Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The True Cost of Cheap Meat

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

The True Cost of Cheap Meat

Click here to access a book review by Martin Empson posted on Climate & Capitalism.

Empson introduces his review of a new book entitled Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat by Philip Lymbery with Isabel Oakeshott with the following statement:

It is impossible to read Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat without coming to the conclusion that the world’s food and agriculture system is screwed. This is a system that produces enormous quantities of food, yet sees up to a third of that wasted. It’s a highly technological system requiring enormous quantities of oil, pesticides and chemicals to produce vast quantities of food; yet it’s a system that fails to feed the hungry.

Further on Empson reaches the following observation based on the book's examination:

Ultimately people go hungry because the agricultural system is driven by profit and there isn’t any profit in feeding the poor.