Dietary Changes in Sweden and Belgium During the Late 20Th and Early 21St Century and Their Implications for Sustainability

Examensarbete i Hållbar Utveckling 18

Dietary Changes in Sweden and Belgium During the Late 20th and Early 21st Century and Their Implications for Sustainability

Friedel Geeraert

INSTITUTIONEN FÖR GEOVETENSKAPER

Dietary changes in Sweden and Belgium during the late 20th and early 21st century and their implications for sustainability

Friedel Geeraert Supervisor: Professor Phil Lyon Master in Sustainable Development May 2011 Uppsala University

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the changing food consumption patterns in Sweden and Belgium during the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century and the implications as seen from a sustainability point of view, both from a qualitative and quantitative perspective. It is shown that changes in agriculture, food processing, distribution and consumption during the period under assessment were considerable and had a clear impact on the food consumption pattern in both countries. Statistical data on the consumption of different food groups such as meat, milk and dairy products, fish, fruits, vegetables, cereal, potatoes, sugar, margarine and chocolate were compared. Overall, an increase in the consumption of meat, cheese, yoghurt, cream, fruits and vegetables was observed in both countries, while the consumption of milk, butter and potatoes decreased. For the sustainability assessment three parameters were chosen: land requirement, greenhouse gas emissions and energy use. The assessment was based on quantitative data about food consumption in 1960 and 2004. It was shown that the Swedish and Belgian diets in 2004 required more resources and emitted more greenhouse gas emissions than in 1960. The Belgian diet had higher values for all parameters than the Swedish, except when considering the values for the emissions of greenhouse gases in 1960 when the Swedish diet had higher values.

Keywords: history, sustainable development, food consumption, dietary changes, 20th century, Sweden, Belgium

Foreword

This dissertation is a combination of my previous background in history, my current studies in sustainable development and one of my biggest passions: food. It has been an interesting journey back in time and I hope that it will be for you as well.

Acknowledgements

It is common knowledge that dissertations are not written by one person alone. This was no different for this dissertation. A number of people have helped me reach the final stage of the process and therefore deserve to be acknowledged. First and foremost I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Phil Lyon at Umeå University for his unfailing guidance throughout the whole process and, more specifically, for answering my e-mails so quickly which enabled me to work very efficiently. Your insightful comments have helped me improve my work significantly and I have enjoyed our collaboration a lot. Dr. Dawn Wood at the University of Abertay Dundee in Scotland has, as an external reader, also helped me improve the quality of my work considerably for which I would like to thank her. Philippe Lebailly from the Gembloux Agricultural University in Belgium and Monica Eidstedt from the Swedish Board of Agriculture also deserve to be acknowledged for making the data series on Belgian and Swedish food consumption available in Excel. I would also like to thank all interviewees in both countries for sharing their memories with me. It was incredibly interesting to hear your stories about daily life in the past. Thanks to all of you I learned a lot about how food used to be handled, knowledge that is not self- evident anymore for people in my generation. My parents and my sister Marieke deserve many thanks. Not only for supporting me and giving me the opportunity to study abroad, but also for introducing me, in the most pleasant way possible, to the wonderful world of food in all its shapes and varieties. My love for food, the initial inspiration for this thesis, can be attributed to you all. Lastly, I would like to thank my friends. To all the wonderful people I met in Uppsala: thank you for all the good times I spent in your company. I learned at least as much from you all as I did during my classes, not in the least about your food cultures which can differ greatly from mine. My lovely friend Alin Kadfak deserves a special thank you for taking the trouble of teaching me how to cook some delicious Thai dishes. To my friends back in Belgium: thank you for keeping in touch despite the considerable geographical distance. Your e-mails, skype conversations and visits have helped me stay motivated and have, in the case of the latter, also kept my indispensable stock of Belgian chocolate at an agreeable level. Mats Pylyser also deserves a special thank you for providing me with good film and music advice, which has kept me entertained throughout the writing process.

Table of content

ABSTRACT ...... 2 FOREWORD ...... 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 4 TABLE OF CONTENT ...... 5 INTRODUCTION ...... 9

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER ...... 11 I Methodology ...... 11 II Limitations ...... 12 III Previous studies and further research...... 13 IV Sweden and Belgium in numbers ...... 14

CHAPTER 2: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW ...... 16 I Agriculture ...... 16 I.1 Swedish agricultural policy ...... 16 I.2 Belgian agricultural policy ...... 22 I.2.1 Post-war agricultural policy ...... 22 I.2.2 Internationalisation of the market ...... 24 I.2.3 The oil crises ...... 27 I.2.4 Quality and variety ...... 28 I.3 Agricultural innovations ...... 29 I.3.1 Mechanisation ...... 29 I.3.2 Introduction of IT ...... 32 I.3.3 Plant refinement, fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides ...... 33 I.3.4 Manure problems in Belgium ...... 35 I.3.5 New crops due to internationalisation ...... 36 I.3.6 Livestock diseases, hormones and food scares ...... 36 I.4 Societal and economic changes...... 39 I.4.1 Urbanisation and gardening ...... 39 I.4.2 Economic structure ...... 43 I.5 Ecological agriculture ...... 44 II Processing ...... 46 II.1 Product development ...... 46 II.2 The rise of convenience food ...... 47 II.3 Foreign influences ...... 48

II.4 The influence of food recommendations ...... 50 II.5 Packaging ...... 51 III Distribution ...... 52 III.1 The Dutch auction system ...... 52 III.2 The rise of the supermarket ...... 53 III.3 Logistics ...... 56 IV Consumption ...... 56 IV.1 Disappearing housewives ...... 56 IV.2 Food prices and income ...... 58 IV.2.1 Belgium ...... 58 IV.2.2 Sweden ...... 59 IV.3 Household appliances ...... 60 IV.4 Food recommendations ...... 63 IV.5 Media and lifestyle ...... 65 IV.6 Consumer ethics ...... 66 IV.7 Swedish food is safest ...... 68 IV.8 Meal patterns ...... 69 V Summary ...... 71

CHAPTER 3: QUANTITATIVE CHANGES IN FOOD CONSUMPTION ...... 75 I Statistics ...... 75 I.1 Direct and total food consumption ...... 75 I.2 Calculation method ...... 76 I.3 Statistical limitations ...... 77 II Quantitative analysis ...... 78 II.1 General overview ...... 78 II.2 Milk consumption ...... 80 II.2.1 Milk consumption in Belgium ...... 80 II.2.2 Milk consumption in Sweden ...... 81 II.2.3 Comparison of milk consumption ...... 83 II.3 Consumption of dairy products ...... 84 II.3.1 Consumption of dairy products in Belgium ...... 84 II.3.2 Consumption of dairy products in Sweden ...... 85 II.3.3 Comparison of consumption of dairy products ...... 86 II.4 Meat ...... 87 II.4.1 Meat consumption in Belgium ...... 87 II.4.2 Meat consumption in Sweden ...... 90

II.4.3 Comparison of milk consumption ...... 92 II.5 Fish ...... 94 II.5.1 Consumption of fish in Belgium ...... 94 II.5.2 Consumption of fish in Sweden ...... 94 II.6 Eggs ...... 95 II.6.1 Consumption of eggs in Belgium ...... 95 II.6.2 Consumption of eggs in Sweden ...... 97 II.6.3 Comparison of consumption of eggs ...... 98 II.7 Fruit and vegetables ...... 99 II.7.1 Fruit and vegetable consumption in Belgium ...... 99 II.7.2 Fruit and vegetable consumption in Sweden ...... 100 II.7.3 Comparison of fruit and vegetable consumption ...... 102 II.8 Potatoes ...... 103 II.8.1 Potato consumption in Belgium ...... 103 II.8.2 Potato consumption in Sweden ...... 104 II.8.3 Comparison of potato consumption ...... 105 II.9 Cereals ...... 105 II.9.1 Cereal consumption in Belgium ...... 105 II.9.2 Cereal consumption in Sweden ...... 106 II.9.3 Comparison of cereal consumption ...... 108 II.10 Sugar ...... 109 II.10.1 Sugar consumption in Belgium ...... 109 II.10.2 Sugar consumption in Sweden ...... 109 II.10.3 Comparison of sugar consumption ...... 110 II.11 Margarine ...... 110 II.11.1 Margarine consumption in Belgium ...... 110 II.11.2 Margarine consumption in Sweden ...... 111 II.12 Ice cream and chocolate...... 111 II.12.1 Consumption of chocolate in Belgium ...... 111 II.12.2 Consumption of ice cream and chocolate in Sweden ...... 112 III Summary ...... 112

CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS OF DIETARY CHANGES FOR SUSTAINABILITY ...... 115 I The data ...... 116 I.1 Land requirements ...... 116 I.2 Energy use and greenhouse gas emissions ...... 117 II Greenhouse gas emissions ...... 118

III Land requirements...... 119 III.1 Belgium ...... 121 III.2 Sweden ...... 123 IV Energy use and emissions of greenhouse gases ...... 126 IV.1 Belgium ...... 128 IV.2 Sweden ...... 131 V Summary ...... 134

CONCLUSION ...... 136 EPILOGUE: TOWARDS A MORE SUSTAINABLE DIET ...... 138 REFERENCES ...... 140 Agricultural journals ...... 140 Bibliography ...... 140 Internet sources ...... 148 APPENDICES ...... 150 Appendix 1: Interview questions ...... 150 Appendix 2: List of interviewees ...... 152 Appendix 3 List of illustrations, tables and graphs ...... 154

Introduction

Vägen till hagen går genom magen.

Liefde gaat door de maag.

Food. It is both a necessity and a pleasure. It is a founding cultural value and an important medium for creating a sense of community between people.1 Food also structures the daily human life and creates certain routines.2 Marie Antoine Carême (1784-1833), who was one of the first haute cuisine chefs, even said: ‘If there is no more cooking in the world, there is no more literature, elevated and quick intelligence, inspiration, binding relationships, there is no more social unity.’3 Even though this might seem a little exaggerated, food is an essential part of life and is, at the same time, the main focus of this thesis. Since the cultural turn in the social sciences in the 1980s, food has become interrelated with identity.4 Food consumption differs between social classes within societies as well as between nations.5 Entire countries are, for example, associated with certain food products. This is no different for the two countries that are under consideration here: Sweden and Belgium. Sweden for example is known for its fermented herring (surströmming), its processed sour milk (filmjölk) or its meatballs with lingonberry jam (köttbullar med lingonsylt). Belgian food culture is usually associated with waffles, chocolate, beer and French fries.6 Certain nations are also considered to be bigger food lovers or ‘gourmands’ than others. In one publication it was mentioned that: ‘Only the French and Belgians would choose a restaurant for the sake of the food. We heard that they did not even mind to drive more than ten km to find a good restaurant.’7 Scholliers agrees by stating that: ‘Overall, Belgian consumers have gained a reputation for being demanding in terms of quality and freshness’.8 The association between countries and certain food products, however, does not imply that food consumption patterns remain the same over time. Changes in the food cultures of nations are ongoing processes, owing to better living standards and to the global exchange of cultural experience by travelling, education and information processes. 9 Food consumption patterns depend on several factors: personal preference, habit, availability, economy,

1 Burstedt, A., Fredriksson, C. & Jönsson, H., ‘Inledning’ in Mat, genealogi och gestaltning, A. Burstedt, C. Fredriksson & H. Jönsson, eds., s.l., 2006, 7. 2 Burstedt et al., Mat, genealogi och gestaltning, 2006,, 18. 3 ‘Lorsqu’il n’y a plus de cuisine dans le monde, il n’y a plus de lettres, d’intelligence élevée et rapide, d’inspiration, de relations liantes, il n’y a plus d’unité sociale.’ Moulin, L. & Leonard, L., L’art de manger en Belgique: trente portraits, trente maisons, Antwerpen, 1979. 4 Scholliers, P., ‘Meals, food narratives, and sentiments of belonging in past and present’ in Food, drink and identity. Cooking, eating and drinking in Europe since the Middle Ages, P. Scholliers (ed.), Oxford, 2001, 7. 5 Carlsson-Kanyama, A. & Lindén, A.-L., ‘Trends in food production and consumption: Swedish experiences from environmental and cultural impacts’, International Journal of Sustainable Development, 4 (2001), no. 4, 293. 6 Scholliers, P., Food culture in Belgium (Food culture around the world), Westport, 2009, xii. 7 Odevall, P.-E., ‘I den svenska matkorgen 1940-2000’, Tidernas mat. På svenska bord 1970-2000 (Nordiska museets – Allt om mat), 2000, 31. 8 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 79. 9 Carlsson-Kanyama, A. & Lindén, A.-L., ‘Trends in food production and consumption’, 2001, 293. 9 convenience, ethnic heritage, tradition and other cultural and nutritional requirements.10 Certain periods of transition can be distinguished. Duquesne et al. for example state that, from the moment income restraints and food supply allow it, three distinct phases can be discerned in the food consumption patterns of developed countries. The first phase consists of a quantitative growth in the consumption of all food products until a certain level of calorie saturation is reached. Afterwards, a nutritional transition takes place: the consumption of basic food products diminishes while animal products, sugar, fruits and vegetables are increasingly consumed. This is followed by a stationary phase, in terms of food rations, which consists of a general differentiation of food.11 In the Western European countries, the level of calorie saturation, 3000 Kcal per person per day, was reached at the end of the 19th or the beginning of the 20th century. The nutritional transition has taken place mainly throughout the first part of the 20th century while the latter half of the 20th century has seen important changes when it comes to the food products that were consumed.12 For example, there is no more standard Belgian or Swedish diet these days; the average diet is much more diversified than before. Consumers do not choose food products any longer, but rather food models in which certain products are valued and others marginalised.13 The changes in food consumption patterns during the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century will be the main focus of this dissertation. The central question is: how did food consumption in Sweden and Belgium evolve during the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century and what implications do these changes have for food sustainability? The aim of this research is to map changes in food consumption patterns in Sweden and Belgium during the latter half of the 20th and the early 21st century both from a qualitative and quantitative perspective and analyse the consequences of these changes from a sustainability point of view. In order to fully understand how these dietary changes came into being, a historical background is provided in chapter two. An overview of societal changes and changes in agricultural practices is provided as a framework for the changes that have occured in the food consumption pattern. The focus in this chapter will be on the different stages food goes through: agricultural production, processing, distribution and consumption. The third chapter consists of an analysis of the data of food consumption in both countries. The focus will be on the nutritional changes in Sweden and Belgium during the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. First, a general overview is provided, after which the different food groups, such as dairy products, meat or cereal, are discussed in more detail. The fourth chapter focuses on the impact of these changes from a sustainability point of view. Three parameters have been selected to assess this impact: land requirement, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. In this chapter, the data series for the food consumption in the years 1960 and 2004 were used for further calculations. Before moving on to the historical background, the methodology used in this dissertation will be discussed in the first chapter, along with a short introduction to both countries.

10 Gerbens-Leenes, P.W., Nonhebel, S. & Ivens, W.P.M.F., ‘A method to determine land requirements relating to food consumption patterns’, Agriculture, ecosystems and environment, 90 (2002), 48. 11 Duquesne, B., Matendo, S. & Lebailly, P., Evolution de la consommation alimentaire en Belgique et en Région wallonne, Conference paper ‘Des aliments sains et naturels dans l’assiette des jeunes, une utopie’, Gembloux, May 17, 2006, 1-2. 12 Ibidem. 13 Duquesne, B., Hypermoderne, le mangeur belge?, Conference paper ‘Révolutions dans les assiettes’, Gembloux Agricultural University, Gembloux, February 3, 2010, 9. 10

Chapter one

Introductory chapter

In this chapter, the methodologies used for this research are presented, along with the limitations, previous studies and suggestions for further research. In the last section, a short introduction to both countries is provided, including their geographical location and population.

I Methodology

The study consists of a literature review, a comparison of statistical data and several primary sources. The literature consists of publications in French, Dutch, Swedish and English. The statistical data stem from two publications: a report about the food consumption between 1960 and 2006 by the Swedish Board of Agriculture and a conference paper about the evolution in food consumption in Belgium between 1955 and 2004 by Duquesne et al.14 For the sustainability analysis two publications were very valuable: an article by Gerbens-Leenes and Nonhebel entitled ‘Consumption patterns and their effects on land required for food’ and an article by Wallén, Brandt and Wennersten entitled 'Does the Swedish consumer's choice of food influence greenhouse gas emissions?’.15 Several primary sources have been used as well. Semi-structured interviews in both countries have been conducted. The interviewees were selected by means of chunk sampling. In both countries five interviews were conducted, two with farmers and three with non- farmers. Different abbreviations were used to indicate the interviewees: BI stands for Belgian Interviewee, SI for Swedish Interviewee, BF stands for Belgian Farmer(s) and SF for Swedish Farmers(s). The full list of participants can be found in Appendix 2 along with a short biography of each interviewee. The youngest interviewee was born in 1958, while the oldest was born in 1917. The interviews were conducted in Flemish or Swedish. Extracts from the interviews are used in an illustrative way for the changes in agricultural practices, society and food consumption patterns. Two agricultural newspapers have also been selected. All issues of the weekly Belgian newspaper ‘Landbouwleven’ (Farming Life) and of the Swedish magazine ‘Lantmannen’ (Man of the Land) between 1955 and 2004 have been consulted. ‘Landbouwleven’ is the best known agricultural newspaper in Flanders and is published by Landelijke uitgeverijen or Rural Publishers. ‘Lantmannen’ is the newspaper of the Lantbrukornas Riksförbund or the National Farmers’ Association in Sweden. Much like the interviews, extracts from articles are used as illustrations in Chapter two. Originally, a new issue of Lantmannen appeared every

14 Jordbruksverket, Livsmedelskonsumtionen 1960-2006 (Statistik från jordbruksverket, statistikrapport 2009:2), Stockholm, 2009; Duquesne, B., Matendo, S. & Lebailly, P., Evolution de la consommation alimentaire en Belgique et en Région wallonne (Evolution of the alimentary consumption in Belgium and in the Walloon region), Conference paper ‘Des aliments sains et naturels dans l’assiette des jeunes, une utopie’, Gembloux, May 17, 2006. 15 Gerbens-Leenes, P.W. & Nonhebel, S., 'Consumption patterns and their effects on land required for food', Ecological economics, 42 (2002), 185-199. Wallén, A., Brandt, N. & Wennersten, R., 'Does the Swedish consumer's choice of food influence greenhouse gas emissions?', Environmental Science & Policy, 7 (2004), 525-535. 11 week, while from 1965 onwards, ‘Lantmannen’ appeared only every two weeks. In 1993 ‘Lantmannen’ became a monthly magazine. It needs to be noted that throughout this paper the continental notation of decimal numbers will be used, i.e. 7,5 instead of 7.5 for example. Similarly, large numbers such as hundred thousand will be written as 100.000 instead of 100,000.

II Limitations

First of all the study is limited to approximately the last fifty years. Geographically seen, the limits were set to include Sweden and Belgium. Both countries have approximately a similar population size and are now both well-developed countries after having been subject to the same macro-level changes after the austerity of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath. Their location within Europe, however, and their climate as well, are different which might result in interesting dietary differences. Sweden also is a much bigger country than Belgium and has by consequence a much lower population density. Because of these similarities and differences, it will be interesting to see how the inhabitants in these countries now feed themselves and if their inhabitants eat more or less similar foods. Statistical information always has certain limitations. These will however be discussed in more detail in Chapter Three since the limitations are relevant for the interpretation of the information that is offered in that chapter. The influence of the price level on the changes in food consumption will be largely omitted and will only be mentioned sporadically in the second chapter. Food consumption is also related to the age and education level of the consumers and can even differ regionally.16 Older people in Sweden, for example, eat more potatoes, root vegetables and edible offal, while younger people eat more pasta, rice, pizza, nuts and candy. Swedish people with lower education eat less fruit and vegetables than people with high education.17 Similar trends exist in Belgium.18 These distinctions, however, will be disregarded since it would make the scope of the study too extensive. It was also not possible to take all food products into account that constitute Belgian and Swedish diets in their entirety due to a lack of data. The consumption of vegetable oils and beverages, for example, will not been discussed. In the Chapter Four, which consists of the sustainability analysis, there were also limitations when applying the conversion data for energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and land requirements on the data series of food consumption in 1960 and 2004. The conversion factors for several food products and the different food categories used in the statistical data about food consumption were sometimes not compatible. Other limitations are discussed in more detail in Chapter Four. Food is also not only related to the environment; there are a lot of socio-economic issues involved as well. The rise in the level of obesity, for example, which can be directly related to food intake, entails serious health risks. Such implications of the quantitative changes in yearly food consumption, however, have been omitted from this thesis.

16 Julin, E. & Olszon, E., ‘Samhälle och livsstil styr våra matvanor’ in Mat och miljön. Råvaror, resurser, recept, L. Lundgren (red.), Naturskyddsföreningens årsbok, Stockholm, 1996, 76; Elg, U., Johansson, U., Tollin, K. & Wikström, S., Matens metamorfos. En studie av matkonsumtionens förändring under 1960, 70- och 80-talen, Stockholm, 1987, 14. 17 Mat och hälsa. Faktabok från livsmedelsverket, Livsmedelsverket, Ödeshög, 2007, 33. 18 Duquesne, Hypermoderne, le mangeur belge?, 2010, 10. 12

III Previous studies and further research

Food consumption in the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century is still relatively unexplored, especially in comparative terms between two European countries of similar population size. Only in the last few years have a few studies been published and data made more generally available. On the other hand, quite a few detailed studies were made about the environmental impact of food consumption for Sweden.19 No Belgian counterparts, however, are available. When it comes to further research, it would be interesting to include a Southern- European country in the comparison so that more comprehensive information could be provided about the relation between geographical location and differences in food culture and consumption. Not only could the geographical focus be expanded, but also the temporal focus. It would be even more interesting to assess the changes in food consumption patterns over the entire 20th century for example. As mentioned above, specific studies have been conducted that include Life Cycle Assessments for specific food products that are available in Swedish stores. It would be very interesting to conduct the same kind of study for Belgium – or any other country for that matter - since production systems differ between countries. This could lead to a better assessment of energy use, greenhouse gas emissions or land requirements related to food. More specific information about the conditions of the production systems and yields in the middle of the 20th century would also be welcome since this would enhance the accuracy of sustainability assessments over time. The inclusion of more parameters in the sustainability assessment would also have added more value. The more parameters are included, the more complete the impacts of food consumption can be assessed. Calculating changes in the use of water, for example, would have been very interesting as well.

19 Carlsson-Kanyama, A., Ekström, M.P. & Shanahan, H., ‘Food and life cycle energy inputs: consequences of diet and ways to increase efficiency’, Ecolgical Economics, 44 (2003), 393-307. This article includes the energy input for the production, distribution and consumption of about 150 food items that are available in Swedish stores. Carlsson-Kanyama., A., ‘Climate change and dietary choices – how can emissions of greenhouse gases from food consumption be reduced? ‘, Food Policy, 23 (1998), 277-293. This article presents findings about the greenhouse gas emissions and energy use related to the production and transportation of carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, pork, rice and dry peas consumed in Sweden. Carlsson-Kanyama, A., ‘Food consumption patterns and their influence on climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions in the life-cycle of tomatoes and carrots consumed in Sweden’, Ambio, 27 (1998), 528-534. This article presents greenhouse gas emissions related to the production and transportation of carrots and tomatoes as consumed in Sweden. Carlsson, A., Swedish food consumption and the environment, a trend analysis during the period of consumerism (IMES/EESS report no. 19), Lund, 1995. This article examines changes in Swedish food consumption by assessing the changes in five parameters: the consumption of animal products, processed food, low-calorie food, locally produced food and ecologically produced food. Johansson, S., The Swedish foodprint. An agroecological study of food consumption, Doctoral dissertation Uppsala University, Uppsala, 2005. In this study, the entire Swedish foodprint is calculated. 13

IV Sweden and Belgium in numbers

Illustration 1: Map of Europe20

As can be seen on the map above, the geographical location of both countries is quite different. Sweden is situated in Northern Europe bordering Norway and Finland. Belgium, on the other hand, is situated in the middle of Europe and has France, Luxemburg, Germany and the Netherlands as its neighbouring countries. The difference in geographical location also results in climatic differences. The average temperature in Belgium is 9,7 degrees Celsius.21 In Sweden, the average temperature differs significantly between the North and the South of the country due to its large latitudinal stretch. Farthest North the average temperature is minus

20 Map of Europe (copyright free), http://www.world-maps.co.uk/continent-map-of-europe.htm, last accessed April 10, 2011. 21 Average temperature in Belgium, Koninklijk Meteorologisch Instituut, http://www.kmi.be/meteo/view/nl/4223602-2009.html, last accessed April 10, 2011. 14 three degrees Celsius, while in the South it is seven degrees Celsius.22 The agricultural land in Sweden is by consequence concentrated in the South of the country. The total surface of Belgium is 30.528 km2, excluding the sea area, while Sweden has a total surface of 450.295 km2.23 Around 1960 the population in Sweden was about 7,5 million while nowadays there are almost 9,5 million Swedes.24 In Belgium, the population was about 9.190.000 in 1960 while by 2007 this number has increased to 10.584.534.25 The population density in Belgium thus increased from 301 persons per km2 in 1960 to 346 in 2007, while in Sweden it increased from 17 persons km2 in 1960 to 21 persons per km2 in 2006.

22 Average temperature in Sweden, Sveriges meteorologiska och hydrologiska institut, http://www.smhi.se/klimatdata/meteorologi/temperatur/1.3973, last accessed April 10, 2011. 23 Geographical statistics, Nationaal Instituut voor de Statistiek, http://statbel.fgov.be, last accessed April 10, 2011; Geopgraphical statistics, Statistiska Centralbyrån, www.scb.se, last accessed April 11, 2011. 24 Hedenborg, S., Kvarnström, L., Det svenska samhället 1720-2000. Böndernas och arbetarnas tid., s.l., 2006, 247; Population statistics, Statistiska Centralbyrån, www.scb.se, last accessed February 21, 2011. 25 Population statistics, Nationaal Instituut voor de Statistiek, http://www.statbel.fgov.be, last accessed April 10, 2011. 15

Chapter two

Historical overview

Now that the methodology has been described in the previous chapter and that both countries are shortly introduced, it is time to plunge back in time and take a closer look at what has changed. The aim of this second chapter is to offer a broader perspective on the changes in Belgian and Swedish society and economy that have influenced the way in which we produce, process, distribute and consume food after the Second World War. This broad perspective follows the different stages food goes through before it lands on our plates. The chapter will thus treat agriculture, food processing and refining, distribution and consumption. Most aspects will be discussed for both countries simultaneously although some sections, the agricultural policy section for example, focus on each country separately. The interviews that were conducted and the farming newspapers that were consulted will be used as illustrative material. At the end of this chapter a timeline has been included to provide a visual overview of the changes as they occurred in both countries.

I Agriculture

The structure of the Belgian agriculture has not changed considerably between 1950 and 2000. The most important sector is the livestock sector which in 2000 represented about 60 percent of the total production of the Belgian agriculture. The second largest sector in 2000 was horticulture with 25 percent. Arable farming represented the other 15 percent.26 Other aspects of the Belgian agriculture, however, have undergone considerable changes as will be explained below. Milk production represents about 20 percent of the total value produced by Swedish agriculture. Poultry and pig rearing are also big sectors within Swedish agriculture. The production of cereals and ley (grassland) are important crops as well. Wheat, oil seeds and sugar beets are grown in the South while barley and oats are important crops in the North.27

I.1 SWEDISH AGRICULTURAL POLICY

During the period under examination, agriculture has undergone considerable changes. During the latter half of the twentieth century, Swedish agriculture changed from a mixed agriculture, which entailed, for example, both the breeding of several kinds of livestock and cultivation of crops to a specialised, mechanised and chemical-based agriculture.28

26 Segers, Y. & Van Molle, L., Leven van het land: boeren in België 1750-2000, Leuven, 2004, 117. 27 Sveriges jordbruk i siffror, Jordbruksverket, http://www.sjv.se/omjordbruksverket/dusomarkonsument/sverigesjordbrukisiffror.4.4ef62786124a59a20bf80007 6016.html, last accessed March 20, 2011. 28 Flygare, I. A. & Isacson, M., Det svenska jordbrukets historia. Jordbruket i välfärdssamhället 1945-2000, Örebro, 2003, 107; 75; 22. 16

World War II served as a watershed which stimulated agricultural development.29 Even though Sweden was neutral during the war, everyday life in Sweden was affected by the conflict elsewhere. Rationing on imported and domestic products such as coffee, tea, sugar, flour, bread, meat, offal, butter, fish and potatoes was introduced.30 Interviewee SI 2 clearly remembered the rationing system during World War II:

‘During the war there were a lot of things that we didn’t get. There were ration cards and everything, so you couldn’t eat normal food during the war. You mostly ate what you could get. […] We maybe got meat twice a week, the rest of the time you ate what you could gather. Those cards only allowed certain amounts. [...] When I was home over the summer [in Luleå], people catched a lot of herring since that was not on the ration cards. There were several products that could not be found anymore. […] We had bread coupons and coffee was rationed as well. [...] Even shoes and clothes were on the ration cards. […] My mom could still remember the situation during the First World War and she told me that people almost perished back then. They didn’t get enough milk for all children. I was born exactly when the ration cards were introduced [in 1917]. My parents got a card for me too, and that was good because then they had more food. […] It was worse then; during the Second World War, you could at least feed yourself with the things that could be found. Not that the meals were always good, but you could always fill out your meal so that you didn’t get hungry.’

As a consequence, after the war, one of the main goals of the Swedish agricultural policy was to stimulate production. Swedish food supplies had to be guaranteed.31 Therefore, quantity was considered more important than quality; there was a movement towards greater volumes and units within agriculture. Rationalization of farms was the means to achieve the second goal: the efficiency goal. Smaller farms were to shut down or merge with others in order to form bigger farms of at least ten to twenty hectares. However, the tradition of family farms remained strong in Sweden.32 Interviewee SF 2 commented on this rationalisation process:

‘The biggest difference for me is that agriculture has lost part of its charm. When I started as a farmer [in 1962], it was family agriculture. We did a lot by hand and we had a lot of physical labour. We were more than one person on the farm; we had family members or some employees. We did not have a big farm either; it was only forty, fifty hectares. Agriculture has undergone an urbanisation process; everything has to be so big: you have to have a lot of acreage, big machines and one person has to do everything himself.’

At the same time, state-influence over Swedish agriculture increased. The state kept the prices for agricultural products high in order to ensure a sufficient income for the agricultural sector, which formed the third goal.33 The main tools to achieve these goals were price regulations, import tariffs and export incentives. This also meant an increase in bureaucratic work for the farmers. Swedish state intervention had arrived.

29 Perlinge, A., Bondeminnen. Människan och tekniken i jordbruket under 1900-talet, Borås, 1995, 15. 30 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 301. 31 Rydén, R., Medvindens tid. Ekologiska lantbrukarna och jordbrukspolitiken 1985-2000, (Ekologiskt lantbruk 36), 2003, 8. 32 Perlinge, Bondeminnen, 1995, 320. 33 Ibidem, 23. 17

The increasing specialisation led to the decoupling of crop production from animal production, which created an increase in the amount of animal food that had to be purchased.34 In general, Swedish farms started to sell almost all their products while they bought domestic and foreign means of production such as animal food, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides and machinery.35 This higher dependency on external resources increased the vulnerability of the sector.36 As a consequence farms having both cattle and growing crops began to diminish because of these specialisation policies.37 Between the early 1950s and the late 1980s, the percentage of farms with cattle diminished from 90 percent to 20 percent.38 Some farmers clearly regretted this development. An article in Lantmannen commented that ‘a farm without animals is a soulless farm’.39 A parallel development was that certain activities that previously had been done on the farms themselves were transferred to the food industry - such as slaughtering or the processing of milk into dairy products.40 In 1967, the Swedish government introduced more measures to guide the agricultural sector towards more efficiency, specialisation, intensification and growth.41 The income objective became less important.42 Not all farmers were happy with the changes; Lantmannen regularly commented on the agricultural rationalisation from the early 1960s onwards.43 The policy also aimed at extricating resources from agriculture in favour of other economic objectives.44 For some farmers this meant shutting down their farms - creating a feeling of marginalisation within society. This led to a number of farmer demonstrations at the beginning of the 1970s.45 In 1971, for example, 200.000 Swedish farmers gathered in Jönköping to protest. According to Lantmannen, the situation of the farmers was untenable, Swedish agriculture had come to a standstill because of rationalisation. The rationalisation policies for acreage were considered a threat by small farmers.46 Several years later, in 1979, however, Lantmannen commented that the rationalisation between 1974 and 1978 had been economically fruitful but that it would be hard to continue the same trend since before, the goal of rationalisation had been mainly obtained by replacing man with machines.47

34 Saifi B. & Drake, L., ‘Swedish agriculture during the twentieth century in relation to sustainability’, Ecological economics, 2008 (68), no. 3, 376. 35 Steen, E., ‘Från bondejordbruk till marknadsjordbruk, 1900-2000. Hundra år av produktionsteknisk utveckling i svenskt jordbruk’ in Bruka, odla, hävda: odlingssystem och uthålligt jordbruk under 400 år (Skogs- och lantbrukshistoriska meddelanden 33), U. Jansson & E. Mårald (eds.), Stockholm, 2005, 94-95. 36 Saifi, B., The sustainability of Swedish agriculture in a coevolutionary perspective (Agraria 469), Doctoral dissertation, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, 2004, 93. 37 Westman, A., Då gräs och gröda gror, en översikt av jordbrukets utveckling i Sverige, Vingåker, 1998, 98. 38 Saifi, The sustainability of Swedish agriculture, 2004, 88. 39 ‘En gård utan djur är en gård utan själ’, Lantmannen, 41 (1957), no. 13, 283. 40 Perlinge, Bondeminnen, 1995, 323. 41 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 228-244. 42 Perlinge, Bondeminnen, 1995, 322. 43 ’Jordbruksrationalisering och skatter’, Lantmannen, 74 (1963), no. 4, 67; ’Mera pengar till rationalisering’, Lantmannen, 74 (1963), no. 14, 343; ’Ökad stimulans till rationalisering’, Lantmannen, 74 (1963), no. 15, 403; ’Rationalisering som gav vinst’, Lantmannen, 74 (1963), no. 16, 476; ’Storleksrationalisering – en av vägarna till bättre effektivitet’, 74 (1963), no. 22, 555; ’Kan svenskt jordbruk bli effektivare’, 74 (1963), no. 37, 734; ’Jordbruksministern satsar på rationalsering och forskning’, Lantmannen, 76 (1965), no. 2, 3; ’Vi behöver ett rationaliseringsvänligt klimat’, Lantmannen, 76 (1965), 3; ’Rationalisering med förhinder’, Lantmannen, 81 (1970), no. 6, 5; ’Rationalisering och krediter’, Lantmannen, 81 (1970), no. 14, 5. 44 Andersson, Å., ‘Lantbruket och lantbruksstyrelsen åren 1890-1990’ in Statens jordbrukspolitik under 200 år (Skrifter om skogs- och lantbrukshistoria), J. Myrdal (ed.), 1996, 71. 45 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 228-244. 46 ’Bondedemonstrationer’, Lantmannen, 82 (1971), no. 6, 5; ’Vi måste ur dödläget’, Lantmannen, 82 (1971), no. 5, 5; ’Jordbrukets väg till välfärden’, Lantmannen, 82 (1971), no. 14, 10. 47 ’Rationalisering till döds’, Lantmannen, 100 (1979), no. 6, 4 18

During the same period of time, problems of overproduction started to arise. Already in 1958 an article in Lantmannen discussed different remedies for overproduction: eating more butter, cheese, meat and eggs, or plant more forest.48 Another article stated that Swedish farmers should be prepared for impeding problems of overproduction.49 In 1967, concerns about overproduction rose once again. The number of milk cows had to diminish and discussions were published about whether or not overproduction was really harmful.50 At the end of the 1960s and early 1970s food prices were also very high.51 The quick increase in food prices was hard on some Swedish families and some people decided to demonstrate. Housewives from Skärholm, for example, decided to boycott milk in 1972.52 As a consequence the Swedish government introduced food subsidies in 1973 since they were deemed advantageous for both the farmers and the consumers. By the middle of the 1970s, agricultural policies focussed on the farmers themselves. Their income was once again the key issue. 53 During the 1970s and 1980s environmental care and nutritional quality were new themes. Reduction of pollution, prudent use of non-renewable resources, the protection of agro-ecological systems and humane treatment of animals were all placed on the political agenda.54 In the early 1960s and 1970s, a number of articles appeared in Lantmannen that called for more research concerning the effects of the chemicals.55 During the late 1970s and 1980s, the main reasoning in several articles was that diminishing the use of chemicals in agriculture was acceptable provided that the efficiency level stayed the same for the farmers.56 Despite food subsidies, food prices increased considerably again towards the end of the 1970s because of inflation induced by decreased industrial productivity and the expansion of the public sector which caused budgetary deficits. This led to decreasing consumption while production kept increasing. When asked about overproduction problems, interviewee SF 2 commented:

‘During the 1970s we had overproduction. Mostly of milk and butter. [...] Then Bregott [a margarine-like product that is a blend between animal and vegetable oil] came along, so they added margarine to butter in order to make it malleable, because if you put butter in the fridge it gets hard.’

