The Meat Crisis

The Meat Crisis: Developing more sustainable production and consumption

Actress and campaigner Joanna Lumley encourages everyone to read the book.

Edited by Joyce D'Silva and John Webster
Published by Earthscan.

Hardback £68.00, paperback only £19.99 with your discount code CIWF2010 when you order from Earthscan

Compassion’s own Joyce D’Silva has brought together key global experts to produce a powerful and challenging book, which addresses some of the key issues facing our world: how can we achieve global food security for all while ensuring protection of the environment, our own health and the welfare of farm animals? Is the growth of factory farming, with its massive appetite for water and feedstuffs, leading us down a hugely unsustainable path? Joyce tells us what motivated her to produce the book.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) predicts a rough doubling of meat and milk consumption by 2050, potentially raising the number of farm animals slaughtered annually to around 120 billion. What impacts will this have on the health and wellbeing of those animals, on people and on the planet?

Some of the key chapter authors have contributed interviews for our website.

John Webster, Professor Emeritus at Bristol University, the book’s co-editor, tells us why the book is so important for animal welfare. As author of a great chapter on dairy cows, he also explains why cows’ lives are often so compromised in today’s dairy farms. John gives us further animal welfare information here.

Arjen Hoekstra is creator of the concept of the water footprint of different foods. How does meat rate on his scale? Find out! For more detailed information, hear more of what Arjen has to say. Arjen is a speaker at Compassion’s 2010 Peter Roberts Memorial lecture on September 20th.

Tim Lang is Professor of Food Policy at City University and a respected global authority on food issues. He challenges our current meat culture. It’s worth listening to more of what he has to say!

Tara Garnett runs the Food Climate Research Network and is an expert in the links between the food we eat and its impact on our climate. Tara also explains these crucial links in greater detail.

Andy Butterworth is a recognized expert on the welfare of broilers (meat chickens). He has developed the concept of “margin of care” and explains why care is so often lacking in the lives of the billions of chickens we farm globally for meat.

Use the discount code CIWF2010 for a 20% reduction when you buy your copy from Earthscan which brings the price down to £19.99 per copy (excluding p&p).

Some of the contributors to The Meat Crisis, including Kate Rawles and Arjen Hoekstra, have also been blogging on the site of the book’s publishers, Earthscan, the 2010 Independent Publisher of the Year. Both spoke at Compassion’s 2010 Memorial Lecture, ‘Beef, Bread and Water: Ethical food in a warm and thirsty world’.

If you are a book review editor and would like a press copy, please email Laurann.deVerteuil@earthscan.co.uk with the details of your publication and the rough timescale for publication of a review. Also if you are keen to receive the jacket image to publish alongside a review or on a website do let him know.

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