Firstly, a few facts from the World Food Programme:
- Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That’s about one in nine people on earth
- Asia is the continent with the most hungry people – two thirds of the total. The percentage in southern Asia has fallen in recent years but in western Asia it has increased slightly
- Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence (percentage of population) of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished
- One out of six children — roughly 100 million — in developing countries is underweight
- One in four of the world’s children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three
- 66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone
From the UN:
- The greatest scandal of our age is the fact that just under 1 billion people on the planet go to bed hungry every night. This is despite the fact that we produce more than enough to feed every single person in the world
Now consider these facts; courtesy of the Cowspiracy Facts page:
- 82% of starving children live in countries where food is fed to animals, and the animals are eaten by western countries
- Worldwide, at least 50% of grain is fed to livestock
- These is 15x more protein on any given area of land with plants, rather than animals
I’ve read the facts and seen the stats a ton of times, but each time it shocks me anew.
It’s overwhelming how simple the answer is.
Some people bluster and say that reduction of animal product consumption having the effect of eliminating world hunger is too simplistic.
These people are too invested in their steak, because the facts prove otherwise.
The planet can produce enough plant-food to feed the entire population easily.
But we are feeding grain to animals, for the animals to be fed to rich people. It’s easy to see this isn’t sustainable.
If one were to argue that those particular crops were not fit for human consumption anyway (which in some cases is true), well then let’s use that land to grow crops that ARE fit for human consumption, rather than to grow farm animal feed for poor creatures that are bred to be killed.
Something that always stuns me is that during Live Aid in 1985, the international concert that was held to raise funds for the Ethiopian famine relief – a particularly horrendous and destructive famine that shocked the world – we were, wait for it: EXPORTING GRAIN FROM ETHIOPIA TO FEED OUR CATTLE. From an article by Jeremy Rifkin:
At the height of the Ethiopian famine in 1984-5, Britain imported £1.5 million worth of linseed cake, cottonseed cake and rape seed meal. Although none of this was fit for humans to eat, good quality farmland was still being used to grow animal feed for rich countries when it could have been used to grow food for Ethiopians.
It doesn’t make sense to donate money year after year to Comic Relief (just because this is the one time of year we are shown images of ‘starving children in Africa’) and yet perpetuate world hunger by consuming meat.
There are many ethical reasons to be vegan, and ending world hunger is a big one. Going vegan benefits human animals and non-human animals alike and in reducing the suffering of one group, we reduce the suffering of the other group.
If you want more information on exactly how eating meat is a major cause of world hunger, I encourage you to read this exceedingly well-referenced article by economist Jeremy Rifkin in it’s entirety.