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When representatives meetat the World Food Summitthey supposedly focus onhow to get food into themouths of nearly onebillion people who arecurrently undernourished.However, at all the dinners

they attend you can expect to see theconsumption of large quantities of meat.And herein lies the contradiction.

People go hungry because much of arableland is used to grow feed grain for animalsrather than people. In the US, 157 milliontons of cereals, legumes and vegetableprotein – all suitable for human consumption– is fed to livestock to produce just 28 milliontons of animal protein in the form of meat.

In developing countries, using land to createan artificial food chain has resulted in miseryfor hundreds of millions of people. An acreof cereal produces five times more proteinthan an acre used for meat production;legumes such as beans, peas and lentils canproduce 10 times more protein and, in thecase of soya, 30 times more.

Global corporations which supply the seeds,chemicals and cattle and which control theslaughterhouses, marketing and distributionof beef, eagerly promote grain-fed livestock.They equate it with a country’s prestige andclimbing the “protein ladder” becomes themark of success.

Enlarging their meat supply is the first stepfor all developing countries. They start withchicken and egg production and, as theireconomies grow, climb the protein ladder topork, milk, and dairy products, then to grass-fed beef and finally to grain-fed beef.

Encouraging this process advances theinterests of agribusinesses and two-thirds ofthe grain exported from the USA goes tofeed livestock. The process really gotunderway when “green revolution”technology produced grain surpluses in the1970s. The UN’s Food and AgriculturalOrganisation encouraged it and the USAgovernment linked its food aid programmeto the producing of feed grain and gave low-interest loans to establish grain-fed poultryoperations. Many nations have attempted toremain high on the protein ladder long afterthe grain surpluses disappeared.

Human consequences of the shift from foodto feed were dramatically illustrated duringthe Ethiopian famine in 1984. While peoplestarved, Ethiopia was growing linseed cake,cottonseed cake and rapeseed meal forEuropean livestock. Millions of acres of landin the developing world are used for thispurpose. Tragically, 80 per cent of the world’shungry children live in countries with foodsurpluses which are fed to animals forconsumption by the affluent.

The irony is that millions of consumers in thefirst world are dying from diseases ofaffluence such as heart attacks, strokes,diabetes and cancer, brought on by eatinganimal products, while the world’s poor aredying from diseases of poverty. We are longoverdue for a global discussion on how topromote a diversified, high-protein,vegetarian diet for the human race.

Jeremy Rifkin is the author of Beyond Beef:The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture(Plume, 1992), and The Biotech Century(Victor Gollancz,1998). He is also thepresident of the Foundation on EconomicTrends in Washington DC, USA.

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Despite the rich diversity of foods foundall over the world, one third of itspopulation does not have enough to

eat. Today, hunger is a massive problem inmany parts of Africa, Asia and South Americaand the future is not looking good. Theglobal population is set to rise from 6.5billion (2006) to 9.3 billion by 2050 (2) andWorldwatch reports (3) forecast severe globalfood shortages leading to famine on anunprecedented scale.

This misery is partly adirect result of our desireto eat meat. Children inthe developing worldstarve next to fields offood destined for exportas animal feed, to supportthe meat-hungry culturesof the rich world. Whilemillions die, one third ofthe world's grainproduction is fed tofarmed animals in richcountries (4).

If animal farming were tostop and we were to usethe land to grow grain tofeed ourselves, we couldfeed every single personon this planet. Consumingcrops directly - rather than feeding them toanimals and then eating animals - is a farmore efficient way to feed the world. ThisViva! Guide looks at why eating meat is amajor cause of world hunger and howvegetarianism can provide a solution.

The roots of hungerThe developing world hasn't always beenhungry. Early explorers of the 16th and 17thcenturies often returned amazed at the hugeamounts of food they saw there. In parts ofAfrica, for example, people always had threeharvests in storage and no-one went hungry.

The idea of buying and selling food wasunheard of.

The Industrial Revolution changed all that.European countries needed cheap rawmaterials such as coal and iron ore thatdeveloping countries had plenty of. Throughthe process of invasion and colonisation,Western countries could not only take theraw materials but claim the land as their own

and make the indigenouspeople pay taxes or rent.Poor peasants (many ofwhom had never dealt inmoney before) wereforced to grow crops suchas cotton to sell to theirnew masters. Wealthycountries owned the land,all the food that wasproduced, and decidedthe price. After payingtaxes, peasants had littlemoney left to buy thisexpensive food and oftenended up borrowingmoney simply to live. Thiswhole process ofcolonisation continuedright up to the beginningof the last century.

The problemtoday

Drought and other 'natural' disasters are oftenwrongly blamed for causing famines. Localpeople have always planned for freak acts ofnature and although they may be the triggerthat starts a famine, the underlying cause isthe system of modern day neo-colonialism.

The land in poor countries is still largely notowned by the people who work on it andrents are high. Huge areas are owned bylarge companies based in the West. It iscommon for people to be thrown off theland, often going to the towns where there

Meat makes the rich ill and thepoor hungry by Jeremy Rifkin

“The earth hasenough foreveryone’s needs,but not for somepeople’s greed.”~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)(1)

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billion people, could be fed on the proteinconsumed and largely wasted by the UnitedStates’ beef herd (10).

Because of the demand for animal feed, aWestern meat-based diet uses four and a halftimes more land than is necessary for a vegandiet and two and a quarter times more thanfor a vegetarian diet (11). The WorldwideFund for Nature (WWF) recommend thatpeople reduce their intake of dairy and meatproducts in order to reduce grazing pressureon land (12).

Where does the animalfeed come from?The amount of land used to grow animalfeed in Western countries is not enough tomeet their own needs and more is importedfrom developing countries. Land in somedeveloping countries, like India, is also usedto grow grain for animals who are rearedand killed for export.

