“The earth has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed” Mahatma Mohandus K. Ghandi

Starvation of the vulnerable is linked to the diet of the affluent.  Of planet Earth’s nearly 7 billion humans, roughly 1 billion people are malnourished, and 6 million children starve to death annually as a result of the meat and dairy based diet of the affluent. 

People in developing nations are forced to export their grain at political subsidy induced artificially low prices, while they and their children experience hunger, poverty and starvation.  The grain used to fed unfortunate sentient individuals raised for ‘food’ for the affluent could be used to feed hungry and starving people in developing nations.

Political subsidies have been linked to hunger and starvation in developing nations, and should be removed.  Political subsidies are caused by greed, deceit, and exploitation in the animal agriculture industry making financial contributions to politicians in return for political subsidies which make their products cheaper for consumers to buy than would be possible in a free market.

According to Oxford University economic projections, “Removal of subsidy dependent animal flesh and secretions from the global food system could save over a trillion dollars in environmental costs.  The exorbitant health care costs related to the meat and dairy based diet caused non-communicable diseases, (NCDs), would be reduced or eliminated when alternatives plant-based diets are allowed to compete in a free market.” 

Governments should instead support sustainable agriculture: veganic, stock-free organic and natural farming practices.  Financial incentives should be used to provide training in veganic /stock-free organic / natural agriculture instead of subsidizing livestock farmers.  Political involvement and redirected subsidies can move the emphasis of food production away from unhealthy, pandemic prone factory farming to small-scale natural plant farms owned and operated by the people previously marginalized by destructive animal agriculture. 

Subsidies in the food industry cause negative effects on human health, zoonotic disease, epidemics and pandemics, the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, some cancers, and some depressions in developed nations, and cause poverty, hunger, and starvation in children and adults in developing nations.  

Subsidies keep prices artificially low on the unsustainable meat and dairy based diet, causing negative effects on the planet including climate change, pollution of air, land, and water, species extinction, habitat destruction, deforestation, desertification, land degradation, and the immense suffering of other sentient individuals on the planet.

Most importantly, removing subsidies on innocent sentient individuals of other species exploited as food, would eliminate their unjust suffering, and redirect the Earth’s unsustainable trajectory.