Published 21/10/2015

A new UN report has costed industrialised farming at a staggering $3.33 trillion per year.

New research for the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has found that the environmental detriments caused by industrial farming are huge – more than the UK’s annual Gross Domestic Product. The gross domestic product is the monetary value of all the goods and services produced within a country.

The study found that the cost to the environment of livestock farming is nearly twice as much as the product value. At $1.18 trillion per year, that is the equivalent to over 170% of its production value.

In addition, the report identifies a range of sustainable farming practices that would greatly reduce the negative impact on the environment and actually help countries to deal with the challenge of increasing food production due to an increase in population.

Our CEO, Philip Lymbery says: “This startling new report released by the FAO demands to not only be read, but acted upon.

“It shows that profit margins for farms using organic techniques are higher, while the environmental costs are significantly lower.

“Keeping animals in confinement and rearing them on grain from chemical-soaked monocultures really needs to be a thing of the past if we are to meet the challenge of feeding a growing population.”