Meat is causing food shortage, not solving it
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John Arnone writes, "Without meat we couldn't feed humankind" (Letters, November 10). It is exactly because people eat meat that there is an increasing shortage of food. For example, to use land to produce maize for animal feed, and then eat the animals
Further, due to the over-intensive nature of animal husbandry, antibiotics are added to animal feed to prevent disease. It is this abuse of antibiotics that is causing the increase in resistant bacteria. These antibiotics are then consumed by people, together with growth hormones fed to beef cattle. Add to this the diseases caused by meat, and the medical industry is faced with a serious double whammy, for which the consumption of meat and dairy is responsible.
It simply does not make sense to create infertile dustbowls with over-intensive mono-crop agriculture to feed over-intensively produced meat at the expense of feeding people. We are indulging in appalling animal cruelty and destroying land fertility to feed animals for meat that we do not need and are not physiologically suited to consuming. All this because people say they like a juicy steak for dinner and bacon and eggs for breakfast – while others are starving.
With a rapidly growing world population, this archaic meat-and-dairy industry system as a means of feeding people will become increasingly unsustainable.
JC Wilcox
