Food product, primarily the raising of livestock, causes poor air quality that is responsible for  nigh sixteen,000 deaths a year in the United States, roughly the same number from other sources of air pollution, including transportation and electricity generation, according to research published Monday.

The report, in the periodical Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, is the showtime ever to await at the air quality impacts of specific foods and production systems, and comes every bit livestock agriculture is increasingly scrutinized for its climate-warming impacts.

"There's been a lot of focus on the climatic change impacts of food production, and water quality, h2o employ, land footprints and biodiversity impacts, but what's been missing are the air quality impacts," said Jason Loma, a professor of bioproducts and biosystems engineering science at the Academy of Minnesota, which led the written report. "Air quality is the largest environmental contributor to human wellness damage and agriculture is known to be a correspondent to reduced air quality, just at that place'south been a disconnect until now."

The squad found that of the nearly xvi,000 deaths resulting from food production, 80 percent were linked to fauna based foods. (Roughly 100,000 people die from air pollution a year, Hill said.)

Many of those deaths were in areas with loftier concentrations of livestock product and CAFOs—concentrated animal feeding operations—including North Carolina and areas in the Upper Midwestern Corn Belt, particularly east of Iowa where wind blows in to big population centers from the state's hog-producing areas.

Using iii different models, researchers looked at 95 agricultural commodities and 67 food products, making upwards 99 per centum of agricultural product in the U.Due south. They tracked how each of these products increased levels of fine particulate thing, or PM 2.v, in the air. PM 2.5 exposure tin can atomic number 82 to heart disease, cancer, stroke and respiratory illnesses.

Changes in Food Production Can Reduce Deaths

Per serving, the air-quality impacts of red meat, including pork, was two times that of eggs, iii times that of dairy, 7 times that of poultry, x times that of nuts and seeds and at least 15 times that of other plant-based foods, the study said.

The livestock industry blasted the study Mon, calling it "misleading." No "federal methodologies for agriculture exist, which casts serious doubtfulness on the accuracy of these conclusions," said Ethan Lane, vice president of government affairs for the National Cattlemen'southward Beef Association, in an electronic mail. "Based on the brusque time nosotros've had to review the information, it appears to be based on faulty assumptions and riddled with data gaps."

Much of the negative air quality impact from agriculture is attributable to ammonia, which mixes with other pollutants to class PM ii.5 but is non considered a "criteria," or regulated, pollutant.  Nitrogen-based fertilizers and manure are the primary sources of ammonia from agriculture.

Proceed Ecology Journalism Live

ICN provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and ad. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going.

Donate At present

The researchers found that plant-based diets could reduce air quality-related deaths by as much every bit 83 percent. Substituting poultry for red meat could preclude half dozen,300 annual deaths and 10,700 "could exist accomplished from more ambitious shifts to vegetarian, vegan or flexitarian diets such as the planetary health diet of the EAT-Lancet Commission," the written report found.

"Producers tin can produce nutrient in more sustainable ways and consumers can eat foods that are ameliorate for air quality," Hill said. "And interestingly, those things have co-benefits for climatic change and for health. It's another good reason to swallow a institute-rich diet."

Agronomical emissions, in general, are largely unregulated.

"Current diets and food production practices cause substantial damages to human health via reduced air quality; however, their corresponding emissions sources, especially ammonia, are lightly regulated compared to other sources of air pollution, such as motor vehicles and electricity production," the authors concluded. "This is truthful despite agriculture having comparable health amercement to these other sources of pollution."

The authors of the study found that while dietary changes could have the biggest impact on lowering air quality, changes in agronomical practices, including using less fertilizer and better managing manure, could also have significant impacts.

The inquiry was conducted past a large team, including engineers, agriculture specialists and air quality experts, many supported by an Environmental Protection Agency grant.

The authors said that, while the work focused on the The states, their approach could be used globally.

"Globally this is a much larger problem. In India and Communist china," Hill said. "If you looked more broadly some of these like trends will use."

Reporter, Washington, D.C.

Georgina Gustin covers agriculture for Within Climate News, and has reported on the intersections of farming, food systems and the environment for much of her journalism career.  Her work has won numerous awards, including the John B. Oakes Accolade for Distinguished Environmental Journalism and the Glenn Cunningham Agricultural Journalist of the Year, which she shared with Inside Climate News colleagues. She has worked every bit a reporter for The Day in New London, Conn., the St. Louis Post-Acceleration and CQ Roll Call, and her stories have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post and National Geographic'south The Plate, among others. She is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Colorado at Boulder.