The livestock industry is responsible for taking up our world’s natural resources. The two main resources that our planet is running dry of are water and land.
In a time when our clean water supplies are dwindling and millions of people are projected to live in water strained areas, it is important to precisely understand exactly what our water is being used for. When you eat a piece of meat, you are effectively consuming all the water that the given animal has needed to live and grow. In fact, by reducing the production of just nine Big Macs would effectively save enough water for a person to shower every day for an entire year. The world population is going to continue to grow and the demand for fresh water will simply increase. We all talk about how freshwater is a renewable source, but the hard truth is that we do not have enough of it.
The livestock industry also plays a large role in shortage and degradation of land. Not only do we have to grow these livestock animals, but we also have to grow feed for them. The only way the livestock industry can thrive is by cutting down forests. Take the example of the Amazon Rain forest, considered “the lungs of our planet” because of its photosynthetic capacity is being cut down. A total of 12 percent has been destroyed already for the livestock industry and much of it is to grow feed for these animals. It has been projected that in the near future, the amount of land used to grow feed for livestock will be in direct competition with the amount of land used to grow food for humans.