QUOTE(happy4ever @ Mar 26 2008, 02:25 PM)
More land? Chickens can be stacked upwards and remain in small confined spaces.
Same with pigs.
For for growing vegetables, it has to be on ground. If its hydroponic, then its good, but its very expensive.
If its grown in the soil, the same amount of land to hold a chicken in a coop, I'd say the chicken can feed about 2 or 3 people. For vegetables, you need more land, and a variant of plants too.
In other words, a balance need to be maintained, between meat eating and vege eating.
To be honest, there isn't enough crops in the world to feed everyone. It is also sensitive to climate changes, and infestations of pests.
And the word "eco-friendly" has been misused. If the agriculture farming is formed by clearing lands/ecosystem, then it is not eco-friendly. Just like the emerging trend to go Solar as being eco-friendly, but sub-contracted to China to mass produce it without any means to contain the polluting by-product from making solar panels. As a result, tonnes of HCL was released, whitening plants and everything around it.
Eco-friendly products aren't ecology friendly anymore. It's now economy friendly, at the expense of the ecology.
Chicken and pigs are one source of proteins, but you are forgetting sheeps and cattle.
Let me quote here a few lines from the energy debate in the EU about how biofuels would affect global consumption.
"To give those attending the evening debate in The Hague some idea of the scale of the biofuels discussion, FD Intelligence director and moderator Fred Bakker started off with a few brief facts. For instance, that biomass currently accounts for 11% of world energy consumption, but that more than 90% of that is classified as "traditional biomass", i.e. the firewood, animal manure and harvest waste that is used as fuel in poor countries. And that at
least 40, some say as much as 50% of all the world's foodstuffs is used to feed livestock and thereby produce animal protein, i.e. meat for human consumption."
Now imagine the impossible and the entire world decides to stop eating livestock, 50% of the world's foodstuff will be suddenly available.
And here is another excerpt about how sustainable a meatarian compared to a vegetarian.
"In Helma Kip's opinion, the market should decide what use land is put to, pointing out that
on average about 250 kilos of fodder are needed to produce one kilo of meat. "Here I can quote Dutch MP Diederik Samson, who once said that
a vegetarian in an SUV is actually behaving more sustainably than a meat-eater in a Toyota Prius.""
250kg of fodder can be from food to waste to produce 1 kg of edible meat. Even if 5% of those 250kg fodder is actually edible, it would still be more than the 1kg of meat being produced. So now imagine 50% of the world's food stuff production is actually made available for human consumption instead of being used to fatten up pigs and cattle to produce a smaller portion of tastier food.
Yes it is true some irresponsible corporations clearing land indiscriminately for agriculture. Even the EU is blaming Malaysia for unhealthy emmisions because plantation companies are clearing wetlands to be used as plantation for palm oil. Wetlands are known to be CO2 reserves thereby trapping them, but clearing it will release it to the atmosphere. But agriculture does not have to mean less trees though. It can be sustainable and if enough research poured into it, yields can be better and improvements to land usage will not deplete the minerals in the land.
I do agree with you however the term "eco-friendly" is being misused and abused for maximisation of profit. That is something for the local goverments and their enforcement abilities to control it.
So I still have to disagree with you that eating more vege will be a cause of environmental concern. Eating less meat or replacing it with vege has always been more healthy, more environmentally and ecologically friendly.
This post has been edited by skiddtrader: Mar 26 2008, 11:53 PM 
Mar 26 2008, 02:25 PM
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