Cheap Meat Comes at a Very
High Price
The New Statesman (London)
March 9, 2011
http://www.newstatesman.com/business-food-and-drink/
2011/03/pig-farms-farmers-european
Cheap
meat comes at a high
price
The conditions of pig farms in
parts of the EU
are atrocious, but the
fightback has begun.
By Tracy Worcester
Across Europe, a battle is
being waged against an
agenda that puts the rights of
corporations ahead
of human health and animal
welfare. Against the
huge resources of pan-European
lobby firms, their
advisers and pocket MEPs,
there is a fightback
that unites those socialists,
greens and
conservatives who respect and
understand rural
communities. Between 2005 -
2009, I made a film,
Pig Business, about it (which
you can watch here:
http://www.pigbusiness.co.uk/the_film/
).
In it, I revealed the
industrialization and
corporatization of pork
farming in Poland, which
has resulted in a tide of
cheap meat bankrupting
farmers all across the EU.
It's not much fun
feeling like a modern Canute
but the events of
recent months have convinced
me that industrial
pig farming will not prevail
in silence. The
local and national pressure
against mega farms is
raging against the case of
getting big or getting
out.
While the application for a
mega dairy in Nocton,
Lincolnshire has recently been
withdrawn, libel
lawyers have been engaged in
an attempt to
silence objections that the
application to build
a mega pig farm in Foston,
Derbyshire, which
critics claim will pose health
risks to
neighbours.
Poland is, however, where it
all started. US
giant Smithfield Foods of
America, had persuaded
the previous government to
sell ex-state farms
for what their CEO boasted,
were "small
dollars".Using funds secured
from the European
Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (paid for
by European taxpayers) they
"modernised" the
farms. Modernisation meant
putting as many pigs
in as small a space possible.
It meant very cheap
meat.
Smithfield specialise in this
form of industrial
farming. It is not without
consequence. The
effect on local eco-systems
from tens of
thousands of densely
packed-pigs is immense. Pigs
produce 10 times as much waste
as humans do. The
waste is stored in stinking
lagoons and sprayed
onto fields. This system
pollutes the coastline
causing massive fish kills,
and sickens
neighbouring residents. In
March 2010 a court in
Missouri ordered a Smithfield
Foods subsidiary to
pay local residents $11m for
"odours so offensive
that they defied description".
Stephen A. Weiss,
a New York attorney, who
represented the
families, said: "These
corporations have chosen
to invade traditional family
farming communities
and construct industrial
operations that simply
fail to respect the community
and the land."
The neo-liberal government of
Poland in the late
1990s welcomed Smithfield with
open arms. The
"shock therapy" created a
great deal of pain not
least in the rural areas and
the government was
replaced by The Law and
Justice Party, which
sought to limit the damage of
the pro-corporate
agenda by making industrial
factory farming
adhere to regulations.
Smithfield's response was to
move the new wave of
operations to a more corporate
friendly country,
Romania. "We have been very
disappointed by the
way we have been treated by
the government in
Poland," said Richard Poulson,
executive
vice-president of Smithfield,
the US based
meatpacker. "It has been an
uphill fight in
Poland and Romania is frankly
a way for us to
hedge our bets. The difference
between the way
the Polish government treats
us and the way the
Romanian government treats us
is like night and
day."
The Polish MEP, Janusz
Wojciechowsk, is one of
the heroes of this story.
Wojciechowsk was one of
three MEPs, along with Jose
Bove and Dan
Jørgensen, who invited
me to screen my film Pig
Business, and host a debate on
Feb 9th 2011, as
reforms to the Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP)
were being discussed in the
European Parliament.
The Event was held to
highlight the hidden costs
of factory farming on pigs,
people and the
planet, as well as the farmers
themselves. It
could not have been more
timely following a
"winter of discontent" for pig
farmers facing low
supermarket prices for pork,
high feed costs, a
health scandal caused by
animal feed contaminated
with dioxin, and the recent
discovery that flies
are spreading antibiotic
resistant bacteria from
intensive farms to
neighbouring urban areas.
José Bové, a
French MEP once a farmer
himself
before becoming a European
politician, has for
many years opposed genetically
modified crops and
industrial agriculture. He was
arrested for
dismantling a MacDonald's
restaurant that
threatened to destroy his
local town's economy.
He is clear about the threat
industrial pig
farming poses to traditional
forms of farming. He
told the conference attendees
of MEPs, their
advisers, lobbyists, NGOs and
press, that
"following the deregulation of
markets and open
ports, come the big firms,
like Cargill, Tyson
and Smithfield and with them
the concentration of
production that is causing the
elimination of
small farmers. If the CAP
supports a system of
agriculture that destroys the
environment and
makes poor quality industrial
products, I do not
see why Europeans would want
to subsidise it.
