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News News 2009 Compassion in World Farming's CEO Philip Lymbery calls for a Paradigm Shift in Thinking...
News News 2009 Compassion in World Farming's CEO Philip Lymbery calls for a Paradigm Shift in Thinking... | Compassion in World Farming's CEO Philip Lymbery calls for a Paradigm Shift in Thinking... |
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Over the weekend, leaders from the international animal welfare movement met in Paris to discuss what’s needed to succeed over the coming decades. One answer is that we need a paradigm shift in attitude toward animals at policy level. One that recognises that factory farming is not the way to feed the world sustainably. One that recognises the intrinsic value of animals and that denying this places global food supplies and ecological balances in grave danger. One key point explored was the need to end factory farming worldwide by 2050. Why 2050? Because the coming decades will change profoundly our current world of plenty as climate change bites and precious resources dwindle. Livestock farming is already a major user of land; it takes up 30 per cent of the world’s usable land area and consumes a third of the global grain harvest. Vast numbers of animals are now raised permanently indoors and reliant on food grown elsewhere. Consequently, massive areas of land are devoted to growing crops to feed them. Humans compete with farm animals for precious grain resources and with cars as biofuels take an increasing share of our croplands. By 2050, the world’s human population is predicted to increase from 6.7 billion to about 9 billion people. At the same time, the livestock population is set to double in the wake of growing demand for meat and dairy products, particularly from developing countries such as China and India. The global livestock industry already contributes 18 per cent of human-produced greenhouse gas emissions – more than the entire contribution of human transport. As the effects of global warming take hold, the sea is likely to rise and land will disappear Plentiful, cheap oil, the essential ingredient of industrial agriculture, is likely to become scarcer and more expensive, unraveling the current economics of so-called ‘cheap’ meat. Factory farming has been the engine-room of the livestock explosion, enabling large numbers of animals to be reared in small spaces. And there’s the rub. The world rarely gives something for nothing. Large numbers of animals in small spaces leads to environmental degradation and threats to our health as well as unimaginable animal suffering. At the same time, we cannot overlook those ‘ghost acres’ which are required to grow the feed for intensively housed animals. Factory farms are protein factories in reverse. They waste valuable food which could be used more efficiently if fed directly to humans. To produce 1kg of edible meat by typical industrial methods requires 20kg of feed for beef, 7kg for pig meat and 4kg for chicken meat. On average, to produce 1kg of animal protein, livestock are fed nearly 6kg of plant protein. If demand for resource-intensive meat escalates in the way predicted and if the number of farm animals produced annually doubles by 2050, the world faces severe resource challenges, which will impact farm and wild animals. The demand for feed crops for livestock will put intensive animal production in direct competition for land with people, biofuel production, forests and wildlife. For food production alone, an additional two million square kilometers of land will be needed by 2030. Sea rise predictions due to climate change suggest that a similar area of land could be flooded by the end of this century. All of this suggests that business as usual is not an option. The spread of factory farming and high meat consumption levels in rich countries are unsustainable. By 2050, the world will look a very different place. For the sake of farm and wild animals, people and the planet, we need to ensure that by 2050 the world has moved on from the folly of factory farming. Turning things around will require a paradigm shift in global policy thinking at all levels. To achieve this, we first need a paradigm shift in our thinking. The question is no longer what can we do practically to oppose factory farming? The question is what must we do to end factory farming by 2050? Our first and last need is for your support. Thanks to you, we have already achieved a great deal. With your further support, I promise you, we will be able to do much more. |
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