<As for South America,
<somebody is buying the grains that are being fed to animals and I do believe
that
<we, among others, are buying the meat that is now being raised on what was once
<rain forest. Certainly the land is not being used to feed the impoverished
South
<Americans. I don't think the issue is who is buying the meat as much as the
fact
<that it is being bought.>
Ann has addressed much of this point, but I would like to stress that we (that
is those of us in Canada & USA are NOT eating rain forest meat! North America is
a large net exporter of meat. Now you do have point if you ask why we are
overproducing what we dont have adequate markets for though...or if you ask why
we have to produce feedlot beef, factory chicken or factory pork...
<Who knows? I haven't been there but some things are obvious and some things
"ring
<true", at least to me. We produce and take in a tremendous amount of animal
<protein... feeding cattle makes less food potentially available
<to feed people--the conversion is what 16 pounds of feed/1 lb of person if that
feed
<goes through a cow first?.>
Sorry- wrong & wrong again! Feeding spent brewers mash, barley rejected for
brewing, wheat rejected for milling, or sorghum to animals makes MORE not less
food available for human consumption. Precicely because ruminant animals can eat
fibrous foods that we cannot process in our delicate gut. That sorghum or barley
is often produced on land that could not grow kidney beans or good bread wheat
for human consumption anyways. I really don't know what you mean about 16lb of
feed/1lb of person. Cattle gain their first 500-700lb on a diet of mothers milk
& grass. Their moms eat mainly grass. When the snow is too deep to paw through,
the rancher throws out a few bales made of that same grass for them to chew on.
We feed steers for the last 100-200 days of their lives on the kinds of grains
mentioned above. They gain about 2 & half lb/day eating 5lb of grain. That 2/1
ratio is roughly the same as the conversion for chicken & pork. The difference
is that cattle can eat sagebrush & twigs to put on the first 700lb (or more- if
you have the grass) it just takes a little longer. None of the feedstuffs
mentioned here are coming out of the mouths of hungry people.
<However, In countries were severe hunger,
<bordering on starvation, occurs, land that is used to produce animal feed,
whether
<the feed is exported or the meat is exported, is a significant factor in
causing
<that hunger.>
As far as I know, of the major countries exporting feedgrains USA, Canada,
Australia, Europe have little or no hunger problems. Argentina & Brazil have
greatly expanded feedgrain production recently in areas adjacent to export
ports. Those areas were formerly devoted to large-scale low-quality beef
production NOT rain forest or smallholder homesteads! This much I know pretty
well. I'm less familiar with the areas of NE Brazil where there IS genuine
hunger (and rain forest destruction). I think people are settling there who have
been made redundant by mechanisation of the sugar industry in N Brazil. Thats
similar to the mass migrations of US blacks from the south in the 1910's & 20's
and poor whites from the great plains in the '30's that contributed greatly to
urban social problems in this century. But I'm no expert...
<Certainly John Robbins lays a lot of the world's misery at those cloven hoofed
feet,
<maybe more than is justified, but there has to be some goal that is being met
by
<cutting down rain forest and confiscating the land of small land holders.
Sasha>
I agree with you there. But I think you are assuming a cause & effect
relationship where none exists i.e. A are cutting down rain forest; B are
unemployed & hungry; C eat meat; therefore A occurs because of B & C?
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