Vegetarianism Promotes Sustainability Management

Discuss About The Vegetarianism Promotes Sustainability Management.

Gilsing et al.(2015) define vegetarianism as the nature of human beings of living exclusively on food products obtained from plants and avoid products obtained from animals. There are over 375 million vegetarians in the world and their population is steadily increasing. Vegetarianism is often described as a more environmentally friendly food habit compared to eating non-vegetarian diet or a combination of both.

Environmentalists often claim that non-vegetarian diet contributes to global warming and emission of greenhouse gases (theguardian.com 2018). management, others advocate that this claim is not entirely true and sustainable. While some cultures from the eastern civilizations like India traditionally advocate vegetarianism, the western cultures like the American culture have also started following the suit.

The essay would delve into the effects on the global environment if the entire global population were to turn into a vegetarian. The accuracy of the claims of vegetarianism being more environmentally friendly would be weighed against the utility that non-vegetarian food has on its consumers and on the environment as a whole. A few specific benefits of being vegan that needs mention are that Vegetarianism can lead to falling in diseases like heart disease, it can help to decrease in greenhouse gas emission and last but not the least it helps to save energy to manufacture non-vegetarian food products. Therefore, it can be claimed that vegetarianism is not always sustainable because it would lead to acute food shortage especially in arid regions which do not produce enough crops.

Vegetarianism is always sustainable and in fact environment-friendly. On the other hand, vegetarian food is not always sustainable, especially in the arid regions. The arid regions which include hot desserts and cold desserts. These regions do not produce enough crops to support the local population (Cohen et al. 2017)s. The small variety of crops grown in these regions is not able to meet the nutritional requirements of the people. Hence, the people living in this region depend on meat and other animal products like milk and eggs to meet their daily dietary requirements (Vanos, Hebbern and Cakmak 2014). The vegetarian food is rather sustainable as because most of the food nowadays is imported and vegetarian food will be quite good for the health especially in the arid regions. The economies like the United States of the Arab Emirates which are situated in the arid regions of the world have developed chains of supermarkets owing to their economic prosperity. These supermarkets sell vegetables, fruits and other vegetarian products sourced from all over the world. The multinational food manufacturing companies markets products like jam and packaged fruits (Gilsing, et al. 2015). These food products are derived from different parts of plants and can be stored for a longer time than non-vegetarian products. Thus, vegetarian products would make the life of people more sustainable even in arid regions which do not produce sufficient food crops indigenously. The cattle-rearing industry requires the immense area for the cattle to graze in order to fatten them. The cattle farming industry which is very developed in markets like South America is slowly eating into the natural resources like the forests. The cattle farmers and breeders exploit the natural water reserves which leave the forests and grasslands prone to more fire. The cattle meat processing firms which use highly advanced technology are also devastating to the water resources around their processing plants to process the meat (theguardian.com 2018). Thus, the very rearing and production of non-vegetarian food products are proving devastating to the environment. It can be counteracted that vegetarianism is not always sustainable and environmentally beneficial. This is because vegetarian food contains far less protein than non-vegetarian food as the availability of plant protein is more or less restricted to legumes. This means if economies were to meet their protein requirement from vegetarian food, they would have allocated more land to the cultivation of legumes at the expense of food crops like rice (Lee, B.J., Kim, B. and Lee, K., 2014). One can clearly point out that this cultivation would result in food shortage. Hence, consumption of meat to supplement plant food is more sustainable for economies than totally depending on plants as food sources.

It can be said that vegetarian diet is more sustainable and causes less pollution compared to non-vegetarian food production. It is the responsibility of the governments to provide the sustainable framework to these industries. The dry countries like the UAE have increased their imports of fruits to Dh 4.6 billion. This proves that countries are slowly shifting towards vegetarianism to gain sustainability and reduce their meat consumption (gulfnews.com 2018). The vegetarian food can thus be said to be easily accepted as it is easily available in different areas of the world and can be made easily available in all areas of the world. Vegetarian lessens the harmful effects of the environment. The reduction in the harmful effects helps in the betterment of the environment (Vanos, Hebbern and Cakmak 2014). The harmful effects like killing animals, procuring meat can be stopped and ecological balance can be easily restored as a result of vegetarian diet.

