The production of animal products is totally unsustainable and adds substantially to our ecological debt as it requires significantly more land, water and energy than plant based foods, and is hugely wasteful and inefficient.

When you eat meat, dairy and eggs, you choose to consume more than your fair share of resources. When we consume irresponsibly, it means that not only is there not enough for others, but also we destroy the planet as we take more and more to fulfil our desires - which particularly impacts those in the global South.

You have the power to reverse this trend by changing the choices you make every day.

With one hectare, a farmer can feed up to 30 people throughout the year on vegetables, fruits and cereals, but just 5 to 10 people on meat, eggs or milk (1). Around 70% of all agricultural land and 30% of the world’s surface land area is used by the livestock sector (2).

We have enough land and enough food to feed everyone but we waste it. A third of the world’s cereal harvest, such as corn and wheat, is fed to animals; this totals over 754 million tonnes of food. Corn is one of the main ingredients of animal feed. The US produces 44% of all corn grown in the world (over 282 million tonnes per year), and feeds 54% of it to its animals, exporting a further 19% (3). The 152 million tonnes of corn the US alone feeds to its animals could feed the world’s 950 million starving people (4) many times over. The main ingredient of animal feed though is soy and we feed an astonishing 90% of the world’s production to animals, totalling over another 202 million tonnes (5). As it takes around 10 kilograms of grain to produce 1 kilogram of beef, 4-5.5 for pork and 2.1-3.3 for chicken, the whole system is totally inefficient (6).

Shockingly, one kilogram of beef requires 15,500 litres of water, in comparison with maize, barley, soy and wheat which require only 900 – 1,800 litres per kilogram (7).

Much of the water usage for meat is due to all the water required to grow crops to feed the animals. Vast quantities of water are also needed for the animals to drink, as well as during slaughter and processing. Meanwhile, around 1.1 billion people do not have access to clean water, and 2.6 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation (8).

One kilogram of beef requires 169 megajoules of energy, which is enough to light a 100-watt light bulb for 20 days or drive a car for 250 kilometres (9). It takes ten to twenty times more energy to produce animal products than plant based foods (10). This is mostly due to transportation (of grain to feed animals and of meat itself), refrigeration, slaughter, processing and the energy in the food the animals themselves consume.

By choosing not to eat animal products, you choose to share our resources more fairly.

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References

1.B. Parmentier, 2007
2. Livestock’s Long Shadow. UN Food and Agriculture Organization. 2006.
3. US Grains Council. 2008.
4. High Level Conference of World Food Security. United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. 2008.
5.Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. Earth Policy Institute. 2008.
6.CAST 1999
7.Water Footprint Network
8.World Water Council
9. National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science. Japan, 2008.
10.Vegan-vegetarian-omnivore? Swedish University of Agricultural Science