Currently farmed animals eat one-third ofthe world’s cereal production. In theindustrialised world, two-thirds of theagricultural land produces cereals foranimal feed. The EU imports 45 per cent ofits oilseeds (soya) and, overall, imports 70per cent of its protein for animal feed(1995-6). As the European Commissionadmits, ‘Europe’s agriculture is capable offeeding Europe’s people but not of feedingEurope’s animals’ (4). The EU also importscattle feed such as peanuts or soya becauseit is cheaper than buying animal feedgrown in Europe.

At the height of the Ethiopian famine in1984-5, Britain imported £1.5 million worthof linseed cake, cottonseed cake and rapeseed meal. Although none of this was fit forhumans to eat, good quality farmland wasstill being used to grow animal feed for richcountries when it could have been used togrow food for Ethiopians.

In the United States, farmed animals, mostlycattle, consume almost twice as much grainas is eaten by the entire US population (13).70 per cent of all the wheat, corn and othergrain produced goes to feeding animals (14).Over 100 million acres of US agricultural landis used to grow grain for animals (13) andstill more is imported.

In Central and South America, ever-increasingamounts of land are being used to grow soyabeans and grain for export - to be used asanimal feed. In Brazil, 23 per cent of thecultivated land is currently being used toproduce soya beans, of which nearly half arefor export (13). The Oxfam Poverty Reportexplains that the subsidised expansion of theEU’s dairy and livestock industry has created ahuge demand for high protein animalfeedstuffs and that the demand has in partbeen met through the expansion of large-scale, mechanised soya production in Brazil.Smallholder producers of beans and staplefoods in the southern part of the countryhave been displaced to make way for giant

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is little other work. About 160,000 peoplemove from rural areas to cities every day (5).Many migrants are forced to settle in shantytowns and squatter settlements.

Much of this land is used to grow “cash crops”for export - like coffee, tobacco and animalfeed - rather than to grow food for indigenouspeople. Countries agree to grow cash crops inorder to pay off their crippling debts. Fifty-twoof the world’s poorest countries owe the richworld in the region of £213 billion. Annualrepayments total £14 billion - the majority ofthis from countries where most people are

living on lessthan one dollara day (see p7:Why arecountries indebt?). (6)

The sad ironyis that theworldproduces morethan enoughplant food tomeet theneeds of all its

six billion people. If people used land to growcrops to feed themselves, rather than feedingcrops to animals, then there would be enoughto provide everyone with the average of 2360Kcal (calories) needed for good health (7).

If everyone were to take 25 per cent of theircalories from animal protein then the planetcould sustain only three billion people (8). Insimple, brutal terms, if we were all toimitate the average North American diet,we would only be able to feed half theworld’s population.

Breeding animals meansstarving peopleBreeding animals is an incredibly inefficientway to try and feed the world's growing

population. Yet after food rationing duringthe second world war, intensive animalfarming was actively encouraged as a way ofensuring our future “food security”.

Most meat in Western Europe is nowproduced in factory farms which, as thename implies, are production lines foranimals. To meet the large demand for meat,billions of animals are kept in cramped, filthyconditions, often unable to move properlyand not allowed fresh air or even naturallight. Unable to feed outdoors naturally, theyare fed grain, oil seeds, soya feed, fish mealand sometimes the remains of other animals.High quality land is used to grow grains andsoya beans - land that could be used to growcrops for humans.

The grain fed to animals does not convertdirectly into meat to feed people. The vastmajority is either excreted or used as “fuel”to keep the animal alive and functioning. Forevery 10 kilograms of soya protein fed toAmerica’s cattle only one kilogram isconverted to meat. Almost the entirepopulation of India and China, nearly two

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“Muchagricultural landis alsoincreasinglydevoted to cashcrops for export,depriving poorlocal people ofland to farm andfood to eat.”United NationsPopulation Fund (5)

Livestock increase inBritain 1946-2005(9)

1946 2005 IncreaseCattle 2.0m 10.3m 515%Sheep 7.4m 35.2m 475%Pigs 2.2m 4.8m 218%Poultry 31.9m 159.3m 499%

Imagine an area of land the size of five footballpitches (10 hectares). It will grow enough meat tofeed two people, or maize to feed 10; or grain tofeed 24; or soya to feed 61 (7).

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which states around the world havecommitted themselves. At the 1996 WorldFood Summit, leaders from 185 countries andthe European Community reaffirmed, in theRome Declaration on Food Security, “theright of everyone to have access to safe andnutritious food, consistent with the right toadequate food and the fundamental right ofeveryone to be free from hunger.” Theypledged to cut the number of the world’shungry people in half by 2015 (21) .

The FAO says that, “eradicating hunger is notmerely a lofty ideal” (21). Yet it makes nosense for states to acknowledge the right ofeach individual to food whilst promotingdiets based around animal protein.Starvation does not occur because of a worldfood shortage. If everyone ate a vegetarian,or better still, a vegan diet there would beenough food for everyone. The only saneway forward is to grow food for humansrather than to feed it to farmed animals.

World TradeA report, The European Meat Industry in the1990s, explains the obscene paradox of globalfood distribution: “World trade relations aredominated by low-priced animal feed and

meat. Low prices on animal feeds affectfarmers in poor countries producing cash crops[ie animal feed crops for export]. Partly due tothe use of imported feed, the rich countriestoday have a large surplus of meat while moreand more people in less developed countriestend to be undernourished” (22).

Current trade agreements, like theAgreement on Agriculture under the WorldTrade Organisation (WTO), permit Westernfarmers to sell subsidised grain and othercommodity surpluses cheaply in developingnations. This undercuts local farmers andforces many off the land. The WorldwatchInstitute states, “In most cases, any benefits ofthis cheap food to the urban poor are likelyto be transitory, as the destablisation of therural economy encourages migration to job-scarce cities, thereby increasing the ranks ofimpoverished city dwellers while harmingurban agriculture programmes” (23).

