India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh has urged the West to stop eating beef. According to the Telegraph he said “The solution to cut emissions is to stop eating beef. It leads to emission of methane which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide.”

Most people in India are Hindu and believe that cows are sacred. Ramesh said “What India has going for it is the fact that we are not a major beef eating nation.”

This message from India is a reminder that climate change is not just an environmental issue but one of social justice too. The way we live our lives in developed countries directly impacts the lives of others. Eating meat causes climate change; climate change causes extreme weather, rises in sea levels, droughts and food shortages - and those that suffer the most are those least responsible for climate change.

Read the Telegraph article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/6615422/India-tells-West-to-stop-eating-beef.html

Ururú, one of just six of the remaining Amazonian Akuntsu tribe, died 1 October 2009. Now just five remain and since they are all either closely related or past reproductive age, the end of this tribe is inevitable.

This week the Independent reported that the fate of Akuntsu tribe “represents the long-planned realisation of one of the most successful acts of genocide in human history”. For years the tribe lived peacefully and sustainably deep in the rainforest in Brazil, but then in the 1980s soy plantations and cattle ranches took over the region; this was the beginning of the end for the Akuntsus.

Fiercely industrious, the new migrant workers knew that one thing might prevent them from creating profitable homesteads from the rainforest: the discovery of uncontacted tribes, whose land is protected from development under the Brazilian constitution.

As a result, frontiersmen who first came across the Akuntsu in the mid-1980s made a simple calculation. The only way to prevent the government finding out about this indigenous community was to wipe them off the map.

At some point, believed to be around 1990, scores of Akuntsu were massacred at a site roughly five hours’ drive from the town of Vilhena. Only seven members of the tribe escaped, retreating deeper into the wilderness to survive.

Cattle ranching is the main cause of deforestation in the Amazon; soy plantations, which predominantly provide feed for animals in the West, are close behind. Corporations behind these industries don’t care about the rights of indigenous people, they only care about the money. People are forcibly removed from their ancestral lands and poisoned by pesticides from soy plantations; their lives ruined. But whilst we continue to buy cheap meat in vast quantities, the soy and meat industries will do whatever they need to do to provide it for us. Protect the rights of indigenous people, challenge governments and corporations, but don’t forget to take personal responsibility too.

Read the full Independent article here: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/decline-of-a-tribe-and-then-there-were-five-1801795.html

A new investigation again shows the damaging impact of cheap factory farmed meat sold in Europe because of it’s total reliance on soy from Latin America as animal feed. Soy plantations not only result in mass deforestation but also horrific human rights abuses as indigenous people are poisoned and forced from their land. From the Ecologist website:-

Cheap meat has become a way of life in much of Europe, but the full price is being paid across Latin America as vast soya plantations and their attendant chemicals lead to poisonings and violence.

Much of the cheap meat and dairy produce sold in supermarkets across Europe is arriving as a result of serious human rights abuses and environmental damage in one of Latin America’s most impoverished countries, according to a new film launched in conjunction with the Ecologist Film Unit.

An investigation in Paraguay has discovered that vast plantations of soy, principally grown for use in intensively-farmed animal feed, are responsible for a catalogue of social and ecological problems, including the forced eviction of rural communities, landlessness, poverty, excessive use of pesticides, deforestation and rising food insecurity.

The investigation is part of Friends of the Earth Europe’s Feeding and Fuelling Europe programme, in collaboration with other groups including Friends of the Earth members in the Netherlands, Paraguay, UK, Uruguay, the Ecologist magazine, Via Campesina and Food and Water Watch.

Friends of the Earth Food Campaigner Kirtana Chandrasekaran explains in the film that we need to stop factory farming for meat and dairy, use home grown feeds and more extensive methods of farming and direct subsidies for factory farming in to “better quality” farming.

The UK is a land-scarce country. As the population keeps growing and communities around the country fight to save the last of our wild areas from new road and housing developments, how will we find the land to be able to grow more food to feed animals? Consumption of meat and dairy has to be tackled but no-one seems to have the guts to say it.

See the 10 minute film and read the full article on the Ecologist website: www.theecologist.org/trial_investigations/336873/killing_fields_the_true_cost_of_europes_cheap_meat.html

The excellent Meat-Free Monday e-newsletter from Animal Aid reported today on a new report regarding world hunger and food production.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), nearly 30 percent of the world’s population suffer from some form of malnutrition. And this week, a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) for the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, states that 25 million more children will go hungry by the middle of this century as climate change leads to a decline in agricultural productivity and food shortages.