Apart from the development of new products, the government tried to alleviate the situation by exporting the surplus in cereal production and selling it at a low price on the

48 Carlsson, C.-E., ’Botemedel mot överproduktion. Ska vi plantera skok eller äta mer smör, ost, kött och ägg?, Lantmannen, 41 (1958), no. 18, 387. 49 ’Beredskap – överskott – konsumtion – livsviktiga problem för vårt jordbruk’, Lantmannen, 74 (1963), no. 10, 216; ’Kan vi klara en överproduktion’, Lantmannen, 74 (1963), no. 44, 869. 50 ’Mjölkkornas antal måste minska’, Lantmannen, 78 (1967), no. 7, 7; ’Det finns inga skadliga överskott’, Lantmannen, 78 (1967), no. 10, 7; ’Bryr vi oss om fläskberget?’, Lantmannen, 78 (1967), no. 25, 5. 51 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 241. 52 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 18. 53 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 228-244. 54 Saifi, The sustainability of Swedish agriculture, 2004, 105; Domeij, Å., ’Vägar till framtidens jordbruk’, Aktuellt från lantbruksuniversitetet, 1995, issue 432, 5. 55 ’Bekämpningsmedel måste prövas objektivt’, Lantmannen, 75 (1964), no. 9, 215; ’Forskningen rörande ogräsbekämpning måste få ökade rsurser’, Lantmannen, 75 (1964), n. 7, 167; ’Nyansera giftdebatten’, Lantmannen, 82 (1971), no. 2, 5; ’Kan vi garandera giftfria livsmedel?’, Lantmannen, 83 (1972), no. 2, 5; ’Giftfria livsmedel’, Lantmannen, 85 (1974), no. 6, 8. 56 ’Vi måste ha kemisk bekämpning’, Lantmannen, 89 (1987), no. 11-12, 4; ’Kemiska tillsatser i valfläsket’, Lantmannen, 89 (1978), no. 16, 4. ’Gifter i jordbruket? Ingens fel – men allas ansvar’, Lantmannen, 103 (1982), no. 5, 4; ’Gärna kemikaliefritt men inte utan ersättning’, Lantmannen, 105 (1984), no.7, 4; ’Mål i mun’, Lantmannen, 108 (1987), no. 4, 3; ’Bud om vår’, Lantmannen, 108 (1987), no. 6, 3. 19 world market and by pressing farmers to reduce their production. This led to a new wave of demonstrations at the beginning of the 1980s.57 Food subsidies were abolished in 1983 except for milk. Meat and cereal consumption decreased and the government still had to deal with surpluses. People talked about butter- and meat-mountains and milk seas.58 ‘Omställning 90’ (or ‘Readjustment 90’) was proposed as a solution for the surplus in cereal production. The goal was to stimulate alternative usages of acreage such as forestation or the cultivation of energy crops and other niche crops by offering financial compensation.59 Omställning ’90 and the considerable decrease in acreage did not leave farmers untouched. An article in Lantmannen commented: ’Finally people start to see what happens to the acreage and the landscape. Perfect acres are forested.’, while another journalist wrote: ’Expected by free-trade economists, feared by farmers. 500.000 hectares of acreage have to get a new purpose within a year or should be converted into forest. The question is how and to what it should be changed.’60 However, the debate about a more liberal agricultural policy was not quelled. The debate about deregulation was lively in the 1980s as several articles in Lantmannen and Bolin et al.’s publication in 1986 illustrate.61 Common concerns about deregulation were that many farms would be driven out of business, that the price levels would fluctuate sharply and would not cover the real production costs any longer and that it would lead to negative environmental effects.62 In 1990 the Swedish government decided to deregulate and increasingly adjust agriculture to the world market. This was believed to be a good method for reducing agricultural surpluses.63 Price interventions and the income goal were abolished and quality became a more important goal than quantity. Health and environmental concerns were prioritised. However, deregulation created new problems and, by comparison, EU membership seemed a more stable option for many.64 An article in Lantmannen described the EU policies as completely opposite to the Swedish deregulation policy of the early 1990s: ’The new European agricultural policy, the MacSharry plan, includes low product prices and income support, which will give the farmers a good income but at the same time it will diminish the intensity of agriculture and the surpluses. The European Union wants to favour small-scale agriculture, which is in clear contrast with the Swedish deregulation policy.’65 For Swedish farmers, deregulation meant dire times. Interviewee SF 1 recalls:

‘The whole 1990s were a crisis. Yes, the 1980s, when I started, those were good years with no big problems. During the 1990s, the whole of the Swedish agricultural sector was basically disintegrating. There was a lot of acreage that was not cultivated anymore. [...] We were adjusting to the world market for a while, before we became a member of the EU in 1994. We were then on the level of the world market. [...] Agriculture was outside the whole support system. Now we are in the European Union, which has both positive and negative sides.’

57 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 244-248. 58 Lycksell, S., En jordnära historia. Om bonder i efterkrigstidens Sverige, Stockholm, 1995, 71. 59 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 248-250; Rydén, Medvindens tid, 2003,9. 60 ’En omedelbar omställning’, Lantmannen, 111 (1990), no. 9, 3; ’Stryk kravet på varaktighet i omställningen’, Lantmannen, 112 (1991), no. 10, 3 61 ’Avreglera låter bra’, Lantmannen, 105 (1984), no. 14, 3; ’Konsekvens i galenskapen?’, Lantmannen, 104 (1983), no. 22, 4. 62 Bolin, O., Meyerson, P.-M. & Ståhl, I., The political economy of the food sector. The case of Sweden, Kristianstad, 1986, 121-125. 63 Westman, Då gräs och gröda gror, 1998, 99-100. 64 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 254-255. 65 ’Med EG i framtiden’, Lantmannen, 112 (1991), no. 22, 3. 20

When Sweden entered the European Union in 1995, deregulation came to an end and the Swedish agricultural policy was adjusted according to decisions made by the EU.66 The implications for the food market were that food from all over Europe could be sold, distributed and purchased in every member state without legislative borders.67 The issue of a Swedish EU membership was often discussed in Lantmannen. In 1958, for example, the author of one article introduced his readers to the workings of the EEC and regularly, articles debated the respective advantages and disadvantages of a possible membership.68 Alternatives to the EU were also considered; in 1968 there was a discussion about whether or not a common Scandinavian market should be created.69 Farmers had different opinions about whether or not Sweden should become a member. Initially Lantbrukarnas Riksförbund (National Farmers’ Association) was for the EU membership while the Ekologiska Lantbrukarna i Sverige (Swedish Ecological Farmers’ Association) was against.70 In 1993, an article in Lantmannen stated: ’Sweden thus has a good chance to become a member in the EU (if you see the EU as something positive that is). A lot of people are against a membership in the EU, but others look forward to the membership because the agricultural policies of the EU seem more farmer-friendly.’71 The goals established in the CAP or Common Agricultural Policy resembled the Swedish ones before the deregulation initiative: raise productivity, ensure a good living standard for farmers, food security and reasonable food prices.72 This included certain price guarantees and protection from the lower world price by import levies.73 When asked whether he preferred Swedish agriculture before or after the membership in the European Union, interviewee SF 1 stated:

‘Ideologically, I prefer the situation as it was before [before Sweden became member of the EU]. I don’t like it that much, you can see it often that a lot of support goes to a lot of production processes, but then the productions do not adapt to the market. [...] The market reacts quicker than the EU system, it adapts... but, economically, you have an important income from the EU. Not that the percentage is that high, maybe 20 percent or something like that, 15 or 20. For milk production, we get subsidies for the quota we have and they are highest for the acreage.’

When asked if there are other consequences of the entry of Sweden to the EU interviewees SF 1 said the following:

‘[Wife] It is really hard to say. We do have more paperwork now, but maybe we would have had that anyway.’

66 Rydén, Medvindens tid, 2003,3. 67 Jansson, S., ‘Mental borders on the European open market? A case study of Sweden and their notions of Swedish and imported foods’, Europeans. Essays on culture and identity, Å. Daun & S. Jansson, s.l., 1999, 127. 68 ’Föreningsrörlesen inför EEC’, Lantmannen, 73 (1962), no. 21, 594; ’Svensk fläskproduktion inom eller utom EEC’, Lantmannen, 79 (1968), no. 5, 5; ’Löser EEC-anslutning överskottsproblemen?’, Lantmannen, 82 (1971), no. 17, 5; ’Efter EEC-avtalen’, Lantmannen, 83 (1972), no. 14, 5; Swedborg, E., ’Europamarknaden och jordbrukskrisen’, Lantmannen, 42 (1958), no. 34, 711. 69 ’Varför inte en nordisk jordbruksmarknad’, Lantmannen, 79 (1968), no. 9, 5. 70 Rydén, R., Medvindens tid, 2003, 20; Lycksell, En jordnära historia, 1995, 48. 71 ’Efter jordbruksreformen’, Lantmannen, 114 (1993), no. 10, 3. 72 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 255. 73 Rydén, Medvindens tid, 2003,19. 21

The shutdown of farms has nevertheless continued but the majority of the farmers in 2000 claimed to want Sweden to remain member of the EU.74 Nevertheless, the high level of agricultural subsidies within the EU is not uncontested as several articles in Lantmannen illustrate. One article read: ’The way forward for farmers is to find ways to find profitability even without several forms of support.’75 However, the part of the European budget that goes to agriculture has diminished considerably.76 The GATT or the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade did not go without criticism either. The author of one article stated: ‘GATT makes the rich richer and the poor poorer’.77

I.2 BELGIAN AGRICULTURAL POLICY

Agriculture within the initial member-states of the European Economic Community, one of which was Belgium, went through a number distinct phases. The period between 1940 and 1957 was a period of scarcity. The regular food market was interrupted by the Second World War. The period between 1957 and 1984 was characterised by growing affluence due to the unification of the market. Between 1984 and 2007, after the introduction of agricultural reforms, the focus on quality and variety was increased. Since 2007 sustainability and innovation have become the most important guiding concepts.78

I.2.1 POST-WAR AGRICULTURAL POLICY

In Belgium food production and provisioning were heavily affected by the war and had led to the implementation of food rationing systems. Immediately after the war there was, in particular, a shortage of fertilizer and cattle fodder. One of the interviewees, BF2, mentioned:

‘At some point during the war we had thrown herring in the cess pool since we could not get any fertilisers. [...] My sister and I still had to pump it manually but it did not go smoothly because of all the fish in the cesspool. [laughs] I do not know where those fish came from, but they must have been cheap. [...] Did you know that we also had two or three sheep in the meadow at that time? We had to collect their dung and throw it in the cess pool as well. Those were meagre times for the farmers during the war, if you cannot buy the things you need.’

She and her family had presumably bought their herring in 1943 since there had been a ‘miraculous catch of herring’ during that year. However, as the war had left a lot of farmers financially well off, investments could be made.79 As a consequence, food provisioning recovered quite quickly after the war and in 1948 the rationing system was dissolved. By

74 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 256-257. 75 ’Lär dig leva utan stöd’, Lantmannen, 125 (2004), no. 9, 3; ’Svårt att bli fri från stöd’, Lantmannen, 126 (2005), no. 7, 3. 76 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,115. 77 ’GATT gör rika rikare och fattiga fattigare’, Lantmannen, 115 (1994), no. 1, 3. 78 Bisschop, C. & Segers, Y., Supermarkt Europa magazine: 50 jaar landbouw en voeding. Gids van de tentoonstelling, s.l., 2008, 1-8. 79 Van Molle, L., 100 jaar ministerie van landbouw. Het Belgisch landbouwbeleid in de wisselwerking tussen economische en sociale toestanden, politiek en administratie 1884-1984 (Historica Loveniensa 173), Leuven, 1984, 65. 22

1955 the food provisioning had again reached a satisfactory level.80 Agricultural production advanced once again and by 1960 reconstruction was complete.81 Some parallels can be drawn between the post-war agricultural policies of the two countries. As in Sweden, one of the most important goals of the post-war agricultural policy was a striving towards adequate living standards for farmers. Another goal was to protect the domestic market and ensure a certain price level for agricultural produce. The autarchy principle was influential in both countries.82 This implied, certainly in Belgium with its rather limited acreage compared to Sweden, intensive agriculture. Modernisation and rationalisation of farms, research and education together with price interventions and subsidies were aimed at increasing the agricultural production.83 During the 1950s, Belgian farmers started to focus more on livestock. As an illustration, by 1960, the number of pigs had tripled compared to immediately after the war and between 1945 and 2000 the chicken production increased tenfold.84 Both farmers’ families that were interviewed focussed increasingly on livestock after the 1950s while before they had mixed farms that were almost entirely self-sufficient. With the increasing specialisation, they had to rely more upon external companies for resources such as cattle feed or fertilizers. In the horticultural sector, the heated glass greenhouses were the biggest sign of specialisation during the 1950s.85 Interviewees BF 1 commented on this change:

‘A farmer in the neighbourhood had a small farm. [...] His sons had attended the school for horticulture and they were not afraid of taking risks. I remember when they built their first glass greenhouse for 200.000 Belgian franks. [...] Other farmers said that the children of that farmer would financially ruin him and that he was mad to pay such an amount for a little piece of glass, however, they became one of the most successful farmers’ families in the region.’

Another consequence of the increasing specialisation was the concentration of certain branches of agriculture in certain regions in Belgium.86

80 Geyzen, A., ‘Popular discourse on nutrition, health and indulgence in Flanders, 1945-1960’, Appetite, 56 (2011), 280-281; Niesten, E., Raymaekers, J. & Segers, Y., Lekker dier!? Dierlijke productie en consumptie in de 19de en 20ste eeuw (CAG Cahier 4), Leuven, 2003, 33. 81 Segers, Y., ‘Food recommendations, tradition and change in a Flemish cookbook: Ons kookboek, 1920-2000’, Appetite, 45 (2005), 10; Niesten, E. & Segers, Y., Smaken van het land. Groenten en fruit vroeger en nu, Leuven, 2007, 127. 82 Van Molle, 100 jaar ministerie van landbouw, 1984, 85. 83 Van Molle, 100 jaar ministerie van landbouw, 1984, 82. 84 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 31. 85 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 131. 86 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,131. 23

I.2.2 INTERNATIONALISATION OF THE MARKET

Belgium was quickly integrated in the increasingly international European market after the war.87 In 1944, the customs union ‘Benelux’ between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg was formed which also included specific agreements for agriculture.88 In 1948 the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development) was founded which entailed a uniform economic policy between the member states. Initially the Belgian farmers were not in favour of this development, but they came round after a while. In 1958 the Treaty of Rome was signed to initiate the EEC (European Economic Community). Its initial members were Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Luxemburg. This immediately led to internationalisation of the market. The import and export figures of fresh vegetables in Belgium provide a good illustration. Between 1951 and 1970 import doubled from 53.000 tonnes to 110.000 tonnes. Export increased fivefold: from 37.000 tonnes to 200.000 tonnes.89 In the beginning however, Belgian farmers were worried that they would not be able to compete with the other European member-states.90 In 1960 the European Commission formulated more definite proposals for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It consisted of four elements: ensuring good income levels for farmers, increasing agricultural productivity by favouring large-scale production and concentration, stabilising the markets and guaranteeing sufficient and reasonably priced food supplies.91 The main mechanisms for reaching these goals were import duties and export subsidies. Intervention prices were also introduced. Whenever a farmer could not sell his products, his production was bought by Europe and was stored with the intention of selling it when demand rose or when the price increased. Interviewees BF 2 said the following:

‘When we started farming, times were bad, very bad. The price for piglets was really low [...] in 1960. With the unification of the market, the situation ameliorated. In 1963, the price for pigs rose in a very short time. That was because of the EEC. The situation improved a lot then, especially for pigs, not that much for cows.’

Belgian farmers were, at times, quite uneasy about the unification of the European market. Repeatedly, critical articles were published in Landbouwleven. In 1962, for example, an article stated that the Belgian agriculture would find itself in an entirely new situation and that the farmers were not sufficiently prepared for such a change: ‘Belgian farmers wonder what will be left for Europe to protect’.92 Another article stated that a lot of farms would not survive the common European market since they were too small and would not have the resources to adequately adapt to the new situation.93

87 Contrary to the concept of globalisation which requires labour and technology transfer, branding and direct foreign investments, international trade only requires the physical movement of goods. Brassley, P., ‘Food consumption and food processing in Western Europe 1850-1990. Some conclusions’ in Exploring the food chain. Food production and food processing in Western Europe 1850-1990, (Y. Segers, J. Bieleman & E. Buyst eds.), Turnhout, 2009, 283. 88 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 118. 89 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 132. 90 ‘De landbouw en de gemeenschappelijke markt’, Landbouwleven, 8 (1958), no. 163. 91 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,113; Sarasúa, C. & Scholliers, P., ‘The rise of a food market in European history’ in Land, shops and kitchens. Technology and the food chain in twentieth-century Europe (Comparative rural history of the North Sea area 7), C. Sarasúa, P. Scholliers & L. Vanmolle (eds.), Turnhout, 2005, 19. 92 ‘De Belgische landbouw is ongerust bij de dageraad van de Euromarkt’, Landbouwleven, 12 (1962), no. 385- 389. 93 ‘Gevaar voor vele bedrijven’, Landbouwleven, 16 (1969), no. 588. 24

By the end of the 1960s, the system had already led to problems of overproduction. The problem was not new to the farmers, Landbouwleven had commented repeatedly on the overproduction in North-America during the late 1950s.94 As in Sweden, people talked about butter-mountains, wine lakes and milk puddles.95 Rationalisation clearly had its downsides. However, when asked about the butter-mountains, interviewees BF 2 said:

‘[Husband] I think there has never been a butter-mountain. It did not last long. [Wife] The government, well you know, they exaggerate a lot. [Husband] I don’t know what happened with it. [...] They did introduce the quota in the 1980s.’

In 1970 Landbouwleven commented that the stocks of butter and skimmed milk powder had diminished considerably already.96 In 1968 it was proposed to mix butter in cattle fodder in order to diminish the surpluses and in 1973 it was stated that if the Belgian population had continued to consume as much butter as twenty years before, there would not even be a butter-mountain.97 Another consequence of the intensification of agriculture in Belgium was the change in landscape. For example while cattle used to graze between the fruit trees in the orchard that each farm had, a lot of those trees were cut down during the late 1960s and 1970s.98 Interviewee BI 3 said:

‘In those days every farm had an orchard in which the cows grazed and rubbed against the trees. [...] However, when I was young a lot of those orchards were cut. They had to give way for grass because the farmers had to be able to pass with the tractor. [...] The orchards were always close to the farm and because of the expansion of the farm [...] all those trees were cut.’

In 1968 the common market and price policy was a fact and, from 1971 onwards, the European Union (EU) was solely responsible for financing the Common Agricultural Policy. This led to the disappearance of part of the subsidies in Belgium. From 1968 onwards, subsidies for the production of cheese and milk powder, which had been in place since the 1950s, were withdrawn because they went against the principle of free competition within the EU. Common agriculture prices were not easy to achieve since all member states had different currencies and devaluations could have a big impact. Since the early 1970s, several articles were published in Landbouwleven that called for monetary stability within the EU. Achieving common prices for agricultural products was deemed impossible without a common European currency.99 In 1972, Denmark, Ireland and Great-Britain entered the European Union which caused a feeling of unrest among the Belgian farmers.100 Several articles in Landbouwleven were published in which the impeding membership of Great-Britain and Denmark were treated

94 ‘Het probleem der landbouwoverschotten’, Landbouwleven, 7 (1957), no. 104. 95 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,113. 96 ‘De melkprijs moet worden verhoogd’, Landbouwleven, 20 (1970), no. 793. 97 ‘Voorstel om boter in de veevoeders te mengen’, Landbouwleven, 28 (1968), no. 688; ‘Boter tegen opbod?’, Landbouwleven, 23 (1973), no. 925. 98 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 137. 99 ‘Een grote stap achteruit in de EEG’, Landbouwleven, 21 (1971), no. 831; ‘EEG ministerraad’, Landbouwleven, 22 (1972), no. 860; ‘Door munten verdeeld’, Landbouwleven, 28 (1978), no. 1172. 100 Van Molle, 100 jaar ministerie van landbouw, 1984, 70; 79-80. 25 with suspicion.101 One article even described the entry of Great-Britain as the arrival of the Trojan horse within the European Union.102 In 1968 the Mansholt Plan, also known as the ‘1980 Agricultural Programme’, was suggested by the European Commission as a solution to the overproduction problems. According to this plan, farms were too small and agriculture was not adequately following market developments. The Plan had six aims. First of all, it aimed at diminishing the expenditure on agriculture. Secondly, bigger and more economically viable farms were necessary. An efficient market and pricing policy formed another goal. Finding a new purpose for five million hectares and the reorientation of five million farmers towards retirement or other economic sectors needed to ensure a decrease within the agricultural sector itself. Lastly, a better promotion and marketing mechanism for agricultural products was seen as a solution for the overproduction problems.103 Farmers should as a consequence strive towards a viable farm with as few employees as possible. Quick intensification was thus required and stimulated.104 When asked about having noticed much of the consequences of the Mansholt Plan, interviewee BF 1 said:

‘It might have been influential, but we, as farmers, have not noticed much of the Mansholt Plan. We observed more the evolution towards specialisation in the area, especially in horticulture and in the meat sector.’

The Mansholt Plan caused a lot of controversy. In 1968 Landbouwleven wondered if the plan would be the end of family farming in Belgium.105 Farmers protested against the plan in 1968 and again three years later.106 In March 1971 one of the most violent protests in post-war Belgium took place. More than 100.000 farmers gathered in Brussels to protest against the impeding reforms. Landbouwleven commented: ‘While Mansholt is calculating how he can discourage as many farmers as possible, the EEC farmers are tired of the endless talks. They will come to Brussels to demand decent wages and to make an end to the disadvantageous position of the farmers.’ Another article about the protest was accompanied by a picture showing farmers with a poster that read: ‘Hitler eradicated the Jews, Mansholt the farmers’. The author of that article commented that the slogans did not express the feelings of the protesters in a nuanced way.107 The European Commission saw the reforms through despite all its adversaries. However, the Mansholt Plan did not succeed in diminishing the overproduction problems.108 Belgian agriculture did see an increasing specialisation during the 1970s. Milk production, for example, was decoupled from beef production whereas, before, every cow fulfilled both functions.109 This trend towards increased specialisation was not welcomed by everyone as can be seen in the following quote. Interviewee BF 1 said:

101 ‘Denemarken op 1-1-1973 in de EEG’, Landbouwleven, 22 (1972), no. 888. 102 ‘Toelating van Groot-Brittannië’, Landbouwleven, 13 (1963), no. 401. 103 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,114. 104 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 39. 105 ‘Geen akkoord inzake landbouwprijzen in de GM’, Landbouwleven, 17 (1967), no. 635. 106 ‘Europese boeren betogen tegen onaanvaardbaar voorstel tot verlaging van de melkprijs’, Landbouwleven, 28 (1968), no. 656. 107 ‘Op 23 maart nationale boerenbetoging te Brussel’, Landbouwleven, 21 (1971), no. 808; ‘Harde boerenbetoging met weerklank in heel Europa’, Landbouwleven, 21 (1971), no. 810. 108 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,114. 109 Niesten, E., Raymaekers, J. & Segers, Y., ‘Over de maakbaarheid van dieren. Veeteelt, wetenschap en vleesconsumptie in België gedurende de negentiende en twintigste eeuw’ in Jaarboek voor ecologische geschiedenis 2004. Mensen en dieren in het verleden, H. Van der Windt & H. Van Zon (eds.), Gent, 2005, 37. 26

‘In 1974 we started to breed pigs on a much grander scale. [...] We built a stable for 36 sows in that year, which was quite big at that time. My wife’s parents and mine were both fervently against that plan. [...] My father did not allow me to build on the farm. I even considered suing him. I was lucky I could buy half a hectare from another farmer to build the stable on.’

During the late 1970s, more and more voices were heard proposing to reform the European agricultural policy. Income guarantees for farmers were still acceptable but could no longer lead to economic and financial waste.110

I.2.3 THE OIL CRISES

In Belgium the oil crises brought about certain increases in agricultural production prices. When in 1973 Egypt and Syria invaded Israel, an economic era came to an end. Because of the decision of the industrialised countries to support Israel in the conflict, the oil-producing countries increased the oil prices with 70 percent. Energy saving became part of daily life. Other than increasing the Belgian public debt considerably, a lot of farmers, especially those involved in horticulture had to face steeply increasing production costs. The farmers, however, could not simply increase the price of their products on the markets because that would discourage consumers from buying them. There was no coherent European policy when it came to tackling the consequences of the oil-crisis. Export subsidies were again introduced and certain measures were taken to discourage imports into Belgium. Compared to the second oil crisis, however, the situation was still manageable. The second oil crisis was caused by the conflict between Iraq and Iran in 1979. Oil prices rocketed and an economic crisis in Western-Europe followed. Within the horticultural sector, fuel was responsible for about 50 percent of the total expenditure in 1979/1980 whereas that number had only been 26 percent in 1973/1974. Government subsidies for energy saving measures were introduced in order to support the horticultural sector.111 Another consequence of the oil crises was that the Belgian income disparity between the farmers and employees in other economic sectors increased considerably after having diminished during the previous decades. In 1950 for example, the average income of a farmer was only 55 percent of the national wage average while around 1970 this number had increased to about 75 to 80 percent. In 1961 a series of articles was published about this disparity in Landbouwleven. Farmers were said to have a lot of reasons to complain about their income compared to other economic sectors.112 In the early 1980s the income disparity again became a popular topic in Landbouwleven.113 Between 1995 and 2000 the disparity increased; a farmer then only earned about 60 to 70 percent of the national wage average due to the inflation.114 In Sweden, the interviewed farmers did not notice much of the oil crisis. Interviewee SF 1, for example stated:

110 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,114. 111 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 142-145. 112 ‘Blijven wij achteruitgesteld’, Landbouwleven, 11 (1961), no. 332, 333, 334. 113 ‘Landbouwers betogen nog steeds voor rechtvaardige prijsaanpassing’, Landbouwleven, 30 (1980), no. 1271; ‘Regeringsverslag over de landbouw’, Landbouwleven, 31 (1981), no. 1314; ‘Evaluatie van het landbouwinkomen in 1981’, Landbouwleven, 32 (1982), no. 1376; ‘Landbouwinkomen op 75% van de pariteit in 1982?’, Landbouwleven, 33 (1983), no. 1409. 114 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,129. 27

‘Diesel was much more expensive then [...] and artificial fertilisers also became more expensive because of the oil. Nothing else comes to mind.’

I.2.4 QUALITY AND VARIETY

It took until 1984 before a fundamental reform of the agricultural policy took place to form the start of another period within European agriculture, one in which increasing focus was on quality and variety. Demands for quality were raised and intervention was limited by means of so-called guarantee thresholds. The pricing policy became more restrictive and production quota and thresholds were introduced; in case of overproduction, farmers are fined. Between 1984 and 1992, milk production in Europe diminished by 11 percent, 25 percent of all milk cows had disappeared along with 46 percent of the dairy farmers.115 The results, however, were not spectacular: overproduction was still a major problem during the 1990s.116 The increasing need for tariff protection, problems with agricultural producers in the Third World and growing political discontent about the high expenditure on agricultural subsidies, which amounted to half of the total EU budget, were also deemed problematic.117 Ray MacSharry formulated a new action plan in 1992. The guaranteed price levels needed to diminish considerably within three years. The plan was also an attempt to control agricultural production by decreasing the bonuses or to redistribute them and stimulate an increase in fallow land acreage by means of subsidies. Environmental friendly and sustainable production methods also received attention.118 Furthermore farmers were increasingly seen as multifunctional; they are food producers and environmental and landscape managers at the same time. The new plan, Agenda 2000, which was approved in 1999, continued along the same lines as its most recent predecessor. Its main goal is to increase competitiveness both within and outside the EU. Therefore food security and quality need to increase. More attention was given to the environment and animal welfare. By 2012 for example, every laying hen within the EU will have a surface of at least 750 cm2.119 Another goal is to facilitate the integration of the Central and Eastern European member-states into the European agricultural sector.120 During the meeting in Doha in 2003, new reform proposals for the CAP were presented. The transfer of 80 percent of EU farm spending into non-trade distorting categories is one of the goals while the overall levels of payments to farmers should be left unchanged.121

115 Niesten, E., Raymaekers, J. & Segers, Y., Vrijwaar u van namaaksels. De Belgische zuivel in de voorbije twee eeuwen (CAG Cahier 2), Leuven, 2002, 63. 116 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,114-115. 117 Sarasúa & Scholliers, ‘The rise of a food market’, 2005, 19-20. 118 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,115; Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 46. 119 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 93. 120 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,116; Sarasúa & Scholliers, ‘The rise of a food market’, 2005, 25. 121 Goodman, D. & Redclift, M., ‘Modernisation and the international food system: re-articulation or resistance’ in Land, shops and kitchens. Technology and the food chain in twentieth-century Europe (Comparative rural history of the North Sea Area 7), C. Sarasuá, P. Scholliers & L. Vanmolle (eds.), Turnhout, 2005, 125. 28

I.3 AGRICULTURAL INNOVATIONS

I.3.1 MECHANISATION

One of the biggest agricultural innovations after World War II was the increasing mechanisation. In Belgium the mechanisation level before the war was quite low. In the early 1950s, for example, Landbouwleven published an article about improving potato picking by hand.122 This quickly changed. Within a period of twenty years the total number of machines increased fivefold in Belgium.123 An article in Lantmannen in 1955 announced a new record for the expenditure on machinery within Swedish agriculture.124 Milk machines, threshing machines, cooling tanks, potato harvesters and more powerful tractors made farming work less intensive.125 The collection of milk also changed. In 1960, Lantmannen commented, for example, that the collection of milk by tank would be further developed: additional milk collection routes were to be established in the Stockholm area.126 In Belgium the same development could be discerned. Interviewees BF 2 said:

‘We installed our milk-machine when we moved here in 1964 and we installed the milk-tank in 1965 or 1966. In the beginning, when we installed the tank, they did not know yet if they would be able to come and collect the milk because there were not a lot of those tanks around, but by the time it was finished, they already came to collect the milk. [...] Times changed that fast. Our first tractor we bought ourselves when we had been married for two years in 1961. When our son took over the farm, we had two or three [...].’

In Landbouwleven and Lantmannen articles that focussed on the advantages of mechanisation were published since the early 1950s. However, some of the articles in Landbouwleven show that a lot of people still had questions about the new technology such as the one titled ‘You will not be suffocated by the combustion gases of your tractor’.127 Negative consequences of mechanisation, such as the increasing sensitivity for disturbances, as well as the need for more knowledge about the maintenance of the machines were frequently discussed in Lantmannen.128 As a consequence of mechanisation, Belgian agricultural output volumes increased considerably. Between 1954 and 1971, arable production increased by 16 percent, vegetable output by 94 percent, beef production by 44 percent, milk production by 24 percent, poultry production by 130 percent and pork production by 193 percent.129 Interviewee BF 1 also mentioned the big increase in production:

122 ‘Laat uw hoofd werken om uw armen te sparen’, Landbouwleven, 3 (1953), no. 26. 123 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,124. 124 Holmström, S., ’Traktorköpen nådde 1954 högsta nivå’, Lantmannen, 39 (1955), no. 15, 363. 125 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,125. 126 ’Tankhämtningen av mjölk byggs ut’, Lantmannen, 71 (1960), no. 3, 44. 127 ‘U zult niet verstikt worden door het verbrandingsgas van uw tractor’, Landbouwleven, 4 (1954), no. 43. 128 Andersson Moberg, H., ’Mekanisering har gjort vårt jordbruk känsligare för störningar’, Lantmannen, 41 (1957), no. 44, 947; Svensson, K.Å., ‘Kunskapar är nödvändiga för riktig maskinvård’, Lantmannen, 40 (1956), no. 6, 122; Gröne, L., ’Vi behöver en skola för reparatörer’, Lantmannen, 40 (1956), no. 7, 148; Haeggblom, S., ’God vård ökad livslängd’, Lantmannen, 40 (1956), no. 11, 169; Marlinge, S., ’Bättre maskiner kräver fler tekniker’, Lantmannen, 40 (1956), no. 46, 1001; Nilsson, A.S., ’Verklig maskinvård viktigare än någonsin’, Lantmannen, 40 (1956), no. 51-52, 1119. 129 Blomme, J., The economic development of Belgian agriculture 1880-1980. A quantitative and qualitative analysis, Leuven, 1993, 215. 29

‘When I married in 1962, a yield of 4.000 to 5.000 kg per hectare of wheat was considered very good. Nowadays, it is double the amount. [...] In our time, a cow that produced 4.000 litres of milk per year was a very good cow. [...] Nowadays, a good cow produces about 10.000 litres of milk.’

The same can be said about Sweden. Beef production increased by 25 percent between the beginning of the 1950s and the 1980s but diminished by ten percent afterwards. Within the same period, pork production increased by 90 percent but also diminished by ten percent afterwards. Poultry production increased ten-fold between 1940 and 2000.130 The interviewed farmers also recalled big changes in productivity. Interviewee SF 2 commented on this development as follows:

‘Productions yields have changed significantly. [...] Even the efficiency has increased, but this at the same time means that the durability of the animals, or their life span, has decreased. [...] It was not uncommon for a cow to have eight to ten lactations during her life - a lactation is from the moment a cow has calved until there is a new calf - while nowadays it’s a lot when they have five. They are pushed so hard; it is common that a cow produces 10.000 litres of milk, while when I began as a farmer it was about 4.000 to 5.000 litres. [...] With pigs, on the other hand, the growth time has stayed the same. They have become a bit longer though, you have more pork chops nowadays. [laughs]’

Interviewee SF2 mentioned some figures for the changes in cereal production:

‘For winter wheat, the yield is now about seven to eight tonnes per hectare per year, while it was six back then. So for winter wheat, the yields have changed a lot because of better knowledge and so on.’

Productivity per hour of work quadrupled between 1945 and 1970 which can be mainly attributed to the machinery that began to be spread on a much bigger scale from the 1950s onwards. Between 1945 and 1965 alone, the number of ploughing horses diminished in Sweden from 600.000 to 100.000 while the number of tractors increased from 22.000 to 165.000.131 Lantmannen also reported on the declining numbers of horses in Swedish agriculture. Several articles appeared entitled: ‘Tractors replace horses in agriculture’, ‘Working horses diminish in number’ or ‘1.700.000 tractors replace horses’.132 Interviewee SF 1 recalled when their last horse was sold:

‘I was four years old [1958] when they sold the last horse. They [his parents] usually had four horses, and one foal, I think.’

When asked about the changes in the use of machinery on his farm, Swedish interviewee SF 1 said:

130 Jordbruksverket, Svenskt jordbruk I siffror 1800-2004 (Statistik från jordbruksverket, statistikrapport 2005:6), Stockholm, 2005, 14. 131 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 186. 132 Eliasson, E., ‘Traktorn tränger ut hästen i jordbruket’, Lantmannen, 39 (1955), no. 33, 755; Andersson, A., ’Kan traktoriseringen hålla jämn takt med avhästningen?’, Lantmannen, 40 (1956), no. 26, 594; ’Draghästarna minskar i antal’, Lantmannen, 42 (1958), no. 4, 72; Wiklund, K., ’Traktorn – jordbrukets centrala maskin. 170 000 traktorer vid full motorisering slår ut hästen i den rena jordbruket’, Lantmannen, 42 (1958), no. 16, 295. 30

‘We had different machines when we started. [...] We have more milk machines now. The cows are milked loose nowadays. Now we have 16 machines and when I started [in 1981] we only had three and the cows were bound. [...] When we started we had two tractors. Nowadays, I don’t know. We have some bad tractors as well... I think we have about four good ones right now.’

In Belgium the number of ploughing horses diminished from 200.000 in 1950 to 60.000 in 1970.133 Interviewees BF 2 talked about their horse:

‘[Husband] I still sowed with the horse for a long time until the horse didn’t want to pull anymore. [Wife] The horse did not have to do much anymore, it had to pull the sowing machine, but he didn’t want to anymore. It was too tough. [...] He probably thought: ‘Pull it yourself!’. [Laughs]’.

The disappearance of horses on the farm did raise some sentimental feelings. An article in Landbouwleven in 1956 stated: ‘With the introduction of the mechanisation, a lot of rustic charm was lost. The bond between man and horse, that faithful companion on the field, has started to be forgotten.’134 Interviewee SF 2 even bred work horses during his first years as a farmer and regretted their disappearance:

[Points at a painting on the wall] ... ‘Those are Ardenne horses [...], from Belgium actually. A very fine horse. I stopped breeding work horses in 1966. There was no market for that, I had to send them for slaughter and that was very hard. So I quit. The market was dead, girls wanted horses to ride on, so these fine horses, the work horses, they disappeared. [...] They [Ardenne horses] were perfect to use in the forest.’

Extensive mechanisation and specialisation have also led to an increase in part-time farming and farm diversification. Side-activities such as the renting of holiday cabins or the organisation of tourist experiences were taken up instead.135 Already in 1974 an article in Lantmannen mentioned that agriculture could play a big role in the touristic sector and talked about how other people were out of touch with the countryside and all its lovely aspects.136 People have become increasingly alienated from cultivation landscapes which has led the Swedish government to pay farmers for maintaining older and rustic landscapes because of their cultural value.137

133 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,125. 134 Landbouwleven, 6 (1956), no. 79, 1. 135 Perlinge, Bondeminnen, 1995,324; Lycksell, En jordnära historia, 1995, 48; Goodman & Redclift, ‘Modernisation and the international food system’, 2005, 123; 128. 136 ’Lantbruk och turism’, Lantmannen, 85 (1974), no. 8, 8. 137 Lycksell, En jordnära historia, 1995, 46. 31

I.3.2 INTRODUCTION OF IT

IT also made its introduction in agriculture, especially during the last decades.138 The introduction of computers was especially beneficial when it came to accounting within Belgian agriculture because Belgium lagged behind in that field compared to its neighbouring countries. However, Lantmannen also regularly provided accountancy tips for its readers.139 Both Belgian farmers commented on the big increase in the amount of paperwork. Interviewee BF 1, for example, said the following:

‘Laws and laws and laws. [...] Nowadays farmers can almost live off the money they make from subsidies they get for this or that, but to be able to receive that money, you have to fulfil several requirements. [...] They have much more work in that respect; we did not have to do any paperwork in our time, only the taxes once a year. It started during the 1990s, when the Mestbank [the organisation responsible for regulating the use of manure in Belgium] was initiated. From then on one form after the other was issued. [...] People talk about simplifying bureaucracy, but for farmers that is not the case. It is too much, really.’

The Swedish interviewees, on the other hand, had different opinions about the changes in the amount of paperwork. While interviewee SF 1 stated that he only spent ten minutes per day on administrative work, Swedish interviewee SF 2 said:

‘Paper work has increased a lot. When I started as a farmer [in 1962] I spent about five percent of my time on that, but nowadays, or when I retired, I spent about 20 percent of my time on it and it wasn’t because I had become slower or more stupid, but it’s because there were more laws to be followed and forms to be filled in, such as the registration of the animals and so on. It takes a lot of time. Accounting has also become more time-consuming.’

However, IT has made certain aspects of the farming life easier. Consequently, several articles in Lantmannen, from the early 1980s onwards, encouraged their readers to start using computers and even the Internet.140 When asked about the use of IT Swedish interviewee SF 1 said:

‘We use it mostly to pay bills and to report things to the authorities and so on. [...] We use it quite often. [...] Before I went about once a week to the bank to pay the bills. So it has become much better in that respect.’

Another good example of the role of IT within the agricultural sector are the high-tech milking machines that, by means of a chip, recognise each individual cow and its medical and production background.141

138 Steen, ‘Från bondejordbruk till marknadsjordbruk’, 2005, 97. 139 Nilsson, A.S., ’En likviditetsplan för jordbrukare’, Lantmannen, 39 (1955), no. 6, 201; Darvelid, M. ’Beräkning av budgeten och kontroll av likviditeten i lantbruket’, Lantmannen, 40 (1956), no. 43, 935; ’Hur uppnå ekonomisk balans?’, Lantmannen, 41 (1957), no. 15, 315. 140 ’Vi slipper inte förbi datorn’, Lantmannen, 102 (1981), no. 4, 4; ’Gårdsdatorn kommer, men hyr först’, 104 (1983), no. 4, 4; ’Teledata, fundera innan de är för sent’, 105 (1984), no. 15, 4; ’Internet har många sidor’, Lantmannen, 117 (1996), no. 6, 3. 141 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,129. 32

I.3.3 PLANT REFINEMENT, FERTILIZERS, PESTICIDES AND INSECTICIDES

Agricultural yields also increased in both countries because of plant refinement, crop breeding advances and the import of new livestock breeds and plant species. Seeds, seedlings and animal fodder were no longer produced on the farm but were produced by specialised companies. Interviewees SF 1 said the following about the changes in seeds:

‘There are better kinds of seeds available now, especially for winter wheat. Before, wheat on the field grew very high, so it fell down much easier. We can’t use products that diminish the length of the stem of wheat here in Sweden, as you might know. [...] We have to adjust the fertilisers in our case. It is hard, it is a problem. We have had this rule for about 15 years.’

