Does Leather Drive Cattle Production?
- Emily
- Jan 22
- 11 min read
Updated: Jan 30
Many people avoid leather because of it's obvious ties to industrial farming. While the production of leather is profitable for the industry, many additionally claim that it's a driving force, that it's a co-product, even that it's 'equally profitable' to the industry as meat is. With so much discourse going on, it's important to understand the reality of these issues. I did a deep dive on the research and industry statistics to get a better understanding on how leather production interacts with industrial farming, and as a result, the downstream effects it has.
Industrial farming is a controversial issue for many, including myself. The industry has massive environmental impacts, primarily through soil depletion, water pollution from runoff, greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, air pollution from animal waste, and excessive water usage for irrigation, all of which contribute to climate change and ecosystem degradation. There are also incredibly valid ethical concerns - most are based on the treatment of the animals throughout their lives - but there is also a small portion of the population that believe farming animals for any reason is inherently wrong.
It's usually helpful to consider the source when taking in information; I'm a leather worker, and it's fair to consider that fact especially when discussing this topic. I'm a complex, empathetic human being however, just like most people, so I'll share a bit more about myself, to provide some context for those who are interested. I've put this information in italics, so that you can easily skip over it if you'd like.
While I respect the values and personal choices of vegans, I disagree on the core belief that farming animals is morally wrong. I grew up in rural Vermont; I was surrounded by farms and many of my classmates were from the farming community, typically they worked on their family farms alongside their parents. My best friend growing up lived on a farm; her family kept horses for recreation and companionship. I spent a good portion of my childhood at her home, and helped care for the horses whenever I was there.
At age 15, I became a vegetarian, exclusively due to my discomfort about consuming animals. I have never believed that farming or consuming animals is morally wrong, it was simply a personal decision I made for myself. I was a strict vegetarian until around the time I graduated from college (which I began as a pre-vet student, but ultimately studied General Animal Science). In the years since, my meat consumption has varied a lot; today, I am essentially an ovo-lacto vegetarian. However, I don't like to live according to labels, and I'm not strict in adhering to this diet. I eat meat a handful of times each year. I don't avoid meat because I believe it's morally correct to do so, it's just not something that's necessary to eat frequently, and so I don't.
If you're someone who cares a lot about the environment and climate change, to the point where you want to make lifestyle changes as a result, there is no denying that eating a vegan diet is one of the most effective changes you can make. But it's not necessary to adhere to strict rules to drive positive change through your actions. As I said, I have a lot of respect for people who choose a vegan lifestyle, but I think that the 'all or nothing' approach many vegans take in their communication with others is ultimately harmful for their objectives. Real change occurs over time and typically through compromise and steady improvement. No one likes to be judged or talked down to, nor do people like to be told what to do. We all hold different beliefs, and the backlash many people feel toward the majority of vegan discourse is the inherent implication that their belief is correct - and any conflicting belief is wrong.
This is not only an ineffective, polarizing stance from which to hold meaningful discussion, it's also lacking in perspective and nuance. Many products that vegans consume are also highly damaging to the environment and to animal lives - and unlike cattle, many instances involve threatened species, some in grave danger of extinction. Palm oil, as one example, is found in an estimated 50% of the packaged products found in major supermarkets, including food products like pizza, doughnuts and chocolate, as well as in products like deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste, and lipstick. Palm oil is a major driver of deforestation, in some of the world’s most biodiverse forests, destroying the habitat of already endangered species like the orangutan, pygmy elephant, and Sumatran rhino. Tropical forests in places like Indonesia are burned to make more farming land available for the production of palm oil. **Please refer to my note at the end of the article.
Many vegans and anti-leather advocates claim that demand for meat AND leather drives deforestation, environmental harm, and climate change. But leather is a by-product of the meat industry....so is it statistically accurate to assert that demand for leather is a major driving force behind these important issues?
In my extensive research, I've not found any evidence that supports such a claim. To start, hide has historically made up roughly 4-6% of the value for the cattle industry, while meat makes up roughly 94-96%. Furthermore, the demand for leather has been steadily decreasing over the past decade, primarily due to changing fashion trends favoring more casual clothing (athleisure), growing concerns about the environmental impact of leather production, the rise of vegan leather alternatives, and a shift towards cheaper synthetic materials,.
