Can Chickens Gobble up Carbon Emissions?
The Chicken (35th) Edition of the Negative Foods Newsletter
In this newsletter we’ve carefully considered beef because the carbon emissions delta between industrial beef, the worst food for carbon emissions, and beef grown regeneratively, which can draw down carbon, is an important lever for people to reduce their food-related carbon emissions.
But if earth is an animal farm, then America is for the birds.
“America's main meat of choice is chicken, which makes up about half of the meat we eat. Consumption of the bird is at its highest level ever, with Americans eating an average of 89 pounds a year each versus 54 pounds for beef and 50 pounds for pork” (Marketwatch).
Compared to industrial beef, industrial chickens are a better carbon footprint choice.
“Chickens … generate no methane and have far fewer emissions during production.
But Big Chicken is a nasty place. You remember the story of when Chipotle founder Steve Ells joined McDonald’s executives to visit what they considered a model chicken farm?
Eating industrial chicken results is a parade of horrible consequences, such as antibiotic drug abuse (which is finally getting better), inhumane treatment of animals and a bad deal for farmers and farm workers. You may already be aware that the animal waste associated with industrial chicken pollutes waterways:
A case in point is the Chesapeake Bay, which is infused with excess nutrients generated by broiler litter from the adjacent Delmarva Peninsula. Maryland and Delaware alone produce roughly 523 million chickens a year, along with an estimated 42 million cubic feet of litter—enough to fill the U.S. Capitol dome nearly 50 times annually, or almost once a week.
“The environmental consequences of the broiler business's explosive growth are especially profound in the Chesapeake Bay, one of the nation's most important, scenic and threatened bodies of water,” said Robert Martin, an expert on industrial animal agriculture reform at the Pew Environment Group. “Instead of working to limit the effects of all this chicken waste, the industry has fought to avoid responsibility for cleaning up one of our national treasures.”
And, since this is a newsletter about foods that reverse climate change, we can’t forget that chicken is a top ten carbon emitting food.
Can we imagine a future chicken supply chain without spewing carbon and the above parade of horribles? Yes!
Feed. Livestock feed production occupies one third of the world’s cropland, and much of that is devoted to chicken feed. Industrial chickens are largely fed grains, and in the U.S. most of our grains (think corn and soy) are grown in a way that is highly carbon intensive, with synthetic fertilizer created from natural gas, and in a way that releases carbon from soil. Two of my favorite examples of opportunities to improve on these problems:
Feed Grown with Regenerative Agricultural Practices. Cook’s Ventures feeds chickens non-GMO healthy grains, and “are given unlimited access to pasture to roam and peck and often eat grass and insects from the wooded forest around our farm.” Regenerative agricultural practices, which are well understood, can produce grains that sequester carbon, so we can already feed chickens in a way that draws carbon from the atmosphere.
Upcycling. Do Good Chicken converts supermarket food waste into feed used to grow “carbon reduced” chickens. I had a chance to visit the production facility of Do Good in Bucks County PA in July. This innovative well-funded startup is both reducing landfill waste and growing chickens without feed grown from crops, and I’m excited to watch them continue to grow and succeed.
Raising Chickens. The industrial chicken practice of caging chickens is an abomination, and it releases an enormous amount of waste that is toxic and destructive. Thankfully, retailers and consumers are demanding more humane practices, and choices now abound, including choices with better environmental impact. Pasturebird is a terrific role model. I spoke recently with Paul Greive, Pasturebird’s thoughtful and outspoken CEO, who is focused on solving the big problem associated with the waste from the billions of chickens in the United States. Pasturebird rotates its chickens (in large mobile floor-less chicken houses) in pastures with cash crops (like grains) and cattle, in a way that uses the stream of animal waste as fertilizer that helps sequester carbon in the soil. Greive told me: “This isn’t a ‘chicken farm’. It’s an integrated solar regenerative crop-poultry-cattle system.”
Packaging, Transportation & Processing. The chicken industry faces similar challenges as other categories when it comes to packaging, transportation and processing. We need to electrify all these functions, with renewable energy sources, and otherwise eliminate emissions.
So what would be the ideal end state of future chicken production?
First, Americans can eat less chicken (“chicken consumption has risen 160% since 1970“), and we should completely stop consuming industrial chicken.
What if we fed chickens feed that was produced regeneratively, like Cooks Venture, or came from food waste, like Do Good Chicken? And what if our chickens were raised with rotational practices, like Pasturebird, for using the animal waste to fertilize crops and build carbon in soil? Then we’d have little or no chicken pollution and we’d be sequestering carbon. And if we then converted processing and transportation to renewable energy sources, and used net carbon zero packaging, we would be consuming chickens that were truly Negative Foods. I can imagine this as the future of chicken in the United States.
For Your Consideration:
U.S.-China Competition Is Our Best Bet for Climate Progress
On my 2022 wishlist: Verified regenerative agriculture outcomes
Laying the eggs of Regenerative Poultry
Meeting global challenges with regenerative agriculture producing food and energy
EC developing certification to boost ‘carbon farming’ but how should it be defined?
We Will Look Back on This Age of Cruelty to Animals in Horror
Fetzer Vineyards in Mendocino County gets regenerative organic agriculture certification