Archives: Press Releases

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Patty Lovera or Jennifer Mueller
(202) 683-2467

New Report Highlights the Trouble with Smithfield

Food & Water Watch corporate profile reveals the damaging environmental and public health impacts posed by the agribusiness giant

Washington, DC — A new report by consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch arms consumers with the facts about a major player in the meat business, Smithfield Foods. The group‚ new report, The Trouble With Smithfield: A Corporate Profile, details the damage the world’s largest pork producer has caused to the environment, animal welfare, public health, family farmers, and workers around the world.

“Smithfield is a threat to the future of agriculture everywhere,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. “Its continuous consolidation hurts farmers and consumers, and its factory farms put the environment, public health and animal welfare at risk. Just as important, Smithfield‚ treatment of its workers is inexcusable, as is its habit of pointing its pollution at poor rural communities.”

The company‚ opportunistic acquisitions and the failure of the federal government to enforce anti-trust laws have allowed Smithfield to dominate almost all aspects of pork production and processing.

The factory farms that the company owns or controls cram hundreds or thousands of pigs into long, warehouse-like barns. And all those hogs generate lots of waste.  In 1997, the company received one of the largest Clean Water Act fines in history for failing to install adequate pollution control equipment.

In addition to environmental damage, Smithfield operations threaten the health of people living nearby who suffer from a wide range of ailments, including asthma, allergies, eye irritation, compromised immune function, depression and other disorders.

The company allegedly has broken workplace health and safety laws and is part of a long running high-profile dispute over worker injuries and rights to representation at a plant in North Carolina. In recent years, Smithfield has expanded into Eastern Europe, buying Poland‚ leading processing company and taking advantage of the country‚ lax environmental laws and cheap labor. The report recommends action by Congress and federal and state regulators to rein in this agribusiness giant, as well as telling consumers how to opt out of Smithfield‚ model of industrial pork production.

The Trouble With Smithfield: A Corporate Profile is available here.

Kenya Flower Industry is No Bed of Roses

Groups begin push to overthrow industrial flower farms in Lake Naivasha

Washington, DC — The Council of Canadians and Food & Water Watch launched their joint campaign today to save Lake Naivasha from the clutches of corporate flower farms that have spent decades assaulting the Kenyan lake to grow flowers for export to Europe and other wealthy destinations.

“On this Valentine’s Day, it’s important that we finally stop these international operations from depleting the lake‚ waters, poisoning the surrounding environment with pesticides, and exploiting workers,” said Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians. “Unless we end this, these industrial floriculture factories will continue sowing the seeds of poverty, water deprivation, and environmental carnage.”

Barlow and Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, brought their newly released report, Lake Naivasha: Withering under the Assault of International Flower Vendors, to The Wilshire restaurant in Santa Monica, California, to kick off the grassroots effort on behalf of Lake Naivasha, its people, and its wildlife.

“I witnessed chemical spraying while people working nearby wore no protective gear,” Hauter said. “The pesticides applied on the farms and in the greenhouses eventually end up in Lake Naivasha and in the groundwater, threatening people and wildlife.”

The Council of Canadians and Food & Water Watch will work with organizations around the world in this effort to expel the flower farms from Naivasha‚ shores, urge the Kenyan government to promote small-scale agriculture and eco-tourism, and encourage consumers in Canada, Europe, and the United States to purchase local, ecologically sustainable flowers.

“These flower farms are harming people and animals alike,” said Josphat Ngonyo, director of the Africa Network for Animal Welfare, one of the organizations in the campaign. “Numerous bird and fish species are disappearing from the area and that’s a problem for the environment and the people who depend on the lake.”

Please click here to view the report.

Groups Call to Protect People in Kenya,
Not Corporate Flower Farms

Despite Violence, Corporate Flower Farms Keep Up Assault On Lake Naivasha People And Environment In Rush To Grow, Export Flowers For Valentine’s Day

Washington DC — Public interest organizations in Canada, Europe, Kenya, and the United States today called on the international community to help the people suffering from violence in the Lake Naivasha region of Kenya, not the global industrial flower farms that exploit the lake and its people. The groups released a new report highlighting the destructive practices of the flower farms that dominate the region.

“The farms surround Lake Naivasha. They deplete its waters and poison them with pesticides,” said Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians. “They are sowing the seeds of economic and environmental devastation that, unless stopped, inevitably will yield a harvest of poverty, water deprivation, and violence.”

