tony weis uwo geography email: aweis@uwo.ca the meat of the food crisis

Tony Weis UWO Geography

email: aweis@uwo.ca

The meat of the food crisis

LESTER BROWN:

~ 800 M motoristsvs.

2 B poorest

challenging narratives…

a ‘hungry planet’ that needs improved yields

an asymmetrically ‘meaty planet’ that needs to urgently reassess how efficiency is understood and reorganize how food is produced

vs.

The Ecological Hoofprint1. Scale2. Inequality3. Inefficiency

the ‘meatification’ of diets

+class

disparities

?

vector of ‘development’ & inequality

data: FAOSTATS

WORLDPOPULATION

20%

5%

25%

15%

3%

6.4%

data: FAOSTATS

the ‘Big 3’

data: FAOSTATS

70%

The Soaring 2

> 2X

data: FAOSTATS

the ‘Big 3’

data: FAOSTATS

2.3 x increase

data: FAOSTATS

The other population bomb

livestock

humans

3.6 xincrease

data: FAOSTATS

slaughtered

livestock

humans

7.1 xincrease

data: FAOSTATS

www.animalvisuals.org

-in the US, more chickens killed in 1 day today than were killed all year in 1930

China today

~1/5 humanity

>½ world’s pigs

Edward Burtynsky

1.5 x

4.1 x

data: FAOSTATS

data: FAOSTATS

The Industrial Grain-Oilseed-Livestock

Complex

data: FAOSTATS

source http://chartsbin.com/view/bhy

source: Global Hunger Index (2010)

p.c. meat

‘hunger hotspots’

data: FAOSTATS

Soaking up the surplus

Soaking up the surplus

from a deflationary millstone…

…to a steadily growing source of low margin earnings

large-scale farmers, processors, and traders

“Get big or get out”

The Industrial Grain-Oilseed-Livestock Complex

industrial monocultures & animals both disarticulated and entwined

‘Modern agriculture has become the art of turning oil into food.’

-B. Clark & R. York (2008:13)

INEFFICIENCY:‘biophysical overrides’for scale & simplification

Our ‘Ecological Hoofprint’

grain-fed livestock: “reverse protein factories” (Lappe)

- much useable nutrition lost in cycling

grains and oilseeds through livestock

-intensification of livestock production =extra land area + resources needed for agriculture

+ additional atmospheric & waterfootprints

Increasing attention…

- clearing forested land

- fertilizer (prod’n + transport)

- farm vehicles

- ruminant flatulence

the ‘Atmospheric Hoofprint’

uneven ‘atmospheric footprints’

populationSized by:

carbon footprint

Our Ecological Hoofprint1. Scale2. Inequality3. Inefficiency

4. Inter-species relations

“ethical dimensions of humanity’s footprint …[also] relate to how sentient life has been commodified; in other words, how the lives of individual animals are dominated to serve human economies and how extreme violence has been systematized and pushed into the unconscious.” (Weis 2007:40)

the ‘intimate commodity’

non-industrial agriculture: relatively closed-loop cycles of biological and physical

materials and managed diversity

mechanization

standardization /biological simplification

soil mining

‘biophysical overrides’

increased vulnerability toinsects, weeds,fungus, disease

inorganicfertilizer

chemicalpesticides

enhancedseeds andreduced soil moisture

increasedirrigation

increased water

disarticulation of livestock from land+ speeding turnover(factory farming)

pharmaceuticals& mutilations

distance & durability of food

increasing refining, processing, and

‘food miles’

Agriculture as through-flow process contingent on external inputs

INPUTS OUTPUTS

hinge on FOSSIL ENERGY & DERIVATIVES

carbon emissions

‘Modern agriculture has become the art of turning oil into food.’

-B. Clark & R. York (2008:13)

Phil Testamale

non-industrial agriculture: relatively closed-loop cycles of biological and physical

materials and managed diversity

soil mining

increased vulnerability toinsects, weeds,fungus, disease

enhancedseeds andreduced soil moisture

mechanization

standardization /biological simplification

inorganicfertilizerN, P, K

chemicalpesticidesinsecticides,herbicides,fungicides,disinfectants

increasedirrigation

disarticulation of livestock from land+ speeding turnover(factory farming)

pharmaceuticals& mutilations