NPO Vege Project president Kawano Haruko wrote a column for the 3R Kentei.

The column is entitled “Building a sustainable future from our tables – The reason for which a vegetarian lifestyle is good for the environment”.

The “3Rs” is a term used to talk about natural environmental issues, and refers to the three terms “Reduce”, “Reuse”, and “Recycle”.

In the article, Kawano writes: “There are many things that we can do for the environment, but we hope this article will help you understand why many choose vegetarianism as an important measure”. We believe that rising awareness of this critical role of vegetarian eating among environmentally committed people can be empowering for both movements.

Kawano explains, based both on official statistics as well as on her own experience, about the close connection between eating habits and the natural environment. We quote some of these arguments:

1. The production of animal products results in the waste of food and natural resources. Statistics indicate that in many cases it requires 10 kilograms of grains to produce a single kilogram of flesh from an animal raised in a feedlot. A more efficient use of natural resources requires that people consume these grains directly, instead of feeding it to livestock.

２．The production of animal products is one of the leading causes of global warming. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has published a study indicating that livestock currently produces more greenhouse gases than all the means of transportation together (including cars, airplanes, trains, ships, etc).

３. Livestock currently covers 45% of the Earth’s total land. It also thought to consume 20 to 33% of the whole planet’s fresh water. Land and water shortage would be no longer be an imminent problem if we were to gradually switch to a vegetarian diet.

The article also speaks about the problems with factory farms. These Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) not only put animals in a dreadful situation, but are the cause of diverse problems, ranging from the massive pollution resulting from the disposal of massive amounts of animal blood and feces that contaminate land and water, to the creation of “superbugs”, that is, disease-causing bacteria that becomes resistant to the antibiotics that are shot into these animals.

If you want to read more, please feel free to read the full article at the following link! “Building a sustainable future from our tables”