8.
Factory Farms
Coming To India In A Big Way
The majority of the world’s farm animals currently live in miserable conditions, raised using ‘production line’ methods. High output is achieved by subjecting the animals to intense and prolonged suffering.
They live short, barren lives, spent in cages, crates, overcrowded sheds and narrow stalls.
They live short, barren lives, spent in cages, crates, overcrowded sheds and narrow stalls.
Exporting Factory Farms : The Global Expansion of Industrialized Meat Production
From The Food Empowerment Project
It is frightening that our species now eats more than five times more meat than we did back then in 1950. These days, over 50 billion land animals are killed for food worldwide every year -and that number is expected to double by 2030. Rising incomes in large, rapidly-developing countries are driving a major shift in global dietary patterns as those societies strive to emulate the West’s eating habits.
The factory farming techniques that make the mass-production of meat, dairy and eggs possible cause incalculable harm and cruelty to animals, the environment and people—so why would these countries choose to follow this path?
The main reason is that some multinational agribusiness companies see serious profit in expanding their operations to largely untapped emerging markets. These corporations have already saturated the Western world with their products, so in order to maintain their economic superiority, companies must break into countries where consumer demand for meat and animal products is rising, environmental and animal welfare regulations are lax, and labor is enticingly cheap. Namely, established agribusiness giants are actively advancing into Asia and nations in the Global South—threatening to supplant traditional agrarian practices and wreak the very same kind of havoc they have done in the U.S.
A brief look at the past provides a chilling glimpse into the planet’s potential food future. Consider the historical precedent of Tyson Foods, the world’s largest meat producer, which in the late 1940s essentially invented the system of vertical integration that now serves as the model for industrialized animal agriculture. The core principle behind vertical integration is to have a single corporate entity own and control every aspect of the meat production process—from feed mills and hatcheries to slaughterhouses—so that farmers solely raise animals on contract for the company at reduced prices. This domineering system now sets the standard for the nation’s chicken industry, and can increasingly be found in cow and pig production.
Six decades after its introduction, the economic efficiency of virtual integration now allows just four major companies to process over half the chickens, 80% of the cows, and 60% of the pigs consumed in the U.S. And now, this business model is enabling these same few massive corporations to expand into the consumer territories of developing societies.
We can begin to understand what this means for animals, the environment and people in other parts of the world by examining Big Ag’s recent commercial activities in some of these countries.
The factory farming techniques that make the mass-production of meat, dairy and eggs possible cause incalculable harm and cruelty to animals, the environment and people—so why would these countries choose to follow this path?
The main reason is that some multinational agribusiness companies see serious profit in expanding their operations to largely untapped emerging markets. These corporations have already saturated the Western world with their products, so in order to maintain their economic superiority, companies must break into countries where consumer demand for meat and animal products is rising, environmental and animal welfare regulations are lax, and labor is enticingly cheap. Namely, established agribusiness giants are actively advancing into Asia and nations in the Global South—threatening to supplant traditional agrarian practices and wreak the very same kind of havoc they have done in the U.S.
A brief look at the past provides a chilling glimpse into the planet’s potential food future. Consider the historical precedent of Tyson Foods, the world’s largest meat producer, which in the late 1940s essentially invented the system of vertical integration that now serves as the model for industrialized animal agriculture. The core principle behind vertical integration is to have a single corporate entity own and control every aspect of the meat production process—from feed mills and hatcheries to slaughterhouses—so that farmers solely raise animals on contract for the company at reduced prices. This domineering system now sets the standard for the nation’s chicken industry, and can increasingly be found in cow and pig production.
Six decades after its introduction, the economic efficiency of virtual integration now allows just four major companies to process over half the chickens, 80% of the cows, and 60% of the pigs consumed in the U.S. And now, this business model is enabling these same few massive corporations to expand into the consumer territories of developing societies.
We can begin to understand what this means for animals, the environment and people in other parts of the world by examining Big Ag’s recent commercial activities in some of these countries.
The factory farm attitude is exemplified by the ISE corporation, whose lawyer asserted that it is legally acceptable to dispose of live birds as if they were manure. When the judge asked, 'Isn't there a big distinction between manure and live animals?' ISE's lawyer responded, 'No, your honour.'
