Mooney and collaborators are proposing that their meat model be used in a continuing global assessment of the livestock industry. A more extensive application will inform policies that take into account the environmental benefits and consequences of global trade of grain, in addition to the economic benefits that may exist.
"A recoupling of crop and livestock systems is needed-if not physically, then through pricing and other policy mechanisms that reflect social costs of resource use and ecological abuse," wrote Naylor, director of the Program on Food Security and the Environment and William Wrigley Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute, in the journal Science.
"That's fundamental and that's true for all food," Mooney said. "We should pay the real cost, and that would make a huge difference for the environment."
One solution is for countries to adopt policies that provide incentives for better management practices that focus on land conservation and more efficient water and fertilizer use, Mooney said.
So much of the problem comes down to the individual consumer, he stressed, adding that one solution could be to get people in developed countries to eat less meat and to consider how and where the meat that they do eat is produced. At the same time, people in certain regions of the world, such as southern Africa, are suffering from a deficiency of animal protein, and the means to enrich their diets is needed. "I am always hopeful that as people learn more, they do change their behavior," Mooney said. "If they are informed that they do have choices to help build a more sustainable and equitable world, they can make better choices."
