The Impact Of Animal Agriculture Essay

The eco-festival 2016 held at Kingsborough Community College on May 12 was one of my best experiences in college. In attending the festival, I was able to gain deeper insight on eco-justice and all the activities that pertain to the impact of animal agriculture on the planet and our health. This essay is a reaction paper on one of the events during the festival that I attended which focused on the impact of animal agriculture on health.
The event which was held at MAC Lighthouse was moderated by experts and scholars from the college who focused on how animal agriculture affects the environment. To react to this session, this paper will focus on greenhouses gasses as an environmental effect of this activity. It is true that each creature produces an amount of greenhouse gasses. As an effect, these gasses when released into the earth’s atmosphere as happens through human industry. From animal agriculture, water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane are produced by animals being reared. When this happens on a wide scale where animal agriculture practiced, either extensive or intensive, the effect on the atmosphere is notable.
Although I agree with this production of greenhouse gasses, it is highly unlikely that the gasses have a significant effect on the climatic variations that are produced. This is because the production of these gasses as mentioned is based on the amount and kind of feeds that the animals feed on. Also, the livestock production system in the world is not uniform in the use of resources. When practiced as an extensive system animal agriculture is likely to produce enough greenhouse gasses. However, extensive animal production system only takes up a maximum of 15% of global livestock farming. This means that the cumulative greenhouse gasses produced from these activities are not enough to justify a claim of any significant environmental or climatic disturbance.
A second issue I would like to focus on is the effect of animal production on health. On this, the paper will react to the claim that animal agriculture affects the water quality and hence negatively affect human health. Water as a scarce and very important resource in the life and health of human beings. From the session in the festival, we learned from one of the speakers that animal production leads to the consumption of more than 25% of the water necessary for human use. This water is used for animal consumption, production and processing of animal feeds and also other activities such as cleaning. The water used in the production of the feeds is the main factor behind the footprint for animal products. Animals being reared can affect the water quality due to having free access to the water and deposition of wastes in the water sources. This can result to communities ending up consuming dirty and contaminated water which is hazardous to health. I agree with this observation since, in many areas in Asia and Africa where nomadic pastoralism is practiced, the communities end up drinking the same water where their animals drink and dispose their waste. Without proper treatment, the water leads to poor health.
Thirdly, one of the speakers focused on the environmental pollution that results to animal agriculture. The argument presented was that the manure being produced by the animals leads to bad odor and disturbing dust in the environment. The dust has also been related to the overgrazing which leaves the ground bare and the soil easily eroded by rains and winds. Although I agree with the issue about overgrazing, the manure produced by the animals is an advantage to the environment. I feel that the manure leads to fertilization of the vegetation which is even more likely to cause overgrowth of the protective vegetation and consequent cleaning of the environment.