We might be hearing more about plant-based protein and meatless burgers in headlines, but when we look around the world, demand for animal-based protein — meat — is still climbing.
In this podcast we connect with Carlos Saviani, the vice president of food sustainability with the World Wildlife Fund. You might say he brings a well-rounded background to his position with the world’s largest conservation and environmental organization, as he previously managed a 2,000-cow ranch in Brazil and worked in marketing for several multi-national companies in the livestock business.
Working for the WWF, he’s focused on finding ways to boost animal protein production while reducing the environmental footprint.
For example, he’s involved in a project with a feedlot, a genetics company and a packer looking at selecting cattle for feed efficiency while retaining weight gain characteristics.
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There’s a long list of practices and technologies that can be adopted to dramatically reduce the environmental footprint of meat production, improved pasture management to reducing spoilage in warm climates to vitro fertilization of dairy cows to produce beef calves, he says.
“There are ways to do that. We don’t need to turn everyone into vegetarians in order to save the plant,” he says, in the podcast below.
Saviani will be speaking about how to meet the world’s protein needs without increasing the environmental footprint at the Agricultural Bioscience International Conference in Winnipeg next week.
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