Everyone knows that 75 per
cent of CAP aid goes
to 25 per cent of farmers.
This is unacceptable."
As the big get bigger and
drive costs lower
thanks to CAP subsidies and
externalizing their
true costs on to the broader
community, small and
medium scale farms can only
survive by copying
the giants and cramming ever
more animals into
tiny compartments.
A recent survey found that 50
per cent of
consumers across the EU
believe that pigs are
"fairly well treated". The
opposite is true. NGO,
Compassion in World Farming,
found out the
reality during a spot check of
Europe's farms.
Their research showed that up
to 75 per cent of
EU pigs are subject to such
horrendous conditions
that their treatment is
illegal even with the low
threshold of EU
regulations.
Consumers should be empowered
by being able to
find both country of origin
and method of
production labels on animal
products. Just as the
EU demands farmer's eggs are
labeled if they are
from caged hens, the same rule
should apply to
pigs crammed into barren
concrete and metal pens
with no access to natural
light or fresh air and
pumped with antibiotics to
keep the miserable
creatures alive. When I show
consumers the
reality of this farming method
in Pig Business,
almost all say they will never
buy factory pork
again.
The corporate takeover of
agriculture has wrecked
family farms in America too.
On March 9th, Bobby
Kennedy Jr. will co-host the
Pig Business US
screening for Congress members
and staff on
Capitol Hill, Washington.
Experts from animal
welfare, human health and
family farm groups will
reinforce the film's findings
that factory farms
across the US abuse the
animals, threaten human
health by over-reliance on
antibiotics and force
traditional farmers out of
business.
At the congress event, I will
explain reforms to
CAP that many concerned EU
consumers, MEPs and
NGO, are requesting and
compare these with
legislative changes demanded
by similarly
concerned Americans. Although
EU free market
rules have allowed low welfare
imports to
undermine small scale family
farms, it is nothing
in comparison to the US where
neo-liberal
policies advocated by a few
big corporations that
have decimated the small farm
economies and with
it, quality food and human
health. For example,
although adding antibiotics to
pig feed
specifically to promote growth
has been banned in
the EU since 2003, it is still
allowed in the US.
This has resulted in 80 per
cent of US
antibiotics being used in
livestock production -
not on human health. Doctors
and scientists are
concerned that this practice
is leading to new
antibiotic resistant diseases
which, like MRSA,
pass from pigs to humans. A
pilot study in Iowa
found the pig strain of MRSA
in 45 per cent of
the workers and 49 per cent of
the pigs.
Also as we in Europe are
asking that the CAP
ensures animal welfare laws
are better enforced
and improved, the United Sates
has no federal on
farm animal welfare
legislation.
With Eastern Europe joining
the EU, the average
EU farm size has reduced to 12
hectares and many
are run as small scale family
enterprise. In the
US, however, the average farm
size is 418
hectares. The EU's small
farmer champion is the
Romanian European Commissioner
for Agriculture
and he is determined to help
small farmers
survive through directing CAP
subsidies away from
large to smaller scale farm
enterprises.
This approach is unpopular
with the large EU farm
lobbyists who want
agricultural industry
consolidated and mechanized,
and who claim to be
competitive, while soaking up
massive subsidies.
The third option for many EU
and US agricultural
policy makers is to call for
food production to
be exempted from trade rules
like the EU and
World Trade Organisation (WTO)
so that all
nations and regions have the
right to protect
their farmers from low cost
and low animal
welfare imports.
This battle rages across the
political divide and
between intensive and
extensive farmers. In the
UK, in the light of the
withdrawal of the Nocton
mega-dairy application,
concerned consumers and
neighbouring residents hope
that 'Midland Pig
Producers' will not re-submit
their planning
application to Derbyshire
County Council to build
the UK's biggest factory pig
farm bedside a
women's prison in Foston,
Derbyshire. The company
submitted plans for an
intensive pig unit of
2,500 sows and around 20,000
piglets which will
spend all of their lives
indoors. Neighbours are
objecting to the planning
application in fear of
their health and house values
and hundreds of
small and medium scale UK
farmers will have to
"get out" while a few
producers "get big" to
compete with cheap
imports.
To help UK small and medium
scale pig farmers
survive the stream of cheap
meat, consumers need
to buy high-welfare UK farm
produce! Eating
smaller quantities of high
quality, expensive
meat is the healthier, cheaper
option.
