Meatonomics

by David Robinson Simon

  22. Robb et al., “Commercial Slaughter Methods Used on Atlantic Salmon”; E. Lambooij, R. J. Kloosterboer, M. A. Gerritzen, and J. W. van de Vis, “Head-Only Electrical Stunning and Bleeding of African Catfish (Clarias gariepus): Assessment of Loss of Consciousness,” Animal Welfare 13, no. 1 (2004): 71–76.

  23. S. C. Kestin, S. B. Wotton, and N. G. Gregory, “Effect of Slaughter by Removal from Water on Visual Evoked Activity in the Brain and Reflex Movement of Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss),” Veterinary Record 128, no. 19 (1991): 443–46.

  24. Per Olav Skjervold et al., “Live-Chilling and Crowding Stress Before Slaughter of Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar),” Aquaculture 192, no. 2 (2001): 265–80.

  25. Norwood and Lusk, Compassion by the Pound, 298.

  26. Unrounded, the figures are $341.53 and $345.09. Ibid.

  27. $343.31 x 5 = $1,716.55 in 2011 dollars; the inflation-adjusted total is $1,751.10.

  28. Assuming 236.8 million US adults: ($1,751.10 x 236,800,000)/20 = $20,733,024,000.

  29. L. R. Mathews and J. Ladewig, “Environmental Requirements of Pigs Measured by Behavioral Demand Functions,” Animal Behavior 47, no. 3 (1994): 713–19.

  Chapter 9

  1. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Guidelines to Reduce Sea Turtle Mortality in Fishing Operations” (2010), accessed October 1, 2012, http://www.fao.org.

  2. Ctr. for Marine Conservation v. Brown, 917 F. Supp. 1128, 1136 (S.D. Tex. 1996)

  3. Maya Rodriguez, “Federal Regulators, Shrimpers at Odds over Use of Turtle Excluder Devices,” WWWLTV.com Eyewitness News (June 5, 2012), accessed June 15, 2012, http://www.wwltv.com.

  4. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Guidelines to Reduce Sea Turtle Mortality.”

  5. FAO states that 23,436 fishing ships have IHS-F (IMO) numbers, a numbering status reserved for ships of 100 tons or more. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture” (2010), 107, accessed October 1, 2012, http://www.fao.org.

  6. Canada, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, and New Zealand all ban discards to some extent, and the European Union recently adopted a limited ban with effect in 2014. Discard bans require that bycatch be landed and counted against quotas, which provide incentives to fish with gear and in areas that minimize bycatch. While bans are clearly better than ignoring the issue, their effectiveness is often limited by cheating, continuing discards of noncontrolled species, and questions as to how to handle landed bycatch. (Ivor Clucas, “A Study of the Options for Utilization of Bycatch and Discards from Marine Capture Fisheries,” UN FAO Fisheries Circular 928 FIIU/C928 [1997], accessed June 23, 2012, http://www.fao.org.) Nevertheless, the Norwegian government believes its ban is working. “The very existence of the rule,” says the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, “has proved beneficial in changing fishermen's attitudes and discouraging the practice of discarding.” (Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, “Norwegian Fisheries Management, Our Approach on Discard of Fish,” accessed June 23, 2012, www.regjeringen.no.)

  7. International Union for Conservation of Nature, “IUCN Red List of Threatened Species,” accessed August 25, 2011, http://www.iucnredlist.org.

  8. Nigel Brothers, “Albatross Mortality and Associated Bait Loss in the Japanese Longline Fishery in the Southern Ocean,” Biological Conservation 55, no. 3 (1991).

  9. R. W. D. Davies et al., “Defining and Estimating Global Marine Fisheries Bycatch,” Marine Policy 33, no. 4 (2009): 661–72.

  10. Annual worldwide catch is estimated at 86 million tons, or 172 billion pounds. (Michael Parfit, “Diminishing Returns,” National Geographic [November 1995].) Davies et al. estimate that 40.4 percent of that total, or 69.5 billion pounds, is discarded each year as bycatch. Dividing this figure by 365 reveals that roughly 190.4 million pounds of bycatch is discarded each day. (Davies et al., “Estimating Bycatch.”)

  11. Dayton L. Alverson et al., A Global Assessment of Fisheries Bycatch and Discards (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1994).

  12. Ibid.

  13. Ibid.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Ibid (emphasis added).

  17. World Bank and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, “The Sunken Billions: The Economic Justification for Fisheries Reform” (2009), 21, accessed October 1, 2012, http://www.worldbank.org.

  18. US fishing subsidies total $1.8 billion in 2003 dollars, or $2.3 billion today. Sumaila et al., “Re-Estimation of Fisheries Subsidies.”