Interviewee BF 1, however, stated that these seeds are allowed in Belgium and that it made a big difference. Before, wheat used to be more than a meter long and was very prone to fall down when there was heavy rainfall or strong wind, which caused a significant loss in profit. Artificial insemination for livestock was another novelty of the 1960s in Belgium.142 In Sweden, however, this technique had been introduced earlier on. In 1954 an article in Lantmannen reported that a fourth of all Swedish cows were artificially inseminated.143 In Sweden the use of artificial fertilizers increased significantly. An article in Lantmannen stated that between 1945 and 1961, the use of artificial fertilisers had increased by 141 percent. However, this number was quite low in comparison to other countries.144 From the 1950s onwards pesticide use increased steeply in Sweden. An article in Lantmannen stated that the expenditure on plant protection products had increased from about 1,5 million crowns in 1938 to 21,3 million crowns in 1954.145 Pesticide use, however, stagnated during the 1970s and started to diminish in Sweden after 1986. The use of fertilizers is also related to the release of greenhouse gas emissions. The greenhouse gas emissions within the Swedish agricultural sector have diminished yearly since 1999. The biggest changes can be seen in methane and nitrous oxide emissions which are both closely related to the application of fertilisers on the field.146 The Swedish farmers had divergent opinions about the use of chemicals. Interviewee SF 1 did not think much more pesticides were used nowadays than before, while interviewee SF 2 did think the situation had ameliorated:

‘No, I don’t think it increased, really, possibly maybe for fungus. [...] It is hard to say, but we have, I have, once sprayed against fungus. Once in thirty years, and it was really necessary.’

Interviewee SF 2 stated:

‘This has been positive, the restrictions on the use of chemicals that have been put in place. Some people are complaining about them, but I think it’s good because there are

142 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,127-129. 143 ‘En fjärdedel av landets kor inseminerades i 1954’, Lantmannen, 39 (1955), no. 38, 867. 144 ’Tag hem handelsgödseln nu’, Lantmannen, 72 (1961), no. 39, 855. 145 Holmström, S., ’Jordbrukets användning av växtskydds- och flugmedel ökar’, Lantmanen, 39 (1955), no. 28, 655. 146 Lantbrukarnas riksförbund, Sveriges gröna näringar, fakta 2009, 2009, 22. 33

quite a few people that were permanently damaged. [...] The use of chemicals has been reformed and has become much better than when we started [in 1962].’

The use of chemicals was not without risk. In 1955 an article in Lantmannen, for example, reminded the readers that all risks and dangers involved in the use of chemicals can be avoided by knowledge and care. The article went on describing the standard protection that should be used when handling chemicals: goggles, rubber gloves and a mask.147 None of the interviewed farmers mentioned any protective measures. Interviewee SF 2, who did think things had changed for the better, especially when the health of the farmers is concerned, said the following:

‘There were small black insects called midges that swarm all around and I used to smear my armpits and groin with oil so they would not be able to sting and then I took DDT with my hands, without any protection, and I put some DDT on the oil. It was not because I was careless, but because I did not know better. Nobody knew. Then ‘Silent Spring’ (an influential book by Rachel Carson published in 1962) and all the effects of DDT came about. We used to spray all our rapeseed fields with DDT and the person that drove the tractor was completely white afterwards and wore no protection. That was in the 50s and 60s.’

The same development can be seen in Belgium. During the 1950s artificial fertilizers started to be used and later on pesticides and herbicides were also bought in larger quantities. Interviewees BF 1 said:

‘[Husband] Pesticides and herbicides already existed in 1951, but they were only used on a small scale. It had not been perfected by then. If you sprayed too much, then your crop was burnt. If you didn’t use enough, then the weeds weren’t dead. [Wife] We hired a professional herbicide sprayer who was specialised, but you still had to manually remove weed from between the onions. Nowadays, one does not see people work on the land anymore, except with tractors. [...] [Husband] The difference with now is that we could fertilize much more because there were no ‘mestactieplannen’ [manure action plans]. Artificial fertilisers already existed when I was a kid but we had our manure in the first place and that was good because it forms the humus in the ground.’

Some articles in Landbouwleven and Lantmannen show that a certain suspicion against these products existed. One article wondered if the amount of administered fertilizers corresponded with the real need of the soil and if these quantities were correctly used.148 In 1960, an article in Lantmannen commented that the quick developments within the field of pest control by chemicals, made these products seem miraculous. However, it also stated that, due to recent developments, more scepticism was necessary. Side-effects such as the poisoning of animals, useful insects and humans were common. It was also stressed that the prescriptions should be followed and that protective measures should be taken.149 Increasing concern about chemical use has increased since the 1960s. The first negative effects were noticed: bees, birds of prey and fish died, algae growth increased considerably and drinking water contained a high level of nitrate.150 It took until the 1970s, however,

147 Von Hofsten, C.G., ’Säkerhetstia mot förgiftningsrisker’, Lantmannen, 39 (1955), 202. 148 ‘Het oordeelkundig gebruiken van kunstmeststoffen’, Landbouwleven, 14 (1964), no. 493. 149 ’Vad vi bör veta om kemisk bekämpning’, Lantmannen, 71 (1960), no. 18, 407. 150 Steen, ‘Från bondejordbruk till marknadsjordbruk’, 2005, 96. 34 before actual ameliorative measures were taken in Sweden with DDT and mercury-based pesticides being forbidden.151 In 1976, for example, an article was published in Lantmannen about the ban on the use of asbestos cement sheeting in agriculture because of its carcinogenic effects.152 In Belgium increasing attention was given to the environment and caused a change of perspective during the 1970s.153 In 1970 an article entitled ‘Chemical pesticides are dangerous’ was published in Landbouwleven.154 Around the same time, a substantial control system was put in place for controlling pesticide and herbicide residues in food products in Belgium.155 Pesticide use became once again more strictly regulated during the 1990s in Sweden.156 Several more sustainable alternatives were introduced such as the ichneumon which is a natural exterminator of the whitefly that forms a threat to tomato-plants.157 Improvements also took place on the production side. The health and environmental risks of weed killers have, for example, diminished since 1988 in Sweden by 66 percent and 31 percent respectively. The damaging effects for the soil however, remained rather constant.158 A new concern that rose in the beginning of the 21st century were genetically modified organisms. Several articles were published about GMOs in Lantmannen.159

I.3.4 MANURE PROBLEMS IN BELGIUM

The manure problem in Belgium is another consequence of the intensification of agriculture; there are no sufficient processing methods for fertilizers.160 Until the 1960s there was a closed cycle within Belgian agriculture when it came to minerals within the farm itself: fodder was produced on the farm and manure was later on spread on the land. However, because of the rise of cheap animal fodders, this cycle has been broken and has led to increasing quantities of nitrates, phosphates and heavy metals in the soil which has negative environmental consequences. Almost half of the nitrogen pollution of rivers in Belgium is caused by agriculture and 72 percent of the emissions of nutrients can be traced back to agricultural activities.161 As a consequence, several ‘mestactieplannen’ (manure action plans) have seen the light since 1995 in order to restrict the use of manure and the use of less nutrient rich animal fodder is stimulated.162 As mentioned above, interviewees BF 2 said that The Mestbank has to be notified every time manure is spread on the field which entails a lot of paperwork. However, the ‘mestactieplannen’ have had positive consequences: between 1990 and 2004 the acidifying and eutrophying emissions have diminished by 35 percent.163 In Sweden, there is no such authority yet. When asked about an authority that controls the amount of fertiliser in Sweden, Swedish interviewee SF 1 said:

151 Saifi & Drake, ‘Swedish agriculture during the twentieth century’, 2008, 376. 152 ’Vad får vi istället för eternit?’, Lantmannen, 87 (1976), no. 9, 5. 153 Segers, Y. & Van Molle, L., Leven van het land: boeren in België 1750-2000, Leuven, 2004,150-151. 154 ‘Chemische bestrijdingsmiddelen zijn gevaarlijk’, Landbouwleven, 20 (1970), no. 773. 155 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 153-154. 156 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 219. 157 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 153-154. 158 Lantbrukarnas riksförbund, Sveriges gröna näringar, 2009, 24. 159 ’Satsa med kraft på gentekniken’, Lantmannen, 118 (1997), 3;’GMO – snart genväg!’, Lantmannen, 124 (2003), no. 2, 3; ’Vilken genteknik ska vi ha?’, Lantmannen, 117 (1997), no. 7, 3; ’Vilken genteknik behöver vi?’, Lantmannen, 116 (1995), no. 9, 3. 160 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 93. 161 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,146. 162 Ibidem,147. 163 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,146. 35

‘It is well on its way that you have to document everything, the most important is phosphor. You shouldn’t go too high and this could be a problem for animal husbandry, when you have a lot of animals. [...] Artificial fertilisers [...] are quite expensive and most, actually, give too little phosphor. [...] We use part of the manure produced by our cows on our farm. In the fall, when we take in part of the straw from the cultivated cereal, we distribute a bit of fertiliser as a replacement for the plant nutrients.’

I.3.5 NEW CROPS DUE TO INTERNATIONALISATION

The unification of the market in the EU was a stimulating factor for the increasing integration of the international food market and has had certain consequences. Due to innovations in cooling and transport, consumers became acquainted with new products and some of the old familiar food products, such as the cauliflower and cabbage in Belgium, suffered reduced consumption.164 Therefore, Belgian horticulturalists adapted their crop selection and started growing ‘modern’ vegetables from the beginning of the 1970s onwards. The most popular of these were paprika (capiscum), radish, iceberg lettuce, romaine lettuce, fennel, pumpkin, aubergine, courgette, red beet, parsnip and broccoli.165 The internationalisation of trade, however, goes further than the EU; about half of the imported horticultural products in Belgium come from non-EU countries nowadays. When asked, the Swedish farmers answered that maize was the most important new crop they had seen appear in the region. The fact that they did not mention any of the crops the Belgian interviewees mentioned is due to the fact that in Uppland, the province in which Uppsala is located, winter wheat, rapeseed and rye are the most commonly cultivated crops. Horticulture is more common in certain areas in the Stockholm region. An article in Lantmannen of 1955, however, did introduce broccoli as a new vegetable to its readers.166

I.3.6 LIVESTOCK DISEASES, HORMONES AND FOOD SCARES

In Belgium, progress was also made in relation to livestock diseases. In 1958, for example, tuberculosis control became legally compulsory in Belgium. In 1967 all Belgian livestock was declared tuberculosis free. The poultry sector also benefited from the veterinary improvements.167 Another novelty within Belgian animal husbandry was the increased use of antibiotics, hormones and cough medicine during the 1970s. Initially, these practices were not contested on a grand scale although, even in 1953, the author of an article in Landbouwleven wondered if these antibiotics were really as ‘miraculous’ as their producers claimed them to be; some farmers noticed negative consequences of the use of antibiotics.168 In 1973 another article in Landbouwleven stated that, from then on, meat with hormones would be confiscated and destroyed.169

164 Sarasúa & Scholliers, ‘The rise of a food market’, 13; 19. 165 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 144-145; 159. 166 Nilsson, A.S., ’Broccoli – en nyhet för specialodlare’, Lantmannen, 39 (1955), no. 13, 310. 167 Van Der Steen, R., Prijsevolutie en verbruik van geslacht pluimvee 1960-heden, unpublished licentiate thesis KULeuven, Leuven, 1986, 88. 168 ‘Het gebruik van antibiotica in de voeding van dieren’, Landbouwleven, 3 (1953), no. 53. 169 ‘Hormonenvlees verboden’, Landbouwleven, 23 (1973), no. 927. 36

In Sweden, the use of hormones was carefully studied in 1958 even though in the USA and England results were positive. After several weeks of research, it was concluded that there could be significant risks involved and that more research was necessary.170 An article published in 1995 in Lantmannen added: ’The view on hormone use in animal husbandry is different all over the world. For some it is an obvious and natural thing to do, while others consider it something deeply unethical or dangerous for consumers. Among Swedish producers, the ethical argument is enough to discourage the use of hormones and consumers are grateful for that.’171 In 1986 the Instituut voor de Veterinaire Keuring (Institute for Veterinary Examination) was established in Belgium in order to guarantee the quality of animal products. However, a widespread change of perspective about the use of hormones within animal husbandry was only established from the middle of the 1990s. The murder of Belgian veterinary surgeon Karel Van Noppen in 1995, a fervent adversary of hormone use and who got a lot of media attention, served as a catalyst for this development.172 Contention about these practices increased during the 1990s and was inspired by food crises such as the outbreak of the mad cow disease or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in 1996, and the dioxin crisis in Belgium in 1999. Both crises were caused by problems with the animal fodder. BSE originated in the use of offal in animal fodder and the dioxin crisis was caused by the mixture of transformer oil with the other fats that were included in the food for poultry.173 The immediate consequences were declines in the consumption of chicken and beef; consumption of the latter declined by 13 percent.174 In Sweden, beef consumption did not decrease at all because cattle feed containing cadavers had already been banned in 1986.175 Consumers clearly trusted Swedish food production. Interviewee SF 1 commented:

‘[Husband] This we never had in Sweden. Well, we had one cow. One cow in Västerås. [...] [Wife] It was strange, they cannot explain why. [...] [Husband] Exactly, there is no way transmission can have happened, there is nothing. That was the only cow in Sweden. I think they also had one cow far North in Finland that had that. [...] It all depends on the fodder from animal origin. I have never given that. Now I am proud because before people thought we were dumb because it was so cheap. It wasn’t an ideology, but I thought it was wrong, it made me suspicious.’

The 1991 ban on vaccination against foot-and-mouth disease, and the increasing distances of animal transportation, amplified health risks as the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Great-Britain in 2001 illustrates.176 An article in Lantmannen reacted against the common practices within animal husbandry in the EU: ’Unhealthy methods and wrong routines have caused Europe enormous losses. More concern would have been good. The BSE outbreak proves this.’177 Another food crisis was the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986, which had a big impact in Sweden. Interviewee SI 1 said the following:

170 ‘Hormoner och lugnande piller bör prövas i svenska försök’, Lantmannen, 42 (1958), no. 40, 889; Norrman, E., ‘Syntetiska könshormoner vid köttdjursuppfödning’, 42 (1958), no. 50, 1044. 171 ’Hormoner på väg’, Lantmannen, 116 (1995), no. 8, 3. 172 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,157-158. 173 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004, 157-158. 174 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 47-49. 175 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbruketshistoria, 2003, 335. 176 Niesten et al., ‘Over de maakbaarheid van dieren’, 2005, 39. 177 ’En smittfri framtid’, Lantmannen, 118 (1997), no. 6, 3. 37

‘We were at our summer cottage at that time and the nuclear cloud went up North but we also got a little bit here as well. So we cut off the chives and threw them away. Everyone thought they had gotten that disease. It was very scary and unpleasant. […] We didn’t stop eating moose though but only because we never ate it. We thought it was too wild. [laughs]’

For the farmers, the situation was even more confusing. Interviewees SF 1 commented:

‘[Husband] We got a lot here, we were not allowed to let our cows enter the meadows before the 10th of June. [...] Normally we let them out between the first and the tenth of May. [...] There were a lot of consequences. [...] [Wife] Different directives were issued. The government changed them all the time. [...] [Husband] When we had harvested the grass, we should put it somewhere far away, so then we should put it on a heap and mark it as a radio-active area. [Wife] I think that was the first directive, but they withdrew that decision. [...] [Husband] It was a completely hysterical period, there were new measures every day and new guidelines. [...] I think it was the fourth or the seventh of June when we decided that the cows could not stay inside the stables any longer and exactly on that day, the government decided it was allowed. [...] However, it [the hectic situation] continued for a while. And then, I forgot to mention this because I thought it was a bit stupid, one could get artificial fertilisers almost for free, fortified with potassium to counter the possible effects. [...] The governments didn’t know what they were doing either, I think. [...] There were problems in Lappland with the reindeer. [...] There were restrictions for game and you shouldn’t eat mushrooms either.’

These food scares have certainly inspired people to change from industrial food provisioning to more qualitative alternatives such as local food, organic food or quality- labelled food.178 During the 1970s and 1980s consumer concern about food quality increased. Some families increasingly ate vegetarian dishes or other variants that were deemed healthy.179 Interviewee BI 3 said that he and his wife had started learning more about macrobiotic food during the 1980s:

‘We went on our honeymoon to a place where all food was vegetarian and macrobiotic. [...] The macrobiotic movement was inspired by the environmental movements. [...] It never turned into a strict ritual however. There were a couple of years during which we cooked more according to the rules of macrobiotics, but that diminished after a couple of years, gradually. It never was stringent. We did eat meat at our family’s house, so it was not exclusive.’

Another consequence of this concern about food quality is the increasing trend in quality labelling. The Flandria label for fruit and vegetables was introduced for high quality products in Belgium.180 The Meritus-label stands for high quality beef, the Meesterlyck label for high quality cooked ham and the Certus label for high quality pork.181 However, the novelty of these quality labels should not be exaggerated. Already in 1953 a labelling system was introduced in Belgium for whole milk. The A-milk came from cows that are free from tuberculosis and brucellosis and the AA-milk came from cows that are free from every

178 Goodman & Redclift, ‘Modernisation and the international food system’, 2005, 126. 179 Scholliers, Arm en rijk aan tafel. Tweehonderd jaar eetcultuur in België, Berchem, 1993, 264. 180 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 152. 181 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 179. 38 transmissible disease that influences the quality of the milk.182 The AA-milk label still exists today. In Sweden, there is the Sigillmärkning, or the Sigill-label, which is an indication that the primary materials used to produce this product are of Swedish origin.183

I.4 SOCIETAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGES

I.4.1 URBANISATION AND GARDENING

A very influential factor, when it comes to agriculture, is urbanisation. Between 1920 and 1970 the proportion of people living in Swedish cities tripled. There was a true depopulation of the countryside. In 1955 an article in Lantmannen stated that in the last 50 years, the population in the countryside had diminished by 1.100.000, which could be partly attributed to the increasing mechanisation.184 In 1957, another article stated: ’Not since 1795 did we have so few agricultural entrepreneurs as we’ll have in 1970’.185 In 1940 about 2.8 million Swedes, or 44 percent of the total population, lived on the countryside while in 1980 that number had diminished to 17 percent or 1.4 million or.186 During the last decades of the 20th century, urbanisation increased even more. Almost 90 percent of the Swedish population lived in urban areas in 2006.187 The main task of agriculture has thus become to supply food for the city populations.188 Along with urbanisation came an increasing number of highways. Lantmannen commented that these highways would inflict a lot of damage on Swedish agriculture; the author was of the opinion that farmers should be compensated for this loss with new land.189 Compared to Sweden, Belgium has always been densely populated. However, urbanisation has increased as well. Around 1980, about 14,2 percent of the total surface of Belgium was built on while in 2010 that figure had increased to 20 percent.190 Urbanisation also had a negative influence on food production at home. It was more common at the beginning of the period under examination for families to grow fruit and vegetables in their own gardens. All interviewees in Belgium except for interviewee BI 2 had a big garden:

‘When I was married we did not have that big a garden anymore. It was only when I was a child that we had such a big garden. In the one house we did not have a garden at all and, in the other, we didn’t have a big garden either.’

In Sweden, the interviewees that were not farmers lived in an urban area and did not have a garden either. One of them, however, had an allotment on which she grew vegetables.

182 Ackerman, I.I. & Dumeez, M., De konsumptie van melk in België (L.E.I. schriften 80-81), Brussel, 1968, 25. 183 Brulin, G., Billig mat – en dyr affär. Om matmakt och behovet av medvetna konsumenter, Stockholm, 2006, 37. 184 Börje Ohlsson, K., ’Våldsam minskning av lantbefolkningen’, Lantmannen, 39 (1955), no. 6, 126. 185 Gulbrandsen, O., ‘Tio tusen jordbrukare lämnar näringen varje år’, Lantmannen, 41 (1957), no. 19, 415. 186 Perlinge, Bondeminnen, 1995,19; 321. 187 Hedenborg & Kvarnström, Det svenska samhället, 2006, 260. 188 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 14. 189 ’Motorvägar och jordbruk’, Lantmannen, 41 (1957), no. 51-52, 1233. 190 ‘België voor een vijfde bebouwd’, Het Belang van Limburg, 24/01/2011, http://www.hbvl.be/nieuws/binnenland/aid1011552/belgie-voor-een-vijfde-bebouwd.aspx, last accessed March 20, 2011. 39

The Swedish farmers did have a garden, but theirs was not very extensive either. Swedish interviewees SF 1 commented:

‘[Husband] We only grew a little bit of our vegetables ourselves. As I recall, it was not very important but on old pictures I have seen that, in the beginning of the 20th century, the 1920s, a lot of vegetables were cultivated in this region, for the household. [...] We have a couple of fruit trees, but they are so old that they don’t produce a lot anymore. [...] [Wife] Right now we don’t cultivate much. It gets worse and worse. Before, I grew a lot of vegetables myself. Mostly because it was both fun and tasted good but I simply don’t have the time anymore. [...] We mostly grew fresh potatoes, onion, red beets, lettuce, squash, mangos, tomatoes and cucumbers. Nowadays we still have tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, because that plant covers the ground so nicely, so there aren’t that many weeds... [laughs] [...] And potatoes, we talked about that today, that we should have some because they are so good, those first potatoes. However, it is not something that we do because of economic reasons; it is more because those products are extra tasty. [...]’

The practice of growing vegetables started to diminish quickly from the 1960s onwards. Between 1950 and 1960 the consumption of home grown vegetables in Belgium diminished by eight percent on average. All interviewees except for BI 3 and BF 2 have given up their garden-practices and even the gardens of BI 3 and BF 2 have diminished considerably in size. Some of them stopped gardening because of their age, others because their wages or pensions allow them to buy all fruits and vegetables in the supermarket. As the quote above shows, time constraints and financial improvements were the main reason for interviewees SF 1 to diminish their home production of vegetables. Gardening is now increasingly seen as a hobby instead of an important, cheap and necessary means to complement one’s diet.191 Gardens have become places where aesthetics are the most important factor, their purpose has changed from being merely practical to decorative.192 Before, gardening was much more important. Even interviewee SI 1 who lived in a city most of her life had a little allotment and later on a garden where she and her family grew fruits and vegetables. She also described how certain products were conserved.

‘We had a little allotment on which we grew carrots, parsley, red beets, peas, beans and leek. […] We did have a bit of strawberries as well. […] We usually took our bikes, gathered a bag of potatoes and then cycled back home again. […] When we had built our villa, we had an apple tree, one plum tree and one pear tree. We didn’t have much room for anything else. The plums we ate most of the time or I cooked them and put them in a sterilized glass jar. We also preserved lingonberries that way. I conserved most fruits and vegetables in glass jars so they would keep throughout the winter. That changed when we bought a fridge and a freezer. […] My aunt also salted small gherkins to preserve them. [...] We didn’t have money to buy everything; you had to do a lot yourself. It is like sowing, we also did that ourselves in those days. […] We also made our own filmjölk [processed sour milk]. We bought milk and then added something to it so it would become filmjölk.’.

In general, people did much more themselves in those days. Interviewees SF 1 and SF 2 also said they made their own processed sour milk. Interviewee SF 2 even said his wife used

191 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 156. 192 Niesten, E., Raymaekers, J. & Segers, Y., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten. Onze keuken in de 20ste eeuw (CAG Cahier 3), Leuven, 2002, 17; Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 132. 40 to make cream from the milk of their own cows and had their own flour. They used to grind some bags of the cereals they grew, because it was much better than the flour you could buy in the stores. Interviewee SI 2 added that she used to conserve eggs and red beet:

‘I conserved eggs when I was on the countryside. I used some sort of jelly that served as conservation. […] The pores in the eggs were closed off so no air could reach the inside. [....] I also conserved red beets. You had to cook them, peel them and put them in large jars.’

The next extract from the interview with BI 3 gives a good overview of what was grown in some Belgian gardens and how the products were processed later.

‘When I was a child, we played a lot between the fruit trees my grandpa had planted. We had grapes in the greenhouse, we had a couple of plum trees, a couple of pear trees. We also had a lot of different apple varieties. [...] The plums were conserved, but we also ate a lot fresh, you know, with seven children. [...] We also grew vegetables between the trees. I remember that I had my own little garden to work in a bit. [...] When we moved to grandma’s house, the vegetable garden was much smaller, but there were no trees anymore. The rest was a garden of 1200 m2 full of vegetables and a couple of flowers. When I graduated [at the end of the 1970s] [...] I started to work in the garden more than my dad. [...] I grew a bit of everything: parsnips, some ‘forgotten’ vegetables that nowadays are becoming more popular again, radishes, spinach, lettuce in different varieties [...]. We also had a greenhouse where we grew lettuce, spinach and tomatoes. We grew string beans and leek. Courgettes and aubergines I planted in the greenhouse, paprika as well, when I was in my twenties. In the 1970s these vegetables were still quite rare because one could not buy the plants in the store. We got the seeds from special seed-houses as they were called. We also had different kinds of tomatoes: yellow tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, big yellow tomatoes; we always had about four different varieties of tomatoes. Pumpkins were also grown. [...] I had made a rack along the ceiling of the garage with iron and wooden shelves on it and there were about 70 pumpkins up there. Whenever one started to rot, we could see the juice drip from the ceiling [laughs]. There were also a couple of courgettes up there, but those were harder to conserve. [...] Other vegetables were celery and potatoes. [...] At some point in my life, when I was married, I did the garden at our place, at my sister’s place and my parent’s garden. I looked after those three gardens and I had to work until late in the evening to cope. [...] On average people did not consume a lot of fruit back then. There were apples and so on. During the winter there were the pears that were stored from our own fruit trees of from neighbours or family members. More apples were stored, to eat, but it was not a habit to eat a lot of fruit. We did have strawberries in the garden and raspberries, currents and blackberries. Jam was made from those, or we ate them like that, or on a cake or on desserts or with yoghurt. [...] We always sterilised our vegetables on the woodstove. Beans were still sterilised even when we had a freezer because the taste is so different than when they are frozen. [...] Apple sauce was also made, in glass jars. I still remember that the whole cellar was full of glass jars at some point during the year. That there were about 40 to 50 jars of apple sauce and of beans as well. Carrots were still stored in the ground and the leek was kept in the garden as well until after the winter. [...] There was also jam in the cellar. The jam season started with rhubarb or rhubarb with orange peel. When the strawberries arrived, rhubarb was plucked again and jam was made from those. There were a lot of raspberries, pure. It had a very sharp taste and that was

very firm jam that almost stuck to your spoon. [...] Juniper berries, white and red, were also made into jam or combined with raspberries. That is really delicious. Jam from blackberries has a formidable taste. That jam is sublime, artisanally made, it is formidable. Apple jam was also made. [...] Apricots were hard to grow in our climate just as peaches and nectarines.’

The winter storage for carrots interviewee BI 3 talks about was basically a hole that was dug in the garden in which the carrots were put. The whole was covered with earth in order to make them last all winter. The information of the Belgian interviewees reveals that the most popular grown vegetables were potatoes, carrots, beans, string beans, celery, cauliflower, several kinds of turnips, lettuce or tomatoes. Only later on pumpkins, courgettes, aubergines and paprikas were grown. The most popular fruits were plums, cherries, raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, pears and apples. In Sweden similar crops were grown. The most popular vegetables and fruits were carrots, potatoes, beans, red beets, onion, leek and lettuce, apples, plums, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, elderberries and black currants. It can be concluded that there are quite a lot of similarities between both countries. Most interviewees also stated they had begun eating more fruits and vegetables over the years, although interviewees BI 3, SI 2 and SF 2 stated that they had always paid attention to eating enough vegetables. The Swedish interviewees with a garden, however, also mentioned different herbs and spices such as dill, parsley or chives, which were not mentioned by any of the Belgian interviewees. Gardens were not only good for growing fruits and vegetables, animals were also kept for slaughter. When asked about the animals people kept, interviewee BI 3 said the following:

‘We also had sheep on our meadow, first one, then two. When we moved, we didn’t have any animals anymore except for rabbits and chickens because our land was smaller. We kept five to six chickens for their eggs and additionally three broods of chickens were bred per year for meat. [...] We also always had some rabbits in the garden to cook. They were slaughtered in the yard, the chickens too and then were put into the cooking pot.’

All Belgian interviewees mentioned that animals were slaughtered in their garden. In Sweden, all interviewees that were not farmers lived in the city did not have a garden and consequently they did not slaughter animals themselves. Interviewee BI 3 described quite detailed how a pig was slaughtered:

‘What I still remember from when I wasn’t 14 years old yet, so when I was about eight, nine or ten that was the butcher. We kept some pigs in the garden. Where we lived we had a couple of small stables in which we kept a pig for our own consumption. When the pigs were ready for slaughter, an independent butcher came to our home to slaughter it. [...] A lot of people kept an animal at home. I remember that when it was slaughtered, its throat was cut and it screamed. Then it was burned on straw, outside, for the hair, to remove the hair. [...] After that, the pig was cut open and the intestines were removed. The day afterwards, when the meat was a bit older - it was hung up you know and it wasn’t in the middle of the summer, more in the fall and winter - the butcher came again to cut it up. There were pork chops, the hams if you wanted them salted or smoked or it was also cut up in slices. We had the salted meat such as the belly in a tub. The meat from the head was sterilised and after we had a freezer, was frozen. Blood pudding was consumed quickly. The butcher made that. We had to have onion and blood and the meat grinder was brought by the butcher. You

could just say: ‘I don’t want bacon’ and then the bacon was ground with meat to minced meat and you could say how finely ground you wanted it or how much fat it should contain.’

All Belgian interviewees said they had chickens at some point in their life. Chickens were kept both for eggs and for meat. In Sweden, on the other hand, only one interviewee, SF 1, mentioned having chickens at some point. His mother sold the eggs to some shops in town and could then keep the money for herself. Both Swedish farmers, however, did slaughter their own animals on their farm. In Sweden there is also the tradition of picking berries and different kinds of mushrooms in the forest. Several interviewees mentioned this practice. This is not the case in Belgium due to the lack of forest. Interviewee SI I said the following:

‘We picked a lot of lingonberries in the forest. Finding chanterelles was harder because there were not a lot of them. We sometimes went to Dalarna [a province in the East of Sweden] and then we went to the summerhouse and plucked chanterelles there. Blueberries were also plucked in the forest.’

I.4.2 ECONOMIC STRUCTURE

The general economic structure changed as well. In 1950 about 22 percent of Swedish employees were working with agriculture and forestry, 41 percent with industry and craftsmanship, 24 percent with trade and transportation and 13 percent with public administration and other services. By 1998 these numbers had changed, respectively, to about 3 percent, 25 percent, 31 percent and 41 percent. There has thus been a clear decrease in the percentage of people employed within agriculture in Sweden during the last decades.193 Between 1951 and 1971 the number of Swedish farms decreased from 282.000 to 150.000 and employment within the agricultural sector diminished by 75 percent. In 2000, only 77.000 farms over two hectares remained.194 Interviewee SF 2 mentioned this development twice, but in a different context:

‘In 1990 we changed to meat production because it was harder and harder to find personnel. We usually hired women because they were good with animals. However, when they got pregnant and wanted to take leave, then you had to find a replacement and that was hard to find. [...] So we started to focus on meat production because me and my wife could take care of that ourselves. [...] Nowadays, one person has to do all the work on the farm. Farmers’ wives nowadays are maybe nurses, teachers [...], so they are completely outside of farming. So the farmer is alone at home. This has led to more mental problems. Even addictions have increased. It happens that farmers sit at home and drink a lot and so on. They feel sorry for themselves and feel alone and so on because everyone has disappeared.’

The same trend of decreasing employment within the agricultural sector can be discerned in Belgium. In 1950 there were still about 265.000 active farms on which 540.000 people were employed, whereas in 1980 only 114.000 farms were left with about 115.000

193 Hedenborg & Kvarnström, Det svenska samhället, 2006, 262. 194 Westman, Då gräs och gröda gror, 1998, 96; Lycksell, En jordnära historia, 1995, 66-68; Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 166. 43 employees. In 2000 only 1,8 percent of the total active population was employed within the agricultural sector whereas in 1950 that number was still 14 percent. These numbers declined especially fast between 1950 and 1960.195 In 1957, an article in Landbouwleven commented on the increasing scarcity of labourers within the agricultural sector and in 1976 the declining interest in farming as a profession was noted.196 This development caused both by push and pull factors. On the one hand the increasing mechanisation led to a decreasing need of employees while, on the other hand, a lot of people were attracted to more financially profitable jobs outside of the agricultural sector.197 The total acreage used for farming has also decreased in both countries. In 1951 there were 3.530.000 hectares in use in Sweden while in 1993 this number had declined to 2.770.000 hectares.198 In Belgium, between 1945 and 1999, the total acreage in farming use went down from approximately 1.750.000 hectares, which is about 60 percent of the total Belgian soil, to 1.350.000 hectares. This was mainly due to the expansion of residential areas and recreational domains.199

I.5 ECOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE

Ecological agriculture has become more and more common during the last few decades. The ecological vision of agriculture includes a holistic perspective on natural resources and biological processes on which both animal husbandry and crop cultivation are based. Artificial fertilisers are to be replaced by animal or vegetation-based manure. Clover and other legumes are considered important sources for nitrogen. Artificial pesticides are replaced by certain preventative measures. Genetically modified organisms are also excluded and all animal feed should be organically grown.200 During the 1980s, concern for carcinogenic substances in food emerged and this led to an increased interest in alternative cultivation methods in Sweden.201 In 1985, the ARF or Alternativodlarnas Riksförbund (National Association for Alternative Cultivators) was founded in Sweden; it was renamed ‘Ecological Farmers in Sweden’ (Ekologiska Lantbrukarna i Sverige) in 1994. The Swedish regulatory body for alternative cultivation, KRAV (Kontrolföreningen för ekologisk produktion) was also founded in 1985.202 All these movements together were named ‘gröna vågen’ (the green wave). The term ecological farming however was not used before the 1990s when ecological farming was normalized and its products had become more common. 203 In 1992, the Demeter Association, which is the regulatory body for biodynamic cultivation, joined KRAV.204

195 Segers & Van Molle, Leven van het land, 2004,121-122. 196 ‘Minder werken, meer verdienen’, Landbouwleven, 7 (1957), no. 99; ‘Dalende belangstelling voor het landbouwberoep in België’, 26 (1976), no 1073. 197 Van Molle, 100 jaar ministerie van landbouw, 1984, 90. 198 Lycksell, En jordnära historia, 1995, 80. 199 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 36; Van Molle, 100 jaar ministerie van landbouw, 1984, 93. 200 Rydén, Medvindens tid, 2003,6; Krosenbrink, E. & Govaerts, W., ‘Voorwaarden van de biologische teelt: normen afgeleid van idealen’ in Biologische landbouw: mens, markt en mogelijkheden, G. Van Huylenbroeck, L. De Cock, E. Krosenbrink, K. Mondelaerts, L. Lauwers, E. Kerselaers & W. Govaerts, , Tielt, 2005, 25. 201 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 20. 202 Rydén, Medvindens tid, 2003,6-7. 203 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 332: Nilson, A., ‘Konsumenten under tre decennier’, Tidernas mat. På svenska bord 1970-2000 (Nordiska museets – Allt om mat), 2000, 83; Rydén, Medvindens tid, 2003,4 204 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 80. 44

In 1995 the Swedish government devised a five year plan to stimulate ecological agriculture. Ten percent of the total acreage in Sweden was to be ecologically cultivated by 2000.205 In 2010 there were 4000 KRAV-farmers in Sweden while in 2000 there had only been 3300.206 In 2008, 7,6 percent of the total acreage was used for ecological production and by 2020 the share of ecological cultivation should have increased to 20 percent.207 However, Rydén mentions that it would be impossible to completely switch to ecological farming since the financial support of the Swedish government would not be adequate. The optimal percentage of eco-farmers compared to regular farmers is hard to determine. A solution might be to raise the requirements for eco-labelling in order to allow a certain group of farmers to stay a step ahead and receive a higher price for their products.208 Both Swedish farmers that were interviewed, however, were not very positive about ecological agriculture. The first comment was made by interviewee SF 1 and the second by interviewee SF 2:

‘[Husband] We thought about changing to ecological agriculture during the 1980s when all this was new but then I read the regulations and I realised that it wasn’t that positive for the environment either. They have more problems with leakage of phosphor because they use bone meal, cadavers really. Now regulations are being issued that they can’t use this every time anymore because the leakage of phosphor is too high. That’s the real problem, it’s not nitrogen, it’s phosphor. [...] A couple of years ago, we considered changing again. In the 1980s it was because of ideological reasons, but the second time it was because of economic reasons. [...] [Wife] It’s also because, well, a lot of nonsense is told about it in the media and therefore we’re a little negative towards it because there is so much that simply is not true. [Husband] Until the Second World War, we were all ecological farmers.’

‘I am allergic to everything that is ecologically produced. I think everything is just a big joke altogether. They fool the consumer. If you look at the animals for ecological milk production for example, when a cow is sick, then it cannot be treated and that is the biggest madness there is. [...] You cannot use antibiotics when a cow is sick and it’s the same for cereal. If there is weed, then there cannot be anything wrong with removing the weeds by means of a preparation that favours the crop. But then they ... [the proponents of ecological farming]... say that is poison. [...] Kitchen salt is also poisonous when you inject it in large quantities into a person’s veins. He dies, but when we just eat salt with our eggs, it is not poison. I am a very strong opponent of everything that is bloody ecological. [...] On the other hand, those who choose ecological production, they do it because of economic reasons, because they get more money.’

Ecological farming in Belgium started a little earlier than in Sweden. During the 1960s it was suggested as an alternative for the existing intensive farming methods that made use of a lot of artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Several organisations were formed around ecological farming. In Wallonia, ‘Natur et Progrès’ (Nature and Progress) was established in 1967 while its Flemish counterpart VELT or Vereniging vor Ecologische Leef-

205 Rydén, Medvindens tid, 2003,22. 206 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 20; Rydén, Medvindens tid, 2003,34; Odevall, P.E., ’15 år med KRAV’, Tidernas mat. På svenska bord 1970-2000 (Nordiska museets – Allt om mat), 2000, 100-101; KRAV marknadsrapport 2011, KRAV, 2011, 12. 207 Lantbrukarnas riksförbund, Sveriges gröna näringar, 2009, 26-27. 208 Rydén, Medvindens tid, 2003,37-38. 45 en Teeltwijze (Association for Ecolocial Living and Farming Methods) started in 1974. The labels of both organisations were transformed into the Biogarantie ® label which was established in 1988 and is a privately owned label just as KRAV is in Sweden. The licensed control services in Belgium are ngo Blik, founded in 1988, and Ecocert Belgium bvba, founded in 1991. Only during the 1990s did the movement receive political attention and then first in Wallonia. Since 1995 farmers that convert to ecological farming receive financial compensation. The food crises during the 1990s considerably stimulated the sales of organic products in Belgium. 209 Between 1994 and 2003 the number of organic farms increased from 0,22 percent to 1,75 percent. Within the EU only three percent of the total acreage is used for organic agriculture.210 Since 1992 the EU regulations on organic plant products are operative and since 1998 the regulations for organic animal production are also applied.211

II Processing

II.1 PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Another novelty for the period under consideration is the rise of food processing multinationals such as Nestlé, Danone, Unilever or Coca-Cola. These companies started doing market research in European countries and invested large sums of money in advertising. Product development, as a consequence, became much more important. This term covers both the development of new products, and the refining or improving of existing products. However, since the latter is too extensive to be mapped in this study, the focus will be on the former.212 These changes did not go unnoticed. In 1969 an article in Lantmannen commented: ‘Skimmed filmjölk, skimmed milk, [...] Bregott and yoghurt with fruit are some of the new products created by the dairy factories. Products are now developed specifically for the market.’213 Interviewee BI 3 also commented on these changes:

‘I have seen the rise in the yoghurts. Before you could buy yoghurt in the store, but those were half litre packages. I have seen those appear, those individual packages and with fruit. Before they only had the basics because it was the brand from the dairy company. Later on it was Danone, those brands came up. This commercialisation of brands has had a big impact on marketing and on the consumer. [...] Companies think: ‘We will introduce a product to the customers.’ It is not stimulated anymore by demand. Products are now being placed in the market and that happens with a lot of products.’

