One aspect of sustainable living that has received considerable attention in recent years is the need to change our diets in a more vegetarian direction. One of the biggest proponent for this change is probably Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma (this is the next book on my reading list). The argument boils down to admitting that the rearing of livestock is not just an extremely energy intensive task, but it also results in extremely harmful collateral effects (waste disposal, health risks, etc.)
Recently, I came across this short blurb on the website FastCompany. In the article they distill down a summary of study performed by:
Erb, Karl-Heinz, Helmut Haberl, Fridolin Krausmann, Christian Lauk, Christoph Plutzar, Julia K. Steinberger, Christoph Müller, Alberte Bondeau, Katharina Waha, Gudrun Pollack, 2009. Eating the Planet: Feeding and fuelling the world sustainably, fairly and humanely – a scoping study. Commissioned by Compassion in World Farming and Friends of the Earth, UK. Institute of Social Ecology and PIK Potsdam. Vienna: Social Ecology Working Paper No. 116. (This is the requested citation.)
Both the summary and the full study can be found here courtesy of Compassion in World Farming.
From the abstract of the full study, it would be “probably feasible” to feed an estimated world population of 9.16 billion in 2050 on a 2800 calorie/day diet using organic agricultural methods with protein consumption limited to 20% animal derived. This sounds good. Now, sacrifices will need to be made. Currently, the average American style diet is 3171 calories/day with 44% of protein derived from animal sources. Furthermore, there will need to be a massive redistribution of food since cropland is not distributed evenly across the globe.
Key findings include:
- Feeding the world in 2050 is possible without using the most intensive forms of animal and crop production or a massive expansion of land for farming
- Humane methods of farming animals can provide sufficient food to feed a growing world population
- Providing sufficient food for all would be helped greatly if rich countries adopt healthier, lower meat-based diets and food is distributed more equally
- Sufficient food can be provided in 2050 without further deforestation
I’ll leave the thorough reading of the study to you, but the basic conclusion sounds very promising for the future of sustainable agriculture.
Tags: agriculture, organic, vegetarian
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[...] reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I mentioned that I was reading it in an earlier post with regard to sustainable agriculture. Having finished the book and having had some time to mull [...]
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