Macrofarms Industrial livestock, finally (thanks to a hoax) in the public debate

If anyone doubted that consuming is a political act, the dirty and smelly cloud of hoaxes provoked in recent weeks about some sensible and well-founded statements by the Minister of Consumption about industrial livestock, does nothing but confirm it.

Given how events have unfolded, in the end, we must consider that the controversy created has been very positive for citizens to speak and inform themselves about such an important issue for a sustainable future as the production and consumption of meat.

With no other intention than ordering serious information and rigorous arguments that help us advance in conscious and responsible consumption, we underline the following ideas:

1. COHERENCE WITH WHAT SCIENCE SAYS

Minister Garzón's words are consistent with scientific evidence on environmental and public health matters, and are endorsed by international organizations of the highest solvency and credibility such as the IPCC, IPBES or the WHO.

2. INDUSTRIAL LIVESTOCK FARMING IS THE ENEMY OF FAMILY LIVESTOCK FARMING

The impact of factory farming, both on the social fabric and on the environment, is so unsustainable that the FAO has declared the period 2019–2028 as the United Nations Decade of Family Farming.

3. MISINFORMATION

The alarming low level of information in the media on this issue and, in general, on many other aspects of consumption is worrying. Dependence on advertising produces clamorous silences or the spread of hoaxes interested in defending the interests of advertisers.

4. A POWERFUL LOBBY

The powerful lobby of the meat industry is not alone in the media, where it acts as the tobacco lobby did in its time. Like these, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, it uses all means of pressure on the political class to defend its particular economic interests at all costs.

5. ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE

In our country, the meat industry is the fourth industrial sector with nearly 28,000 million euros in turnover, only behind the automobile industry, the oil and fuel industry or energy supply, and together with sectors such as the chemical or metallurgical. For its part, the pig occupies the first place in terms of its economic importance, reaching 66% of total meat production.

6. EXPORT

The enormous expansion of this industrial livestock has to do with exports. In the pig sector, Spain is already the first European producer and the third worldwide.

7. SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL UNSUSTAINABILITY

We are facing an unsustainable social and environmental industrial model. Factory farming is responsible for numerous environmental and social impacts:

1. Worldwide, the agri-food sector, as a whole, is responsible for up to 37% of global greenhouse gas emissions and the livestock sector alone is responsible for 14.5%.
2. Nearly 80% of the planet's agricultural surface is destined today to produce food for animals and not for people. This ends up accelerating deforestation.
3. Soybeans imported from countries like Brazil, which are subject to extremely rapid processes of deforestation and forced displacement of populations, play a major role in feeding these animals.
4. Consumption of large amounts of water in a country where water scarcity will be increasing. According to Greenpeace, livestock in Spain consumes 48,000 million cubic meters of water per year, the equivalent of what all Spanish households combined for more than 20 years would consume.
5. Production of huge amounts of waste in the form of slurry, a mixture of liquid and solid excrement responsible for nitrate contamination of aquifers and rivers that has increased by more than 50% in recent years, reaching about 25% of the surface of the country. Added to the nitrates are the important emanations of ammonia and methane, making the agricultural fields near these meat factories authentic dumps. In 2019, Spain was precisely the country that exceeded the ammonium limits the most (of the four that still do) and the third largest emitter in the EU.
6. All this has caused the European Commission to denounce Spain before the European Court of Justice for the repeated breach of the Nitrates Directive.
7. We must bear in mind that manure and other pollutants from intensive agriculture are what are behind disasters such as the Mar Menor tragedy.
8. Loss of genetic biodiversity. The marginalization of extensive livestock farming is causing an enormous loss of diversity, by substituting autochthonous breeds perfectly adapted to the territory for more productive ones raised in artificial conditions.
9. Mistreatment and systematic violence suffered by animals crowded into facilities that prevent mobility and access to sunlight throughout their lives.
10. Abuse of antibiotics in the diet, which put our health at risk due to the possible appearance of superbugs resistant to current medication.
11. Their low prices are not taking into account the environmental costs, which are assumed by the direct environment in which they are installed, degrading the quality of life and the health of its inhabitants. And the same goes for its responsibility for climate change.
12. Settled in sparsely populated regions, they speed up depopulation processes, as a recent study by Ecologists in Action has shown.
13. It makes small farms disappear. While the census of pigs in Spain has grown by 35%, that of small farms (less than 1,000 animals) has decreased by 30% in the last 10 years.
14. It destroys three times as many jobs as it generates, since, being highly automated farms, they require very little labor, and the jobs it creates are of poorer quality, precarious and poorly paid.