The lead author of the IFPRI report stated that ‘we are going to have 50 per cent more people on the surface of the Earth by 2050 and meeting food demands is going to be a huge challenge - even without climate change’. However, according to the FAO, ‘the world already produces enough food to feed every child, woman and man and could feed 12 billion people, or double the current world population’. The main problem is not the amount of food available, but the ways in which the world’s grain harvest is being used and distributed - farmed animals are fed no less than half of the world’s harvest.

Instead of adding to the amount of food available, meat simply creates even more mouths to feed; those of farmed animals. And the return is extremely poor. It takes roughly eight kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of beef and two kilos are required for one kilo of chicken. It would make far more sense to grow food that humans can eat directly - grains, pulses, legumes, nuts, vegetables and fruits. As resources become ever more scarce, experts now agree that the human population must rely more upon a plant-based diet. Patrick Wall, chairman of the European Food Safety Authority, questions whether it is ‘morally or ethically correct’ to be feeding grain to animals while people starve. We can all take steps to ease the hunger of children and others around the world by reducing the amount of animal products we eat, starting with Meat-Free Monday, or better yet, going completely meat-free.

To sign up to the Meat-Free Monday newsletter, which includes news updates and recipes, and find out more about this campaign visit the Animal Aid website.

It seems the beef sector is having a bad week. The BeefSite.com reported the following news in this week’s e-newsletter.

Editorial: The Truth Behind Shock Stories

‘Farmed Fish May Pose BSE Risk‘ was one of our most dramatic headlines this week, but, according to a neurologist from the University of Louisville, this idea is cause for real concern. Friedland suggests farmed fish could transmit Creutzfeldt Jakob disease if they are fed byproducts rendered from cows. He and his team are now urging governments to prevent this feeding practice until safety in the food-chain can be confirmed.

Another shock story came from Reuters. A report they released earlier this week claims that the Brazilian beef giant, JBS, alongside other meatpackers, is under investigation for allegations of “bribing, racketeering, corruption, fraud and collusion.” According to the news agency, the information was passed from a representative at the federal prosecutor’s office.

Corruption and health risks in the meat industry? Never!

Read: Farmed fish article at Science Daily
Read: Reuters article on JBS

The Environment Agency have issued a warning that the UK could soon be hit by a massive water shortage. In their report, they predict that demand for water could increase by 25% by 2020. Scientists are concerned that we will not have enough water to grow enough food to feed a growing population. Food security is a major issue worldwide and a severe water shortage will significantly hinder any plans to produce more food.

A typical balanced diet requires around 3,500 litres of water per day. The lower down on the food chain you eat, the less water your diet requires. Cereals and grains require around 1,000 litres per kilogramme, compared to 15,000 litres for the same amount of beef or 6,000 litres for the same amount of poultry. One glass of milk requires 200 litres of water.

Growing demand for food and water, caused by a growing population, mean that we have to consume as efficiently as possible, making choices that use the least amount of resources. Diets high in meat and dairy are not sustainable and this irresponsible dietary choice massively hinders our chances of eradicating world hunger.

Two new reports have been released to highlight the escalating number of starving people in the world - now estimated to be nearly a billion - a sixth of the world’s population.

Oxfam’s report ‘A Billion Hungry People’ and Chatham House’s report ‘The Feeding of the Nine Billion’ call for urgent action in the light of increasing food prices plus an increase in energy and water scarcity which are exacerbating and already devastating situation for the world’s poor.

Barbara Stocking, Oxfam Chief Executive, said: “This should be a wake-up call for all those who believe that the food crisis is over. World leaders have a window of opportunity to prevent a worse situation resulting from the triple crunch of the economic crisis, climate change, and energy and water scarcity. They must act urgently to turn their plans into coordinated action that addresses immediate needs and begins to implement long-term reforms. Failure to act will see millions more people falling into hunger.”

Oxfam recommends reform of the humanitarian aid system and calls for poor countries to invest more in agriculture, targeting women and small-scale producers. However, there is little mention of using the resources we already have more efficiently and fairly. The livestock industry wastes precious resources (such as land, water and energy) whilst causing climate change and other environmental damage. Hundreds of millions of tonnes of grain are fed to animals every year instead of to the hungry. A world free of hunger can only exist if we all choose to eat sustainably and equitably, and that does not include animal products.

