Why am I a non-vegetarian - An economic perspective

Disclaimer: Anyone promoting vegetarianism may not like what I am writing below. I make no qualms about being a non-veg and I love my chicken and sea food in any form, shape or size (just make sure its cooked). I respect vegetarians (my wife is one) and I expect others to respect my eating habits so please don’t comment if you are a “I can’t hear about non-vegetarianism” type.

Ever wondered what will happen if as a lot of advertising nowadays is promoting, everyone became a vegetarian? I thought of the economics of this thing and came across two points which might see a change if this happened:

1. 1.     Jobs!

a.      According to FAO (www.fao.org) there were 38 million fishermen in the world. Assuming that each household has one fisherman and 4 people, that will make a total of around 150 million people sustaining on fishing.

b.      Add to the above the middlemen who purchase and sell the fish to the buyers and take the above figure to around 200 million.

c.       Lets talk chicken....Did you know that there are more than a 100,000 poultry farms in Bangladesh itself! (Courtesy another FAO report) Will I be wrong in saying that some few million poultry farms exist in the world?

d.      Now just add the number of retailers selling non-veg stuff including all the restaurants, the various subsidiary industries existing because of non-veg cooking....and the number of people sustaining their livelihood on non-veg DIRECTLY will go way beyond a billion in a world with total population around 7 Bn! (That is 15% of total world population...)

1. 2.     Inflation! (Yeah you heard me right...!)

·         While in India, it is reported that around 40% of the population is vegetarian, this January, 2010 article (http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/vegetarian-populations-around-the-world-1725231.html) says that around 60 million other people are vegetarians. Add 40% of 1.2 Bn Indians which makes the figure go up to around a billion. So that makes around 6 billion non-vegetarians.

·         Is it safe to assume that a non-vegetarian has non-veg once a day? (on an average I know of people who cannot survive without non-veg while others have this once in 2-3 days). I know for sure that this is a very very conservative estimate....

·         Now also assume that non-veg accounts for 30% of the plate contents which will give it a share of around 10% of your food basket.

·         Now consider all the 6 billion non-veggies convert to vegetarianism...the 10% of their food basket will be converted to vegetables.

·         The cost of vegetables will automatically double and more... just do the math. I am no economist!

So unless you have jobs to give to a billion extra people and can ensure that the vegetable demand can be met, I will suggest look at more important things to do that convert people to vegetarianism.

Falcon