Issues: Food

The Urgent Case to Stop Factory Farms in Europe

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Food

 

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ESPAÑOL POLSKI DANSK

The number of farms in the European Union has declined very rapidly in the past decades, largely as a result of disastrous agricultural and trade policies. At the same time, meat production in many EU countries is increasing, driven especially by exports. The remaining farms are becoming ever-larger with a lower diversity of animal breeds. This has seen a rise in factory farms, characterised by large numbers of animals being confined in crowded spaces with insufficient pastureland to feed the animals – meaning that feed has to be brought into the farm.

¿UN PAÍS PARA CERDOS?

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Food

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La industria española del porcino supone el 37 por ciento del total de la producción ganadera, y el 14 por ciento de la producción agraria total, generando alrededor de 6 millones de euros en 2014.

España es el tercer mayor exportador mundial de porcino, detrás de China y Estados Unidos, tras convertirse en 2015 en el principal exportador de la Unión Europea (UE), por delante de Alemania y Dinamarca. En ese mismo año, España
alcanzó también el mayor censo de la UE, con 28.3 millones de cerdos. Mientras que otros productores europeos reducen su producción, España la incrementa, así como sus exportaciones, como resultado de una industria con un alto nivel de integración y con los costes de producción más reducidos entre los principales países productores de la UE.

SPAIN, TOWARDS A PIG FACTORY FARM NATION?

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Food

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Spain is the third largest exporter of pork after China and the United States and has the largest pig population in the EU, 28,3 million animals.

Production and exports are growing as a result of high industry integration and low production costs. But that means that the industry is getting concentrated in just a few hands, with the number of farms diminishing rapidly and farmers facing growing marginalization. And this industry is not being held accountable for its impacts on the environment, workers and communities.

Fracking and the Food System

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WaterFood

FoodandWaterEuropeFrackingFoodThe oil and gas industry likes to promote fracking as a boon to farmers and rural communities, but the dream often turns into a nightmare. In the United States, fracking has polluted water wells, sickened people and livestock, and reduced available farmland — proving that fracking and a healthy food system are not compatible.

As seen in the United States, the rapid expansion of oil and gas fracking has created significant environmental and public health problems.

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Many of these problems are inherent to the practice and cannot be avoided through regulation, which is why fracking should be banned.

Find out more about why we need to:

  • Move past the false promises of the oil and gas industry
  • Invest in economic development in rural communities that safeguards our food and water
  • Develop policies that allow farmers to make a fair living farming on their land, rather than resorting to leasing their farms for polluting energy production.

TTIP and Genetically Engineered Foods

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Common Resources

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In 2013, the United States and the European Union (EU) began negotiations to create the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), also known as the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA). The trade relationship across the Atlantic is already the number one economic relationship in the world, making up a third of all trade in goods and services and about half of global economic output. Both the United States and EU claim that a new trade agreement with the EU would enhance job creation and competitiveness by eliminating trade barriers and harmonising regulations — but the real winners would be big biotech and food companies, at the expense of consumers and the environment.

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Corporate Control in Animal Science Research

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FoodCommon Resources

CorporateControlFoodWaterEurope

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Corporate agribusinesses depend on favourable science to gain regulatory approval or market acceptance of products such as new animal drugs, and they depend on academic journals to deliver this science. To secure favourable scientific reviews, industry groups play an enormous role in the production of scientific literature, authoring journal articles, funding academic research and also serving as editors, sponsors or directors of scientific journals where much of their research is published.

Deep-pocketed corporations often have no counterpoint in the scientific literature. No group of scientists or science funders is, for example, aggressively investigating the safety or efficacy of new animal drugs, or examining alternatives. The influence that industry now wields over every aspect of the scientific discourse has allowed companies to commercialise potentially unsafe animal drugs with virtually no independent scrutiny.

Find out what needs to be done in the report, Corporate Control in Animal Science Research.