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posted by martyb on Friday June 02 2017, @06:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the have-you-tried-Soylent-Green? dept.

From Phys.org:

Global food consumption and production is seriously unbalanced. In the UK alone we threw away 4.4 million tonnes of "avoidable" food waste in 2015 – that is food that was edible before it was discarded – which equates to £13 billion worth of food wasted, or £470 per household. Meanwhile, nearly 800 million people globally are chronically undernourished.

The world population is projected to grow to 9 billion people by the middle of this century. We face a huge challenge in finding ways to adequately feed this rapidly growing population whilst also protecting the natural environment.

However it is not just the amount of food production and the balance of its distribution that are key concerns for sustainably feeding the planet. We also need to think about what we are eating.

Presently western diets are characterised by a high proportion of animal foodstuffs, and this is a problem not just for our health, but for the environment. The Hunger Project has cited climate change as one of the hidden sources of hunger. In doing so it highlights how food production and the environment are inextricably linked.

Meat and dairy production requires more land, more water and has higher greenhouse gas emissions than plant based alternatives. As the global population continues to grow, we will need to be ever more prudent with the resources that are required for food production. We must consider whether the proportion of resources currently devoted to meat and dairy production is optimal given the numbers needing to be fed and the environmental impacts such diets can cause.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday June 02 2017, @01:14PM (1 child)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Friday June 02 2017, @01:14PM (#519335) Journal

    Moreover, meat production does not necessarily impact the production of grains and vegetables. A lot of cattle grazing is on non-agricultural land - land often unsuitable for agriculture. Claiming that meat production impacts food supply in general is vegan propaganda.

    While I agree that resource estimates required for meat production are often overestimated by "vegan propaganda," it's not reasonable to go the other direction and claim that this is a non-issue. Some cattle grazing may be on "non-agricultural" land, but that doesn't change the fact that a huge percentage of U.S. beef comes from feedlots. Feedlots require, well, feed. Feed comes from plants. Plants that are grown somewhere else, on land that obviously is "agricultural land." More than half of U.S. grain production goes to feeding livestock.

    The U.S. may not be in any sort of "shortage" or food "crisis" because of meat production, but the fact is that meat production does require more resources, and that does have a significant impact given the shifts in Western diet over the past century or so. And there are other environmental impacts from the massive animal production too. Though it's perhaps not an issue on the immediate horizon, long-term the modern industrial agriculture dependence on fossil fuels and byproducts is not sustainable. Shifting resources toward meat production (fossil fuels, water resources, makes it more likely that sustainability issues will arise sooner.

    (Note I'm really NOT an absolutist on this. I enjoy a good steak as much as most people. But saying "meat production does not necessarily impact the production of grains and vegetables" when half of our grain goes to feed animals that ultimately are consumed by people in a much less efficient system... well, there ARE impacts.)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02 2017, @05:19PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02 2017, @05:19PM (#519455)

    Feedlots are a symptom, not the disease. At feedlots, they feed the animals a diet that is primarily corn, even though it is one of the last things that cows should eat and causes tons of health issues, specifically because corn is so cheap. Because they feed them so much, they gain weight faster but that increases the fat content of the meat, among other problems. However, the costs are not as different as people think. Feedlot cows from birth to slaughter give you about 2x the profit as pastured cows, because the food is cheaper, they grow just under 50% faster. But the sale price is lower per pound, and they, surprisingly, take up more room per cow overall, have higher vet and preventative medical costs. The real problem is FC being artificially cheaper destroys the cost parity between types. If FC corn was at real market rates, then the cost is basically even. The only real benefit to feedlots is that they can be put on land that is even more borderline than pasture land.