Dependence on foreign markets for food alsomeans that the importing countries arevulnerable to price fluctuations and currencydevaluations that can increase the price offood substantially (23).

Why are countries indebt?During the 1970s, developing countries werelent money by developed countries for arange of projects, including infrastructuredevelopment (e.g. dams and roads),industrialisation and technology. The WorldDevelopment Movement (WDM) states,“Often the projects turned out to beunproductive.” The loans were eithermultilateral (i.e. the World Bank and theInternational Monetary Fund lending to onegovernment) or bilateral (i.e. onegovernment lending to another) (24).

Then in the 1980s, interest rates rocketedbecause of the oil crisis, while at the sametime, industrialised countries put high prices

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soya estates. Soya has now become thecountry’s major agricultural export, “however,it is a trading arrangement which had provedconsiderably more efficient at feedingEuropean cattle than with maintaining thelivelihoods of poor Brazilians.” (16)

Twenty-five years ago, livestock consumed lessthan six per cent of Mexico’s grain. Today, atleast one third of the grain produced in thecountry is being fed to animals. At the sametime, millions of people living in the countryare chronically undernourished (13).

It’s not surprising that the World HealthOrganisation has called for a shift away frommeat production so that people can consumecrops directly. It says:

“Farming policies that do not requireintensive animal production systems wouldreduce the world demand for cereals. Use ofland could be reappraised since cerealconsumption for direct consumption by thepopulation is much more efficient andcheaper than dedicating large areas togrowing feed for meat production anddairying. Policies should be geared to the

growing of plant foods and to limiting thepromotion of meat and dairy.” (17)

Governments worldwide have ignored thisadvice. Instead of promoting the growing ofplant foods for human consumption, theyoffer subsidy payments and financialincentives to livestock farmers, therebyactively encouraging meat production.

Who is hungry?Around six billion people share the planet,one quarter in the rich north and threequarters in the poor south. While people inrich countries diet because they eat toomuch, many in the developing world do nothave enough food simply to ensure theirbodies work properly and stay alive.

826 million people around the world areseriously undernourished - 792 million peoplein developing countries and another 34million in industrialised countries (18). Twobillion people - one third of the globalpopulation - lack food security, defined bythe Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)as a “state of affairs where all people at alltimes have access to safe and nutritious foodto maintain a healthy and active life.” (5)

Today, some 12 million children die annuallyof nutrition-related diseases. The Food andAgriculture Organisation says, “Doubtless, farmore are chronically ill.” (19)

There are more chronically hungry people inAsia and the Pacific, but the depth of hungeris greatest in sub-Saharan Africa. In 46 percent of countries there, the undernourishedhave an average deficit of more than 300kilocalories per day (19). In 1996-98, 28 percent of the population on the Africancontinent were chronically undernourished(192 million people) (20).

Access to food is a basic right, enshrined in anumber of human rights instruments to

Maneka Gandhi, India’sformer minister for socialjustice and empowerment,recently spoke out aboutthe situation in her country:“In a country where millionsof people go hungry, 37 percent of all arable land isbeing used to grow fodder

for animals that are being raised and killed forexport. As if that were not enough, we areexporting soya beans to feed European livestock,who will in turn be murdered for meat. Thesefigures cry out against any kind of meatproduction at all - compassionate or otherwise. Isee no reason why India should feed the world atthe expense of her own land, her water, herpeople, her hunger.” (15)

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on many agricultural imports so thatdeveloping world farmers were not able tosell their produce (24). Consequently,developing countries were unable to pay offtheir loans and they have becomeincreasingly indebted. These countries arepaying back billions of pounds to the West ininterest payments each year.

Often, the loans had conditions attached.When Costa Rica borrowed money from theWorld Bank, one of the conditions set wasthat they had to cut down rainforest andclear land for cattlegrazing to supply richcountries with cheapbeef. The destructionof rainforests is adisaster not just for itspeople and wildlife butfor the world's climate(see Viva! Guide 9,Planet on a Plate).

Between 1975 and1985, thousands of km2

of forest were clearedin Thailand to growtapioca to sell to the EUas feed for pigs andcattle. When beef andpork mountains meantthat not as much meatwas being produced, Europe no longerneeded tapioca and stopped buying. This putThai peasants into huge debt because theyhad borrowed money to spend on improvingtheir farms to grow enough to meet demand.As a consequence, many people sold theirchildren into child labour and prostitution.

In the hands of the richAfter extensive lobbying, the IMF and theWorld Bank set up the Heavily Indebted PoorCountries Initiative (HIPC) in 1996 with theapparent aim of alleviating debt burdens

(24). Some bilateral lenders, like the UKgovernment, have agreed to write off 100per cent of the debts owed to them whenthe countries in question complete theInitiative. When countries get half waythrough (called the Decision Point), theyreceive partial relief on their annual debtservice payments.

In order to receive debt relief through theHIPC initiative, developing countries have toget a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)agreed by the IMF and the World Bank.

PRSPs replace“Structural AdjustmentProgrammes” (SAPs),which were imposedon developingcountries as part oftheir loan packages.These forcedgovernments to reducepublic spending andpromote their exportindustries, in theoryreleasing more moneyfor debt repayment.Unsurprisingly, anumber of studiesshowed that SAPsmade people poorer(24). The UNICEF-

sponsored Adjustment with a Human Face,documented increases in stunting,underweight and low birth weight in thewake of structural adjustment policies in nineof 11 Latin American, African and Asiannations surveyed in the 1980s (23).

PRSPs set out governments’ strategies toreduce poverty and must include plans forhow the money freed up by debt relief willbe spent - e.g. on education and health care.The indebted countries also have to agree toimplement economic reforms. (26). The WDMstates, “As the IMF and the World Bank hold

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Farmed animals are bred for people to eatand as the demand for meat falls, lessanimals will be bred. Far from being a loss tothe countryside as some people imagine, ahuge toll of suffering would be eliminatedand wildlife allowed to recover.

