SUSTAINABILITY
Save the planet,
eat more poultry!
Poultry is the most sustainable meat and is positioned to
become even more sustainable in the future. BY PAUL AHO
The cows in the Chick-;l-A ad are just trying
to save their own skin, but there is an even
better reason to eat more poultry, including
chicken — to save the planet.
Chicken and turkey meat are arguably
more sustainable than most other meats. It
takes four pounds of grain and 4,000 gallons
of water (including all the water to grow the
grain as well as to raise and slaughter the
animals) to produce a single pound of feedlot
beef. Chicken, on the other hand, needs only
two pounds of grain and 750 gallons of water
(turkey slightly more). Pork is between poultry and beef. To be fair to beef, grass-fed beef
needs little or no grain. However, that highly
sustainable and delicious meat represents
only 9% of world cattle production.
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on forever, it will stop.” That’s sometimes
rephrased as, “Trends that can’t continue,
won’t.” Sustainability is not easy because it
is an additional burden undertaken today to
help future generations.
Those who are primarily interested in
maximizing short-term returns find the
discussion of sustainability to be annoying
at best. However, those who are interested
in the management of resources to increase
value over the long run (the Greek meaning
of the word economics) ;nd sustainability
to be inspirational, a guiding light for long-term profitability and respect for future
generations.
Rules for sustainability
Does sustainability have some rules?
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without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their needs. Does sustain-
ability matter? In the short term, no, it does
not matter. However, in the longer term, it
does. It is said that “If something cannot go
Economist Herman Daly suggested three
simple rules or laws of sustainability:
For a renewable resource like soil,
water, forests and wild ;sh, the sustain-
able rate of use can be no greater than
the rate of re-
generation.
For example,
a ;sh harvest
is unsustain-
able if the ;sh
are caught at
a greater rate
than the growth of the remaining popu-
lation.
For information about alternative ingredients, read “How much DDGS for poultry?” at www.WAT TAgNet.com/9347.html.
For a non-renewable source like fossil fuel, the sustainable rate of use can
be no greater than the rate at which an
What is Sustainability?
Poultry meat is said to be more sustain-
able, but what does sustainability really
mean? Sustainability, in a nutshell, is meet-
ing the needs of the present generation
equivalent stream of renewable energy
is developed. For example, an oil de-
posit would be used sustainably if an
equivalent stream of renewable energy
were developed to replace the declining
production of the deposit.
First rule – Renewable resources
Ignoring the politicized subject of global
warming, consider soil and water.
Although the amount of cultivated land
has remained relatively constant for decades
at around 3. 7 billion acres, there is a constant
loss of land to urbanization, salinization, erosion and deserti;cation. At the same time,
new farmland is being brought into produc-
