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MEDIEVAL JAINISM: CULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT
land resources than the livestock agriculture. The food relationship between the organism is called food chain. Each organism depends on plant or animals which it eats for its food supply but it also depends on the organisms which its food depend on. For example, Goat/Cow eats grass. Lion thrives on the animals. Goat/Ox indirectly lives on the supply of grass which nourishes them. This food chain is much longer among the non-vegetarian animals. There is a tremendous energy loss in converting the grass food into animal food. The per acre nutritional return from plant versus animal food have been calculated by U.S. Department of Agriculture (Table No. 1, next page).
In view of increasing world population, meat-based diet cannot sustain the growing population. The land resources will be deficient to sustain the population on meat-based diet but it can sustain on vegetarian diet.
Water Resources
There is a growing need of conservation of water resources because water is the most important part of environment. Irrigated land can yield agricultural crop. It has been estimated that 80% of the total water requirement for the average daily food intake in the United States goes for animal products and only 9% for plant food products. A pound of wheat contains more calories than a pound of beef but the beef requires 40 to 50 times more water.
Water pollution is a serious threat for the water supply to the people. Waste from the livestock is a major cause of pollution to rivers, lakes and streams. In U.S.S.R., scientists are of the opinion that the problem from the water pollution is much more serious than the problem from ground water mining and that a worldwide water pollution crisis will be upon within the next
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