With the approach of Christmas comes the annual plea by aid charities
such as Oxfam and Christian Aid to support destitute communities in the
poorest parts of the world with gifts of farmed animals. Wealthy
Westerners find it hard to resist an appeal whose implicit message is
this: People are starving to death; you are enormously wealthy and
well-fed by comparison; demonstrate your humanity with a gift of a goat
or a cow � it�ll cost you very little and it�s a novel and fun thing to
do.
While the �logic� of the message is superficially appealing, it
collapses under very little scrutiny. Recent images from
drought-stricken Niger in western Africa make the point. We see a vast
landscape of skeletal-thin cattle � either dead or dying. They went
hungry because their owners were too poor to feed them, and they went
without water because there wasn�t enough for both people and animals.
Disease and inefficiency
Animal Aid first confronted the �Send A Cow� phenomenon four years
ago with a blizzard of press, radio and TV coverage triggered by an
article I wrote for The Independent newspaper. The message
remains the same. It is vastly more efficient to use available
agricultural resources (land, labour, energy, water) to feed people
directly rather than first passing nutrients through animals. It
therefore follows that it is nonsensical to saddle already impoverished
communities with a food production system that makes poor use of their
available assets. The rich world can afford meat and dairy products only
because of our surplus wealth and the financial cosseting of the
livestock sector. Recent data show that the average British dairy farmer
would make an annual loss of around �18,000 if not for a �32,000 public
subsidy (leaving him/her with a �14,000 �surplus�).
Some donor agencies try to confront the inefficiencies and
environmentally destructive impact of animal farming by setting up
�zero-grazing� regimes where goats, cows and other animals are
permanently confined in sheds. But they still need water and food � and,
in such cruel and deprived environments, can suffer high levels of
disease, early infertility and premature death.
Which brings us to a central objection to the animal gift schemes
that often gets lost in all the debate about production efficiencies and
environmental impacts. Animals suffer deprivation, disease and neglect
on farms run by full-bellied Westerners. The suffering they endure at
the hands of people who haven�t the resources to properly feed them or
lay on veterinary support is all too evident.
Drought victims aside, an example was published in the Mail on
Sunday soon after our campaign was launched, when a journalist went
to Lesotho in southern Africa to search out some glossy �successes�
boasted of in promotional literature published by the agency Send A Cow.
One woman, far from being healed of her TB � as claimed � was actually
bedridden. One of her children had died, there was no productive
vegetable garden and the goats were without water or food.
Creating deserts
It is often argued by aid agencies that they put their goats or other
animals on otherwise unproductive, low-grade land or where the climate
is particularly harsh and arid. But this leads to further environmental
degradation. Such land is often ideal for growing fruit-bearing bushes
or trees. Plantings of this sort stabilise the ground and help capture
water.
All the above is without reference to climate change. While the exact
contribution of animal farming to the generation of global warming gases
continues to be disputed, what is not in doubt is that �livestock�
farming�s share of the total is disproportionately high compared with
plant-based agriculture. And while most of those emissions are generated
in rich countries, it is the poor regions of the world that suffer most.
Rather than promoting animal farming as a solution to global poverty,
Send a Cow, Oxfam, Christian Aid, Age UK and the rest should tell their
supporters that their Big Mac habits are killing the world�s poorest
people.
by Animal Aid Director Andrew Tyler, as published in Issue 160 Autumn
2010 of Outrage magazine
VEGFAM helps people overseas by providing funds for
self-supporting, sustainable food projects and the provision of safe
drinking water.
Visit:
http://www.vegfamcharity.org.uk/ .
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