The vast majority of farmed animals are keptin indoor units where they never see the lightof day. Those that are kept outside are onlykept alive for a fraction of their naturallifespans before being slaughtered for meat -often in the most barbaric manner imaginable.

Modern farmed animals have been bred overgenerations to produce as much meat aspossible and they are a far cry from theirwild ancestors. For example, birds are oftenso obese that they can barely walk and sufferfrom crippling leg disorders. Dairy cows arebred to produce so much milk that theirudders can become painfully swollen andinfected. Sheep have been genetically

manipulated to give birth earlier in the yearso that each year 20 per cent of new bornlambs die within days of birth from sickness,exposure, malnutrition and disease.

If people ate crops directly, we would need farless land for food production. The ancestors oftoday’s farmed animals could begin to thrive asthey would once again have space. Indigenouswildlife, which has been decimated byintensive farming techniques, could begin tothrive. In the UK, birds, butterflies and wildflowers would start to reappear.

Wild turkeys live in North and CentralAmerica. They roost in trees and roam inwoodlands, eating vegetation and insects.They live in harems - the mothers being veryprotective of their young. An adult bird canfly up to 50mph.

Chickens are descended from the red junglefowl (gallus gallus) in Asia. Wild birds like tomove around almost ceaselessly in daylighthours. Wild hens lay only 20 eggs a year andneed a safe, private place for laying.

It is believed that cattle originally descendedfrom the wild auroch, of Eurasia and NorthAfrica, a species that did not become extinctuntil the 17th century (48). Banteng are aspecies of wild South East Asian cattle foundin hill forests. They are shy animals with aslight ridge on the back, a white rump andslender, curving horns (49).

Most wild sheep and goats live in mountainsbut some inhabit desert grasslands, tropicalforests or Arctic tundra. Several species arehighly prized by hunters because of theirmagnificent horns. Habitat loss, hunting andresource competition from farmed animalshave resulted in most species being classifiedby the IUCN (World Conservation Union) asthreatened, endangered or critical (50).

What would happen to all the animals?

The European Wild Boar is the ancestor of thefarmed pig. They live in forested areas, eatinga wide variety of plants and occasionally smallanimals and insects. They lived wild inBritain’s woodlands until hunted to extinctionin the seventeenth century. They can still befound in other European countries, likeGermany and France.

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causes of hunger. As rich countries eat moremeat, more land in poor countries will beturned over to produce animal feed.

Falling HarvestsAt the 1996 United Nations World FoodSummit, the American Agriculture Secretary,Dan Glickman, said that, “World grain stockshave dwindled to dangerously low levels,highlighting the fragility of food supplies” (29).

Reasons for falling grain harvests includepoorer soil, lack of water and climate changebut the message is clear - unless we changeour diet to one not centred on animals wewill force millions more people intostarvation throughout the world.

Whilst grain harvests are falling, the demandfor grain is rising. The Worldwatch Institutestates that, “Grain production is unlikely torise fast enough to satisfy projected demandfor both food and feed” (30). If global grainproduction does not rise fast enough, therewill not be enough grain to satisfy demandand grain prices will rise. But livestock farmerswould still be able to sell their meat to thewealthy, and so would be able to outbid thepoor in the market for scarce grain.

Human starvation will worsen whilst animalswill continue to be fed so that rich peoplecan continue to eat meat.

The Green RevolutionThe “Green Revolution” of the late 1960sand early 1970s was billed as the solution toworld hunger. Productivity was increasedthrough farm machinery, pesticides andfertilisers, irrigation and the replacement oftraditional crops with high-yielding varieties.

It failed to benefit those who needed it. This“revolution” focused on boosting the yieldsof a narrow base of cereals - corn, wheat andrice. The gains in cereal production oftencame at the expense of cultivation of more

nutritious legumes, root crops and othergrains. This resulted in reduced dietarydiversity and contributed to widespreadnutritional deficiencies as well as depletionof the soil and wildlife loss (23).

The “revolution” also favoured wealthierfarmers because they were the ones whocould afford to invest in the newtechnologies. The United Nations PopulationFund states that, “Landlessness amongformer subsistence farmers andimpoverishment have been unlooked-forconsequences of the Green Revolution” (5).

The “LivestockRevolution”Many countries in Asia and Africa havetraditionally based their diets around rice,beans, pulses and vegetables, eitherfollowing a wholly vegetarian diet or onlyincluding low amounts of meat and fish. Thisis exactly the type of nutritious diet that isnow being promoted by health officials inthe West in an attempt to combat diseaseslike obesity, heart disease and cancer - low inanimal fats and high in fibre, vegetable

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the veto, PRSPs are unsurprisingly turning outto be very similar to the StructuralAdjustment Programmes they replaced” (26).

AidMuch of the aid given to developing worldcountries has been 'tied aid' - this means thatthe countries who receive it have to buygoods and services from the countries whogive it. In this way, most of the money issimply returned to those who gave it.

During the 1970s, the US only gave aid toNicaragua in exchange for the production of

beef, causing the loss of 1,000 km2 ofrainforest per year. By 1979, Nicaragua wasLatin America's biggest supplier of beef tothe US.

Lobbying efforts by NGOs like Action Aid to“untie” aid mean that tied aid is nowdeclining. In an unprecedented move, the UKgovernment has now agreed to untie all its aid.

However, an increased proportion of aid isnow granted as “technical cooperation”,which is excluded from the definition of tiedaid. According to a World Bank report,“some 100,000 foreign technical experts arecurrently employed in Africa, tending todisplace local experts... it has probablyweakened capacity in Africa.” Action Aid saysthat technical cooperation, “ensures a steadysupply of lucrative contracts for consultantsin donor countries” (28). “Aid” to developingcountries is often more concerned withproviding financial support for the West.

