Philip Lymbery

It took me so long to read this, just because I kept on dipping in and out of it, but it is good enough to be read in one go. This is excellent in so many ways. Some of the aspects of factory farming were already known to me from documentaries and other reading I've been doing, but what I valued most is the information received from the people most affected by this very inefficient way of providing meat and fish, and the impact on the health of those nearby, but inevitabily the impact that it will have on everyone who consumes the products too. Philip Lymbery's travels made him see a brutal reality that hopefully will be a thing of the past soon... I hope!
Next to read: Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were.… (mehr)

Farmageddon In Pictures - The True Cost of Cheap Meat - in bite-sized pieces is a confronting read with a very important message to consumers.

Philip Lymbery shines a light into the darkest corners of mega farming and I was shocked to learn just how dire it all is. I think the average consumer is aware of issues like caged animals, the overuse of antibiotics and pesticides, water shortages and the decline of bees around the world. But there's so much more wrong with the factory farming industry I wasn't aware of or hadn't considered.

- Factory farmed animals consume 1/3 of the world's cereal harvest. (Pg 10)
- Waste from mega-dairies and factory-farms is ruining the environment and polluting the water.
- Industrialised pollination is now a 'thing', where bees are commercially bred and transported elsewhere to pollinate crops.
- Approximately 100 billion farmed fish are produced around the world each year, but it takes 3 tonnes of wild fish to produce 1 tonne of farmed salmon. (Pg 46 & Pg 81).
- Trout farms don't give fish enough space to swim around and they're packed in so tight, it's the equivalent of 27 trout sharing the same bathtub.
- Today's chickens have a lot more fat because they can't move around, and you'd have to eat 4 whole factory farmed chickens to get the same nutrients you would have got from a single chicken in the 1970s. (Pg 84)

Farmageddon In Pictures is full of shocking statistics and pictograms to help the reader digest the information while some of the photos used appeared amateurish and too dark. The author subtly encourages the reader a few times to alter their diet to consume less meat and I can't blame him when he's seen the problems first-hand, but it did ruffle my feathers a little. I guess I don't like being told what to do and would prefer to reach my own conclusions and initiate change on my own.

Farmageddon In Pictures is a slightly depressing read due to the nature of the content, but optimistic in encouraging consumers to change their buying and usage habits with a chapter at the end focussing on solutions and positive change. It's also an important read and more consumers need to know where their food comes from and the cost it has on the environment.

* Copy courtesy of Bloomsbury *… (mehr)