杏吧原创

FOODS should be taxed according to the environmental cost of producing them,
proposes an American ecologist. That way, prices will deter people from eating
too much of the foods that do the most harm.

At the top of the production 鈥渇ood chain鈥� are animal products such as pork,
beef, cheese and eggs. Producing these foods uses up far more resources than
foods lower down on the chain, such as chicken, turkey and fish, argues David
Pimentel, a professor of ecology and agricultural science at Cornell University
in Ithaca, New York. The most efficiently produced foods are fruits, vegetables,
nuts and grains.

It takes 100,000 litres of water to produce a single kilogram of beef, says
Pimentel. The same amount of water can produce 100 kilograms of grains. Pimentel
is particularly critical of factory farms, which use up huge quantities of
energy and natural resources, then produce vast amounts of waste that they
dispose of inefficiently, often polluting streams and water supplies nearby.
鈥淭hey don鈥檛 pay for that,鈥� he says.

Instead, he argues that prices should better reflect the environmental cost.
Such taxes aren鈥檛 new: some European countries tax petrol heavily to curb
consumption, and some states in the US tax damaging pesticides.

Pimentel, who presented his ideas to an audience at Stanford University in
California earlier this month and expounds them in a new book, accepts that such
a plan won鈥檛 be embraced right away. Americans hate overt taxes, he concedes.
The National Cattlemen鈥檚 Beef Association disputed Pimentel鈥檚 figures, pointing
out that making one barrel of beer uses up some 5700 litres of water. Alison Motluk