Contents:
Overview | Global Warming | Deforestation and Loss of Biodiversity | Overuse of Fresh Water | Destruction of the Oceans | Fish Farming | Pollution: Antibiotic Pollution | Chemical Pollution | Heavy Metal Pollution | Pesticide Pollution | Desertification | Bird Flu | Health | References

Desertification

The world’s topsoil is its lifeblood and without it almost nothing will grow. It is essential for life and yet it is under such constant attack that it is retreating, disappearing or degrading almost everywhere animals are farmed. The onslaught comes from two sources – direct grazing by animals and denaturing due to the excessive use of pesticides and fertilisers used in an attempt to artificially boost productivity of fodder crops.

Forty per cent of all agricultural land has been degraded in the last century because of compaction by the hard hooves and heavy bodies of animals along with nutrient depletion and pollution. The problem is greater in some areas than others. The UN FAO maintains that about 20 per cent of pastures and rangelands are degraded in the more fertile areas of the world but in the arid and semi-arid lands, which girdle one third of the Earth, the figure is as high as 73 per cent .

Ex-rainforest land is particularly prone to deterioration as the soil is comparatively thin. It has adapted over thousands of years to support the forest with its network of roots but these also hold the soil together. Cattle and other grazing animals make short work of breaking down the soil’s structure.

Loss of trees and green vegetation have other effects. They no longer act as a sponge, soaking up heavy rainfall and instead it floods off the land carrying top soil with it. When this silt reaches the ocean it can smother much of the life there.

However this process eventually ends as the loss of evaporation through the trees’ leaves reduces water vapour in the atmosphere and prompts a drying of the climate to such a degree that rainfall can virtually cease. The end result of these different factors is desert. When this happens, those responsible move on and repeat the process elsewhere.

The environmental consequences of this destruction are immense but it is encouraged by political and social events. It is not only multinational beef and fodder companies that are responsible but the inequality in some countries. In Brazil, most of the fertile land is in the hands of a small class of rich landowners who cultivate a comparatively small area of their land. Consequently, poor farmers, with little knowledge of soil conservation, are forced to make their living by farming marginal soils and this further depletes the soil (UN FAO, 2006). 

When drought strikes and crops fail, as in the appalling Ethiopian famines of the early 1980s, there is enormous sympathy in the affluent world. Few are aware – or are made aware – that their dietary practices play a part.

The Sahel region, of which Ethiopia is part, has suffered greatly from overgrazing by cattle. Herd sizes were increased dramatically when deadly sleeping sickness disease (trypanosomiasis) was chemically controlled and far more cattle were grazed than the land could sustain and the resulting land degradation resulted in famine.

When the images of human suffering were shown daily on TV the disaster was presented as an act of nature – it wasn’t! Most Sahel countries, including Ethiopia, reported an increase in exports of agricultural products – meat and fodder – during these desperate times (Smulders FJM, 1991). There was no shortage of food but it was the wrong kind. The reasons for the famine were political and economic and they usually are and are repeated all over the third world – hard currency earnings from the export of meat and fodder given preference over food for local consumption.

The main grazing animals across the world are increasingly cattle in order to fuel the hamburger culture and in an attempt to ape the West – West is best! However, as land degenerates and becomes unsuitable for cattle, goats and sheep are increasingly being grazed on the most marginal land and their appetite for almost any vegetation ensures virtually complete destruction. It really is the coup de grace.

The most effective way of slowing down soil degradation and desertification is to reduce overgrazing, deforestation and intensive agriculture. The only way to do that immediately and effectively is for people to change their diet – go vegan. There really is no other solution.

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