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| According to a recent report, we should be concerned about the environmental footprint of pet food. |
Should we be concerned about the environmental, and
indeed animal welfare footprint, of pet food? A recent paper based on US
figures argues that we should. Gregory Okin, from the University of California,
Los Angeles, set out to determine how much energy and animal derived products
pets consume, and the environmental impact.
The paper is, necessarily, based on a lot of assumptions –
from the average sized American dog (22kg +/- 1.2kg) and cat (4.2kg +/- 0.2kg),
and their energy requirements (544kJ/kg per day), to the amount of food
consumed (the calculations were based on dry foods, as the author states these
outsell wet foods by 3:1) to the proportion of animal vs plant derived energy
in each food. You can read the methodology in full in the open access paper, published
in PLoS ONE.
Assuming these assumptions are correct, the author
concludes that in the US, dogs and cats consume 19 +/- 2% of the amount of
total dietary energy that humans do, and a whopping 33 +/- 9% of animal derived
energy. This is equivalent to the energy consumption of 62 million Americans
(about one fifth of the US population). He also concludes that these pets
produce a staggering 30 +/- 13% of the faeces that humans do (based on the
assumption that humans produce – weight for it – 0.147kg per capita of faeces
per day, while cats produce 0.042kg per cat per day, and dogs produce 0.15 +/-
0.07kg per dog per day.
Because of their diets, Okin conclude that are responsible
for 25-30 per cent of land, water, fossil fuel, phosphate, and biocide impacts
related to animal production. He estimates that they are responsible for the
production of 64 +/-16 million tonnes of greenhouse cases (C02-equivalent
methane and nitrous oxide).
What can we do? Okin suggests either reducing the numbers
of pet dogs and cats, and/or reducing overfeeding, reducing waste, and developing
pet foods based on alternative protein sources would help. Given the number of
animals that need homes, the latter solution seems to me more palatable than
the former, although avoiding overfeeding of animals is important for their
welfare as well as reducing their environmental impact. It also makes sense to consider the animal welfare impact of pet food, although it was not touched on in this paper.
It will be interesting to learn how pet food
manufacturers digest this information. Certainly, it seems there is a need for
pet foods that have reduced environmental impact.
Please read the full paper (link below).
Reference
Okin GS (2017) Environmental impacts of food consumption
by dogs and cats. PLoS ONE 12(8):e0181301. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0181301