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Read more about why a meat-free diet is better for the environment and human rights.

Over the last two days, environmental groups, MEPs and UN representatives have been taking part in the International Conference on Global Europe, hosted by the European Parliament in Brussels. The title of this year’s conference was ‘Living Beyond its Resources: Impacts of ‘Global Europe’ on Sustainable Development’.

As I tuned in to the live web stream during the session titled ‘Global Europe - Fuelling Europe: A Trade-off between Energy Security and Sustainability?’, I was pleased to hear a representative from the World Society for the Protection of Animals point out that we need to not only look at our levels of consumption but also the type of goods we consume. She gave the example that it takes 10,000 litres of water to produce 1 litre of milk and 10kg of grain to produce 1kg of meat.

Unfortunately, the panel mostly ignored this point. Most of the discussion centred around biofuels. Paul Hodson, Deputy Head of Unit, DG Transport and Energy for the European Commission, pointed out that when crops like wheat and maize are used to make biofuels, the part of the plant that cannot be used to make fuel can be used as animal feed. He used this as an arguement to support biofuels, claiming that this increase in animal feeds, as a by-product of the biofuels industry, would help the EU to reduce its dependency on imported soy - which is hugely damaging to the environment and uses much more land than other crops to produce the same amount of feed.

A British biofuels company, Ensus, explain on their website, that the ‘co-product’ of biofuels has ‘high level of protein, coupled with an amino acid profile that is well suited to the nutritional needs of a variety of animals’.

Why is the priority here feeding animals rather than the 840 million starving people in the world? I am sure many starving families in the world would be very grateful to receive some high protein food. I find this very disturbing.

New research from the University of Hawaii has revealed America’s fast food chain’s dependence on corn.

The researchers bouht 486 servings of hamburgers, fries and chicken sandwiches from McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s in 6 cities in the USA.

Testing in the lab revealed that 100% of the chicken and 93% of the beef came from animals fed on a corn-only diet. Only 12 burgers in the experiment came from cows who had not eaten a corn-only diet.

Friends of the Earth fear that as more corn is diverted to the production of biofuels, more farmers will turn to soy for animal feed. The emphasis continues to be on the impact of biofuels on food security whilst the unsustainable use of  corn and soy as animal feed continues to be ignored. Some people will find it near impossible to stop using their cars because of living in the countryside with poor public transport links or due to a job which involves travelling.  But we can all cut out animal products from our diet and make a significant difference that way.

Read full article in New Scientist.

Ugandan livestock farmers, concentrated along ‘the cattle corridor’ which runs southwest to northeast across Uganda, are already in conflict due to water scarcity and this will be exacerbated by increased demand and climate change. Oxfam’s recent report ‘Climate Change and Poverty in Uganda’ reveals that:-

“People in Uganda, whose contribution to global warming has been minuscule, are feeling the impacts of climate change first and worst. On the one hand there is more erratic rainfall in the March to June rainy season, bringing drought and reductions in crop yields and plant varieties; on the other hand, the rainfall, especially in the later rains towards the end of the year, is reported as coming in downpours that are more intense and destructive, bringing floods, landslides, and soil erosion”.

Livestock farmers are already being forced to move their animals great distances to find pasture and water, increasing the conflict between them as they encroach on to each others territories.

Renowned British environmentalist Norman Myers coined the phrase ‘the hamburger connection’ in the 1980s to describe how the rapid growth in beef exports in Central America to fast food chains is the US was driving deforestation. Since then we have seen massive destruction of the Amazon for cattle ranching and now the largest meat producer in the world, Tyson, has ambitious plans to enter countries such as Brazil, China and India to introduce and profit from the industrialistion of meat production in those countries.

There is no question that Uganda needs to overcome poverty, but developing a meat export market is not the answer. We have already seen the result of meat exportation in Brazil and other developing countries which has only resulted in further environmental destruction, conflict, poverty and hunger. Forty per cent of children’s deaths in Uganda are caused by malnutrition; they need the resources to feed their own people, not to fulfil the desire for meat in rich nations. If Norway really wanted to make a difference to people in Uganda, and didn’t actually have an alterior motive, that’s what they’d help them to do.