In a 2021 study from Montana State University, which used 25 years of government price data for premium US steer hides (used to produce some of the most valuable leather in the world), in recent years, hide value averaged $36 per piece, or 2.2% of the total value (which on average is roughly $1300-1400 total). This information alone lands a heavy blow to the claim that anti-leather advocates often make: that cattle are raised in large part for their hide. While the meat industry operates on sometimes razor thin margins, not only is no farmer raising cattle - investing land, resources, veterinary care, time, and labor, for $36, that $36 profit per steer is also not going to be a major driving force behind the number of cattle produced each year. And from an economical standpoint, we're indeed seeing a different story: hide prices have dropped 50% over the past 25 years in the US, while dairy and beef cattle values have remained similar.
So while demand for leather has been on the decline for about a decade, demand for meat has been increasing steadily, year over year. You don't have to be an economist to appreciate that these trends don't support the claim that leather is a driving force in cattle production. That's because the driving force behind cattle production is meat; Americans keep buying beef, even as they shun real leather.
In fact, the Montana State University study referenced above was specifically studying the topic of this post; titled 'Quantifying the Relationship between U.S. Cattle Hide Prices/Value and U.S. Cattle Production', it sought to determine what effect hide value had on cattle production overall. The conclusion of the study states: "In summary, we find that cattle hide prices do not directly affect cattle production and have only a small indirect effect."
So what would happen if we stopped producing leather? Based on everything I've read and understand, we would create an environmental catastrophe. This is primarily due to two factors:
1) Emissions from by-product waste. According to research done in 2021, the burning or disposal via landfills of 33 million unused US hides would generate more than 750,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions every year. Globally, it would be 300 million hides wasted and 6.6 million tons of surplus emissions each year. All US landfill sites would be filled within four years. This would be especially significant for climate change, since cow hides that end up rotting in landfills release potent greenhouse gases like methane, which is far more impactful than carbon dioxide.
2) Increased production of plastic based alternatives. The products that are currently produced with leather would not disappear, and there's no indication that consumerism would decline if real leather were removed from new product production. They would largely just be made with leather alternatives. These materials are fossil fuel based (derived from petrochemicals , producing PU and PVC plastics), a non-renewable resource, and have similar production emissions as tanning leather produces (PU leather produces 15.8kg of CO2e per square meter, tanning leather produces an average of 17kg for the same). But unlike real leather, plastic based alternatives are not durable or long lasting. In the best conditions, with the gentlest of wear, these materials last an average of 2-5 years - compare that with real leather, which can last for decades. In a 30 year span, you would need roughly 6 times the amount of PU material to produce and replace the same item that could be made once using real leather. That's now 94.8kg of CO2e/meter vs 17kg for real leather. Bear in mind, this is just the impact of production alone - the downstream effects of such a large amount of plastic waste would be it's own disaster. Plastic does not biodegrade, instead it degrades into smaller and smaller pieces creating micro and nano-plastics, which remain in the environment indefinitely. The amount that is already in the environment today is staggering - they are in our oceans, in the food that we eat, and are found in the human body - in our blood, organs, even in placenta. The effect that this has on our health, on ecosystems and biodiversity, and on climate change is not yet well understood. To read more about the dangerous effects of PU leather on the environment, you can find additional information and statistics in the post: Real Leather vs. PU Leather.
Faux leather just cannot provide the durability and utility required for some products, just to name a few, these are things like work boots, protective aprons, and tool belts for laborers, saddlery and tack for horses, arguably even boots or shoes for day to day wear in many climates (I live in Boston, and faux leather isn't going to cut it 9 months out of the year).
So, wasting an already existing, incredibly useful resource in favor of petroleum based plastics is not only unsustainable, evidence suggests that it would have little effect, if any, on cattle production.
The world population has an industrial farming problem. But this is a diet driven issue. Until the populations consumption of meat is drastically reduced, hide will remain largely insignificant in driving the industry. Many people object to wearing real leather due to personal feelings and choices, and that is absolutely understandable. Some object because they don't want to buy items that profit the industrial farming industry in any way, and that is also absolutely understandable. But the assertion that making these purchases impacts cattle production is simply not supported by any evidence.