In summary: what this industry leaves behind in the forgotten territories of Spain where it settles is shit, flies, bad smells, environmental destruction and more depopulation.

The dismantling of the industrial livestock model should be conceived in terms equivalent to those of the just transition of jobs in coal, thermal power plants or the automobile industry.

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8. ABOUT FOOD SAFETY

On the food safety of industrial meat, let's dispel old myths. In principle, there can no longer be traces of hormones and antibiotics in the meat that reaches the market: they are prohibited and strictly regulated and monitored in the EU. Another thing is that antibiotics are frequently used systematically or preventively. Overcrowding in unnatural and very stressful conditions for animals weakens their immune system and forces the use of antibiotics to keep them healthy in these conditions. Accordingly, it is worth noting:

1. Industrial farming is the main consumer of antibiotics in the world, and Spain is the European country where they are most used in this sector.
2. In Spain, 3/4 of all antibiotics in the country are used for livestock.
3. Thanks to vigilance in consumption, and to the recent regulation that limits its use, a significant reduction has been achieved, but still far from the European average.
4. However, a recent study has confirmed the presence of antibiotic residues, and along with them of antibiotic-resistant superbugs, in the waters of several rivers in northern Spain, with special intensity in areas with industrial livestock.
5. The appearance of superbugs, both in these animals and in consumers of food from the former, is one of the most serious dangers to human health.

9. ABOUT THE QUALITY OF INDUSTRIAL MEAT

To talk about quality, we just have to remember the different qualities of Serrano ham, both in nutritional and organoleptic terms (taste, smell, texture...): to a large extent, that quality depends on what that animal eats and how that animal lives . A system that seeks the greatest production of meat, milk and eggs at the lowest cost and in the shortest time possible, gives rise to poor quality products.

It is true that betting on quality alternatives, such as extensive livestock, must go hand in hand with reducing meat consumption. Therefore, it is not just about substituting one meat for another, but also questioning the amount of animal protein that is consumed.

10. ABOUT MEAT CONSUMPTION AND HEALTH

Some fundamental considerations:

1. The consumption of red and processed meat is associated with a series of diseases related to cancer, obesity, mental health, type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, intestinal diseases (diverticulitis), chronic liver diseases or premature death.
2. Already in 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a report evaluating the carcinogenicity of consuming red meat and processed meat.
3. On processed meat, the most abundant form of marketing, the risk of colorectal cancer increases by 18% with each 50-gram serving of processed meat taken daily.
4. Processed meat is closely linked to rhythms of life marked by the scarcity of time and energy to devote to food preparation.
5. For its part, the consumption of water contaminated by nitrates (from industrial livestock farming and synthetic fertilizers) is related to the development of gastric cancers.
6. For all these reasons, the FAO recommends consuming a maximum of 300 grams of meat per week per person.

11. ABOUT THE AMOUNT OF MEAT WE EAT AND SUSTAINABILITY

Some considerations:

1. The Report on food consumption in Spain 2020, prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, reflects that the annual consumption of meat per capita exceeds 50 kg.
2. Greenpeace, with data from the FAO, doubles this consumption: 100 kg per capita, making it the European country with the highest consumption of meat.
3. As a whole, meat consumption in Spain is four times higher than the health and ecological recommendations.

12. AN ETHICS OF CONSUMPTION

Seeking a convergence of human health, environmental sustainability, respect for animals and global justice:

1. This excessive, unhealthy and unsustainable consumption of meat is only possible due to a model of industrial farming, which indifferent to the serious consequences for the environment, health and quality of life of the animals, opts for cheap and low-quality meat. quality, and quick profit.
2. Apart from the most radically consistent alternatives, such as vegan or vegetarian, it is possible to reach a point of balance that combines human health, sustainability and global justice: a radical reduction in meat consumption according to the principle of "less quantity, more quality". (Extense livestock farming)".

