Community | March 24, 2010 | 3 comments

A Deforestation-Based Diet: Seven Foods That Are Destroying the World's Forests

source: http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/foods-destroying-worlds-forest.html

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JanforGore
We hear a lot about the importance of eating organic and eating local, but left out of the conversation are the growing methods of some of our staple foods, and how much forest land has been lost to grow (or raise) products like beef, rice, and palm oil—the latter of which is in more foods than you might realize.

When agricultural land becomes unproductive (usually after about three years), it is often cheaper to clear new land than to fertilize it or replenish nutrients that were drained from the soil. Monocrop agriculture is a major factor in how modern food production has become unsustainable, but coffee and banana production both serve as examples of smooth, successful transitions. They have been drivers of deforestation in the past, but more recently farmers have been using more intercropping and forest cover (ever heard of shade-grown coffee?), which helps to prevent deforestation and preserve biodiversity. This is surely due in no small part to activist campaigns waged in recent years to educate consumers and to generate change in the supply chains.

This is a quick look at common foods contributing the most to deforestation—and as a result, to climate change—around the world.


cont.
  1. groups:
    Community,   Green,   Earth and Science,   Sustainable Agriculture,   3 more
  2. tags:
    Climate Change,  Hunger,  Deforestation,  Food Sovereignty,  5 more
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3 comments // A Deforestation-Based Diet: Seven Foods That Are Destroying the World's Forests

  • treewolf39
    • 0
      treewolf39  

    • It is fitting that cows are number one. Somewhere I saw a cool graph showing the amount of potato's produced on one acre compared the amount of beef that one acre of land produces. I can't remember haw much difference there was but it is significant.

    • 2 years ago
  • captainplanet71
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  

    • And to raise another point, we are then growing enough food to feed the world and still over a billion people go hungry while our environment pays the price for greed and the unsustainable ways we grow it and who gets access to it. It is no exaggeration to state that we as a species will have to see a paradigm shift in how we live our lives in order to not only preserve the climate balance of our planet, but to understand how our actions are causing poverty and hunger globally. This is also the link to adequate healthcare and why supporting campesino movements for food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture that can grow healthy food without the use of pesticides is now imperative.

    • 2 years ago
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