Meat consumption in China is soaring, and so are the greenhouse gas emissions that meat production causes. But there is a nascent counter-trend – a small but growing vegan movement in the country’s big cities.
Vegan activist and singer Long Kuan and a friend enjoy meatless “lamb” kabobs at a Beijing restaurant. Photo by Mary Kay Magistad.
Meat consumption in China is soaring, and so are the greenhouse gas emissions that meat production causes. But there is a nascent counter-trend – a small but growing vegan movement in the country’s big cities.
China’s growing appetite for meat and dairy is driving big changes in everything from farming to food safety. For the country’s increasingly wary consumers, those changes can’t happen quickly enough.
Over the past three decades in China, meat consumption per capita has quadrupled. This rapid change in diets has paralleled the massive migration from the countryside to the cities. City dwellers eat twice as much meat on average as those back in the villages.
This has put a strain on the country’s land and water resources. Agricultural runoff, mostly manure from large-scale farms, is causing water pollution within the country. Because of water shortages, China imports 70 percent of its soybeans and increasing amounts of its corn from the United States, Brazil, and Argentina to feed its cows and pigs.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has set up an office in Beijing to help train hundreds of Chinese companies, government inspectors and officials in food safety.
But some say the Chinese government is relying too heavily on inspections and needs to focus more on prevention.
Chinese fed up with waiting for government action have started to find other ways to access safer food – like buying imported, processed, or organic food.
With the increasing calls for more safe, affordable and environmentally friendly food, China’s leaders will need to show creativity and balance to meet those needs.
We wanted to catch you up on the “Food for 9 Billion” project, which has been taking most of our attention lately. As loyal readers will know, Ff9B asks what has to happen for the …
Americans love burgers. They’re filling, tasty and cheap. But what we pay at the counter is only part of the story. Check out this animated video from the “Food for 9 Billion” project, a collaboration between Homelands Productions and the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). CIR’s Carrie Ching directed and produced; art and animation is by Arthur Jones.
You can find a fully annotated version by clicking on http://cironline.org/reports/hidden-costs-hamburgers-3701.
Americans love hamburgers. They’re tasty, filling, and cheap. But not if you consider the damage they do to the planet.
Americans love hamburgers – we each eat an average of three a week. They’re tasty, filling, and cheap. But what are the hidden costs? Learn more in this animated short.
Produced by our partner, the Center for Investigative Reporting, with editing help from Homelands’ Jonathan Miller. Art and animation are by Arthur Jones. Visit CIR‘s story page to see an annotated transcript listing the sources for the information in the video.
