Water scientists warn: Meat consumption leads to global famine!

Global water shortage may force the world to turn vegetarian by 2050

Press Release
31 August 2012

At the World Water Conference in Stockholm in August scientists met politicians and UN officials from 120 countries. They agree that the global water shortage will increase in the future, mainly because more and more animal feed is being grown. In order to prevent a disaster there must be a change in diet away from animal products.

World population is forecast to rise to nine billion people in 2050 and only with a change of diet can all of them be fed. In the forthcoming years meat consumption is expected to rise and there is expected to be an increase in severe famine and social unrest. A plant-based diet is thus an essential part of peace in the world.

In the main areas in the United States in which animal feed is grown and where cattle are raised the groundwater level is steadily dropping. This year's drought is a good example of this. The same applies in other western countries because, contrary to what is shown in advertisements, industrially farmed livestock do not live only on hay (dairy cows) or waste (pigs) but are also fed a lot of concentrated feed (especially soy), much of it imported*. The dry summer has led to price increases, resulting in farmers spending millions of additional Euros on imported concentrates. Replacing imports by homegrown soy will not solve the problem. The amount of agricultural land available is limited. More cultivation of concentrates within the EU would mean more imports of other agricultural products. That would sugarcoat the statistics of the meat and dairy industry but the problem of food and water wastage would simply be shifted.

When asked on tagesschau.de what factors are responsible for the price increases, Professor Gernot Klepper, Head of the Department for Environment and Natural Resources at the Institute for World Economy in Kiel said: "It is not biofuel, as Development Minister Niebel says. Currently only one to two percent of farmland is used for bioenergy. Meat consumption is the central factor. It is increasing worldwide, especially in China. And forage production for livestock takes up increasingly large areas. In this case the demand is coming mainly from Europe and Asia."

The EVU emphasizes that it is not only meat consumption that is causing these problems but the consumption all kinds of product from land animals such as dairy, eggs and poultry. Indeed animal products are often interconnected, e.g. dairy farming is inseparable from meat production.

20minutes, 27.8.2012:
"Only Vegetarians can save the world.
By 2050 the world population will have grown to nine billion people. As water is going to be scarce, scientists expect that meat consumption will fall over the next 40 years."

Der Spiegel, 27/08/2012:
"Water shortage: Researchers predict the end of meat culture."

The Guardian, 26/08/2012:
"Food shortages could force world into vegetarianism, warn scientists.
Water scarcity's effect on food production means radical steps will be needed to feed population expected to reach 9bn by 2050."

The scientific study on which these statements are based can be found online at SIWI, Stockholm International Water Institute:
"Feeding a thirsty world: Challenges and opportunities for a water and food secure world",
www.siwi.org/sa/node.asp?node=52&id=318


Renato Pichler
Vice-Chairman of the European Vegetarian Union (EVU)
Niederfeldstr. 92
CH-8408 Winterthur
Fax: +41 (0)71 477 33 78

Source: Water scientists warn: Meat consumption leads to global famine!
Author: EVU

Link: European Vegetarian Union
Link: FAO report Livestock's Long Shadow
Link: Food shortages could turn most of the world vegetarian by 2050, warn leading scientists
Link: The connection between world hunger/environmental impact and meat eating
Link: The world is running out of water