The report, Lake Naivasha: Withering Under the Assault of International Flower Vendors, was originally scheduled for release on Valentine’s Day but moved up due to the situation in Kenya and outrageous news coverage sympathetic to the flower industry.  Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter pointed to headlines, such as “Kenya violence upsets flower production ahead of Valentine’s Day” in the International Herald Tribune and “Kenya’s blooming industry is facing hard times” in the UK Telegraph, as examples.  Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands displaced due to violence that intensified last weekend.

“The situation in Naivasha is a human tragedy, not an investment loss. Our sympathy and aid should go to the people in the region, not the international corporate owners of these flower farms that exploit the workers, the lake, and the environment,” Hauter said.

Public access to the freshwater Lake Naivasha is limited because the flower farms own much of the land around the lake, leaving poor residents to find water from communal taps and waiting in long lines to do so. They’ve created an unsustainable increase in the labor population, depleted the lake’s waters, and pumped the local environment full of toxic pesticides and fertilizers.

“Factory flower farms have wreaked havoc on Kenya’s rivers and on Lake Naivasha, all to extract floricultural and horticultural commodities for export to wealthy destinations in Europe and elsewhere,” said Olivier Hoedeman of Corporate Europe Observatory. “Europeans don’t want to say I love you with flowers that cause that kind of harm.”

“These flower farms are harming people and animals alike,” explained Josphat Ngonyo, director of the Africa Network for Animal Welfare. “Numerous bird and fish species are disappearing from the area and that’s a problem for the environment and the people who depend on the lake.” Plant life has vanished, and the local hippopotamus population has decreased from 1,500 in 2004 to 1,100 in 2006.

Barlow and Hauter witnessed the destruction first-hand when they visited a local flower farm with a documentary film-maker Sam Bozzo during the World Social Forum in 2007. Quoted in the report, Barlow recalled seeing “pipes pumping water from the lake to the flower greenhouses and a ditch where waste water drained back into the lake If action isnt taken immediately, the lake will not only be polluted, it will be drained.”

Chemicals used in the flower facilities are sickening workers. Wenonah Hauter observed some workers in protective gear spraying flowers, while others had no protective clothing. One worker experienced skin rashes two to three times a month.

The report on Lake Naivasha was prepared by Food & Water Watch and the Council of Canadians to launch a campaign to protect the lake and the local communities that surround it. The campaign will urge the Kenyan government to promote small-scale agriculture and eco-tourism and encourage consumers in Canada, Europe, and the United States to purchase local, ecologically sustainable flowers.  The report is posted here.

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CONTACT:
Erin Greenfield
202-797-6550

Consumer Groups Shut Out of Hearing on Deceptive Meat Packaging

Washington, DC — Four consumer groups are protesting not being given the opportunity to testify at an October 30, 2007 House Agriculture Committee hearing on a questionable food technology that is deceptive to consumers.

The four organizations, Food & Water Watch, Safe Tables Our Priority, Consumer Federation of America, and the Government Accountability Project, have been critical of decisions by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to allow the use of carbon monoxide in meat packaging that artificially prolongs the color of red meat. The House Agriculture Committee has decided to hold a hearing on October 30 to provide a platform for the supporters of this deceptive technology, without hearing from consumer advocates who have been critical of this practice.

The consumer organizations sent a letter to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson on October 22, 2007 asking for the opportunity to testify, but they have not received a response (see attached).

‚I dont understand what the House Agriculture Committee is afraid of,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. ‚Both FDA and USDA have allowed a practice that defines month-old meat as being fresh because using carbon monoxide keeps the pigment of meat red longer than meat that is untreated. This technology can mask spoilage because the product appears to be perfectly fine. Congress needs to hear both sides of the story on this issue,” added Hauter.

Testing conducted by Consumer Reports and reported in the July 2006 issue indicated that some CO-treated meat available on supermarket shelves could be spoiled by its use, or freeze,by date. Consumer Reports recommends that consumers ‚check the package and buy meat whose stamped date is a couple of weeks away.”

‚The use of carbon monoxide in meat packaging is clearly deceptive to consumers,” said Donna Rosenbaum, Executive Director of Safe Tables Our Priority. ‚Consumers rely on color to make meat purchasing decisions. It is not surprising that the European Union has banned the practice because of the consumer deception issue.”

‚Consumer Federation of America commissioned a national poll in September 2006 that showed 78% of respondents considered the use of carbon monoxide in meat packaging to be a deceptive practice, and 68% strongly favored mandatory labeling of any meat product that was treated with carbon monoxide,” said Chris Waldrop, Director of CFA‚ Food Policy Institute.

