Contents

Executive Summary 4

Introduction 8

1 Demand for and dairy products increasing rapidly 8

2 The devastating impacts of industrial livestock farming 10

2.1 Burning forests for beef: ranching drives deforestation 10 and biodiversity loss 2.2 Lost lands: industrial livestock farming wrecks rural 12 communities 2.3 Intensive livestock farming creates public health and animal 14 welfare hazards 2.4 Roasting the climate: another major ingredient in climate 18 change

3 Corporate control of food 20

Cattle ranching in . Jai Mansson/Flickr 3.1 How free trade and free trade rules favour industrial 20 What’s at steak? The real cost of meat 3.2 Corporate concentration in industrial livestock farming 25 3.3 False solutions: more of the same fare 32 Impacts of the industrial livestock and feedstock industries on forests, climate change, farmers and communities 4 Small-scale and sustainable agriculture: an alternative menu 34 Published in November 2016 by Global Forest Coalition 5 Case study summariesi 37 Authors: Ronnie Hall and Mary Louise Malig Editors: Ronnie Hall and Michael Braverman-Scult Conclusions and Recommendations 40 Graphic design: Oliver Munnion

Endnotes 43 Case study authors: : Pablo Solón and Jose Carlos Solón, Fundación Solón, Bolivia i Brazil: Sergio Schlesinger, consultant for FASE Brasil The full length versions of the country case studies and associated references can be accessed at: http://globalforestcoalition.org/whats-at-steak/ India: Ashlesha Khadse, Amrita Bhoomi Agroecology Centre, La Via Campesina’s Agroecology school in South Asia : Ines Franceschelli and Miguel Lovera, Heñói Jey, Paraguay : Svetlana Abramovich, Friends of Siberian Forests, Russia

We would also like to thank the following organisations for their contributions: Brighter Green European Coordination of La Via Campesina Norwegian Farmers and Smallholders Union

Cover photo: Gado. Kelly Sato/Flickr Back cover: Peasant working in the field. Jing/Flickr

This report was made possible with the support of Misereor. The opinions expressed in this report are not necessarily those of our donors. Another important trend is the fact animals are treated with hormones livestock products like meat and that small family farms are rapidly and antibiotics to promote growth. dairy is essential. Executive Summary giving way to large-scale, factory The unnecessary use of antibiotics is farms, and this is particularly leading to drug-resistant bacteria Nevertheless governments are prevalent in the livestock industry. In and the spread of untreatable seeking to expand industrial Paraguay, for example, the problem bacterial infections. The industrial agriculture, including by boosting This report aims to expose the many ways in which industrial livestock farming is impacting our lives and of land being grabbed from small production of livestock—in India’s . The inclusion of environment, and to argue that—precisely because it does cause so many problems—transforming the farmers and Indigenous Peoples for poultry sector for example, and to agriculture in the then newly industrial livestock sector should be a key objective not only the United Nations Food and Agriculture cattle-ranching and soy production produce pesticide-sprayed soya in established Organization, but also of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework remains a key preoccupation, Paraguay—also creates significant (WTO) in 1995 was a major coup for Convention on Climate Change. Put simply, changing the way we produce meat and dairy products, and how including because it is systematically public health dangers, and water large agribusinesses: Bringing much of them we eat, could provide relatively easy to achieve but far-reaching win-win-win impacts—for undermining the country’s capacity to availability and quality is a particular agriculture into the WTO meant that people, including farmers and women, for forests and biodiversity, for animals and for our climate. produce food for local consumption. concern. Overall, consumers eating WTO members and new applicants food products may be consuming a had to negotiate to open up their This is because the industrial This is an urgent matter, because Beef is a particular concern. Figures In India household backyard poultry cocktail of pesticides, hormones, agricultural markets to imports, livestock industry is a major livestock production (for and from the Food and Agriculture production—mostly by women for parasites and/or bacteria. creating new business opportunities contributor to forest and biodiversity feedcrops) already accounts for the Organization (FAO) show that beef their own families’ consumption and for companies big enough to trade loss and to climate change, as well as majority of agricultural land use and cattle milk production are the for additional income—used to be Many impacts relating to livestock internationally. posing a threat to the world’s small- across the world. In anticipation, worst offenders as far as climate ubiquitous, but has now been almost production are quantity-related as scale food producers, and the without corrective measures, global change is concerned, accounting for totally replaced by a vertically well, so the number of animals is an Russia demonstrates the policy availability of healthy and nutritious demand for livestock products is 41% and 20% of the livestock sector’s integrated industrial model where important factor in the sustainability problems that can arise as a result, food for all. For example, the expected to increase by 70% by emissions respectively. This is partly farmers work under contract with of any livestock production system. because of the conflict created livestock sector as a whole already 2050. Demand for meat in because cattle ranching is a large agribusiness corporations. Due to the relatively high ecological between its WTO obligation to open contributes an estimated 14.5% of developing countries is spiraling, and significant driver of forest and footprint of farm animals, small- its markets and its desire to ensure global greenhouse gas emissions. So urbanisation is changing people’s biodiversity loss, especially in Latin Millions of animals are being raised in scale and extensive systems like food self-sufficiency. A similar far these impacts have received little eating habits. This in turn threatens America, where much of the world’s inhumane, unsanitary and polluting pastoralism and family farms have tension is evident in Bolivia, where attention, but concern is growing. to drive up demand for cropland, deforestation takes place. It has industrial conditions, including in significantly less negative incoming Brazilian investors have We aim to help turn the spotlight and to increase the use of fertilisers, been estimated that emissions from Concentrated Animal Feedlot environmental and social impacts, taken advantage of the low cost of onto this overlooked sector, looking tropical forest loss and greenhouse cattle raising may be responsible for Operations (CAFOs) such as mega- and health and animal welfare land and free trade ‘ at what’s happening on the ground gas emissions. half of all Brazil’s greenhouse gas dairies. This intensive approach to impacts, than CAFOs and other preferences’ under the Andean in five countries: Bolivia, Brazil, emissions. Our case studies show livestock is associated with numerous systems where thousands of animals Community (CAN). India, Paraguay, and Russia. that Bolivia and Paraguay are health issues. In many countries are farmed. Limiting demand for similarly impacted.

Police protecting crop spraying operations from the protests of local communities, in Paraguay. Luis Wagner/CIC A broiler chicken facility near New Delhi. Sangamithra Iyer/Brighter Green Governments in countries such as intensification’ of its operations as a Other measures are needed as well methods in line with the Aichi targets models of production—such as should be prohibited, and livestock- India, Brazil and Paraguay are solution to problems like climate though, to address the many other of the Convention on Biological farmer cooperatives and collectives related pollution standards, actively encouraging corporate change and hunger. However, a significant social, environmental, Diversity. It is particularly important —is critical. These should uphold including strict regulations on the concentration in the livestock sector. growing body of research shows that health, and animal welfare problems to eliminate perverse legal, fiscal and small farmers’ rights, and provide use of antibiotics, should be For example, Brazil, has a so-called the changes proposed cannot caused by the corporate take-over of other incentives for commodity better support for existing and new introduced, strengthened and/or ‘national champions’ policy which possibly counter the predicted scale the livestock sector. chains like unsustainably produced small-scale food producers, with a effectively enforced. favours large companies who are of demand for meat and dairy beef and animal , which are specific focus on gender issues. expected to advance the country’s products. Similarly, proposals to Fiscal reforms should support major drivers of forest loss. In general, it is essential that we interests as they prosper. This has address livestock emissions through sustainable livestock production and Reforming other governance and change the way in which soils and put many small slaughterhouses out carbon accounting or even carbon consumption. These should include Government support for policies that trade practices and policies is also productive resources are being used, of business, and made life much markets will fail to address the many redirecting subsidies and other build awareness and capacity in essential. This should include recovering land and traditional harder for small cattle breeders, social impacts of unsustainable forms of economic support to more relation to sustainable livestock developing and implementing strict patterns of land management, with a who have become captive to the big livestock production, and its impacts sustainable livestock production practices, and facilitate alternative legislation prohibiting livestock view to managing agricultural and slaughterhouses, who pay them on water, biodiversity and animal practices that involve environmental pasture land judiciously for the lower prices and grab their profits. welfare. pollution, weak labour standards, benefit of the whole population, increasing the gender gap, land distributing productive resources India’s poultry sector exemplifies These approaches also ignore the grabbing, health risks and the fairly for the primary purpose of ‘Tysonisation’: the introduction of a very essence of sustainable maltreatment of animals. CAFOs food security, food sovereignty and vertical integration model in which agriculture: maintaining the balance sound the company (originally Tyson in the between producing food, crops, and nutrition. US) controls all aspects of pasture for grazing, and regenerating production. In practice this means soil, preserving ecosystems, and co- that it owns each of its millions of existing with forests. chickens from before they hatch to the day they are slaughtered, taking There are many practical alternatives on contracted farmers to do most of already in existence, including the work and also shoulder most of agroecology, agroforestry, traditional the risk if things go wrong. pastoralist practices that enhance forest conservation, and the This corporate concentration restoration of traditional livestock- dynamic is playing out on a global breeding lands and farming with scale now, as industrial agriculture is native breeds. This means that we conducted through ‘global value can rapidly transition to ways of Bos Indicus - the local Indian cow - is fast disappearing chains’ that account for some 80% of producing and consuming diverse as other species are brought in. Ashlesha Khadse global trade. This situation is and healthy foods that work for exacerbated by the fact that WTO families and communities, create negotiations failed to stop large- livelihoods and employment, and are scale farms being subsidised in the in harmony with our environment. US and the EU. This has created the double challenge of unsubsidised Reforming livestock production and farmers in developing countries consumption has the potential to having to compete with products generate really significant and far- from large industrial farmers reaching benefits for us and for our elsewhere in the world, who are planet, and with relative ease. With already operating to economies of respect to climate change switching scale and supported financially by to healthier diets with less meat, their governments. combined with a reduction in food waste, and improvements in Given the industrial livestock sector’s livestock production, could result in many negative impacts it is ironic emissions from livestock production that the livestock sector is promoting almost halving by 2050. the further ‘sustainable

