Connections: Canadian Lifestyle Choices and the Environment
(SOE Fact Sheet No. 95-1)

It takes only a few minutes for the average consumer to buy and eat a food product from a quick-service restaurant. However, this is the important step that drives a long sequence of events beginning with the production of the raw material components, progressing through assembly, distribution, consumption or use, and possibly reuse, and ending with the disposal and recycling of wastes. Altogether, these events make up the life cycle of the product — and the consumer sets it all in motion.

The purpose of this Fact Sheet is to raise public awareness of the environmental implications of consumption, by providing people with information that will help them to appreciate the connections between their lifestyles (see box), their consumption behaviour, and the environment. To this end, this Fact Sheet examines the environmental implications of a single consumer item that is familiar to most Canadians — the quick-service restaurant hamburger (see box). It reveals just how extensive and far-reaching the environmental implications of this simple but common component of the Canadian lifestyle can be, by using a life cycle approach to the analysis. It also shows how complex many of the issues are, how difficult it is to address them, steps being taken by industry to find environmentally sound solutions, and the effects of personal actions of consumers.

Of course, the hamburger is not the only Canadian quick-service food that has environmental implications. This Fact Sheet could just as easily examine a different quick-service or home-prepared food, such as french fries, fried chicken, vegetable chow mein, or pizza. And the quick-service food industry is by no means the only player in these issues. In fact, it is an industry with many social and economic benefits to Canada and its society. Such costs and benefits are intimately bound up with a host of considerations connected to a modern high-consumption lifestyle and an advanced industrialized economy. 

When goods and services are purchased at automobile dealerships, electronics outlets, department stores, grocery stores, or restaurants, the customer usually sees conveniently packaged goods ready for consumption and gives little attention to the environmental effects of the various processes involved in their production. In fact, although the economic and social benefits of the Canadian industries that produce these commodities are immediate and obvious, the environmental implications of the processes involved are more diffuse and less evident. 

The numerous processes and materials involved in producing a food product like a hamburger (Fig. 1) range from the raising or growing of the raw materials, such as livestock and cereal grains, to the recycling or disposal of postconsumer waste. They encompass most sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, transportation, energy production, manufacturing, marketing, and waste management.

Figure 1: Hamburger production and consumption: an overview

The average consumer generally does not think about the environmental impacts of the various processes required to convert the raw materials into the final consumer items. Nevertheless, food production is connected with such environmental issues as soil degradation, water and air pollution, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and the use of artificial chemicals, some of which, in high concentrations, are potentially toxic.

Although the effects of food production and consumption on the environment cannot always be quantified, it is only by considering every step in the sequence that a balanced perspective on the issue can be attained. This is why a life cycle approach to determining the environmental implications of a product like the quick-service restaurant hamburger will help people appreciate the connections between their personal lifestyle choices and the environment. 

The Environmental Implications of the Hamburger Life Cycle

A Symbol of the Canadian Lifestyle: The Hamburger

The Canadian lifestyle is one of the most favoured in the world — the quality of life in Canada is rated as the highest in the world in terms of such factors as life expectancy, schooling, and income (United Nations Development Programme 1994). The standard of living that comes with this wealth (Fig. 2) and the lifestyle that it makes possible offer Canadians access to certain consumer goods not generally available to people in many other countries. Beef and hamburgers are a case in point. As some groups become more affluent, their consumption of beef and other animal products tends to increase. As Figure 3 reveals, Canadians are among the highest consumers of beef in the world, although their rate of consumption is decreasing.

Figure 2: Gross National Product (GNP) per capita, 1991

Figure 3: Beef consumption per capita, 1990

The quick-service restaurant hamburger is now a common feature of Canadian and North American society — so much so that much of the world refers to North America as the "hamburger society." It is a symbol of a fairly typical Canadian lifestyle — about 95% of adult Canadians have eaten a hamburger at some point in their lives. A high proportion of these hamburgers have been purchased from the more than 1 600 outlets in Canada that are especially associated with this particular food commodity, including McDonald's, Burger King, Harvey's, Wendy's, and A&W. These outlets generate approximately $2 billion in gross revenues annually. Added to these are the numerous restaurants, small and large, that also serve hamburgers. Furthermore, the livelihood of many Canadians — those in the agriculture, transportation, packaging, and advertising industries, for example — is strongly linked to hamburgers. The hamburger is a quick, convenient, protein-rich, and relatively inexpensive food commodity. All of this makes the quick-service hamburger an appropriate subject for closer examination. This Fact Sheet also sheds some light on the environmental implications of the home consumption of hamburgers.

