One Member's Stand:
Sustainable Food Choices
Saving the world, 3 times a day

by Brett Wyker

When asked how one can help preserve natural resources, many would be quick to suggest recycling bottles and cans, turning off lights when not being used or fixing a leaky faucet. Although these are simple ways to reduce the amount of natural resources an individual uses, they pale in comparison to the simplicity and long-term impact of making environmentally responsible food choices. Competition to produce inexpensive meat, eggs and dairy products has led to the replacement of family-run, small farms with corporate-owned, high-density "factory-farms that raise tens of thousands of animals in extreme confinement. This intensive animal agriculture exhausts invaluable natural resources; thus, the most effective way to safeguard the health of the planet is to reject the consumption of meat, eggs and dairy products and to choose a more sustainable plant-based diet.

World hunger is a serious problem that affects the lives of millions of people worldwide. A shortage of food, however, is not the source of the global problem of starvation. It is the allocation of the food that prevents all human beings from having an adequate diet. For example, livestock consume approximately 70% of the grain grown in the United States.(1) If this grain, as well as the world's supply of cereals, roots, fruits and vegetables, were fed directly to people, rather than wastefully fed to animals on factory farms, there would be enough food to feed 115% of the world's population.(2)

Furthermore, agricultural acreage is being used inefficiently to grow crops that are fed to farm animals. On one acre of prime farmland, 40,000 pounds of potatoes, 40,000 pounds of onions, 30,000 pounds of carrots, 50,000 pounds of tomatoes or 60,000 pounds of celery can be grown and fed to humans. However, if that same acre of land is used to grow feed for beef cattle, only 250 pounds of beef will be raised.(3) Given the complexity of the issue of world hunger, simply changing your diet will, of course, not be enough to end the crisis. Yet choosing a diet free of animal products is, undoubtedly, a positive step toward conserving resources to feed people in the future.

In addition to being an extremely inefficient use of land and crops, concentrated animal agriculture contaminates and chokes the world's rivers, streams and groundwater. In the United States alone, nearly 10 billion animals are raised for human consumption. Consequently, there is 130 times as much livestock manure in this nation as human waste, equaling five tons of waste for each U.S. citizen.(4) Although the waste from farm animals can be a valuable source of fertilizer for crops, the inconceivable number of animals raised on factory farms produces far more urine and feces than could ever be safely dispersed across the nation's farmland. When there is no land to spray, lagoons store the immense piles of waste. However, both methods of waste management are inadequate. Waste that is sprayed on crops often flows into water sources through crop runoff. Lagoons often leak or collapse, releasing deadly levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients. This agricultural runoff and waste-lagoon leakage has led to the contamination of 60% of American rivers and streams.(4) Algae and deadly microbes quickly overrun contaminated rivers and streams, causing devastating ecological destruction. In 1997, pfiesteria, a highly toxic animal waste microbe, killed approximately 450,000 fish in North Carolina and approximately 30,000 fish in the Chesapeake Bay.4 Additionally, algae formed in the nutrient-enriched water sources threatens aquatic life. In the Gulf of Mexico, factory-farm runoff has created a "dead zone," a 7,000-square-mile area of water with insufficient oxygen to sustain aquatic life.(4)

Although the earth's surface is being destroyed, its inhabitants are starving and its rivers and streams are suffocating. Current regulations fail to effectively curtail the destruction. Instead of encouraging production of grains, fruits and vegetables that could feed the world's population, government agencies provide corporate factory farms with tax breaks and subsidies to increase animal production. Despite the few water pollution regulations that factory farms must follow, enforcement is almost nonexistent.

Like choosing to recycle a bottle, it is the consumer's choice that will inevitably put an end to destruction caused by animal agribusinesses. By purchasing meat, eggs and dairy products, consumers create the demand that keeps this hazardous system of animal agriculture alive. According to Erin L. Lees and Carl V. Phillips at Loma Linda University, "If food production, including livestock, is to live in balance with the environment, consumers worldwide must make the decision to lessen the demand for animal products..."(5)

This Earth Day, consider changing your diet to one free of animal products. Every person who chooses a sustainable, plant-based diet directly helps to balance out human existence and the natural world.

References

1. Lyman, Howard, and Glen Merzer. Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat . Scribner's, 1998.

2. Uvin, Peter. The State of World Hunger . Brown University World Hunger Program, 1992.

3. Robins, John. May All Be Fed: Diet for a New World . Avon Books, 1992.

4. Minority Staff, U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, 104th Congress. "Animal Waste Pollution in America: An Emerging National Problem." 1997.

5. Lees, Erin L., and Carl Phillips MPP, PH.D. "Dietary Choice: It Affects the Planet's Health, Too." Vegetarian Nutrition and Health Letter (2002). Loma Linda University.

One Member's Stand is a forum for our members' concerns. We welcome your submission .

Back to index

CoopScoop Home
CoopScoop Archives
Behind the Scoop
Guidelines for Article
     Submission