Fighting Excessive food consumption
with special focus on fish and meat
in developed countries
What is overconsumption?
● The term “overconsumption” is defined as the state in which renewable
resources are being exhausted at a higher rate than they can naturally replenish
themselves.
● Therefore, by overconsumption of food/ excessive food consumption it is
described the phenomenon of buying more food than needed, one consequence
being throwing away the remains even though they could still be useful.
Why is the problem of overconsumption important?
The "ecological footprint" of human activity was 50 per cent higher than the capacity of
the Earth's land and oceans in 2008, the most recent year for which figures are
available, with people living as though we have a planet and a half to sustain us.
This means the Earth now needs 1.5 years to produce and replenish the natural
resources consumed in just one year.
How and why does overconsumption happen?
One of the aspects of living is consuming. Every day, humans consume the natural
resources they have been given: air to breathe, water to drink and food to eat. But
except the basic needs, humans consume far more goods and services such as cars,
houses, travel and entertainment. And the market always makes it seem like we need
even more than that, we have to buy more.
The consequences? Perhaps the biggest one is the environmental consequence as
everything we use is extracted, mined, cut down, fished, farmed in the natural world.
Thus, the high demand for goods and services puts a high pressure on the limited
natural resources.
Aspects of food overconsumption in developed countries
It was found that food consumption in developed countries is four times greater than the
appropriate sustainability level. This means that the average person in a developed
country consumes organic resources four times faster than they can replenish. This
phenomenon may partially be explained by the affordability of natural resources in
today’s economy, or by general socioeconomic trends in more advanced nations.
Fish overconsumption and its environmental effects
In the past, fishing was more sustainable because fishermen could not access every
location and because they had a
limited capacity for fish aboard their
vessels. Today, however, small
trawlers and fishing boats have
been replaced by giant factory ships
that can capture and process
extremely large amounts of prey at
a given time.
According to marine ecologists, overfishing is the greatest threat to ocean ecosystems
today. Overfishing occurs because fish are captured at a faster rate than they can
reproduce. Advanced fishing technology and an increased demand for fish have led to
overfishing, causing several marine species to become extinct or endangered as a
result. In the long-term, overfishing can have a devastating impact on ocean
communities as it destabilizes the food chain and destroys the natural habitats of many
aquatic species.
As much as 85% of the world's fisheries may be over-exploited, depleted, fully exploited
or in recovery from exploitation. The problem affects one fourth of the fishes of the
world.
A 2008 United Nations report stated that the world's fishing fleets are losing US$50
billion each year through depleted stocks and poor fisheries management.
Freshwater creatures in the tropics have seen the worst declines, of around 70 per
cent, while tropical species as a whole have seen populations tumble by 60 per cent
since 1970. Industrial fishing has caused a catastrophic loss of fish such as northern
tuna in the western Atlantic.\\
Freshwater creatures in the tropics have seen the worst declines, of around 70 per cent,
while tropical species as a whole have seen populations tumble by 60 per cent since
1970. Industrial fishing has caused a
catastrophic loss of fish such as
northern tuna in the western Atlantic.
A well-known example of overfishing
was the collapse of the cod fishery at
Grand Banks, Newfoundland, Canada
in 1992. The area was once renowned
as the world's most productive fishing
grounds, it was full of cods. It provided
a stable livelihood to island residents
for five centuries, making Canada one
of
the
world’s
leading fishing
economies. But as the fishing technology became more and more modern, fisheries
started to catch huge amount of cod fish, and then suddenly there number of fish in the
water reduced so drastically, that on 2 July 1992, the Canadian government had to
impose a moratorium on cod fishing. 40,000 people were put out of work.
Meat overconsumption and its environmental effects
In order for meat to get on our tables, it first has to come from a farm where animal feed
is grown. Because of the high demand for meat, a lot of resources are being used for
feeding and watering the animals. Thus, farming remains one of the largest users of
water around the world.
Water scarcity already affects more
than 40 percent of the world's
population, largely because too
much water is used to produce
food.
Nearly one-third of the world’s
cultivated land is being used to
grow animal feed. In the EU alone,
45% of wheat production is used
for this purpose.
Farming contributes to 10% of the
total
EU’s
greenhouse
gas
emissions, mainly by producing
two powerful greenhouse gases:
Methane (CH4) – from livestock digestion processes and stored animal manure, and
nitrous oxide (N2O) – from organic and mineral nitrogen fertilizers.
According to the European Environment Agency (EEA), the consumption of meat and
dairy products contributed close to 25% of the environmental impacts from the total
consumption of all For example, producing 1kg of beef requires 617 liters of water, a
measurement known as the blue water footprint.
