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Cows threaten survival of human race, says researcher!

By Bernd Debusmann of Reuter
WASHINGTON. Apr 30: America's 40 billion US dollar beef industry Is springing to the defence of the cow against charges that It threaten* the survival of the human race
A* antl-cow militants sec 1L bovine belches and flatulence contribute to global warming, and cow dung Is poisoning the world's lakes and river*. Directly or indirectly, the plncid animal Is being blamed for shrinking rain forests, spreading deserts and Thirds World hunger.
This once-sacred animal of bygone years has taken on a pestilent guise, swarming over the great land masse* of Europe, the America*, Africa and Australia like hoofed locusts." says, Jeremy Rifkin, who heads a campaign to cut world beef consumption by 50 per cent over the next eight years.
"Cattle... arc a threat to the survival of our species," according to Rifkin.
He argue* that grain fed lo cows to meet demand for beef in affluent western countries would otherwise go to the starving people of the Third World.
Launched in mfd-April. the cut-thc-bccf campaign has been named "Beyond Beef after the title of a newly published book by Rifkin In which he argues the case against cows.
The offensive against the world's estimated 1.3 billion "hoofed focusta" is scheduled to move into high gear in May with a scries of television xnd radio commercial* meant lo spoil the •ncrican appetite for beef 1n all 1U forms. In-
cluding hamburgers.
Rifkin's crusade, backed by six environmental groups, ha* stung American cattlemen Into a determined counterattack. They formed an alliance of 13 Industry groups, known as the Food Facts Coalition, and enlisted a small army of experts lo rebut the main cnll-cow arguments.
Al stake arc billton of dollars generated by an industry already hit by changes In US eating habit* that have led to a 30-pcr cent decline tn per capita beef consumption over the past 15 year* because of popular concern over fat In the diet.
One advertisement of the National Cattlemen's Association published In major newspapers a week after the start of the Beyond Beef movement showed a pensive-looking cow and her calf Under the headline "Mother Nature's Recycling Machine."
Far from destroying the environment, the advert Insisted, cows were helping to protect It. •Like mowing a lawn or pruning a tree, cattle grazing promotes plant vigour and diversity."
Agricultural scientists critical of the anll-bccf campaign have dismissed some of Its arguments a* outright spurious, others as distorted.
Take global warming. The effects of cow flatulence on the atmosphere have been greatly cx-
aggeratca. according lo Cornell University's Duane Chapman and Thomas Drennan.
The methane (gas) emitted by one cow tn a year has the same effect on global warming as the fuel burned to power a single 75-watt light bulb.
Rifkin blames cows for 12 per cent of all the methane — a "Greenhouse gas" that contributes to global warming — released into the atmosphere. "Cattle.... are transforming the atmosphere Into a wasteland of deadly gases," he says in hi* book.
It* dire warning prompted one critic, Dennis Avery of the Indiana-based Hudson Institute, to call Rifkin The Stephen King of food Horror Talcs."
But agricultural scientists agree that methane produced by cows ranks third on the Hat of methane gas sources In the world, behind wetlands and rice paddies but before the burning of vegetation and gas drilling.
And there I* relatively little dispute over the anti-cow campaigners' contention that huge tract* of rain forest in central America, Mexico and Brazil have been destroyed to make room for cattle pasture*.
According to Rifkin, each hamburger made from beef Imported from Central America required destroying six square yards (metres) of
jungle for pasture. US demand for bee Increased the number of cattle In the region by 80 per . cent between the mid- 1969s to the mid 1980s.
In Ihe Amazon, tension between rubber tappers and ranchers intent on hacking down the rain forest for cattle pasture led to the 1987 murder of Chico Mendez, the rubber tapper who turned into a martyr of the environmental movement.
With the environment a top concern the world over, cattlemen fear that the anti-cow campaign will touch emotional buttons even If some of Its arguments fall to stand up to scientific scrutiny.
The beef industry sees parallels between the anti-cow campaign of today and the 1989 scare over alar, a pesticide used by apple growers. Environmentalists said at the time alar might cause cancer.
That claim caused near-panic, cost the apple Industry millions of dollar and forced the company making the pesticide to withdraw it from the market although the allegations made against it were never substantiated.
Rifkin predicts that the campaign he leads will turn cows into a hot topic despite beyond beefs relatively small — one million dollar a year — budget.
"Within...two year*, he said recently." the environmental questions of food and livestock will be a centra) Issue for every major environmental group In the world."