Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The 1.4:1 kg of human food protein comes, not from CAST's own exhaustive analysis of
conversion ratios, but from FAO's 1997 analysis, which I have just referred to. The fact that
animal protein also happens to be regarded as 1.4 times as nutritious as vegetable protein
is a coincidence too good to ignore (never mind that energy intake may be a more reliable
indicator of nutritional value). What a perfect opportunity to suggest to the reader that these
two ratios cancel each other out, without risking academic credibility by actually spelling
it out. 'Thus', the summary continues 'diverting grains from animal production to direct
human consumption would, in the long term, result in little increase in total food protein.'
It shouldn't take the reader who has been following the argument long to spot the moun-
tain of deceit invested in that little word 'thus'. The final sentence is not a consequence of
the first two sentences, because the conversion rate of 1.4 kg of human food protein to one
kilo of edible meat protein is an average derived from the sum total of all livestock, some
of whom are fed a great deal of grain in their diet, while others (as the authors have only
just pointed out) are fed little or none. If we stopped feeding grain to animals we would
still retain over half of our meat supply and also benefit from about three times as much
nutrition in the form of grain as there was in the meat foregone. The last paragraph of the
sentence is a cleverly disguised lie.
In fact the main text of the report comes to a slightly different conclusion: 'From the
perspective of human protein, the use of animals does not decrease the amount of protein
available for humans.'
This makes sense if it is taken to mean that
if everybody stopped eating meat completely,
we would have no more protein than we do now
, which is a logical and correct conclusion
to be drawn from the FAO's analysis. This is not the same as saying that '
diverting grains
from animal production would result in little or no increase in food protein'
, because if
everybody stopped eating grain-fed meat but carried on eating meat from animals that were
not grain-fed then we would have more protein. In fact the main body of the report - the
part not available on the internet - does briefly point this out: 'The fact that several of the
input:output ratios are greater than 1:1 does mean that feeding less grain to animals would
translate to somewhat more total food for humans.'
'Somewhat more total food for humans'? How much is somewhat? Is not this the main
reason for CAST carrying out all its exhaustive 'input:output' analyses? What could be
more relevant to a report entitled
Animal Agriculture and Global Food Supply
? But on this
matter the scientists are completely silent, and hastily move off the subject by counselling
the reader in the very next sentence: 'It would also mean a food supply with less variety
and lower nutrient density.'
However, the figure is easy enough to work out from their tables: 400 million tonnes of
cereal grain. This is the extra food you would get if the 600 million tonnes fed to animals
at an estimated 3:1 efficiency were instead put over to human consumption. It is enough to