It cannot be opined that vegetarian mode of food habit is sustainable. The rate of sustainability depends on the economic development of the country. One can point though apparently vegetarian food products are cheaper to store and transport, they attract immense customs duties when they have to be imported to poor and dry countries. This makes them too expensive for consumers in poor countries (Li, et al. 2016). Moreover, their nutrition value also falls due to long storage time. The locally available non-vegetarian food like meat and eggs are less expensive compared to these imported vegetables and fruits. Thus, in reality, vegetarian food does not personify sustainability in all regions of the word. Growing of crops also require the immense amount of energy. The modern agrarian society uses the immense amount of petrol to use modern machinery to till large tracks of land. Thus, vegetarian food production to results in huge pollution. The agricultural sector in all countries is not uniform. The poor countries do not manage their agricultural sector properly. Inefficient manage of fields results in the release of methane and a large number of pollutants. The agricultural sector, if not managed properly can lead to massive pollution. The run-offs from fields carry fertilizers which pollute surface water and groundwater.

The inconsiderate killing of animals and eating their meat disturbs the ecological balance. This can be only restored as a result of being vegetarian. The vegetarian diet can be helpful for the environment as people will be encouraged to grow more and more plants which can help reduce the carbon emissions. The production of non-vegetarian food industry like meeting cattle killing and processing consumes an immense amount of water. The meat processing factories release an immense amount of poisonous gases. This also contributes to global warming (Zhang, et al. 2017).

It can be refuted that processing of vegetarian food products obtained from plants releases less poisonous gases compared to meat factories. Further, one can point out that exporting of meat products leads to more consumption of petrol to not only transporting meat products but also to preserve them. Marketing, it can be concluded that vegetarian mode of diet is more environmentally friendly and help in minimizing global warming (un.org 2013). Production of vegetarian food also erodes the soil and harms the environment. The poor countries use improper intensive cultivation when rids the soil of its nutrients. Thus, the degree of sustainability vegetarianism actually promotes depends a lot on the economic conditions and techniques used to manufacture crops.

Conclusion:

A vegetarian diet is more sustainable and causes less pollution compared to non-vegetarian food production. It is the responsibility of the governments to provide a sustainable framework to these industries. Loss of ecological balance can lead the world into an uncertain future. The increase of vegetation will turn the world a much greener place. The world can be a better place to live if every species live in a peaceful and harmonious way. The human species has been utilizing its intelligence to destroy the environment. However, this must be stopped to ensure a better place for the species. Vegetarianism can lead to a release of less amount of poisonous gases, thus helping controlling global warming.

References:

Cohen, A.J., Brauer, M., Burnett, R., Anderson, H.R., Frostad, J., Estep, K., Balakrishnan, K., Brunekreef, B., Dandona, L., Dandona, R. and Feigin, V., 2017. Estimates and 25-year trends of the global burden of disease attributable to ambient air pollution: an analysis of data from the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2015. The Lancet, 389(10082), pp.1907-1918.

Gilsing, A.M., Schouten, L.J., Goldbohm, R.A., Dagnelie, P.C., Van Den Brandt, P.A. and Weijenberg, M.P., 2015. Vegetarianism, low meat consumption and the risk of colorectal cancer in a population based cohort study. Scientific reports, economics, p.13484.

GulfNews. 2018. Dubai vegetable and fruit trade reaches Dh6.4b in first half of 2013. [online] Available at: https://gulfnews.com/business/economy/dubai-vegetable-and-fruit-trade-reaches-dh6-4b-in-first-half-of-2013-1.1256186 [Accessed 18 Jun. 2018].

Lee, B.J., Kim, B. and Lee, K., 2014. Air pollution exposure and cardiovascular disease. Toxicological research, 30(2), p.71.

Li, L., Yang, J., Song, Y.F., Chen, P.Y. and Ou, C.Q., 2016. The burden of COPD mortality due to ambient air pollution in Guangzhou, China. Scientific reports, 6, p.25900.

United Nations Sustainable Development. 2018. Rate of Environmental Damage Increasing Across the Planet but There Is Still Time to Reverse Worst Impacts if Governments Act Now, UNEP Assessment Says. [online] Available at: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2016/05/rate-of-environmental-damage-increasing-across-planet-but-still-time-to-reverse-worst-impacts/ [Accessed 14 Jun. 2018].

Vanos, J.K., Hebbern, C. and Cakmak, S., 2014. Risk assessment for cardiovascular and respiratory mortality due to air pollution and synoptic meteorology in 10 Canadian cities. Environmental Pollution, 185, pp.322-332.

Vidal, J. 2018. 10 ways vegetarianism can help save the planet. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/18/vegetarianism-save-planet-environment [Accessed 13 Jun. 2018].

Zhang, Q., Jiang, X., Tong, D., Davis, S.J., Zhao, H., Geng, G., Feng, T., Zheng, B., Lu, Z., Streets, D.G. and Ni, R., 2017. Transboundary health impacts of transported global air pollution and international trade. Nature, 543(7647), p.705.