/ic14/fukuok...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/masanobu_fu...
Simon Henderson
and Bill Molisson.
a representitive of the concept in USA is
Dan Hemenway at YankeePerm@aol.com
barkingfrogspc@aol.com
http://barkingfrogspc.tripod.com/frames.
http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalo... Source(s) I am a permaculture consultant for the department of Ecology for the regional government of Guerrero in Mexico
rbyderule yahoo 360, which has some stuff in English as well as this spaces
http://spaces.msn.com/byderule
There is a huge difference in quality of meat, what goes into raising the animal and so forth. Most commercially raised cattle are purchased as feeder animals and sold to a feed lot. These animals are usually about 1 year to 18 months of age. Most cattle are butchered at about 24 months or 800 lbs whichever comes first. Lambs at about 125 lbs and pigs at about 250 lbs. The animals fed out at a feed lot are given a diet rich in proteins and carbohydrates. They are supplimented with hormones and antibiotics. This combination is done to increase weight and muscle mass as soon as possible. Problems with this method is that the animals are placed in very confined areas, chances of disease are very high, hormones and antibiotics are passed onto us in the meat and so forth. Problems in this manner have been documented in early breast development in 6 and 7 year old girls in Puerto Rico during the 1980's. There are indications that this is continueing in the current US population. Also by giving antibiotics as a preventative, you risk developing antibiotic resistant bacteria and increasing the chances of an epidemic in the feed lots. This process takes little time and investment to run compared to a more environmentally friendly method. Cattle breeds usually raised in this environment are herefords, angus, limosene, brahma, shorthorn and so forth. Most dairy critters are raised in similiar environments-the bull calves are usually killed off at about a week of age as excess stock. If you monitor dairies you can get a decent holstein calf for little or nothing and can raise a decent beef animal out of it. Sheep breeds raised like this would be hampshire, suffolk and possibly columbia. Most of these are black faced varieties and are not raised for their wool production as their wool has black fibres and is very coarse. Almost all swine varieties are raised in this manner. Chickhens are raised in enclosed areas in cramped quarters and are butchered in mass in a commercial operation, the same for turkeys, ducks and geese.
The more naturally raised animals are given antibiotics only in the case of an infection. They have a more balanced diet and not just focused on commercially produced feeds (commercially produced feeds that utilized animal byproducts in them are responsible for mad cow disease). Pasturage-can be land not ariable for crop or horticultural production. It can be scab land and the like. Feed will need to be supplimented and this can be done with natural whole grains and alfalfa pellets or hay. Butchering can be done at the same weights and this does take a little longer to accomplish. I grew up with this method of cattle, sheep, swine and poultry production. The more naturally raised animals appear happier and provide a much leaner and nutritionally rich meat. This method also doesn't rely on grain production and 50 acres of grain production per cow to yield an animal for butchering and as it focuses on land unusable for crop or horticultural (potatos, beans, squash, etc...) production, it utilizes land that would otherwise be neglected or subjected to erosion. This method also deminishes the chances of antibiotic resistant diseases and decreases the chance of disease in the animals being raised for consumption. As a result this method is much safer and environmentally friendly. The down side is that you cannot raise as many animals and so profits can be lower. The second method is easier for a small farmer to accomplish and is what is recommended for those that desire to raise their own animals. Also stock raised for your own consumption do cost less than commercially raised meat from a store. Raising the animals yourself-you have the cost of the animal, its feed, vet bills, custom cutter. Store purchased meat not only has those expenses, but also shipping, storage, stockage, processing fees, inspection fees, taxes, and so forth. Hope that this helps out. Before I forget, there is one other factor to consider and that is the issue of control: You have no control over how the meat sold in a store was raised, treated, processed and so forth. You have control over all of this if you raise it yourself.
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