At the Asia Pacific Greens Network Conference in Taipei on 1 May 2010 someone in the audience asked a question about the “vegetarian solution”. I thought the answer given by Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva very much cut to the point. I have transcribed the question and answer below.
Question: According to the UN report and many studies of scientists, they all indicate that livestock or agriculture is the main contributor to climate change. What do [the panel members] want to say about the vegetarian solution to the global crisis that we are facing today?
Vandana Shiva: Factory farming of livestock is definitely a very important contributor of greenhouse gases, especially methane. But normal livestock – grass fed – are important for a sustainable solution. The problem with many of these studies has been that they take the most industrial practice, for example factory farming for meat or intensive cultivation of paddy in Italy and extrapolate it to the world. As if the whole world treats its livestock in the torturous way that factory farming does. Of course there’s an alternative of vegetarianism and I’m for it, but we do need animals. I don’t think we should get into a mindset that cows are a problem. The cows are our partners and they’re part of the renewable system of energy and the renewable system of soil fertility and we don’t have to feed them soya bean. Beans fed to cows are the major source of methane. They’re meant to be herbivores. They’re meant to eat grass. Let’s not torture them by feeding them grain.
