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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Plants Versus Profits
  • Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 20:18:02 -0600


Plants Versus Profits
The Politics of Meat at the World Food Summit
by pattrice le-muire Jones
May 03, 2002

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=6&ItemID=1391

I live in the region of the United States where the techniques of
industrial poultry production were first devised. Our landscape is
littered with low buildings, each of which contains 20,000 young
birds. In these buildings, dead and dying birds lie upon piles of
fecal waste, side by side with live birds destined to be made into
chicken sandwiches for McDonalds. The fumes from the accumulated
urine are so thick that people wear masks to enter and many of the
birds go blind. The birds are fed antibiotics in order to make them
grow more quickly. They go to their deaths at six weeks of age,
having never seen the sun or breathed fresh air.

The people also suffer. We cannot drink the water from our well,
because it has been tainted by fertilizers, pesticides and the waste
of the billions of birds per year who are raised and then killed by
the poultry industry. The rivers, too, are polluted by these things
and by the wastes which flow from the factories in which the birds
are slaughtered and processed into convenience foods for affluent
people.

The children in my county grow up in the shadows of the fields filled
with acre upon acre of genetically modified maize and soya. Yet many
do not have enough to eat. Their parents work on the farms or in the
poultry factories, where the pay is low and disabling injuries are
common. The farmers also struggle, because they have become bound to
an industry which controls every aspect of their operations while
giving them very little in return. Because they grow commodities for
export rather than food for local consumption, they are helpless in
the face of national and international changes in the markets for
their produce.

Now, the corporations which created this miserable state of affairs
plan to expand their operations into nations already struggling with
hunger and environmental distress. They are aided in these aims by
the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade
Organization, and -- shamefully -- the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

Facing declining markets and increasing regulations in the United
States and the European Union, the livestock industries aim to
increase both consumption and production of meat in countries where
people have traditionally eaten more healthy diets rich in
plant-based foods. Like demand for tobacco and alcohol, demand for
meat tends to increase as populations become more urban and more
people work for wages rather than growing their own food. Demand for
meat is influenced by a variety of factors, including corporate
advertising and the widespread notion that the meat-based diet
consumed by many Europeans and Americans is a symbol of high status.

By dumping underpriced products and touting them as healthy foods,
the US livestock industries can virtually ensure that low-income
consumers will replace more expensive locally produced foods with US
products. Already, in China, increases in meat and milk consumption
promoted by the US dairy industry have led to increases in the
degenerative diseases that plague the United States. In Russia, where
the US poultry industry dumps the ³dark meat² leg quarters shunned by
domestic consumers, citizens have replaced traditional sources of
cheap protein with chicken flesh that is often tainted with
salmonella, hormones, and antibiotics.

Like demand for tobacco and alcohol, demand for meat can be
dangerous. High consumption of meat and other animal-based foods is
linked to heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and various cancers,
including breast and colon cancer. Food and agriculture experts
should be warning people against increased consumption of meat and
working to promote sustainable cultivation of more traditional and
healthy foods. Unfortunately, the combination of corporate influence
and their own dietary preferences has led experts associated with FAO
and other international agencies to talk instead about finding ways
to meet expected increases in demand for meat in low-income nations.
At the same time, powerful nations and their agents at the World Bank
and IMF are working to force low-income nations to become more open
to both agricultural imports and foreign investment in local
agriculture projects.

Transnational corporations which control the production of meat and
other animal-based foods are already taking advantage of this
situation, by using hunger and projected demand for meat to justify
new industrial animal agriculture operations in Africa, Asia, and
regions of South America. This is the latest phase of agricultural
colonialism.

Agricultural colonialism began in era of European imperialism, when
lands previously devoted to the production of food for local and
regional consumption were forcibly converted to the production of
commodities for export. Areas which had previously been
self-sufficient in food production became dependent on international
markets in order to obtain cash to buy food.

In today¹s neo-colonial era, there have been three phases of
agricultural colonialism. The first phase was the so-called ³green
revolution,² when farmers were encouraged to use * artificial
pesticides, fertilizers, and ³improved² seeds. The second phase,
which is ongoing, involves biotechnology and genetically engineered
seeds. The third phase, which has just begun is the so-called
³livestock revolution,² which will involve moving the production of
meat and other animal-based foods into low-income nations.

All of these phases of agricultural neo-colonialism have had two
things in common: they have been promoted as ³hunger relief² and the
true beneficiaries have been greedy corporations rather than hungry
people. In each instance, the focus has been on the production of
commodities for export, with both the control and the profits
remaining in the hands of the wealthy providers of the capital and
other inputs needed to produce those commodities.

The latest phase of agricultural colonialism may prove to be the most
dangerous. In addition to further endangering and disempowering the
people of impoverished nations, the expansion of industrial animal
agriculture in those nations will have environmental consequences
which will hurt everyone.

Animal agriculture already produces more water pollution than all
other human activities combined. Now, the plan is to sharply increase
worldwide meat production. Because industrial animal agriculture
utilizes high levels of water, water resources will be increasingly
depleted at the same time as they are increasingly polluted. At the
same time, soil degradation associated with intensive grazing will
increase desertification. All of this will hasten and worsen the
emerging worldwide water crisis.

Biodiversity is also threatened by plans to increase meat production
in the next two decades. It takes, on average, ten pounds of grain,
maize, or soya to produce one pound of meat. More and more fields
will be converted to the production of genetically engineered
livestock feed, leaving less and less land for sustainable
cultivation of diverse food crops for people.

This is an issue which demonstrates the truth of the hypothesis that
social, economic, and environmental problems are interconnected.
People, animals, and the environment will all be damaged so that
corporations can earn profits by vending products which are known to
cause disease in those who consume them.

The good news is that there is still time to stop this phase of
agricultural colonialism. However, if we are to succeed, this issue
must be given high priority in the agenda of the movement against
trade globalization.

The World Food Summit (10-13 June, Rome) offers unique opportunities
and challenges to those of us who seek to feed the world while
preserving the planet. In theory, the world leaders gathered at the
Summit could make agreements which would end all but the small
proportion of hunger which is related to unavoidable circumstances.
In reality, the interests of corporate agribusiness will probably
ensure that false solutions such as more trade liberalization and
more factory farming receive the most support... unless we take
effective action. Global Hunger Alliance, an international coalition
of organizations, has called for an international day of action on
the day before the Summit opens and will be organizing demonstrations
in Rome and in Washington, DC on that day. The Alliance has also
asked individuals and organizations to contact their delegations in
order to demand that the Summit result in genuine solutions such as
debt relief, increased direct food aid, and more substantial support
for sustainable cultivation of indigenous and locally-improved
varieties of traditional food plants.

At the World Food Summit in June 2002, and at other international
venues, we must speak forcefully of the dangers of industrial animal
agriculture while at the same time promoting more effective, ethical,
and environmentally sustainable solutions to hunger and malnutrition.
We must work for more equitable and efficient use of existing food
resources and for enhanced international support for self-directed
and sustainable cultivation of native and traditional food crops for
local and regional consumption in impoverished nations. By taking
these steps, we can help to feed the world while saving the planet.


Pattrice Le-Muire Jones coordinates the Global Hunger Alliance, an
international coalition of environmental, social justice, and animal
liberation organizations dedicated to effective, equitable, ethical,
and environmentally sustainable solutions to hunger and malnutrition.
Global Hunger Alliance is online at http://www.globalhunger.net





  • [Livingontheland] Plants Versus Profits, Tradingpost, 04/27/2004

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