The Life Cycle of a Hamburger

The life cycle of a hamburger encompasses three principal phases:

• an agricultural phase, which involves the raising of cattle and the growing of forage (grasses, alfalfa, etc.), cereal and other seed crops (e.g., wheat, corn, and mustard), and vegetables and fruit (e.g., lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers); 

• a processing phase, which converts the cattle into cuts of meat, some of which are then converted into ground beef; the wheat into flour and buns and the mustard seeds into prepared mustard; and the vegetables and fruit into ketchup, pickles, relish, and other condiments; and

• a marketing and consumption phase, which makes these products available to the consumer, who buys them at a quick-service food outlet or other type of restaurant.

The environmental implications of the hamburger — for example, the impacts of energy use and waste production and disposal — span all three phases of its life cycle. However, it is sometimes difficult, and often impossible, to isolate data relevant to the hamburger — as one particular user of beef, grain, cardboard, and plastics — from the general production and consumption data that are available. For example, the specific percentage of a particular kind of air pollution from the petroleum industry that is attributable to the protective packaging used in the hamburger industry cannot be readily determined. As a result, the nature and extent of the stresses that the various hamburger-related industries place on the environment can in most cases be noted only in general terms. 

The Agricultural Phase

The agricultural phase of the hamburger life cycle is linked to a number of land uses, including cattle foraging and crop cultivation. These land uses have, in some areas, resulted in a variety of ecological changes, ranging from the conversion of native tree cover to pasture and cropland, the draining of wetlands, and the application of fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, and other artificial chemical compounds that have the potential to contribute to soil and water degradation.

About 52% of Canadian farms have cattle, totalling roughly 12 million animals. In 1993, cattle (including calves) accounted for 21% ($5 billion) of all farm cash receipts (Statistics Canada 1994a), making the cattle industry one of the largest sectors in the Canadian food business. Figure 4 illustrates the extensive range of activities of the beef cattle industry and some of its links to environmental concerns. 

Figure 4: Beef production: an overview

Cattle feed: The majority of cattle in Canada feed by grazing throughout most of their lives. Forage constitutes approximately 90% of the lifetime diets of the cows and bulls that are generally culled from dairy and beef breeding herds — the primary source of beef that is ultimately processed into ground beef. 

Around 30% of the country's farmland, or roughly 4 million hectares, is used as pasture. Between 1986 and 1991, pasture land in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia increased by approximately 25% (Statistics Canada 1992); in 1989, these western provinces produced approximately 80% of Canada's beef cattle (Canadian Meat Council 1990). The increase in pasture land in these provinces is mainly attributable to the conversion of land marginal for crop production to permanent cover, primarily forage. In such instances, forage cultivation and cattle production are considered to be more environmentally sustainable than intensive crop cultivation, primarily owing to the reduction of soil erosion and degradation (C. Nymark, Grain Policy and Industry Adaptation, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, personal communication; Alberta Agriculture 1992). 

Although well-managed pastures are sustainable, overgrazing can lead to the reduction of ground cover or the replacement of preferred forage plants by exotic (alien) species or a diverse range of plants that are considered to be "weeds." In British Columbia, high grazing pressures are exerted by cattle in the grasslands of the Okanagan Valley and parts of the Fraser Valley and East Kootenays (B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks and Environment Canada 1993). 

Those cattle that do not forage are "finished in feedlots" — that is, they are fed concentrated rations of hay, silage, and feed grains, such as corn, barley, and oats. Cattle, as a whole, consume 40% of the 16 million tonnes of feed grains produced in Canada annually. Most of these feed grains are defined as coarse and are considered to be undesirable for human consumption. Cattle also use by-products of processing industries such as the vegetable oil industry or animal waste products as protein supplements. This practice makes food from what would otherwise be waste, with its attendant disposal problems. 

Energy use: A significant issue with respect to beef is the amount of fossil fuel energy required for cattle production and processing. A study conducted in the Prairies (Alberta Agriculture 1992) revealed that meat production, on average, requires 10–20 times as much energy per edible tonne as does grain production. This means that the production of meat is not as energy efficient as the production of grain — that is, per unit of energy input, more people could be fed with grain.