6 | November 2016 | What’s at steak? The real cost of meat Parsley is grown under netting on a small-scale farm in Paraguay. Indigenous forest women of Indonesia working in a tree seedling plot. Ronnie Hall/CIC Martinus Sinani Agriculture Organization (FAO), the In general there are increasing cooked, fast and convenience foods majority of this would be supplied by numbers of ‘middle class’ people than people in rural areas; and these the growing livestock and feedstock with more disposable income, who foods usually incorporate more meat Introduction industry. [4] want to eat more meat and dairy products. Looking again to Russia, products. A very visual explanation between 2005 and 2010, the per It is also estimated that cropland may of this can be seen in the Brighter capita consumption of all and have expanded by 42% by 2050 (from Green documentary, ‘What’s for meat products increased by 22% and It has been argued that industrial and mitigating and adapting to challenge the livestock industry’s 2009 levels), and fertiliser use by Dinner’, where marketing targets the Russian Government has livestock is a ‘forgotten sector’ when climate change. Transforming assertion that the ‘sustainable 45%. Another 10% of the world’s lifestyle aspirations promoting the predicted that total domestic it comes to public awareness about livestock production is a potential intensification’ of livestock tropical forests may disappear as a idea that affluence and a meat- consumption will increase further to its impact on climate change, [1] but win-win-win scenario. production will resolve these result of a growing global desire to intensive diet go together. [10] 9.9 million tons by 2020. [12] one can just as easily argue that the dilemmas—research shows that the eat more meat. These developments, sector’s devastating impacts on In this report we look at what’s changes proposed cannot possibly combined with increased methane One related and important but In general small family farms are forests and biodiversity, Indigenous happening on the ground in five address the predicted scale of emissions from livestock, could cause rather overlooked factor is rapidly giving way to large-scale, Peoples, small-scale farmers, food countries: Bolivia, Brazil, India, demand for meat and dairy greenhouse gases from food urbanisation. Our case study from factory farms. [13] This is particularly security, animal welfare and public Paraguay, and Russia. We consider products. production to increase by almost Russia argues that urbanisation is prevalent in the livestock industry, health are all equally neglected. The how the expansion of industrial 80%. [5] Direct drivers of this both increasing demand for where millions of animals are raised industrial livestock sector is getting livestock expected trend include in inhumane, unsanitary away with murder, both literally and farming in growing populations, the rising industrial conditions. These metaphorically. these affluence of a growing middle operations, along with the countries is class, and urbanisation. It is resources needed to grow the We aim to help turn the spotlight being driven important to realise that the grain and oil meals (principally onto this forgotten sector, showing by the meat and dairy sector itself is and corn) for how it is being rapidly expanded in current a main driver as well, livestock feed place intense countries across the world, even global drive employing aggressive pressure on the world’s though a transformation in this to liberalise marketing strategies and forests and human sector—perhaps more than any trade and lobbying policy-makers for communities. other—could result in real and concentrate subsidies and other policy effective progress on addressing corporate measures that support Nevertheless, this highly malnutrition and food security, power in industrialised production. unsustainable industry protecting and enhancing the fewer and continues to receive proactive livelihoods of millions of millions of fewer Diets have changed generally support from governments, small producers, often female, hands; and since the late 1970s, with more including more than US$50 conserving forests and biodiversity, we Figure 1. Source: World Resources Institute livestock products being billion in subsidies in the Figure 2. Source: Islam,et al. 2016ii consumed. [6] For instance, in Organisation for Economic India, long renowned as a country industrial livestock products, and Cooperation and Development with a high percentage of vegetarians, reducing the capacity of an ageing (OECD) countries alone. [14] For 1. Demand for meat and there is a clear trend away from population of small-scale food example, the EU’s Agriculture vegetarianism and towards meat producers left behind in the Commission recently announced eating: 70% of Indians now eat meat. countryside to produce food in a plans to allocate €15 million a year to dairy products increasing [7] Eating beef remains controversial more sustainable way. This is a very promote meat consumption in because of religious taboos and significant phenomenon in Russia: , and another €4 million to extremist politics but the between 2007 and 2012, 40% of opening new markets for European rapidly consumption of eggs and poultry has Russian people aged between 17 and beef abroad. [15] increased dramatically. For example, 29 were involved in internal between 2004-05 and 2011-12 the migration. [11] Yet further increases in meat and rate of chicken consumption jumped dairy consumption will make it ever The livestock sector is already large. 8% of the water humans use, mostly dramatically, by 70% by 2050, by 181% in urban India and 265% in Growing urbanisation is having a harder to feed the world’s Each year, more than 60 billion to irrigate feed crops. [2] especially in developing countries, rural areas. [8] India is the world’s marked impact on food consumption population, as large quantities of animals are raised and slaughtered where demand for meat is spiraling. third largest producer of eggs and patterns. People in cities typically cereals and other feed crops would for human consumption. Meat and This is because, without effective The indications are that global meat sixth largest producer of chicken consume more food away from be needed to feed animals rather dairy production already uses 30% transformative policies in place, output would grow from 300 million meat. [9] home and larger amounts of pre- than people. of the Earth’s land surface and 70% global demand for livestock products tonnes now to 470 million tonnes by of agricultural land, and accounts for is currently expected to increase 2050. [3] According to the Food and ii Islam, M.M., S. Anjum, R.J. Modi, and K.N. Wadhwani. 2016. Scenario of livestock and poultry in india and their contribution to national economy. International Journal of Science, Environment and Technology , 5(3), 956–65 Cattle ranching is a significant driver fora such as the UN Convention on 2000 and 2013, which is roughly of forest and biodiversity loss, Biological Diversity. [17] equivalent to two Switzerlands (see 2. The devastating impacts especially in , where Box 1). [19] Forest loss in Paraguay much of the world’s deforestation “The livestock sector may well be the has been similarly devastating: In takes place. The 2016 State of the leading player in the reduction of 2014, the Paraguayan Chaco, a semi- World’s Forests report refers to an biodiversity, since it is the major arid region in the west of the of industrial livestock analysis in seven South American driver of deforestation, as well as one country, reported the highest countries which found that 71% of of the leading drivers of land deforestation rate in the world. [20] deforestation between 1990 and degradation, pollution, climate This forest loss is fueled by demand farming 2005 was driven by increased change, overfishing, sedimentation of for beef and the creation of cattle demand for pasture. In Brazil the coastal areas and facilitation of ranches for investors from Brazil, figure was even higher, at 80%. [16] invasions by alien species. In and . Paraguay’s Clearing land to grow animal feed addition, resource conflicts with ecosystems have also been razed to 2.1 Burning forests for beef: cattle ranching drives crops was responsible for much of pastoralists threaten species of wild make way for and cattle deforestation and biodiversity loss the rest. predators and also protected areas farming. [21] close to pastures.” [18] As long ago as 2006, the Food and Agriculture Organization highlighted Our case studies reveal the same the impacts that livestock and strong causal links with respect to feedstock production has on land, forests and biodiversity. For water and biodiversity, which makes example, official national data in it all the more surprising that this Bolivia supports the FAO analysis: issue is not already being addressed the country lost an area of 8.6 effectively and comprehensively in million hectares of forest between

Box 1 Bolivia: Forests on fire

Every year between July and December, Bolivia is a farmers themselves, and their cattle and barns. The forest country in flames. Grasslands, bush land, shrubbery and fires fill the air with soot, which leads to acute and even forests are all on fire, and this is the primary cause of fatal respiratory infections, and affects the Andean deforestation in Bolivia. These fires are triggered mainly glaciers. by agricultural and livestock activities. This is known in Bolivia as ‘chaqueo’, burning vegetation to make way for These impacts are particularly unwarranted given the fact cultivation or pasture for livestock. This is an old and that Bolivia’s beef production is relatively small and inexpensive practice used to transfer micronutrients to mainly goes to the domestic market (where per capita the soil, ensuring good harvests in the early years after consumption is one of the lowest in the region). Research chaqueo, and promoting pest control and livestock from CIFOR confirms that the contribution of cattle health (as the fire drives away snakes and flies, and ashes ranching to deforestation has become the most important serve as a dewormer). However, crop yields fall off driver of climate change in Bolivia. Between 1992 and quickly and the soil loses its fertility, pushing the 2004 cattle ranching was responsible for 27.4% of producer into a vicious circle, where they move to and deforestation, but between 2000 and 2010 this figure burn another area of land to stay productive. This is leapt to 51.9%. This acceleration is still taking place: resulting in severe soil erosion and desertification, as preliminary data shows that the figure for 2005 to 2010 well as deforestation, and this is especially evident in has reached 60%. [22] In total Bolivia has lost 14% of its Santa Cruz. forests since the beginning of the century. [23]

In a dry year, with high temperatures and strong winds, Figure 3. Source: FAO State of the World’s Forests 2016 the fires can also spread uncontrollably, endangering the

10 | November 2016 | What’s at steak? The real cost of meat What’s at steak? The real cost of meat | November 2016 | 11 2.2 Lost lands: industrial livestock farming wrecks rural communities

The expansion of industrial livestock by women for their own families’ based on contract farming, where competitors – beef and veal and continued supplies of chicken feed, farming has had and continues to consumption and for additional farmers work under contract to large buffalo meat. The growth in the India has to bear massive import bills have devastating impacts on rural income—used to be ubiquitous, agribusiness corporations sector can be attributed to a rapidly for if crops fail. communities around the world, supporting the livelihoods of rural (see Box 9). [24] expanding middle class, reduced crowding out small-scale food women and their families. Yet this consumer prices through mass The Russian case study reports the producers and driving land grabbing. model, which dominated the Indian The large-scale commercial sector production, and a surge in domestic same dynamic. Industrial food poultry market until the 1960s, has now controls roughly 80% of total maize production, 50% of which is producers are causing smaller farms For example, in India household now been almost totally replaced by a Indian poultry production and poultry used to feed poultry.iii This in turn to go out of business by mass- backyard poultry production—mostly vertically integrated industrial model meat has outpaced its two chief means that in order to ensure producing food that can then be sold

iii See India case study for more detail: http://globalforestcoalition.org/whats-at-steak/