As far as greenhouse gas emissions are concerned, the production of livestock and
fodder globally generates more than 3 billion tons each of carbon dioxide equivalent.
goods and services in the EU-27.
Reduction in the planet's carrying capacity is a fundamental effect of excessive food
consumption. By eating more and more meat, more grazing animals have to be
breeded, which requires more grazing lands. The problem is that the capacity of the
Earth is finite and therefore it will not be able to provide enough nourishment for
animals. It means that these animals will provide less food for people. (For example the
cows will give less milk and the quantity and quality of their meat will be much less and
worse.). Not to mention, that in a long term, the world will run out of grazing lands,
which can lead to the extinction of the affected animals. Garrett Hardin called it the
„Tragedy of Commons” in his very famous scientific article in 1968.
The tragedy of commons is an economic problem/theory where individuals act
accordingly to their own self-interest and try to reap the greatest benefit from a given
resource. These actions lead to the depletion and destruction of the resources so
individuals basically harm the others and also the common good. The tragedy of the
commons occurs when individuals neglect the well-being of society in the pursuit of
personal gain. It is often cited in connection with sustainable development, economics,
evolutionary psychology, anthropology, game theory, politics, taxation and sociology.
Hardin in his article focused on human population growth, the use of the Earth's natural
resources, and the welfare state.
The largest consumers
1.The United States of America
America is the king of over-consumption when it comes to both food and fuel. They
consume more of them than Europeans in part because these American companies are
better able to resist taxes and regulations. Only 8% of public sector revenues in
America derive from consumption
taxes, compared to roughly 20%
in Europe.
Governments
of
European
countries
routinely
impose
consumption taxes on food (value
added tax, or VAT). This is the
reason why food is 30% more
expensive in Europe, and hence
more
lightly
consumed.
In
America, both Republicans and Democrats have rejected the VAT approach.
America wastes over 100 billion pounds of food waste a year, it uses 10% of its energy
to grow food, and it is losing soil 10 times faster than it can replenish. In spite of all
these, almost 13% of American children goes to bed hungry. The United States has less
than 5% of the world’s population and use about 25% of the world’s resources.
2. Japan
Japan’s population is the 10th biggest in the world, however, it has only the 61st largest
territory. Overconsumption is a big problem in the country, since Japan creates
52,730,000 tons of trash every year. The government tries to solve the problem with
several actions, one of them is raising taxes on food. Japanese consumers represent
8.51 percent of the world consumer market.
3. Germany
Overconsumption in Germany is a bit different problem than for example in the United
States. Germany leads Europe in alcohol consumption. Per capita, Germany downs an
average of 20 liters (5.3 gallons) of alcohol each year. Excessive alcohol consumption
has serious health risks (the death toll among working-age adults from alcohol
overconsumption is at 23,000 every year, and three to four times as many people die
from alcohol as in car crashes) and huge economic costs as well ( e.g. it costs the
German economy 20 billion euros [$29.2 billion] each year).
4. China
Chinese consumers represent 5.29 percent of the world consumer market. China has
gone through an unexampled economic development in recent years and is now facing
many challenges caused by the overconsumption of resources and by ecological and
environmental degradation. However, China is roughly 11 times lower in per capita
footprint and an average Chinese uses 53 times fewer resources than the average
American.
5. France
6. The United Kingdom
7. Italy
8. Brazil
9. Spain
10. Canada
Possible Solutions
There are many currently operating actions in the world which try to reduce excessive
food consumption, some of them are working, some of them are not.
The most obvious ways to regulate overfishing are to for example mark no-fishing zones
in areas where fish stocks need to be recovered and reproduced or make quotas that
would limit the number of fish that can be caught. Every measures should be made in
order to count down illegal fishing.
One of the first steps to fight overconsumption could be the reduction of advertising,
because most people buy many unnecessary products due to the several advertisers in
television, internet and on the streets.
Individuals must realise that by prioritizing their own personal interests, they harm the
environment and the economy, and they cause a huge damage in a long term. There
are some countries, where higher taxes on foods helped to overcome excessive food
consumption. Maybe it is not a good solution, there are many arguments about it, but
there already have been some successful examples for this action.
To take everything into consideration, the perfect solution for the problem has not been
found yet, and it is going to be a difficult and long process to solve it.
Other useful links:
https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/eating-less-meat-will-save-theplanet-study-says/
http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-a-livablefuture/projects/meatless_monday/resources/meat_consumption.html
http://uswasteland.blogspot.ro/2011/03/effects-of-over-consumption-of-fish.html
https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/overfishing
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/feb/16/overfishing-is-as-big-athreat-to-humanity-as-it-is-to-our-oceans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8xwLWb0lLY