There are significant differences in how efficiently various animals and production methods use energy to produce protein (Fig. 5). Rangeland cattle are actually among the most efficient, but feedlot cattle are the least. This difference is primarily a result of the extra energy required to produce and process feeds for cattle. The energy differential is partially offset by the shorter feeding and handling period required by feedlot cattle before they reach market weight (Pimentel and Pimentel 1979). 

Figure 5: Energy requirements: production of animal protein

In terms of nutrition, cattle production, under appropriate conditions, can be a sustainable means of delivering necessary minerals, vitamins, and proteins required by humans. Table 1, for example, illustrates the protein content and relative protein quality of several foods based on their protein digestibility-corrected amino acid scores. With the exception of soy sources of protein, animal products score significantly higher than most vegetable foods. A combination of plant foods from complementary sources is required to equal the protein value of beef. In a country like Canada — much of which is typified by a harsh, cold climate, short growing season, and relatively limited prime agricultural land — sustainable beef production is possible year-round and may have less of an effect on the environment than the intensive cultivation of numerous crops. To meet the food requirements currently supplied by beef production, vegetable crop production would require additional quantities of such inputs as fossil fuels, water, pesticides, and fertilizer.

Table 1: Relative protein content and protein quality of animal and vegetable foods

Manure and methane by-products: Manure is a significant by-product of beef production. About 40 kg of manure are produced for each kilogram of edible beef that is eventually marketed (Government of Canada 1991). Livestock manure can be both a problem and an opportunity, however. It can be recycled as a crop nutrient by spreading it on farmland, thus reducing the dependency on artificial agricultural inputs. In fact, the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in farm animal manures would cost about $900 million annually if they had to be purchased as commercial products (Patni 1991).

Despite these benefits, manure can also pose some concerns. Water can be contaminated directly, if cattle have access to water courses, or indirectly, through runoff from rain or melting snow; careful management is especially important where there are large concentrations of animals, as in feedlots (Alberta Agriculture 1992). In either case, as with most household and municipal effluents, the major concerns are related to bacterial contamination and eutrophication. Eutrophication, which results when a body of water is overfertilized, leads to an excess growth of aquatic plants, which, in turn, reduces the dissolved oxygen supply for aquatic life and causes odours and visual pollution. 

Like sheep and other ruminants, cattle also produce methane gas as a by-product of their digestive processes. As a greenhouse gas, methane traps heat in the atmosphere and is a potentially significant contributor to global warming. In 1990, Canadian farm animals produced an estimated 654 000 t of methane, of which about 93% came from cattle (Jaques 1992). When combined with an estimated 345 000 t of emissions of methane from manure, farm animals were responsible for almost one million tonnes of methane in 1990 — roughly 27% of the total of 3.7 million tonnes of anthropogenic methane generation in Canada. Landfill sites and industrial activity were primarily responsible for the rest of the anthropogenic emissions (Jaques 1992). While natural emissions (from wetlands, wildfires, and wild animals) account for some 87% of the total from all Canadian sources, the share of methane release to the atmosphere from livestock nonetheless warrants consideration.

The Processing Phase

In 1993, about 3 million head of cattle were processed in Canada, producing nearly 1.26 million tonnes of meat (Statistics Canada 1994b). Based on an estimate of 35% of the meat being converted to ground beef (Industry, Science and Technology Canada 1992), approximately 0.44 million tonnes were eventually served as ground beef. Canada also imported about 0.27 million tonnes of beef in 1993, primarily from the United States (40%), Australia (38%), and New Zealand (20%); some of this imported beef (especially from Australia and New Zealand) eventually ended up as ground beef (Statistics Canada 1993). It is important to note that beef produced on land once covered by tropical rain forest does not end up in the hamburgers served at Canadian quick-service restaurants.

Apart from liquid effluents from processing and cleanup operations at slaughterhouses, meat processing itself generates very little waste, as almost all of the raw materials are used to produce meat or meat by-products for human consumption or for such commodities as pet foods. Nevertheless, these products require packaging, which typically uses such materials as waxed cardboard and plastic bags, which in turn eventually become wastes that must be disposed of. Attempts to deal with such wastes include the shipping of meat in uncoated corrugated boxes with a plastic liner. In contrast to waxed cardboard, this allows the box to be recycled. The plastic liner, if it comes into contact with meat, is difficult to recycle. As a whole, food and beverage processors, distributors, and retailers used almost 55% of all packaging consumed in Canada in 1992 (National Packaging Monitoring System 1993). These industries are working together to reduce such packaging waste to half of 1988 levels by the year 2000. 