13. THE QUALITY AND SUSTAINABILITY OF EXTENSIVE LIVESTOCK FARMING

We are particularly talking about local, ecological (with or without certification) and small-scale farming, which provides the following benefits:

1. Significant reduction in carbon emissions from livestock.
2. Protection of carbon sink pastures.
3. Reduction of forest fires.
4. Generation of unique and balanced landscapes such as meadows.
5. It is a reservoir for local breeds in danger of disappearing.
6. Create employment in our towns, establishing population in rural areas.
7. Provides sustainable and quality food.
8. It contributes to food sovereignty and reconnects the countryside and the city, through the landscapes and culture it preserves.

14. CONSCIOUS CONSUMPTION

What we can do as conscious consumers:

1. A civic attitude: conscious, responsible or sustainable consumption.
2. A starting point: we must stop loading the bulk of the blame on consumers. Consumption is not what determines production, but it is usually the opposite: it is the decisions in the productive structure that establish the patterns of consumption through advertising and the concealment of alternatives.
3. Three ethical, healthy and sustainable options, framed as far as possible in agroecology: veganism, vegetarianism and flexitarianism. In a broad sense, flexitarians would be those who do not exceed 2-3 servings of 125 g or 400-450 g. totals per week. The Mediterranean diet of a lifetime would be a concretion of the flexitarian.
4. Encouraging data: according to the report 'The Green Revolution', today, 7.9% of the Spanish population considers itself flexitarian, 1.5% vegetarian and 0.5% vegan. They may seem small numbers, but the truth is that they do not stop growing.

15. REQUIREMENTS TO LEGISLATORS

What we demand from the conscious and sustainable consumption of the Government and legislators:

1. Urgently declare a moratorium on the expansion or approval of new farms, including those that are in the process of being processed, for intensive livestock farming to be consistent with European and state environmental policies.
2. End all subsidies and tax breaks for factory farming.
3. Notably increase the control and inspection of industrial operations.
4. Resolutely support extensive livestock farming, the only truly sustainable alternative to industrialized livestock production, capable of contributing to other challenges such as the fight against rural depopulation and the climate crisis.
5. Specific policies that accompany the gradual and necessary disappearance of industrial farming and help to recover old farming practices.
6. Less tolerant and more demanding animal welfare regulations, and that they are also complied with.
7. Regulatory, commercial (explicit labeling) and fiscal framework that allows differentiating and favoring extensive livestock, in policies and markets.
8. Meanwhile, support private initiatives from the extensive sector to create and maintain their own seal that certifies the origin of their products.
9. Regulate more stringently the advertising of the entire food industry, especially that aimed at children and adolescents.
10. Policies that promote a diet in restaurants and public canteens where plant-based, ecological and local products predominate.

The most important of these demands are present in the recent declaration of Stop Industrial Livestock, of which Ecologists in Action is a part.

References:

Statements by the Minister of Consumption Alberto Garzón in The Guardian.

State Coordinator Stop Industrial Livestock. Platforms against factory farming confirm the damage caused by this model.

Friends of the Earth, Ecologists in Action, Greenpeace, SEO/BirdLife and WWF: Industrial livestock: benefits for a few at the cost of environmental degradation and rural abandonment.

Ecologists in Action: Industrial livestock and depopulation.

Martín Lallana: End the macro-farms as an eco-socialist lever.

Several authors. Do we really need to face the impacts of macro farms to feed ourselves?

Various authors. The tragedy of the Mar Menor: politics and agribusiness allied against science and society.

Newthral. The debate on intensive livestock farming and macro farms in five facts.

General Directorate of the Food Industry. Report on food consumption in Spain 2020.

Ecologists in Action: Less meat, better health.

Greenpeace: 10 worrying facts about the effects of the current level of meat consumption on our health.

FAO “The Long Shadow of Livestock”.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

World Resources Institute (WRI).

UN recommendations.

Animal Equality Foundation: Garzón doesn't say so, science says so: industrial farming leads us to the abyss.