Land

786: 

In this whole debate about the ethical uses of animals we face some arguments which aren’t easy to answer convincingly. Here’s one concerning the use of land, where answers aren’t forthcoming for lack of full and fair discussion.

             Question: How, precisely, is the World going to feed a predicted nine billion humans in 2050, unless plant-based foods are promoted and unless animal-based foods are dropped? It would seem absurd to breed billions of animals and feed them valuable food, only to eat those animals when the food we feed them could feed us. The land used to grow fodder crops could be used for growing plant-based foods.

            There’s one snag in this argument and I think it’s not being addressed by either side - some land is not suitable for agriculture, which is land that has been traditionally used to graze animals. At first glance, making use of marginal or semi-arid grasslands would seem like an efficient use of otherwise un-usable land. It makes sense perhaps. There again, we know these days that the competitive market requires animals (mainly cattle) to be fattened in feedlots, to bring them to weight, to make them economically viable. For that they must be fed grain. And that grain could be better used to feed humans.

            Now this is perhaps a simplistic argument to what involves a complex economic problem. But the problem itself, in relation to whether we should or should not use animals for food, is not being. Why? Perhaps the answer isn’t as clear cut as most of us would like?

            Certainly, in poorer countries where subsistence crops were grown on available land, that same land is now being used for fodder crops for export to wealthy countries, who use it to feed their animals. The people of these poor countries are being left to starve. Once again, we the consumer, if we were not eating the animals in the first place, would not be supporting the production of fodder crops on valuable land (which could otherwise grow plant-foods for humans).

            It’s not so much that we face problems of how to feed people but that we are not willing to frame policy or look at problems from the point of view of those who are presently suffering needlessly, and in the end that includes all of us. The debate, if ever there is any, doesn’t centre on the far future nor on ways to feed people more efficiently. It only concentrates on the here and now, shoring up failing businesses, most notably the animal-raising businesses, when their ultimate failure would be to the overall benefit of the majority of people and the future in general.