Want to Stop World Hunger? Stop Eating Animals
Contrary to what some critics say, animal rights advocates do not despise humans or care about nonhuman animals more than humans, or seek to raise the status of animals at the expense of humans. Most animal rights advocates are also deeply concerned about human rights, environmental matters, and other issues, many of which are connected to one another and to animal rights issues.
World hunger is one of many areas where the rights and well-being of nonhuman animals and the rights and well-being of humans could be helped by the same solution. Read on.
"Give It Up, Guys," by Guardian writer Andrew Tyler
The truth can no longer be dodged. Livestock farming gobbles up agricultural land, water and energy that could far more efficiently be devoted to growing food for people to eat directly. Meat, therefore, is a rich person's food and those who consume it—whether in India, Denmark or England—cause malnourishment and death among the world's poorest people.
"Eliminating Hunger," from Creature Talk
Maybe you’re not an “animal person”. Not everyone is (unfortunately) . . . but I have yet to meet someone who would turn their back on a hungry child. Do your part: reduce your meat and animal product intake and help feed all the hungry people in the world. You can make a difference. Do it for your health, for the animals, the environment, and for all the people out there who will go to bed hungry tonight while some poor cow or pig suffers needlessly in a feedlot.
"Feast or Famine: Meat Production and World Hunger," by Mark Hawthorne
Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, DC, states it succinctly: “People go hungry because much of arable land is used to grow feed grain for animals rather than people.” He offers as one example the Ethiopian famine of 1984, which was fueled by the meat industry. “While people starved, Ethiopia was growing linseed cake, cottonseed cake and rapeseed meal for European livestock,” he says. “Millions of acres of land in the developing world are used for this purpose. Tragically, 80 percent of the world’s hungry children live in countries with food surpluses which are fed to animals for consumption by the affluent.”
Other Posts and Articles on the World Hunger–Animal Agriculture Connection:
Stephanie Ernst
wrote the original Animal Rights blog at Change.org until December 2009. She can now be found at Animal Rights & AntiOppression.
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