FOOD 16

From CFI

Date:

1/5/04

Researcher:

Linda Perrine


Sources:

Jeremy Rifkin’s “Beyond Beef”,

John Jeavons & Ecology Action website,

John Robbins’ “Diet for a New America”


Question:

How much land does it take to feed one adult human?


Answer:

Depends on their diet:

  • meat (what kinds: beef, buffalo, chicken, turkey, pork, rabbit, etc.)
  • seafood (fish, eel, shrimp, lobster, crab, oysters, mussels, fish eggs, etc.)
  • animal by-products (eggs, honey, dairy(milk, cheese, yogurt, etc.))
  • grains (rice, wheat, rye, barley, etc)
  • nuts (walnuts, almonds, pistachio, cashew, macadamia, etc.)
  • vegetarian (vegetables + grains + protein foods (beans, tofu, tempeh) + animal by-products)
  • vegan (vegetables + grains, + non-animal based foods),

According to Jeremy Rifkin’s “Beyond Beef”:

  • 6 billion people keep 1.3 billion cattle, 900 million pigs, 1.3 billion chickens; ALL have higher metabolisms than humans resulting in more grain feeding American livestock than currently feeds American people
  • Livestock(chicken, pig, cattle) converts between 2.2 * 20 pounds of grain into 1 pound of meat
  • To support a grass-fed livestock meat supply, 45,000 sqft of land is required to feed 1 person a high meat diet,
  • but only 10,000 sqft on a vegetarian diet (conventional methods);


According to John Jeavons & Ecology Action website (www.growbiointensive.org):

  • Economically, conventional agriculture in the US produces on the average up to $100 per sixteenth of an acre; the net return on a $500,000 investment on the average 500-acre farm is about $12,000, or a little over 2 percent
  • Conventional agriculture uses 100 times the energy in mechanical and human forms per pound of food produced compared with biointensive growing methods
  • Biointensive mini-farm can feed 1 person a vegetarian diet on 4,000 sqft (John Jeavons)

According to John Robbins’ “Diet for a New America” (taken from http://marcussharpe.com/diet.shtml):

  • Number of pure vegetarians who can be fed on the amount of land needed to feed

1 person consuming meat-based diet: 20

  • Number of people who could be adequately fed by the grain saved if Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10%: 60,000,000
  • Pounds of potatoes that can be grown on 1 acre of land: 20,000
  • Number of acres of U.S. forest which have been cleared to create cropland to produce a

meat-centred diet: 260,000,000

  • Amount of trees spared per year by each individual who switches to pure vegetarian diet: 1 acre
  • Amount of meat imported annually by U.S. from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama: 200,000,000 pounds (America is destroying the rain forests)
  • User of more than half of all water used for all purposes in the United States: Livestock production
  • Water needed to produce 1 pound of wheat: 25 gallons; Water needed to reduce 1 pound of meat: 2,500 gallons


Diet Recommendations:

  • American Diet:Refer to the USDA’s Food Guide Pyramid for recommended daily servings of each food group

(http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga95/FIG01.HTM) This will differ significantly by other authorities around the world, as evidenced below)

  • Recommended percentage of daily calories to be derived from protein according to World Health Organization: 4.5%; Recommended percentage of daily calories to be derived from protein according to Food and Nutrition Board of the U.S.D.A: 6%; Recommended percentage of daily calories to be derived from protein according to

National Research Council: 8% (This shows diet recommendations even vary by who is doing the recommending)

Retrieved from "http://www.cloudforest.org/FOOD_16"