Food aid is also excluded from the definitionof tied aid. Action Aid says that, “theexclusion of food aid may encourage theprovision of donor foodstuffs when locallyavailable produce could be purchased” (47).Whilst food aid can be helpful in times offamine it does nothing to change the basic

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Beef Battles in Botswana

The cattle herd in Botswana increased from afew hundred thousand in the 1950s and 1960sto close to three million by the 1990s. Thegovernment, supported by millions of dollars ofWorld Bank funding, has parcelled out a largeproportion of the traditional communally-owned tribal pastures to individuals. As a result,just 5,000 farmers, many of them governmentofficials, today control the majority of thenational herd.

Much of the beef goes to the EU under speciallyfavoured trading arrangements. Beef exports toEurope are worth more than US $100million ayear to Botswana and are sold well abovemarket rates under the terms of trade aidagreed with African nations.

Vast areas of natural habitats have beendegraded due to overgrazing and the country’sonce-teeming wildlife has been drasticallyreduced. But cattle rearing has made a fewhundred of Botswana’s 1.5 million people veryrich. The country now has one of the largestdisparities between rich and poor. According tothe United Nations, the income of thewealthiest 20 per cent of Botswana’s populationis 24 times that of the poorest 20 per cent, aratio exceeded only by Brazil (25).

“The issue which concernsOxfam is... the export ofmeat from the poorcountries of the South tothe rich countries of theNorth. We are concernedabout the World Bank andInternational Monetary Funddesigning economicdevelopment strategieswhich encourage poorcountries to gear theirproduction almostexclusively towards theproduction of exports,rather than improvingnational food security.”(27)

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The insanity of factoryfarmingThis increase in factory farming is creatinghuge problems. In Bangladesh, for example,which is one of the world's poorest countries,battery hen systems have becomewidespread. The country has massiveshortages of food, many unemployed peopleand very little money to spare. Factoryfarming needs money for equipment, createshardly any jobs and uses up much valuableplant food that could be fed to people.

Factory farming does not meet the needs ofthese people but it does benefit people inWestern countries where much of theequipment needed, such as tractors andbuildingmaterials, ismade. Whendevelopingcountries buythem they thenbecomedependent on thesuppliers for spareparts and repairs.

Poultry Worldmagazinehighlighted “the great scope for expansion”in Africa. It emphasized how Africancountries are largely dependent on Westerncountries for breeding stock, feed andpharmaceuticals (33).

Poultry farming has grown so fast in India thatthey are producing more meat than their ownpeople can afford to buy. Despite widespreadhunger, they are exporting chicken to wealthycountries such as the Gulf States.

China has seen an enormous rise in porkproduction over the past decade and hencean enormous increase in its need for animalfeed. The country has transformed frombeing an exporter of 8 million tonnes of

grain in 1993 to becoming a net importer of16 million tonnes by 1995 (34).

If developing countries look to consuming thesame quantity of meat per head as theaverage American, food shortages willbecome desperate. Yet rather than switch tovegetarianism, livestock scientists advocateboosting the “feed efficiency” of animals. Amodern intensively raised chicken will put on3 kilograms from the same amount of feedthat in 1957 only yielded 2 kilograms. USscientists have discovered that pigs can bemade to grow 40 per cent faster on 25 percent less feed if they are injected with DNAencoding a modified, long lasting releasingfactor for growth hormones (30). In livestock

science, animalsare perceived asunfeeling,unthinking,protein-makingmachines who canbe tweaked andmanipulated forour own benefit.

Exporting factoryfarming meansexporting the

overuse of antibiotics and the increased risksof food poisoning and diseases such as cancerand heart disease which are associated withincreased meat-eating. It also means exportingthe environmental damage caused by intensivefarming systems, including the overuse ofwater and land degradation to provide themassive amount of crops these poor creaturesare fed (see Viva! Guides 2 - Stop Bugging Me;7 - Your Health in Your Hands; 9 - Planet on aPlate). Is this really what the developing worldneeds in order to “develop”?

The predicted shift towards increased meatconsumption is still in its infancy. Even inChina, which is at the forefront of the“Livestock Revolution” and where per capita

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protein and essential vitamins. Yetdeveloping countries, keen to copy Westernlifestyles, increasingly perceive meat-eatingas a sign of wealth and progress. This shifttowards meat consumption is beingdescribed as “The Livestock Revolution”.

The International Food Policy ResearchInstitute projects that meat demand in thedeveloping world will double between 1995and 2020. Per capita demand for meat isprojected to increase 40 per cent (5). Growthin livestock farming is primarily taking placein the intensive pig and poultry sectors (31).

Intensively farmed meat is billed as being acheap source of protein whilst the globalpicture - the “grain drain” created byincreased meat consumption - is ignored.Demand for cereals to feed to farmedanimals is predicted to double in developingcountries over the next generation (5).Demand for maize (corn) will increase themost, growing by 2.35 per cent over the next20 years. Nearly two thirds will go towardsfeeding animals.

Meat consumption tends to rise as peoplemigrate from rural areas to cities. The meatindustry is naturally only too pleased bythese new commercial opportunities. Anarticle in the UK’s Meat Trades Journalstates, “People living in rural areas arelikely to have traditional eating habitswhile people living in towns aspire toWestern eating habits, such as meat, andvalue the attribute of convenience morehighly.” This creates,”a massive opportunityfor satisfying the increased demand, withthe major growth occurring in South andEast Asia” (32).

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“Farm Africa” also promotes livestockfarming. Its promotional literature states,“The sort of poverty we see in thedeveloping world is simply unacceptable.Our moralimperative must beto do everything inour power toovercome it” (37).

The point to begrasped is that whilstencouraging animalfarming maytemporarily alleviatethe poverty ofindividual families, itcan only contributetowards poverty inthe long run.Promoting meatproduction can neverbe a solution to worldhunger because itmeans promoting adiet which drainsvaluable grain stocksand devastates theenvironment.