Cattle ranching in the Chaco, Paraguay. Miguel Lovera/CIC

more cheaply. There are currently 318 farmers cannot afford. Thus, due to the dictatorship of Gen. Alfredo number of farms of 500 or more such as beef, and soy for large industrial food producers. The their production capacity, industrial Stroessner, privatised up to 75% of hectares has increased by 56% since animal feedstock. Agricultural largest ones are Miratorg, Cherkizovo farms are able to almost completely the country’s territory, mainly for the 1991. In the same period there has exporters are also setting their sights Group, Efko, RusAgro and Agro- outcompete often more sustainably establishment of cattle ranches. [25] been a significant reduction in the on of other types of meat. In Belogorie; they controlled 41% of the produced organic food from small- Numerous testimonies from area of land occupied by small farms addition the State is promoting the Russian food market in 2015. scale farms. communities, peasants and (of less than 100 ha). [27] production of ‘small livestock’ for Indigenous Peoples who have been export purposes, which threatens to The Russian government does provide Land grabbing for cattle-ranching, impacted by the expansion of The population of Paraguay is thus usurp even more land and resources. some support to small-scale farms, especially from Indigenous Peoples, is industrial livestock and feedstock increasingly vulnerable when it comes This phenomenon restricts the but industrial farming has become big a key preoccupation in Paraguay, and production document displacement, to food production, because the communities' ability to maintain the business, and is again vertically has a long history, due to loss of land, numerous health issues country’s capacity to produce food for traditional practices that promote the integrated, controlling all stages of the consolidation of land by a group of and contamination of their territories. local consumption is being resilience of the ecosystems they production process. It also involves large landowners during the Colorado [26] These testimonies are backed up systematically undermined, as its traditionally manage. larger acreage and more field party rule, between 1954 and 2008. by data from Paraguay’s Agricultural territories are progressively targeted equipment, two factors that small The Colorado Party, especially during Census in 2008, which shows that the for the production of commodities for 2.3 Intensive livestock farming creates public health and animal welfare hazards

There are several health issues that feed crops that are likely to have been using low flying airplanes, the FAO recognises the impact that the In Paraguay, for example, intensive that the outbreak of H1N1 (swine flu) arise from the intensive production of sprayed with pesticides and may have surrounding water sources and livestock sector has on water poultry production involves animals was likely caused by the overcrowding meat and feed. First, the animals are been genetically modified and/or community crops are polluted, and availability and quality, and on living in deplorable conditions. This of pigs on factory farms and the treated with hormones and antibiotics injected with hormones and communities may even ingest the pollution, including from animal intensive model results in constant storage of their waste in giant manure to promote growth (rather than cure antibiotics (depending on which toxins directly. Illnesses that have wastes, antibiotics and hormones, polluting emissions, including liquid lagoons.” [30] illnesses). Farm Sanctuary notes that country the exporting farm is located been attested to by communities fertilisers and pesticides, chemicals effluents and smoke being emitted an “estimated 70 percent of the in, regulations vary). Consumers may include cancers, congenital used in tanneries, and soil sediments from the chimneys of incinerators. Finally, the health and wellbeing of antibiotics used in the U.S. are given also be ingesting parasites and malformations, and the unexplained from eroded pastures. FAO also Around the Pechugón poultry plant in many animals in intensive livestock to farm animals for non­therapeutic bacteria. In some countries there is an deaths of domestic animals (See observes that the livestock sector the city of Capiata, for example, it is farms is severely negatively impacted. purposes. Using antibiotics in this way ongoing battle demanding that Box 4). accounts for over 8% of global human almost impossible to avoid roads and Their treatment in many documented can lead to drug­resistant bacteria; as producers label their products if they water use, mostly to irrigate sidewalks contaminated with puddles cases is inhumane and cruel. Pigs and a result, certain bacterial infections have used GM products and to list Fourthly, communities who live in the feedcrops. It states that the livestock of wastewater that emit a foul smell.iv chickens are placed in cramped cages have already become or are on their what hormones have been used. vicinity of slaughterhouses and sector is probably the biggest source that do not allow the animals to move way to becoming untreatable in processing plants suffer the of water pollution, contributing to The cramped conditions of both or, in some cases, even lie down (see humans. Antibiotic resistant infections Thirdly, on the production side, many contamination of their water supply, “eutrophication, ‘dead’ zones in coastal animals and humans in these Box 2). kill 90,000 Americans every year.” [28] communities in areas surrounding also exposing them to various areas, degradation of coral reefs, intensive farms facilitates the large-scale feedstock production illnesses. They may be unable to use human health problems, emergence transmission of disease, including iv For more detail see Paraguay case study: http://globalforestcoalition.org/whats-at-steak/ Second, consumers ingest the meat suffer numerous illnesses. In their normal water sources for of antibiotic resistance and many from animals to humans, as discussed products, which are made from Paraguay, where GM soy fields are household needs or livelihoods others.” [29] in the box on India’s industrial poultry animals which have been fed with sprayed with agro-toxic compounds because it is too polluted. sector (see Box 3). “Experts believe

Box 2 Concentrated animal feedlot operations (CAFOs): a threat to animal welfare and human health

The CAFO model has devastating consequences for the livestock production and supposedly get rid of infectious also regular use of unprofessional artificial environment and public health. For example, in the US disease. Anti-parasiticals and toxic chemicals like insemination, which ignores all care, involving excessive water use and groundwater pollution has been a ivermectin, butox and even DDT have been recommended the insertion of unsanitary objects into the constant issue in relation to mega-dairies. There is an to keep ticks and fleas at bay. These are often mixed into cow’s uterus, causing immense pain. Many increase in ammonia and nitrogen deposits in the soil, as animal feed and impact livestock products, including milk, tabelas don’t have drainage and the animals well as microbial pollution of aquatic ecosystems, and meat and eggs. are left to stand in their own faeces for eutrophication of streams and rivers. In India, many of the months. A video by PETA showcases many small- to medium-sized commercial cow enclosures or Animal welfare activists have opposed the CAFO model, such cases of unethical treatment of cows and tabelas (similar to CAFOs but smaller and less which creates stressful, unnatural environments for buffaloes in India’s dairy farms (The Truth regulated)—most of which are located inside cities—have animals that are kept in continuous confinement and behind Milk Production - Horrors in Dairy absolutely no means of sewage treatment, and faeces overcrowded stalls or caged conditions. Cows get hoof Industry 2011). But, as pointed out by contaminate the area around the tabelas. lesions from their inability to move and constant milking Kannaiyan Subramaniam of the South Indian causes mastitis. cause excessive milk extraction Coordination Committee of Farmers Recent studies in various regions of India have also and in many cases continue to run even after milk has Movements, “such events rarely occur in discovered antimicrobial residues in food animal products drained, causing excessive pain. individual farmers' homes—they treat animals (such as chicken meat and milk), indicating that antibiotic as a part of their families, they love them, they use in food animal production is widespread and leading In Indian tabelas Oxytocin, even if banned nationally, is have names for them and hesitate to let them to antibiotic resistance. Antibiotics, growth boosters and regularly used in such dairy operations to raise milk yields. go to slaughter when they are old.” Hog confinement at a CAFO. US Environmental Protection Agency/Flickr hormones, anti-parasiticals, urea and other chemicals Oxytocin causes the cow’s uterus to contract, mimicking have been commonly advocated in the past to boost intense labour-like pains for the animal. In India there is Source: India case study

14 | November 2016 | What’s at steak? The real cost of meat What’s at steak? The real cost of meat | November 2016 | 15 Box 3 Peasant farmers barricade a road in Paraguay in protest at pesticide spraying on soybean crops. Hugo Hooijer/CIC Box 4 India’s industrial poultry sector: public health and animal welfare issues

On the environmental front, intensive poultry resistance is a serious public health threat and India is production has led to issues around waste handling and the starkest example globally. Antibiotics are necessary managing pests and diseases. Chicken waste—blood, to cure infections, but widespread use of antibiotics in manure and feathers—is a major nuisance in many parts areas like animal farming has led to rising pathogen of the country. These issues are aggravated in southern resistance to antibiotics. India does not currently have India where intensive production systems are clustered regulatory provisions for the use of antimicrobials in geographically. Most of the litter produced by the cattle, chickens, and pigs raised for domestic poultry industry is applied to agricultural land but in consumption. excess it causes environmental pollution. Chicken litter contains poisonous substances like arsenic. Moreover, The close proximity of most industrial chicken farms to air pollution is a major issue around poultry India’s populated cities is a serious health threat. India’s Soy, Monsanto and Cargill: Paraguayan farmers’ farms—intensive systems lead to the dispersal of first case of Avian flu was detected in Navapur, near the toxic neighbours [31] various toxins into the air such as microbes, endotoxins Gujarat border, and reports pointed to infected birds of and mycotoxins. the Venkateshwara Hatcheries, which denied involvement. It is India’s biggest poultry company. Paraguay has experienced an exponential increase in the seems that many agribusiness farmers spray There is also the risk of infection of backyard flocks by area of land devoted to monocultures of soybean indiscriminately, ignoring legal safety measures and diseases that erupt in factory farms. Even if backyard There are also serious ethical concerns with poultry production on large industrial-scale farms. One can regulations. poultry are more genetically diverse, making them more factory farming in India. At least 70% of eggs come from stand in the middle of the soy fields and see nothing but resistant to disease, they can't remain immune to commercial farms, many of which confine hens to soya plants as far as the horizon, in all directions. The A report on Paraguay details “One of the gravest events viruses like H5N1 avian flu for long. Such viruses barren battery cages so small that each bird has less farms are mostly operated by wealthy landowners occurred on June 23, 2014, when two girls aged three circulate from factory farms to backyard flocks and then space than an A4 size sheet of paper in which to spend consolidated during Colorado Party rule, between 1954 years and six months died after unusually intense back in a more virulent form. her entire life. The Animal Welfare Board of India has and 2008, especially under the dictatorship of General session of herbicide spraying, presumably applying issued an advisory to all state governments stating that . Round Up or generic glyphosate. The link between the There are other serious public health impacts as well. A battery cages should not be used and existing ones spraying and the girls’ deaths was impossible to study by the Center of Science and Environment should be phased out by 2017. However this is not The soy is mostly processed into animal feed for the determine conclusively as the authorities were reluctant revealed the large-scale unregulated use of antibiotics as enforceable and does not lead to any real changes. livestock sector in other parts of the world, including, for to take samples expeditiously of the soil, water supply growth promoters by the poultry industry and high example, Europe, and Russia. Soy is currently and tissue of the victims. Instead, the medical examiner levels of antibiotics present in tested samples. Antibiotic Paraguay’s main export, and the country is the fourth claimed that rural people are often malnourished and major exporter of soy, after the , Brazil and hence are susceptible to respiratory ailments, which Argentina. It ranks sixth in terms of world production. could be fatal.” [34] An Argentinian 2014 Much of the soy produced is genetically modified and study “concluded that there are four times more Indian consumers prefer live butchered chicken, rather than frozen. ©Miragik/Dreamstime.com based on specific seed-pesticide technology cancer cases now than there were in 1997, when packages—meaning that the crops are heavily sprayed GM soybeans first started to be planted in Santa Fe.” [35] with Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Round Up, and herbicides, such as Cletodim, which have In neighboring Argentina, the tragic death of a newborn to be used as weeds develop resistance to Round Up. baby due to spraying on soy fields near its home, led its mother, Sofia Gatica to spearhead a campaign that led to Rural communities still living next to these large soya the prohibition of Monsanto’s agrochemicals being used monocultures are exposed to high levels of these near human settlements in Argentina. Sofia was awarded pesticides, which are sprayed weekly and sometimes the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2012 for her even daily right next to their homes, contaminating their struggle. food and their soil and water resources. Reported symptoms include headaches, skin problems, stomach Other transnational companies involved in this toxic disorders, respiratory illnesses, blurred vision, tumours, trade include soy processing and exporting companies miscarriages and birth defects. Ill health can be the final Cargill and ADM. For example, Cargill Paraguay has a straw that forces the peasant farmers to leave their factory that processes 900,000 tonnes of soy a lands. [32] Similar health problems related to the year. [36, 37] spraying of pesticides on soy have been reported in neighbouring Argentina as well. [33] In both countries it What’s at steak? The real cost of meat | November 2016 | 17 2.4 Roasting the climate: Big Livestock is a major ingredient in climate change

