Reacción a "Extensive livestock has declined in regions such as Europe, and this has ecological consequences, according to a study"

Both public opinion, especially in urban areas, and scientific literature (as demonstrated in this study) tend to perceive that the trend in livestock is towards overall growth, generating serious environmental problems, linked above all to desertification due to overgrazing. This study shows that this is not the whole picture: there is an increase in livestock numbers (cattle, sheep and goats, the animals that graze), but this increase is not happening uniformly across the planet. On 40% of grazed land (which is the most widespread use of land on the planet, covering 25% of the Earth's surface), livestock densities are in fact decreasing, according to official statistics from the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations). This decline in grazing livestock is not associated with market trends, local per capita consumption or climate change, but rather with the increase in consumption (and trade) of other sources of meat (chicken and pork, usually from factory farms), the use of cereals to feed livestock (supplementing the contribution of pasture) and the economic level of the area.

The burden is increasing in less wealthy, more densely populated areas that cannot afford to feed stabled animals with cereals, and decreasing significantly (by up to 37% since 1999) in wealthy countries with declining human populations that devote an increasing share of their agricultural production to intensive stabled animal production.

The current state of knowledge, which focuses on studying the effects of overgrazing due to increased livestock numbers, can be used to prevent negative effects in areas where livestock numbers are increasing, but not to estimate the consequences of decreasing livestock numbers where this is occurring, just as the effects of agricultural intensification cannot be used to measure the effects of extensification promoted by supposedly environmentally and socially sensitive agricultural policies.

There is compelling evidence, although still lacking in detail due to the focus on the effects of overgrazing, of the possible negative effects of the decline or loss of grazing livestock on biodiversity, fire regimes, biogeochemical cycles, and the social and cultural well-being of local communities. The paper concludes with a review of this evidence and the need to refine it for specific cases (such as Europe in general and our country in particular), developing policies to combat these negative effects. Not only are the consequences of changes in agricultural landscapes due to rural abandonment and crops subsidised for their supposed environmental and social benefits proving unpredictable, but the same is true of extensive livestock farming. Both activities have positive effects on the environment and human societies that are difficult or impossible to predict and therefore promote, given current knowledge about the negative effects of overgrazing and agricultural intensification.

The authors of the study conclude, quite rightly, that a scientific paradigm shift is needed to address the challenge of promoting agricultural policies adapted to new global realities.