209 De Cock, L. & Krosenbrink, E., ‘De ontwikkeling van de biologische sector in België: groei gevolgd door stagnatie’ in Van Huylenbroeck, G., De Cock, L., Krosenbrink, E., Mondelaerts, K., Lauwers, L., Kerselaers, E. & Govaerts, W., Biologische landbouw: mens, markt en mogelijkheden, Tielt, 2005, 52-62. 210 De Cock, L., Lauwers, L. & Van Huylenbroeck, G., ‘Inleiding: mens, markt en mogelijkheden als drieluik van ontwikkeling’ in Biologische landbouw: mens, markt en mogelijkheden, G. Van Huylenbroeck, L. De Cock, E. Krosenbrink, K. Mondelaerts, L. Lauwers, E. Kerselaers & W. Govaerts, Tielt, 2005, 11-12. 211 Krosenbrink, E. & Govaerts, W., ‘Voorwaarden van de biologische teelt: normen afgeleid van idealen’ in Biologische landbouw: mens, markt en mogelijkheden, G. Van Huylenbroeck, L. De Cock, E. Krosenbrink, K. Mondelaerts, L. Lauwers, E. Kerselaers & W. Govaerts, Tielt, 2005, 36; 45-46. 212 Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,31. 213 ’Mat i ny form på 70-talet’, Lantmannen, 80 (1969), no. 26, 8. 46

Brand names thus became increasingly important as did the shape and colour of the packaging and the product ‘image’. New products were launched such as yoghurt with fruit, several kinds of juice and frozen ready-made dishes.214 Even plain yoghurt was a relatively new product in Belgium since an article in Landbouwleven from 1956 stated that until a couple of years ago, a lot of readers would never have heard about yoghurt.215 When asked about the changes in the assortments of food in shops, most of the Belgian interviewees mentioned the enormous increase in varieties of flavoured yoghurts, cured meats and cheeses. Milk with cocoa, condensed milk and ice-cream in different flavours also appeared on the market.216 The 1980s saw the introduction of crème fraîche and semi-skimmed milk in Sweden. Skimmed milk and Bregott had already been introduced in 1969.217 Barbecuing and grilling has also become increasingly popular during the last decades and special products have been developed to satisfy the needs of the consumers.218 Special products have also been created for vegetarians and vegans, although, as Goodman and Redclift state, it is hard to not to believe that retailing strategies rather than ethical concerns were the main motor behind this development.219

II.2 THE RISE OF CONVENIENCE FOOD

There is a distinct trend towards the purchasing of more processed and refined products during the period under consideration. The increasing participation of women on the labour market has stimulated the trend towards convenience foods and has a significant influence on product development within the food industry.220 The changes can be illustrated well by vegetables; they can now be bought in five different forms: fresh, canned, frozen, fresh and chopped, and cooked in vacuum packaging.221 Interviewee SF 2 commented on this:

‘The biggest difference for me is the bigger availability of ready-made products. It’s not uncommon to buy ready made meatballs for example or other things. There has been a change towards buying more things in stores than before. We, for example slaughtered at home... while nowadays people buy pork chops in the store.’

Dry products such as soup and sauces in the form of powder and ready-made mixes for baking were developed during the 1960s.222 Canned food also increasingly became available during the 1950s and 1960s in Belgium: anchovies, lobster, crab, sardines or small sausages all became available in cans. An article published in Landbouwleven in 1957 discussed the use of canned food. It stated that canned food products maintained their complete nutritional value and should therefore not be discarded as inferior products.223 During the 1970s canned pasta products such as ravioli or cannelloni or exotic vegetables such as olives or artichoke

214 Scholliers, Arm en rijk aan tafel, 1993, 190;197; Scholliers, P., ‘Novelty and tradition. The new landscape for gastronomy’ in Food the history of taste, P. Freedman (ed.), London, 2007, 340; Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 117. 215 ‘Yoghurt nagerechten’, Landbouwleven, 7 (1957), no. 85. 216 Niesten et al., Vrijwaar u van namaaksels, 2002, 76. 217 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 15; Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 248. 218 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 184. 219 Goodman & Redclift, ‘Modernisation and the international food system’, 2005, 133. 220 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 14. 221 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 155. 222 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 16. 223 ‘Iets over de voedingswaarde van groenten’, Landbouwleven, 7 (1957), no. 91. 47 hearts were introduced.224 Canned, dried and frozen foods are typical examples of convenience foods but the assortment of frozen food has become much more extensive compared to the other categories.225 Deep-frozen food made its introduction during the 1940s in Sweden while in Belgium these products became available on a large scale during the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s.226 Frozen food had been available before but the temperature was never low enough and this influenced the quality and reputation of frozen food in a negative way.227 The arrival of the deep-frozen food changed this. The first domestic freezers in Sweden appeared in 1947 even though, in 1955, only 0,2% of the total Swedish food consumption – excluding ice cream - was frozen. However, this quickly changed. Products such as frozen fish, vegetables and fruit became rapidly accepted in society.228 The assortment of frozen food quickly expanded and poultry, potato products and ready-made dishes such as pizza and hamburgers could be found in the freezer section from the 1970s onwards. Between 1960 and 1980 the consumption of frozen food in Belgium per capita increased from 0,5 to eight kilo.229 By the end of the 1970s, Swedes consumed 23 kilo of frozen food per person per year and by 1999 consumption had increased to 43 kilo.230 Based on these numbers one could assume a clear difference in the purchasing of frozen food in both countries. It seems to be much more popular in Sweden. However, due to a lack of more current figures for Belgium, this difference cannot be confirmed for subsequent years.

II.3 FOREIGN INFLUENCES

Immigration and travel have also contributed to the increased range of food products.231 Charter flights expanded considerably since the late 1960s in both countries.232 Immigration in Sweden reached a high point during the 1960s.233 The immigrants were mostly people from Northern and Southern Europe. In Belgium the majority of the immigrants were South- European guest workers. After the 1970s however the number of non-European immigrants increased in both countries.234 Surprisingly, the colonial connection between Congo and Belgium did not leave any remarkable culinary traces in Belgian cuisine.235 Immigration brought along culinary novelties. The pizza was introduced in Sweden during the 1960s but only ‘broke through’ in the 1970s when a lot of pizzerias opened up.236

224 Niesten, E., Raymaekers, J. & Segers, Y., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten. Onze keuken in de 20ste eeuw (CAG Cahier 3), Leuven, 2002, 120. 225 Scholliers, ‘Novelty and tradition’, 2007, 350. 226 Mat (Nordiska museets och Skansens årsbok), R. Colling (ed.), Fataburen, 1989, 177; Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 185. 227 Mat, 1989, 177. 228 Nyberg, A., Tekniken – kvinnornas befriare? Hushållsteknik, köpevaror, gifta kvinnors hushållsarbetstid och förvärvsdeltagande 1930-talet – 1980-talet, Linköping, 1989, 218; Nilson, A., ‘Konsumenten under tre decennier’, Tidernas mat. På svenska bord 1970-2000 (Nordiska museets – Allt om mat), 2000, 82; Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 185. 229 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 185. 230 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 19; 21. 231 Bringeus, N.-A., Mat och måltid. Studier i svensk matkultur, Stockholm, 1988, 11; Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,12. 232 Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 67. 233 Ahrne, G., Roman, C. & Franzén, M., Det sociala landskapet. En sociologisk beskrivning av Sverige från 1950-talet till början av 2000-talet, Göteborg, 2003, 41. 234 Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,39. 235 Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 66. 236 Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,59; 131. 48

Interviewee BI 2 said that she remembered making pizza for her children in the early 1970s while interviewees BI 1 said they had started to eat pizza only during the late 1980s. In Belgium several Italian, Spanish, Greek and Moroccan restaurants had opened by the 1970s.237 Chinese restaurants and kebab places were other international culinary additions, although the first Chinese restaurant was already established in Antwerp in 1922.238 These influences had a certain impact on product development: exotic foods became increasingly available in the supermarkets. During the 1970s products of Italian, Mexican or French origin became more widely available in Swedish food stores.239 During the 1980s Mediterranean food started to be popular.240 Pasta and couscous, for example, can nowadays be bought in every store and are considered standard food products.241 Food cultures are established side by side in a nation and lead to increasing differentiation. Interviewee SI 1 remarked:

‘Food has also become much more diverse. We ate tacos yesterday, I never had that before. And there are a lot of things that are eaten nowadays but that did not exist before.’

Fastfood restaurants were also established and can be interpreted as a sign of the globalisation of food habits, which is the massification of food. Coca-cola and hamburgers for example are nowadays consumed all over the world.242 In 1973, the first McDonald’s restaurant opened in Stockholm. By 2000, there were already 200 restaurants in Sweden.243 In Belgium the first McDonald’s appeared in Brussels in 1978.244 Cook books were also influenced by the foreign cuisines brought to us by immigrants and increasing travelling. In ‘Ons kookboek’ (Our cookbook), the most popular cookbook in Flanders, an increasing number of exotic recipes appeared during the 1960s and 1970s.245 In the first edition of 1927 three macaroni dishes were mentioned and vermicelli was recommended to be added to soup. In the 1955 edition, macaroni with tomatoes was added and in the 1962 edition, risotto and spaghetti were introduced.246 The Belgian interviewees that were over 70 years old stated they still preferred potatoes to pasta. Interviewee BF 1 said the following about pasta:

‘(Addressing her husband) You like pasta and your mother never cooked it. I learned how to make macaroni, my mother never cooked it either. I still remember distinctly that, when I was about fourteen to fifteen years old, I had a holiday job in Wervik and that family had a different lifestyle than my mother. I still cook it the same way I learned there.’

237 Scholliers, Arm en rijk aan tafel, 1993, 228. 238 Ahrne et al., Det sociala landskapet, 2003, 41; Amenda, L., ‘Food and otherness. Chinese restaurants in West-European cities in the 20th century’ in Food & history. Public eating, public drinking. Public places of consumption from early modern to postmodern times, Turnhout, 2009, no. 2, 157-180; Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 130. 239 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 19. 240 Nilson, ‘Konsumenten under tre decennier’, 2000, 83. 241 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 159. 242 Carlsson-Kanyama & Lindén, ‘Trends in food production and consumption’, 2001, 294. 243 Odevall, P. E., ‘Paul Lederhausen grillkungen som lärde svenskarna äta hamburgare’, Allt om mat – på svenska bord 1970-2000 (Nordiska museets – allt om mat), 2000, 74-75. 244 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 135. 245 Geyzen, ‘Popular discourse on nutrition’, 2011, 280; Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 118-119; Segers, ‘Food recommendations, tradition and change’, 2005, 4-6. 246 Mestdag, I., ‘Het buitenland binnengehaald. Italië in Ons kookboek, of de confrontatie van de Vlaamse met de Italiaanse cultuur in de dagelijkse keuken (1927-1999) in Buitenshuis eten in de Lage Landen sinds 1800, M. Jacobs & P. Scholliers (eds.), Brussel, 2002, 176-177; 192-193. 49

In Sweden, macaroni also seems to have been the first kind of pasta that people regularly cooked at home. Interviewee SI 1 said:

‘We ate macaroni but no other kinds of pasta. We cooked them and ate them with stew or meat balls.’

In 1972 a separate chapter was included in ‘Our cookbook’ for ‘Exotic dishes’ including pizza, bouillabaisse, goulash, nasi goring, spring rolls, paella and osso bucco. The KVLV (Katholieke Vereniging voor Landelijke Vrouwen) or the umbrella organisation for rural women that publishes ‘Ons kookboek’ even published a special issue on pastas and pizzas in 1981.247 In the 1999 edition a whole series of Italian dishes was included.248 Rice also changed from having a subordinate function in the 1950s to becoming a worthy replacement for potatoes or pasta.249 All Belgian interviewees stated that rice was mostly use for rice pudding which was a popular dish for dinner. Interviewee BI 2 said:

‘For me that is also a dinner: [...] rice porridge with a lot of sugar, powdered sugar. It wasn’t a desert, it replaced a meal. It happened often. Crêpes were also eaten like that, as dinner.’

However, increasing differentiation can also lead to initiatives of traditionalisation. A turn towards more traditional food can be discerned over the last decades: old recipes and domestic ingredients are put on the foreground.250 The Slow Food movement that was founded in 1989 in Italy is another example. The European recognition of ‘Guaranteed Traditional Specialities’ is also a sign of this evolution.251 Scholliers argues that it is because of the oversupply of novelties that feelings of insecurity appeared which caused a new interest in traditional food.252

II.4 THE INFLUENCE OF FOOD RECOMMENDATIONS

New products were also developed under influence of nutritional recommendations. With increasing health concerns in the 1980s, a whole range of ‘light’ products such as cheeses and yoghurts with lower fat content were created. Margarine was promoted as the healthier variant of butter. Interviewee SI 2 said the following:

‘People pay more attention to what they eat now. At some point, people were talking a lot about cholesterol. […] I know we did a test here in town and I had a higher cholesterol level than my husband. […] I started to buy a lot of diet products such as margarine and cheese and so on. I really paid attention to that and it was really tough to get my cholesterol level down. […] I kept to products with low fat levels. But otherwise I don’t think there is a really big difference between 1955 and nowadays because even then we ate a lot of vegetables.’

247 Uit de Italiaanse keuken: deegwaren en pizza’s, KVLV (Katholiek Vormingswerk van Landelijke Vrouwen), 1981. 248 Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 129-130. 249 Ibidem, 37-38. 250 Carlsson-Kanyama & Lindén, ‘Trends in food production and consumption’, 2001, 294. 251 Bisschop & Segers, Supermarkt Europa magazine, 2008, 17. 252 Scholliers, ‘Novelty and tradition’, 2007, 356-357. 50

On the Belgian market, margarine had been available since the 1920s. Butter consumption knew a steady decline because of its bad reputation due to its high fat content.253 Animosity between the margarine and butter producers in Belgium was thus constantly apparent.254 From the late 1950s onwards, articles regularly appeared in Landbouwleven about the so-called butter crises. The malevolence of the margarine producers was the main recurring topic.255 In the late 1970s, for example, a number of articles were published in which it was discussed whether or not the theory that saturated fats and high cholesterol led to cardiovascular diseases, was an evil plot by the margarine producing companies aimed at bankrupting the Belgian butter producers.256 The first ‘diet-products’ already appeared in 1953 in Belgium but consumption was still marginal. In the same year an article in Landbouwleven commented on the appearance of these ‘American-influenced’ goods, for which commercials included the new magic words ‘diet’ and ‘light’. It further commented that not the nutritive value but the lack of it seemed to have become the most important aspect for food products.257 However, in 1969 and 1970 the consumption of diet-products was only about two percent of the total food consumption.258 In Sweden, diet versions of margarine, yoghurt, fermented milk, mayonnaise, dressings and ice- cream were introduced in 1974.259 Health considerations can also encourage people to purchase organically produced food.260

II.5 PACKAGING

Packaging also transformed during the period under examination. Plastic packaging has become more and more common since the 1950s. This can be linked to the rise of the supermarkets and their self-service principle, since before shop assistants wrapped the loosely-sold food in paper bags or other non-plastic material. An article in Lantmannen that made some predictions about food consumption during the 1970s stated: ’Consumers will demand more convenient products. [...] Even a traditional product such as Christmas ham has become more convenient, it is now pre-packaged and ready to be cooked.’261 Another article stated: ‘The consumer wants to buy everything pre-packaged and this makes food products more expensive.’262 Pre-packaged meat was first introduced in Belgian supermarkets during the 1960s. Some initial problems had to be overcome. Meat underneath cling foil has the tendency to change colour for example.263 Another innovation was the separate sale of several parts of the chicken

253 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 15-36. 254 Niesten et al., Vrijwaar u van namaaksels, 2002, 77. 255 ‘Botercrisis’, Landbouwleven, 8 (1958), no. 145; ‘Botersmokkel’, Landbouwleven, 8 (1958), no. 167. 256 ‘Boter- en margarine verbruik in Belgïe’, Landbouwleven, 26 (1976), no. 1053; ‘Gezondheid door de boter’, Landbouwleven, 27 (1977), no. 1110; ‘Waar onderzoekers faalden … profiteerden de margarinefabrikanten’, Landbouwleven, 32 (1982), no. 1399. 257 ‘Diëten uit Amerika overgewaaid’, Landbouwleven, 3 (1953), no. 42. 258 Luyten, M., Situatieschets van de markt voor gezonde voeding, unpublished licentiate dissertation, KULeuven, Leuven, 1975. 259 Nilson, ‘Konsumenten under tre decennier’, 2000, 18. 260 Scholliers, ‘Novelty and tradition’, 2007, 350. 261 ’Mat i ny form på 70-talet’, Lantmannen, 80 (1969), no. 26, 8. 262 ’Beredskap – överskott – konsumtion – livsviktiga problem för vårt jordbruk’, Lantmannen, 74 (1963), no. 10, 216. 263 Vandermosten, J., De supermarkt. Ontstaansgeschiedenis en maatschappelijk debat, Unpublished master thesis KULeuven, Leuven, 2008, 21. 51 such as the breast or legs from 1970 onwards. 264 Disposable packaging for milk and other liquid dairy products also started to appear; the first disposable package for milk became available on the Belgian market in 1953. However, in 1967, milk in disposable packages (Tetra pack or plastic) only represented about 1,4 percent of the total Belgian market and a lot of people reacted negatively on this new packaging.265 The first Tetra packaging appeared on the Swedish market in 1951 and was used for cream. Products sold in vacuum packages were another innovation.266 The information on printed on food packaging also increased. Consumers nowadays can read exactly what a product contains – if they choose to. Recipe recommendations or preparation methods also started to appear on food packaging which can be attributed to the relative novelty of the products or to the increasing interest in culinary experiments.267 However, the new package methods have negative consequences as well. The total amount of packaging increased significantly and this has resulted in bigger volumes of waste.268 During the 1960s there were even several protests against disposable packaging in Belgium.269 Most Belgian interviewees commented on their dislike of the increase of packaging waste. Interviewee BI 1 for example said:

‘Everything nowadays is pre-packaged. I find it repulsive: plastic and Styrofoam packaging. You have much more waste while before the products were only put on a sheet of paper.’

III Distribution

III.1 THE DUTCH AUCTION SYSTEM

A particular improvement in distribution of Belgian horticultural products has been the so- called Dutch auction. This is a cooperative of farmers who bring their products to the auction hall, by horse and cart in the past and by tractors nowadays, where buyers can bid on the products. The Dutch auction system led to a more qualitative and standardised supply. Packaging of fruits and vegetables also became more standardised because of this system. By the end of the 1950s, the Dutch auctions had become very popular. In 1950 about five percent of the distribution was done by these institutions while that number had increased to 40 percent a couple of decades later. Interviewees BF 1 said the following about the Dutch auction:

‘The Dutch auction in Roeselare started shortly before the war. [...] I went to the Dutch auction when I was about fourteen years old by horse and carriage. Back then all farmer transported themselves in that way. There were a couple of exceptions who

264 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 183; 184; Vandersteen, R., Prijsevolutie en verbruik van geslacht pluimvee 1960-heden, unpublished licentiate thesis KULeuven, Leuven, 1986, 19. 265 De Baere, J., Een eeuw Belgische zuivelgeschiedenis, Leuven, 1971, 55; Ackerman, I.I. & Dumeez, M., De konsumptie van melk in België (L.E.I. schriften 80-81), Brussel, 1968, 60-70. 266 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 15. 267 Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,34. 268 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 157 269 Wonen in welvaart: woningbouw en wooncultuur in Vlaanderen, 1948-1973, K. Van Herck & T. Avermaete (eds.), Rotterdam, 2006, 44. 52

already owned a small lorry, but most of them went by horse and carriage. [...] The Dutch auction has been the breakthrough for the small-scale farmers in the region that started cultivating vegetables. [...] The Dutch auction has saved many of the farmers from destitution. [...] It also stimulated the frozen vegetable industry which developed around 1976.’

They themselves went to the Dutch auction three times a week with their vegetables. Their products were checked to see if they matched the necessary level of quality. If not, their products were sold in a lower category for a lower price. The products were usually bought by wholesalers who then sold the products to neighbourhood stores or took them to the weekly markets. In 1982 the new system of simultaneous auctioning was introduced whereby several auction sessions spread over the country could appear on the same screen which made bidding easier for the buyers.270

III.2 THE RISE OF THE SUPERMARKET

Changes in distribution not only affected farmers. While nowadays food supplies are most often bought in big supermarkets, small neighbourhood stores previously offered that service. Food analysts state that food products nowadays should meet four different criteria. They should be: convenient, healthy, cheap and indulgent. The assortment of convenience food for example is enormous and offers products that are ready-to-cook, ready-to-heat and ready-to- eat.271 Cans, bottles and cardboard packages replaced the loose products of yesteryear.272 An article in Lantmannen commented: ’Twenty years ago [in 1943], stores in which products were bought in bulk dominated, while today there are almost none left.’273 Interviewees BF 1 said the following about the ‘traditional’ stores:

‘(Addressing her husband) I went to Vannieuwenhuyze with your mother. That was then the big store where people from the countryside went to buy big quantities of certain products. They bought five kg of coffee in a bag or ten kg of sugar. Back then, the shop assistants still scooped the products in a bag.’

Around 1955, supermarkets such as Domus, Tempo and EPA started to be constructed in Sweden. An important innovation was the self-service aspect: customers took the products they wanted to purchase from the shelves themselves. The first hypermarkets in Sweden were introduced in the beginning of the 1960s. Swedish interviewee SI I said the following:

‘We always bought our food in the nearest food stores. When I was on my way home after work on my bike, I stopped in the grocery store for example. Later on we went to Konsum [Swedish supermarket]; that must have been in the beginning of the 1960. […] We also bought bread there. […] The small stores started to disappear.’

During the 1970s, the number of food products that were available in a regular Swedish supermarket increased from 2600 to 3150.274 This increase may seem modest but is due to

270 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 115; 133;156. 271 Segers, Y. & Paulussen, F., ‘Meer meer minder, 150 jaar eetcultuur’, Reflector, 2010 (11), nr. 5, 15. 272 Ibidem, 13. 273 ’Beredskap – överskott – konsumtion – livsviktiga problem för vårt jordbruk’, Lantmannen, 74 (1963), no. 10, 216. 274 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 14; 20. 53 assortment restrictions: when a new product was introduced an ‘old’ product had to be removed from the shelves.275 The variety of available food was also bigger in Swedish cities than on the countryside.276 In Belgium, the first supermarket was established in 1957 in Brussels although several shops had partly converted to the self service system by then. Grand Bazar, Delhaize, Priba, GB Enterprises and Colruyt are some of the biggest initial supermarket chains.277 A lot of inhabitants did not immediately become familiar with the concept of the supermarket. Landbouwleven for example published an article about the supermarket and the way it functioned in 1960. It told the readers that it was time saving and that this new trend needed to be exploited.278 The period between 1960 and 1975 was a period of expansion for the Belgian supermarkets; more goods became available and the shops themselves increased in size. New shops were located in the outskirts of the towns and cities where they were easily accessible by car. Until 1965 supermarkets were only modestly successful but by 1970 sales had boomed.279 From 1975 onwards, discounting became a new trend, partly inspired by the oil crisis which diminished the purchasing power of people. This was also the period in which the supermarket chains began to introduce their own generic brands. From 1985 onwards, supermarkets focussed on ‘upgrading’. Factors as quality, service, convenience and proximity became more important. Smaller quantity packages were introduced and the assortment of convenience foods expanded considerably.280 Supermarkets were the ideal location where consumers could become acquainted with new products. During the 1960s for example exotic fruit such as pineapples and kiwis could increasingly be found in the Belgian supermarkets.281 Back then, these fruits were unknown to most people. Interviewees BI 1 and BF 1 told some entertaining stories about their first encounters with certain exotic fruits. Interviewee BI 1 talked about the first time her dad had brought kiwis home:

‘I remember my dad coming home and my mom asking: ‘What did you buy this time?’ He answered: ‘They are shrivelled potatoes’. We were looking at each other and thought it would be a lot of work to peel them. That was between 1965 and 1968. I remember thinking: ‘O dear, he probably bought those because they were cheap.’ Then he started peeling one and cutting it in slices. We both got one slice, to try. He said it was a new kind of fruit.’

Interviewee BF 1 talked about the first time he ate a banana:

‘Those people [the people that had stayed on their farm during the first months of the war] came from the city and they were always ahead of the countryside. They had brought bananas and ate them with their sandwiches. I was about ten years old then and I had never seen one. One of those guys asked: ‘Do you want a banana?’. My mom said: ‘Take a banana, lad, you probably never had one, it will be tasty’. So I got a curled, yellow thing and I took a bite. I thought it was disgusting but I didn’t dare to spit it out. So I went outside, spit it out and I threw the banana over the hedge and didn’t talk about it further. In the evening I told my mom: ‘That was so bad!’ and my

275 Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,33. 276 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 157. 277 Vandermosten, De supermarkt, 2008, 24-28. 278 ‘De supermarkt’, Landbouwleven, 10 (1960), no. 285. 279 Scholliers, ‘Novelty and tradition’, 2007, 349. 280 Van Eylen, A., De supermarkt en haar evolutie, unpublished licentiate thesis KULeuven, Leuven, 1992, 33- 25. 281 Bisschop & Segers, Supermarkt Europa magazine, 2008, 15. 54

mom said: ‘What, what do you mean that it was bad?’. ‘Well, I threw it away’, I said. ‘Well then, where is the banana?’ she asked. I went to fetch it and my mom said: ‘But, boy, you have to peel it first!’. [laughs].’

About 94 percent of total food purchases in Belgium are nowadays made in supermarkets whereas in 1970 that number was only nine percent. The remaining six percent comes from the traditional corner shops, such as bakeries and butcheries, markets and farms. Most cities and villages in Belgium also have a weekly market where vendors offer all kinds of food products. In Sweden, presumably because of the harsher weather conditions, this is not the case, although in some places, open air markets can be found during late spring, summer and early fall.282 Also, ambulant vendors were quite common in Belgium. Vendors and their carts would pass through the village and sell milk, cheese, fish, fruit or vegetables. A survey from 1968 for example shows that five percent of the interviewees bought their cheese from a vendor.283 None of the Swedish interviewees or literature mentioned ambulant vendors. All interviewees in Belgium stressed that things have changed rapidly during the last fifty years. Since they all grew up on the countryside, they stated that they did not go to the store all that often. Nowadays, however, they all buy most of their products at the supermarket. In Sweden, the interviewees that grew up in the city always bought their food in stores and later on in supermarkets. One of the Swedish farmers, SF 1 stated they had always bought most of their food in the store, while the other farmer, SF 2, stated that they produced most of their food themselves and only bought a little in stores:

‘In the beginning of the 1960s we bough salt and spices in the stores. Not a lot of food because we produced most ourselves. We had eggs, meat, flour and milk, carrots, potatoes, and some other vegetables and fruits of our own. We did buy fish because we didn’t fish ourselves... [laughs]... [...] Potato flour we had to buy as well. We also bought some vegetables such as cucumbers and tomatoes or beverages such as juice or fizzy drinks. [...] Butter and cheese we bought from the dairy factory. We had to write a little request note and hand it over when the milk tank came around to fetch the milk in our tank. When he came the next time he had the cheese and butter with him. [...] We went to the store maximum twice a week and preferably only once, on Thursday. We always made a nice shopping list. [laughs]’

The rise of supermarkets entailed a marked reduction in the number of small neighbourhood stores. At the end of the 1950s, there had been 25.000 food stores in Sweden, whereas at the beginning of the 1990s that number had sunk to 8.000.284 In Belgium the number of shops diminished from about 35.000 in 1972 to 5.600 in 2006.285 The number of bakeries in Belgium for example has steadily diminished during the last decades, even though a lot of people still buy their bread and pastry at the bakery. Interviewees BI 1 stated that they had seen a lot of small neighbourhood stores disappear in their village after the introduction of the supermarket although they added that a lot of those people were close to retiring age. Specialisation and refinement was seen as the answer to the competition of the supermarkets.286 During the last few years, a trend can be discerned that points towards a modest comeback for small scale stores but these are usually specialised delicatessen stores

282 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 67-79. 283 Ackerman & Dumeez, De konsumptie van kaas, 1969, 42; 55. 284 Hallberg, I., Mat i Sverige i förändringens tid, Borås, 1993, 75. 285 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 68. 286 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 187. 55 serving niche market demands.287 Buying products directly from farms is also fashionable again.288 The frequency of visiting food stores declined in both countries. Most families nowadays go shopping once a week whereas, in the past, people bought supplies every couple of days.289 The milk survey of 1968 in Belgium for example shows that 36 percent of households bought fresh milk daily while 51 percent bought milk only every couple of days.290 Interviewees BI 1 stated that their family bought food at least a couple of times per week from the fruit and vegetable cart, the milk cart, the bakery, the butchery, the weekly market or the small neighbourhood store. In Sweden people also tended to go more often to the stores before. Interviewees SI 1 and SI 2 said they went to the store practically every day.

III.3 LOGISTICS

The internationalisation of trade also had implications for the food distribution pattern. Over the last 50 years, products that cannot be produced in Sweden or Belgium are increasingly considered an integral part of the daily diet. Improvements in transport as well as freezing and cooling technology increasingly made long distance transportation of fresh food possible.291 This has led to the disappearance of the seasons in food stores.292 Tomatoes, for example, are available all year round while before it was one of the treats summer and autumn brought along. During the 1990s the sale of imported fruits soared in Sweden.293 By consequence, transports between the places of production and distribution have become much longer.294 The switch to large supermarkets also had implications for transport from and to the food store. Logistics became more efficient. The total number of food depots in Sweden diminished but increased in size.295 On the consumer side, due to increased urbanisation, more people relied on supermarkets for their food supplies. Moreover, an increasing number of people use their car to go grocery shopping.

IV Consumption

IV.1 DISAPPEARING HOUSEWIVES

A very important societal change has been the increase in the number of employed women. Between 1963 and 1980 the number of employed married women increased from 47 percent to 82 percent in Sweden.296 Nowadays the number of employed women is about the same as

287 Julin & Olszon, ‘Samhälle och livsstil’, 1996, 78. 288 Bisschop & Segers, Supermarkt Europa magazine, 2008, 24. 289 Hedenborg & Kvarnström, Det svenska samhället, 2006, 261. 290 Ackerman, I.I. & Dumeez, M., De konsumptie van melk in België (L.E.I. schriften 80-81), Brussel, 1968, 70. 291 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 159. 292 Rössner, S., ’Nya matvanor – på gott och ont’, Tidernas mat. På svenska bord 1970-2000 (Nordiska museets – Allt om mat), 2000, 92; Bringéus, N.-A., Mat och måltid, Stockholm, 1988, 15; Raymaekers, J., België feest. Een geschiedenis van Bourgondisch tafelen, Leuven, 2005, 211. 293 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 82. 294 Nilson, ‘Konsumenten under tre decennier’, 2000, 78. 295 Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,32. 296 Nyberg, Tekniken - kvinnornas befriare?, 1989, 232. 56 that of men.297 For a household this meant that in total more meals were eaten outside the house. Home produced products were partly replaced by bought products due to perceptions of time-restraints. The baking of bread at home has decreased considerably after World War II. Industrially-baked bread is nowadays more often consumed in Sweden than before.298 This change can also be attributed to the increase of household income.299 In Belgium the participation of women in the labour market increased especially from the 1960s onwards. In Catholic circles during the 1950s, women’s employment was still largely seen as the neglect of the household duties of a wife and mother. Women were mostly employed within the tertiary sector.300 In 1953 about 27 percent of women between 15 and 65 years old were employed while in 2009 this figure had increased to about 50 percent.301 Consumerism also stimulated both partners to work and since children nowadays study longer, two incomes are preferable. Women’s emancipation during the 1970s was another contributing factor to the increased employment of women.302 This development has also influenced the amount of time devoted to cooking. In Belgium women spent on average 85 minutes per day cooking in 1966 but by 1999 this number had dropped to 49 minutes. The figures for men are respectively four and eleven minutes which suggests that the time reductions for women are not offset by any corresponding increased activity by men. When asked, interviewees BI 1 and BI 2 said that, relatively seen, they did not think they spent less time on cooking than before since it takes less time to cook for fewer people. However, they admitted they did not buy a lot of ready- made products and preferred cooking with fresh products. Scholliers explains the decrease in time spent on cooking by the changes in kitchen technology and the rise of convenience food.303 However, as in Sweden, the increase in staff and school restaurants since the 1950s certainly also had an impact.304 In Sweden the cooking time decreased between the 1950s and the 1970s but started to increase again afterwards.305 In 1957 married women who lived in cities devoted 78 minutes per day to cooking. By 1976 this number had diminished to 70 minutes but increased again to 86 minutes by 1982.306 This initial decrease can, according to Nyberg, be attributed to an increase in staff restaurants, school kitchens and day care and hospital cafeterias. The increase in cooking time from the middle of the 1970s onwards can be explained by an increase in the purchasing of fresh ingredients due to the influence of nutritional recommendations.307 By then there was also a noticeable decrease in the purchasing of tinned food.308 This change can be linked to the level of income: when the income goes up, the consumption of normal products increases while that of products perceived to be inferior diminishes.309 Nowadays

297 Hedenborg & Kvarnström, Det svenska samhället, 2006, 263. 298 Nyberg, Tekniken - kvinnornas befriare?, 1989, 198. 299 Nyberg, Tekniken - kvinnornas befriare?, 1989, 237; 247; 282; Hedenborg & Kvarnström, Det svenska samhället, 2006, 307. 300 Dooren, G., Van huisvrouw tot carrierevrouw: de evolutie van de arbeidsmarktparticipatie van vrouwen in België sinds 1960, unpublished master thesis, KULeuven, Leuven, 2008, 37;41. 301 De arbeidsmarkt in relatieve jaarcijfers, Nationaal Instituut voor de statistiek, http://statbel.fgov.be/nl/statistieken/cijfers/arbeid_leven/werk/relatief/index.jsp, last accessed March 19, 2011. 302 Van Haegendoren, M., Van huisvrouwen tot uitzendkrachten. Arbeid in België sinds 1945, Leuven, 1998, 77- 78. 303 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 86. 304 Ibidem, 136-140. 305 Nyberg, Tekniken - kvinnornas befriare?, 1989, 211. 306 Ibidem, 221. 307 Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,91. 308 Nyberg, Tekniken - kvinnornas befriare?, 1989, 212; Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,128. 309 Nyberg, Tekniken - kvinnornas befriare?, 1989, 201. 57 only part of the ready-made or semi-manufactured food we buy in supermarkets is tinned or canned.310 When asked, only two interviewees, SI 1 and SF 1 said that cooking became less time consuming over time, but that was due to other factors. For interviewees SF 1 time constraints were the most important reason for cooking simple dishes that do not require a lot of cooking time. Interviewee SI 1, on the other hand, said the following:

‘It took longer time to cook when I was younger because I couldn’t do much. I had to look at recipes. I didn’t learn to cook when I was little, I only did the dishes. I mostly looked in cook books. One learns over time, but there are so many things that I don’t know how to cook nowadays. A lot of dishes from other countries: this is from Italy, this is from China. I can’t do all that.’

IV.2 FOOD PRICES AND INCOME

IV.2.1 BELGIUM

The price of food products and the level of income are other factors that influence food consumption patterns. After World War II the welfare state model was introduced in Belgium and it reached its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. It was based on a free market economy, state intervention and correction and social security. The average income increased due to the growth of the Belgian economy in the 1960s and this led to an increase in the overall level of welfare.311 Between 1953 and 1990, Belgian GDP increased by 250 percent and the population has become much richer. Taking inflation into account, food prices have declined in Belgium since then which can be attributed to the increase in agricultural productivity and improvements in transport and food processing.312 The price of chicken, for example, decreased significantly because of the increase in productivity and mechanisation of the poultry sector. Before 1955 chicken was deemed a luxury product but after 1970 this was not the case any more. As a consequence, the consumption of chicken meat increased from 4,7 kg in 1955 to 10,7 kg in 1970.313 These developments have led to a reduced share of food expenditure in the total household budget. Around 1940, about 50 percent of the total budget was spent on food. By 1950, that number had decreased to 35 percent, by 1960 to 25 percent and by 1993 to less than 20 percent.314 For example, in 1955, the price of one kg of potatoes equalled eight minutes of work, while 127 minutes of work were necessary to be able to afford one kg of steak. In 2005 less than three minutes of work were necessary to buy one kg of potatoes and 22 minutes to buy one kg of steak.315 This had implications on food consumption patterns. Since the 1960s people have increasingly enjoyed more expensive and once-luxury food

310 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 158. 311 Van Herck, K. & Avermaete, T., ‘Wonen in welvaart in de jaren vijftig en zestig’, in Wonen in welvaart: woningbouw en wooncultuur in Vlaanderen, 1948-1973, K. Van Herck & T. Avermaete (eds.), Rotterdam, 2006, 54-57. 312 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 104. 313 Vandersteen, Prijsevolutie en verbruik, 1986, 15-16. 314 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 33; Scholliers, Arm en rijk aan tafel, 1993, 231-232. 315 Duquesne, Hypermoderne, le mangeur belge?, 2010, 5. 58 products such as good cuts of meat, cheeses, candy and pastry. On the other hand, expenditure on bread, potatoes, milk and butter declined.316 In general, one can see a decline in spending on unprocessed foods such as milk or potatoes while the expenditure on processed foods such as ice cream, sandwich meats or potato chips has increased.317 Interviewees BI 1, BI 2 and BI 3, however, who are all over 50 years old, said that they still preferred to buy basic food products, which might indicate a generational difference in the general trends. However, the general increase in welfare did not mean there were no periods of protest against high food prices. When asked, interviewees BI 1 said:

‘Prices changed a lot in a short time compared to what you earned. [...] The worst was during the 1980s and early 1990s. Food prices rose parallel to the house prices and so on. People were complaining: ‘Look at how little we can buy for that amount of money.’

Interviewee BI 3 said the following:

‘There were certain periods during which the food prices were much higher, but because of the fact that we bought a lot of the basic products we needed as a family, such as meat and milk, directly from the farm, the intermediate business was removed. So those prices have never stopped us from eating meat for example. It was the case that, because of the high costs of transportation, the price for more exotic fruits, things that were transported from Spain, such as oranges, increased a lot but those were not products we really needed. You could limit yourself a bit and stick to the more basic products. [...] When you would buy individually packed products, the price difference was enormous compared to when you were content with the basic products. The price was only one third compared to products that are separately packed in small quantities.’