  19. According to NOAA, US seafood landings in 2010 totaled 8.2 billion pounds and were worth $4.5 billion (or $4.8 billion in 2012 dollars). $4.8 billion / 8.2 billion pounds = $0.59 per pound. The $2.3 billion annual subsidy is 0.48 of the value of total landings of $4.8 billion, and as $0.59 x 0.48 = 0.28 (rounded), this implies a subsidy value of $0.28 for each pound landed. (Note that because of value added in fish processing, the price of fish at their first introduction to human markets, as landings, is much lower than when later offered as a retail product.) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “U.S. Domestic Seafood Landings and Values Increase in 2010” (2011), accessed October 30, 2012, http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov.

  20. Sumaila et al., “Re-Estimation of Fisheries Subsidies.”

  21. World Bank and UN Food and Agriculture Organization, The Sunken Billions, 31.

  22. Boris Worm et al., “Impacts of Biodiversity Loss.”

  23. Ibid.

  24. Ibid.

  25. United Nations Environment Program Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, “Collapse of Atlantic Cod Stocks Off the East Coast of Newfoundland in 1992” (2005), accessed October 1, 2012, http://www.grida.no.

  26. Lan T. Gien, “Land and Sea Connection: The East Coast Fishery Closure, Unemployment and Health,” Canadian Journal of Public Health 91, no. 2 (2000): 121–24.

  27. Erlingur Hauksson and Valur Bogason, “Comparative Feeding of Grey (Halichoerus grypus) and Common Seals (Phoca vitulina) in Coastal Waters of Iceland, with a Note on the Diet of Hooded (Cystophora cristata) and Harp Seals (Phoca groenlandica),” Journal of Northwest Atlantic Fishery Science 22 (1997).

  28. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “Fishwatch: U.S. Seafood Facts,” accessed October 1, 2012, http://www.fishwatch.gov.

  29. Matthias Halwart, Doris Soto, and J. Richard Arthur, eds., “Cage Aquaculture: Regional Reviews and Global Overview” (technical paper no. 498, UN FAO Fisheries, Rome, 2007).

  30. Philip Lymberly, “In Too Deep: The Welfare of Intensively Farmed Fish,” Compassion in World Farming Trust (2002), accessed October 1, 2012, at http://www.ciwf.org.uk.

  31. C. Sommerville, “Parasites of Farmed Fish,” in Biology of Farmed Fish, eds. K. D. Black and A. D. Pickering (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998).

  32. A. Mustafa, G.A. Conboy, and J. F. Burka, “Life-Span and Reproductive Capacity of Sea Lice, Lepeophtheirus salmonis, under Laboratory Conditions,” Aquaculture Association of Canada Special Publication 4 (2000): 113–14.

  33. M. Krkošek et al., “Epizootics of Wild Fish Induced by Farm Fish,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103, no. 42 (2006): 15506–10.

  34. M. Krkošek et al., “Declining Wild Salmon Populations in Relation to Parasites from Farm Salmon,” Science 318, no. 5857 (2007): 1772–75.

  35. Cornelia Dean, “Saving Wild Salmon, in Hopes of Saving the Orca,” New York Times (November 4, 2008).

  36. R. J. Goldburg, M. S. Elliott, and R. L. Naylor, Marine Aquaculture in the United States: Environmental Impacts and Policy Options (Arlington, VA: Pew Oceans Commission, 2001).

  37. W. Ernst et al., “Dispersion and Toxicity to Non-Target Aquatic Organisms of Pesticides Used to Treat Sea Lice on Salmon in Net Pen Enclosures,” Marine Pollution Bulletin 42, no. 6 (2001): 433–44.

  38. M. MacGarvin, “Scotland's Secret: Aquaculture, Nutrient Pollution, Eutrophication and
Toxic Blooms,” WWF Scotland (2000), accessed October 1, 2012, http://assets.wwf.org.uk.

  39. Quirin Schiermeier, “Fish Farms' Threat to Salmon Stocks Exposed,” Nature 425, no. 6960 (2003): 753.

  40. L. P. Hansen, J. A. Jacobsen, and R. A. Lund, “The Incidence of Escaped Farmed Atlantic Salmon, Salmo salar L., in the Faroese Fishery and Estimates of Catches of Wild Salmon,” ICES Journal of Marine Science 56 (1999): 200–6.

  41. Schiermeier, “Fish Farms' Threat Exposed.”

  42. Rosamond L. Naylor et al., “Effect of Aquaculture on World Fish Supplies,” Nature 405 (2000): 1017–24.

  43. Margot L. Stiles et al., “Hungry Oceans: What Happens When the Prey is Gone?” Oceana (2009), 13, accessed June 22, 2012, http://oceana.org.

  44. Ibid., 18.

  45. Ibid.

  46. Quoted in Dan Shapley, “3 Major Reports Paint Same Picture: Ocean Fish Are Rapidly in Decline,” The Daily Green (March 4, 2009), accessed June 22, 2012, http://www.thedailygreen.com.