Unsustainable livestock production spectrum are cows’ milk, chicken and 9% of the livestock sector’s emissions, and the production of plant protein pork, at less than a third of this figure [44] but in Latin America and the feedstocks such as soybeans are (they are all below 100kg CO2 –eq per Caribbean, one-third of the emissions major drivers of climate change. kg of protein). [40] from beef production is related to According to FAO the global livestock pasture expansion into forested sector contributes an estimated In terms of farming and food areas. [45] 14.5% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) production processes, the main emissions (an estimated 7.1 source of emissions is feed This stark situation is clearly evident gigatonnes CO2-eq per year for the production and processing, including on the ground, and borne out by all 2005 reference period). [38] land use change, which accounts for our case studies from Brazil, Paraguay 45% of emissions. [41] Animals’ and Bolivia. FAO figures show that beef and cattle digestive process (enteric milk production are the worst fermentation) is responsible for a In Brazil, the phenomenon is so offenders, accounting for 41% and further 39%, and manure storage and marked that cattle breeding is a major 20% of the sector’s emissions processing 10%. The remainder contributor to Brazil’s overall respectively. Pig meat accounts for a relates to the processing and greenhouse gas emissions total, with further 9%, buffalo milk and meat 8%, transportation of animal enteric fermentation being the major chicken meat and eggs 8%, and small products. [42] part. It has been estimated that ruminant milk and meat 6%. [39] emissions from cattle raising may be A major livestock, forests and climate responsible for half of all Brazil’s These differences are not just related change ‘hotspot’ is the rearing of greenhouse gas emissions. [46] Cattle Figure 4. Source: FAO Tackling Climate Change through Livestock: A global assessment of emissions and to the different quantities of the cattle in Latin America, where ranching is also the main driver of mitigation opportunities 2013 various meat and dairy products commercial agriculture accounted for current deforestation in Brazil, being produced and consumed. almost 70% of deforestation between responsible for some 60%, according cause of destruction in the Amazon, as a group of four genetically modified soya—the Although different management 2000 and 2010, and deforestation in to Brazil’s own estimates. [47] The and, even more so, the Cerrado. countries that account for over 97% climate change impacts of national practices impact on emissions rates, the Amazon and the Chaco in grazing lands, with the addition of of the conversion of forest to pasture meat-based diets are barely when emissions are considered on a particular is being driven by cattle areas already degraded and The conversion of Paraguay’s in Latin America. [48] But in countries considered in the media or in ‘per protein’ basis, beef still has the ranching, soy farming and oil palm abandoned due to this activity, now territories to cattle and soy importing these same government circles. When it comes to highest average emissions intensity plantations. [43] Globally, exceed 200 million hectares, almost a production is similarly dramatic, and commodities—such as Russia, for climate change the focus is all on

(an average of over 300kg CO2 –eq per deforestation to create pasture and quarter of the country’s territory. although it is a relatively small example, which is now one of the industry. [49] kg of protein). At the other end of the land to grow feed crops accounts for Recent expansion cycles are the main country, it joins Brazil, and world’s leading importers of

Soybean plants in a field in Paraguay. Oliver Munnion

18 | November 2016 | What’s at steak? The real cost of meat What’s at steak? The real cost of meat | November 2016 | 19 Box 5 Russia: free trade in food versus food security 3. Corporate Control Against the background of worldwide food price liberalising its trade regime and accepted a set of limits increases, the global economic crisis and recurrent (‘ceilings’) to its domestic farm support. It was also droughts in some of the main agricultural regions, food obliged to agree to increased market access for imports security has become a key political goal of the Russian of pork in particular, which means that the domestic pork of Food government. Defined as a far-reaching self-sufficiency in market will face increased competition. food, it was codified in the 2010 Food Security Doctrine and became the major objective of the current multi-year How to modernise the cattle and dairy sectors under the 3.2 How free trade and free trade rules favour industrial State Program for the Development of Agriculture, which conditions of WTO commitments has emerged as a major runs until 2020. The doctrine sets specific goals for self- policy challenge for the Russian government. According to agriculture sufficiency ranging from 80% to 95% for grains, , the current State Program, it is mainly to be achieved by vegetable oil, meat, dairy and fish products. concessional credits to the livestock sector, which was To peasants, small family farmers production costs and specialise in the creating new business opportunities singled out as the largest recipient of interest subsidies in and food producers, and rural production of certain goods and then for companies big enough to trade Given the collapse of the domestic livestock herd in the the 2013-2020 period. communities, agriculture is a way of trade with each other. This can internationally. However, the 1990s, these goals are particularly ambitious with respect life, a means of providing food for significantly reduce people’s access to negotiations also failed to stop large to meat and dairy production. Moreover, by acceding to families and communities. The a diverse range of local foods that farmers being subsidised in the US the WTO in 2012, the Russian Federation committed to diverse crops they grow and the would have been previously and the EU. This has created the animals they breed would normally available, and leads to the double challenge of unsubsidised reflect the food needs of the phenomenon of entire farmlands small farmers in developing community, taking into account what being dedicated to cash crops such as countries having to compete with is culturally appropriate and which or rubber, leaving small products produced by agribusinesses For example, in Russia, it has created crops and animals flourish in that farmers and their communities elsewhere in the world, who are also a conflict between Russia’s WTO particular environment at that unable to eat their produce. supported financially by their obligation to open its markets, and particular time. Agricultural practices governments. its intention to ensure food self- that relate to nature and respect the “With globalization, food availability sufficiency, producing what it needs biodiversity of the area— depends increasingly on international The entire premise of the WTO itself (see Box 5). A similar tension is agroecological practices—have and trade.” FAO SOWF 2016 P21/22 was that evident in Bolivia, where the general continue to be employed by the WTO rules would make expansion of medium- and large- peasants, small farmers, women and In the case of agriculture, trade agricultural trade ‘fair’ by disciplining scale commercial agriculture, which communities around the world. negotiations and rules have also massive subsidies in the US and EU has driven deforestation since the resulted in a free trade system that is and bringing an end to dumping. 1980s, has been stimulated by However, as our case studies show heavily skewed in favour of large However, as a South Centre report Brazilian investors who have taken this way of life is not only under agribusinesses, at the expense of shows, not only have trade-distorting advantage of the low cost of land threat, but being forced out of small farmers, local food producers, subsidies continued in the US and and free trade ‘tariff preferences’ existence. Industrial agriculture, as many of whom are women, and the EU, they have increased. [51] It is that were established under the defined by the free trade model, is hungry people everywhere. important to note that these (CAN) based on a logic that is entirely at subsidies in the US and the EU do comprising , , , Figure 5. Source: ITC TradeMap as reported in the South Centre, odds with small-scale agriculture The inclusion of agriculture in the not go to small farmers but rather to and Bolivia. It is Domestic Supports, forthcoming publication and agroecology. It is now a global then newly established World Trade large agribusinesses that do not anticipated that something similar industry producing commodities as Organization (WTO) in 1995 was a need the government aid, as could happen in the coming years were established in the late 1960s regions are mostly going to large cheaply as possible and on a major coup for large agribusinesses. explained in the next section. with the production of meat for and early 1970s. [52] This has agribusiness transnational massive scale, often to be traded Agriculture had been exempted from export, again driven largely by happened as imports of poultry from corporations: “The largest farm internationally, in order to maximise world trade rules until that point The case studies in this report show investors coming from Brazil. the EU, US and Brazil have operations, which generally are also financial profits. precisely because it is not simply some of the real life outcomes that increased. [53] the most profitable and wealthiest, about the production of these skewed free trade rules have Ghana is another example of the receive most of the benefits of As with other sectors agriculture is commodities. Bringing agriculture had with respect to the livestock way in which livestock imports can It is crucial to note that the same support systems. In the US, the governed by international ‘free trade’ into the WTO meant that WTO sector, and small-scale food devastate domestic food production. skewed neoliberal perspective is largest 25 percent of farms...They rules, which aim to maximise members and new applicants had to producers. Ghana has witnessed the decline of harming small farmers in the US and receive 89 percent of all ‘efficiency’ within global trade, negotiate to open up their its poultry sector since 2000, losing the EU as well as other countries. support.” [54] pushing countries to minimise agricultural markets to imports, many commercial poultry farms that The agricultural subsidies in these

20 | November 2016 | What’s at steak? The real cost of meat What’s at steak? The real cost of meat | November 2016 | 21 Box 6 The Triangle: Industrial livestock trade between the US, China and Brazil