IV.2.2 SWEDEN

Food prices were high at the beginning of the period under examination. For most Swedish families it was impossible to serve chicken or another piece of meat every day.318 Later on, food prices increased as well. Between 1969 and 1972, for example, there was an increase of about 30 percent in the food prices.319 As a consequence price stops were introduced for certain products. An article of 1970 in Lantmannen analysed the situation: ’The price stops have become one of the most discussed election questions. The government wants to show: ’Consumers, we are on your side’. The situation for farmers, however, is not that positive.’320 As mentioned above, a boycott against milk was started by housewives from Skärholm in 1972 because of the high food prices. Their act attracted a lot of attention and the Swedish government introduced a price limit for a range of products. Milk and meat production started to be subsidised.321

316 Scholliers, Arm en rijk aan tafel, 1993, 191; 193; 225; Scholliers, ‘Novelty and tradition’, 2007, 340; Segers & Paulussen, ‘Meer meer minder’, 2010, 14. 317 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 104. 318 Nilson, ‘Konsumenten under tre decennier’, 2000, 76. 319 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 241. 320 ’Prisstopp! Men sedan?’, Lantmannen, 81 (1970), no. 16, 5. 321 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 18. 59

However, during the 1980s food prices in Sweden increased with 115 percent, mainly due the abolition of all food subsidies in 1983, except for milk.322 The consumption of meat declined and Sweden had to cope with meat surpluses.323 Protest against the high food prices stagnated from the end of the 1980s onwards. The price of several types of meat started to fall as a result of the deregulation policy, which entailed the abolition of price regulations and the stimulation of imports. In the middle of the 1990s, taxes on food products diminished by half.324 In 2008 however, food prices increased sharply once again.325 Overall the food prices fell by 60 percent between the 1960s and 2000 when compared to the price index. In 1970, Swedes used more than double the amount of their disposable income to purchase food when compared to 2000. 326 As for the average Swedish income, it almost doubled between 1960 and 1982, which can be related to the doubling of private consumption between 1955 and 1975.327

IV.3 HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES

Technological change not only occurred within the field of distribution but also in consumer goods. Household technology started to be introduced in the late 1940s in both countries but it was during the sixties, or the ‘golden years’, that household appliances were first purchased on a large scale. The kitchen was the place in which modern techniques had a major impact. Technology was seen as a means to make the running of a household more efficient and less time consuming.328 Fridges started to be more common in Swedish households at the end of the 1940s. The Swedish interviewees stated that they bought their first refrigerator between 1950 and 1959.. By 1970 almost 90 percent of all Swedish households owned a fridge. Refrigerators in Belgium broke through during the 1960s when working-class families started to be able to afford them.329 By 1970, about 87 percent of working-class households owned a refrigerator. Freezers first appeared on a large scale in Belgium during the 1960s but initially only on the countryside. Only around the 1980s did the domestic freezers spread in the cities. Initially the freezers served to freeze home produced vegetables or meat but from the 1970s onwards bought food was increasingly stored in them. It was a huge advantage for farmers and large families to be able to store meat for a long time after slaughtering an animal.330 All interviewees in Belgium reported buying their freezers and fridges quite early on. Interviewees BF 1 said for example:

‘[Wife] We first bought a freezer. We could for example still put the soup in the basement to keep it cool so we didn’t really need a fridge that badly. We bought our freezer shortly after being married [in 1962]. Our first fridge on the other hand we

322 Nilson, ‘Konsumenten under tre decennier’, 2000, 78. Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,30. 323 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 248. 324 Nilson, ‘Konsumenten under tre decennier’, 2000, 78; 80. 325 Lantbrukarnas riksförbund, Sveriges gröna näringar, 2009, 16. 326 Mat och hälsa, 2007, 23. 327 Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,9. 328 De Vos, E., ‘Techniek in huis: de bevordering van huishoudelijk comfort door het middenveld in the gouden jaren ‘60’ in Wonen in welvaart: woningbouw en wooncultuur in Vlaanderen, 1948-1973, K. Van Herck & T. Avermaete (eds.), Rotterdam, 2006, 220-225. 329 Raymaekers, België feest, 2005, 213. 330 Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 53; Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 79-80. 60

bought in the early 1970s. [Husband] You were always quick to buy useful equipment.’

With a little delay, the introduction of freezing facilities in food stores, stimulated Swedish households to purchase a freezer. In 1985, 92 percent of Swedish households owned a freezer.331 The Swedish interviewees mentioned that they had their first freezers between 1950 and 1962. Stoves also underwent a big transition. In the 1960s, almost 90 percent of Swedish households were equipped with a gas or electric stove.332 All Swedish interviewees, except for one (SI 2) stated that they never even had a gas stove. Interviewee SI 2 stated:

‘We always had an electric stove. Wait, no, when we lived in Stockholm we had a gas stove. I had never seen that before, because we didn’t have that in Luleå but I learned how to use it. Afterwards we had an electric stove.’

Interviewee SF 2 on the other hand did state that they still had a wood stove as well:

‘We always had an electric stove, but we used wood as a complement. When we started [as farmers], it was quite cold and then we had a woodstove as well on which we could heat things and so on. The electric stove and the wood stove were next to each other, but the wood stove was complementary, it was not regular or anything.’

In Belgium, however, about 36 percent of the households still used coal for their stoves 1960s, 35 percent used gas provided by the community, 24 percent used propane gas in containers and only three percent used an electric stove.333 All Belgian interviewees stated that they always cooked on gas during the 1950s. One of them, BI 1, said they had gas provided by the communities, while the others used gas containers. Interviewees BF 2 stated that they changed to an electric stove in 1963. However, the wood or coal stove that was still used in a lot of households as a means of heating, continued to serve as a kitchen aid. Interviewees BI 1 said:

‘During the winter we did use the woodstove often to heat things. There always was a pot of coffee on the corner of the stove and during winter, my dad would put salt on its surface and put potatoes on top of it. That was delicious.’

In 1970, however, 12 percent of the stoves were electric and by 1995 half of the Belgians used an electric stove. 334 Microwave ovens began to be sold during the 1970s in Sweden, but only broke through in Belgium during the late 1980s.335 In 2005, 80 percent of Belgian households owned a microwave. Other kitchen appliances such as dishwashers (1955), electric coffee grinders (1957), electric knives, electric and multifunctional mixers (late 1950s), blenders, toasters and fruit juicers (1960s) were introduced on the Belgian market.336 Most of the Swedish

331 Nyberg, Tekniken - kvinnornas befriare?, 1989, 218. 332 Ibidem, 210. 333 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 81-85; Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 110- 111. 334 Ibidem. 335 Nyberg, Tekniken - kvinnornas befriare?, 1989, 210. 336 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 81-85; Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 110- 111. 61 interviewees also said they thought electrical appliances had been available for quite some time already. Interviewees SF 1 for example said:

‘[Wife] The electric coffee maker has been around for a long time, the electric mixer and the toaster as well. [...] Most appliances have been around. [...] Well, the microwave was new during the 1980s. [...] There are of course a lot of appliances available, but we don’t have that many. What was also very popular during the 1980s were the food processors and baking machines. [Husband] Almost everyone got one of those for a Christmas present then.’

In contrast to Sweden, most Belgian households own their own frying pan which can be explained by the fact that French fries are one of the most popular traditional Belgian dishes. In 1964 only one percent of all households owned an electric frying pan whereas, in 1976, more than half of Belgian households were in possession of one.337 These technological innovations led to a decrease in more traditional ways of preserving food such as drying or smoking fish and meat or preserving them in salt. Fruit and vegetables that were previously preserved in dark cellars, in attics or in glass jars are now purchased fresh.338 In Belgium however, ‘old traditions’ such as ‘wecking’, a sterilising technique developed by the Austrian company J. Weck & Co., remained popular until well into the second half of the 20th century. The products that need to be sterilised are put in a glass jar and a red rubber band is put between the lid and the top of the jar. The pots are then put in a kettle filled with water and heated until 80 or 90 degrees Celsius. The bacteria in the vegetables or fruit are killed and the remaining air is pressed out of the jar.339 Interviewees BF 1, BF 2 and SI 1 said they immediately gave up sterilising and other time-consuming preservation techniques after they bought a freezer. Interviewee BF 2 said:

‘I’m not sterilising anymore, since I have a freezer I stopped doing that because that was a lot of work.’

Interviewees SF 1 said the same development had occurred in Sweden:

‘[Wife] Freezers have been around for so long, they came quite early on so we have always put everything in the freezer. Jam, people conserved quite a lot before, but mostly they kept things in the freezer... [addressing her husband] ...Your mom has talked about the fact that she had conservation machines to do that, but that was a long time ago. [Husband] We had a freezer before I was born [in 1954]. [Wife] We have had freezers such a long time, that’s why.

Only one interviewee, BI 3 stated that his family continued to sterilise food even after they had bought a freezer because it tasted so good.

337 Raymaekers, België feest, 2005, 214. 338 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbrukets historia, 2003, 158. 339 Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 117. 62

IV.4 FOOD RECOMMENDATIONS

Nutritional recommendations form another influence on food consumption patterns. The recommendations are not only aimed at promoting a healthy way of eating, but can also include guidelines for more environmentally friendly food consumption. The latter concern entails recommendations for eating less meat, buying ecologically produced food, or food with the most environmentally friendly packaging. Appeals to eat more locally produced and seasonal food are also common.340 Symbolically, a healthy body has become increasingly important over the last few decades. While, in earlier times, people fasted because of religious convictions, nowadays fasting or dieting in Western Europe is more often than not inspired by an ideal body image.341 The Swedish Food Administration (Livsmedelsverket) regularly publishes recommendations that are more focused on eating a balanced diet combined with a certain amount of physical activity. According to these recommendations, Swedes should preferably gain 30 percent of their energy from fat, 55 percent from carbohydrates and 15 percent from protein. Swedes ideally need to increase their intake of carbohydrates. A shift from saturated fats to unsaturated fats is also recommended.342 Even though an increasing trend can be discerned in the consumption of so-called ‘light’ products, the average weight of Swedes is increasing.343 These recommendations are not new. In Sweden they first appeared in the 1950s when people started to discuss changes in food habits. These debates strengthened in the 1960s and remained important during the following decades.344 In the middle of the 1960s, the first official nutritional recommendations were published in Sweden. The first ‘food circle’ appeared in 1963; it showed the seven basic food groups that should be consumed daily. In 1974 the ‘food pyramid’ was introduced; the food of which the highest quantities were recommended formed the basis of the pyramid.345 Lower sugar and fat intake were encouraged and more nutritious food products were recommended.346 Product information on food packaging thus became an important source of information for consumers. In 1976 a bread campaign was started which recommended a daily intake of six to eight slices of bread.347 Compared to Sweden, the first official food recommendations in Belgium were published late. It took until 1997 for the first official Belgian food recommendations to be published while the first Belgian food consumption survey dates from 2004. Belgians tend to extract 37,5 percent of their total energy from fats, while the official recommendation is 30 to 35 percent. 348 In 2004, Belgians ate on average 119 g of meat per day, while the official recommendation is 100 g. Fruits and vegetables, on the other hand were not consumed enough: 118 g and 138 g respectively, while the official recommendations are 350 g of vegetables and 250 g of fruit.349

340 Julin & Olszon, ‘Samhälle och livsstil’, 1996, 81. 341 Bringéus, N.-A., Mat och måltid, Stockholm, 1988, 48. 342 Mat och hälsa, 2007, 13; 240-241. 343 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbruketshistoria, 2003, 159. 344 Ibidem, 159 345 Fjellström, C., Drömmen om det goda livet. Livskvalitet och matvanor i ett uppväxande industrisamhälle: Stocka sågverk 1870-1980, Doctoral dissertation Umeå universitet, Umeå, 1990, 275; Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,36. 346 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 16. 347 Fjellström, Drömmen om det goda livet, 1990, 275; Tidernas mat. På svenska bord 1970-2000, Nordiska museet – allt om mat, 2000, 19; Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,36. 348 Coene, I., ‘Tien jaar voedingsaanbevelingen voor België’, Nutrinews, 2007 (2), 15. 349 Duquesne, Hypermoderne, le mangeur belge?, 2010, 7. 63

Before these official food recommendations appeared, most information was found abroad.350 During the 1950s elaborate advice on the existence of nutrients and their importance for a healthy diet started to appear whereas before it was hardly ever explained what vitamins and minerals were. Vegetables were promoted because of their high content of vitamins and moderation in the use of salt and sugar was recommended. This did not mean, however, that people adhered to these guidelines; dishes with a lot of meat were still popular.351 The ideal of a fit and healthy body already existed before World War II but had been largely forgotten until the 1970s when that ideal became increasingly influential and then first among the richer strata of society.352 Between 1950 and 1970 the percentage of the daily calorie-intake coming from animal products increased from 36 percent to 45 percent in Belgium. Since the beginning of the 1970s the caloric intake did not change much.353 During the 1960s fat was denounced in both countries and the notion of cholesterol became widely known. As mentioned above, interviewee SI 2 had changed her consumption pattern quite significantly after discovering her high cholesterol values. However, there was still a lot of discussion between people about whether or not it was true what the scientists said. Nevertheless, these health concerns led to certain changes in food production and consumption. Milk consumption in Belgium, for example, diminished from the 1970s onwards and between 1975 and 1985 the consumption of semi-skimmed milk tripled while the sales of whole milk declined.354 The Piétrain pig, know for its non-fatty meat and the Belgian white-blue cow breed were increasingly bred because of the change in demand.355 This was a big change compared to the beginning of the 1950s. Even in 1953 an article in Landbouwleven argued for saving the Piétrain pig breed from extinction.356 Between 1955 and 1992, the percentage of fat in Belgian pigs diminished by approximately 75 percent.357 The consumption of ‘invisible’ fats in processed products such as cheese, snacks and processed meats, however, increased.358 The change towards more healthy food can also be seen in ‘Ons kookboek’ and in Landbouwleven. In 1957 a series of articles on the nutritional value of different food categories were published in the newspaper. In 1959, the readers of Landbouwleven were introduced to the three different categories of which healthy food should be composed of: ‘building substances’ such as water, mineral salts and proteins, energetic substances such as fat or carbohydrates and protective substances such as vitamins.359 In the 1960s editions of ‘Ons kookboek’, an entire chapter on healthy food titled ‘Dietetics’ was included. Meals should contain ingredients from five different categories: (1) milk and dairy products, (2) potatoes, vegetables and fruit, (3) cheese, meat, fish, eggs and pulses, (4) fresh butter, vitamin-enriched margarine, cod liver oil and (5) brown bread and cereals. Later on the visual representation of the food recommendations changed to a ‘four-leaf-clover’, a ‘meal disc’ and the food triangle or pyramid consisting of seven base groups and one remainder group.360 In 1964 the first warning against eating too much fat appeared in the ‘Ons kookboek’ along with an explanation of the difference between saturated and unsaturated fats. A calorie

350 Coene, I., ‘Tien jaar voedingsaanbevelingen voor België’, Nutrinews, 2007 (2), 13; 15. 351 Geyzen, ‘Popular discourse on nutrition’, 2011, 280-283. 352 Scholliers, Arm en rijk aan tafel, 1993, 263. 353 Ibidem, 203. 354 Niesten et al., Vrijwaar u van namaaksels, 2002, 83. 355 Segers & Paulussen, ‘Meer meer minder’, 2010, 14-15. 356 ‘Piétrain varken moet blijven bestaan’, Landbouwleven, 3 (1953), no. 26. 357 Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 145. 358 Niesten et al., ‘Over de maakbaarheid van dieren’, 2005, 39. 359 ‘Iets over de voedingswaarde van suiker, groenten en vis’, Landbouwleven, 7 (1957), no. 85-92; ‘Dat is gezonde voeding’, Landbouwleven, 9 (1959), no. 226. 360 Mestdag, ‘Het buitenland binnengehaald’, 2002, 188. 64 chart was included in the 1985 edition.361 The KVLV (Katholieke Vereniging voor Landelijke Vrouwen) published a number of information brochures on healthy food around 1980.362 When asked, only interviewees BI 1 and BI 3 stated that they had consciously and voluntarily changed their food patterns. Interviewees BI 1 stated:

‘I think we don’t eat a lot of meat anymore because we don’t feel the need. It used to be different. [...] We did consciously start to eat more fish. [...] We sporadically read about ‘Know what you eat’ or the Weightwatchers and they cook more with fish and without meat. [...] We did become more aware of what we eat the last couple of years. [...] We use a lot more olive oil now too.’

As mentioned above, interviewee BI 3 said that during the 1980s he and his wife tried to maintain a macrobiotic diet at some point. After being asked if they had become more conscious about what they eat, interviewees SF 1 added:

‘[Wife] Well, we know what things are and we are not afraid of food, but I would not cook whatever or use a lot of butter. [...] I was always interested in that, so I would say we were conscious about that the whole time. [Husband] So, we know when we eat unhealthy food. ... [laughs] ...’

This was different for interviewee SI 3. She stated:

‘I would say the biggest difference between nowadays and before is that people think about what they eat. Before, people ate to get full, but didn’t think about what they ate. If you got full, it was good. I weighed more back then; I weighed 80 kg. Now I weigh 60.’

Interviewee SI 2 and SF 2, on the other hand, added that they always have had the habit of eating a lot of vegetables. The following extract comes from the interview with SI 2:

‘We always paid attention to adding vegetables to meals. For example […] we had meatballs with brown beans. […] We have always tried to eat a lot of vegetables... boiled carrots and peas and so on.’

IV.5 MEDIA AND LIFESTYLE

Symbolically, food also became more part of a lifestyle.363 Interest in food products and cooking surged. During the 1980s cooking started to be given more attention by the media. Magazines and television programmes about food and cooking started to appear.364 An increasing number of specialised cookbooks and magazines about food were published in

361 Segers, ‘Food recommendations’, 2005, 9-10. 362 Gezond eten om levenslang fit en energiek te zijn: caloriearme voeding door minder vet- en suikergebruik, KVLV (Katholiek Vormingswerk van Landelijke vrouwen), s.l.,1980; Gezond eten om levenslang fit en energiek te zijn: belang en gebruik van de voedingsvezel in een evenwichtige voeding, KVLV (Katholiek Vormingswerk van Landelijke Vrouwen), s.l., 1980; Gezond eten om levenslang fit en energiek te zijn: voedingsproblemen in de verschillende leeftijdsgroepen, KVLV (Katholiek Vormingswerk van Landelijke Vrouwen), s.l., 1980. 363 Burstedt et al., Mat, genealogi och gestaltning, 2006, 15. 364 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 20; Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,35. 65

Sweden and Belgium from the 1970s onwards.365 In the 1970s and 1980s health became a primary target of food industries, women’s magazines, cookbooks and advertisers.366 During the 1980s, for example, Mediterranean food was promoted since it contained a large proportion of vegetables and was usually prepared with olive oil.367 Swedish traditional food, or ‘husmanskost’, has been partly replaced by international alternatives, especially among the younger generations.368 Marketing also plays an important role. Commercials for food products are omnipresent nowadays. Both the food production and distribution networks invest money in marketing. While advertisements for certain brands line the streets, Swedish and Belgian citizens also receive advertisement brochures from supermarket chains in their postal boxes.369 Advertising has become an enormous business. As an illustration: for every US dollar the World Health Organisation spends on improving the nutritional status of the world population, 500 US dollars is spent by the food industry on promotion.370

IV.6 CONSUMER ETHICS

Ethics can also influence consumer behaviour when it comes to food. Brulin states that two categories of criteria exist for choosing a certain food product: the quality of the product and the quality of the production. The former refers to the taste, consistency, appearance and ingredients of a certain product while the latter entails concerns about the way animals are reared, the environmental implications of the production, food safety and other ethical questions.371 Vegetarians or vegans often abstain from eating meat, fish and even other animal products because of concerns for the wellbeing of animals. Contrary to what one might think, vegetarianism and veganism in Western Europe is relatively old. As early as 1847 a Vegetarian Society was formed in Britain while its vegan counterpart was founded in 1944 in London.372 The vegetarian movement quickly spread to the United States and the European main land.373 In Sweden however, the initial reason to turn vegetarian after World War II seems to have been because of health concerns. As a consequence, as Bringéus mentions, moral indignation about animal wellbeing seems to have played only a secondary role.374 It was only during the 1970s that a stress on animal wellbeing and rights became visible. During this decade veganism also became more common.375 During the 1980s, when cooking and food became more visible in the media, vegetarian cooking also received attention in Sweden.376

365 Olrog Hedvall, Y., ‘Mat och kultur under tre sekler. Utställning I Kungl. Skogs- och Lantbruksakademiens bibliotek’, Kunglig skogs- och lantbruksakademiens tidskrift, 125 (2006), no. 6, 333; Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,35; Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 160; Raymaekers, België feest, 2005, 234. 366 Gavrilova, R., ‘Changing tastes. The role of scientific and medical discoveries in changing the modern diet’ in Land, shops and kitchens. Technology and the food chain in twentieth-century Europe (Comparative rural history of the North Sea area 7), C. Sarasúa, P. Scholliers & L. Vanmolle (eds.), Turnhout, 2005, 179. 367 Nilson, ‘Konsumenten under tre decennier’, 2000, 83. 368 Jansson, ‘Mental borders on the European open market?’, 1999, 128. 369 Elg et al., Matens metamorfos, 1987,34. 370 Mat och hälsa, 2007, 22. 371 Brulin, G., Billig mat, 2006, 36. 372 Brenda Davis, R.D. & Vesanto Melina, M.S., Becoming vegan. The complete guide to adopting a healthy plant-based diet, Summertown, 2000, 1-11. 373 Gavrilova, ‘Changing tastes’, 2005, 177. 374 Bringéus, N.-A., Mat och måltid, Stockholm, 1988, 41. 375 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbruketshistoria, 2003, 337-340. 376 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 21. 66

Flygare and Isacson note that between three and six percent of the Swedish population are vegetarians.377 However, the authors caution that these numbers are only a rough estimate. Corresponding figures for Belgium lack, unfortunately. Environmental considerations are another reason to abstain from animal products. These include concerns about the increase in world population. It is not possible to produce the amounts of food necessary to provide every inhabitant with a western diet with its large consumption of meat and dairy products.378 Fair trade is another choice consumers can make that is related to ethics. Fair trade, as described by Barrientos and Dola, ‘refers to the broad concept of more equitable trading relations for producers and workers, as used by the fair trade movement’.379 Fair trade organisations originate in the humanitarian activities of religious communities and development agencies during the 1950s. It should be noted that there is a difference when the term is written as one word, ‘fairtrade’, as this refers to the specific labelling system controlled by the FLO or Fairtrade Labelling Organisation International. Fairtrade labelling organisations first appeared during the late 1980s. The FLO was created in 1997 in order to harmonize the standards and activities of labelling organisations.380 Nowadays more than a thousand fairtrade products can be purchased in Sweden. However, the market share is small. For example, fairtrade bananas account only for four percent of sales while in Finland and Switzerland the proportions are 17 and 58 percent respectively.381 It is estimated that in 2004 about 50 million Swedish kronor were spent on fairtrade products while this had increased to 870 million in 2009. Even though these figures include the sales of products other than food, such as roses and cotton, a clear increase can be noticed in the sales of fairtrade food products. Moreover, 82 percent of all fairtrade products are also ecologically produced.382 In Belgium about 1300 fairtrade products are currently on the market. Between 2008 and 2009 the sale of fairtrade products increased by 28 percent. Fairtrade bananas, coffee and cane sugar now have a market share of respectively 26, 19 and 15 percent.383 The most important fair trade organization in Belgium is Max Havelaar. The Belgian branch of the fairtrade organization which originated in 1988 in the Netherlands was established in 1991. Max Havelaar is member of the FLO labelling organization.384 Purchasing ecologically produced food commodities can also be considered as a decision in which ethics are involved. In 2000 about 3200 KRAV labelled products were available in Swedish stores.385 In 2005 there were 3427 products with the Biogarantie ® label on the Belgian market.386 In 2010 the sale of ecological products in Sweden increased by 11 percent of which, in total, 80 percent carry the KRAV label. In 2009, ecological products had a market share of about four percent whereas, as recently as 2005, that level was only just above two percent in Sweden.387

377 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbruketshistoria, 2003, 337. 378 Ibidem, 337. 379 Barrientos, S. & Dolan, C., ‘Transformation of global food: opportunities and challenges for fair and ethical trade’, Ethical sourcing in the global food system, S. Barrientos & C. Dolan (eds.), London, 2006, 6. 380 Barrientos & Dolan ‘Transformation of global food’, 2006, 6- 10. 381 Fairtrade-rapporten 2010, Fairtrade Sverige, 2010, 10; 15. 382 Försäljningsstatistik för 2009, Officiella siffror från Rättvisemärkt, 2010-03-19, Fairtrade Sverige, 2010, 1-2. 383 Activiteitenoverzicht 2009-2010 Max Havelaar België, Fairtrade Max Havelaar België, 2010, 1; 2; 14. 384 Hoe en wanneer is Max Havelaar ontstaan?, Max Havelaar België, http://www.maxhavelaar.be/nl, last accessed February 25, 2011. 385 Odevall, ‘I den svenska matkorgen’, 2000, 20; Rydén, Medvindens tid, 2003,34; Odevall, P.E., ’15 år med KRAV’, Tidernas mat. På svenska bord 1970-2000 (Nordiska museets – Allt om mat), 2000, 100-101. 386 Krosenbrink, E. & Govaerts, W., ‘Voorwaarden van de biologische teelt: normen afgeleid van idealen’ in Biologische landbouw: mens, markt en mogelijkheden, G. Van Huylenbroeck, L. De Cock, E. Krosenbrink, K. Mondelaerts, L. Lauwers, E. Kerselaers & W. Govaerts, Tielt, 2005, 36; 45-46. 387 KRAV marknadsrapport 2011, KRAV, 2011, 3; 12. 67

IV.7 SWEDISH FOOD IS SAFEST

When it comes to certain food products, Swedes prefer those that are produced in their own country. They believe that the regulations in Sweden are much stricter than those in the countries of import. For example, when the mad cow disease broke out in 1995, consumption of beef fell in the whole of Western Europe, except in Sweden. Interviewees BI 1 stated:

‘When the dioxin crisis happened, we did not eat chicken for a while. With BSE, we said we wouldn’t eat meat for a while, but if they don’t talk about it anymore, then you forget about that.’

This difference between countries can be explained by the introduction of the 1986 ban on cattle feed containing cadavers, which caused the disease, in Sweden.388 Consumers trust Swedish food production and consider the products to be both safe and of a high quality.389 Animal welfare in Sweden is also believed to be higher than in the rest of the European Union.390 Salmonella forms a good example. Within the EU about 30 percent of the chick flocks carry salmonella whereas in Sweden that percentage borders on zero.391 Even when it comes to milk, a clear preference for Swedish milk can be discerned. The introduction of Danish and German milk on the Swedish market caused uproar and the initiatives were unsuccessful. Imported cheeses or yoghurts on the other hand are not considered problematic at all.392 However, interviewees SF 1 did not think Swedish consumers are particularly fond of products produced in Sweden:

‘[Wife] A lot of people do care where food comes from, but a lot of other people don’t, they care only about the price of food. [Husband] It is actually steered by the media, because what you ... [directed at the interviewer] ... are thinking about is when Lidl was starting in Sweden, they would sell German milk and that was not possible at all. They had to buy their milk from Arla [the most important Swedish milk and dairy company]. Now I don’t think it would be a problem anymore, when the mass media are not focussing on it. [...] I’m sure German milk is sold now, but nobody is talking much about it.’

Nothing in the literature about Belgium suggests a similar degree of preference for domestically produced food as in Sweden. However, one study did point out that domestic products are deemed to taste good and have an attractive appearance. Consumers readily agreed to preferring domestic food as long as nothing else had to be sacrificed such as convenience or money.393

388 Flygare & Isacson, Det svenska jordbruketshistoria, 2003, 335. 389 Nilson, ‘Konsumenten under tre decennier’, 2000, 80; Lantbrukarnas riksförbund, Sveriges gröna näringar, 2009, 34; Mat och hälsa, 2007, 17; Burstedt et al., Mat, genealogi och gestaltning, 2006, 6; Jansson, ‘Mental borders on the European open market?’, 1999, 130; Bergström, H. & Sjöndin, K., Mat vad är det?, Göteborg, 2001, 35-59. 390 Lantbrukarnas riksförbund, Sveriges gröna näringar, 2009, 55. 391 Ibidem, 44. 392 Jönsson, H., ‘Svensk mjölk’, Mat, genealogi och gestaltning, A. Burstedt, C. Fredriksson & H. Jönsson (eds.), s.l., 2006, 71; 73. 393 Vandermersh, M., The role of preferences in the decision-making behaviour of food producers and consumers in Flanders, unpublished doctoral thesis KU Leuven, 2006, 126-127. 68

IV.8 MEAL PATTERNS

The daily meal pattern in Belgium nowadays consists of three meals, although the interviews showed that this had not always been the case. Interviewees BF 1 and BF 2 ate five meals when they were younger, mainly because of the long days on the farm. Interviewees BF 1 stated:

‘At that time we also had breakfast around 9.00 because we usually got up around 5.00 in the morning, so we had two breakfasts. [...] We usually ate bread with meat. At noon we ate a full hot meal. Every day we had soup and some potatoes, meat and vegetables. We, of course, did not have dessert but we did drink beer. Around 16.00 we again ate bread with cheese or meat and in the evening, around 21.00 or 22.00 we had fried potatoes, the leftovers from lunch, with meat or some eggs.’

The meals of interviewees BF 2 were very similar. Interviewees BI 1, BI 2 and BI 3, who all belonged to a non-farmer family stated that they usually ate four meals per day. The food they ate, however, did resemble that of the farmer’s families quite a lot. Interviewee BI 1 described what was usually eaten:

‘In the morning, around 7.00, we ate bread with powdered sugar or jam. We had a warm lunch and a cold evening meal, but it wasn’t precisely a bread meal yet. We had more often fried potatoes for dinner with a bit of salad and a bit of meat. We didn’t have a lot of cured meat back then. We only ate ham or minced meat, no salami. [...] Every day we ate fresh soup for lunch as well. Around 16.00 we ate bread with jam or powdered sugar, like breakfast. My mom used to bake her own bread back then. [...] For lunch we usually ate boiled potatoes with steak, sausage or pork chops. We ate a lot of meat then. On Friday the fish cart came and we ate fish every Friday. During Lent we ate fish on Wednesdays and on Fridays; or an egg... and fries once a week. [...] Every Thursday when we came home from school, mom made fries. We had already eaten with half of the family when the others [her younger brother and sisters] came back from school and my mom made fries again for them so they could eat them as well.’

Nowadays, however, the tradition of eating something around 16.00 has almost entirely disappeared.394 Having three meals a day is most common. Breakfast in Belgium is usually eaten between 7.30 and 10.00 and most often includes breakfast cereals with milk or sandwiches with spread such as hazelnut paste, cheese, meat or jam with a cup of coffee or a glass of juice. Lunch is usually eaten between 12.00 and 14.30 and can be either a hot meal or a cold meal consisting of bread with cheese, cured meat or other spreads. Bread is the central part of the cold meal in Belgium and is mostly bought in bakeries. Ready-cut bread sold in plastic bags in the supermarket is rarely bought in Belgium, in contrast to Sweden.395 The components of a standard hot meal nowadays are hard to determine since variety in food has increased considerably from the 1970s onwards as mentioned above. It can consist of meat or fish with potatoes and vegetables. However, pasta dishes or dishes with rice have also become common. Potatoes are eaten boiled, mashed, roasted or in the form of fries or croquettes. Just

394 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 56. 395 Ibidem, 33-35. 69 as lunch, dinner can be either a hot or cold meal. It is quite rare that two hot meals are consumed per day. Dinner is usually between 17.00 and 22.00.396 As in Belgium, the Swedish meal pattern did not always look the same as it does today. The description of the meal pattern of SI 2, for example, is quite different. Meals were eaten at different times: . ‘For breakfast the children got a bit of chocolate and me and my husband had a cup tea with some sandwiches. Later, they got a sort of early lunch which was called breakfast break around 11.00 during which they came home and got porridge and some potatoes with sausage or potatoes with herring. […] When they got home from school in the afternoon, we had dinner around 16.30 or around 17.00 at the latest. […] Dinner was meat or fish and soup. We also had desert, different chocolate puddings or other things. […] When we grew older, we had quite a lot of fruit for desert: [...] oranges and apples during the fall and winter and so on. […] Then they also had something after dinner, it was not a real established meal, but it was some chocolate or some sandwiches because sometimes they had to go out during the evenings as well. […] They usually drank milk with their meals, during weekdays at least. […] We always put bread and butter on the table for every meal as well. […] When we grew older our meal pattern changed. […] During the 1980s however, we changed to having lunch around 12.00 and afternoon coffee at 15.00 with some self baked pastry. I always had homemade buns in the freezer. […] I also changed to eating filmjölk and cereal or tea with sandwiches for breakfast, it became a more steady meal. Dinner was also lighter, maybe some leftovers or porridge with sandwiches. […] Lunch became the main meal: boiled potatoes and boiled vegetables.’

Swedish interviewees SI 1 and SI 3, on the other hand, ate porridge or sandwiches around 7.00. Lunch was eaten between 12.00 and 13.00 and consisted mostly of sandwiches, a boiled egg or some soup. In the afternoons they had a coffee with a bun, while dinner was the hot meal of the day and was usually eaten around 19.00. As in Belgium, the Swedish farmers’ families ate more meals than the other interviewees. Their meal patterns were quite alike, although interviewee SF 2 stated that it had not changed much. Interviewees SF 1 provided a good description of how their meal pattern changed over time:

‘[Wife] When I met my husband, they had different meal pattern let’s say compared to my parents. You drank coffee when you got up in the morning, with some cake and then you went out and milked. Then, around 7.30 you had breakfast: porridge or fermented milk or sandwiches with coffee. Around 10.00 there was coffee with pastry and at 12.00 it was lunchtime, right? [Husband] Well, maybe more around 13.00. [Wife] Around 15.00, there was the afternoon coffee break. [Husband] That was before we had to milk... [Wife] ... and then you went out to milk and you had dinner when you came back and you also drank coffee in the evening. [Husband] Yes, a lot of coffee. [Wife] And then the children, they often got cookies around 10.00 with juice but then they were not hungry anymore for lunch. So we took away the coffee break in the morning and little by little the coffee break in the afternoon disappeared as well; we drank coffee after lunch instead. Dinner is also eaten later in the evening now because you ... [addressing her husband] ... come in later and we don’t have any coffee in the evening anymore either. [...] Breakfast has stayed the same though. What we eat

396 Ibidem, 39; 99-122. 70

is filmjölk and muesli. And then, lunch. If we’re home, we eat lunch around 12.00. I am almost always at my job, but there are leftovers for my husband of the dinner we had the day before. [...] We eat dinner [...] maybe around 19.00. Both lunch and dinner are cooked meals.’

Some parallels can be drawn between both countries. The farmer’s families in both countries ate more meals than the regular families and their meals were specifically adapted to the work rhythm on the farm. Most of the interviewees, except for interviewees SI 1, stated that their eating pattern had changed over time. Nowadays it is most common to have three meals a day in both countries: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Coffee breaks and afternoon snacks happen occasionally but do not form an established meal anymore. One of the most significant differences between both countries is that Swedes nowadays usually eat two hot meals a day. Leftovers from the day before are most commonly reheated for lunch, while in Belgium either lunch or dinner is a meal based on bread.

V Summary

The agricultural policies of Sweden and Belgium were quite similar immediately after the war. The focus was on production increase, rationalisation, efficiency, specialisation, intensification and the guaranteeing of sufficient income levels for farmers. However, since Belgium was one of the founding member-states of what would become the EU, the internationalisation of the market happened more quickly than in Sweden and the Belgian policy had to be adapted to the Common Agricultural Policy. As a consequence, the policies of both countries diverged. Sweden, for example, only introduced agricultural subsidies in 1973, while in Belgium they had been introduced during the 1950s but were already abolished in 1968 due to the CAP. In both countries, however, farmers’ protests occurred, mainly against the rationalisation and specialisation that were imposed from above and that threatened the existence of the farmers. Both countries also faced problems of overproduction. The entry of Sweden in the EU in 1995 made both national policies converge once again. Agricultural productivity increased significantly in both countries due to the increased mechanisation and the increase in the use of artificial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and careful plant and breed selection. Pesticides and herbicides started to be used on a larger scale a little later in Belgium than in Sweden. In Belgium depopulation of the countryside did not occur to the same extent as in Sweden due to the much higher population density in Belgium. However, in both countries the number of people employed within agriculture and the total agricultural acreage has decreased. The higher population density and relative ‘scarcity’ of land in Belgium is also the explanation for the considerably bigger manure problems in Belgium. The use of hormones was also a bigger issue in Belgium than in Sweden which can be explained by the difference in strictness of regulations. In Sweden for example, a ban on the use of animal cadavers in fodder was already introduced in 1983, while this was not the case in Belgium. Therefore, Belgian consumers lost their trust in beef much more than Swedish consumers after the outbreak of BSE in 1996. Concern about the environment and food quality rose in both countries during the 1960s and especially during the 1970s. Ecological agriculture was inspired by these concerns but was initiated a little earlier in Belgium than in Sweden. In Belgium it already appeared during the 1960s, while in Sweden the most important ecological farming associations saw the light during the 1980s. When it comes to food processing, both countries had a similar pace of development although frozen food was introduced earlier on the Swedish than on the Belgian market.

Product development and marketing became increasingly important in both countries after the War. Disposable packaging such as Tetra pack appeared during the early 1950s, as did convenience foods. Foreign cuisines became more influential during the 1970s which can be connected with the increase in mass tourism and immigration in both countries. These developments also had a distinct impact on product development. The food distribution system underwent significant changes as well. One specific trait of the Belgian food distribution system is the Dutch auction system. Supermarkets were introduced around the mid 1950s in both countries, which caused a decline in the number of small stores. The frequency with which families buy food supplies has diminished as well. The improvement in logistics in both countries has led to an increase in the consumption of exotic foods. Similar factors that influence food consumption were distinguished in both countries, although there are some chronological differences. Incomes increased in both countries and what was once luxury food was bought more often. Women also increasingly became available on the labour market, although this development seems to have occurred faster in Sweden than in Belgium. The introduction of new kitchen appliances was an influential factor as well. Fridges and freezers, for example, became available during the 1940s in both countries but were only purchased on a larger scale during the 1950s and 1960s. Food price fluctuation, however, were more substantial in Sweden, which led to several demonstrations. The Skärholm protest of 1972, for example, does not have a Belgian counterpart of similar magnitude. Another difference between both countries is that official food recommendations were published much earlier on in Sweden than in Belgium, although cholesterol became increasingly known in both countries during the 1960s. Health concerns became more prevalent during the 1980s, which was also the period during which the KRAV and Biogarantie ® label for ecological products were introduced. The first ‘fair trade’ initiatives, equally inspired by consumer ethics, were organised during the 1950s. It can be concluded that there are similarities and differences between the two countries when considering food production, processing, distribution and consumption. The time perspectives can differ between both countries; sometimes a trend is first manifest in Belgium, sometimes in Sweden. Since the chronological information that is presented in this chapter is quite extensive, a timeline has been included in order to provide a visual overview. On the left, the abbreviations can be found for the different domains for which keywords are provided above or beneath the timeline. AP stands for Agricultural Policy, A for Agriculture, P for Processing, D for Distribution and C for Consumption. When no specific date is provided, then the spatial beginning of the keyword corresponds with the approximate date on the timeline. In Belgium, for example, the upgrading of the supermarkets took place from 1975 onwards. Therefore, the keyword ‘Upgrading of supermarkets’ is positioned immediately above the year 1975.

