We know the earth’s human population is booming. Already numbering over seven billion people, studies project we’ll reach nine billion by 2050. Of course, more people means we’ll need more resources to sustain ourselves. Extra food, water, and land will be required to meet our basic needs.
However, even now at seven billion people, an estimated 805 millionpeople suffer from chronic hunger. In addition, our natural resourcesare already under intense strain. From our rainforests to our oceans, natural habitats and the plants and animals that live there are disappearing at an alarming rate. If our population increases by two billion in the next 35 years, we’re going to need to give some serious thought as to how we can adequately feed everyone while still protecting what natural environment is left.
A plant-based diet has been proposed by some as the solution to our food problems. But would a shift to such a diet make a difference? Could the earth sustain nine billion people living on a plant-based diet?
The Problem With a Meat-Centric Diet
The problem is that the standard Western diet is extremely resource intensive. In order to produce animal products, land, water, and energy are required to grow, harvest, and transport the feed that is then fed to the farmed animals. We currently produce enough calories to feed 10-11 billion people worldwide, however, the majority of this food goes to feed livestock, not hungry people.
After feed for livestock is produced, additional land, water, and energy resources are required to house and raise the animals and dispose of their waste. Eventually, even more energy is required to transport these animals to slaughter and process their bodies.
Because we are already struggling to feed our current population, we should be adhering to a diet that minimizes the use of our precious resources – not a diet that requires astronomical amounts of resources. But do other diets actually minimize resource use in a meaningful way?
Comparing Resource Requirements Between Diets
A quick look at the amount of resources required to produce animal products versus the amount of resources required to produce plants in the U.S. alone is astonishing:
We use 56 million acres of land for animal agriculture while dedicating only four million acres of land to growing produce;
A staggering 70 percent of grain in the U.S. is fed to farmed animals rather than to people (The world’s cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people — more than the entire human population on Earth);
It takes 4,200 gallons of water PER DAY to produce a meat-eater’s diet. A plant-based diet uses only 300 gallons of water per day. Additionally, a whopping 70 percent of our domestic freshwater goes directly to animal agriculture;
All resources taken into account, one acre of land can produce 250 pounds of beef. Not when you consider the fact that the same acre of land can produce 50,000 pounds of tomatoes or 53,000 pounds of potatoes.
Instead of using our resources in the most energy-efficient way possible by growing plants to feed directly to people, we currently use our dwindling land and water to grow grain to then feed to animalswho we then eat, giving us considerably less bang for our resource “buck.” Think of what we could do if the entire world gave up all animal products!