Looking at the global dynamics of ‘factory farming’, the exports of Brazilian soybean meal (the solid residue that United States, China, and Brazil emerge as the three remains after crushing the beans for soybean oil, which biggest players in the global meat market. They form also is usually used as animal feed) will grow. Domestic three points of a triangle. Because intensive livestock consumption also shows an upward trend, suggesting a production requires large amounts of feed crops, further expansion of the animal agriculture industry in dynamic interactions between and among the three Brazil. Within the triangle, Brazil exports beef, poultry, nations around meat production also greatly influence and soybeans to China. the exploitation of natural resources used to produce crops for animal feed (principally soybeans and corn). In China, as the economy continues to expand, living standards for hundreds of millions of people have risen The US is a driver of modern industrial agriculture, in and, alongside this, the appetite for animal products has which huge capital investments and the pursuit of labour also increased. Trying to meet domestic demand, China productivity have resulted in a highly intensified and became the world’s largest importer of soybeans, used mechanised food system. Today, the US is the world’s top for livestock feed, in 2000, and the top meat producer in beef producer and the second largest pork producer. In 2009. In 2014, China produced 56.7 million metric tons of 2014, the US produced 11.1 million metric tons of beef pork and 6.9 million metric tons of beef, representing and 10.4 million metric tons of pork, comprising 18.6% 51.3% and 11.5% of world production, respectively. and 9.4% of world production, respectively. Within the triangle, the US exports pork, poultry, soybeans and corn This rapid growth is closely related to the country’s to China. deliberate expansion of intensive animal farming facilities, part of an effort to catch up with the livestock A large majority of US meat is produced in highly production model now standard in the US and other concentrated industrial operations—factory farms— industrialised countries. However, with restricted natural which have vast capacity. One ‘farm’ can, in the case of resources domestically—especially water—China is also chickens raised for meat, confine tens of thousands to heavily reliant on importing meat and live animals from hundreds of thousands of birds in just one facility, or, for other countries to meet consumer demand for meat. pork production, thousands of pigs. Turning farms into factories has helped the US to achieve huge agricultural Source: Brighter Green [50] yields, producing at low cost and high ‘efficiency’ with regard to time (if not energy or environmental efficiencies). This has made the country one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of both meat and feed crops.

Brazil is the world’s largest poultry meat and soybean exporter, the second largest beef exporter, and the fourth largest pork exporter. Currently, more than 40% of Brazil’s soybean harvest is crushed domestically to create soybean meal, half of which is used in the country as animal feed. Most of the rest is exported. According to long-term projections, both production and A Cargill soy processing facility in Paraguay. Ronnie Hall/CIC

What’s at steak? The real cost of meat | November 2016 | 23 Figure 6. Source: South Centre, Domestic Supports, forthcoming publication 3.2 Corporate concentration in industrial livestock farming In the EU, the support goes to the America.” Countries particularly on agriculture. Member countries largest 25% of farms. [55] So the big impacted include Romania, , can bring a case against another are getting wealthier, and indeed and Bulgaria in the East, and member country citing violations of The way in which the largest the environment. Large-scale, bigger through the conglomeration bigger spatially: the Transnational , and . [57] the rules, which can result in the agribusiness companies have corporate agribusinesses continue to of corporations, and through Institute report on the State of Land accused country being obliged to benefited from current trade and push out small-scale livestock international trade, where in Europe calculates that between A further critical point is that the repeal the national or provincial law investment liberalisation dynamics keepers, and governments in transnational company-coordinated 2007 and 2010 “farmers owning system of trade rules established by that has been challenged, or face and other support from countries such as India, Brazil and ‘global value chains’ now account for more than 50 hectares gained the WTO is binding and can be trade sanctions. governments is evident in all our Paraguay are actively encouraging some 80% of global trade. [58] Other almost 7 million hectares.” [56] enforced. To ensure that member case studies, which show that this. livestock-related examples include Indeed, it comments that land countries follow the rules, a dispute market share and influence are the facts that: grabbing in the EU is happening “on settlement mechanism was being concentrated in ever fewer This corporate concentration a par with the scale and character established to go hand in hand with and larger businesses at the expense dynamic is playing out on a global • 83.5% of beef packing in the U.S. is witnessed in Africa, Asia and Latin the WTO’s 60+ agreements, including of small-scale food producers and scale throughout industrial controlled by four firms agriculture, especially as the big get • 71% of soybeans in the world go through three soybean crushing firms • 66% of all pork is packed by four firms [59]

Similarly, a recent report shows that by 2014 the market share of the four largest firms in seeds, agrochemicals, animal pharmaceuticals and farm machinery ranged from 54-62% of global market sales. [60] As the study emphasises, this corporate concentration is a threat as it allows for a small number of corporations to dominate and decide: “Concentration within the agrifood sector likely contributes to the industrialization of food systems, furthering species and genetic losses, and decreasing both biodiversity and the nutritional qualities of industrially-bred plant and livestock breeds...agrifood sector concentration perpetuates a multimillion-dollar lobbying industry, influencing governments in shaping the nature of international foreign aid, agricultural development and multilateral trade agendas. These impacts have the potential to not only shape the agricultural sector, but the global food system as a whole.” [61]

What’s at steak? The real cost of meat | November 2016 | 25 Harvesting soybeans. United Soybean Board/Flickr Adapted from Meat Atlas: Facts and Figures about the animals we eat, by Heinrich Boell Foundation and Friends of the Earth Europe. Box 8 Brazil: are big slaughterhouses laughing all the way to the bank?

Brazil has had a so-called ‘national champions’ policy increase their control over the whole meat production for a number of years, which favours large companies. chain in the domestic and international spheres. The beneficiaries are expected to advance the country’s interests as they prosper. This policy has The benefits to JBS are particularly interesting. driven a process of mergers and acquisitions, not only Between 2006 and 2013 its involvement in overall beef in Brazil but also abroad. Large Brazilian production increased from 6.5% to 27.9%. Similarly conglomerates that have benefited include JBS-Friboi, with respect to chicken, JBS and BRF now jointly India: foreign players cream off mega-dairy and Marfrig and Brasil Foods (BRF). Some of them acquired account for 56% of slaughters and 70% of Brazilian milk product profits a series of foreign companies, located in different exports. But JBS decided to relocate. In May 2016 JBS countries, with strong financial support from the relocated almost 80% of its business (in terms of federal government, which prioritised the beef sector. revenues) to Ireland, creating JBS Foods International, Dairy farming in India is currently dominated by The National Bank for Economic and Social a company that will quote on New York’s stock marginal, small-scale, landless producers, typically requirement that foreign investors need to tie up with Development (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento exchange. Ireland is considered a tax haven by owning less than five cows or buffaloes. The model local companies in order to produce milk directly. But Econômico e Social, or BNDES) acted as sponsor, direct numerous multinationals including Google and Apple. that still dominates in India is that of low input/low most of the Indian partners actually come from investor and agent for mergers and acquisitions. Thus Brazil’s hoped for benefits seem unlikely to output, with both production costs and yields being unrelated sectors like mining or real estate. For some of the lowest in the world. example, the US-based Schreiber Foods (McDonalds’ materialise. main dairy supplier) has tied up with the Indian With respect to beef there were eleven big exporters However, the Indian dairy sector has gone from being Goenka real estate and hospitality group for its so- accounting for 70% of Brazil’s total exports in 2007. As a result of this concentration, small cattle breeders a cooperative model protecting small farmers, to a called ‘future ready’ mega-dairy farm Schreiber- But by 2015 just three companies (JBS, Marfrig and with little structure and limited access to the market, trade liberalisation model of hyper competitiveness. Dynamix, with 6,000 cows of mixed European stock. Minerva) were responsible for 80% of the exports. In tend to become captive to the remaining big The 1990s saw various legislative amendments to This farm supplies to Danone, Nestlé, Kentucky Fried 2008 and 2009, while JBS and Marfrig went through a slaughterhouses, who pay them lower prices, grabbing increase the growth of private dairy players, and a Chicken and Starbucks. period of vigorous growth and BRF was created, their profits. The concentration and possible formation reduction in trade restrictions after India joined the seventeen other slaughterhouses went bankrupt. This of oligopolies may also imply an increase of consumer WTO. One of the key issues for the EU in the ongoing Other examples include the Bhagyalaxmi dairy farm has helped the three largest slaughterhouses to prices, at the national and global levels. EU-India free trade agreement negotiations is the with its 2,500 Holstein-Friesian cows, which was India’s reduction of tariffs in India’s dairy sector. Given that first automated CAFO. And New Zealand-based Expensive exotic breeds like the Holstein Freisian have come to the EU abolished its dairy quotas in 2013 resulting in a Fronterra wanted to join IFFCO to set up a 40,000 dominate the dairy industry in India. Ashlesha Khadse massive over production of milk there, the EU has strong CAFO, which would be India’s largest ever been looking for new markets to dump its milk surplus mega-dairy, by importing more than 9,000 pregnant and India is a key prospect. cows from New Zealand and Australia. However, this project was blocked by the state government in Andhra In 2011, the Indian government allowed 100% foreign Pradesh due to public opposition. direct investment in food processing, including milk and milk products, and also provided several tax Overall, this dairy boom in India reflects the fact that breaks to foreign investors. This resulted in many the ‘organised’ sector is vying to capture the massive transnational companies entering India’s previously ‘unorganised’ milk sector, which still accounts for 70% protected milk market—especially in relation to value- of the total. This hyper competitive environment has added products like cheese, paneer and flavoured led to a situation where the major players and yogurts—to meet a growing demand from rising especially the dairy cooperatives, are now under numbers of middle class people. Many existing local pressure, and are constantly trying to out do each dairy processers are now being brought out as a result, other to capture a growing market, using practices by global private players like Danone, Carlyle, French which are turning out to be harmful for the survival of Dairy Processor Le Groupe Lactalis, and Nestle. small milk producers. There is therefore a key concern about the impact that the free market model dairy Recently there has also been growth in mega-milk boom will have on the largely small milk producers of factories based on the Concentrated Animal Feeding India. Operation (CAFO) model, although there is a Box 7 India: ‘Tysonisation’, vertical integration and contract farming in the poultry sector

