Re: [Marxism] Books on Vegetarianism (Not Just a Dietary Choice)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Anyway, my question to those interested is: what books advocating
> vegetarianism do you recommend and why?
>
> all the best

Calvin, you should look at Francis Ford Lappe's "Food First," which puts
these questions into the context of environmentalism as well as animal
rights. To put it an nutshell, the rearing of livestock is irrational from
the standpoint of soil and water resources.

ALEXANDER COCKBURN ON BEEF

Unsustainable grazing and ranching sacrifice drylands, forests and wild
species. For example, semi-deciduous forests in Brazil, Bolivia and
Paraguay are cut down to make way for soybeans, which are fed to cows as
high-protein soycake. Humans are essentially vegetarian as a species and
insatiate meat-eating bring its familiar toll of heart disease, stroke and
cancer. The enthusiasm for meat also produces its paradox: hunger. A people
living on cereals and legumes for protein need to grow far less grain than
a people eating creatures that have been fed by cereals. For years Western
journalists described in mournful tones the scrawny and costly pieces of
meat available in Moscow's shops, associating the lack of meat with
backwardness and the failure of Communism. But after 1950, meat consumption
in the Soviet Union tripled. By 1964 grain for livestock feed outstripped
grain for bread, and by the time the Soviet Union collapsed, livestock were
eating three times as much grain as humans. All this required greater and
greater imports of grain until precious foreign exchange made the Soviet
Union the world's second-largest grain importer, while a dietary "pattern"
based on excellent bread was vanishing.

Governments--prodded by the World Bank--have plunged into schemes for
intensive grain-based meat production, which favors large, rich producers
and penalizes small subsistence farmers. In Mexico the share of cropland
growing feed and fodder for animals went from 5 percent in 1960 to 23
percent in 1980. Sorghum, used for animal feed, is now Mexico's
second-largest crop by area. At the same time, the area of land producing
the staples--corn, rice, wheat and beans--for poor folk there have fallen
relentlessly. Mexico is now a new corn importer, from rich countries such
as Canada and the United States, wiping out millions of subsistence
farmers, who have to migrate to the cities or to El Norte. Mexico feeds 30
percent of its grain to livestock--pork and chicken for urban eaters--while
22 percent of the population suffers from malnutrition.

Multiply this baneful pattern across the world. Meanwhile, the classic
pastoralists, who have historically provided most of the meat in Africa
with grazing systems closely adapted to varying environments, are being
marginalized. Grain-based livestock production inexorably leads to larger
and larger units and economies of scale.

(From the "Beat the Devil" column in the April 22, 1996 Nation magazine)

Full: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/ecology/cattle.htm



Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org


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