  47. Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Another Side of Tilapia, the Perfect Factory Fish,” New York Times (May 2, 2011).

  48. Kelly L. Weaver et al., “The Content of Favorable and Unfavorable Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Found in Commonly Eaten Fish,” Journal of the American Dietetic Association 108 (2008): 1178–85.

  49. Rosenthal, “Another Side of Tilapia.”

  50. G. Knapp, “The World Salmon Farming Industry,” in The Great Salmon Run: Competition between Wild and Farmed Salmon, eds. G. Knapp, C. Roheim, and J. Anderson (Washington, DC: World Wildlife Fund, 2007).

  51. Rebecca Clausen and Stefano B. Longo, “The Tragedy of the Commodity and the Farce of AquAdvantage Salmon,” Development and Change 43, no. 1 (2012): 229–51.

  52. Rivera-Ferre, “A Chicken and Egg Paradigm?”

  53. See, for example, Carl Folke et al., “The Ecological Footprint Concept for Sustainable Seafood Production: A Review,” Ecological Applications 8, no. 1, supplement (1998): S63–S71.

  54. Carl Folke, Nils Kautsky, and Max Troell, “The Costs of Eutrophication from Salmon Farming: Implications for Policy,” Journal of Environmental Management 40 (1994): 173–82.

  55. Li Lai and Xian-jin Huang, “Environmental Cost Accounting of Pen Fish Farming in East Tai Lake,” Resources Science 30, no. 10 (2008): 1579–84, abstract.

  56. Rosenthal, “Another Side of Tilapia.”

  57. NOAA Fisheries Service, “Aquaculture in the United States,” accessed June 18, 2012, http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov.

  58. World Bank and UN FAO, The Sunken Billions, 1 (emphasis added).

  59. Folke et al., “Costs of Eutrophication”; Lai and Huang, “Cost Accounting of Fish Farming.”

  60. The 2009 US total production value for fish farming was $1.17 billion, or an inflation-adjusted $1.3 billion. Rick Martin, “Review & Forecast: Fisheries and Aquaculture: Landings Up, but Farmed Production, Revenues Down,” Sea Technology Magazine (January 2012), accessed June 13, 2012, http://www.sea-technology.com.

  61. Srinivasan et al. show that that lost landings from overfishing are 23 percent of the combined total of actual and lost landings. As 0.23/(1 - 0.23) = .3 (rounded), this lost-catch wedge is equal to roughly 30 percent of actual landings. U. Thara Srinivasan et al., “Food Security Implications of Global Marine Catch Losses Due to Overfishing,” Journal of Bioeconomics 12, no. 3 (2010): 183–200.

  62. US landings were $4.5 billion in 2010 dollars, or an inflation-adjusted $4.8 billion; hence the lost catch is worth 0.3 x $4.8 = $1.4 billion. (Landings figure: NOAA, “U.S. Domestic Seafood Landings.”)

  63. NOAA, “US Domestic Seafood Landings.”

  64. $4.8 billion in total commercial landings plus $1.3 billion in aquaculture output.

  65. Robert Costanza et al., “The Value of the World's Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital,” Nature 387 (1997): 253–60.

  66. Worm et al., “Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services.”

  Chapter 10

  1. US farm subsidies, for example, impose huge costs on the developing world, which are beyond this book's scope. But in an article titled “How Much Does It Hurt?” researchers from the International Food Policy and Research Institute show that developing countries lose $7 billion yearly because of US subsidy policy. (Xinshen Diao, Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla, and Sherman Robinson, “How Much Does It Hurt?: The Impact of Agricultural Trade Policies on Developing Countries,” International Food Policy Research Institute [2003], accessed July 24, 2012, http://www.ifpri.org.) Americans' fish consumption is another activity that offloads heavy costs onto the rest of the world. Because we import the majority of the fish we eat, the estimate of $4.5 billion in externalized costs from fishing doesn't count non-US costs and thus is likely too low by a factor of three or more.

  Then there are the costs that haven't been accurately measured yet but will be someday. These include health care costs related to the many other diseases known to be caused at least in part by eating animal foods, such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Crohn's, arthritis, and others. And environmental costs associated with ecosystem damage we're just beginning to understand and measure, such as Colony Collapse Disorder and disruption of marine ecosystems—which as we've seen, one estimate pegs at $21 trillion.

  Finally, there are the hidden costs that don't count in conventional economics, like cruelty costs incurred by animals themselves. Future alternative approaches to economics may measure the costs to farm animals, as economic actors, of intensive confinement and other industrial practices. And future research will likely provide reason to dramatically increase the estimated health and environmental costs of animal food production. For now, the existence of these numerous additional, uncounted costs is sufficient to show that if anything, the estimate of $414 billion is conservative.

