Wake Up Call !

[Guest guest]

Listen to This Wake-Up Call From Farm Animals

 

by Brian Haliwell and Dani Niernberg

 Globalized trade in goods and services, the movement of animals

across borders and the frequency of intercontinental airline travel mean

that no country is immune to any number of existing or emerging

diseases.

The recently completed Pan-American Highway virtually guarantees that

foot-and-mouth, already a problem in South America, will make its way up

to North America. A Briton with the foot-and-mouth virus on his shoes

can board a plane in London and be on a Texas cattle farm in a matter of

hours.

Since 1986, when mad cow disease and its human version were detected in

Britain, British meat has been shipped around the world. So have British

feed products, which can harbor this poorly understood illness that is

fatal to humans. Mad cows have already shown up in France, Italy,

Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, Ireland and Spain. The UN Food and

Agriculture Organization has declared that all nations should consider

themselves at risk. A recent survey by the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration found that one in four American slaughterhouses and feed

processing plants fail to comply with steps to prevent mad cow disease.

To understand the problem you have to realize that these are related

diseases in terms of the economic environment that allows them to

thrive.

The modern animal farm not only allows but paves the way for the

outbreak of disease. We cram thousands of genetically uniform animals

into unhygienic warehouses, generating a feast for microbes. We recycle

animal manure and slaughterhouse waste as feed. We process meat at

breakneck speed in the presence of blood, feces and other contagion

agents. Long-distance transport of food creates endless opportunities

for contamination.

The irony is that this model of food production, designed to put

economic gain ahead of good animal health, does not make economic sense

in the long term. Mad cow alone has already cost Britain more than $1

billion and sapped $5.6 million from European Union coffers. The price

tag for foot-and-mouth is likely to be equally devastating. And these

outbreaks are just a glimpse of the full toll on society. The mountains

of manure that factory farming generates foul our air and water,

disrupting ecosystems and sickening rural communities. Overuse of

antibiotics in factory farms comes back to harm us in the form of newly

drug-resistant microbes, including salmonella, E. coli and

camplyobacter. A recent study found that America's farm animals consume

roughly 10 times as much antibiotics as the human population.

Still, industrial animal farming is spreading. It is the fastest growing

form of animal production - responsible for nearly half of the world's

meat, up from one-third in 1990. It is concentrated in North America and

Europe, but industrial feedlots are popping up near urban centers in

Brazil, the Philippines, China, India and elsewhere in the developing

world where demand for meat and animal products is soaring. There is of

course another way to produce meat, one which treats farms as living

systems rather than assembly lines. It is no coincidence that mad cow

has yet to be reported on organic farms throughout Europe which prohibit

feeding of slaughterhouse waste, give animals access to the outdoors and

emphasize good animal health in general.

In Sweden, which has been able to prevent an outbreak with good animal

husbandry, farmers have gained public trust and recaptured local

markets.

In Germany, the food scare has sparked an about-face on farm policy. The

chancellor replaced the agriculture minister with an environmentalist

and declared that farm policy and practices must mesh with environmental

and public health goals. The European Union as a whole is posed for

similar systematic reforms that reach beyond quick-fix solutions like

animal quarantines and meat irradiation.

Every government needs reforms at the national level, but in the end it

is a global issue. Trade is global, disease is global and protecting

public health must become global, too.

The writers are researchers at the Worldwatch Institute who focus on

effects of food production.

© 2001 the International Herald Tribune

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Pearl (NY)

 

 

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