Over the past year, prices of staple foods have reached unprecedented levels. Food riots have broken out in multiple countries and the UN has sounded the alarm on the severity of this emerging global food crisis.

A full page spread in the May 3 Vancouver Sun starkly highlighted the baleful impact on the world's poorest citizens. The article also ran through a myriad number of causes, including:

• US-led investment in corn-based ethanol and the biofuel push
• Depletion of global grain reserves
• Unsustainable agricultural practices
• Decline in agricultural land and rural populations
• Rising incomes in developing countries fueling demand for meat
• Drought and poor harvests in Australia and Europe respectively
• Stock-market speculation
• Liberalization of trade that has increased rural poverty by wrecking local markets, increasing dependency on imports and vulnerability to price fluctuations

The article also provided the following figures for price increases between March 2007 to March 2008:

• Corn: +31%
• Rice: +74%
• Soy: +87%
• Wheat: +130%

Rising global meat consumption in particular has been the unspoken factor in spiraling food prices, whereas even environmental groups have chosen to focus on faulty biofuel policies as opposed to this graver long-term threat. In fact, grain production has never been higher, but the sad truth is that much of that grain is being increasingly diverted to feed livestock. In China, meat consumption has doubled in the last decade alone. In largely vegetarian India, consumption has not risen as much, but dairy production is likewise up. When the grain to meat ratio of raising livestock which is anywhere between 5 to 10:1 is factored in, the environmental and climactic impacts become overwhelming.

However, this upwards movement still has a long way to go to match the unsustainable consumption levels of the West. As the New York Times put it so succinctly, meat and oil "share a great deal":

"Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible."

"Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests."

With the FAO estimating that almost a third of world's unfrozen terrestrial surface is already involved in some aspect of livestock production (gruesome fact: the US alone kills 10 billion animals a year for food), and with global meat consumption looking set to double by 2050, the gigantic scale of the threat comes into sharp, startling relief. Greenhouse gases emitted by livestock production even exceed transporation, such that if an American family lowered their meat consumption by merely 20 percent (Americans already consume double the global average), they would have the same impact as if they had sold their mid-sized sedan and bought a hybrid.

As usual, British environmental guru George Monbiot does his homework, moving beyond his devastating jeremiads against biofuels (most recently, here and here) to highlighting the possibilities and challenges inherent in converting to a more plant-based diet. His middle-of-the-road approach of reserving meat for special occasions (beef is right out) and turning to more efficient feed-to-meat sources such as tilapia fish is eminently sensible, especially for those who cannot eschew eating meat altogether.