EXCLUSIVE: Global animal rights campaigner warns of environmental impact of livestock farming
An animal rights organization has raised concern over farming systems adopted to raise livestock, in a bid to increase animal sourced Proteins products.
The World Animal Protection (WAP), a domestic and wildlife animals watch, has cautioned that the rate at which farmers are working towards increasing milk, meat and eggs production will cause more pandemics in future if not looked at.
Animal sourced Proteins demand is rising by day due to human population increase.
For instance, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 2018 report, consumption of poultry meat and eggs is projected to rise to 92, 000 tons and 245, 000 tons by 2050.
To meet the demand, actors in the livestock production value chain are adopting intensive farming systems which entails raising a large number of animals in a squeezed area.
It is an increasingly common way to keep animals for food, focusing on species such as cows, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, and fish.
The production system, also known as factory farming, according to Dr Victor Yamo, Farming Campaigns Manager at the World Animal Protection, is hazardous to humans and the environment.
“The way we produce animals; Putting massive numbers in a small space, is what is causing problems such as the emergence of pandemics,” Dr Yamo said.
In interview with Nairobi News, the Scientist stated that intensive farming systems do not offer animals the capacity to look for food as well as water for themselves hence creating a platform for disease organisms to grow which later turn to pandemics and spread quickly.
Research further shows that between 1940 and 2020 when Covid-19 struck the globe, 50 per cent of the emerging pandemics and conditions emanated from livestock production systems, Dr Yamo informed.
With the controlled systems of animals in a crowded area, they need pastures which call for clearing large tracts of land to grow feed such as maize, soya, cotton (for cotton seed cakes) and fodder grasses.
“That ‘growth’ means deforestation is inevitable, a major recipe for climate change effects and emission of greenhouse gasses,” the expert alarmed.
Controlling animal diseases, WAP observes, producers administer drugs such as antibiotics even before livestock fall sick.
The medicines residues find their way to milk, meat and eggs.
Producers have also become intelligent, instead of waiting for animals to fall sick they administer drugs which result in part of human’s problems in terms of antimicrobial resistance.
Similarly, the drugs deposits are transferred to manure used in farms which when rain pours are washed to rivers or streams people depend on for water supply, Dr Yamo explains, citing the chain as the major source of lifestyle diseases.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), diets contribute to massive problems, including affecting people, animals, environment and climate.
To reverse the situation, Yamo urges on shifting to alternative sources of Proteins such as plants’.
World Animal Protection is working on proposals to mitigate factory farming, which will be submitted to the heads of states during this year’s Africa Climate Week and COP28.
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