  2. Body mass index (BMI) is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by height in meters squared, or kg/m2. S. Tonstad et al., “Type of Vegetarian Diet, Body Weight, and Prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes,” Diabetes Care 32, no. 5 (2009): 791–96.

  3. Ibid., abstract.

  4. Jack Norris and Ginny Messina, “Disease Markers of Vegetarians” (2009), table 1, accessed August 19, 2012, http://www.veganhealth.org.

  5. W. P. Castelli, “Epidemiology of Coronary Heart Disease: the Framingham Study,” American Journal of Medicine 76, no. 2A (1984): 4–12.

  6. Kari Hamerschlag “Meat Eaters Guide to Climate Change + Health,” Environmental Working Group (2011), 12, accessed July 29, 2012, http://www.ewg.org.

  7. Allison Righter, “Ditching Meat One Day a Week: What, Exactly Is the Reduced Risk of Mortality?” (2012), accessed July 29, 2012, http://www.livablefutureblog.com.

  8. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Sustaining State Programs for Tobacco Control: Data Highlights 2006 (Atlanta: US Department of Health and Human Services, 2006), accessed October 26, 2011, http://www.cdc.gov.

  9. F. J. Chaloupka et al., “Tax, Price and Cigarette Smoking: Evidence from the Tobacco Documents and Implications for Tobacco Company Marketing Strategies,” Tobacco Control 11 (2002): i62–i72, accessed October 26, 2011, http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com.

  10. Ann Boonn, “Raising Cigarette Taxes Always Increases State Revenues (and Always Reduces Smoking)” Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (2011), accessed August 6, 2012, http://www.tobaccofreekids.org.

  11. Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, “Raising Cigarette Taxes Reduces Smoking, Especially Among Kids (and the Cigarette Companies Know It)” (2007), accessed August 26, 2012, http://www.tobaccofreekids.org.

  12. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Consumption Data: Total and Per Capita Adult Yearly Consumption of Manufactured Cigarettes and Percentage Changes in Per Capita Consumption—United States, 1900–2006” (2007), accessed August 26, 2012, http://www.cdc.gov; National Cancer Institute, “A Snapshot of Lung Cancer: Incidence and Mortality Rate Trends” (2011), accessed August 26, 2012, http://www.cancer.gov.

  13. Tax Policy Center, “State and Local Tobacco Tax Rev
enue, Selected Years 1977–2009” (2011), accessed August 26, 2012, http://www.taxpolicycenter.org; Orzechowski and Walker, “The Tax Burden on Tobacco” (2009), accessed August 26, 2012, http://www.tobaccoissues.com.

  14. Hugh Waters et al., The Economics of Tobacco and Tobacco Taxation in Mexico (Paris: International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, 2010), accessed August 31, 2012, http://global.tobaccofreekids.org.

  15. Audrey Jacquet, “French Sales of Tobacco Go Up in Smoke as Tax Rises Force Cigarette Buyers Abroad,” The Independent (July 29, 2004), accessed September 1, 2012, http://www.independent.co.uk.

  16. Yoree Koh, “Japanese Smokers: Going the Way of the Dodo?” Wall Street Journal Japan (blog), October 13, 2011, http://blogs.wsj.com.

  17. See Appendix C, table C1.

  18. That is, 0.03 x 0.65 = 0.02 (rounded). The $7.4 billion in revenue is based on the retail sales figure of $251 billion reduced by 2 percent to reflect lower demand, then multiplied by the tax rate of 3 percent. Thus, .03(251 - 0.02(251)) = 7.4.

  19. Ann Boonn, “State Cigarette Excise Tax Rates and Rankings” (2011), Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, accessed August 6, 2012, http://www.tobaccofreekids.org.

  20. I'm not the first to propose such a tax. Philosopher and ethicist Peter Singer, for example, proposed a 50 percent tax on meat in a 2009 newspaper editorial. Peter Singer, “Make Meat-Eaters Pay: Ethicist Proposed Radical Tax, Says They're Killing Themselves and the Planet,” New York Daily News (October 25, 2009).

  21. See Appendix C, table C7.

  22. See Appendix C, table C7.

  23. See Appendix C, table C9.

  24. Rob Bluey, “Chart of the Week: Nearly Half of All Americans Don't Pay Income Taxes,” Heritage Network: The Foundry (blog), February 19, 2012, http://blog.heritage.org.

  25. See chapter 1, table 1.1.

  26. Spending in 2013 was $209 billion, higher than the $155 billion budget because some revenue comes from sources other than the US Treasury. US Department of Agriculture, “FY 2013 Budget Summary and Annual Performance Plan” (2012), accessed October 27, 2012, http://www.obpa.usda.gov.