The Fight for the World's Food »

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  Avg rating: (+17/-1 16)

  militantveg

  June 24, 2007, 1:51 p.m.

  Plants Can Feed the World, says The Vegan Society (UK).

  In Mexico, 80 percent of children in rural areas are undernourished, yet livestock consume more grain than the human population eats!

  35 years ago, Egypt was self-sufficient in grain. Now, livestock consume 36 percent of Egypt's grain; Egypt now imports 8 million tons of grain a year.

  In 1950, Taiwan was a grain exporter; in 1990 the nation imported, mostly for feed, 74 percent of the grain it used.

  40 years ago, Syria was a barley exporter. Syria must now import barley; livestock consume increasing amounts of the grain.

  If the world population triples in the next 100 years, meat production will require 11.1 billion acres of cropland and 22.5 billion acres of grazing land.

  But this is larger than the land area of the six inhabited continents! On a vegan diet, the world could support a population several times its present size. The world's cattle alone consume enough to feed 8.7 billion humans.
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  Avg rating: (+6/-2 4)

  canadianrancher57

  June 24, 2007, 5:58 p.m.

  I have been trying to make a decent living from farming for over 30 years, does this mean that things will finally be looking up, I don't think so. This story may have merit but I have been hearing this shortage of food story for so long that it hardly causes me interest. The corn that is being used for ethanol is still being fed to cattle after it is processed. I think there will be more interest in fuel from bio mass in the future. As for the comment above about how much land is wasted for the production of beef some of that land is very marginal and ripping it up to produce grain is not a good idea, you also would be destroying alot of habitat for animals that live there with the cattle.

  We have seen meat prices rise lately to the consumer but actual beef prices have dropped to cattle producers, this is another situation of someone profiting by scare tactics.
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  Avg rating: (+4/-0 4)

  HMMace

  June 24, 2007, 9:27 p.m.

  I wonder what it would be like if our politicians where not so crooked, and our companys not so greedy..Jefferson has 90,000. dollars of marked money in his freezer, and no one does anything, why?? There is no law against what ge did?? Why not??
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  Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)

  kedirian

  June 24, 2007, 11:36 p.m.

  There is a simple solution: drop that Biblical "Go forth and procreate!", in other words, diminish the roles of Religions, who in their own unctuous ways treat humans like cattle to be bred at will, and - oh by the way - lots of humans make it easier to wage war!

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