Vegan movement at the junction of food security, Climate Change and COVID19:
By Purimetla Raghavi
According to the statistics given by Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), livestock sector produces 14.5% of the Greenhouse gas emissions. Another study published by Poore &Nemecek in The science Food production and products contribute to 26% of total Greenhouse emissions, in which 58% of the emissions come from animal products. Above statistics ratify the claims made by group of 107 scientists in UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change that the increase in meat consumption has adverse effects on Climate Change. The livestock rearing not only increases the gases like methane but also alters the land use patterns. Gaining the thrust from research in this direction, the vegan movement has been gaining momentum lately and asserting the need to adapt sustainable livelihoods by switching over to the vegetarian food. But it also raises few important questions on significant changes in the food security due to the switch over, endurance of Vegan movement in countries like India and role of the movement in post Corona world.
71% of the land available for productive purpose is utilised for the livestock. Methane gas released by the animals, expansion of pastures by deforestation and effluents from the meat Industry results in huge carbon foot prints from meat consumption. The climate change thus resulted will have the impacts such as extreme temperatures and uneven rainfall which effect the food production. Consequentially, production of meat increases as there is a less risk involved when compared to food grain cultivation. The effects of such changed patterns in production are not same on developed and developing countries. Countries like US import nearly 17% of the beef and 70% of protein needs in Britain are catered by meat alone. The meat requirements of western countries are met by imports from developing countries where the production of meat is high due to high demand from abroad. On the other hand, countries like India experience lower levels of food production due to climate change. Hence switch over to plant based diet (especially in western countries) is justified as the environmental costs of meat consumption borne by developing countries would be reduced.
Veganism in India:
Practise of vegetarianism is not hard in India, but it is also not easy considering the sociology of the food. Consumption of pure plant based diet is considered as a privileged savarna life style. Meat like beef and pork are eaten by lower castes (mostly Dalits) that are not rich enough to buy verities of vegetables. Apart from it, large sections middle class people in India consume combination of plant based and poultry based diet to meet their protein requirements. In such a scenario, the vegan movement and its impact would only be relevant to the few sections of the society. Switchover to plant based diet is a costly exercise as it would require more intake of different verities of vegetables, so it has gained less popularity among the middle class. Any coercive measures by government to bring changes in diet patterns would lead to severe impacts of under nutrition and malnutrition. Too much importance to veganism in India may also add fuel to the fire of food politics where people are beaten to death for eating beef. Also, consumption of wild animals is a part of tradition to many tribes in India. Hence restriction on meat consumption in the name of veganism is not as pragmatic as in western countries.
In the Post Corona world:
The whole episode of Corona and its link to non-vegetarian food has changed the people’s perception of meat consumption to a great extent. Even though the scientists have clarified that the origin of virus is because of unhygienic conditions in the markets, a lot of people have been shifted away from meat and the global animal husbandry industry has also witnessed sharp decline in demand for the meat. As a result consumption of vegetarian food increased and would grow further in the future. The change is not only because of apprehensions resulted due to Corona but also due to the governmental policies. As soon as the COVID-19 started spreading to the outer world many countries along with china have closed their wildlife markets. One of the ministers in Haryana openly called for quitting of meat consumption to be safe from the virus. As a result, scepticism regarding meat consumption has grown among the people which is less likely to wither way in the post Corona world.
Success of Vegan movement would have been less possible earlier even in the western world. But now, if not for climate change people will change over to plant based diet atleast because of fear over viruses. This change in attitudes along with industrial innovations in production of vegetarian foods at cheaper rates would result change in consumption patterns.