The Marketing and Consumption Phase

The marketing and consumption phase of the quick-service hamburger industry has a variety of environmental implications, including waste disposal and energy use.

Waste disposal: Food from a quick-service restaurant can leave a larger trail of waste than food cooked at home. This is largely because of the use of a wide array of disposable items, including wrappers or containers, napkins, condiment packages, and utensils, each of which has its own life cycle and associated environmental implications. The purchase of drinks and french fries with a hamburger further adds to the disposable packaging used as part of a quick-service meal.

In Canada, containers and cutlery represent 7% of all plastics packaging (Environment Canada 1990). Along with leftover food, these disposable materials are the most visible portion of the waste stream from quick-service restaurants, but they are in fact the smaller part. As Figure 6 shows, behind-the-counter wastes account for nearly 60% of the industry's garbage.

Figure 6: Location of the generation of wastes at quick-service food outlets

Member companies of the Quick Service Restaurant Council — formed to develop activities to reduce waste — purchase about 40 000 t of packaging annually. In 1990–91, the quick-service food industry discarded an estimated 147 700 t of rubbish. Most of this was organic waste, including food scraps, paper, and cardboard (Fig. 7). These types of organic waste, if they enter a composting program, can be considered to be degradable to varying degrees. Most of the nonpackaging waste is food waste; industry and governments are working towards being able to divert these wastes to composting facilities. However, the majority of the material discarded is destined for landfill sites serving large urban areas, many of which are under increasing pressure from expanding populations.

Figure 7: Components of the waste stream of quick-service food outletsª

Energy consumption: Significant amounts of energy are expended during the marketing and consumption phase. One U.S. estimate is that approximately 80% of the energy used to produce food occurs between the raw materials leaving the farm and the consumer purchase point (National Cattlemen's Association, undated). The North American lifestyle is characterized by the consumption of highly refined, processed, and packaged foods. Furthermore, as most North Americans live in urban areas, most of this food travels significant distances from the farm in refrigerated trucks, and most is stored and displayed in refrigerated cabinets.

Many quick-service hamburger patties, for example, are stored frozen, buns are stored in airtight plastic bags, and condiments are refrigerated. Added to this is the energy used to cook the food, usually on continuously operating grills, as well as energy for heating and lighting. The consumer travelling to the quick-service restaurant is another piece of the total picture. In total, our food preferences — governed by tradition, culture, demography, taste, health requirements, and convenience — imply a certain energy intensiveness.

The Quick-Service Food Industry in an Urban Context

One of the more visible effects of the Canadian lifestyle is urban sprawl. Each year, thousands of hectares of Canada's rural land are urbanized. Nearly 60% of this land is typically prime agricultural land, and most of that was actually being farmed before it was converted. This is a serious issue, as only about 5% of the country's total land area is good for cultivation or use as improved pasture (Government of Canada 1991).

Canada's urban areas are characterized by low-density neighbourhoods of single, detached homes connected by a network of streets and served by arterial roads featuring commercial strip development. This urban sprawl fosters the increased use of automobiles, which comes with personal benefits in terms of increased mobility, as well as environmental costs. These costs include the conversion of land for roads and parking lots, fossil fuel consumption, and air pollution from moving and idling automobiles and delivery vehicles.

Quick-service food outlets, which serve hamburgers, pizzas, doughnuts, ice cream, and other foods, are typical of the kinds of businesses that have arisen to serve a highly mobile society that values its leisure time and has a reasonable amount of disposable income. As well as an urban population base, these businesses rely on an urban infrastructure — water, sewage, and power supply, manufacturing facilities, waste disposal, and especially roads, as the mobility conferred by the automobile is essential to the flow of customers.

Although the quick-service food industry can be viewed as primarily a suburban or urban phenomenon, it also affects the rural environment. The countryside is a source of both raw materials and customers, as well as a site for waste disposal. Whereas a typical suburban outlet may draw its raw materials from a very broad region, wastes are usually disposed of in the adjacent rural neighbourhood. Furthermore, rural areas themselves are increasingly the sites for quick-service outlets. This is particularly true of small communities that are close to highways between major urban centres.

A Sustainable Lifestyle

The typical Canadian lifestyle is not without its environmental implications. It is generally acknowledged that industrialized countries tend to be among the largest producers of waste and among the largest consumers of energy and water in the world. The ranking of Canada in all three categories is comparable to that of a number of other industrialized nations throughout the world (Fig. 8). The country's relatively harsh climate and immense size partly explain this, but the affection of Canadians for automobiles, sprawling suburbs, and low-density housing, their food preferences, and other lifestyle facets are also important factors.

