Are you acquainted with HIPPO (Help International Plant Protein
Organization)?
According to Neville Heath Fowler N.D.A., Director, HIPPO “takes
practical help to people in poor countries who are working to improve
the nutrition of the needy, through the provision of good plant protein
foods. People and animals are HIPPO’s concern. ‘Feeding the world with
compassion’ is its motto. The work is entirely dependent on voluntary
donations and volunteer workers. Every penny given goes to work and
nothing is wasted on paid staff or glossy brochures.”
HIPPO’s particular concern is to change the way in which food and the
resources involved in the production of food (land, water and energy)
are utilized. Two basic facts stand out and underscore the importance of
this approach:
1. When food is fed to livestock to produce meat and milk, 90% of it
is wasted.
2. More than 75% of the agricultural land in Europe and the U.S. is
used to grow food for livestock. For example soy is the biggest single
agricultural crop in the U.S. and 95% of it is fed to livestock.
Unfortunately, the developing countries are rapidly moving in the same
direction. China has moved from being a net exporter of cereals to being
a massive importer, principally to feed its pigs, and the Chinese now
consume more meat per person than do North Americans. Africans produce
and consume a fraction of the legumes that they did thirty years ago.
Their place is taken by the growing consumption of animal foods
resulting in the wholesale clearance of forests, soil erosion and
floods. What point is there in breeding threatened animal species
without tackling the very thing that threatens them – the destruction of
their natural habitats?
To learn more about this important work, please visit:
http://www.ivu.org/articles/net/hippo.html