‚I find it interesting that some in the meat industry continue to devote incredible resources to promote this deceptive technology when it is clearly becoming unpopular even within its own ranks,” remarked Jacqueline Ostfeld, Food and Drug Safety Officer for the Government Accountability Project. ‚Industry giant Tyson Foods stopped using carbon monoxide in its meat packaging because it stated that its customers were not requesting meat treated with this technology. Furthermore, supermarket chains such as Whole Foods, Kroger‚, Publix, Safeway, Giant Foods, Stop & Shop, and A & P have either never carried or have stopped carrying meat packaged with carbon monoxide because consumers just do not want to buy it” added Ostfeld.

In addition to the letter sent by these consumer groups, telephone calls and e-mails to House Agriculture Committee staff about the hearing went unanswered.

WE WON!

Starbucks Has Agreed to Hold the Hormones For Good

Washington, D.C. – Starbucks Coffee Company has already made a New Year‚ resolution! Today Starbucks committed to make 100% of the chain‚ milk supply free of artificial growth hormones by December 31, 2007.

The Starbucks announcement follows nearly two years of pressure from Food & Water Watch, which launched the Hold the Hormones Campaign in 2006, asking consumers to demand the company buy better milk. A protest event planned for today in front of a Seattle store from 4-6pm (Westlake Center Starbucks, 401 Pine St.) will now be a victory celebration, complete with partying cows, cookies, and of course, rBGH-free milk.

In a letter addressed to Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter, Starbucks Vice President of Sustainable Procurement Sue Mecklenburg stated, “We have committed that by December 31, 2007, all of our fluid milk, half and half, whipping cream and eggnog used in U.S. company-operated stores will be produced without the use of rBGH.”

“Our work has paid off,” exclaimed Hauter.  “American consumers have made their voices heard: We want safer and healthier milk. We congratulate Starbucks for rising to the occasion.”

Starbucks first considered offering hormone-free milk to customers in 2001. Today’s letter to Food & Water Watch states that as of August 2007, 72 % of their total dairy supply is sourced from milk suppliers that do not use rBGH in their milk. The Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, or rBGH, is an artificial hormone that is often injected into dairy cows to increase their milk production. With a potential link between the hormone and higher risk of breast, prostate, and colon cancer in humans, rBGH is banned in all 27 countries of the European Union, Canada, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

“Starbucks is doing the right thing,” Hauter stated. “We look forward to other companies following Starbucks lead and making the switch to healthier milk.”

For more information on rBGH and the Hold the Hormones Campaign, visit www.HoldtheHormones.org.

Half-a-Dozen Dairy Cows Ask Starbucks To Hold the Hormones

Food & Water Watch Asks Customers to Call Starbucks and

Request Artificial Hormone Free Milk

Washington, DC, Half-a-dozen‚ dairy cows “converged on a Starbucks near the National Mall in Washington DC today to ask the biggest coffee retailer in the world to hold the hormones. Lacking thumbs and fingers for dialing telephones, the‚ cows” encouraged pedestrians and Starbucks patrons to participate in a national call-in day to request the company use only milk produced without the artificial growth hormone, rBGH.

Food & Water Watch activists dressed as cows to draw attention to their effort to get Starbucks to switch to artificial hormone free milk. Among the groups concerns are that injecting cows with artificial growth hormone harms cows and may harm people. Cows treated with this hormone get more infections, which leads to more antibiotic use. Overuse of antibiotics in animal production creates antibiotic resistant bacteria, a serious threat to treating people. Additionally, there is a potential link between rBGH and higher risk of breast, prostate, and colon cancer.

Starbucks promotes itself as a socially responsible company but has refused to join the growing trend of dairies and food companies switching to milk that is free of artificial growth hormones” said Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter.

An enormous purchaser of milk, Starbucks has been considering offering better milk to its customers since 2001. Starbucks could use its purchasing power to work with dairies to get rid of artificial hormones, just like companies across the country have already done, asserted Food and Water Watch.

I am concerned about what my kids eat. When they come to Starbucks with me, I want them to have milk that is free from artificial hormones that could interfere with their development,” said Joiwind Ronen, a concerned mom in a cow suit.

Numerous companies are requiring their milk suppliers to be rBGH-free, including Ben & Jerry‚ ice cream and Tillamook County Creamery Association cheese. Additionally, certified organic milk cannot be produced with rBGH.

The European Union, Japan, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand do not allow the use of rBGH.

Consumers can find guides to rBGH-free dairy produces sold in their state at http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/dairy/rbgh-free-guide. Consumers can find instructions for calling Starbucks and more information at .