Correction*

'Worldwide, between 1988-1990, humans consumed 822 million
tonnes of grain, while livestock consumed 642 million tonnes.
(New Internationalist, May, 1995)'  IOW,the land used to grow
grain for livestock could provide grain for ~ 4,680 million people.

"There can be no question that more hunger can be alleviated with a
given quantity of grain by completely eliminating animals [from the
food production process]. About 2,000 pounds of concentrates
<excluding grazing/silage/hay>
[grains] must be supplied to livestock in order to produce enough
meat and other livestock products to support a person for a year,
whereas 400 pounds of grain (corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, etc.)
eaten directly will support a person for a year. Thus, a given
quantity of grain eaten directly will feed 5 times as many people as
it will if it is first fed to livestock and then is eaten indirectly by
humans in the form of livestock products...."
-- M.E. ENSMINGER, PH.D., internationally recognized animal
agriculture specialist, former Department of Animal Science
Chairman at Washington State University, currently President of,
Consultants-Agriservices , Clovis, California

(822mt / 6,000*m = 0.137* tonnes total grain per person, per year.)
SO, the 642 million tonnes of grain fed to livestock is actually
providing the equivalent in grain for
(642mt / 5 = 128.4 million tons. 128.4mt / 1.37t =) ~930.72* million,
instead of (potentially) providing grain for ~ 4,680 million people.
When the gross food value of meat is replaced by grain, 80%
of the land used to grow grain for livestock is still freed-up.
Thus, the best way to reduce pressure on arable land, (and other
resources, like water) is to reduce or eliminate the consumption
of livestock products.

They shouldn't be.

Farmers Throw Away Ploughs - Crop Yields Soar
1-17-01

Farmers across the developing world are throwing
away their ploughs in a dramatic example of "sustainable"
farming, a practice that is now sending crop yields soaring
on millions of farms.

The findings come from the largest ever study of sustainable
agriculture, released at a conference in London on Monday
The report's author, Jules Pretty of the University of Essex,
says sustainable agriculture is now defying its reputation as
a worthy enterprise with little chance of feeding millions
of starving people. He says sustainable farming has been
the most effective way of raising farm yields in the past
decade and that farming without tilling is among the most
widely adopted forms.

Pretty says the growth is very exciting: "If it spreads we
can make substantial inroads in reducing hunger."

Nature versus nurture

Sustainable agriculture deliberately lowers manmade
inputs such as chemicals, while maximising nature's input.
It replaces fertilisers with plants that fix nitrogen in the
soil and pesticides with natural enemies of pests.

And it is catching on. It now covers three per cent of third
world fields, an area the size of Italy. Its methods are
having big impacts on farm yields, with typical increases
of 40 to 100 per cent.

"Sustainable farming has grown in the past decade from
being the preserve of a few enthusiasts into a broad
movement involving governments and the private sector",
says Pretty, whose study collected data on 200 projects
in 52 countries and was commissioned by the UK
government's Department for International Development.
"It is cheap, uses locally available technology and often
improves the environment," he says. "Above all it most
helps the people who need it - poor farmers and their
families, who make up the majority of the world's hungry
people."

Weed killer

In Latin America, small farmers left behind by past
farming revolutions have seen yields of grain and beans
rise by two-thirds using "green" methods, says Miguel
Altieri of the University of California, Berkeley.

The most widespread new technique is farming without
ploughing. In Argentina a third of fields now never see
a plough - farmers get rid of weeds by planting off-season
crops that kill them.

Besides relieving them of one of the most tedious jobs
on the farm, abandoning the plough improves soil quality
and raises crop yields. It even helps curb global warming
by accumulating carbon in the soil.

"In a short time, farmers saw reduced costs and greater
productivity, increased income and a better environment,"
said Lauro Bassi, an agronomist from Santa Catarina in
southern Brazil, where zero-tillage has been widely
adopted "For us zero-tillage is like a social movement."

Correspondence about this story should be directed to
latestnews@newscientist.com

https://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999325

I am confused.

I thought that the cause of hunger was not lack of food production
capacity, but wars, sieges, lack of any substance that the hungry
people could pay for food etc.

Example: blacks are now starving in Africa after confiscating white
lands. (see a Wall Street Journal article detaining their story,
below) The lands used to be productive in the hands of white
farmers. Then they were confiscated and given to blacks, who did not
take care of the land properly and are now starving.

How is it the fault of my meat eating habit that these blacks are now
starving.

Should I give up my meat eating and instead send grains to these
people to reward them for confiscating white land?

i
who prefers to eat his meat

Once a Breadbasket,
Zimbabwe Today
Can't Feed Itself
Politics, Drought, AIDS Bring
A Severe Food Shortage;
Aid Is Coming Up Short

By ROGER THUROW
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

PUPU, Zimbabwe -- There will be no traditional Christmas goat roasting
on a spit here this year, and no Christmas chickens, either. The
prospect of Christmas beer dried up long ago, along with the supplies
of sorghum used for brewing.

