A 212-page online report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says 26 percent of the earth’s terrestrial surface is used for livestock grazing. The global scope of the livestock issue is huge. Virtually all this grass-plus millions more acres of corn and oats-is fed to livestock. Of about 20 million acres of alfalfa in America, about one million grow in California. This field of alfalfa in California’s Imperial Valley is irrigated with water from the Colorado River, which scarcely reaches the sea today.
Most California-grown alfalfa is fed to dairy cows-meaning, sadly, that the production of milk and of California’s acclaimed cheeses may be as problematic as raising meat. Much of the Colorado’s flow is diverted to the Imperial Valley, a regional king of alfalfa hay production. And the mighty, man-size totuava, a Mexican fish species that once spawned in huge swarms in the Colorado River delta, has just about vanished partly because the Colorado barely reaches the Sea of Cortez anymore (remember in Into the Wild when vagabond Chris McCandless was unable to find the sea as he paddled a canoe downstream through the Colorado River delta?). Sixty percent of the state’s alfalfa fields lie in the San Joaquin Valley, ground zero in the water wars between farmers and salmon fishermen. In California, overuse of river water for agricultural use, including a million acres of water-intensive alfalfa (the state’s highest-acreage crop, used for feeding animals), has contributed to the long-term decline of wild salmon runs. Livestock ranchers worldwide have participated heavily in the extermination of wild predators. On parts of the Great Plains, cows, and the fields of grain they eat, have replaced pronghorn antelope and bison. Other ecological problems associated with raising livestock are less obvious to the eye-like loss of biodiversity. In New Zealand, the banks of wild streams are frequently found trampled and muddied by grazers. In Brazil, forests are falling before the advance of soybean fields, cultivated largely as beef fodder. Dry and scrubby Greece, once a nation of woodlands, has gone to the goats. Livestock species contribute directly and indirectly to deforestation, water pollution, air pollution, greenhouse gases, global warming, desertification, erosion and human obesity, and virtually anywhere you go in the world, the damage done by ruminants, pigs and poultry, and those who grow feed crops for them, is visible on the land. Don’t panic at the suggestion-just listen: An abundance of science analyzing the impacts on the earth of livestock farming has concluded that humanity’s appetite for meat and dairy products is having serious environmental consequences. And no doubt, new tasting experiences are one of the highlights of going places, yet I’m going to suggest something a bit radical, yet simple-that perhaps we all consider abstaining, at least sometimes, from dishes containing either meat or dairy, even while we’re abroad in new lands with exotic cuisines to explore. For the epicurean traveler, discovering new landscapes also means discovering new foods.