Who pays for Europe's meat consumption?
by Martin Häusling
11 November 2011
We are deluding ourselves that we can feed the world if we increase our production here in the European Union – claims MEP
Our meat production and consumption patterns in Europe have a direct impact on agriculture in Latin America. Extensive, small-scale livestock farming is disappearing – it has been replaced by large-scale, export-oriented agriculture. There is a trend for policy-makers in Europe to increasingly support a liberalisation of our markets. In particular, agricultural goods from foreign countries are encouraged into Europe in return for member states exporting processed goods and services to third countries.
This liberalisation process attracts the attention of big multinationals. More or less five grain companies - including Cargill or Bunge - control nearly 75 per cent of the world grain market. Clearly, these firms are focussed on profit and not on rural development or biodiversity. At the European Parliament - we have just been visited by Walter Pengue, who is professor of agricultural ecology at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, who explained that around 150 000 farms were lost during the 1990s.
These days, family-owned farms in Argentina cultivate approximately 500-5,000 hectares. Compared to European conditions, this is large-scale farming. But the family farms in Argentina have to compete with farms of up to around 100,000 ha, which are often kept afloat by international money.
Trade liberalisation and missing rules in the sense of real sustainable agriculture in Europe and third countries do promote this trend of repression.
Our meat consumption in Europe has a big influence on this trend and in determining which crops are produced in other countries. In Argentina, the main crop produced is soy. Approximately 42 million tonnes or around 80 per cent of animal foodstuff, mainly soy, is imported from Latin America with devastating consequences for biodiversity and soils.
This soy production contributes to deforestation and also adversely affects the way cattle are farmed in Argentina. Argentina produces more and more for the world market, which means that its own population has to face increasing prices for food and a loss of quality. For example, gauchos and prairie grazing cattle have almost vanished. The reality is feedlots in which thousands of cows are crowded onto small muddy areas without any grass. This is the reality of how meat is produced today, in Argentina. It means high quantities, but lower quality. As Michael Hausmann from Brot für die Welt stated, we are deluding ourselves that we can feed the world if we increase our production here in the European Union. We have to produce in regional or local cycles - quite the opposite of the mainstream production system today.
Martin Häusling is a German MEP and spokesman for the Greens/European Free Alliance group on the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, in the European Parliament
Our meat production and consumption patterns in Europe have a direct impact on agriculture in Latin America. Extensive, small-scale livestock farming is disappearing – it has been replaced by large-scale, export-oriented agriculture. There is a trend for policy-makers in Europe to increasingly support a liberalisation of our markets. In particular, agricultural goods from foreign countries are encouraged into Europe in return for member states exporting processed goods and services to third countries.
This liberalisation process attracts the attention of big multinationals. More or less five grain companies - including Cargill or Bunge - control nearly 75 per cent of the world grain market. Clearly, these firms are focussed on profit and not on rural development or biodiversity. At the European Parliament - we have just been visited by Walter Pengue, who is professor of agricultural ecology at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, who explained that around 150 000 farms were lost during the 1990s.
These days, family-owned farms in Argentina cultivate approximately 500-5,000 hectares. Compared to European conditions, this is large-scale farming. But the family farms in Argentina have to compete with farms of up to around 100,000 ha, which are often kept afloat by international money.
Trade liberalisation and missing rules in the sense of real sustainable agriculture in Europe and third countries do promote this trend of repression.
Our meat consumption in Europe has a big influence on this trend and in determining which crops are produced in other countries. In Argentina, the main crop produced is soy. Approximately 42 million tonnes or around 80 per cent of animal foodstuff, mainly soy, is imported from Latin America with devastating consequences for biodiversity and soils.
This soy production contributes to deforestation and also adversely affects the way cattle are farmed in Argentina. Argentina produces more and more for the world market, which means that its own population has to face increasing prices for food and a loss of quality. For example, gauchos and prairie grazing cattle have almost vanished. The reality is feedlots in which thousands of cows are crowded onto small muddy areas without any grass. This is the reality of how meat is produced today, in Argentina. It means high quantities, but lower quality. As Michael Hausmann from Brot für die Welt stated, we are deluding ourselves that we can feed the world if we increase our production here in the European Union. We have to produce in regional or local cycles - quite the opposite of the mainstream production system today.
Martin Häusling is a German MEP and spokesman for the Greens/European Free Alliance group on the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, in the European Parliament
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