HippoA welcome antidote to these charities isHippo - or Help International Plant ProteinOrganisation. It provides emergency relief forthe hungry in the less developed world but

just as importantly it encourages people togrow their own food - not meat or dairy butplant protein.

Hippo’s logic is simple:why wastefully feedmillions of tons ofsoya to animals whenit could feed far morepeople directly? It hasnearly 50 per centhigh quality protein,is rich in iron andcalcium and all kindsof other vitamins andminerals, keepswithout refrigeration,has low fat, no waste,no food poisoningbugs and doesn’tcause suffering toanimals (38). TexturedVegetable Protein(TVP) - made fromsoya - can feed 60people from the sameamount of land thatwould feed two

people on meat - and much more healthily.

Currently, Hippo is supporting projects invarious parts of Africa and one in Europe. AtKeyevunze, they are supporting the trainingof 120 health workers who are showingpeople how to improve their diets by

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meat consumption doubled between 1983and 1993, people eat on average just aquarter as much meat as the averageAmerican (30). If we act now, we could stillstop this cycle of insanity and move towardsagricultural systems which would genuinelyfeed the world.

Malnutritionand obesityFor the first time inhistory, we havereached a situationwhere the number ofoverweight peoplerivals the number whoare underweight,both estimated at 1.1 billion (35).

As countries growwealthier, meatconsumption tends torise. Hunger problemsare reduced buthospitals begin to seemore cases involvingillnesses such asobesity, cardiovasculardisease, diabetes andcancer - all of whichare linked to dietshigh in animal produce. China is at theforefront of the “livestock revolution”. Theshare of adults who are overweight jumpedfrom 9 per cent to 15 per cent between 1989and 1992.

The number of diabetics worldwide whosecondition results from overeating is projectedto double between 1998 and 2025, withmore than three quarters of this growthoccurring in the developing world. Somecountries will be battling hunger and obesityat the same time.

In a nutshell:countries whosepeople are starvingare using their landto grow grain forexport to feed theWest’s farmedanimals. Nutritionallyvaluable food isbeing fed to animalsto produce meat,which Westerncountries are literallygorging themselvesto death on. Now,we are exportingfactory farming tothe developingworld. Meatconsumption is risingand so are theassociated healthproblems.

Send a cowCharities have been set up in the UK with thespecific aim of promoting livestock farmingin the developing world - claiming they areworking to alleviate poverty. Some projectsreceive funding from the Department forInternational Development (DFID).

“Send a Cow” was set up by a group ofChristian farmers in 1988. Most of Uganda’sdairy cows had died during the civil warand the farmers literally began sending livecows from England to Africa. The charityhas now set up a breeding programmewithin Africa (36).

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“More than 5 millionchildren die ofhunger-relateddiseases each year,while survivors areoften physically ormentally stunted,performing well belowtheir potential atschool. Meanwhile,millions of people inwealthy countriesspend years or evendecades late in lifecrippled with heartdisease, diabetes,cancer, or otherdiseases attributableat least in part toovereating.” The WorldwatchInstitute(23).

Share of Children who are Underweight andAdults who are Overweight, Selected Countries,Mid-1990s (23)Country Share Underweight (%) Country Share Overweight (%)Bangladesh 56% United States 55%India 53% Russian Federation 54%Ethiopia 48% United Kingdom 51%Vietnam 39% Colombia 41%Indonesia 34% Brazil 36%

The World HealthOrganisation (WHO)recommends a shiftaway from meat-eating.It states, “Dietsassociated withincreases in chronicdiseases are thoserich in sugar, meatand other animalproducts, saturatedfat and dietarycholesterol...Policies should begeared to the growingof plant foods,including vegetablesand fruits, and tolimiting the promotionof fat containingproducts.” (17)

fast that almost half a billion people alreadydepend on nonrenewable sources. (43) Sevenper cent of the world’s population has notenough water and by 2050, this will be 70per cent (42). The situation is so dire thatbattles over water supplies are predicted tobecome a major source of conflict.

Worldwatch Institute chairman Lester Brownstates, “In consumption terms, 480 million ofthe world’s 6 billion people are being fed withfood produced with the unsustainable use ofwater. We are already using up the waterwhich belongs to our children” (43). TheInternational Water Management Institutepredicts that by 2025 about 2.7 billion people- a third of the world’s population - will live inregions faced by regular and severe waterscarcity. Asia and sub-Saharan Africa will behit the hardest (44).

It’s hard to imagine a scenario moresickening than a rich elite gorging itself onmeat while the poorest third of the world’spopulation literally dehydrate. A shift awayfrom meat consumption must become aglobal priority if we are to have a hope ofmeeting the basic needs of the world’s sixbillion inhabitants.

GM - the truthMultinational companies promise us thatthere is a new solution to global poverty:genetically modified crops. Thanks to theirlife-saving research, we will soon be able togrow enough food to feed the world, theypromise us. So what’s the real reason fortheir sudden altruism?

Don’t forget that there is already enoughfood to feed the world - on a vegetariandiet. What there is not enough of is animalfeed - cereals to drive the predicted increasein meat consumption. The amount ofproductive land is diminishing throughdesertification and soil degradation, duelargely - ironically - to intensive livestock

agriculture. It will diminish even further withflooding from global warming. But thepotential market for animal feed is huge.

The pharmaceutical giants who are pushingGMOs bank some $161 billion dollarsbetween them every year. They walk hand inhand with agribusinesses and the livestockindustry - often they are one and the samecompany. Intensive livestock farmingaccounts for over 40 per cent of their incomeand it is these companies are responsible forproducing the vast quantities of fodderconsumed by farmed animals world-wide - aswell as the cocktail of drugs, growthenhancers and pesticides which prop upintensive farming systems (45).