BELGIUM

AP World War II (’40-45) ’48 OECD Production increase, intensification, rationalisation and specialisation ’68 Mansholt Plan ‘44 Benelux Agricultural subsidies ’58 Treaty of Rome: EEC ’60 CAP ’68 Common market A Artificial fertilisers Pesticides and herbicides Overproduction Mechanisation Ecological agriculture ’68 Subsidies abolished P Product development Convenience foods ’53 Diet products and disposable milk package Frozen food D Dutch auction ’57 Supermarket Improving logistics C Food rationing and scarcity Fair trade Kitchen appliances Women on labour market Mass tourism ’48 Food rationing abolished Cholesterol and freezers

1940 1950 1960

1945 1955 1965

SWEDEN

AP Production increase and rationalisation ’67 Efficiency and specialisation A Depopulation Mechanisation Artificial fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides Farmer protests P Frozen food Product development ’51 Tetra pack Convenience foods Pizza ’69 Skimmed milk and Bregott D Supermarket Hypermarkets and improved logistics C Fridge ’47 Freezer Women on labour market High food prices Mass tourism Food rationing Fair trade Cholesterol and food recommendations

BELGIUM AP ’71 Protest Brussels ’79 Second oil crisis ’92 Mc Sharry reform ’96 BSE ’99 Euro ’73 First oil crisis ’74 VELT ’84 CAP reform: quality and variety ‘95 Mestactieplan ’99 Agenda 2000 A Environmental and food quality concerns and pesticide control IT ‘99 Dioxin crisis Antibiotics and hormonesin animal fodder Contestation hormone use ’95 Murder Van Noppen P Foreign culinary influences D Upgrading of supermarkets C Foreign influences ’78 McDonald’s Microwave ovens ’91 Max Havelaar ’97 FLO Animal welfare Health concerns ’88 Biogarantie ® label ’97 Official food recommendations

1970 1980 1990 2000

1975 1985 1995

SWEDEN AP ’72 Skärholm protest Farmer protests Overproduction ’90 Deregulation ’96 BSE ’99 Agenda 2000 ’73 Agricultural subsidies ’83 Subsidies abolished ’95 Entry in EU A Environmental and food quality concerns ’85 ARF &KRAV IT Increasing pesticide regulations ’86 Ban on use of animal cadavres in animal fodder P Foreign culinary influences Semi-skimmed milk D Increasing product assortment C ’73 McDonald’s Health concerns Rise in the sale of imported fruits Foreign influences and microwave ovens Increasing food prices

Chapter three

Quantitative changes in food consumption

Now that the historical background against which the changes in food consumption have occurred has been discussed in the previous chapter, it is time to focus on the quantitative changes. Two sets of data-series have been selected, one for each country. The data-series used in this chapter stem from two publications. Data on Swedish food consumption are based on the 2009 statistics report by Jordbruksverket or the Swedish Board of Agriculture entitled Livsmedelskonsumtionen 1960-2006 (Food consumption 1960-2006).397 The Belgian data are based on the conference paper Evolution de la consommation alimentaire en Belgique et en Région wallonne (Evolution of the alimentary consumption in Belgium and in the Walloon region) by Brigitte Duquesne, Sadrac Matendo and Philippe Lebailly, published in 2006.398 This publication covers the period between 1955 and 2004. After a short discussion about the statistics, their calculation methods and their shortcomings, the quantitative data will be discussed. The data will be treated according to separate food groups. First of all, animal products will be discussed in different categories: milk and dairy products, meat, fish and eggs. Thereafter, the consumption of fruit and vegetables, potatoes, cereals, sugar, margarine, chocolate and ice cream will be discussed.

I Statistics

I.1 DIRECT AND TOTAL FOOD CONSUMPTION

The distinction between data on total food consumption and direct food consumption is relevant for this chapter. The publication about Belgium does not mention the difference between total and direct consumption, although it will be shown below that the calculation method resembles the one for total consumption. Direct consumption includes the total domestic consumption and the total amount of food delivered to the households and catering services by the producers. The consumption of home-produced food products by farmers and the amounts of food bought by consumers directly from the farm are also included. It has to be noted that the home-production of food (by non-farmers) is not taken into account. On the whole, the direct consumption shows more detail of the way the food is consumed. The direct consumption data, for example, specify the amount of pasta and bread that is annually consumed while the total consumption data would only include the amount of flour used to produce these products. The calculation methods for the direct consumption in Sweden differ between the different food products. The majority, however, is calculated by taking the domestic production, adding the import and subtracting

397 Jordbruksverket, Livsmedelskonsumtionen, 2009. 398 Duquesne, B., Matendo, S. & Lebailly, P., Evolution de la consommation alimentaire en Belgique et en Région wallonne, Conference paper ‘Des aliments sains et naturels dans l’assiette des jeunes, une utopie’, Gembloux, May 17, 2006. 75 the export and estimated waste losses. Waste within the household is not taken into consideration.399 Therefore, this unavoidably leads to an overestimation of the consumed amounts.400 Total food consumption includes all primary materials necessary to produce the total consumption of food. It thus contains the direct consumption of different foods purchased in raw material form and the raw materials, and semi-processed products, used by the food industry to produce food products that are processed to a higher degree. The amount of raw material in exported and imported processed food products is also taken into account. For example, the amount of flour used in imported bread or pasta is included. The total consumption in Sweden of flour, meat, sugar and eggs is calculated by taking the domestic production, adding imports and subtracting exports. The rest of the total consumption figures are calculated by adding the components of the direct consumption. One of the differences between the direct consumption and the total consumption is that waste losses are not taken into account for the latter.401

I.2 CALCULATION METHOD

The calculations of Jordbruksverket are mainly based on the consumer price index (Konsumentprisindex), the Household Expenditure Surveys by Statistics Sweden (Statistiska Centralbyråns urvalsundersökningen hushållens utgifter) and the National Accounts (Nationalräkenskaperna). The Household Expenditure Surveys include about 4.000 households and have been done since 1958. The National Accounts include data on household expenditure from 1993 onwards.402 Compared to Sweden, statistical information on food consumption in Belgium is quite scarce. No official government body has data-series for food consumption for the latter part of the 20th century. The publication by Duquesne et al. is the only one available offering a historical overview of food consumption during the latter half of the twentieth century. The calculations are based on the supply balances of agricultural products of EUROSTAT and on the Household Expenditure Surveys (Huishoudbudget or Budget de Ménages) of the National Institute for Statistics (Nationaal Instituut voor Statistiek or Institut National de Statistique). EUROSTAT provides data about the domestic production of agricultural products and import and export figures. Thus the average consumption per person per year can be calculated. This method of calculation resembles the calculation method used for the total consumption calculations in Sweden. However, no distinction is made between direct and total consumption in this article. The National Institute for Statistics surveys 300 families each month for the Household Expenditure Surveys. Compared to Sweden, this surveying has only started very recently: in 1999.403

399 Jordbruksverket, Livsmedelskonsumtionen, 2009, 74; Personal communication with Monica Eidstedt at jordbruksverket, March 21, 2011. 400 Kearney, J., ‘Food consumption trends and drivers’, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society, 365 (2010), 2793-2807. 401 Jordbruksverket, Livsmedelskonsumtionen, 2009, 74. 402 Jordbruksverket, Livsmedelskonsumtionen, 2009, 74-75. 403 Duquesne et al., Evolution de la consommation alimentaire en Belgique, 2006, 2. 76

I.3 STATISTICAL LIMITATIONS

The statistical material on Swedish food consumption is much more extensive than for Belgium. Therefore, not all Swedish data will be used; data will be selected in order to match the Belgian data as well as possible in order to facilitate the comparison. However, some extra information will be mentioned about Sweden when it can be related to the developments that are discussed in the previous chapter. Another imbalance is that the publication by Jordbruksverket includes a comparison with statistics from other sources in order to check the validity of their own statistics, which is not the case for the Belgian publication. Therefore, wherever possible, other figures mentioned in the literature about Belgian food consumption will be mentioned. In general, statistics always have certain limitations. This is no different for statistics about food consumption. They do not show exactly what people eat or how the consumption of food differs between individuals, households or regions. What happens after the food has been bought is also not taken into account. The methods of calculation have, in the case of Sweden, also changed over time which has made comparisons between different periods of time not entirely accurate. It is not mentioned by the authors whether the same problem was encountered while compiling the Belgian data. The accuracy of statistics also differs between different categories of food. In Sweden for example, the data for fish, potatoes, vegetables and fruits have a bigger error margin than those for milk products.404 Another limitation is that home-produced food products are not taken into account, as mentioned above.405 This inevitably leads to a considerable measure of distortion when comparing the data with ‘reality’. That said, it is argued that these data provide the best available basis for comparison. When it comes to comparing the data from both countries, difficulties also arise. As mentioned above, Swedish data distinguish between direct and total consumption while Belgian data are calculated according to the total consumption method. However, comparing only the data on total food consumption of both countries would lead to an incomplete comparison since data on the total consumption of fruit, vegetables, cheese and potato products were not included in the Swedish report. On the other hand, only the total consumption data for yoghurt, several categories of meat, butter and cream are available in the Swedish report. Therefore, both the data on total and direct consumption will be used and compared in order to provide as complete a picture as possible. The abbreviations DC and TC stand for direct consumption and total consumption, respectively, and will be used in what follows. When making comparisons between these countries, an attempt will be made to use the Swedish data on total consumption as much as possible in order to match the Belgian data that have been calculated with approximately the same method as the Swedish total consumption data. Since there are no data-series for the consumption of fish, margarine, chocolate and ice cream in Belgium, these categories will only be discussed for Sweden. Some information about Belgium from other sources will, however, be mentioned in order to have some point of reference.

404 Livsmedelsverket, Mat och hälsa, 2007, 37-38. 405 Jordbruksverket, Livsmedelskonsumtionen, 2009, 7. 77

II Quantitative analysis

II.1 GENERAL OVERVIEW

Evolution of food consumption in Belgium (kg/person/year)

160

140 Meat 120 Cereals

100 Potatoes Vegetables

Kg 80 Fruits

60 Milk White sugar 40 Dairy products 20

1969 1987 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 Year Graph 1 Evolution of the food consumption in Belgium

On the graph above (Graph 1), one can see how the main food categories have evolved between 1955 and 2004 in Belgium. During the first two decennia of the period under consideration, some distinct changes occurred. The consumption of milk, cereals and potatoes decreased while the consumption of meat increased. Boone et al. stated that most Belgians had a bread-and-meat menu before 1950. After 1950 the meat menu gained the upper hand, only to be replaced by a varied menu after 1975.406 As one can see on the graph, meat consumption increased quickly until 1975 after which meat consumption stabilised which accords with the findings of Boone et al. Cereal consumption remained quite stable after 1975 while the potato consumption continued to decline. The consumption of fruits and vegetables on the contrary remained quite stable until the beginning of the 1980s but was augmented quite quickly afterwards. The consumption of dairy products increased steeply from the end of the 1960s onwards. Sugar consumption has increased considerably as well.

406 Boone, M., Gaus, D., Scholliers, P. & Vandenbroecke, C., Dagelijks leven. Sociaal-culturele omstandigheden vroeger en nu, Deurne, 1982, 86; Scholliers, ‘Novelty and tradition’, 2007, 256. 78

Evolution of the total food consumption in Sweden (kg /person/year) 100 90 Meat (TC)

80 Cereals (TC) 70 Potato (DC) 60 Vegetables

Kg 50 (DC) 40 Fruits (DC)

30 Sugar (TC) 20 Dairy products 10

1984 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 Year Graph 2 Evolution of the food consumption in Sweden

The graph above (Graph 2) shows a general overview of the evolution of the food consumption in Sweden. The data for the dairy consumption consist of both direct and total consumption data: for butter, cream, yoghurt and other sour products total consumption data were used, while for cheese, direct consumption data were used. The data for milk have been excluded from this graph since the quantities were much larger than for other categories which posed a scaling problem. However, as will be discussed below, milk consumption in Sweden declined rapidly from the 1980s onwards. As in Belgium, the Swedish consumption of dairy products, vegetables and meat has increased significantly during the period under examination. Contrary to Belgium, the quickest increase in meat consumption occurred during the 1990s. The consumption of vegetables increased steeply but steadily throughout the whole period. The consumption of cereals, after having known a small decrease, has increased again from the middle of the 1970s onwards. The average fruit consumption also increased and knew a period of growth in the beginning of the 1960s and the beginning of the 21st century. The consumption of potatoes however, has declined over time, especially up to 1975. The consumption of sugar has remained quite stable during the whole period under examination.

II.2 MILK CONSUMPTION

II.2.1 MILK CONSUMPTION IN BELGIUM

Milk consumption in Belgium (kg/person/year)

115 105

95 Kg 85 75

1965 1975 1985 1995 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1967 1969 1971 1973 1977 1979 1981 1983 1987 1989 1991 1993 1997 1999 2001 2003 Year Graph 3 Milk consumption in Belgium

First of all, it needs to be observed that the data for milk consumption in Belgium, presented in the graph above (Graph 3) are an aggregation of numbers for the consumption of full-cream milk, skimmed milk, condensed milk, milk drinks, full-cream, semi-skimmed and skimmed milk powder. One can notice a significant decline of milk consumption during the period under examination. After reaching a peak in 1961 of 115 kg of milk per person per year, the figure dropped rapidly until 1975, when the yearly consumption was 82 kg. The figure continued to decline, although not that steeply, to about 70 kg per year in 2003. These figures were both confirmed and not confirmed in other publications. One publication about Belgian milk consumption in 1968 mentions that the average milk consumption in that year was about 30 litres higher.407 The numbers in other publications focussing on the food consumption in 1987, 1988 and 1991 accord with the quantities shown on the graph (Graph 3).408 The 1968 survey showed that one third of the interviewees used milk with coffee, one fourth as an integral drink, one fifth for desserts and one tenth for porridge. Porridge was especially popular on the countryside, in lower income classes and large families.409 All Belgian interviewees older than 70 stated that they ate a lot of porridge; they had it most often for dinner. The Swedish interviewees, however, stated that they often had porridge for breakfast.

407 Ackerman & Dumeez, De konsumptie van melk, 1968, 103. 408 De Proff, J. & Van Overbeke, R., Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1987 (L.E.I. verbruikerspanel no. 392), Brussel, 1988, 8; De Proff, J. & Van Overbeke, R., Gezinsaankopen van voedingsproducten in 1988 (L.E.I. verbruikerspanel no. 503), Brussel, 1989, 8; Lenders, S. & De Proff, J., Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1991 (L.E.I. verbruikerspanel no. 541), Brussel, 1991, 8. 409 Ackerman & Dumeez, De konsumptie van melk, 1968, 85. 80

Details of milk consumption in Belgium (kg/person/year)

120 100 Whole milk 80

Kg 60 Skimmed 40 milk 20

1977 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 Year

Graph 4 Details of milk consumption in Belgium

The graph above (Graph 4) shows in more detail how the consumption of different categories of milk has changed. The data for condensed milk, milk drinks, full-cream and semi-skimmed milk powder and skimmed milk powder have not been included in this graph. Unfortunately, no distinction has been made between semi-skimmed milk and skimmed milk. However, Niesten et al. state that between 1975 and 1985 the consumption of semi-skimmed milk tripled while the sales of whole milk declined.410 The consumption of skimmed milk has only marginally changed over time while the consumption of whole milk has declined considerably from about 100 kg during the beginning of the period under examination to about 50 kg in 2003. These figures are largely confirmed in a publication about Belgian food consumption except for the beginning of the 21st century. In that publication it is mentioned that the milk consumption in Belgium did not sink below 60 litres per person per year.411

II.2.2 MILK CONSUMPTION IN SWEDEN

Milk consumption in Sweden (kg/person/year)

190 170

150 Kg 130 Milk (DC) 110 Milk (TC)

1988 2006 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 Year Graph 5 Milk consumption in Sweden

410 Niesten et al., Vrijwaar u van namaaksels, 2002, 83. 411 Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 66. 81

The data for total and direct consumption of milk are combined in Graph 5 in order to show the difference between these categories. Both show a very similar development. The milk consumption increased a little during the beginning of the period under examination to about 165 kg in the late 1970s, only to decrease quite rapidly thereafter to about 115 kg in the beginning of the 21st century. This rapid decrease can be explained by the fact that milk, which was the traditional Swedish drink accompanying every meal was substituted by other drinks.412 Several Swedish interviewees mentioned they did no longer drink milk with their meals. The data for milk consumption in another publication are reported as higher during the 1980s than the graph above shows. According to that publication, about 189 litres of milk were consumed per year in 1980 while by 1986 this had declined to 166 litres per person per year.413

Details of milk consumption in Sweden (litres/person/year)

140 Farm milk 120 100 Skimmed milk 80

Litres 60 Semi-skimmed 40 milk 20

0 Whole milk

1990 1994 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1992 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 Year Graph 6 Details of milk consumption in Sweden

The graph above (Graph 6) clearly shows that some changes have occurred for the direct consumption of the different categories of milk. The direct sale of milk from the farm and the home-consumption of milk (farm milk on the graph) has disappeared almost completely while in 1960 the amount was still about 40 litres per person per year. The consumption of skimmed milk (less than 1 percent fat) increased quite significantly during the 1970s. Its consumption reached a peak in 1978 with about 60 litres per year, but declined slowly afterwards and seemed to have stabilised around 20 litres during the beginning of the 21st century. The decline in the consumption of whole milk (more than 2 percent fat) has also been considerable; especially from the moment that semi-skimmed milk became available at the beginning of the 1980s. The consumption of whole milk declined from about 100 litres in 1983 to only 45 litres in 1993, while the consumption of semi-skimmed milk increased from about one litre to 41 litres within the same period of time. The consumption of whole milk has continued to decline afterwards, but more moderately, and the consumption of semi-skimmed milk stabilised around 50 litres per person per year.

412 Carlsson-Kanyama & Lindén, ‘Trends in food production and consumption’, 2001, 294. 413 Karlsson, A., ‘Konsumtion av livsmedel m.m.’, Jordbruksekonomiska meddelanden, 51 (1989), 259. 82

II.2.3 COMPARISON OF MILK CONSUMPTION

Milk consumption in Sweden and Belgium (kg/person/year)

180 160 Milk 140 Belgium 120 100 Milk Kg 80 Sweden 60 40 20

1965 1979 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005

Year Graph 7 Milk consumption in Sweden and Belgium

The graph above (Graph 7) clearly shows that the average Swede drinks considerably more milk than the average Belgian. The Swedish data on total milk consumption were converted to kg in order to make the comparison more accurate.414 Around the middle of the 1970s, when milk consumption in Sweden reached its peak, the difference was at its greatest. Swedes drank about 165 kg per year while in Belgium only half of that amount was consumed per person. In 2004 however, the difference between both quantities had diminished to about 40 kg, the Swedes drank about 110 kg while the Belgians drank 70 kg of milk per year. Milk consumption in Sweden decreased steadily after the middle of the 1970s, while in Belgium the peak in milk consumption was already reached around 1960. Belgian milk consumption stabilised during the late 1970s and 1980s and only slightly decreased in the 1990s

414 One litre of milk equals 1,03 kg of milk. 83

II.3 CONSUMPTION OF DAIRY PRODUCTS

II.3.1 CONSUMPTION OF DAIRY PRODUCTS IN BELGIUM

Consumption of dairy products in Belgium (kg/person/year)

25 Yoghurt 20 Cream

15 Butter Kg 10 Cheese

5 Other fresh products

1963 1969 1955 1957 1959 1961 1965 1967 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 Year Graph 8 Consumption of dairy products in Belgium

It can be clearly discerned on the graph above (Graph 8) that the consumption of all dairy products has increased except for butter. Around 1955, the average consumption of butter was about ten kg but that figure had decreased by half by 2004. These figures for butter consumption are confirmed in one publication about Belgian food consumption, but are reported to be about two kg lower in other publications.415 Especially during the 1990s, butter consumption decreased rapidly. The increase in the consumption of cheese and yoghurt has been steep. Around 1955, Belgian inhabitants ate about five kg of cheese while in 2004 that amount had increased fourfold. Yoghurt consumption steadily increased from about one kg in 1955 to about five kg in the 1970s. During the 1980s and 1990s, consumption of yoghurt increased quite steeply to about 15 kg around 2000. The consumption of cream and other fresh dairy products increased rather gradually to about 7,5 kg in each country at the beginning of the 21st century. It was not specified which products were included in the category ‘other fresh products’. Nevertheless, this category was deemed relevant to be included, since these products also are diary products.

415 Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 91; De Proff & Van Overbeke, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1987, 1988, 8; De Proff & Van Overbeke, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1988, 1989, 8; Lender & De Proff, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1991, 1991, 8. 84

II.3.2 CONSUMPTION OF DAIRY PRODUCTS IN SWEDEN

Consumption of dairy products in Sweden (kg or litres/person/year) Cheese DC 35 (kg) 30

25 Cream TC (kg)

15 Butter TC (kg) Kg or litres Kg 10

5 Yoghurt and other sour 0 products TC

(litres)

1988 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006

Year Graph 9 Consumption of dairy products in Sweden

The data for butter, cream and yoghurt and other sour products, presented in Graph 9, are total consumption figures. The data for cheese, however, are the figures for the direct consumption. This is due to the fact that the figures for the direct consumption of butter and cream are not available and the direct consumption data for yoghurt and other sour products are incomplete. However, after comparing the available data for direct and total consumption of yoghurt and other sour products, it can be concluded that there are no big differences for these categories, the figures almost completely match. As in Belgium the consumption of butter has decreased significantly during the period under consideration. In 1960 Swedes used on average ten kg while in 2006 this figure had declined to about two kg. The consumption of yoghurt and other sour products has increased the most of all dairy products; from about 14 litres in 1970 to 33 litres in 2006. The consumption of cheese more than doubled. In 1960 seven kg of cheese were consumed compared to 18 kg in 2006. The increase in the consumption of cream has been more moderate from about six kg in 1960 to ten kg in 2006. The figures for cream and cheese are confirmed in another publication, while those for butter are reported to be about 3,5 kg higher in 1990: about six kg compared to the 2,4 kg on the graph above.416

416 Becker, W. & Enghardt, H., ‘Utvecklingen av livsmedelskonsumtionen i Norden 1965-1990. En jämförelse baserad på per capita statistiken’, Scandinavian Journal of Nutrition, 37 (1993), 120-122. 85

II.3.3 COMPARISON OF CONSUMPTION OF DAIRY PRODUCTS

Consumption of dairy products in Sweden and Belgium (kg/person/year)

70 Dairy 60 products 50 Sweden 40 Kg 30 Dairy products 20 Belgium 10

1957 1983 1955 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 Year Graph 10 Consumption of dairy products in Sweden and Belgium

The figures for dairy products were aggregated for the purpose of this graph (Graph 10). In both countries there has been a steady increase in the consumption of dairy products. The Swedes are bigger consumers than the Belgians, although the difference between both is not that big. During the late 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, the difference was at its highest point. In those years, Swedes consumed about 15 kg more dairy products than Belgians. This was mostly due to the fact that the consumption of yoghurt and other sour products increased quickly during these years in Sweden. In Belgium, the increase in the consumption of yoghurt was highest during the 1990s. Swedes still consume more yoghurt than Belgians. In 2004, the figure was about 32 kg while in Belgium only about 15 kg was consumed. Cream is also used in larger quantities in Sweden than in Belgium. In 1960, an average Swede used about six kg of cream while in Belgium that number was about one kg. Over time, however, the difference between both figures declined to about 2,5 kg in 2004 (about 7,5 kg in Belgium and ten kg in Sweden). In Belgium, on the other hand, slightly more cheese is consumed than in Sweden. Butter consumption in both countries decreased considerably during the period under consideration.

II.4 MEAT

II.4.1 MEAT CONSUMPTION IN BELGIUM

Total meat consumption in Belgium (kg/person/year)

120

100

Kg 60

1983 1991 1999 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1985 1987 1989 1993 1995 1997 2001 2003 Year Graph 11 Total meat consumption in Belgium

Graph 11 shows that the total meat consumption in Belgium increased during the period under examination. As Goodman and Redclift state, Western Europe, including Belgium, was increasingly ‘climbing the protein ladder’. This refers to the increase in the indirect consumption of food and feed grains and oilseeds, or the increase in meat consumption.417 While around 1955 about 60 kg of meat were consumed, this figure increased rapidly during the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. From the early 1980s onwards, the amount of meat consumed hovered around 100 kg per person per year. Food crises, and health and weight concerns, have brought about the decline in the status of meat, according to Scholliers.418 The same author also suggests that after World War II, with the decrease in prices for ‘regular’ cuts of meat, the labouring class started to eat more meat while the richer strata of society have switched increasingly to other kinds of expensive food.419 The figures for meat consumption are largely confirmed in another publication about Belgian food consumption.420

417 Goodman & Redclift,‘Modernisation and the international food system’, 2005, 123. 418 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 104-105. 419 Scholliers, Arm en rijk aan tafel, 1993, 269-270. 420 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 45; 85; 177-178. 87

Meat consumption in Belgium (kg/person/year) 60

Beef

Kg 30 Pork 20 Poultry 10 Other meat

1967 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 Year

Graph 12 Meat consumption in Belgium

In particular, the consumption of pork and poultry has increased steeply as can be seen on Graph 12. Consumption of the former doubled between 1955 and 2004 from about 25 kg to 50 kg, while consumption of the latter increased from about three kg in 1955 to about 20 kg in the 1990s. These developments are mainly due to lower prices resulting from the commercialisation and rationalisation of the pork and poultry sector.421 The consumption of beef increased slowly during the late 1950s and 1960s but after reaching a peak of about 30 kg in 1975, consumption slowly declined to about 20 kg around 2000. Beef had, for decades, been less important than pork. It was mostly consumed in the cities since it cost more than pork.422 The data for beef and pork accord with the figures mentioned in one of the publications about Belgian food consumption.423 The consumption of other meat such as horse, goat, mutton, rabbit, game and edible offal did not change that much, it oscillated around ten kg per person per year and represents thus about ten percent of the total meat consumption. These numbers are also confirmed in another publication about Belgian food consumption.424

421 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 41. 422 Segers, Y., ‘Food recommendations, 2005, 11. 423 Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 13-14. 424 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 85. 88

Consumption of other meat in Belgium (kg/person/year) 9 8 Goat and 7 mutton 6 Horse 5

Kg Rabbit 4 and game 3 Edible 2 offal 1

1961 1983 1955 1957 1959 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 Year

Graph 13 Consumption of other meat in Belgium

Graph 13 shows that the consumption of horse meat declined from about four kg in the middle of the 1970s to one kg in 2004. The consumption of rabbit and game, and goat meat and mutton on the other hand increased. An average Belgian consumed about two kg of goat meat and mutton in 2004 while in 1955 this figure was about 0,5 kg. The figures for rabbit and game increased from about one kg in 1955 to about four kg in 2004. Game has become increasingly popular, mainly during the festivities at the end of the year.425 The consumption of edible offal varied quite a lot during the period under examination. It was highest during the 1970s, 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s when consumption was about seven to eight kg. The figures for horse meat and rabbit and game are confirmed in another publication about Belgian food consumption.426

425 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 44-45. 426 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 178. 89

II.4.2 MEAT CONSUMPTION IN SWEDEN

Total meat consumption in Sweden (kg/person/year) 100 80 60 Kg 40 20

1968 1994 1960 1962 1964 1966 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006

Year Graph 14 Total meat consumption in Sweden

Data for the total consumption of meat, presented in Graph 14, show that consumption has increased. In 1960, the average Swede consumed 51 kg of meat while in 2006 this figure had increased to 87 kg which is an increase of about 60 percent. The steepest increase can be seen from the late 1980s onwards while there was a small decrease in meat consumption during the beginning of the 1980s. These data are confirmed elsewhere.427

Meat consumption in Sweden (kg/person/year) 45 40 35 30

25 Beef Kg 20 Pork 15 Poultry 10 Other meat 5

1990 1992 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 Year Graph 15 Meat consumption in Sweden

427 Becker & Enghardt, ‘Utvecklingen av livsmedelskonsumtionen i Norden’, 1993, 121. 90

The data on the meat consumption in Sweden in Graph 15 are those for total consumption, since direct consumption data did not provide details for the different kinds of meat. Pork and poultry consumption increased most rapidly. In 1960, the average yearly consumption of poultry was 1,5 kg while in 2006 this figure had increased to 16 kg which is more than a tenfold increase. Pork consumption increased from 24 kg in 1960 to 36 kg in 1979. Pork consumption, after having increased rapidly during the late 1970s, decreased and reached a low point of 29 kg in 1984. After that, pork consumption increased again to 39 kg in 2006. The consumption of both poultry and pork showed a significant increase during the 1990s and around the turn of the century. Beef consumption remained quite stable between 15 and 20 kg between 1960 and 1995 while, afterwards, beef consumption increased to 26 kg in 2006.

Consumption of other meat in Sweden (kg/person/year) 4

3 Mutton

Kg 2 Horse 1 Reindeer Game 0

Edible offal

1984 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 Year

Graph 16 Consumption of other meat in Sweden

Graph 16 shows that as in Belgium the consumption of horse meat declined in the beginning of the period under consideration. The consumption of edible offal also declined while the consumption of mutton and game increased. The consumption of game increased quite rapidly at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s only to gently decline afterwards. The figures for meat consumption are confirmed in other publications about Swedish food consumption.428

428 Andersson, H. & Hoffmann, R., National report on consumer behaviour: the case of Sweden, s.l. 1998, 14- 16; Helsing, E., ‘A tale of two commodities: potatoes and meat in Europe 1960-1988’, Scandinavian Journal of nutrition, 36 (1992), 116. 91

Consumption of cured, canned and frozen meat in Sweden (kg/person/year)

25 Cured and canned 20 meat Frozen meat

Kg 15 products 10 5

1982 2000 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2002 2004 2006 Year

Graph 17 Consumption of cured, canned and frozen meat in Sweden

The data on the direct consumption of frozen, cured and canned meat (Graph 17) show that, as in other categories, the consumption of frozen products has increased significantly during the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century from about five kg to more than 15 kg. The consumption of cured and canned meat on the other hand has remained quite stable throughout the entire period.

II.4.3 COMPARISON OF MEAT CONSUMPTION

Total meat consumption in Sweden and Belgium (kg/person/year) 120 100 80 Total meat

Kg 60 Sweden (TC) 40 20 Total meat

0 Belgium

1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 Year

Graph 18 Total meat consumption in Sweden and Belgium

Meat consumption is higher in Belgium than in Sweden as shown on the graph above (Graph 18). Belgians generally eat a lot of meat when compared to the rest of Europe.429 At the beginning of the period under examination, the difference between both countries was not that big. However, it increased later on, mainly due to the steep increase in meat consumption during the 1960s and 1970s in Belgium. Meat consumption in Sweden on the other hand had its steepest increase during the 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st century. The difference was greatest during the middle of the 1980s. At that point, Belgians ate on average about 100 kg of meat, while Swedes consumed 60 kg. By 2004, however, the difference in meat consumption between both countries had narrowed to about 20 kg per person per year.

Meat consumption in Sweden and Belgium (kg/person/year) 60 Beef Sweden (TC)

50 Pork Sweden (TC)

40 Poultry Sweden (TC) Other meat Sweden

Kg 30 (TC) Beef Belgium 20 Pork Belgium 10 Poultry Belgium 0

Other meat Belgium

1955 1958 1961 1964 1967 1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 Year

Graph 19 Meat consumption in Sweden and Belgium

If one takes a closer look at the different categories of meat (Graph 19), one can see that pork is consumed the most in both countries. The consumption of pork increased more rapidly in Belgium than in Sweden. At the end of the period under examination, there was still more than a ten kg difference in pork consumption between the countries. Beef is the second biggest category of meat in both countries, even though in the case of Belgium one can note a decline in beef consumption from the beginning of the 1970s onwards until the end of the 1980s, when the consumption of beef stagnated. The consumption of beef in Sweden increased considerably at the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century. Therefore, by the end of the period under consideration, Swedes consumed more beef than Belgians. Poultry consumption in Belgium had increased to about the same level as the beef consumption by the end of the period under consideration. In Sweden, however, poultry consumption was still about ten kg lower than beef consumption by the end of the period. One can note that already around 1960, a considerable amount of poultry was eaten in Belgium, about six kg, compared to the 1,5 kg in Sweden. The consumption of other meat remained rather stable for both countries although its consumed quantity is higher in Belgium than in Sweden. Another difference is that, in Sweden, reindeer meat forms a separate category of

429 Helsing, ‘A tale of two commodities’, 1992, 116. 93 meat, which is not the case for Belgium. Conversely, in Belgium rabbit meat appears occasionally on the menu which, in its turn, is completely absent in Sweden.

II.5 FISH

II.5.1 CONSUMPTION OF FISH IN BELGIUM

Since the figures for fish consumption in Belgium are scarce and differ widely, no graph was included. According to the author of one publication, fresh fish consumption increased from about 5,25 kg in 1985 to 5,5 kg in 1993, while in another publication it is mentioned that during the 1970s and 1980s, Belgians ate about 6,5 kg of fish per person per year.430 Surveys for the years 1987, 1988 and 1991 show that, around that time, about nine to ten kg of fish was consumed per person per year in Belgium.431 Fish used to be eaten mostly on Fridays and during Lent because of religious beliefs.432 Fresh, frozen, canned, salted, dried and smoked fish is also bought alongside ready-made fish dishes.433

II.5.2 CONSUMPTION OF FISH IN SWEDEN

Consumption of fish in Sweden (kg/person/year) 25

15 Fresh fish Kg 10 Frozen fish filets

5 Processed and canned fish Total fish

1976 1998 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 2000 2002 2004 2006 Year Graph 20 Consumption of fish in Sweden

The data above are for the direct consumption of fish (Graph 20). Its consumption has moderately declined during the period under examination although, since figures for the fresh fish consumption are not given from 2000 onwards due to unavailability, the more recent

430 Scholliers, Arm en rijk aan tafel, 1993, 259; Niesten et al., Kattentongen, ezelsoren en varkenspoten, 2002, 46. 431 De Proff & Van Overbeke, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1987, 1988, 6; De Proff & Van Overbeke, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1988, 1989, 6; Lender & De Proff, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1991, 1991, 6. 432 Segers, ‘Food recommendations, 2005, 10. 433 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 46-48. 94 trend cannot be discerned. In 1960 about 17 kg of fish was consumed every year while this had declined to 14 kg in 2006. In particular, the consumption of fresh fish has declined; from about 11 kg in 1960 to about six kg in 1999. Processed and canned fish has increased to ten kg during the last few years under consideration after having varied between five and seven kg until the late 1990s. The consumption of frozen fish has remained quite stable, around three kg per year, although during the last years under consideration a small surge can be discerned. The data for the total fish consumption are also discussed in other publications but are not confirmed. Fish consumption is estimated at 20 kg in 1965 while, in 1990, this figure had increased to 30 kg which is considerably more than can be seen on the graph above.434 This difference might be explained by the fact that the findings in these publications are based on the data for total consumption and not for direct consumption. The data from Jordbruksverket on fish consumption also have a bigger error margin than the data on some other food categories, as mentioned in the beginning of this chapter.

II.6 EGGS

II.6.1 CONSUMPTION OF EGGS IN BELGIUM

Consumption of eggs in Belgium (eggs/person/year)

275 250 225

Eggs 200 175

150

1961 2001 1955 1957 1959 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2003 Year Graph 21 Consumption of eggs in Belgium (eggs/person/year)

434 Becker & Enghardt, ‘Utvecklingen av livsmedelskonsumtionen i Norden’, 1993, 121; Karlsson, ‘Konsumtion av livsmedel, 1989, 263. 95

Consumption of eggs in Belgium (kg/person/year) 20 18 16 Kg 14 12

1955 1963 1971 1979 1987 1995 2003 1957 1959 1961 1965 1967 1969 1973 1975 1977 1981 1983 1985 1989 1991 1993 1997 1999 2001 Year Graph 22 Consumption of eggs in Belgium (kg/person/year)

Graph 21 shows that the total consumption of eggs varied between 260 and 210 eggs per year. These figures are confirmed in another publication about Belgian food consumption.435 However, at the beginning of the period under examination, the average consumption seemed to be slightly higher than at the end of the period if one discounts the peak consumption of eggs in 1998. Since both countries use different units, the Belgian data have also been converted into kg in Graph 22 in order to facilitate the comparison. According to Jordbruksverket, 200 eggs equal 14 kg, therefore, 14,284 eggs equal one kg.436 This graph shows that the average consumption remained about the same (between 16 and 17 kg on average) during the period under consideration. The figures for egg consumption in Belgium at the end of the 1980s are also mentioned in another publication. The figures in that publication are about two kg lower than the ones shown on Graph 22. This difference might be explained by the difference in total and direct consumption as this publication is based on surveys about direct consumption of food.437

435 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 96. 436 Jordbruksverket, Livsmedelskonsumtionen, 2009, 32. 437 De Proff & Van Overbeke, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1987, 1988, 8; De Proff & Van Overbeke, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1988, 1989, 8; Lender & De Proff, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1991, 1991, 8. 96

II.6.2 CONSUMPTION OF EGGS IN SWEDEN

Consumption of eggs in Sweden (kg/person/year) 16 15 14 13

Kg 12 11 Eggs (TC) 10 9 Eggs (DC)

1986 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 Year

Graph 23 Consumption of eggs in Sweden

The graph above (Graph 23) shows the evolution in the total and direct consumption of eggs. The difference between both categories increases over time. This should be attributed to the increase in the consumption of processed products which make the direct consumption of eggs fall a little compared to the total consumption.438 The difference between the total consumption data and the direct consumption data can be explained by the fact that losses are taken into consideration when calculating the latter. Changes in Swedish egg consumption are quite moderate when compared to some other food categories. The total consumption varies between 11 kg per year to 14 kg per person per year while the direct consumption varies between nine and 12 kg per person per year. The egg consumption was highest between the middle of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. The lowest consumption was measured at the beginning of the 21st century although egg consumption was increasing again during the last years of the period under examination.439 Data for the total consumption of eggs are confirmed in other publications.440

438 Personal communication with Monica Eidstedt at Jordbruksverket, March 25, 2011. 439 Jordbruksverket, Livsmedelskonsumtionen, 2009, 32. 440 Becker & Enghardt, ‘Utvecklingen av livsmedelskonsumtionen i Norden’, 1993, 122; Karlsson, ‘Konsumtion av livsmedel, 1989, 263. 97

II.6.3 COMPARISON OF CONSUMPTION OF EGGS

Consumption of eggs in Sweden and Belgium (kg/person/year) 20 16 Eggs

12 Belgium Kg 8 Eggs 4 Sweden (TC)

1975 1999 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 2001 2003 2005 Year

Graph 24 Consumption of eggs in Sweden and Belgium

More eggs are consumed per person per year in Belgium than in Sweden (Graph 24). The difference gradually narrowed from about three kg in 1960 to almost zero the end of the 1980s but increased again afterwards to about three kg in 2004. An interesting difference between Sweden and Belgium is that Belgian consumers prefer brown eggs, while the majority of the eggs in Swedish supermarkets are white.441

441 Niesten et al., Lekker dier!?, 2003, 97. 98

II.7 FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

II.7.1 FRUIT AND VEGETABLE CONSUMPTION IN BELGIUM

Fruit and vegetable consumption in Belgium (kg/person/year) 160

140 Vegetables

120 Total fruits 100 Fruits (except

Kg 80 citrus) 60 Citrus fruits 40

1965 2003 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 Year Graph 25 Fruit and vegetable consumption in Belgium

Consumption of fruits and vegetables increased during the period under examination as shown in Graph 25. In 1955, Belgians ate on average about 80 kg of vegetables per year although, in reality, this was higher since it does not take home produced food products into account. At the beginning of the period under examination, consumed quantities did not differ much. Both fruit and vegetable consumption increased most rapidly during the 1980s and 1990s. Fruit consumption increased from about 75 kg in 1955 to around 100 kg in 1999. The consumption of citrus fruits increased most rapidly during the 1990s; during that decade consumption nearly doubled from 20 kg around 1990 to 38 kg in 2001. The consumption of other fruits also showed an increase during the 1990s, from about 60 kg in 1992 to 80 kg in 2000. During the 1990s and the first years of the 21st century, vegetable consumption hovered around 100 kg. The figures for fruit and vegetable consumption are confirmed in another publications about Belgian food consumption.442 According to Niesten et al., changes occurred within the overall fruit and vegetable consumption. Apple consumption increased from 17 kg in 1960 to 23 kg in 1973 while the pear consumption declined from seven kg to 5,5 kg. Grape consumption also increased from 3,5 kg in 1960 to 5,5 kg in 1973.443 During the 1980s, ‘new’ fruits such as kiwi, melon and cranberries became increasingly available.444 There were also changes within the overall consumption of vegetables. The use of cabbages, cauliflower, peas and beans declined while

442 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 116; 131; 159; De Proff & Van Overbeke, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1987, 1988, 10; De Proff & Van Overbeke, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1988, 1989, 10; Lender & De Proff, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1991, 1991,10. 443 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 132. 444 Ibidem, 159. 99 tomatoes, leek, lettuce and mushrooms were bought in increasing quantities. The increased use of tomatoes, from 13 kg per year in 1960 to more than 16 kg in 1973, can partly be attributed to the introduction of ‘southern’ dishes such as spaghetti Bolognese according to Niesten et al.445 As mentioned above, ‘new’ vegetables such as capiscum, broccoli and aubergine were introduced during the 1970s and became increasingly successful.446 Vegetables were mostly consumed fresh. The consumption of canned and frozen vegetables lagged far behind.447

II.7.2 FRUIT AND VEGETABLE CONSUMPTION IN SWEDEN

Fruit and vegetable consumption in Sweden (kg/person/year) 90 80 70 60 Fruits total 50 Kg 40 Vegetables 30 total 20 10

1976 1992 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 Year

Graph 26 Fruit and vegetable consumption in Sweden

When analysing the data for the direct consumption of vegetables and fruit in Sweden (Graph 26), the former, in particular, has increased steeply but quite steadily. The direct consumption data were used since there are no available data for the total consumption of fruits and vegetables. In 1960, a Swede on average ate about 28 kg of vegetables, while in 2006 this figure had increased to 76 kg. This probably also has to do with the decline in the number of people who grow their own vegetables. As a consequence, the increase in the consumption of vegetables might in reality not be as steep as depicted by this graph. The consumption of fruit did not change as drastically although this might be due to statistical limitations. The amounts of home-produced apples and pears were not included in the data anymore since 1988. In 1960, the yearly consumption of fruit was about 54 kg while, in 2006, this number was 68 kg. The data for vegetable consumption are confirmed in another publication, while those for fruit consumption are not. Fruit consumption was, according to this publication 80 kg in 1965 while, in 1990, this figure had increased to more than 90 kg which is much more than the quantities depicted by the graph above (Graph 26).448 Another

445 Niesten & Segers, Smaken van het land, 2007, 132. 446 Ibidem, 159. 447 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 48-53. 448 Becker & Enghardt, ‘Utvecklingen av livsmedelskonsumtionen i Norden’, 1993, 119. 100 publication has consistently lower estimates for the direct consumption of vegetables (about ten kg difference) while data for the direct consumption of fruits are similar to those on the graph above.449

Vegetable consumption in Sweden (kg/person/year) 60 50 40 Processed vegetables

Kg 30 20 Fresh vegetables 10

2004 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2006

Year Graph 27 Vegetable consumption in Sweden

When one takes a closer look at the different vegetable categories for direct consumption (Graph 27), there has been a steep increase in the consumption of fresh vegetables. In 1960, this figure was 21 kg while in 2006 it was already 55 kg which means that the consumption of fresh vegetables almost tripled during the period. There was also an increase in the consumption of processed vegetables such as frozen, tinned or canned. At the start of the period, on average, Swedes ate about seven kg of processed vegetables per year while in 2006 this had increased to about 21 kg.