The big holiday helpings of corn meal will be smaller than usual, for
corn, the nation's staple food, is the scarcest commodity of all.

"We don't have enough food to really celebrate this year," says Luka
Philip Ngwenya. "Christmas will just come and go like any other day."

For most people, that will mean a small ration of corn meal,
supplemented with the roasted Mopani caterpillars and dried wild fruit
that have helped keep villagers alive for the past couple of months.

Mr. Ngwenya, a 63-year-old peasant farmer, stretched out under a dying
Msasa tree in one of the hungriest places in one of the hungriest
countries in the world. He waited patiently, along with hundreds of
his neighbors, for the monthly distribution of food from the U.N.'s
World Food Program and the aid organization, World Vision.
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On that day, 4,008 people were fed -- 70% of the local
population. Throughout Zimbabwe, international humanitarian agencies
are gearing up to feed more than six million people, which is more
than half of the entire nation. That makes Zimbabwe, proportionally at
least, the neediest recipient of food aid in the world.

The feeding of such multitudes is a surprising sight in a country that
several years ago was selling up to 500,000 metric tons of surplus
food to the WFP for distribution to starving people elsewhere. Now, it
receives 500,000 tons of food aid. Zimbabwe today is home to many of
the same factors, natural and man-made, that are propelling an
increase in the number of hungry people world-wide -- even though more
food is being produced than ever before.

A scorching drought has taken a toll here. But the situation has been
exacerbated by politics. President Robert Mugabe, in the face of
rising opposition, pushed a fast-track land reform that confiscated
white-owned commercial farms and redistributed the property to loyal
supporters of his Zanu-PF party. Many of the new owners were
inexperienced in running large agribusinesses and food production has
fallen dramatically.

In Christmases past, as recently as four or five years ago, when
Zimbabwe was a breadbasket of Africa, this was a time of communal
feasting and Christian celebration. But now, most families don't have
enough for themselves, let alone for sharing. Rampant food shortages
and an inflation rate soaring toward 700% have made goats and chickens
too expensive to eat.

"Even if we have a chicken for a special meal, it is better to sell it
for money to buy other food," says Lahlekile Mpofu, a skinny, elderly
woman who opens up a ragged plastic bag to receive her ration of split
peas.

She and others came to this distribution last week hoping there might
be a Christmas present of a bit more food than usual. Instead,
organizers announced they would actually be getting less, as the
standard ration of corn meal was cut in half to 11 pounds. The
pipeline of international food aid into the country is growing thin,
the hungry were told, so corn-meal rations were reduced this month to
make supplies stretch until the next harvest in April or May.

"What can we do? We have no choice," Mrs. Mpofu says with a
shrug. "Half a loaf is better than none."

The drought is into its third year in some rural places such as
Pupu. HIV/AIDS has stricken one-third of Zimbabwe's adults and is
devastating the ranks of productive farm workers. So many people are
dying that one of the few thriving industries is funerals. The
county's largest funeral company announced last week that it would be
opening five new parlors around the country, prompting speculation
that it might even seek a listing on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange.

Today only a couple of hundred of the 4,500 confiscated farms are
still fully functioning. Harvests of food staples plummeted by as much
as 90%, livestock herds dwindled and production of the main cash crop,
tobacco, slumped badly.

The resulting dearth of foreign currency has caused shortages of seed,
fertilizer and fuel, which in turn have led to a drop in production on
the peasant farms. Unemployment, which has soared to 70%, combines
with the inflation rate to make whatever food is available too
expensive for most of the population. A goat now costs as much as the
equivalent of $200, which would nearly consume a teacher's monthly
salary. Human-rights groups have charged that the ruling party has
doled out food that is being produced locally in exchange for
electoral support.

In October, the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch released a report
documenting examples of residents being forced to display a Zanu-PF
party membership card before being given some government grain. Those
that didn't went hungry, the group says.

"Zimbabwe stands alone as how one person can ruin a country," says
Tony Hall, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture
Organization and the WFP. Mr. Mugabe, he says, "has committed crimes
against humanity."

Mr. Mugabe has dismissed such criticism, as well as the financial and
travel sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe against him, as the
actions of rich, white nations that don't want to see a black African
country succeed. His government rarely issues visas to foreign
correspondents, branding them agents of Western critics. Reporters who
do slip into the country must report clandestinely and are unable to
question government officials. In the past, Mr. Mugabe, who led
Zimbabwe to independence in 1980, has blamed his troubles on former
colonial master Britain for not supporting land reform
earlier. Britain has said that Mr. Mugabe corrupted the process by
rewarding the party faithful.

Addressing a party conference earlier this month, Mr. Mugabe defended
his government's seizure of commercial farms for redistribution to
black Zimbabweans. "Our people are overjoyed, the land is ours," he
told his followers, according to local press reports of the
conference. "We are now the rulers and owners of Zimbabwe."

