| | World Hunger!!!
1. 20 vegetarians can live off the land required by one meat eater .
2. If Americans reduced their meat consumption by 10% it would free 12,000,000 tons of grain - enough to feed 60,000,000 people (the population of Great Britain).
3. If all Americans became vegetarian, it would free enough grain to feed 600,000,000 people (the population of India).
4. The UK imports £46,000,000 worth of grain from third world countries to feed thier livestock.
5. Due to overgrazing 850,000,000 people live on land threatened by desertification & over 230,000,000 already live on land so severely desertified that they are unable to sustain their existence & face imminent starvation.
6. 1 acre yields 165 lbs of beef or 20,000 lbs of potatoes.
7. It takes 16lbs of high protein soya to produce 1 lb of beef.
The Land!!!
1. If we continue to clear American forests to raise cattle at the present rate, in 50 years there will be none left.
2. Since 1945 in the UK they have lost 95% of flower meadows, 50% of ancient woodlands, 40% of heathlands, 50% of wet lands & 224,000 km of hedgerows all due to animal farming.
3. If everyone went vegetarian upto 90% of land used for animal farming could be taken out of production & used to replant woodlands, leisure activities etc.
4. 25% of Central america's forests have been destroyed for cattle grazing since 1960.
5. Between 1966-1983 38% of the Amazon rain forest was destroyed for cattle grazing.
6. 90% of cattle ranches established on cleared forest land go bankrupt in less than 8 years as the land becomes barren due to nutrient loss & overgrazing.
7. Overgrazing by cattle is destroying the land & increasing desertification, nearly 430 million acres in the USA alone has suffered a 25-50% reduction in yield since first grazed
The Air!!!
1. The 1,300,000,000 cattle in the world emit 60,000,000 tons of methane per year (methane is a greenhouse gas & leads to global warming).
2. Burning of forests, grasslands & agricultural waste associated with animal farming releases 50-100,000,000 tons of methane per year.
3. Combining these figures, 25% of methane emissions are due to animal farming (not including the billions of sheep, pigs & poultry so the real figure is much higher).
4. Ammonia from animal urine also pollutes the atmosphere.
The Water!!!
1. 25 gallons of water to produce 1lb of wheat & 2500 gallons to produce 1lb of meat.
2. UK farm animals produce 200,000,000 tonnes of slurry (liquid excrement) every year, the majority of which ends up in thier rivers.
3. In the USA every second humans produce 12,000 lbs of effluent while farmed animals produce 250,000 lbs.
4. Meat & dairy farming uses 70 litres of water per day per animal in the UK or 159,250,000,000 litres per year in total.
5. The water used to produce 10 lbs of steak is equivalent to the average consumption of water for an entire household for an entire year.
Efficiency!!!
1. To produce 1calorie of energy from meat takes 60 calories of petrol, whereas growing grains & legumes to directly feed people produces 20 calories for each calorie of fuel used ( thats 1200 times more efficient).
2. Meat & dairy farming uses billions of gallons of oil to run tractors, fuel ships & lorries (to move animal feed & animals), pump billions of gallons of water to irrigate fields & run slaughterhouses, power refrigeration units to prevent the corpses from decomposing & to power sewage plants to clean up some of the pollution produced.
3. Cattle convert only 6% of their energy intake (mainly grains & soya) into flesh, the remaining 94% is wasted as heat, movement (which is why they keep many animals in very close confinement), hair, bones, faeces etc.
4. 1lb of beef takes 1 gallon of petrol to produce.
5. In the USA in 1979 145,000,000 tons of crops were fed to cattle resulting in only 21million tons of animal bodies - the cost of the wasted crops was $20,000,000,000.
6. 70% of all grain is fed to animals.
...enjoy your Big Macs!
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