The Ethics of Food, Fuel & Feed

Abstract

As the collective impact of human activity approaches Earth's biophysical limits, the ethics of food become increasingly important. Hundreds of millions of people remain undernourished, yet only 60 percent of the global harvest is consumed by humans, while 35 percent is fed to livestock and 5 percent is used for biofuels and other industrial products. This essay considers the ethics of such use of edible nutrition for feedstock and biofuel. How humanity uses Earth's land is a reflection of its values. The current land-use arrangements, which divert 40 percent of all food to feed animals or create fuels, suggest that dietary and transportation preferences of wealthier individuals are considered more important than feeding undernourished people, or the stability of the wider biotic community.

Global agriculture as an energy transfer system and the energy yield of world agriculture 1961–2013

“…From a systems dynamics perspective, this represents significant overshoot and one must begin to question why, with such large crop surpluses, large portions of humanity remain underfed globally. More to the point, one must begin to question the fate of that agricultural surplus if it is not feeding “The Global Mouth” .…”

“…As with the observed doubling of global crop production, however, the large surplus of agricultural energy yield presents troubling questions regarding the fate of that output. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide remain underfed every year (i.e., they do not meet the necessary per capita energy intake for long‐term health or survival) . Necessarily, this observation leads to discussion of the partitioning of global agricultural output within the global agricultural system.…”

“…In addition to outright energy losses due to waste, a significant fraction of the global agricultural energy produced annually is diverted to livestock and poultry as feed. Estimates of the magnitude of energy transfer to livestock and poultry range from 20% to 40% . Understanding the total quantity of agricultural output diverted to feed is complicated.…”

“…There is a robust literature documenting the impacts of animal production on food availability for humanity (Pimental and Pimental, 2002). Though animal protein is important for human nutrition, diets in the developed world typically include much more animal protein than is necessary for maintenance and good health . For example, the 2013 per capita consumption of meat, poultry, and fish in the United States was 146.1 kg person −1 y −1 .…”

“…Societal decisions to feed livestock and poultry make those organisms our ecological competitors at the expense of hundreds of millions of people annually . Animals may be fed on many forms of fodder and they should not be fed food crops that could be used to nourish “The Global Mouth.” Limiting diversion of present‐day crop outputs to world livestock, poultry, fisheries and aquaculture production would liberate sufficient crop energy to feed hundreds of millions of people annually .…”