January to April are the toughest months in Zimbabwe as food stocks
from the previous spring's harvest are exhausted. During that period
earlier this year, the international community fed seven million of
Zimbabwe's 12 million people. Now, the numbers are inching up to that
mark again, as hunger also takes hold among unemployed urban residents
and the resettled farmers.

At the same time, the pipeline of food aid coming into the country is
getting thinner. After two years of sending food to Iraq and
Afghanistan, as well as Ethiopia and other African nations, donor
fatigue seems to be setting in. Humanitarian-aid agencies are finding
donations aren't keeping pace with all the competing demands.

In Zimbabwe, the crisis has deteriorated rapidly. While neighboring
countries such as Zambia and Malawi, which were also stricken by
drought, have recovered as the weather has improved, Zimbabwe, with
its political and economic turmoil, hasn't.

In December, the WFP had enough cereals, mainly corn meal, to meet
only 49% of estimated requirements, which is why it went to
half-rations. By March, given current donor pledges and scheduled
shipments, it estimates it will be able to meet only 25% of cereal
requirements and 19% of staples such as beans and peas. It takes about
two months for food donations to be shipped to Zimbabwe, and at the
moment, there is little scheduled to arrive in April. The WFP is
trying to generate more donations of food or money for Zimbabwe. If it
doesn't, rations will continue to get smaller to stretch out the food
that is in the pipeline.

This puts the U.S. in the quandary of responding to a humanitarian
crisis in a country led by a government it has stridently criticized,
somewhat like the situation in North Korea. Even though the U.S. has
pushed to isolate the Mugabe government, it has sent aid to the
country. Since 2002, the U.S. has donated 437,000 metric tons of food
to Zimbabwe.

One group that hasn't received much international aid so far are
farmers on the resettled lands in Zimbabwe. International aid agencies
say some large donors have been reluctant to have their money and food
go to these farmers because the donors don't want to support
Mr. Mugabe's land program. The government, in turn, hasn't cooperated
with aid agencies seeking to do a needs survey on those lands.

The U.S. and the European Union, the two largest donors of food to
Zimbabwe, say they are monitoring the situation there and will
continue to respond to humanitarian need.

Next year's harvest may not offer much relief. Even if the weather
cooperates, the corn production in Zimbabwe isn't expected to exceed
this year's harvest of about 800,000 tons. Already, the international
aid community in the U.S. and Europe is penciling in a 1 million-ton
deficit for 2004.

In the western area of the country around Pupu, the outlook is
bleak. The rains are late, seeds are scarce and many animals once used
for plowing have died from a lack of food and water. The yield from
last April's meager harvest began running out in August, forcing many
people to survive on tea, wild fruit and the Mopani caterpillars,
which in good times are eaten as a snack, not as sustenance. The WFP
and World Vision, which fed this area during the lean months last
year, returned again in November.

"If they didn't come back, people would be dying," says Siphatisiwe
Ncube while waiting in line for food.

Field monitors of international aid agencies report scattered cases of
desperate farmers eating their seeds rather than waiting for optimal
planting conditions. Under the Msasa tree in Pupu, Mr. Ngwenya and a
dozen other peasant farmers say they haven't resorted to that.

But are they tempted?

"Oh, yes," they shout in unison.

While the people waited patiently under a scorching noonday sun for
their rations of corn, split peas and cooking oil, the village dogs
bided their time too. When the last bag of food aid had been carried
away, the dogs moved in to lick up any of the corn meal or peas that
fell to the ground and escaped the brooms of the sweepers.

"This is really a sign of hunger," says Robinah Mulenga, a WFP
official at the distribution as she watched two brown dogs lap up
stray corn meal. "African dogs usually eat what is left over from the
family meals. But now nothing is left over, so even the dogs are
hungry."

Other signs of growing desperation noted by aid workers in the
country: men leaving their drought-choked farms to pan for gold, women
heading to the cities to work as prostitutes, young people sneaking
across the border to find work in the neighboring countries,
particularly South Africa.

On food distribution day, the parched soccer field of the Pupu primary
school was covered with hundreds of bags filled with food from all
over the world. From one of the goalposts hung a sign explaining the
rations: 11 pounds of corn per person, 4 pounds of peas, and 3 pounds
of the corn-soya blend.

Another banner posted at a corner of the field said: "Food provided to
the people of Zimbabwe by WFP in collaboration with World Vision to
restore hope, alleviate suffering and save lives."

"This is just about food. People must come in normal clothes, no
political T-shirts," said Zvidzai Maburutse, World Vision's deputy
director of relief in Zimbabwe. Last year, aid agencies suspended
distributions in other parts of the country when local politicians
tried to turn the handouts to their own benefit.

At this distribution, 35 tons of food was handed out without
incident. Mrs. Ncube, barefoot and in a blue dress, walked two hours
to collect her share, but she worries it won't be enough to feed a
family of 11 for a month. As she waited her turn, she chewed on a
small piece of dried wild fruit. "It gives you energy for several
hours," she said.

What is her Christmas wish? "More corn meal, please," she says.