The London Big IF event on Saturday the 8th of June saw tens of thousands of people gathered in Hyde Park to demand that G8 leaders take action to tackle global hunger. Interested campaigners queued up all day to talk to staff and volunteers on the Vegan Society stand, at one of the biggest events we have ever attended.
Vegan Society Patron and Labour MP for Bristol East, Kerry McCarthy, urged for the recognition of animal agriculture and its contribution to world hunger, and pushed for it to be at the top of the G8 agenda.
“We could eliminate the worst cases of world hunger with about 40 million tonnes of food,” commented Kerry in the New Statesman. “And it would be easy enough to find: nearly 20 times that amount of grain, 760 million tonnes, is fed to animals on factory farms every single year.” This figure dwarfs that of biofuels – the current focus of the campaign – which accounts for only 100 million tonnes. A great step forward has been taken, but there is still much more work to be done.
