You may have heard a vegan (or forty) boldly declare that veganism can solve world hunger.
Like this bald wackadoo for example.
In our fourth reason to go vegan, we are actually going to cover several topics:
all the way from solving world hunger and decreasing national debt, to your colon.
(What a nutbar...)
As good as this claim looks for veganism, such a sweeping statement has to be backed up with facts.
So apologies to my fellow vegans, but it’s about time for a good ol’ debunking.
Hi, it's Emily from BiteSizeVegan.org, where you can find free resources, eCourses,
kids' content, and a Guided Search to help you find just what you need, even if you don't know what to ask!
Speaking of eCourses, this video has one of its very own, so you can test your knowledge after watching!
Just click the "take the eCourse now" button at bitesize.link/WorldHunger where you'll also find all of my sources.
Before we dive into the question of whether veganism can solve world hunger, let's address a common misconception.
On its face, world hunger would seem to be a matter of food scarcity (not having enough food).
However, we already have more than enough food to feed the entire world's population.
In theory, we currently produce enough food for between 10 and 14 billion people—
exceeding the current population of around 8 billion (as of this filming)
and even eclipsing the United Nations' population projection of 9.7 billion by 2050.
Our global agricultural production continually outpaces population growth.
Yet the number of people going hungry continues to rise. Prompting the question: where is all the food going?
The paradox of food scarcity in the face of an overabundance of food comes down to
—in large part—how that food is distributed. The answer to "where is all the food going?"
is one of the primary reasons people think veganism can solve world hunger.
Our food is going to the animals we eat.
Over a third of our crops are fed to the animals we eat.
Less than half of the world’s cereals are eaten directly by humans.
Overall, more than half of the global plant protein we grow
goes to the animals we raise for food instead of directly to humans.
In fact, the United States alone could feed every person facing hunger in the world today
with the grains we feed to farmed animals— with a surplus left over.
Consuming animals is a profoundly inefficient means of gaining nutrition.
For example, the World Resources Institute found that "beef" passes only 1% of the calories
and 4% of the protein from the feed used to produce it.
Even the most "efficient" animal product addressed in the report (eggs)
passed along a meager 13% of calories and 25% of protein.
So if you're wondering where vegans get protein, we simply remove the inefficient "middle animal"
and get it directly from the plants.
You know us vegans and our.....
logic...
Our food crops are not the only resources diverted to the animals we raise for food.
Compared to crops with equivalent nutritional content, animal products demand significantly more water, land, and energy.
For example, the average per-calorie water footprint of beef is twenty times higher than that of cereals and starchy roots.
Half of our planet's habitable land is used for agriculture.
Astoundingly, "more than three-quarters of this [land] is used for livestock production,
despite meat and dairy making up a much smaller share of the world’s protein and calorie supply."
Plant-based diets require significantly less land. In fact, if everyone in the world went vegan,
we could reduce land use for agriculture by 75%.
An emerging field of harnessing microorganisms to grow our food could free up even more land,
with one method using bacteria requiring 1,700 times less land than soybeans to produce the same amount of protein.
Unfortunately, we are going in the opposite direction with our demand for land.
While the human population growth rate has actually slowed, the farmed animal population growth
rate continues to rise—and with that, a need for more land we do not have.
We're facing an overpopulation crisis not of humans, but of the animals we raise for food.
Animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change, which in turn is one of the leading causes
of increasing global hunger. In fact, in their report outlining the most effective means of mitigating climate change,
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared
"The greatest Shift potential would come from switching to plant-based diets."
The intricacies of climate change's effect on food insecurity are far beyond the scope of this video.
Please see the sources I've linked in this video's article.
In short, with our current food system and global dietary trends, we're not only unable to feed the world's hungry,
but more importantly—our planet simply cannot sustain the way we are eating.
The stark reality of our profoundly unsustainable food system certainly points to a dire need for
a global shift to plant-based diets. Why then is veganism not the solution to world hunger?
One key reason is inequitable distribution. It's not only that we're diverting resources to the animals we eat—
it's also that we're diverting those calories away from the people who need them most
to the animals who will be consumed by the people who can afford the animal products.
As Richard Oppenlander writes, "82% of the world’s starving children live in countries where
food is fed to animals which are then killed and eaten by more well-off individuals..."
Simply having more land and food doesn't mean that land and food will suddenly be distributed in an equitable manner.
Additionally, animal agriculture isn't the only cause of food diversion.
With the increasing demand for biofuel, we're literally burning around 11% of the world's cereals.
And further down the supply chain, food waste accounts for the loss of existing nutrition.
Another driver of food insecurity is political and institutional conflict,
including resource and trade wars.
It’s also important to note that the crops we feed to non-human animals aren’t always
suitable for human consumption, so it’s not as simple as shifting them directly to people.
In the same vein, land used for grazing farmed animals isn’t always suitable for growing crops.
Lastly, food insecurity is not just an issue at a country-by-country level:
it includes factors like the unavailability of food due to food deserts
and even the "unequal distribution of food between household members."
So, how do we solve world hunger?
If we were to take the issues of scarcity and distribution in isolation,
the main "solutions" would seem to be that we:
1) need more food and 2) need more wealth for those unable to afford access to food.
However, as we've learned, we already have more than enough food.
And in regard to increasing wealth, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) points out that,
"While poverty has decreased considerably... after decades of modest but steady decline,
hunger began to rise again in 2015. ...
Many countries now face a “double burden” that includes both undernutrition and overweight or obesity."
A reason for this seemingly paradoxical phenomenon is explained by Bennet's Law—
a well-established fact that as people's income rises,
so does their consumption of nutrient- dense foods like animal products.
While animal product consumption in some countries has slowed or even slightly decreased,
the majority of the world's population's consumption is increasing with improving living standards.
World hunger is a multi-faceted problem that requires a multi-faceted solution.
As we've learned, the consequences of animal agriculture impact each of these facets in some way.
So, while veganism alone cannot solve world hunger, world hunger cannot be solved
without a global shift to plant-based diets. Such a shift would increase the food supply,
free up land, water, and other resources, help lower food prices, increase access,
and allow for movement towards sustainable farming and more equitable food distribution.
If you think about it, the ripple effect of increased land, water,
and other resources would theoretically reduce the prohibitive cost of and access to farmland
—and even the need for conflict over limited resources.
It would also reduce the mounting pressures of the climate crisis —which is arguably the most pressing issue of our time.
To learn more about this complex topic, I highly recommend checking out the nonprofit A Well-Fed World.
And don't forget to take the free eCourse!
I hope this video has been helpful.
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