To that point, in 2019, in the U.S. alone, 5.5 million hides went to landfill due to decreased demand for leather. Everyone should make purchases that are in line with their personal values and how those purchases affect the things that they care about. The dialog about this issue needs to be accurate to allow people to make informed decisions. The anti-leather advocates cloud the discussion with misinformation, causing confusion for consumers. This is compounded by the misleading marketing of alternatives, especially the rebranding of faux leather (historically also called leatherette, PU leather, vinyl, etc.) to 'vegan leather'. In the UK, in a survey regarding the meaning of the term “vegan leather” - over half (54%) of the 2,000 respondents had no idea what the material was comprised of. I find that extremely troubling, especially when this is completely by design.
No one likes to be deceived or mislead. My frustration with the lack of transparency in how fashion brands operate as well as the materials they use was one of the reasons I decided to launch the Leather Cult. My hope is that consumers begin to demand that brands be upfront and transparent in the future; my contribution to that goal is in providing that transparency in my own business as well as sharing educational information to better inform people about what to look for when they're shopping - particularly regarding leather goods.
The saying goes 'you vote with your dollar'...but without transparency, there's not only no accountability, but no way for people to know what they're voting for, what they're supporting, or what they're even getting for their hard earned money.
Some may think that I'm motivated to share information that supports my business (i.e. a leatherworker asserting that leather is not leading to deforestation or cattle production); and that's a fair assumption in a world where people go about their lives fully aware that they're constantly being manipulated by misinformation and propaganda. While I do need a certain number of people to support my work in order to make a living, I'm only one person, and I can only serve so many people. The information I share takes a great deal of effort and time to research and compile - my limited time and energy would objectively be better served doing other work for my business: making high quality content for marketing, working on new designs for the shop, spending time researching SEO and improving my websites ranking - just to name a few. Whether you take me at my word or not is up to you, but I am incredibly passionate about improving the ethics and sustainability in the fashion industry - an industry that is fundamentally neither ethical or sustainable as it exists. I love fashion and self expression - and it's a passion many people share; I know many of the people who do also want to express themselves while shopping more ethically, sustainably, or both. The way the industry operates currently makes that a nearly impossible task - and I find that incredibly unacceptable.
But the problem doesn't start and end with the opacity that the industry operates in. The problem is also strongly driven by misinformation shared by people who are sometimes self motivated, and sometimes just well intentioned but confused. I encounter a mix of both in my online discourse - while I'm more frustrated by anti-leather advocates who knowingly twist the facts to dissuade people from buying real leather (even though it doesn't save any lives outside of exotic leather - which I agree is unconscionable), I'm still disturbed by the number of people who confidently make assertions in public discourse that they haven't spent any time or energy verifying or researching at all. We all deserve to practice our free will - and no matter the intention, spreading false information robs other people of the ability to make their own informed decisions. You can agree with me or not, but I think that that is wrong.
Until next time - your friendly fashion ethics and eco-warrior,
Emily
**I want to point out an issue with the paragraph on palm oil, because my intention isn't to dismiss the issues that vegan's champion through 'what about ism' or a 'tu quoque' argument (these are fallacious arguments, used to defend one's stance by criticizing the opposing person's actions, and does not address the content of the opposing argument). I wholly appreciate the validity of many of the arguments presented by vegans, in terms of environmental impact, if not in terms of morality. I hesitated to include this paragraph at all, but I do think it's useful to keep the overall discussion in perspective. Too often, we approach these issues based solely on our personal perception, and in a diverse world, our perception is a limited slice of reality that can lead us to warped conclusions lacking in perspective. So I've included the information to provide perspective: whether vegan or not, most of us consume products that are produced with incredibly high environmental impacts as well as direct or indirect animal suffering and loss of life.
Resources:
I've gone out of my way to try to use information from diverse sources to reduce any bias in statements and conclusions. Many of my sources are from the leather industry, however, as I tried to present as much statistical data as possible, and the leather and farming industry is where this data is collected, so it's impossible to present that kind of information without using a fair number of such sources.
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