Figure 8: Urban solid waste production, energy use, and water use per capita, 1991

Bearing these costs in mind, a basic question must be asked: "Is the Canadian lifestyle sustainable?" That is, will the various activities that contribute to the Canadian lifestyle leave the environment's ability to provide for future generations undiminished?

The Hamburger Example

In the case of the hamburger — which is just one commodity that is symbolic of the typical Canadian lifestyle — the activities that are part and parcel of its production and consumption definitely have the potential for negative impacts on the environment. Whether or not these activities are sustainable is a very difficult question to answer, because their environmental impacts are spread across all three phases of the hamburger life cycle.

Even without the hamburger and quick-service food industries, there would still be a need for other food commodities and services, and none of these would be without some environmental impact. The point that needs to be made is that the current Canadian lifestyle demands access to hamburgers and other convenience foods, and these demands are associated with an environmental impact. To minimize that impact, people need to know the environmental costs of their personal lifestyle choices.

Although the environmental impact of the hamburger alone is relatively small, the cumulative effect of the actions of farmers, food processors, food outlets, and consumers is significant. For example, although Canadian cattle contribute very little to global methane, as noted earlier, the methane problem is the cumulative effect of contributions from many small sources. Similarly, although a single consumer produces a relatively small amount of waste by discarding napkins and containers, the effects of millions of Canadian consumers are much more significant.

Environmentally conscious consumers can encourage all of the businesses in the web of activities associated with the hamburger — the farmers, the meat packers, the food processors, the loggers and pulp and paper manufacturers, the petroleum refiners and plastic producers, the grocers, and the quick-service food franchise operators — to improve the environmental efficiency of their operations. These industries have already made considerable progress in reducing adverse impacts on land, their use of energy and raw materials, their output of pollutants, and their generation of waste. For example:

• Under the farmer-led Ontario Environmental Farm Plan initiative, farmers identify potential concerns (e.g., soil erosion, disposal of cattle manure and toxic wastes, pollution of groundwater and surface waters) and set realistic goals to minimize risks. Farm organizations in other provinces are implementing similar programs adapted to local circumstances.

• The conversion of land marginal for annual crop production to permanent cover forages for livestock has been achieved through such institutions as the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration and its Permanent Cover Program.

• Under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, the federal government collaborates with farmers to improve waterfowl habitat on 2.2 million hectares of land that has marginal agricultural capability. This is achieved through the preservation and additional restoration of wetlands, as well as surrounding upland habitats.

• The National Task Force on Packaging is responsible for implementation of the National Packaging Protocol. Through this Task Force, which has the participation of the provinces and the packaging industry, specific actions by companies include the reduction of waste produced, the shift to more recyclable packaging, and the introduction of packaging recycling at the plant level.

• Discharges from pulp and paper mills, which produce napkins, paper wraps, and other paper products for use by the quick-service food industry, tend to be decreasing. For example, between 1988 and 1992, production at pulp and paper mills increased, yet the discharge of toxic chemicals in their effluents decreased by roughly 97% (Statistics Canada 1994c). 

• Emissions and discharges from petroleum refineries (a component of the plastic packaging life cycle) have been declining, as evidenced by a roughly 85% reduction in liquid discharges of total suspended solids between 1972 and 1993 (Industrial Sectors Branch, Environmental Protection Service, Environment Canada).

• A Canadian "Buy Recycled" Alliance is being proposed by firms and associations to create long-term markets for recycled materials.

The quick-service food industry itself is also making efforts to reduce its wastes through recycling and reuse. In a pilot project currently under way in Guelph, Ontario, for example, McDonald's is working with the city to divert organic wastes, including some paper fibre wastes, for composting. Some organic wastes are also being used for livestock feed and for conversion into other products.

Burger King has recently replaced its coated sandwich wrap with a more recyclable paper wrap. It has also started using recycled newsprint instead of bleached paper for its take-out bags. Some of the measures being undertaken by Wendy's Restaurants include a reduction of the waste stream by 5.2%, or approximately 5.5 t each year per location; the use of nonbleached bags; the recycling of most corrugated packaging — approximately 10 t annually at each Canadian location; and the elimination of "high-density" plastics from packaging (Michael Barbee, Franchise Area Director, Wendy's Restaurants of Canada, personal communication).

