Global Food Crisis? Eat Less Meat.
15 Apr 2008 by Paul Northup
‘While 100m tonnes of food will be diverted this year to feed cars, 760m tonnes will be snatched from the mouths of humans to feed animals – which could cover the global food deficit 14 times. If you care about hunger, eat less meat.’
George Monbiot, writing in The Guardian, points out the connections between the rising global consumption of meat and the falling global access to grain – at least for people in poor countries. ‘At 2.1bn tonnes, the global grain harvest broke all records last year – it beat the previous year’s by almost 5%. The crisis, in other words, has begun before world food supplies are hit by climate change. If hunger can strike now, what will happen if harvests decline? There is plenty of food. It is just not reaching human stomachs. Of the 2.13bn tonnes likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01bn, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, will feed people…’
He doesn’t have any instant solutions – who does in the complex, interlinking ecology of hunger, diets, health and capitalism? But in essence he argues that moving, however gradually, to a meat-free diet, is part of the answer.
Read it all here
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Ribble Valley, GB , 15 May 2008
I live in Lancashire, a county with a high proportion of upland and moorland, with many sheep farmers. Lambs sell at auction (for slaughter)for typically £12:50 to £30 each. My local supermarkets sell lamb at typically £7.50 per pound. The lamb is not usually from Lancashire. If indeed it is stated where the lamb comes from, it is usually from New Zealand (incidentally where much is butchered halal style!!!).
Eating meat is not an environmental crime in itself.
Eating meat from known, trusted sources, with high husbandry standards, minimal transportation and stress levels, minimal CO2 footprint is not only ethical, but supports our own farmers, our own rural landscape and environment, and our own local economies.
I admire vegetarians, but the truth is that primates (i.e. us) are predominantly omnivarous and animal protein is part of our natural diet…
Just take a care how it is produced and where it comes from. There’s no other food product can be provided from the fell and moorland of the Ribble Valley!