Tyson Foods in the USA is known for setting There is growing market concentration by a up a vertical integration model in the poultry number of integrators. The main players are sector in the USA. It bought up feed plants Venkateshwara Group hatcheries (who and hatcheries, contracted producers, and control 60% of the broiler market and 80% of built processing plants. The system is such the layer market), Suguna Poultry Farms Ltd that Tyson owns each of its millions of (20% of the broiler market), CP-India chickens from before they hatch to the day (Charoen Pokphand Group), Pioneer Poultry they are slaughtered, taking on contracted Group, Godrej Tyson Group (a joint venture farmers to do most of the work and shoulder between Tyson foods USA and Godrej India), most of the risk associated with rearing them. and Sky Lark group. Now the same model has come to India. These companies decide the rules, and can There are three main types of poultry farms: change them at their discretion. The terms of breeder, broiler and layer farms. The first is the contract favour the integrators. to breed chicks, the others produce meat and Researchers have reported that most farmers eggs respectively. A number of ‘integrators’ do not possess copies of the contracts they exist, who combine two or all of the functions have signed and that these are almost never above and dominate the poultry industry. in their local language. The contracts impose Integrators own hatcheries, feed mills, penalties on farmers in case of any slaughter facilities, sales outlets, veterinary infringements. medicines, and brands of processed chicken. Due to high production costs in the poultry Public Private Partnerships: a 36.7% of broiler production in India is under sector, contract farming is growing fast, as major threat to sustainable contract farming with integrators like those contracting companies supply cheap inputs. mentioned above, and 78% of these are Contract farmers may actually make less livestock production by local concentrated in Southern India. Under profit that non-contract farmers, because the communities contract farming arrangements, integrators contracting companies take any efficiency- supply day-old chicks, feed, medicines, related surplus profit, but they do benefit veterinary supplements, vaccines, equipment, from potentially lower but guaranteed Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and other forms of collaboration marketing and credit, while the farmer is returns when the market fluctuates. But the between the public and private sectors can pose significant threats expected to supply space, labour, rise in contract farming is still a cause for to small farmers. infrastructure and water. concern, given the loss of power that farmers face before contracting companies. In particular, the financial dependencies created by PPPs can form an incentive for public institutions like governments and the UN to Box 9 shy away from certain policies that might hurt the commercial interests of their partner. This creates compromising conflicts of Hens at the Ganeshguru livestock market, Guhawati, India. interest for the public sector. International Livestock Research Institute/Stevie Mann/Flickr

It is also important to note that both qualitative and quantitative measures are needed to address unsustainable consumption and production in the livestock sector.

An example of a proposed PPP includes the GEF Integrated Approaches Program on ‘zero-deforestation commodities’ that moves commodity production to areas occupied by small farmers, and fails to address quantity-related aspects and the social dimensions of livestock production, including food sovereignty aspects. Box 10 30 | November 2016 | What’s at steak? The real cost of meat 3.3 False solutions: more of the same fare main objectives: sustainably increasing Even the FAO has developed a carbon agricultural productivity and incomes; accounting methodology, based on the When the industrial agriculture sector is exist, though, implies a harmonious living adapting and building resilience to climate sustainable grassland management challenged it typically tries to repackage its together of different beings or approaches. This change; and reducing and/or removing practices, that has been validated under the business-as-usual approach as innovative solutions proposal—that completely opposing methods of greenhouse gas emissions, where Verified Carbon Standard. This innovation with greener sounding names. agriculture can 'co-exist'—is not new, it has possible.” [64] supposedly reduces the costs associated with been pushed by the biotechnology sector for measurement and verification and is Global Value Chains quite some time. [63] Proponents of genetic In simpler terms, CSA aims to produce more intended to facilitate access to carbon For example, the ‘structural adjustment’ forced on modification (GM) proposed the co-existence of food on less land, while being climate change markets. While it has been developed with a economies from the 1980s onwards, effectively GM technology alongside traditional small resistant and able to sequester and store particular project in mind, the idea is that the continues today in the form of Global Value Chains farmer techniques of saving seeds and other carbon—sustainable intensification. new methodology of grassland carbon (GVCs), in which developing countries are still ecological practices. But this is impossible in However, there is a growing body of research accounting will be applicable to other grazing forced to continue exporting their natural reality. GM technology has been proven to be showing that sustainable intensification projects. [73] resources and raw materials, as part of those invasive and detrimental to organic, traditional cannot be ‘the’ solution, as it will be unable to GVCs. The transnational corporations coordinating crops in neighbouring fields. It is also address the scale of change required if Using carbon markets to deal with the GVCs now account for some 80% of global completely contradictory as GM technology current predictions about increases in emissions created by the industrial livestock trade. [62] mandates patents and terminator technology in demand for meat and dairy hold true. A sector is not the solution. We have seen from seeds, forcing farmers to buy new seeds each change in diet and reduced demand for past examples, that market mechanisms in This situation has been facilitated by the way that season, whereas peasants use seeds they have livestock products will still be absolutely the land use sector trigger perverse the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture has been saved and passed on for generations. essential in terms of reducing greenhouse incentives. Payments are made on the basis used to open up developing countries’ agricultural gas emissions by the amount required to of the additionality of emission reductions, markets, whilst allowing un-disciplined agricultural It is the same for the meat industry. Small-scale keep climate change within tolerable and since countries set their reference levels subsidies in the European Union and United States farmers raising a small number of animals limits. [65, 66, 67] themselves, this incentivises an to continue (as described above). Similarly strings within an agroecological context cannot co-exist overestimation of additionality and a attached to loans from the IMF ensured that beside hectares and hectares of GM soy In fact CSA is a very loosely designed concept tendency to set reference levels developing countries focused their industries on feedstock or feedlots crammed with animals that includes genetic modification, the use of disproportionally high. [74] sectors that would give them 'comparative injected regularly with antibiotics. As described synthetic fertilisers, and intensive livestock advantage', such as producing raw materials and above these practices contaminate surrounding farming, but excludes ideas about reducing Despite these failings, CSA and sustainable providing cheap, unskilled labor. farms and create public health crises. food over-consumption, or changing our intensification are very much the dish of the Furthermore, as can also be seen in the model of food production. [68] day in international negotiations relating to Today, in the global meat industry, these Global illustrated case studies, smaller farms are food, farming and climate change. This is bad Value Chains perpetuate the use of cheap, routinely taken over by larger ones, especially CSA also claims to include all models of news. ‘Climate Smart Agriculture’ may sound unskilled labor and the production of raw since they cannot compete with them, and some agriculture but lacks any social or green, but it is a politically-motivated term. materials by developing countries, while the high farmers and communities are even forcibly environmental safeguards and fails to Agribusiness corporations that promote value capture end of the chain stays with the removed from their lands. prioritise farmers’ voices, knowledge and synthetic fertilisers, industrial meat industrialised countries and larger agri-businesses, rights as key to facing and mitigating our production and large-scale industrial who also benefit from the extensive subsidies In the cut-throat race for profits in the livestock climate challenges. It therefore threatens to agriculture—all of which are widely provided to them by their governments and others sector, there is no such thing as peaceful co- undermine agroecological approaches as recognised as contributing to climate change seeking their involvement and investment. One existence between industrial and small-scale defined by practitioners, while endangering and undermining the resilience of farming stark example is detailed in the Paraguay case farming. the future development and upscaling of systems—can and do call themselves study, where the people of Paraguay are exporting such approaches. [69] ‘Climate Smart’. For example, a new ‘CSA food but unable to buy it themselves: “Paraguay ‘Sustainable intensification’ working group’ includes livestock sector- records almost 40% of its population as poor, and Another recently proposed false solution is Including livestock in carbon related agribusiness and food companies almost 20 per cent as extremely poor. That is to ‘sustainable intensification’. This comes from markets Monsanto, Yara International, Tyson Foods say that about 1.6 million people do not meet their the relatively new approach called ‘Climate- As civil society organisations observe [70] CSA and Unilever. [75] Dairy giant Danone is also food needs.”v smart agriculture’ (CSA). can also be used to greenwash harmful a member of the Global Alliance for Climate- industrial agricultural practices, as well as Smart Agriculture (GACSA). [76] The myth of co-existence As defined by FAO, “CSA is an approach that establishing soil carbon offsetting. [71] In One of the most prevalent approaches that is helps to guide actions needed to transform and fact, a study states that the whole proposal of v being propagated in various platforms and fora, is reorient agricultural systems to effectively CSA was developed around the possibility of See Paraguay case study: http://globalforestcoalition.org/whats-at-steak/ the assumption that the intensive agri-business support development and ensure food security developing carbon offsetting much like REDD model and small-scale farming can co-exist. To co- in a changing climate. CSA aims to tackle three and REDD+ but for a soil carbon market. [72]

Using a colour chart to apply fertilizer to a crop, India. Prashanth Vishwanathan/Flickr Agroecology as the way to food sovereignty and cooling the planet 4. Small-scale and Empirical and scientific evidence growing crops or livestock for the 4. Food Sovereignty returns have consistently supported the market. The focus of turning entire control to the people growing consensus that countries to just producers of soy to sustainable: an alternative agroecologically diverse farming is supply the livestock market with Seeds are the best example of this. not only more productive, but also feed, leaves people in hunger. Cash Some communities have saved and brings a host of ecological and social crops, as they are called, are passed on seeds and knowledge for menu for food and farming benefits. [78] This also applies to promoted because this is the several generations but are suddenly forms of sustainable livestock supposed comparative advantage of criminalised because transnational breeding where the health and well- the country, and these are the corporations were able to patent and We need to transition away from better access to resources, and real devastating it. Traditional farming, being of the animals are attended to, products needed by the free market. gain intellectual property over these industrial livestock and animal feed and effective support from pastoralists and small farmers as well as those of the farmers. Food sovereignty on the other hand, seeds. It is the same with the production and halt its devastating governments and intergovernmental recognise the importance of thinks first of the communities and livestock industry as now, only a impacts on forests, biodiversity, bodies and policy-makers? maintaining a balance between the Here, it is insightful to list and prioritises growing food to feed handful of corporations control the Indigenous Peoples, rural land, water, forests and biodiversity. consider the six principles of food them. few breeds that are used. [79] communities and rural and urban Small farmers and community sovereignty as developed by social food consumers. This needs to be based-farming relate to nature and movements around the world, led by 2. Food Sovereignty values food 5. Food sovereignty builds and done through holistic, non-market maintain biodiversity, rather than the world’s largest peasants’ producers values knowledge and skills based approaches that also take into movement, La Via Campesina. They account the needs of ecosystems, can be applied to the livestock and In an industrial agricultural system, With food sovereignty no-one is at biodiversity and our climate. Woman cattle farmer in El Salvador. Jason Taylor for Friends of the feedstock industry to develop particularly in the livestock and the 'low value end' of a chain, Earth International/CIC alternatives that move us forward: feedstock industry, very little value is because everyone is valuable. Numerous proposals for alternatives placed on the workers. The workers’ Peasants and communities’ are on the table: from agroecological 1. Food Sovereignty focuses on health is placed in constant peril as traditional knowledge that has been ways of farming to supporting more food for the people they are exposed to toxic pesticides passed on for generations is valued community, small-scale, family and diseases from animals that are and respected. farming that supports and promotes This is a completely different crammed into tight spaces. the health and well-being of the mindset and logic from that of 6. Food sovereignty relates and community, the environment and industrial agriculture that focuses on 3. Food Sovereignty values local works with nature the animals themselves. Most food systems importantly, recognition of and Livestock is an integral part of peasant families We are all part of nature. The health support for peasant and small-scale in India. Ashlesha Khadse Again, this is in contrast of Mother Earth and our health are agriculture is an urgent priority. to an industrial one. This way of farming and raising Pushing for false solutions such as agricultural system that animals, does so with respect to the sustainable intensification and prioritises international land, water, forests and biodiversity carbon markets to determine food markets. In a localised as a whole. and agricultural policies must be food system, it is the resisted. Organic fruit and vegetables being produced on a small farm in an communities’ food Small farmers attest to the health urban area, Canary Islands. Ronnie Hall/CIC needs that are first and well-being of animals when they Contrary to the pro-free trade addressed. This breaks are kept in small numbers and given argument that what small farmers away from the ample amount of land, with space to need is more market access, what perpetuation of the roam and graze. they really need is political and global value chains financial support. Today, even with where the small and just a quarter of the world’s poor are kept in the low farmland, small farmers are still able value end of the chain to produce most of the world’s food. such as production of [77] Imagine then, if the small raw materials or farmers of the world had more land, monoculture crops and plantations.

