As climate change threatens global food supplies, countries will need to increase the efficiency of food production, bringing about short-term gains, such as decreased deforestation, but long-term risks, including future pandemics stemming from animal-borne diseases, finds a new analysis appearing in the journal Science Advances.
As climate change threatens global food supplies, countries will need to increase the efficiency of food production, bringing about short-term gains, such as decreased deforestation, but long-term risks, including future pandemics stemming from animal-borne diseases, finds a new analysis appearing in the journal Science Advances.
Much of this current and anticipated “intensification” of agriculture centers on increasing meat production through more efficient means, including factory farming, which keeps animals in closely confined environments and raises the risk of the spread of zoonotic diseases, such as avian influenza.
“As long as meat consumption continues to rise globally, both climate change, from deforestation and methane, and pandemics will likely continue to rise,” says Matthew Hayek, an assistant professor in New York University’s Department of Environmental Studies and the author of the analysis, which reviews more than 100 articles studying the effects of intensifying animal agriculture on the environment and on zoonotic diseases—infectious diseases that come from animals.
Read more at: New York University
