On Monday, Monday, May 5, 2025, the Massachusetts Chapter testified in front of the Joint Committee on Higher Education in support of S.922, An Act relative to the Bean New Deal. The following is a transcript of that testimony.
By Sara Sezun
Thank you, Committee Chairs for giving us the opportunity to speak to you about S. 922. I founded the Plant-based Planet Team of the Sierra Club Massachusetts Chapter in 2019, and have been serving as Team Chair ever since. I’ve also been eating a whole-foods, plant-based diet for the past 30 years.
According to USDA statistics from 2022, average per capita meat consumption in the United States is 224 pounds per year. Meeting this demand uses tremendous amounts of resources. In the lower 48 states, 41% of all land – not farmland, but all of the land – is used for livestock, either to house them or grow food for them. This consists of 654 million acres of cow pasture, plus 127 million acres to grow livestock feed. Worldwide, 77% of all farmland is used for cattle. Excluding Antarctica, 25% of the ice-free land in the world is used for grazing livestock. According to the Independent Media Institute, more than 67% of the crop calories produced in this country are fed to livestock, including 97% of all the soybeans. In January of this year, the USDA reported that only 2% of American farmland is used to grow fruit and nuts.
Animal agriculture uses tremendous amounts of water. It takes approximately 1,800 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef, 500 gallons of water to produce a pound of chicken, and 50 gallons of water to produce one egg. This includes both the water that is drunk by the animal, as well as the water that is used to grow its food. In contrast, it takes only 110 gallons of water to produce a pound of corn, 100 gallons of water to produce a pound of potatoes, and 55 gallons of water to produce a pound of oranges.
In this country, livestock animals produce 1.4 billion tons of manure every year – more than twice as much sewage as the entire human population. While cities are required by federal law to operate wastewater treatment plants, factory farms are not. As a result, manure can end up contaminating groundwater, releasing chemicals, bacteria, antibiotics, and even E. coli. In Wisconsin, 25% of people get their water from wells, and 80,000 wells are contaminated with manure. In North Carolina, hog farms are often located in or near communities of color. People living in the vicinity of them can’t do any activities outside, such as holding parties or hanging out laundry, due to the stench of large lagoons (an industry term) of unprocessed manure, which can also cause respiratory problems such as asthma.
To make a difference for the environment and conserve natural resources, it’s critical that we significantly reduce meat consumption. I ask the Committee to approve this bill, which would go a long way to encouraging Massachusetts residents to eat less meat and more plant-based foods.