Someone Said “Moo”, or “Who Moved My Tofu?”

Consider our present reality for a moment. While the transition to agriculture enabled our ancestors to produce food in a more reliable and sustainable way, world hunger is still one of the most pressing issues we face today. According to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, between 702 and 828 million people worldwide (8.9 and 10.5 percent of the world population, respectively) experienced hunger in 2021 – a major rise of 46 million from 2020 and 150 million since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (FAO et al., 2022, p. 10). These figures indicate that the world is moving further away from its goal of ending hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. That is in part because agricultural subsidies tend to focus on the production of staple foods, dairy, and animal source foods, especially in high- and upper-middle-income countries. Rice, sugar, and various types of meat receive the most incentives worldwide while fruits and vegetables are less supported or even penalized, particularly in some low-income countries (p. 55).

Another factor contributing to world hunger is the use of a significant portion of the world’s cereal and soybean production for farmed animal feed, rather than human food consumption. Based on the latest available FAO statistics from 2020 (see Table 1), 37.44% of the world’s total cereal crop production (excluding beer) is directed toward animal farming, while 51.45% is used for human food products and 11.11% for non-food uses. In Canada and the US, direct human consumption accounts for only 14.61% and 11.81% of the total local cereal production, respectively. A significant 73.17% of the world’s soybean production is also used for farmed animal feed while only 25.79% is consumed as food by humans. In North America, an even higher percentage of soybean production is used for animal-based products, 85.19% versus 14.81% for direct human consumption (FAO, 2023). Notwithstanding, animal source foods are extremely inefficient, with beef converting only 1% of the calories and 4% of the protein from input feed (Searchinger et al., 2019, p. 73). It seems that world hunger, rather than being caused by scarcity or overpopulation, is perpetuated by an asymmetrical approach to food security that hinders the equitable distribution of resources. It is even estimated that current harvests, if used efficiently and exclusively for food purposes, could sustain 10 to 14 billion humans (Beck et al., 2016, p. 22).

Table 1. Allocation of Global and North American Cereal Crop Production by Mass in 2020

The FAO report stresses the need for repurposing public support for agriculture to incentivize the production, supply, and consumption of nutritious foods such as fruits, vegetables, and pulses (FAO et al., 2022, pp. 87–128). This recommendation is consistent with the largest meta-analysis of global food systems to date, suggesting that transitioning to a plant-based diet could reduce food’s global land use by 76%, greenhouse emissions by 49%, and scarcity-weighted freshwater withdrawals by 19% (Poore & Nemecek, 2018). Other studies have also proposed that a global diet with no animal source foods could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 68% (Eisen & Brown, 2022) and green and blue water use by 21% and 14%, respectively (Jalava et al., 2014). Additionally, industrial animal farming disproportionately impacts vulnerable, low-income communities and communities of color by exposing them to higher levels of pollution, climate-related risks, and associated health issues due to their greater likelihood of living near concentrated animal feeding operations (Young, 2023). If adopted (almost) universally, a vegan diet would also spare billions of sentient animals from being raised in captivity, subjected to inhumane conditions, and killed for unnecessary reasons – unnecessary, as according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, a vegan diet is healthy and appropriate for all stages of life (Melina et al., 2016).

This is not to suggest that the transition will be straightforward. Achieving food equity and security requires substantive improvements in agricultural practices, as well as addressing socio-economic and political barriers to food access and distribution. For instance, food loss and waste pose a major food access issue in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa (FAO et al., p. 80). Scientific solutions such as CRISPR-Cas systems, through gene modification, have shown great promise by enabling researchers to enhance crop resilience and shelf life, leading to increased yields and reduced food loss and waste (Hemalatha et al., 2023). Moreover, an emerging field of harnessing microorganisms for food production shows tremendous potential in reducing land use, with one method utilizing bacteria requiring significantly less land than conventional soybean farming (Monbiot, 2023). Regenerative vegan agriculture, vertical farming, and cultured meat are also part of the array of methods being explored to combat world hunger and promote sustainable food systems. Through Churchland’s neuro-biosocial model of ethics, such efforts can be viewed as instances of other-caring and cooperation to resolve or mitigate shared social problems, to make this world a better place. Framing contemporary social issues in this way helps locate the primary obstacle to social change in limited other-caring, or in blunter words, immediate self-interest. In contrast, achieving the ideal of a better world requires the utmost ethical integrity – extending care to all others.

Many students attending courses in Environmental Humanities and/or Critical Animal Studies, for instance, end up making difficult changes to their lifestyles, aligning their actions with their newfound awareness as they feel responsible for the realities of the world and recognize the influence of their choices on others. Other-caring could be described, in a sense, as enlightened self-interest since it would benefit not just others, but also oneself as a community member. It is not uncommon, however, for these students to experience a sense of hopelessness and despair often termed solastalgia (Albrecht, 2005), ecological grief (Cunsolo & Ellis, 2018), or climate anxiety (Clayton, 2020). One of the more effective ways to overcome feelings of helplessness, nihilism, and defeatism in the face of overwhelming precarity, inequity, and injustice is to reclaim one’s agency by engaging in learning and action that is oriented toward creating social change. While this framing risks dismissal as the unattainable ideal of a utopian future, I espouse a notion of agency anchored in the realistic understanding that it might not be possible to change the entire world, but even the smallest actions count. Engaging in acts of worldmaking involves knowing the limits of one’s agency, being kind to oneself, and building resilience. In the following section, I offer an overview of 1) ways of learning and writing that are geared toward empowering postsecondary students to create social impact; and 2) theoretically informed and ethically committed forms of civic engagement throughout (and after) postsecondary education.