Fruit consumption in Sweden (kg/person/year) Citrus fruit 30 25 Apples and pears 20 Other fruits and

Kg 15 berries 10 5 Bananas, melons, kiwi, avokado and

0 others

1992 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 Year Graph 28 Fruit consumption in Sweden

449 Karlsson, ‘Konsumtion av livsmedel’, 1989, 258-259. 101

Graph 28 shows that there was a modest increase in fruit consumption during the period, although certain shifts within the overall direct consumption of fruits have occurred. All categories, except the category for more exotic fruit, remained quite stable until the early 1980s when a sharp decline occurred in the consumption of apples and pears, from about 25 kg to 15 kg, while there was a sharp increase in the consumption of more exotic fruits such as bananas, kiwis, melons, avocados, from about ten kg to 20 kg within only a few years. The decline in the consumption of apples and pears can be explained by the fact that the data for home produced fruits are not taken into consideration since 1988 as was mentioned above.450 The consumption of citrus fruit increased with about 25 percent during the period under consideration while the consumption of other fruits and berries remained quite constant.

II.7.3 COMPARISON OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE CONSUMPTION

Fruit and vegetable consumption in Sweden and Belgium (kg/person/year) 160

140 Vegetables Belgium 120 Fruits Belgium 100 Citrus fruits Belgium

Kg 80 Vegetables 60 Sweden (DC) Fruits Sweden 40 (DC) 20 Citrus fruits Sweden (DC)

1961 1955 1957 1959 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005

Year Graph 29 Fruit and vegetable consumption in Sweden and Belgium

When one compares the graphs of fruit and vegetable consumption for Sweden and Belgium (Graph 29), one can note that on average, Belgians consume more fruits and vegetables than Swedes. In Belgium, there is also a marked increase in the consumption of both fruit and vegetables from the middle of the 1980s, which was not mirrored in Sweden. The graph for the Swedish vegetable consumption, for example, showed a steady increase while the fruit consumption in Sweden hardly changed. Approximately the same amount of fruit and vegetables was consumed in Belgium, although there was an increased difference between figures at the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, and the late 1980s and the early 1990s. In Sweden, on the other hand, people consumed about 15 kg more fruits than vegetables at the beginning of the period under consideration. By 2006, however, more

450 Jordbruksverket, Livsmedelskonsumtionen, 2009, 26. 102 vegetables than fruits were consumed in Sweden although the difference was not large. When comparing the figures for citrus fruit consumption in both countries, one can note that there was no significant increase, except during the 1990s in Belgium.

II.8 POTATOES

II.8.1 POTATO CONSUMPTION IN BELGIUM

Potato consumption in Belgium (kg/person/year) 160,0 140,0 120,0 100,0

80,0 Kg 60,0 Potatoes 40,0 20,0

0,0

1969 1983 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003

Year Graph 30 Potato consumption in Belgium

Potato consumption in Belgium declined steeply between 1955 and 1975; the figure decreased from 146 kg to 98 kg (Graph 30). After that, consumption hovered around 100 kg until the late 1990s before declining to 85 kg in 2004. The figures for potato consumption are also discussed in another publication but these figures differ considerably. Potato consumption in 1987 is estimated at 105 kg per person while the graph above shows 96 kg.

103

II.8.2 POTATO CONSUMPTION IN SWEDEN

Potato consumption in Sweden (kg/person/year) 90

80 Total potato 70 consumption 60 Fresh potatoes 50 Kg 40 Refrigerated and 30 frozen potato 20 products 10 Other processed potato products

2006 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 Year Graph 31 Potato consumption in Sweden

The graph above (Graph 31) includes the data for the direct consumption of potatoes because of the lack of total consumption data. In general potato consumption in Sweden has declined. While, in 1966, a Swedish inhabitant ate about 80 kg of potatoes per year, this figure declined rapidly during the 1960s and around the turn of the century, to 57 kg in 2006. The decline becomes even more pronounced if one looks at the consumption of fresh potatoes. In 1960, 87 kg of fresh potatoes were consumed each year while by 2006 this figure had decreased to 46 kg, which is only about half as much. The consumption of refrigerated and frozen potato products on the other hand, have increased quite significantly from about four kg in the middle 1990s to about eight kg in 2006. The consumption of other processed potato products, such as crisps, has also increased to about 1,5 kg in 2006. The decline in the use of potato products can certainly be linked to an increase in the consumption of pasta and rice. According to another publication, however, potato consumption was still about 100 kg in 1961, while the graph above shows that it was only 86 kg.451

451 Helsing, ‘A tale of two commodities’, 1992, 116. 104

II.8.3 COMPARISON OF POTATO CONSUMPTION

Potato consumption in Sweden and Belgium (kg/person/year) 160 140 Potatoes 120 Belgium 100

Kg 80 Potatoes 60 Sweden 40 (DC) 20

1967 1991 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 Year

Graph 32 Potato consumption in Sweden and Belgium

The potato consumption in Belgium is markedly higher than in Sweden during the whole period under consideration as can be seen in Graph 32. However, in both countries a rather steep decline can be noted between 1960 and 1975. Thereafter, the potato consumption stabilised around 100 kg in Belgium and 70 kg in Sweden. During the 1990s, and the beginning of the 21st century, the figures decline again in both countries. Potato consumption thus evolved rather similarly in both countries.

II.9 CEREALS

II.9.1 CEREAL CONSUMPTION IN BELGIUM

Cereal consumption in Belgium (kg/year/person) 100 95 90 85 80

Kg 75 70 Cereals 65 60 55

1961 1955 1957 1959 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 Year Graph 33 Cereal consumption in Belgium

105

The consumption of cereals in Belgium (Graph 33), much like the potato consumption, declined steeply between 1955 and 1970 from about 95 kg to 70 kg. Cereal consumption stabilised afterwards until the late 1990s when consumption started to slightly increase once more to about 79 kg in 2004.

II.9.2 CEREAL CONSUMPTION IN SWEDEN

Total and direct consumption of cereals in Sweden (kg/person/year) 130 120 110 Cereals (TC) 100 90 Kg 80 70 Cereals (DC) 60 50

1976 2002 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2004 2006 Year

Graph 34 Total and direct consumption of cereals in Sweden

The total consumption of cereals in Sweden declined from about 70 kg during the 1960s to about 60 kg in the 1970s as shown in Graph 34. Afterwards, the consumption of cereals increased once again to about 70 kg at the beginning of the 21st century. These figures are confirmed in other publications about Swedish food consumption.452 As one can see on the graph, there is quite a considerable difference between the aggregated figures for the direct consumption data and the total consumption data. This difference can be explained by the fact that more processed products are included in their entirety in the direct consumption data. Products such as pasta, bread, pizza, biscuits, buns, crepes or cakes contain more than flour, the primary product; they also contain eggs, sugar, fat and other ingredients. This translates into higher numbers for the direct consumption.453 Therefore, when comparing the consumption of cereal in both countries, only the data on the total consumption of cereal in Sweden will be taken into account.

452 Becker & Enghardt, ‘Utvecklingen av livsmedelskonsumtionen i Norden’, 1993, 119; Karlsson, ‘Konsumtion av livsmedel’, 1989, 256. 453 Personal communication with Monica Eidstedt at Jordbruksverket, March 25, 2011. 106

Direct consumption of cereal in Sweden (kg/person/year) 90 Bread and 80 pastry 70 60 50 Flour and grain Kg 40 30 20 Pasta and 10 other cereal 0

products

1974 2004 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2006 Year Graph 35 Direct consumption of cereal in Sweden

This graph (Graph 35) shows the data for the direct consumption of cereals in Sweden. These data thus include both data for the more primary products such as flour, rice and oatmeal and data for more processed products such as pasta, cookies, cakes and buns.454 The direct consumption of flour and grain has decreased a little which can be explained by the fact that nowadays Swedes do not bake as much at home as they did during the 1960s. The consumption of pastry and bread in 1960 was 57 kg per year. From the 1970s to the early 1990s, however, the consumption of bread and pastry was only about 50 kg but this figure increased quickly afterwards to 75 kg in 2006.455 The consumption of pasta and other cereal products, such as rice and breakfast cereal, increased considerably during the period; consumption rose from about 3,5 kg in 1960 to 20 kg in 2006.

454 Jordbruksverket, Livsmedelskonsumtionen, 2009, 20-21. 455 The big peak in 2002 in bread and pastry consumption should be attributed to a statistical error; Jordbruksverket, Livsmedelskonsumtionen, 2009, 21. 107

II.9.3 COMPARISON OF CEREAL CONSUMPTION

Cereal consumption in Sweden and Belgium (kg/person/year) 100 95 90 85 80 Cereals

Kg 75 Belgium 70 65 Cereals 60 Sweden (TC) 55

1997 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1999 2001 2003 2005 Year

Graph 36 Cereal consumption in Sweden and Belgium

Graph 36 shows that cereal consumption declined in both countries until about 1970, although consumption was more than ten kg higher in Belgium than in Sweden. Thereafter, consumption in Belgium stabilised around 70 kg while consumption in Sweden started to increase again from the late 1970s onwards. At the end of the 1990s, the inhabitants of both countries consumed about 70 kg of cereals per year, a number which increased to about 75 kg at the beginning of the 21st century. The data for cereal consumption in both countries have steadily converged.

108

II.10 SUGAR

II.10.1 SUGAR CONSUMPTION IN BELGIUM

Sugar consumption in Belgium (kg/person/year)

60 50 40 White

Kg 30 sugar 20 10

1983 1991 1999 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1985 1987 1989 1993 1995 1997 2001 2003 Year

Graph 37 Sugar consumption in Belgium

Sugar consumption increased significantly as shown in Graph 37. In 1955, about 30 kg of sugar was consumed every year. By 1980 that figure had increased to 35 kg while in 2004 it already was 45 kg. The steepest increase can be noted during the 1980s and 1990s.

II.10.2 SUGAR CONSUMPTION IN SWEDEN

Sugar consumption in Sweden (kg/person/year) 60 50 40

Kg 30 20 Sugar (DC) 10 Sugar (TC)

1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 Year

Graph 38 Sugar consumption in Sweden

109

The total consumption of sugar in Sweden did not change significantly over time (Graph 38). It varied between 40 and 45 kg most of the time. These data are confirmed in other publications about Swedish food consumption.456 The direct consumption, however, declined from about 30 kg in 1960 to about seven kg in 2006. This can be explained by the fact that Swedish inhabitants tend to bake less often at home than before and, as a consequence, do not buy as much sugar in food stores anymore.

II.10.3 COMPARISON OF SUGAR CONSUMPTION

Sugar consumption in Sweden and Belgium (kg/person/year) 60 50 Sugar 40 Belgium

Kg 30 Sugar 20 Sweden 10 (TC)

1957 1995 1955 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 Year

Graph 39 Sugar consumption in Sweden and Belgium

The consumption of sugar was higher in Sweden during most of the period under consideration as shown in Graph 39. In 1960, the difference was quite marked: Swedes used about twelve kg sugar more per year than the Belgians. Scholliers mentions that sugar consumption in Sweden was unusually high during the 1960s when compared to other European countries.457 The rise in sugar consumption in Belgium from the 1980s onwards, however, reduced the difference between the figures considerably and, by the end of the 1990s, the average Belgian consumed more sugar than the average Swede.

II.11 MARGARINE

II.11.1 MARGARINE CONSUMPTION IN BELGIUM

Due to lack of data on margarine consumption, no graph has been included. However, surveys about food consumption in 1987, 1988 and 1991 show that margarine consumption in

456 Becker & Enghardt, ‘Utvecklingen av livsmedelskonsumtionen i Norden’, 1993, 119; Karlsson, ‘Konsumtion av livsmedel’, 1989, 257. 457 Scholliers, ‘Novelty and tradition’, 2007, 337. 110

Belgium in the late 1980s and early 1990s was about 8,5 kg which is only half of the amount used in Sweden at that time.458

II.11.2 MARGARINE CONSUMPTION IN SWEDEN

Margarine consumption in Sweden (kg/person/year)

Margarine Kg 10 (TC)

1982 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 Year Graph 40 Margarine consumption in Sweden

The total consumption of margarine in Sweden (Graph 40), including Bregott, a product that resembles margarine but is made of both vegetable and animal oil, only showed a moderate increase in the beginning of the period under examination. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, margarine consumption was on its highest point, about 20 kg per year. Thereafter, the consumption of margarine declined to 11 kg in 2006. The general trend in the consumption of margarine is confirmed in another publication but the absolute figures are consistently about three kg lower.459

II.12 ICE CREAM AND CHOCOLATE

II.12.1 CONSUMPTION OF CHOCOLATE IN BELGIUM

As was the case for the previous food category, no data series are available for chocolate consumption in Belgium. However, one publication mentioned that in 2009 each Belgian ate about ten kg of chocolate in one year.460

458 De Proff & Van Overbeke, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1987, 1988, 8; De Proff & Van Overbeke, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1988, 1989, 8; Lender & De Proff, Gezinsaankopen van voedingsprodukten in 1991, 1991, 8. 459 Becker & Enghardt, ‘Utvecklingen av livsmedelskonsumtionen i Norden’, 1993, 122. 460 Scholliers, Food culture, 2009, 59. 111

II.12.2 CONSUMPTION OF ICE CREAM AND CHOCOLATE IN SWEDEN

Consumption of ice cream and chocolate in Sweden (litres or kg/person/year) 20 18 16 14 12 Ice cream (litres) 10 Chocolate 8 (kg) 6 4 2

1964 1978 1962 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 1960 Graph 41 Consumption of ice cream and chocolate in Sweden

As one can see on the graph above (Graph 41), the consumption of chocolate has more than doubled during the period under consideration from about 6,5 kg in 1960 to 15 kg in 2006. More chocolate is consumed per person and per year in Sweden than in Belgium. Chocolate consumption increased quickly during the early 1960s and again during the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century. The consumption of ice cream, on the other hand, increased most rapidly during the 1970s while consumption during the 1980s and early 1990s was at its highest, when about 14 kg per person per year was consumed in Sweden. During the late 1990s ice cream diminished slightly to about 12 kg per person.

III Summary

Food consumption in both countries has changed considerably during the period under consideration. In Belgium, the consumption of milk, cereals and potatoes decreased, especially during the first half of the period. The consumption of meat on the other hand increased, especially between 1955 and 1975. However, since the 1980s meat consumption has steadily stagnated. The big increase in meat consumption was initially not mirrored by the fruit and vegetable consumption. It was only during the 1980s and 1990s that the fruit and vegetable consumption quickly rose. The consumption of dairy products increased in general. Only the consumption of butter has decreased over time within this group of products. The situation in Sweden changed as well. The consumption of certain food categories, such as milk, fish and potatoes declined, while the consumption of other food groups such as meat, fruits, vegetables or dairy products increased. The biggest decrease can be seen in the milk consumption which can be partly attributed to the increase in the consumption of other drinks. Despite these changes, Swedes still are the second largest milk consumers in the world.461 The consumption of potatoes declined as well, as did the consumption of butter.

461 Lantbrukarnas riksförbund, Sveriges gröna näringar, 2009, 30. 112

Butter has been partly replaced by margarine and vegetable oil mixes because these are deemed healthier. On the other hand, the consumption of other products rich in fat and sugar such as ice cream and chocolate increased. Meat consumption increased, especially during the 1990s. The consumption of dairy products, fruits and vegetables has increased significantly in Sweden since the 1960s. The consumption of cereal products on the other hand declined initially but has seen a modest surge since the late 1970s, while the consumption of eggs has stayed relatively stable over the last decades. When it comes to comparing both countries, one can discern quantitative similarities and differences in consumption of certain products. In both countries there has been a decrease in milk consumption and an increase in the consumption of dairy products, except for butter. On the whole more milk, cream, yoghurt and other sour products are consumed in Sweden than in Belgium. Swedes thus consume more dairy products than Belgians. Cheese consumption on the other hand is a little higher in Belgium. Belgians also consume considerably more meat and eggs than Swedes. In both countries pork is consumed in the largest quantities, followed by beef and poultry. The consumption of poultry had increased exponentially in both countries during the period under examination. For Sweden it can also be ascertained that there is a trend towards more processed and frozen meat. It can be assumed that the same trend can be discerned in Belgium, although frozen products seem to be consumed in bigger quantities in Sweden than in Belgium, based on the information in Chapter Two. On the whole Belgians have consumed, and still consume, more fruits and vegetables per person per year than in Sweden. The level of fruit and vegetable consumption in Sweden around 2006 was approximately the same as in Belgium around 1955. Citrus fruit consumption remained stable in Sweden while in Belgium there was a significant increase during the 1990s. In Sweden, more exotic fruit such as melons, bananas and kiwis were bought while apples and pears were consumed in lesser quantities since the late 1980s, although the latter development is due to changes in the measuring method, i.e. home produced apples and pears were excluded from the data from the late 1980s onwards. Corresponding data for Belgium are lacking but, based on the information in Chapter Two, it might be assumed that more exotic fruits are consumed in Belgium nowadays than earlier on. The Swedish data also show that there has been a considerable increase in the purchasing of processed vegetables. On the whole, cereal consumption decreased in both countries although consumption started to stagnate (in Belgium) or increase again from the middle of the 1970s onwards (in Sweden). For most of the period under consideration, Belgians consumed more cereal than in Sweden although by the end, the amounts for both countries were about the same. It has also been shown for Sweden that within cereal consumption, products that are processed to a higher degree, such as pasta or bread, are increasingly bought. Belgians also consume a considerably larger amount of potatoes per year than Swedes. However, potato consumption decreased in both countries and most rapidly up to 1975. In Sweden a trend can be discerned towards the purchasing of more processed forms of potatoes. Although corresponding figures are not available, it can be assumed that the same applies to Belgium. The same trend can be discerned for sugar; the direct consumption of sugar in Sweden has decreased, while consumption of processed products containing sugar has increased. Swedes used considerably more sugar than Belgians until the beginning of the 1990s. Nowadays, Belgians consume more sugar than Swedes. There are also certain differences in timing between both countries. When comparing meat consumption in Sweden and Belgium, one can see that meat consumption did not rise as rapidly in Sweden during the 1960s and 1970s as in Belgium. In Sweden, the biggest increase in meat consumption was during the 1990s. Milk consumption rapidly declined in both

113 countries, but on a different time scale as well. In Sweden, the steepest decline can be seen during the 1980s, while in Belgium consumption of milk had already declined considerably between 1955 and 1975.

114

Chapter four

Implications of dietary changes for sustainability

Now that the quantitative changes over time have been discussed, the focus in this chapter will shift towards the impact of these changes on the planet. An assessment of the implications of the changes in the food consumption patterns over time will be presented and interpreted for a sustainability point of view. For that purpose, the data of the first and the last year for which statistics about food consumption were available for both countries, 1960 and 2004, were used for further calculations. This chapter is a comparison between the implications of the 1960 and 2004 diet. It should, however, not be assumed that the changes happened linear, as discussed in the previous chapter. Food consumption affects the environment in a number of ways. Agricultural production, storage, transportation, processing, preparation and waste disposal require resources and cause greenhouse gas emissions. It has, for example, been calculated that food production and consumption commonly use about one-fifth of the total energy used in developed countries.462 Agriculture accounts for one-fifth of the annual increase in anthropogenic greenhouse warming, which is mostly due to the emissions of methane by cattle and rice fields and to the emissions of nitrous oxides during the fabrication and application of nitrogen fertilizers.463 When it comes to assessing changes in food consumption, defining sustainability, which literally implies having the capacity to endure, is not an easy task. Sustainability has interpreted in this chapter as the use of resources linked to food. There are several methods and parameters that can be used to assess the impact of a diet on the planet. Some of the parameters can, for example, be eco-toxic effects - use of fossil fuel, use of land, greenhouse gas emissions, energy use or impact on the landscape or on the bio-diversity of species.464 For Sweden and the Netherlands quite a number of articles have been published about the environmental impact of food products, while no Belgian counterparts were found.465 For the purpose of this chapter, three parameters have been chosen: land requirements, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions were included in this list because they are a significant consequence of the use of fossil fuels and of certain agricultural production processes. The selection was based on the compatibility of the available data about parameters with the data that were presented in the previous chapter and on the relevance of the different parameters for a sustainability assessment. This assessment is based on the findings of two publications. First of all, there is the publication by Gerbens-Leenes and Nonhebel entitled ‘Consumption patterns and their effects on land required for food’.466 This article offers data for land requirements for the production of several food items in m2 per 0,1 kg. The second publication is an article by Wallén, Brandt

462 Wallén, A., Brandt, N. & Wennersten, R., ‘Does the Swedish consumer’s choice of food influence greenhouse gas emissions?’, Environmental science and policy, 7 (2004), 525. 463 Carlsson-Kanyama & Lindén, ‘Trends in food production and consumption’, 2001, 393. 464 Wallén et al., 'Does the Swedish consumer's choice’, 2004, 526. 465 For studies about Sweden, see footnotes in Chapter One, Section III: Previous studies and further research. Kramer, J.K., Moll, H.C., Nonhebel, S. & Wilting, H.C., ‘Greenhouse gas emissions related to Dutch food consumption’, Energy policy, 27 (1999), 203-216. This article includes the greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, CH4 and N2O related to about 100 food products available in the Netherlands, compared to the household expenditure. 466 Gerbens-Leenes & Nonhebel, ‘Consumption patterns and their effects on land’, 2002,185-199. 115 and Wennersten entitled 'Does the Swedish consumer's choice of food influence greenhouse gas emissions?’.467 This article offers an overview of the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions for several food products in Sweden. The methods used in these publications are discussed in the next section. It needs to be noted that not all food categories that together constitute the entire diet of the average Swede or Belgian are included in this analysis. Beverages and cooking fats are, for example, excluded although it has been shown that these products have a quite high impact on land requirement.468 Energy use and greenhouse gas emissions during the consumption of food, i.e. the cooling, freezing and cooking of food in the home and the resources necessary for waste disposal, are excluded from this assessment. Studies have shown, however, that this phase in the life cycle of food is quite significant. Boiled potatoes grown in Sweden, for example, require 4,6 MJ per kg, while fried potatoes require 29 MJ per kg. The preparation method has, by consequence, a significant impact on the total energy use.469 The consumption of food has about a 20 to 35 percent share in the total energy use of a household in Sweden, while food processing is responsible for 25 percent in the total energy life cycle of food.470

I The data

I.1 LAND REQUIREMENTS

Data for land requirements in the article by Gerbens-Leenes and Nonhebel are calculated specifically for the Netherlands in 1990. Requirements per food product were calculated by dividing the total Dutch cultivated area by the total yield per year. Weighted averages for imported crops were calculated in the same manner. For the secondary production, such as the production of livestock products, the areas needed for fodders were divided by the yearly production of meat, raw milk and eggs. The land necessary to produce by-products and wastes from the food industry that are used in the fodders of domestic animals, such as rapeseed oil cakes from margarine production, were not taken into account.471 Even though the data are calculated especially for the Netherlands, they are still useful to compare the relative changes over time in other countries. Since the contribution of different food products to the use of land is shown in proportion, it can therefore be assessed if internal shifts have occurred in the contribution of each food category to land use in relative terms. Another factor that needs to be taken into account is that since data for land requirements were calculated for the year 1990, these data would have been different for the year 1960. Production methods and yields changed significantly over time. However, as no such data are available, the 1990 data were used.

467 Wallén et al., ‘Does the Swedish consumer’s choice of food’, 2004, 525-535. 468 Gerbens-Leenes & Nonhebel, ‘Consumption patterns and their effects on land’, 2002,185-199; Gerbens- Leenes et al., ‘A method to determine land requirements’, 2002,55. 469 Carlsson-Kanyama, A., Ekström, M.P. & Shanahan, H., ‘Food and life cycle energy inputs: consequences of diet and ways to increase efficiency’, Ecological economics, 44 (2003), 298. 470 Dutihl, C.E. & Kramer, K.J., ‘Energy consumption in the food chain. Comparing alternative options in food production and consumption’, AMBIO, 29 (2000), no. 2, 98; Carlsson-Kanyama, A., ‘Diet, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions’ in Encyclopedia of Energy, Volume 1, s.l., 2004, 810. 471 Gerbens-Leenes et al., ‘A method to determine land requirements’, 2002, 47-52. 116

The data for land requirements per kg of food product were then multiplied by the figures for yearly consumption of each food product per person for both years in both countries. The relative changes over time in percentage were calculated per food group. The relative contribution of each food product or category to the total amount of land necessary to produce the yearly food consumption was also calculated. To assess if there was an increase or decrease in the land requirements over time and to compare both countries, the highest total value of calculated land requirement, in this case the Belgian diet in 2004, was seen as 100 percent, or requiring 100 land units. The other diets were weighted against that. This method was also applied by Gerbens-Leenes and Nonhebel to compare the food requirement between several European countries.472 The result is thus a relative comparison between the land requirements for food consumption in Sweden and Belgium in 1960 and 2004, if the production method and yields had been the same as in the Netherlands in 1990. The land requirements for the following food products are calculated: beef, pork, poultry, cheese, milk, eggs, butter, cereal, fruit (average), vegetables (average), potatoes and sugar.

I.2 ENERGY USE AND GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

The method used in the article by Wallén et al. to calculate greenhouse gas emissions and energy use per food product has several advantages. First, it takes more greenhouse gasses into account than most other articles. Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, HFCs (compounds of hydrogen, fluorine, and carbon), perfluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride are all included in the calculations. More detailed information about these greenhouse gases can be found below. For the calculations of energy use, both direct and indirect use were considered. This means, for example, that the energy necessary to plough the field, diesel, is taken into account as well as the energy necessary to produce diesel in the first place. Data are also calculated for production and distribution only; greenhouse gas emissions and energy use for consumption are not taken into account, which matches well with the data presented in the previous chapter. Certain losses during storage and handling in the production phase were included.473 Since these data are specifically calculated for Sweden, the changes for Belgium are only assessed in a relative sense. There are certain complications related to the methods used in the article by Wallén et al. Food categories for which the emissions and energy use were calculated, are, for example, more compatible with the direct consumption categories than the total consumption categories. Since there are no available data for the direct food consumption in Belgium, the categories that can be immediately assessed, are the ones that are compatible with the total consumption data as presented in the previous chapter. These are beef, pork, poultry, other meat, cheese, milk, cream, butter, eggs, potatoes and sugar. The calculations were produced for the year 1999, which implies that the comparison over time will be a little distorted as mentioned above. The yearly consumption of food per Swedish or Belgian inhabitant in 1960 and 2004 is shown in the table below (Table 1).

472 Gerbens-Leenes et al., ‘A method to determine land requirements’, 2002, 47-52. 473 Wallén et al., ‘Does the Swedish consumer’s choice of food’, 2004, 527-528. 117

FOOD CONSUMPTION PER INHABITANT PER YEAR (kg) Belgium Sweden 1960 2004 1960 2004 Meat Beef 22,8 20,7 18,8 25 Pork 25,2 50,03 24,5 36,3 Poultry 6,2 18,91 1,6 14,9 Other meat 9,6 12,25 5,9 4,6 Total 63,8 101,89 50,8 80,8

Milk products and eggs Cream 0,6 8,1 6,2 10 Cheese 5,8 20,18 7,4 17,6 Butter 9,3 5,12 9,7 1,5 Milk 113,6 71,9 174,89 113,71 Eggs 16,79 15,67 11,8 12,4 Total 146,09 120,97 209,99 155,21

Plant products Cereal 93,4 78,82 70,7 70,9 Potatoes 135 85,16 86,8 56,5 Vegetables 73,1 100,48 28,4 73,4 Fruit 60,6 99,37 54,1 65,9 Sugar 32,2 45,64 44,9 39,9 Total 394,3 409,47 284,9 306,6

Total 604,19 632,33 545,69 542,61 Table 1 Food consumption in 1960 and 2004

II Greenhouse gas emissions

This section will provide more detailed information about the greenhouse gases that are under consideration in this chapter. Methane, or CH4, is caused by the degradation of organic matter under anaerobic conditions. Enteric fermentation in animal husbandry, or digestion in the intestines of ruminants such as sheep, goats, cattle or deer, produces large amounts of CH4. The amount of methane that is emitted is in proportion to the amount of feed intake. Manure storage and the cultivation of crops under flooded conditions such as rice are other sources of methane emissions. 474 Nitrous oxide, N2O, on the other hand, is a gas that is formed during the processes of nitrification and of denitrification. The former is the aerobic microbial oxidation of ammonia to nitrate, while the latter refers to the reduction of nitrate to gaseous nitrogen or N2. It is thus closely related to the use of artificial fertilisers, the use and storage of manure and the application of crop residues on soils. It has been calculated that, in Sweden, 20 percent of the

474 Carlsson-Kanyama & González, Non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions, 2007, 7-9. 118 total greenhouse gas emissions come from methane and nitrogen that mainly originate in agriculture. Hydrofluorcarbons, HFCs and perfluorocarbons, PFCs, are gases that replace the chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs that cause ozone-depletion. Since they are used in refrigeration equipment, these gases are also important to take into account when calculating the extent of greenhouse gas emissions related to food. Sulphuric Hexafluoride or SF6 is used in equipment for electrical transmission.475 The table (Table 2) below shows the Global Warming Potential for all substances mentioned above. Although there are several kinds of perfluorocarbons and hydrofluorcarbons, only one kind of the former and two kinds of the latter were included in the table. The global warming potential of the hydrofluorcarbons ranges between 124 and 14.800, while that of the perfluorcarbons ranges between 5210 and 21.000.476 This Global Warming Potential is a ‘measurement of the radiative forcing of a unit mass of a given well- mixed greenhouse gas in the present-day atmosphere integrated over a chosen time horizon, relative to that of carbon dioxide’.477

GLOBAL WARMING POTENTIAL OF DIFFERENT GASES IN CO2-EQUIVALENTS FOR DIFFERENT TIME PERSPECTIVES478 20 years 100 years 500 years CO2 1 1 1 CH4 72 25 7,6 N2O 289 298 153 HFC-134a 3830 1430 435 HFC-23 12000 14800 12200 PFC-218 6310 8830 12500 SF6 16300 22800 32600 Table 2 Global warming potential of different gases

III Land requirements

The table below (Table 3) shows the land requirements per food item in m2 in 1990 per kg, calculated for the Netherlands. Clearly, a lot of land is necessary for the production of animal products. Beef requires 209 m2 per kg. Since chickens and pigs are more efficient when it comes to transforming fodder into meat, the land requirements are lower for these categories: 73 m2 and 89 m2 respectively. The production of butter and cheese also requires a considerable amount of land: for one kg of each product 138 m2 and 102 m2 are needed, respectively. Eggs are rather efficient providers of protein when it comes to land requirements, they only need 35 m2 per kg. Milk and plant products are the lowest contributors to land requirement per kg with a range between two and 14 m2 per kg of food. One needs to take into account that land necessary for CO2 sequestration is not taken into account in these calculations. Imported fruits and vegetables, especially when imported by

475 Carlsson-Kanyama & González, Non-CO2 greenhouse gas, 2007, 7-9. 476 Carlsson-Kanyama & González, Non-CO2 greenhouse gas, 2007, 7; Adapted from: Contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, S. Solmon, D.Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B Averyt, M. Tignon, H.L. Miller (eds)., Cambridge, 2007, 212-213. 477 Carlsson-Kanyama, A. & González, A.D., ‘Potential contributions of food consumption patterns to climate change’, The American Journal of clinical Nutrition,89 (2009), 1705. 478 Adapted from: Contribution of working group I, 2007, 212-213. 119 aircraft, require a lot of fossil fuel. If the land necessary for CO2 sequestration was taken into account, the figures for fruits and vegetables might be higher.

LAND REQUIREMENTS PER FOOD ITEM (m2/year/kg)479

Meat Beef 209 Pork 89 Poultry 73

Milk products and eggs Cheese 102 Butter 138 Milk 10,5 Eggs 35

Plant products Cereal 14 Potatoes 2 Vegetables (average) 3 Fruit (average) 5 Sugar 12 Table 3 Land requirement per food item

The table below (Table 4) shows the relative land requirements in land units for yearly food consumption in Sweden and Belgium in 1960 and 2004. The Belgian diet in 2004 was set at 100 land units since it had the highest land requirements of all and the other diets were compared to this value in order to calculate the ratio. Both the Belgian diet in 1960 and in 2004 required more land than the Swedish diet in the same year. Over time, the diets for both countries have become more demanding when considering land requirement.

RELATIVE LAND REQUIREMENTS IN LAND UNITS FOR YEARLY FOOD CONSUMPTION Belgium Sweden 1960 2004 1960 2004 81 100 75 91 Table 4 Relative land requirements in land units

479 Adapted from: Gerbens-Leenes, P.W. & Nonhebel, S. ‘Consumption patterns and their effects on land required for food’, Ecological economics, 42 (2002), 189. 120

III.1 BELGIUM

The table below (Table 5) shows the relative changes in land requirement for the diets in 1960 and 2004. These figures were obtained after multiplying the amounts of yearly consumption per food product and the land requirement conversion factors described above. Afterwards, the change between the 2004 and 1960 values was calculated in percentage. The biggest relative decrease can be seen for butter, potatoes and milk. The amount of land needed for the production of the yearly amount of cereal, eggs and beef also decreased, but to a lesser extent. The biggest increase, on the other hand, can be seen for cheese, closely followed by poultry and pork. The consumption of fruit, vegetables and sugar also required more land in 2004 than in 1960. On the whole, meat is the food group for which land requirement increased the most, with 26 percent respectively. Land requirement for milk products and eggs increased by eleven percent and for products of plant origin by five percent. The Belgian diet in 2004 required 24 percent more land than the diet in 1960.

RELATIVE CHANGES IN LAND REQUIREMENT PER BELGIAN INHABITANT Change in % between 1960 and 2004

Beef -9 Pork 98 Poultry 205 Total meat 26

Chees e 248 Butter -45 Milk -37 Eggs -7 Milk products and eggs 11

Cereal -16 Potatoes -37 Vegetables 37 Fruit 64 Sugar 42 Plant products 5

Total 24 Table 5 Relative changes in land requirements in Belgium

The graphs below (Graphs 42 to 45) show the relative contribution of each food group to total area necessary for the entire yearly Belgian diet for both years under assessment. These data were calculated by taking the total amount of land necessary to produce the yearly diet and assigning it the value of 100 percent. The data for land requirement for the other food

121 groups were then weighted against this 100 percent value to calculate the relative contribution of each food group.

Land requirements in Belgium in Land requirements in Belgium in 1960 2004

Plant Plant products products 18% 16% Milk Milk products Total products and eggs Total meat and eggs 24% meat 27% 55% 60%

Graphs 42 and 43 Land requirements in Belgium in 1960 and 2004

The share of meat production in the total land requirement increased by five percentage points in Belgium, while the share of plant products and milk products and eggs decreased by a few percentage points each. This has to do with the significant increase in meat consumption. The share of plant products and milk products and eggs decreased with two and three percentage points, respectively.

Details land requirements in Belgium in 1960 Vegetables Fruit Sugar 2% 2% 3% Potatoes 2%

Cereal 10% Eggs Beef 4% 35%

Milk 9%

Butter Pork 9% 17%

Cheese 4% Poultry 3% Graph 44 Details land requirements in Belgium in 1960

122

Details land requirements in Belgium in 2004

Vegetables Fruit Sugar 2% 3% 3% Potatoes 1% Cereal 7% Eggs 3% Beef Milk 26% 5% Butter 4%

Cheese Pork 12% 26% Poultry 8%

Graph 45 Details land requirements in Belgium in 2004

The share of pork, poultry and cheese increased considerably, with nine, five and eight percentage points, respectively. The share of beef declined with nine percentage points, but due to the increase in pork consumption, the combined share of pork and beef in total land requirement remained the same. The share of meat from poultry and pigs, even though they are more ‘efficient’ when it comes to meat production compared to cattle, is considerable because of the large amounts that were consumed in 2004. The share of cheese also rose over time to 12 percent, which is the third largest contribution in 2004. In 1960, however, the shares of milk and butter were the third largest but decreased over time by four and five percentage points respectively. This was due to the fact that there was a considerable decrease in the consumption of these products over time. The increase in cheese consumption was offset by a decrease in butter and milk consumption, which is why the total share of milk products and eggs in land requirement remained the same over time. The share of cereal products also declined because of decreasing consumption.

