Taking the Food Crisis Personally - CommonDreams.org

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/22/9806/

 

Published on Sunday, June 22, 2008 by The Huffington Post

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-friedrich/taking-the-food-crisis-pe_b_10799\

2.html>

 

 

 

Taking the Food Crisis Personally

 

by Bruce Friedrich

 

In April, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on food policy called

the diversion of crops to be turned into biofuels " a crime against

humanity. " Indeed, 100 million tons of corn and other crops that could

feed people instead feed our cars.

 

What then to make of the fact that more than 750 million tons of corn

and wheat are diverted from the mouths of the global poor (and away from

biofuels) to feed chickens, pigs, and other farmed animals? And that

doesn't even include the 80 percent of the global soy crop that is also

fed to farmed animals.

 

Surely this is a crime against humanity of even greater impact: First,

it's more than seven times as many crops that are diverted to feed

farmed animals so that we can eat the animals; second, while diverting

grains for biofuels does decrease global warming, the impact of eating

meat is bad for our health

<http://www.goveg.com/healthConcerns.asp>and environment

<http://www.goveg.com/environment.asp> --- there is no upside.

 

I adopted a vegetarian diet more than 20 years ago, after I read /Diet

for a Small Planet <http://www.smallplanet.org/>/, by Frances Moore

Lappe. In the book, Lappe makes the argument that using land to grow

crops for animals is inefficient, polluting, and that it steals food

from the mouths of the global poor. The point is echoed by the respected

environmental think tank, The WorldWatch Institute, which published a

report a few years back that declares:

 

" [M]eat consumption is an inefficient use of grain--the grain is

used more efficiently when consumed by humans. Continued growth in

meat output is dependent on feeding grain to animals, creating

competition for grain between affluent meat-eaters and the world's

poor. "

 

More and more, that message is getting a hearing, so that a few weeks

ago, the UN's climate chief Yvo de Boer told the Reuters news agency,

" The best solution would be for us all to become vegetarians. " Indeed.

 

....

 

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/22/9806/