Does veganism do anything for world hunger? Let's cut the crap.
So everyone knows that it takes so much more resources to produce the same amount of food when the "food" in question is animal-derived. Some huge percentage of the world's farmland is used to feed "food" animals instead of to feed people directly. It also wastes other resources like clean water and petroleum, since so much more transportation is required to get the grains made, and to get them to the animals, and to get the animals to the slaughter, and to get the meat to the stores, and then to get most of the meat back out of the stores because it goes bad so quickly. It would be much more efficient to use that farmland to feed humans directly.
But does veganism do anything for world hunger?
Naive answer: Yes, because if there's more food for humans then there won't be shortages.
"Educated" (read:hiply cynical) answer: No, because food shortages are caused by economic and geopolitical factors much more complex than simple net food resources on the planet.
No bullshit answer: Yes, because even though the economic and geopolitical factors involved are quite complicated in many individual cases, basic supply and demand economics still factor in significantly in the creation of this problem. When one considers world food shortages in terms of actual examples rather than just an abstract postmodern boogeyman, this becomes clear:
Paul Krugman had a mostly-good column in the New York Times the other day, exploring the world food crisis. After digging through his typically overheated political boilerplate, one finds he narrows down the crisis into several unavoidable and a few avoidable factors. The unavoidable factors:
I conclude that inasmuch as the dietary choices of those in wealthy countries affects the world hunger situation (demonstrated by above "unavoidable" factors), veganism, particularly when practiced by inhabitants of wealthy and industrialized countries, can potentially do a lot to alleviate some of the most recent manifestations of the world hunger situation.
But does veganism do anything for world hunger?
Naive answer: Yes, because if there's more food for humans then there won't be shortages.
"Educated" (read:hiply cynical) answer: No, because food shortages are caused by economic and geopolitical factors much more complex than simple net food resources on the planet.
No bullshit answer: Yes, because even though the economic and geopolitical factors involved are quite complicated in many individual cases, basic supply and demand economics still factor in significantly in the creation of this problem. When one considers world food shortages in terms of actual examples rather than just an abstract postmodern boogeyman, this becomes clear:
Paul Krugman had a mostly-good column in the New York Times the other day, exploring the world food crisis. After digging through his typically overheated political boilerplate, one finds he narrows down the crisis into several unavoidable and a few avoidable factors. The unavoidable factors:
- The rise of the global middle class. This was discussed by Moisés Naim in the current Foreign Policy, and it boils down to a demand-driven price spike-more consumers means higher prices if supply is finite.
- High oil prices (which are, despite Krugman’s hemming and hawing, a relatively complex though quantifiable combination of demand-side factors and simple capacity at existing refineries).
- Massive crop failures in Australia and other producing areas were not balanced out by bumper crops in places like Kazakhstan. (Naim notes that 2007 was a record year for food production, but doesn’t really place food production in the context of demand growth and expected failures; demand growth matters a lot, but so do crop failures in accessible, traditional supply areas, as thriving areas like Kazakhstan don’t impact the world price.)
I conclude that inasmuch as the dietary choices of those in wealthy countries affects the world hunger situation (demonstrated by above "unavoidable" factors), veganism, particularly when practiced by inhabitants of wealthy and industrialized countries, can potentially do a lot to alleviate some of the most recent manifestations of the world hunger situation.