What’s at steak? The real cost of meat | November 2016 | 35 Life as a small farmer raising livestock and practicing agroecology 5. Case study summaries production, as a way of both promoting agroecology and The full length versions of the country case studies and associated references can be accessed at: showing their opposition to http://globalforestcoalition.org/whats-at-steak/ importing soy from industrial farms in Brazil that harms the environment, climate and the people. This is their way of being in Fire and Livestock in Bolivia solidarity with the small farmers in by Pablo Solón and Jose Carlos Solón, Fundación Solón, Bolivia the South. Since the 1980s, Bolivia has suffered and cheap to do using the chaqueo Although alternative processes to On a local level, their farm has significant deforestation due to the method. Third, in recent years chaqueo have been proposed, they Marielle and her goats. Lofoten gårdsysteri partnered with local schools and expansion of medium and large- Bolivia’s central government has failed to create substantial change has programmes to teach young scale commercial agriculture. The called for the expansion of because they were incomplete, Marielle de Roos is a member of the children about agroecology. The children widespread practice of ‘chaqueo’, a agricultural/livestock production for implemented inconsistently, or Norwegian Farmers and Smallholders Union, come to learn about the farm, they plant their burning technique used to prepare export at all costs. received inconsistent funding. In and a representative in the European own vegetables and they come back to land for agricultural use and cattle order to decrease the use of Coordination of La Via Campesina. Born in harvest them. They also have a programme grazing, is primarily to blame. Livestock development, in particular, chaqueo and prevent future the , Marielle pursued a degree for differently abled children who do not do has influenced chaqueo application deforestation, sustainable forms of in rural development, which took her to well in classroom settings but have been There are three main factors that and deforestation. Most of the burnt agricultural applications, such as development and agricultural projects in the shown to flourish in learning practical skills contribute to the abundant use of areas in the country are located in rotational grazing, must be taught and West Africa. An idealist, she relating to farming and growing produce. chaqueo. First, it’s a simple, old, and areas of livestock production. In and promoted. As well, stricter had in mind that she wanted to make her inexpensive practice that adds addition, fires that occur in regulations, increased funding, and own contribution to making a different world Today, Marielle is involved in the international micronutrients into the soil, destroys production forests, forest reserves, more effective institutional and possible. In the course of that work, she and level in La Via Campesina as a representative pests, and increases short-term land and protected areas are the result of social control mechanisms must be her partner decided to try a path of learning in the European Coordination of La Via yields. Second, cattle ranchers are livestock activities, either directly or put in place to promote changes in more practical skills and had the opportunity Campesina (ECVC) and she focuses her work required to ‘demonstrate’ the use of by accident. patterns of both land use and to work on a farm, learning to become small on the issues of the struggle against free their land especially during periods consumption. farmers. This experience inspired Marielle as trade agreements and the promotion of of land reclamation, which is easy she found that it was, for her, a more direct agroecology as an alternative. She explains way of contributing to building alternatives that small farmers everywhere, even in and being in solidarity with small farmers in Europe, are threatened by the growing Brazilian Beef Industry other countries, including in developing expansion of corporations in the food by Sergio Schlesinger, consultant for FASE Brasil countries, and supporting small farmers’ industry and how institutions such as the production of food in Europe. WTO aid their growth. “This is a real threat As the second largest beef producer effects upon Brazil’s environment while others were not (and many but our power is to show that there are and exporter in the world, Brazil is a and people. went bankrupt during the same Marielle and her partner produce organic alternatives—that there is a different way of huge player in the global beef period). The fact that some of the milk from goats, making cheese, selling milk, growing, producing and relating with industry, and ranks highly with There have been a number of chosen PDP companies made and growing vegetables, potatoes and nature—that agroecology works and it is the regard to pork and poultry as well. In concerns about the Brazilian significant political contributions has cereals. Working on a local level as members way forward.” recent years, the Brazilian national government’s formalised investment also been cause for investigation. of the Norwegian small farmers and government chose to consolidate in the beef industry. Firstly, the PDP smallholders union (NBS), Marielle and internationalise the beef sector monies did not require companies to The human cost for Brazil is tragic emphasised that they purposely chose through the Productive Development remain invested in Brazil, allowing too. Slave-like working conditions agroecological methods and organic Box 11 Policy (PDP). Federal investments in them to take the investments and abound in Brazilian bovine companies like JBS-Friboi, Marfrig, move their operations to other stockbreeding, and in the wake of Making hay in the mountain pastures around Marielle's farm. Lofoten gårdsysteri and Brasil Foods have allowed them countries, which is exactly what JBS the PDP, this has only worsened. to expand their market size and did recently. It is also unclear why Labour accidents, poor working power significantly, but not without certain companies were backed conditions, and substandard pay are

What’s at steak? The real cost of meat | November 2016 | 37 the worst among Brazil’s three for a staggering percentage of total country’s territory. Overall, the PDP live near poultry and beef factories. legal chaos that has been going on management to create crops for largest, PDP-backed greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil. in Brazil has resulted in a few Waste, including liquid effluents, for decades. domestic consumption. The slaughterhouses. There are more cattle than people in companies winning, and nearly solids, and gas-filled smoke harm agricultural capacity of the majority Brazil following the PDP expansion, everyone else losing. the health of those in surrounding Unless change happens at every of the soils of the country can easily Finally, the impact on the and grazing lands, including areas communities, particularly children level, and soon, the consequences produce enough food to affordably environment has been immense. already degraded and abandoned, and the elderly. Furthermore, for the majority of Paraguay’s feed Paraguay’s population while still Bovine stockbreeding is responsible exceed almost a quarter of the animal cruelty is prevalent in population could be dire. Long- maintaining an exportable surplus. Paraguay’s agricultural industry, with lasting disputes surrounding land Without dialing back big agri- very little government oversight ownership must be resolved so that business in Paraguay, the human occurring. Official plans supposed to Paraguay’s citizens can be allowed to and environmental cost of India, Unsustainable Livestock Production address land tenure are beset with use patterns of traditional agriculture there will only increase. by Ashlesha Khadse, Amrita Bhoomi Agroecology Centre, La Via Campesina’s Agroecology school in South Asia engrained problems, covering up a management or other sustainable

As Indian agriculture responds to species has resulted in the import of In order to reduce the negative growing national and global demand animals that require more water, impacts of India’s increasingly for meat and dairy products, antibiotics, and care than their native globalised livestock market, oversight Russia Analytical Report profound changes are taking place in counterparts. As well, the pressure to at the state and national level is by Svetlana Abramovich, Friends of Siberian Forests, Russia India’s livestock sector. Whereas increase production and decrease needed. Policies to support the India has customarily been a country unit costs are driving local family cultivation of local bovine and In Russia, traditional livestock result of strong government support patterns are vast, and include where farmers have integrated dairy and poultry farms into debt or poultry breeds, support local/rural sectors, including pastoralism and and rising domestic demand. reduced biodiversity, decreased soil livestock into their farming and used out of the market. Farms are being producers, and remove agriculture small-scale farming, are important to However international trade diversity, groundwater pollution, and sustainable practices, there is now a pressured to utilise livestock from large-scale trade agreements the livelihoods of rural populations agreements mean that Russia is air quality degradation. As such, it is growing push towards free trade, production practices that raise many are required. Additionally, antibiotic as well as national food sovereignty. having to open up livestock sectors crucial to support small-scale privatisation, industrialisation and health and ethical concerns. Overuse use needs to be more closely As has been the trend worldwide, to international trade, especially operations moving forward. Valuable hyper-competitiveness that is of antibiotics for livestock species regulated, farmer’s rights need to be women are often responsible for pork, and large-scale agricultural support activities include providing eroding sustainable practices. This and improper disposal of animal upheld in the face of global market and dependent upon small-scale ventures are rapidly increasing their written resources and training for report examines India’s dairy and waste are increasing the spread of pressures, and pollution control farming. These ventures are often share of the market. Urbanisation farmers around regulations and food poultry sectors in particular and dangerous diseases into the air and standards must be set. Without these far more sustainable and alters patterns of food consumption, safety, facilitating communication provides key recommendations for water supplies threatening both changes, India’s livestock industry ecologically sound than large-scale which may influence demand for between the government and small policy makers. livestock and human populations. will continue to threaten the health operations, and rely more on livestock products. People in cities farms, providing opportunities for Farmers are also suffering under the of people, animals, and the creative agricultural solutions that typically consume more food away farms to access innovation, assisting In both the dairy and poultry new systems of production that force environment. leverage regional resources and from home and larger amounts of with marketing and distribution, and sectors, the favouring of western, costs and risks onto farmers. respond to local factors. meat-based pre-cooked, fast and facilitating small-scale producers to non-native bovine and poultry convenience foods than do people in organise. Although Russian consumption of rural areas. meat and dairy products has been increasing at a slower rate than most The negative environmental and Livestock Development in Paraguay industrialised countries, overall social impacts of these new by Ines Franceschelli and Miguel Lovera, Heñói Jey, Paraguay consumption has still increased as a consumption and production

Paraguay is a nation currently facing increasing phenomenon. This leaves With so much of Paraguay’s power extreme food vulnerability. The over 60% of citizens landless, and economic prowess locked into economy of Paraguay is based on powerless, and living in poverty or big agri-business, there has been export-oriented agricultural extreme poverty, and the majority little focus placed on counteracting production, with soybean and now living in urban rather than rural or preventing the environmental livestock comprising 70% of the areas. This situation, in concert with consequences of large-scale export earnings. Business the fact that most of the food eaten agricultural production. The conglomerates own most of the by citizens is imported, has resulted environmental consequences of this agriculturally productive land in in over 1.6 million Paraguayans model of production Paraguay and foreign tenure is an unable to afford to meet their daily disproportionately affect poor nutrition needs. Paraguayans, especially those who

38 | November 2016 | What’s at steak? The real cost of meat What’s at steak? The real cost of meat | November 2016 | 39 Conclusions and Recommendations

The global industrial livestock industry is a major contributor to forest and biodiversity loss and to climate change, as well as posing a threat to the world’s small-scale food producers, and the availability of healthy and nutritious food for all. Yet as a sector it has so far received very little attention. Meanwhile the growth of the sector and corporate concentration within it is being proactively encouraged by both national governments and multilateral institutions, in spite of all its damaging impacts.

