Context: Around the world farmers are transitioning from livestock operations to plant-based operations.  In this article we discuss "Why are farmers all over the world transitioning from livestock to plant based production?"
Key Points

• Farmer specific issues-Animal farming usually has exploitative contracts, with poor working conditions, low income, high vulnerability to market forces and extreme stress.  

Industrial Livestock Production

• Industrial livestock production generally refers to a modern type of agriculture wherein densely populated groups of animals are confined to cages, barns or feedlots.

Harmful Effects of Industrialised Livestock Production
Environmental Threat

• Industrialised livestock production endangers planet’s ecosystems, natural resources, livelihoods, human health and animal welfare.
• The livestock sector is projected to account for up to 81 per cent of the 1.5 degrees Celsius emissions budget by 2050 if production continues unabated.

Pollution

• Industrial production can create enormous pollution problems because it brings in large quantities of nutrients and then has to dispose of the manure to nearby land which quickly becomes saturated.
• As a result, land and groundwater are polluted.

Threat to human health and psychological well-being

• The impact of injuries, illness and trauma affects the individual worker and has devastating effects on their families and communities.
• New strains of bird and swine flu, which have the potential to become zoonotic diseases, emerge each year posing a major threat to human health.
• Meat-packing jobs inflicts daily reports of amputations, burns, head injuries and psychological trauma.

Racial Factor

• Many of the workers at meat packing plants are from racialized communities and already face multiple socio-economic challenges.
• Nearly half of front-line meat-processing workers in the United States are categorised as low-income workers, 80 per cent are people of colour, and 52 per cent are immigrants.

What is plant-based operation?

• Plant based operations include processes on foods mainly available from plants.
• This includes not only fruits and vegetables, but also nuts, seeds, oils, whole grains, legumes, and beans.

Benefits of Transition into plant-based operations

• Plant based operations creates safer, healthier, more equitable, gender parity jobs.
• The transition protects the climate and the farmer’s land.

Job Creation

• As per the recent study, plant-based food system will create thrice as much employment than the meat-based food system presently provides.

Road Ahead

• Farmers should be guided to identify new market opportunities for plant-based operations and access guidance on making the transition away from livestock production financially viable.  
• These measures should also be complemented by policies aimed at increasing plant-based food consumption to prevent emissions leakage and to enable an overall transition.