III.2 SWEDEN

The table below (Table 6) shows the relative changes in land requirement per Swedish inhabitant. It can be seen that, contrary to Belgium, the land requirement for beef increased by 36 percent. However, land requirements for pork and poultry increased even more, with 48 and 838 percent respectively. As is the case in Belgium, the land requirements for the total meat consumption increased the most of all three major food categories. Contrary to Belgium, the land requirements for the production of the yearly amount of milk products and eggs, decreased by 16 percent, which is due to the considerable fall in consumption of butter and milk. Land requirement for cheese on the other hand increased by 138 percent, while those for the plant products under assessment only increased by two percent. The increase in land requirement for vegetables and to a much lesser extent for fruit is offset by a decrease in the

123 land necessary for the production of potatoes and sugar. The value for cereal was the same for both years. The number for the total land requirements increased with 22 percent, which is only two percent less than the total Belgian land requirements.

RELATIVE CHANGES IN LAND REQUIREMENT PER SWEDISH INHABITANT

Change in % between 1960 and 2004

Beef 36 Pork 48 Poultry 838 Total meat 55

Cheese 138

Butter -85 Milk -35 Eggs 5 Milk products and eggs -16

Cereal 0 Potatoes -35 Vegetables 159 Fruit 9 Sugar -11 Plant products 2

Total 22

Table 6 Relative changes in land requirements in Sweden

The graphs below (Graph 46 to 49) show the relative contribution of each food group to the total amount of land necessary to produce the yearly amount of food consumed by the Swedes for 1960 and 2004. The changes over time can be easily read.

124

Land requirements in Sweden in Land requirements in Sweden in 1960 2004

Plant Plant products products 16% 14% Total Milk meat products Milk 49% and eggs Total products 23% meat and eggs 63% 35%

Graph 46 and 47 Land requirements in Sweden in 1960 and 2004

Relatively, the contribution of meat to the total land requirement in Sweden has increased significantly by 14 percentage points. Even though average Belgian meat consumption is higher than the Swedish, the share of meat in the total land requirement in 2004 was three percent lower in Belgium than in Sweden. The contribution of milk products and eggs decreased by 12 percentage points, which is high, compared to the three percentage points in Belgium. The contribution of plant products only declined by two percentage points, which is the same as in Belgium.

Details land requirements in Sweden in 1960 Sugar Vegetables Fruit 4% 1% 2% Potatoes 1% Cereal Beef Eggs 8% 31% 3%

Milk 15%

Butter Pork 11% 17%

Cheese Poultry 6% 1% Graph 48 Details land requirements in Sweden in 1960

125

Details land requirements in Sweden in 2004 Vegetables Fruit Sugar Potatoes 1% 2% 3% 1% Cereal 6% Eggs 3% Beef 35% Milk 8% Butter 1% Cheese 12%

Poultry 7% Pork 21%

Graph 49 Details land requirements in Sweden in 2004

The share of beef, pork and poultry increased by four, four and six percentage points respectively, which led to a considerable increase in the total share of meat consumption. As in Belgium, the share of cheese increased, but the rate was much higher in Sweden than in Belgium: it doubled. In 2004 even more land was needed to produce the yearly amount of cheese consumed by the Swedes than the yearly amount of poultry. The share of the other products diminished over time, especially for butter and milk with respectively ten and seven percentage points. As seen in the previous chapter, the consumption of both products decreased considerably after 1960 in both countries.

On the whole, one can see that for both countries animal products are by far the biggest contributors to the total land requirement. The plant products taken into account here only contribute between 14 to 18 percent to the total land requirement. Other parallels can be drawn as well. The share of butter and milk, for example, decreased considerably in both countries, while the share of meat and cheese increased the most. The increase in the total amount of land necessary to produce the yearly amounts of food consumed is about the same for both countries.

IV Energy use and emissions of greenhouse gases

The table below (Table 7) shows the values for energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in CO2-equivalents per food product. It is shown that the production of beef requires most energy per kg, while cheese production has the highest level of greenhouse gas emissions per kg. Pork production is rather energy-efficient compared to beef but both emit about the same amount of emissions per kg. Poultry has the second highest energy use per kg of food, but has rather low greenhouse gas emissions compared to beef and pork. Of all milk products and

126 eggs, cheese production requires most energy although the difference with the energy use for the production of eggs is small. The production of cheese is even more energy-intensive than the production of pork or the category other meat. Cream, milk and butter have relatively low greenhouse gas emission levels while the energy use for cream and milk is rather modest. The production of butter, however, still requires a considerable amount of energy. Potatoes have the lowest figures for both parameters, while sugar requires a considerable amount of energy and produces even more greenhouse gas emissions per kg than certain meat categories such as other meat and poultry.

ENERGY USE AND GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS PER FOOD ITEM480 Emission of CO2- Energy use (MJ equivalents (kg per per kg of food) kg of food) Meat Beef 74,2 6,25 Pork 33,5 6,1 Poultry 38,2 2,81 Other meat 33,5 2,36

Milk products and eggs Cream 5,1 0,41 Cheese 35,7 8 Butter 12,6 0,98 Milk 5,1 0,41 Eggs 27,2 2,48

Plant products Potatoes 1,7 0,17 Sugar 6,7 4,18 Table 7 Energy use and greenhouse gas emissions per food item

The method developed for relative land requirement by Gerbens-Leenes and Nonhebel, as described above, has also been applied to the other two parameters. The results can be seen in the table below (Table 8). The Belgian diet in 2004 was assigned the value 100 since it had, once again, the highest values for both parameters. The diet in both countries became more resource demanding over time. The Swedish diet in 1960 caused more greenhouse gas emissions than the Belgian one, while for all other categories, the Belgian diet had a higher relative value.

480 Adapted from Wallén et al., ‘Does the Swedish consumer's choice of food’, 525-535. 127

RELATIVE ENERGY REQUIREMENTS AND GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FOR YEARLY FOOD CONSUMPTION Belgium Sweden 1960 2004 1960 2004 Energy units 76 100 71 90 Greenhouse gas emissions units 67 100 68 87 Table 8 Relative energy requirements and greenhouse gas emissions

IV.1 BELGIUM

The table below (Table 9) shows the relative changes over time in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions for Belgium. While the change in energy necessary for products is the highest for meat with 40 percent, the figure for milk products and eggs increased the most over time when it comes to greenhouse gasses, with 65 percent. The corresponding number for the increase in energy necessary for the production of milk products and eggs was only 19 percent. This is due to the difference in contribution of cheese. Cheese has the highest contribution to greenhouse gas emissions per kg of all food products assessed, while its energy use is more moderate compared to other food categories. Since the amount of consumed cheese increased considerably, the greenhouse gas emissions related to milk products and eggs increased more than the energy use. The difference between the increase in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions of sugar and potatoes is also quite significant. The energy use increased only marginally by one percent, while the greenhouse gas emissions increased by 29 percent. This difference can be explained by the high level of greenhouse gas emissions per kg of sugar. The energy use and emission of greenhouse gases related to meat products increased with 40 and 54 percent respectively. When comparing the total diet, one can see that the Belgian diet in 2004 required 31 percent more energy and emitted 50 percent more greenhouse gases than the Belgian diet in 1960.

128

RELATIVE CHANGES IN ENERGY USE AND CO2-EQUIVALENTS PER BELGIAN INHABITANT

Change in Change in energy use greenhouse between gas emissions 1960 and between 1960 2004 (%) and 2004 (%)

Beef -9 -9 Pork 99 98 Poultry 205 212 Other meat 27 26 Total meat 40 54

Cream 1267 1100 Cheese 248 250 Butter -45 -44 Milk -37 -37 Eggs -7 -7 Total milk products and eggs 19 65

Potatoes -37 -39 Sugar 42 41 Total potatoes and sugar 1 29

Total 31 50 Table 9 Relative changes in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in Belgium

The graphs below (Graphs 50 to 53) show the relative contribution of each food category to the total amount of energy necessary to produce the total amount of food consumed in one year. The contributions to the total amount of greenhouse gasses are also shown.

129

Energy use in Belgium in 1960 Energy use in Belgium in 2004 Sugar Sugar Potatoes Potatoes 5% 4% 2% 5% Milk 6% Eggs Beef Eggs 7% 24% 9% Beef Butter 35% 1%

Milk 12% Cheese 11%

Butter Cream Pork 2% Pork 1% Poultry 26% Cheese 17% 11% 4% Other Other meat Cream meat Poultry 6% 0% 7% 5% Graphs 50 and 51 Energy use in Belgium in 1960 and 2004

Beef consumption was the highest contributor to energy use in 1960 in Belgium with 35 percent. In 2004, however, the consumption of pork contributed most to the energy use, closely followed by beef. The reduction in the share of beef in energy use in 2004 can be attributed to decreased beef consumption. The third largest contributing category in 1960 was milk with a share of 12 percent. By 2004, however, this had decreased by half. Cheese and poultry had the third largest share in energy use in 2004 with 11 percent each, while in 1960 the figures were five and four percent respectively. These changes were caused by the increased consumption of these products. The shares of the other categories such as other meat, cream, butter, eggs, potatoes and sugar only changed marginally.

130

Greenhouse gas emissions in Greenhouse gas emissions in Belgium in 1960 Belgium in 2004

Beef Potatoes Potatoes Sugar Beef Sugar 13% 4% 21% 22% 1% 20%

Eggs 4% Eggs Milk Pork 7% 3% 32% Pork Milk Cheese 7% 24% Butter 1% 17% Butter 1% Cream Cream Other Other Poultry Cheese 0% 0% meat Poultry meat 6% 7% 4% 3% 3% Graphs 52 and 53 Greenhouse gas emissions in Belgium in 1960 and 2004

When it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, the consumption of pork was the main contributor in both years in Belgium. In 1960, however, the difference between the three largest contributing categories was very small: sugar consumption had a share of 21 percent, beef consumption of 22 percent and pork consumption of 24 percent. By 2004, this difference had increased considerably. The share of pork had increased by nine percentage points, while the share of beef decreased by the same amount. As was the case for energy use, the share of milk in greenhouse gas emissions decreased, by four percentage points, while the share of cheese and poultry increased by ten and three percentage points respectively. The categories of eggs and potatoes decreased by three percentage points each. The share of the other categories such as other meat, cream and butter remained the same or only changed marginally.

IV.2 SWEDEN

The table below (Table 10) shows the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions per Swedish inhabitant in 1960 and 2004. The absolute data are also shown in this table since the conversion factors were specifically calculated for Sweden. The energy use for total meat consumption increased with 55 percent which is almost exactly the same as the increase in greenhouse gases related to meat consumption: 52 percent. For milk products and eggs on the other hand, there is a significant difference between the results for both parameters. Between 1960 and 2004, energy use for those products declined by one percent, while greenhouse gas emissions increased by 30 percent. The explanation of this difference is the big increase in cheese consumption and its high level of greenhouse gas emissions per kg. The decrease in energy use for the cultivation of potatoes and sugar is a little higher than for the emissions of

131 greenhouse gases, 19 percent and 13 percent, respectively. The decrease in the total energy use and emissions for potatoes and sugar is due to the decline in the consumption of both products. When comparing the total diet in 1960 and 2004, it can be noted that there has been a total increase of 27 percent in the use of energy and an increase of 26 percent in the total amount of greenhouse emissions. The Swedish diet in 2004 was thus less sustainable when compared to the diet in 1960 for both parameters, at least when taking these food categories into account.

ENERGY USE AND CO2-EQUIVALENTS PER SWEDISH INHABITANT PER YEAR Energy use CO2- (MJ per equivalents year) Change (%) (kg per year) Change (%) 1960 2004 1960 2004 Beef 1395 1885 35 117 159 36 Pork 821 1216 48 149 221 48 Poultry 61 569 833 4,5 42 833 Other meat 198 154 -22 14 11 -21 Total meat 2475 3824 55 284,5 433 52

Cream 32 51 59 2,5 4 60 Cheese 264 628 138 59 140 137 Butter 122 19 -84 9 1 -89 Milk 891 579 -35 72 47 -35 Eggs 321 337 5 29 31 7 Total milk products and eggs 1630 1614 -1 171,5 223 30

Potatoes 147 96 -35 15 10 -33 Sugar 300 267 -11 188 167 -11 Total potatoes and sugar 447 363 -19 203 177 -13

Total 4552 5801 27 659 833 26 Table 10 Changes in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in Sweden

The graphs below (Graphs 54 to 58) show the relative contribution of the different food categories to the total amount of energy necessary and the total amount of greenhouse gasses caused by the yearly food consumption.

132

Energy use in Sweden in 1960 Energy use in Sweden in 2004 Sugar Potatoes Sugar Potatoes 7% Eggs 2% 4% 3% 6%

Eggs Beef Beef 7% Butter Milk 31% 32% 0% 10%

Milk Cheese 19% 11%

Pork Cream Poultry Pork 18% Butter 1% 10% 21% 3% Other Other Cheese meat Cream Poultry meat 1% 1% 3% 6% 4% Graphs 54 and 55 Energy use in Sweden in 1960 and 2004

As in Belgium, the production of beef had the highest share in energy consumption in both years. In 1960 milk production was the second largest contributor to energy use per Swedish inhabitant, closely followed by pork. In 2004, however, due to increased consumption of pork and decreased consumption of milk, pork contributed 11 percentage points more to energy use than milk. Other significant shifts are the increase in the share of poultry by nine percentage points, while the share of milk decreased from nineteen to ten percent. A similar decrease can be seen in Belgium, although the share in 2004 is still higher in Sweden than in Belgium due to the higher milk consumption in the former country. The share of cheese increased by five percentage points. The share of the other food categories - such as other meat, cream, butter, eggs, potatoes and sugar - in energy use only decreased marginally.

133

Greenhouse gas emissions in Greenhouse gas emissions in Sweden in 1960 Sweden in 2004

Sugar Beef Beef Potatoes 20% 19% Sugar 18% 1% 29% Eggs Potatoes 4% 2% Milk Pork 6% Pork 23% Butter 27% Eggs 0% Cheese 4% Milk Poultry 17% 11% 1% Butter Other Cream Other Poultry 1% Cheese Cream meat 0% meat 5% 9% 0% 2% 1% Graphs 56 and 57 Greenhouse gas emissions in Sweden in 1960 and 2004

In 1960, the highest level of greenhouse gas emissions, 29 percent, was caused by the consumption of sugar, while in 2004 the consumption of pork contributed most to the emission of greenhouse gases with 27 percent. The share of sugar in 2004, however, was still the second largest. These changes are due to the decrease in sugar consumption and an increase in the consumption of pork. Beef is the third largest contributor in both years with 18 and 19 percent, respectively. The share of milk in the emission of greenhouse gases decreased by five percentage points over the period, while the share of cheese increased by eight percentage points.

V Summary

When taking into account the conversion factors for all products per parameter, the ‘top five’ consists exclusively of animal products, except for sugar which is the fourth largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions per kg. Potatoes and milk are the lowest contributors to each parameter. Cream also requires a rather low amount of energy and causes small amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. The categories of fruit and vegetables, which were excluded from the greenhouse gas and energy use assessment, require even smaller amounts of land than milk per kg. When it comes to land requirement, the Belgian diet in 2004 required the highest amount of land units, 100, compared to 81 in 1960. The Swedish diet on the other hand required 75 land units in 1960 and 91 in 2004. The relative changes in land requirements are mostly quite similar for both countries. The share of the consumption of pork, poultry, cheese increased while the share of the consumption of butter, milk and cereal decreased. The share of eggs, potatoes, vegetables, fruits and sugar changed marginally and there are no major differences between both countries. The only difference is the change in the contribution of beef. In Belgium, the figure diminished by nine percentage points between 1960 and 2004, while in Sweden the share of the consumption of beef increased by four percentage points.

134

The biggest changes in the land requirements in both countries occurred in the category of meat products, which knew a 26 percent increase in Belgium and a 55 percent increase in Sweden. One important difference between the two countries is that in Belgium the land requirements for the category milk products and eggs increased with 11 percent, while in Sweden it decreased with 16 percent, which can be mainly attributed to the decreased consumption of milk. The figures for the Belgian diet in 2004 when it comes to energy use and greenhouse gas emissions were, again, higher than the other ones, which is why these figures were again attributed the value 100. In 1960 the corresponding values for energy use and emissions of greenhouse gases for Belgium were 76 and 67 respectively. Energy use for the Swedish diet increased from 71 energy units in 1960 to 90 units in 2004, while the greenhouse gas emissions increased from 68 units to 87 units. If one takes a closer look at the contributions of each large food category for both countries, i.e. meat products, milk products and eggs, and potatoes and sugar, to the total amount of energy and the emissions of greenhouse gases, one can see that meat products have the highest figures for both parameters, followed by the category milk products and eggs. The contribution of potatoes and sugar combined is quite modest when it comes to energy use per kg. However, the inclusion of all plant products might have made the relative share of the plant product category bigger since vegetables or fruit cultivated in heated greenhouses, or transported over long distances by aircraft, use a considerable amount of energy. The share in the emission of greenhouse gases for potatoes and sugar was higher in 1960 than the share of milk products and eggs while, by 2004, the situation had reversed in both countries. This was mainly due to the increase in cheese consumption and, in the case of Sweden, also to the decrease in sugar consumption. There are some interesting differences between these countries for the parameters greenhouse gas emissions and energy use. In contrast to Sweden, for example, the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the Belgian consumption of sugar never surpassed those of pork, although they did surpass the amount of emissions caused by beef production in 2004 because of the significant increase in Belgian sugar consumption and the decrease in beef consumption. Greenhouse gas emissions and energy use related to sugar consumption increased in Belgium by 41 percent and 42 percent respectively, while these figures decreased in Sweden by 11 percent each. Another difference between these countries is the change in energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions of beef. In Belgium the figures for both parameters dropped by nine percent each, while in Sweden, the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions increased by 35 and 36 percent, respectively. The share of the total category of milk products and eggs increased considerably for both parameters in both countries, especially when it comes to the greenhouse gas emissions. The only exception is the energy use in Sweden. There was a decrease of one percent between 1960 and 2004 in the use of energy for this category because of the significant decrease in milk and butter consumption. After comparing the diet of the average Swede and the average Belgian in 1960 and 2004, it becomes clear that the diet in 2004 required more energy and land, and emitted more greenhouse gases than in 1960. Total land requirements for food production increased with 24 percent in Belgium and with 22 percent in Sweden. The total increase in energy use in Sweden was 27 percent, while the figure for the increase in greenhouse gas emissions was 26 percent. In Belgium the corresponding figures were 31 and 50 percent, respectively. The increase in greenhouse gas emissions over the period under assessment is 24 percentage points higher in Belgium than in Sweden. This difference is mainly due to the bigger increase in sugar, cream and cheese consumption in Belgium. The increase in energy use and land requirement is about the same for both countries.

135

Conclusion

The aim of this research was to map changes in food consumption patterns in Sweden and Belgium during the latter half of the 20th and the early 21st century, both from a qualitative and quantitative perspective, and analyse the consequences of these changes from a sustainability point of view. This study has a clear historical perspective and this is important for our capacity to understand and act. According to the American historian Karl Becker (1873-1945), ‘the value of history is, indeed, not scientific but moral [...] it prepares us to live more humanely in the present and to meet rather than to foretell the future.’481 Notwithstanding the limitations of history in understanding and predicting the future, it is without doubt the best tool there is for understanding the changes and the implications that confront us. It has been shown that, at the start of the period under assessment, agricultural policies focused on production increase, intensification, rationalization and specialization. Agriculture became more dependent on machinery with more advanced technology, artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. As a consequence, environmental and food quality concerns rose and ecological agriculture was initiated. Production yields also increased significantly, which led to certain problems of overproduction. Changes in food processing include the introduction of new packaging methods, increased development of convenience foods and new product development. Food distribution also changed significantly with the introduction of the supermarkets and improved logistics. The purchasing and consumption of food is influenced by health concerns, participation levels of women in the labour market, tourism and immigration, food prices and income levels, increased availability of kitchen appliances and ethical considerations. In general, the same developments can be distinguished in both countries, although there are some chronological differences. The internationalization of the market, for example, happened faster in Belgium than in Sweden because of its earlier membership in the EU. Actual food consumption changed considerably during the period under assessment. The consumption of meat, fruit, vegetables and dairy products, especially cheese and yoghurt, increased in both countries. Sugar consumption increased in Belgium as well, but remained constant in Sweden. Milk and potatoes, on the other hand, were consumed less at the end of the period under assessment. There was also an initial decrease in the consumption of cereals. However, in Sweden cereal consumption increased again later on while in Belgium consumption stagnated. There were some notable differences between the countries. Belgians, for example, consumed more cereal on the whole, although by 2000 this difference had disappeared. Belgians also eat more meat, fruits, vegetables and potatoes. Swedes on the other hand consume more milk than Belgians and had high sugar consumption even in 1960. An increasing trend towards the purchasing of more processed food products has also been shown for Sweden and can be assumed for Belgium. The production of different food products requires different quantities of resources. When the consumption of several products increases or decreases, the overall burden of one’s diet on the planet may increase or decrease in some way. Consequently, the dietary changes described above, have had considerable environmental implications. These were mapped by means of a sustainability assessment for the years 1960 and 2004, including three different parameters: land requirements, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. It has been demonstrated that the diets of 2004 were more environmentally burdensome for all three parameters. The Belgian diet of 2004 required 24 percent more land, 31 percent more energy

481 Hamerow, T.S., Reflections on history and historians, Wisconsin, 1987, 237. 136 and emitted 50 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than the diet in 1960, while the corresponding figures for the Swedish diet were 22 percent, 27 percent and 26 percent, respectively. These increases can be mainly attributed to large increases in the consumption of animal products such as meat and cheese. It has been shown that animal products have the highest conversion factors for all three parameters, i.e. they require more resources and emit more greenhouse gases than plant products, with the exception of sugar which has the fourth largest amount of greenhouse gas emissions per kg. As a consequence, the considerable increase in the consumption of animal products during the period under assessment is the main reason as to why the Swedish and Belgian diet became more burdensome over the years. When comparing both countries, it was shown that the Belgian diet emitted more greenhouse gasses and required more land and energy than the Swedish diet, except for greenhouse gas emissions in the year 1960. In that year the average Swedish diet was responsible for more emissions than the Belgian diet because of the high consumption of sugar. All research has limitations and this was no different for this study. An uneven balance in the availability in food statistics for Sweden and Belgium resulted in the necessary exclusion of certain food groups, such as vegetable oils and beverages, although these products also are part of the average diet. It would therefore be beneficial if direct consumption statistics were available for Belgium, and other countries for that matter, since it would allow the possibility of more detailed assessments of the changes in food consumption. The trend for purchasing more processed products in Belgium could, for example, be demonstrated in that case. However, there is a measure of data congruency that allows meaningful comparisons. Moreover, detailed and country-specific studies about resource use and greenhouse gas emissions related to the production and distribution of different food products are necessary in order to be able to fully assess the impact of dietary habits on sustainability. Although this research has been able to demonstrate a nuanced overview of the impact of dietary change from a sustainability point of view, there are many questions that remain unanswered. This research has focused on two countries in Europe but, of course, there are many other potential points of comparison for dietary patterns throughout the world. A lot of the trends that have been discerned for these two countries can be noticed worldwide: agricultural production increases, greater diversity of foods, less seasonal dependence, rising income levels and falling food prices.482 Since food production and consumption are important contributors to the use of resources worldwide, it would be beneficial if food consumption patterns and their consequences were monitored in detail all over the world. Arguably, this is an underdeveloped component in global sustainability debates.

482 Kearney, ‘Food consumption trends and drivers’, 2793. 137

Epilogue

Towards a more sustainable diet

There is a big difference between the environmental impact of food products. It is clear that products of animal origin are the most burdensome for the planet compared to the other categories that were assessed. This is also true on a much larger scale, animal products account for 30 percent of the total energy supply for food in the whole world.483 This is mainly due to the fact that a lot of grain, which could be directly consumed by humans, is used for producing animal products. Producing one kg of beef, for example, requires about seven kg of grain, while for pork, only four kg of grain per kg is needed. Poultry and fish are more efficient converters and only need two kg of grain per kg of liveweight.484 It can, however, be argued that livestock can be fed with residues from the food industry, for example the residues of sugar and margarine production, and that meat production can also be considered as a rest-stream upgrading system. Nevertheless, this is only possible in countries or regions where these waste streams are readily available.485 The production of animal products also requires much more water than other products since animals are fed with cereal for example. Producing one kg of animal protein requires about 100 times more water than producing one kg of grain protein.486 Reducing the indirect consumption of protein and thus eating more products that are situated lower on the protein ladder can have a significant impact. One argument against a vegetarian diet could be that vegetarian meals require 20 percent more energy in the consumption phase than meals with meat, but then the production phase of meat requires, in general, three times more energy than legumes.487 Other recommendations are to eat more in-season vegetables and more locally produced foods.488 Fruits or vegetables grown in heated greenhouses require a lot of energy and emit more greenhouse gases than crops grown on the field, especially in countries such as Sweden. Eating in-season vegetables would reduce the environmental impact of the diet. An increase in the consumption of locally produced food would reduce the energy necessary for transport. However, sometimes locally produced food can be more resource-consuming than imported food. Tomatoes grown in Swedish heated greenhouses for example emit five to seven times more greenhouse gas emissions than imported tomatoes from Spain.489 A vegetarian diet with a lot of exotic ingredients can, for example, be as energy- and resource-demanding as a non- vegetarian diet since long-distance air transport requires a lot of energy.490 The best option

483 Carlsson-Kanyama & Lindén, ‘Trends in food production and consumption’, 2001, 295. 484 Goodland, R., ‘Environmental sustainability in agriculture: diet matters’, Ecological Economics, 23 (1997), 194-195. 485 Nonhebel, S., ‘On resource use in food production systems: the value of livestock as ‘rest-stream upgrading system’, Ecological economics, 48 (2004), 221; Kumm, K.-I., ‘Kyckling, biff eller gröt?’, Kunglig Skogs- och lantbruksakademiens Tidskrift, 137 (1998), no. 5, 25-36. 486 Pimentel, D. & Pimentel, M., ‘Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment’, American Journal of Clinical nutrition, 78 (2003), 662. 487 Pettersson, O., ‘Vegan – vegetarian – allätare’, Kunglig Skogs- och Lantbruksakademiens Tidskrift, 137 (1998), no. 5, 46. 488 Shanahan, H., Carlsson-Kanyama, A., Offei-Ansah, C., Ekström, M.P. & Potapova, M., ‘Family meals and disparities in global ecosystem dependency. Three examples: Ghana, Russia and Sweden’, International Journal of Consumer Studies, 27 (2003), 290. 489 Carlsson-Kanyama, ‘Food consumption patterns’, 1998, 533. 490 Reijnders, L. & Soret, S., ‘Quantification of the environmental impact of different dietary protein choices’, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 78 (2003), 664-668. 138 would be to consume in-season vegetables that are locally grown on open fields. Some fruits, which usually have low greenhouse gas emissions may have as large emissions as some types of meat when transported by air.491 Buying imported food products that were transported by boat is a better option, although information about transportation is usually not readily available for the consumers in the grocery stores.492 Karlsson-Kanyama et al. calculated the total daily life cycle energy inputs for two different meals, taking the dietary recommendations into account, and concluded that this input can vary between 13 MJ and 51 MJ, depending on which ingredients and which cooking methods are used. The scale of preparation of food is also important; cooking food in bigger quantities is more energy efficient than cooking each portion separately. It needs to be noted that both meal patterns, both meals with low and high energy requirements, include meat and dairy products, and have the same nutritional value. 493 When it comes to the comparison of the environmental impact of processed or ready- made food and fresh food, taking the resources necessary for consumption into account, it is hard to make any definite conclusions. Producing and preparing frozen French fries, for example, does require three times more energy than boiled potatoes, but chilled ready-made products are more environmentally-friendly than for example tinned or canned food.494 The trend towards purchasing more processed food has been shown in the case of Sweden and can be assumed in the case of Belgium. It also needs to be taken into account that the energy consumption per unit of food produced could be lower in the future due to increasing technological efficiency although that would need to be demonstrated rather than assumed. The increase in the sale of organic food products seems to contribute positively, although it has not been established how the energy use of a diet based on ecologically produced food products would differ from a regular diet. There are no criteria about the energy consumption or transportation distance connected to the certification of ecological production.495 Certain studies have also shown that organically reared cattle emit more emissions per kg of food product because the cattle are reared extensively.496 An aspect that has not been treated in this thesis, but that is also important is the influence of dietary intake on health. Unfortunately, the changes that have occurred in the food supply system have not only influenced the prevalence of under-nutrition worldwide, but have also led to a rise in nutrition-related, non-communicable diseases such as obesity. Due to the more affluent food supply, even people with more restricted financial means can afford larger quantities of animal products that contain a high level of saturated fats. The predictions for a worldwide increase in urbanisation rates, with its predominant sedentary lifestyle, do not call for much optimism in that respect.497 This is an aspect that should also be taken into account while striving towards a more sustainable diet.

This study clearly shows that everyday choices in food consumption are very important and that considerable changes to the environmental impact of one’s diet can be made by relatively simple measures.

491 Carlsson-Kanyama & González, ‘Potential contributions of food consumption patterns ’, 2009, 1706. 492 Carlsson-Kanyama et al., ‘Food and life cycle energy inputs’, 2003, 294-301. 493 Ibidem, 294-301. 494 Carlsson-Kanyama & Lindén, ‘Trends in food production and consumption’, 2001, 296. 495 Carlsson-Kanyama & Lindén, ‘Trends in food production and consumption’, 2001, 297. 496 Garnett, T., Intensive versus extensive livestock systems and greenhouse gas emissions (Food Climate Research Network briefing paper), s.l., 2010. 497 Kearney, ‘Food consumption trends and drivers’, 2801. 139

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Interview questions

Personal background

 Could you tell me a little about yourself: o In what year were you born? o Did you move? o What was the occupation of your parents? o How many brothers and sisters did you have and were you one of the oldest or one of the youngest? o Did you have certain responsibilities in the household/on the farm?

Farming

 When you were young, what was the main occupation on your farm or did you have several? o What kind of animals did you have on your farm? . What kind of animals do you have now? o Did you have a vegetable garden? . How much of your food did you produce yourself? . Do you still grow your own vegetables? . Did you sell any of your products to your neighbours?  What did a regular day look like on the farm when you were a kid? o What does a regular day look like today?  What is for you the biggest difference between farming nowadays compared to when you were younger? o When you were young, what kind of machinery was used on your farm? . Are there big differences compared to the machinery you use today? o Were any infrastructural changes made on your farm (new buildings)?  How did production yields change over time?  How did the work itself evolve? o Would you say that work has become physically easier?  Were there any crisis years when life as a farmer was harder or more difficult to make a profit or get reasonable production levels?

Eating patterns

 When you were about 12 years old, what did you usually have for breakfast and lunch? o What did you usually have for dinners?  When you were about 30 years old, did any of those meals change considerably? o Were there any products that you did not eat as a child that had become more readily available? . Are there any products that used to be a rare treat that nowadays are common?

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. Are these products that are produced abroad?  What would you say the biggest difference is between the food you eat nowadays and the food you ate as a child?  Where there any food crises that affected the consumption of your food? o Dioxin crisis (Belgium), mad cow disease, Chernobyl (Sweden)?  How did your awareness of how your food consumption influences your body evolve? o Have you become more conscious of what you eat? o If yes, can you remember when this awareness started to arise?

Food shopping

 When you were young, where did you buy your food? o Were there specific food stores in the village? o Did you buy any products from neighboring farms?  Did you have a garden where you grew fruits and vegetables? o How much of your food did you grow yourself? o Do you still grow your own food? When did you stop? o What products did you buy and which ones did you produce yourself?  How many times per week did your family buy food? o Did this change over time?  How did you go to the foodstore?  Around what time did the first supermarket appear in your neighbourhood?  Did you process certain food products yourself to make them last longer? o Salting, drying, smoking?

Food prices

 Has the price of food changed a lot since your childhood?  Can you remember any periods of time since the late 1950s when there were protests because of high prices?

Cooking

 Were there any things in the kitchen that were very different from now?  How about appliances? o Did you have an electric or gas stove when you were young? o Can you remember when you bought your first fridge, freezer or microwave?  Would you say that you spend less time cooking these days?

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Appendix 2: List of interviewees

Belgian interviewees 1 (BI 1)

Interviewees BI 1 are two sisters who were born in 1949 and 1952 in Geluwe, a small village in the West of the country. They have six other siblings and they were the third and the fourth child in their family. In 1952 their family moved to another small village in the Belgian countryside, called Dadizele, and they still live there today.

Belgian interviewee 2 (BI 2)

Interviewee BI 2 was born in 1921, also in Geluwe, and moved to Dadizele after she married. She was the youngest of 13 children and has six children herself. She is also the aunt of interviewees BI 1 on mother’s side.

Belgian interviewee 3 (BI 3)

Interviewee BI 3 was born in 1955. He grew up in Oostnieuwkerke en Sleighage, two small villages on the Belgian countryside in the West of the country. He moved to Leuven to study at university and then moved to Roeselare, a city in the West of the country after getting married. He is the youngest of seven children.

Belgian farmers 1 (BF 1)

The husband of interviewees BF 1 was born in 1937 not far from Roeselare. He only had one younger sister. His wife, who was also born into a farmer’s family, is three years younger and has an older brother and a younger sister. They married in 1962 and started farming on the farm of the husband’s parents. In the beginning their farm was mixed, but later on, they started to specialize in pig rearing. They still live on the farm that is now run by their son.

Belgian farmers 2 (BF 2)

The wife of the second farmers’ couple that was interviewed was born in 1931, while her husband was born in 1933. They married in 1959 and started their own farm. As was the case for the other farmers’ couple, their farm was mixed in the beginning. Later on they focused on the rearing of milk cows. They retired in 1987 and their son now owns the farm.

Swedish interviewee 1 (SI 1)

The first Swedish interviewee was born in 1930 in Skåne, the most Southern province of Sweden. She had one brother and three sisters. When she was 15 years old, she moved to Uppsala and moved in with her aunt. She worked for the Uppsala municipality for 48 years. In 1949 she married and she and her husband had a daughter and son together. She now lives in a home for the elderly in Uppsala.

Swedish interviewee 2 (SI 2)

Interviewee SI 2 was born in 1917 in Luleå in a family as the sixth child in a family of nine children. She married in 1944 and lived in Stockholm and Jinköping before moving to

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Uppsala in 1955, where her husband got a doctoral degree, while she herself got a position as a piano teacher in a school for music in Uppsala. They had three children. Nowadays she lives in a home for the elderly in Uppsala.

Swedish interviewee 3 (SI 3)

Interviewee SI 3 was born in a little town just outside Uppsala in 1917 in a family of five children. In 1938 she moved to Uppsala to work in a café where she met her husband who died in 1948. They have three children. Today she lives in a home for the elderly in Uppsala.

Swedish farmers 1 (SF 1)

The husband of the first Swedish farmers’ couple that was interviewed was born in 1954, while his wife was born in 1958. The husband has four brothers and he is the middle one. His wife has one sister. They met each other in 1975. The husband took over his parents’ farm in 1981 and they still live on the same farm comprising of 370 hectares outside of Uppsala. They are specialised in milk production.

Swedish farmer 2 (SF 2)

Interviewee SF 2 was born in 1930. He grew up in Uppsala with his parents and his brother, but chose to become a farmer like his grandparents. He married in 1955 and had three children, two sons and one daughter. He and his wife bought the farm they currently live on in 1963. In the beginning they had 32 ha acreage and 28 ha of forestland. Over the years they bought more land and nowadays they have 75 ha of acreage and 45 ha of forestland. They bred both pigs and cows for milk. When they retired in 2003 they sold all their animals.

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Appendix 3

List of illustrations

Illustration 1 Map of Europe

List of tables

Table 1 Food consumption in 1960 and 2004 Table 2 Global warming potential of different gases Table 3 Land requirement per food item Table 4 Relative land requirements in land units Table 5 Relative changes in land requirements in Belgium Table 6 Relative changes in land requirements in Sweden Table 7 Energy use and greenhouse gas emissions per food item Table 8 Relative energy requirements and greenhouse gas emissions Table 9 Relative changes in energy use and GHG emissions in Belgium Table 10 Changes in energy use and GHG emissions in Sweden

List of graphs

Graph 1 Evolution of the food consumption in Belgium Graph 2 Evolution of the food consumption in Sweden Graph 3 Milk consumption in Belgium Graph 4 Details of milk consumption in Belgium Graph 5 Milk consumption in Sweden Graph 6 Details of milk consumption in Sweden Graph 7 Milk consumption in Sweden and Belgium Graph 8 Consumption of dairy products in Belgium Graph 9 Consumption of dairy products in Sweden Graph 10 Consumption of dairy products in Sweden and Belgium Graph 11 Total meat consumption in Belgium Graph 12 Meat consumption in Belgium Graph 13 Consumption of other meat in Belgium Graph 14 Total meat consumption in Sweden Graph 15 Meat consumption in Sweden Graph 16 Consumption of other meat in Sweden Graph 17 Consumption of cured, canned and frozen meat in Sweden Graph 18 Total meat consumption in Sweden and Belgium Graph 19 Meat consumption in Sweden and Belgium Graph 20 Consumption of fish in Sweden Graph 21 Consumption of eggs in Belgium (eggs/person/year) Graph 22 Consumption of eggs in Belgium (kg/person/year) Graph 23 Consumption of eggs in Sweden Graph 24 Consumption of eggs in Sweden and Belgium Graph 25 Fruit and vegetable consumption in Belgium Graph 26 Fruit and vegetable consumption in Sweden Graph 27 Vegetable consumption in Sweden Graph 28 Fruit consumption in Sweden

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Graph 29 Fruit and vegetable consumption in Sweden and Belgium Graph 30 Potato consumption in Belgium Graph 31 Potato consumption in Sweden Graph 32 Potato consumption in Sweden and Belgium Graph 33 Cereal consumption in Belgium Graph 34 Total and direct consumption of cereals in Sweden Graph 35 Direct consumption of cereal in Sweden Graph 36 Cereal consumption in Sweden and Belgium Graph 37 Sugar consumption in Belgium Graph 38 Sugar consumption in Sweden Graph 39 Sugar consumption in Sweden and Belgium Graph 40 Margarine consumption in Sweden Graph 41 Consumption of ice-cream and chocolate in Sweden Graph 42 Land requirements in Belgium in 1960 Graph 43 Land requirements in Belgium in 2004 Graph 44 Details land requirements in Belgium in 1960 Graph 45 Details land requirements in Belgium in 2004 Graph 46 Land requirements in Sweden in 1960 Graph 47 Land requirements in Sweden in 2004 Graph 48 Details land requirements in Sweden in 1960 Graph 49 Details land requirements in Sweden in 2004 Graph 50 Energy use in Belgium in 1960 Graph 51 Energy use in Belgium in 2004 Graph 52 Greenhouse gas emissions in Belgium in 1960 Graph 53 Greenhouse gas emissions in Belgium in 2004 Graph 54 Energy use in Sweden in 1960 Graph 55 Energy use in Sweden in 2004 Graph 56 Greenhouse gas emissions in Sweden in 1960 Graph 57 Greenhouse gas emissions in Sweden in 2004

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