The global industrial livestock handled sensitively. But compared improvements in protein intake for industry is a major contributor to with other options, reforming people whose diet is insufficient. forest and biodiversity loss and to livestock production and climate change, as well as posing a consumption has the potential to Improvements in diets could go threat to the world’s small-scale food generate really significant and far- further. Encouraging people to producers, and the availability of reaching benefits for us and for our reduce or stop consuming healthy and nutritious food for all. planet, with relative ease—especially industrially produced beef is Sustainable livestock farming in Latin America. Eduardo Amorin Yet as a sector it has so far received when one takes into account the fact especially important, given cattle and very little attention. Meanwhile the that the average efficiency of soy farming’s particularly deleterious Box 12 growth of the sector and corporate livestock is staggeringly small—less impact on forests, biodiversity and Food sovereignty concentration within it is being than 3% of energy is retained in the climate change. Beef accounts for proactively encouraged by both conversion from plants to meat. [80] 41% of the livestock sector’s Food sovereignty, as defined by farmer's organisations, is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food national governments and greenhouse gas emissions and is produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture multilateral institutions, in spite of A recent study from researchers at three times as ‘emissions intense’ as systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food all its damaging impacts. Cambridge University found that chicken and pork. [83] The systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. switching to healthier diets with less promotion of balanced diets, that https://nyeleni.org/ This report aims to expose not only meat, combined with a 50% contain less meat and dairy, and the myriad ways in which the reduction in food waste, and more pulses, fruit and vegetables, is industrial livestock sector is improvements in livestock also important for human health, as impacting our lives and production, could result in emissions it would reduce meat-related environment, but to argue from livestock production almost illnesses like heart disease. Box 13 that—precisely because it does halving by 2050 (when compared Improvements in food education are India: call for economic measures to support cause so many problems—it is also with 2009 levels). [81] The dietary important in order to encourage an ideal focus for national climate changes proposed are moderate as healthier eating habits. small-scale food producers and biodiversity policy makers. Put well: the researchers still assumed simply, changing the way we that people would be eating a However, changing our diets is not produce meat and dairy products, portion of poultry every day, plus enough, because the corporate take- Our case study from India, written by Ashlesha Khadse the country. It also asks the government to re-emphasise and how much of them we eat, two 85g portions of red meat and over of the poultry and pork sectors from La Via Campesina’s Agroecology school in South and promote more backyard rearing of local poultry could have far-reaching win-win- five eggs per week. The researchers is also associated with significant Asia, includes some sector-specific recommendations that varieties, especially by women, as a means of enhancing win impacts, for people, for point out that cutting food waste and social, environmental, health, and other governments might also usefully consider. For family nutrition and women’s incomes. It demands that forests and biodiversity, for moderating meat consumption are animal welfare problems that need example, in relation the dairy sector, it calls on the Indian foreign direct investment in agriculture be prohibited and animals and for our climate. essential ‘no regrets’ options, to be addressed. government to regulate sales prices and take action to that agriculture should be removed from the World Trade compared with the prospect of stop price wars between private players and cooperatives, Organization and bilateral free trade agreements such as Take modifying diets for example. It completely decarbonising the energy Fiscal reforms that support and provide minimum support prices and state that between the EU and India. is true that issues relating to diet can and industry sectors. [82] This sustainable forms and levels of procurement guarantees for dairy products, in order to be controversial, and need to be approach still allows for livestock production and protect the livelihoods of millions of small farmers across

40 | November 2016 | What’s at steak? The real cost of meat What’s at steak? The real cost of meat | November 2016 | 41 consumption would also be practices, and facilitate Reforming other governance and relatively easy to implement. These alternative models of trade practices and policies is should include redirecting subsidies production—such as farmer essential. This should include Endnotes and other forms of economic cooperatives and collectives in developing and implementing strict support for unsustainable livestock India—is critical. These should be legislation prohibiting livestock production, to support more bottom-up and gender sensitive, practices that involve environmental [1] Bailey et al (2014). Livestock – Climate [7] Bose A (2016). Vegetarian India A Myth? [14] HBF & FOEE (2014). Meat Atlas: Facts and sustainable livestock production uphold small farmers’ rights, and pollution, weak labour standards, change’s forgotten sector: global public Survey Shows Over 70% Indians Eat Non-Veg, figures about the animals we eat. Heinrich methods in line with the Aichi targets provide better support for existing land grabbing, health risks and the opinion on meat and dairy consumption. Rob Telangana Tops List, Huffington Post, Boell Foundation and Friends of the Earth of the Convention on Biological and new small-scale food producers. maltreatment of animals. In Bailey, Antony Froggatt and Laura Wellesley, http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/06/14/veg Europe (2014) Diversity. It is particularly important Corporate control and concentration particular, the development of Chatham House, 2 December 2014, etarian-india-a-myth-survey-shows-over-70- www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/publica to eliminate perverse legal, fiscal and should be addressed and current Concentrated Animal Feedlot https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/li indians-eat-non-v tions/foee_hbf_meatatlas_jan2014.pdf other incentives for commodity progress in the UN for a legally Operations (CAFOs), which are vestock-climate-change-forgotten-sector- chains like unsustainably produced binding treaty holding transnational proving so damaging for rural small- global-public-opinion-meat-and-dairy [8] Mallapur C (2015). Indian Beef-eating Up, [15] Slow Europe (2016). Phil Hogan has to beef and animal fodder, which are corporations accountable for human scale food producers, public health Chicken Tops Meat Surge, IndiaSpend, change his mind!, Letter from Slow Food and major drivers of forest loss. rights abuses should also be and animal welfare, should be [2] FAO (2006). Livestock’s long shadow: http://www.indiaspend.com/cover- others to EU Commissioner for Agricultural supported to prevent further prohibited. In addition, livestock- environmental issues and options, story/indian-beef-eating-up-chicken-tops- and Rural Development Phil Hogan, 10 Sustainable livestock practices can corporate impunity. [84] related pollution standards should ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a0701e/a070 meat-surge-71788 November 2016, be based on agroecology, be introduced and effectively 1e.pdf, ppxxi-xxii http://www.slowfood.com/sloweurope/en/phil agroforestry, traditional pastoralist Recognising the importance of the implemented, and there should be [9] USDA (2013). Poultry in India. International -hogan-has-to-change-his-mind/ practices, including practices that role women play in small-scale strict regulation of the use of [3] HBF & FOEE (2014). Meat Atlas: Facts and Egg and Poultry Review, 3(46). enhance forest conservation, and farming and their valuable antibiotics. There should also be a figures about the animals we eat. Heinrich [16] De Sy et al (2015). Land use and related the restoration of livestock-breeding contributions in feeding and caring ban on the use of GM soy and the Boell Foundation and Friends of the Earth [10] Brighter Green video, What’s for Dinner?, carbon losses following deforestation in South lands through the application of for their family members, and in toxic pesticides that come with it. Europe (2014) http://brightergreen.org/whats-for-dinner- America, De Sy V, Herold M, Achard F, Beuchle traditional knowledge. They include preserving native seeds and caring www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/publica documentary/ R, Clevers JGPW, Lindquist E & Verchot LV, conserving and using native breeds for a diversity of animal species. A review of international trade tions/foee_hbf_meatatlas_jan2014.pdf 2015 http://www.cifor.org/library/5892/land- of animals, diversifying production Projects, programmes, and policies agreements should be undertaken [11] Mkrtchyan (2013). The Migration of Young use-patterns-and-related-carbon-losses- and rotation grazing. Governments should always take into and the call for agriculture to be [4] FAO (2016). FAO’s role in livestock and the People in the Russian Regional Centers at the following-deforestation-in-south-america/ should also promote the use of consideration the gender aspects of taken out of the WTO should be environment, web page accessed 20 End of XX - Beginning of XXI Century, better quality non-GMO feed, and livestock and feedstock farming in supported. Free trade rules have November 2016. http://www.fao.org/livestock- Mkrtchyan MV, Bulletin of Russian Academy of [17] FAO (2006). Livestock’s Long Shadow: feed balancing practices that lower order to support women’s important been shown to be unfair and have environment/en/ Sciences. Geographical Series, 2013, 6, p19 Environmental Issues and Options, Food and enteric and manure emissions. traditional knowledge and role in this detrimental consequences on small Agriculture Organization, area, rather than undermining it, as farmers and small-scale producers [5] Cambridge (2014). Changing global diets is [12] GFC (2016). Forest Cover 49: Meat as a ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a0701e/a070 In general it is essential that we industrial agriculture does. both in the North and the South. vital to reducing climate change, University of Driver of Deforestation, Global Forest 1e.pdf change the way in which soils and Cambridge news, 1 September 2014, Coalition, March 2016, productive resources are being used, Further gender disaggregated data Internationally, it is critical that http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/changin http://globalforestcoalition.org/resources/fore [18] FAO (2006). Livestock’s Long Shadow: recovering land and traditional on women’s involvement in both governments move to halt g-global-diets-is-vital-to-reducing-climate- st-cover-issues/forest-cover-49-meat-driver- Environmental Issues and Options, Food and patterns of land management, with a intensive and extensive livestock and negotiations on bilateral and change, and Bajzelj et al (2014). 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