Is the cow really a climate killer?

Lecture clears up myths about farm animals

Created: 12/13/2022, 12:00 p.m

By: Friedbert Holz

Cows eat grassland.

According to Professor Windisch, the methane they emit is a powerful greenhouse gas, but it is very short-lived.

(Iconic image) © Boris Roessler/dpa

Professor Wilhelm Windisch gave a lecture in the Gasthaus Rauch in Grucking.

The topic was farm animals as an essential part of a circular economy.

Grucking

– “Can we still afford farm animals?” Professor Wilhelm Windisch gave answers to this provocative question, and in a rural district at that, at the invitation of the Association for Agricultural Specialist Education (VLF) in the Gasthaus Rauch in Grucking.

Although some farmers showed up, the talk was more aimed at consumers and conservationists with persistent anti-cattle or anti-pig narratives.

The expert had enough arguments for their attitude, he worked for many years on this topic in Weihenstephan and in Vienna, and is now traveling through the country as an “ambassador”, so to speak, in his semi-retirement.

He wants to correct four - in his opinion completely wrong - representations through scientific findings: farm animals are food competitors, their emissions pollute the environment, the cow is a climate killer, and there have long been ways to feed yourself well without animal husbandry.

"Areas are becoming less and less in the world, of which about 70 percent is grassland, in Germany 30 percent," explained Windisch.

"As the number of people increases, the area of ​​a soccer field has to feed three people today, but five in 2050," he said.

Because grassland cannot be converted into arable land everywhere, for example in the Allgäu (due to topography, moisture or too much CO2 emissions), but is the fundamental source of inedible biomass, grazing animals such as cows or sheep must be preserved in open landscapes with a high level of biodiversity .

For pure arable land, however, fertilizer is becoming more and more expensive, so there are fewer and fewer vegan foods.

Not to mention the waste: “For a kilo of grain or corn, half is straw or inedible parts.

Vegan foods create four times their amount of inedible biomass.

Farm animals, on the other hand, promote plant production and create a valuable circular economy with their fertilizer, they are the basis for this,” the professor stated.

Windisch also cleared up the depiction of the cow as a climate killer.

"While poultry feed on field products that have to be produced first, cows, for example, make much more sense as ruminants because they eat up existing grassland." The methane they emit is a powerful greenhouse gas, but it is very short-lived.

"For example, it has been proven that ongoing methane emissions do not in any way additionally heat up the climate.

But CO2, because it stays in the atmosphere almost forever.

In addition, methane emissions can be reduced by using different feeds.”

he explained.

From an emissions point of view, for example, fertilizer on fields due to rotting should be rated almost the same as biogas or cattle.

It is important, however, that animal and vegan products are always balanced,

"So-called in-vitro meat is the same as a farm animal, it is only produced on a Petri dish and in an incubator," explained Windisch about possible food alternatives.

"However, this requires high-quality glucose and amino acids, and it cannot be produced in large quantities under any circumstances." Vegan products are therefore not a 100 percent alternative to farm animals, but rather their synergetic partners.

On the future: "Our agriculture does not produce food, but biomass, whereby the human plate should always have priority over animal troughs or even car tanks," he summarized.

A truly sustainable production of food can only be achieved through a circular economy and only with reasonably limited production quantities.

“Every additional production burdens the environment and climate.

Society must decide what damage it is willing to accept," said the professor.

“Farm animals should therefore continue to be an essential part of a circular economy.

We will still have milk, meat and eggs, important pillars of our diet, but we will have to evaluate them differently in the future.”