While people are dying from food starvation European pet owners spending € 24 b. annually on feeding and grooming their house pets - by RM

Are we losing perspective?

It was reported by the Federation of European Pet food industry that the pet food industry and related supply and services represent a combined annual turnover of about € 24 billion. 

There are presently approximately 70 million pet owning households in Europe with the European Pet food annual pet food production reaching of over 8 million tons. And this is for Europe alone. Just imagine if we would put these figures together for all domestic pet owners around the world.

Obviously no one is trying to stop Europeans or anyone else for that matter from taking in and caring for a pet, but  it obviously would also be a good exercise to put this into a more specific global perspective, especially when we hear some people complaining about the cost of foreign development aid and food programs . 

Below are some facts which underscore the above point and maybe can provide pet owners in the industrialized world with some incentives to also earmark a part of their income as a donation to one of the many organizations which actively seek to eradicate poverty and malnutrition around the world.

• 870 million people do not have enough to eat — more than the populations of USA and the European Union combined.
• 98% of the world's undernourished people live in developing countries.
• Two-thirds of the world's hungry live in just 7 countries: Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Pakistan.60 percent of the world's hungry are women.
• 50 percent of pregnant women in developing countries lack proper maternal care, resulting in over 300,000 maternal deaths annually from childbirth.
• 1 out of 6 infants are born with a low birth weight in developing countries.
• Malnutrition is the key factor contributing to more than one-third of all global child deaths resulting in 2.6 million deaths per year.
• A third of all childhood death in sub-Saharan Africa is caused by hunger.
• Every five seconds, a child dies from hunger-related diseases.
• Where is hunger the worst?
  • Asia and the Pacific: 578 million
  • Sub-Saharan Africa: 239 million
  • Latin America and the Caribbean: 53 million
  
   EU-Digest