The driving need, therefore, is to makemaximum use of existing land by destroyingall weeds and wild plants which compete fornutrients, and to increase crop yields - hencegenetic modification. Companies promotingGMOs are more interested in boosting theproduction of animal feed and hence meatthan in feeding the world. See Viva! Guide 8,Genetic Engineering.

growing soya. Results are already beginningto show with a reduction in kwashiorkor - adisease of poor nutrition.

In Malawi, Hippo is working with theregional agricultural department tointroduce soya as a crop to local villagers.They are helping to construct a smallreservoir for irrigation and providing a soyamill to process the beans.

Hippo was set up by Neville Heath Fowlerafter a trip to Ethiopia in 1992. Says Fowler,“If only some of the cotton fields could bedevoted to soya, we dreamed, and if peoplecould learn to value it as the miracle ofnutrition that it is. Then saplings such asthose which the goats routinely destroyedcould grow into spreading trees. PerhapsEthiopia could then begin to recover theforests it had lost, climate change would bereversed and soil erosion arrested. And thiscould happen all over the world. If only wecould deliver the antidote to the diseasedWestern idea that progress is synonymouswith meat.” Hippo can be contacted at:Llangynog, Carmarthen SA33 5BS. E: hippocharity@aol.com

Fish FarmingFish farming, or aquaculture, is the fastestgrowing sector of the world economy andhas been growing at 11 per cent a year overthe past decade (39). In 1990, 13 milliontonnes of fish were produced but by 2002,this had risen to 39.8 million tonnes.

85 per cent of fish farming is in developingcountries. China accounted for 27.7 milliontonnes of the 39.8 million tonnes of worldaquacultural output in 2002, and India 2 million tonnes. Bangladesh, Indonesia andThailand are also major players in the industry.

Breeding fish in captivity is billed as the wayto protect ever-diminishing wild fish stocks.But paradoxically, carnivorous farmed fish are

actually fed wild fish - further depleting theoceans. It takes 5 tons of fish caught fromthe sea to produce one ton of factory farmedsalmon (39). Wild-caught fish are also fed tohalibut, cod and trout.

Fishmeal is made from fish or fish parts forwhich there is said to be little or no humandemand. But the huge need for wild-caughtfish on fish farms still places much additionalstress on our fragile, overfished oceans (40).

According to the Food and AgricultureOrganisation, 69 per cent of the world’scommercial marine fish stocks are “fullyexploited, overfished, depleted, or slowlyrecovering” (5).

Non-carnivorous farmed fish like carp andcatfish are fed grain rather than wild-caughtfish. Fish are said to convert grain more“efficiently” than cattle - they add akilogram of weight with less than twokilograms of grain. But the global fixationwith obtaining protein from animals meansthat the most efficient option of all -consuming the grain directly - is ignored (forthe environmental impact of fish farming,see Viva! Guide 9, Planet on a Plate).

Global water shortageThe massive quantities of grain required tosustain a meat-based diet are not the onlyproblem. The meat production process usesup vast quantities of water in a world wherewater is in short supply. It takes 1,000 litresto produce 1kg of wheat and 100,000 litresto produce 1kg of beef (41). About threequarters of the water we use goes ongrowing food (42) but vegetarians need lessthan a third as much water to sustain theirdiet as meat-eaters (13). See also Viva! Guide9, Planet on a Plate.

Living in the West, it’s easy to imagine thatour water supplies are unlimited but globally,our fresh water supplies are being used up so

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Photo

: Oxf

am

The decline in world fish stocks, theerosion of agricultural land and the limitsof technology to boost grain yields meanwe are fast approaching the limit ofresources and the earth's carrying capacity.We need to rethink the way limitedsupplies of plant food are distributed andstart feeding the world.

Eating meat is not the only reason for worldhunger but it is a major cause. We mustdrastically change our eating habits if we areto feed the world adequately. People aregoing hungry while ever increasing numbersof animals are fed huge amounts of food in ahopelessly inefficient system.

By not using animals as meat producingmachines, this food could be freed to helpthose that need it most. Vegetarianism, byusing up far less of the world’s resources offood, land water and energy, is a positivestep that we can all easily take to help feedpeople in poorer countries.

The solution is in our handsThe fast growth of the world's population isa serious problem because it means there are

more mouthsto feed,resulting inmore pressureon water, land,wildlife and soon. By 2050,the 49 least-developedcountries willnearly triple insize, from 668million to 1.86billion people(2). By 2050,today’sdevelopingcountries will

account for over 85 per cent of the worldpopulation (2).

However, although this makes the hungerproblem worse, it does not actually cause it.It is the growth of incomes and demand for'luxury' items in rich countries that havetriggered the hunger crisis. The world is amuch wealthier place today than it was 40years ago and as wages have risen theyhave encouraged large-scale meat eating inricher countries, heightening thecompetition for cereals between animalsand humans.

A huge “consumption gap” exists betweenindustrialised and developing countries. Theworld’s richest countries, with 20 per cent ofglobal population, account for 86 per cent oftotal private consumption, whereas thepoorest 20 per cent of the world’s peopleaccount for just 1.3 per cent.

A child born today in an industrialisedcountry will add more to consumption andpollution over his or her lifetime than 30 to50 children born in developing countries. (5)

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Traditionalfarming methodswork best andhave done forcenturies.According toGreenpeace, inLatin Americasoil conservationand organicfertilisationprogrammestripled orquadrupled yieldswithin a year. (46)

“Unless there is adramatic change inthe attitude of thewealthy countries ofthe world towardsthe poorer and amajor shift ofresources, there willbe famine,

bloodshed and catastrophe on a scale neverbefore seen in history.

