Several aid charities are once again making their, by now traditional, Christmas pitch for donations to buy farmed animals for some of the world's poorest communities. At first sight, it's an uplifting idea, but the reality is that such animal gifts add to, rather than diminish, poverty.
That's because animal farming is a wasteful way of deploying limited agricultural resources (labour, land, energy and water). You can feed more people by directing resources to growing foods for people to eat directly, rather than first passing nutrients through animals. In areas where people are destitute and there is no surplus wealth, it is essential to use such resources to best effect. Animal farming is also more environ-mentally destructive, and is a major source of climate changing gases - generating more emissions than the global transport sector.
Inevitably, Animal Aid is keenly concerned about the welfare of the animals themselves. Where impoverished people cannot afford to feed and care for their animals, those animals endure extreme suffering and die - an outcome that does nothing to relieve the poverty of their owners. Please contact Animal Aid (or go to www.animalaid.org.uk) for a list of organisations that help animals, people and the environment.
ANDREW TYLER
Director Animal Aid
