Wednesday, August 29, 2018

The best way to help farmers?

Farmers have hit the headlines here in Australia as large portions of Eastern Australia are in drought.

Very little rain means farmers are running out of water and often running out of feed for their animals. Obviously Australians want to help. But what to do?

This stat from The New Joneses (about the environmental impact of food) gave me an idea:


If we're choosing to eat meat, how about we switch some of our red-meat for chicken or pork? These meats require 11 times less water to produce, so farmers would need far less water to produce the same amount of meat.

It seems like the smart option in a country that is getting more and more droughts as climate change increases. The only thing it needs is for us customers to be buying it instead of red meat.

Obviously it's long-term solution but, given the inadequate government action on climate change, these droughts are also going to be a long-term part of our future.

The side bonus is that (according to the original science article) these meats also produce 5 times less greenhouse emissions - so our contribution to climate change (and future droughts) will be decreased.

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