Vegetarianism and the Environment

During the last few decades, food production has had a faster growth than the population. Nevertheless, nearly 840 million people (status in 2004) [6] face starvation today, and more than half of the 10.4 million deaths among children can be attributed to malnutrition. Feeding these people and the growing population has been a burden on earth’s resources. What’s more? The people from the more affluent background are in no way helping their cause. Their present eating habits only help to increase this burden on the resources. Some of the effects of eating a diet rich in meat and diary products are that it is a strain on the fossil fuel resources, it causes rain forest depletion, it aids soil erosion, water pollution, and reduces the availability of food grains for human consumption.

The animals that are grown for food production require to be fed with grains, soy and other corps. The production of these crops, their harvesting and transportation require energy. The transportation of these animals from the feedlots to the slaughterhouse, and of the carcasses, often in refrigerated trucks, to the processing plants and then to the groceries use fossil fuels. More than one third of all fossil fuels produced in the US go towards animal husbandry. The efficiency of fossil fuel use may be a factor of 2.5 – 50 times better for vegetable proteins when compared with animal proteins [11]. This factor has a direct consequence to the carbon dioxide level increase in the world. A report estimated that driving a hybrid car rather that an average vehicle would conserve a little over one ton of carbon dioxide per year. A vegetarian diet however consumes one and half tons less than an average American diet. Thus going vegetarian is in some ways better than driving a hybrid car!

The very requirement for animal feed on a commercial scale, has changed the land use pattern in many countries. For the 200 million beef export to the US, the Latin and Central American rainforests have been cleared with complete disregard (a land having the size of seven football fields is destroyed every minute, every day) [4]. In the US alone, 260 million acres of forests have been cleared for raising animals. The same effect is seen in China too. In the mid 1960s, 34% of the total maize (of the 25 million tons) produced was used to feed animals, while in the mid 1990s, 80% of the 113 million tons of maize was used to feed animals [12]. The next time you are having a hamburger remember that you have just been responsible for destroying 55 square feet of forests!

Besides grains, animals need water to survive and grow until they are slaughtered. One pound of beef requires an input of approximately 2500 gallons of water, whereas a pound of soy requires 250 gallons of water and a pound of wheat only 25 gallons [1]. Agriculture is a source of water pollution through the use of fertilizers. Thus, raising animals (and their food) also adds to problem on water resources. The manure created from the billions of animals killed for food often ends up in rivers and streams, killing millions of fish [1]. Livestock are directly or indirectly responsible for much of the soil erosion in the United States too. On lands where feed grain is produced, soil loss averages 13 tons per hectare per year. Pasture lands are eroding at a slower pace, at an average of 6 tons per hectare per year. But erosion may exceed 100 tons on severely overgrazed pastures, and 54 percent of U.S. pasture land is being overgrazed [5].

The earth has sustained so far, because meat products as a daily portion of ones meals, is still a western phenomenon (considering the number of non-vegetarians there). Meat products still remain a luxury to people in the poor countries. The advent of globalization has seen processed meat products, being sold in other parts of the world, including in some of these poor countries. When the people of these countries change their food habits, trying to emulate the west, it becomes a burden which the earth can not shoulder. Again here, the affluent in these countries will not have problems – they can buy their way out of trouble importing the necessities. It would be the poor who face the brunt of it all.

Anup J Nambiar

* I have generously used ideas and facts available at the web sites of the BBC, IIASA, FAO, Cornell University, EPA, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the World Rainforest Movement.

References

[1] http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/f/waterpollution.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_vegetarianism
[3] http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/f/fossilfuels.htm
[4] http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/f/forestclearcut.htm
[5] http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug97/livestock.hrs.html
[6] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3559542.stm
[7] http://www.epa.gov/rlep/faq.html#1
[8] http://www.newfarm.org/news/2004/0504/052404/air_quality.shtml
[9] http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2005/102924/
[10] http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/indirect.html
[11] http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/78/3/664S
[12] http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/argu/impact/imp_21.htm
[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_vegetarianism
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganism