Agricultural food production and agriculturally-related change in land use substantially
contribute to greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide. Four-fifths of agricultural emissions
arise from the livestock sector. Although livestock products are a source of some
essential nutrients, they provide large amounts of saturated fat, which is a known
risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We considered potential strategies for the
agricultural sector to meet the target recommended by the UK Committee on Climate
Change to reduce UK emissions from the concentrations recorded in 1990 by 80% by 2050,
which would require a 50% reduction by 2030. With use of the UK as a case study, we
identified that a combination of agricultural technological improvements and a 30%
reduction in livestock production would be needed to meet this target; in the absence
of good emissions data from Brazil, we assumed for illustrative purposes that the
required reductions would be the same for our second case study in São Paulo city.
We then used these data to model the potential benefits of reduced consumption of
livestock products on the burden of ischaemic heart disease: disease burden would
decrease by about 15% in the UK (equivalent to 2850 disability-adjusted life-years
[DALYs] per million population in 1 year) and 16% in São Paulo city (equivalent to
2180 DALYs per million population in 1 year). Although likely to yield benefits to
health, such a strategy will probably encounter cultural, political, and commercial
resistance, and face technical challenges. Coordinated intersectoral action is needed
across agricultural, nutritional, public health, and climate change communities worldwide
to provide affordable, healthy, low-emission diets for all societies.