Agriculture accounts for 38% of earth's landmass, two-thirds of that being dedicated to raising livestock. This optimization of capital and a growing demand for animal products is putting a strain on our agricultural system and the environment. We are essentially optimizing capitalism within food production so that we can grow a lot of food really quickly and make money doing it,” Dr. “We’re at the expense of the environment. Stull is a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-founder and director of the Mission to Improve Global Health Through insects (MIGHTi).
“Our food system is really broken, if you want to call it a system at all,” remarked Dr. 2 gigatonnes of greenhouse gasses are released from livestock farming alone. The burning and clearing of land for crops releases carbon dioxide while the addition of chemical fertilizers and soil additives to cropland releases nitrous oxide, and livestock produce methane through their digestion and manure. Traditional agriculture predominantly releases methane, nitrous oxide and CO2. In 2020, the agricultural sector represented 18.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Each year, 20 million people are displaced from their homes due to the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as flooding, prolonged drought, wildfires, rising sea levels and desertification.Īmong the key contributors to global greenhouse emissions is agriculture. However, this inevitability that Bachubar talks about is creeping closer and closer everyday in the form of anthropogenic climate change.Īn increase in global greenhouse gas emissions over the past century or so has led to a warming planet, ocean acidification, melting icebergs and an onslaught of increasingly violent natural disasters. After all, it’s hard to imagine that western countries would transition to eating bugs in our lifetime. Bachubar’s interviewer and I burst out laughing.