Governments will not change their policies becauseto do so would threaten the control and resourceswhich maintain them in power. Fortunately, we, asindividuals, can do something. Meat consumptionis obviously not the only reason for world hunger,but it is high up there in the major league. It is alsosomething which we don’t need permission to dosomething about. We can wield an immediateinfluence today, simply by changing our diet. Bynot eating meat or fish, vegetarians reduce theneed to import food from poor countries, but avegetarian diet does more than that. It throwsdown a challenge to the established order andbreaks the cycle whereby people go hungry whileever-increasing numbers of appallingly treatedanimals are fed huge amounts of food in ahopelessly inefficient system.

Vegetarians, and even more so vegans, use farfewer of the world’s resources of food, land andenergy, and offer the only feasible example forthe future. Unless there is a positive global movetowards this way of living, the expanding worldpopulation will be condemned to disease andsuffering on an unimaginable scale. In a desperatesearch for protein, all the living creatures on theglobe will be hunted and killed. The wonderfuldiversity of living things, the last of a species, themost beautiful of creations, will mean nothingmore than a mouthful of food to get a familythrough another day. And we will wring ourhands and ask how on Earth it happened.”

Juliet Gellatley, Founder & Director of Viva! andthe Vegetarian & Vegan Foundation

References1. Shiva, V., How Big Business Starves the Poor, DailyTelegraph 11.05.002. World Population Prospects: The 2000 Revision. UnitedNations Population Division. 3. Brown, L., Full House, Worldwatch Inst. 19944. D’Silva, J., Factory Farming and Developing Countries,Compassion in World Farming Trust Briefing, January 20005. Footprints and Milestones: Population and EnvironmentalChange, United Nations Population Fund, 20016. Questions and Answers on debt relief, www.christian-aid.org.uk7. Tickell, C., speaking at the British Association for theAdvancement of Science, 26 August 1991, reported inThe Independent, 27 August 1991.8. Gold, M., Beyond The Killing Fields: Working Towardsa Vegetarian Future. In: The Meat Business - Devouring aHungry Planet, Ed. Tansey, G. & D’Silva, J., EarthscanPublications, 1999. 9. Agriculture in the UK 2005, Produced by DEFRA.Crown Copyright 2006.10. Gellatley, J., The Silent Ark. Thorsons 1996. 11. Spedding, C.R.W., Food for the 90’s: The Impact ofOrganic Foods and Vegetarianism, 1990, pp. 231-41. 12. WWF, Living Planet Report 2000, page 16. 13. Rifkin, J., Beyond Beef, Penguin Books, 1992. 14. Ayres, E., Will We Still Eat Meat? Time, 08 November 199915. Gandhi, M., Factory Farming and the Meat Industry inIndia. In: The Meat Business - Devouring a Hungry Planet,Ed. Tansey, G. & D’Silva, J. Earthscan Publications, 1999. 16. Oxfam Poverty report, Oxfam, June 1995

17. World Health Organisation, Geneva, 1991. Diet,Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases,Technical Report Series 797.18. The state of food insecurity in the world:www.fao.org/FOCUS/E?SOF100). 19. Balancing Interests and Resolving Conflicts: www.fao.org20. Perspectives on Hunger, Poverty and Agriculture inAfrica, Keynote Address by Jacques Diouf, Director-General, FAO, at the National Gathering on Africa,Washington DC, USA, 23.06.01: www.fao.org 21. Food: a Fundamental Right: www.fao.org22. Skjerve, E., Ewald, S., & Niels Skovgaard, N., TheEuropean Meat Industry in the 1990s, Ed. Smulders,F.J.M, Ecceamst 1991, Audet Tijdschriften B.V.23. Gardner, G., Halweil, B., Overfed and Underfed, TheGlobal Epidemic of Malnutrition, Worldwatch Paper 150,March 2000.24. Debt in 2001: An Introduction, The WorldDevelopment Movement.25. Pearce, F., Botswana: Enclosing for Beef, TheEcologist, Vol 23, no.1, Jan/Feb 199326. Wilks, A., World Bank Takes on Trade, WDM inAction, Autumn 2001.27. Letter from Oxfam to Viva! supporter, 26.02.01.28. www.actionaid.org/policyandresearch/aideffectiveness 29. Seventies Dream of World With No HungerDestroyed by Conflict, The Times, 14.11.199630. Protein at a Price, New Scientist, 18.03.0131. Animal Agriculture, www.fao.org/ag/aga/index32. World Meat Trends, Meat Trades Journal, 17.08.00.33. World Poultry, February 1989. In: The Meat Business -

Devouring a Hungry Planet. Ed. Tansey, G. & D’Silva, J.,Earthscan Publications, 1999. 34. Brown, L.R., Facing Food Scarcity, Worldwatch,November/December 1995. 35. Escaping Hunger, Escaping Excess, World Watch,July/August 2000. 36. How it Began: Send a Cow information sheet. 37. Farm Africa Annual Review 2000/2001. 38. Lane, T., Hip Hip Hippo, Viva!Life, Autumn/Winter 2001. 39. Fish Farming May Soon Overtake Cattle Ranching asa Food Source, Worldwatch Issue Alert, 03.10.00. 40. Lymbery, P., In Too Deep - The Welfare of IntensivelyFarmed Fish, CIWF Trust, 2002. 41. Dinyar, G., The No Nonsense Guide to ClimateChange, N.I., 2001.42. Water, Water Everywhere - But Only 0.8% to Drink,Observer, 19.12.99. 43. Global Water Supply central issue at StockholmConference, www.cnn.com, August 14, 2000. 44. Scientists Search for a Way to Avert World WaterCrisis, The Independent, 14.08.01.45. Wardle, T., Food for the World?, Viva!Life, Spring 2000.46. Greenpeace briefing, “Can Genetic Engineering Feedthe World?” February 1997, p.526. 47. Aid Untying - update March 2002, Action Aid.48. www.geocites.com/Heartland/Estates/9113/cattle49. www.britannica.com50. www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/pubs/caprinae

Written and published by Viva!. Second edition ©Viva! 2006