In June, agricultural ministers
from around the world will gather in Rome for the World Food
Summit. The meeting will focus on how to create a sustainable
approach to development and get food in the mouths of the nearly
1 billion who are currently undernourished. More interesting
than the agenda, however, will be the menu. At both the official
dinners and at NGO gatherings, expect to see the consumption of
large quantities of meat. And herein lies the contradiction.
Hundreds of millions of people are going hungry all over the
world because much of the arable land is being used to grow feed
grain for animals rather than for people. Cattle are among the
most inefficient converters of feed. In the US, 157 million
metric tons of cereal, legumes and vegetable protein suitable
for human use is fed to livestock to produce 28 million metric
tons of animal protein for annual human consumption.
The worldwide demand for feed grain continues to grow, as
multinational corporations seek to capitalize on the meat
demands of affluent countries. Two-thirds of the increases in
grain production in the US and Europe between 1950 and 1985, the
boom years in agriculture, went to provide feed grain.
In developing countries, the question of land reform has
periodically rallied peasant populations and spawned populist
political uprisings. But the question of how the land is used
has been of less interest. Yet the decision to use the land to
create an artificial food chain has resulted in misery for
hundreds of millions around the world. An acre of cereal
produces five times more protein than an acre devoted to meat
production; legumes (beans, peas, lentils) can produce 10 times
more protein and leafy vegetables 15 times more.
The global corporations that produce the seeds, the farm
chemicals and the cattle and that control the slaughterhouse and
the marketing and distribution channels for beef are eager to
tout the advantage of grain-fed livestock. Advertising and sales
campaigns geared to developing nations are quick to equate
grain-fed beef with a country's prestige. Climbing the "protein
ladder" becomes the mark of success.
Enlarging and diversifying their meat supply appears to be a
first step for every developing country. They start by putting
in modern broiler and egg production facilities - the fastest
and cheapest way to produce nonplant protein. Then, as rapidly
as their economies permit, they climb "the protein ladder" to
pork, milk, and dairy products, to grass-fed beef and finally,
if they can, to grain-fed beef.
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Encouraging other nations to do this advances the interests
of American farmers and agribusiness companies. Two-thirds of
all the grain exported from the US to other countries goes to
feed livestock rather than to feed hungry people.
Many developing nations climbed the protein ladder at the
height of the agricultural boom, when "green revolution"
technology was producing grain surpluses. In 1971 the Food and
Agricultural Organization suggested switching to coarse grains
that could be more easily consumed by livestock. The US
government provided further encouragement in its foreign aid
program, tying food aid to development of feed grain markets.
Companies like Ralston Purina and Cargill were given
low-interest government loans to establish grain-fed poultry
operations in developing countries. Many nations followed the
advice of the FAO and have attempted to remain high on the
protein ladder long after the surpluses of the green revolution
have disappeared.
The shift from food to feed continues apace in many nations,
with no sign of reversal. The human consequences of the
transition were dramatically illustrated in 1984 in Ethiopia
when thousands of people were dying each day from famine. At the
very same time Ethiopia was using some of its agricultural land
to produce linseed cake, cottonseed cake and rapeseed meal for
export to the UK and other European nations as feed for
livestock. Millions of acres of third world land are now being
used exclusively to produce feed for European livestock.
Tragically, some 80% of the world's hungry children live in
countries with actual food surpluses, much of which is in the
form of feed fed to animals which will be consumed by only the
well-to-do consumers. In the developing world, the share of
grain fed to livestock has tripled since 1950 and now exceeds
21% of the total grain produced.
The irony of the present system is that millions of wealthy
consumers in the first world are dying from diseases of
affluence (heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, cancer) brought on
by gorging on fatty grain-fed meats, while the poor in the third
world are dying of diseases of poverty brought on by the denial
of access to land to grow food grain for their families. We are
long overdue for a global discussion on how best to promote a
diversified, high-protein, vegetarian diet for the human race.