The switch to reusable china and cutlery in quick-service restaurants — at least for eat-in customers — could help to reduce some of the solid waste generated. However, most drive-through and take-out customers would still require single-use packaging and, for some products at least, utensils. As well, a switch to reusable wares is not without its own environmental implications.

Industry is not the only sector with a role to play in ameliorating the environmental consequences of Canadians' personal lifestyle choices. The contributions of various levels of government — such as municipal recycling programs, user and administrative fees for waste collection, permits for landfilling, and deposit requirements on reusable containers — can be recognized and further encouraged.

Consumers also have a pivotal role to play in this issue. With respect to the hamburger, and to quick-service food in general, consumers can make several environmentally benign choices, such as walking to the food outlet instead of driving, consolidating trips to the quick-service restaurant with other trips, ordering only as much food as will be consumed, refusing excessive packaging, returning unused condiments, requesting soft drinks in reusable or recyclable containers, or taking the food home from the outlet, to be eaten with household utensils. They can also help by buying minimally packaged products, thus avoiding overpackaging and providing incentives to manufacturers and retailers. As well, consumers can patronize outlets that have composting projects and support municipal composting systems.

Almost all sectors can, with encouragement, make further improvements. By demanding environmental responsibility from business, government, and themselves, consumers can help to make this happen. The challenge is to build on gains in order to move closer to a sustainable lifestyle. 

Literature Cited

Alberta Agriculture. 1992. A scientific monograph on the role of livestock and forage in soil and water conservation. Calgary: Alberta Agriculture.

B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks and Environment Canada. 1993. State of the environment report for British Columbia. Victoria: B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks; and North Vancouver: Environment Canada.

Canadian Meat Council. 1990. Meat, Canada's largest food industry: a statistical profile. Islington, Ontario: Canadian Meat Council.

Environment Canada. 1990. Packaging reduction, reuse, and recycling technology options. Unpublished report.

Government of Canada. 1991. The state of Canada's environment. Ottawa: Government of Canada. Available from Canada Communication Group.

Industry, Science and Technology Canada. 1992. Cattle processing. Ottawa: Industry, Science and Technology Canada.

Jaques, A.P. 1992. Canada's greenhouse gas emissions: estimates for 1990. Report EPS 5/AP/4. Ottawa: Environment Canada, Environmental Protection, Conservation and Protection.

National Cattlemen's Association. Undated. 12 myths and facts about beef production. Englewood, Colorado: National Cattlemen's Association.

National Packaging Monitoring System. 1993. Data base accessible through the Solid Waste Management Division, Environment Canada, Ottawa.

Patni, N.K. 1991. Overview of land application of animal manure. Pages 119–124 in Proceedings of the National Workshop on Land Application of Animal Manure, 11–12 June 1991. Ottawa: Canadian Agricultural Research Council.

Pimentel, D. 1975. Energy and land constraints in food protein production. Science 190:745–761.

Pimentel, D. and M. Pimentel. 1979. Food, energy, and society. London: Edward Arnold.
Resource Integration Systems Limited. 1992. National waste minimization study — final report. Unpublished report prepared for the Quick Service Restaurant Council, Toronto.

Statistics Canada. 1992. Census overview of Canadian agriculture. Catalogue No. 93-348. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.

Statistics Canada. 1993. Livestock statistics. Catalogue No. 23-603E. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. 

Statistics Canada. 1994a. Farm cash receipts. Catalogue No. 21-001. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. 

Statistics Canada. 1994b. Apparent per capita food consumption in Canada. Catalogue No. 32-229. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.

Statistics Canada. 1994c. Human activity and the environment 1994. Catalogue No. 11-509E. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.

United Nations Development Programme. 1994. Human development report 1994. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

For Further Reading

Durning, A. and H.B. Brough. 1991. Taking stock: animal farming and the environment. Worldwatch Paper 103. Washington, D.C.: Worldwatch Institute. 

Webster, M. 1994. Is beef getting a bum rap? Harrowsmith 18(113):30–37. 

For Further Information
Information on state of the environment reporting may be obtained from the following address:
Environment Canada
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0H3
Author: A. Mendis 

State of the Environment Directorate encourages "environmental citizenship" — a commitment to learn about the environment and engage in environmentally responsible activities at a personal level, within organizations, and within communities.

Published by Authority of the Minister of the Environment
©Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 1995
Catalogue No. EN1-12/95-1E
ISBN 0-662-23084-1