Avoiding meat and dairy is the best way to help the planet, study shows

Want to truly make a difference in the world? Quit meat and dairy, new research shows. Photo / Getty Images

If you want to truly make an impact on the environment in a significant manner, the best way to do it is to avoid meat and dairy.

The conclusion comes from the most comprehensive analysis to date on the damage farming does to the planet.

Scientists have found that, without meat and dairy, global farmland use would be cut down by more than 75 per cent. To put it into perspective, this number is the equivalent to the US, China, European Union and Australia combined, as the Guardian puts it.

Experts also said that, reducing farmland by that staggering number would not have an impact on the ability to appropriately feed the world's population.

In fact, the study shows that, despite its impact on the environment, meat and dairy only provide 18 per cent of calories and 37 per cent of the protein the world consumes.

However, the meat and dairy industries use up 83 per cent of the world's farmland and are responsible for 60 per cent of agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions.

The study, published in the journal Science, looked at nearly 40,000 farms in 119 countries and produced the biggest data set ever analysed on the subject. It looked into the environmental footprint of 40 different food products that represent a total of 90 per cent of all the food in the world.

Scientists responsible for the study are calling on people who care about the planet to adopt a vegan diet.

In fact, forget worrying about electric cars or anything else. If you want to significantly reduce your impact on planet Earth, you need to stop eating meat and dairy products.

"A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use," said University of Oxford's Joseph Poore, who led the research.

"It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car," he added.

And if you think "well, I'll just buy organic meat and dairy", the scientists warn that's not the right answer either.

"Really it is animal products that are responsible for so much of this. Avoiding consumption of animal products delivers far better environmental benefits than trying to purchase sustainable meat and dairy," the lead researcher added.

Poore realises the significant impact this change would have on the world's economy as well, however he believes money already spent on "agricultural subsidies" could be better spent elsewhere.

"There is a lot of money there to do something really good with."

According to the Guardian, Poore himself quit eating meat while working on this piece of research, as the impacts of the meat and dairy industry started dawning on him.

"These impacts are not necessary to sustain our current way of life," he said. "The question is how much can we reduce them and the answer is a lot."