India
In 2008, Tyson also bought a majority share in Mumbai-based Godrej Foods Ltd. and expects to reap about $50 million a year in poultry sales throughout India. But the company may find that Indian society is less conducive to their vertical integration schemes than Brazil, because approximately 65% of Indians are employed in the agricultural sector, and vegetarianism is quite common. In a country where about 780 million people make a living producing food, Tyson’s top-down domination strategy faces real challenges. However, meat consumption (especially chicken) is rising in India as incomes grow, and drive-through fast food franchises are spreading at an exponential rate, so company heads figure that increasing demand for meat and more convenient means of distribution will work in their favor over the long term.
Officially Stated Government Policy On Vertical integration of poultry industry : The annual per capita consumption in India is only 33 eggs and 630 grams of poultry meat. This is much lower as compared to the world average of 124 eggs and 5.9 kg meat. The National Committee on Human Nutrition in India has recommended per capita of 180 eggs (about one egg every two days ) and 10.8 kg meat .To meet this target , it is estimated that by year 2010, the requirements will be 180 billion eggs and 9.1 billion kg poultry meat while the estimated production may only be around
46.2 billion eggs and 3.04 billion kg poultry meat .
The scheme has been introduced recently in few places by private sector hatcheries or feed millers. They provide chicks and feed to the producers and purchase the live broilers at a cost depending upon the body weight. Some incentives for high feed efficiency and good livability are provided. However, in most cases, the purchased birds are sold to the wholesale dealers who often dictate the price and full benefits of the scheme are not available to the farmers. The scheme needs to be supported by providing infrastructure for meat processing, packaging, preservation and marketing with value addition of products and maintaining a cold chain till the product reaches the consumer. The private sector companies including foreign investors have a great opportunity to invest in these schemes, in collaboration with the Indian entrepreneurs.
In India, both intensive and traditional systems of poultry farming are followed, but intensive system is rapidly increasing due to increasing land and other input costs. It is estimated that in India, about 60% of poultry meat and 56% of eggs are currently being produced in the intensive system. It is further estimated that there are about 60000 farms under Intensive system ( some of them having more that 100000 birds) while there are about 100000 small farms scattered in rural areas practicing more extensive production systems, having flock sizes ranging from 25 to 250 birds. In case of layers the cage system is rapidly replacing the deep litter system. However in broiler farming, the deep litter system is more prevalent.
It is estimated that in year 2000, Indian Poultry Industry contribution to the GDP was about Rs 80 billion which reached to Rs. 300 billion by the Year 2005.
Officially Stated Government Policy On Vertical integration of poultry industry : The annual per capita consumption in India is only 33 eggs and 630 grams of poultry meat. This is much lower as compared to the world average of 124 eggs and 5.9 kg meat. The National Committee on Human Nutrition in India has recommended per capita of 180 eggs (about one egg every two days ) and 10.8 kg meat .To meet this target , it is estimated that by year 2010, the requirements will be 180 billion eggs and 9.1 billion kg poultry meat while the estimated production may only be around
46.2 billion eggs and 3.04 billion kg poultry meat .
The scheme has been introduced recently in few places by private sector hatcheries or feed millers. They provide chicks and feed to the producers and purchase the live broilers at a cost depending upon the body weight. Some incentives for high feed efficiency and good livability are provided. However, in most cases, the purchased birds are sold to the wholesale dealers who often dictate the price and full benefits of the scheme are not available to the farmers. The scheme needs to be supported by providing infrastructure for meat processing, packaging, preservation and marketing with value addition of products and maintaining a cold chain till the product reaches the consumer. The private sector companies including foreign investors have a great opportunity to invest in these schemes, in collaboration with the Indian entrepreneurs.
In India, both intensive and traditional systems of poultry farming are followed, but intensive system is rapidly increasing due to increasing land and other input costs. It is estimated that in India, about 60% of poultry meat and 56% of eggs are currently being produced in the intensive system. It is further estimated that there are about 60000 farms under Intensive system ( some of them having more that 100000 birds) while there are about 100000 small farms scattered in rural areas practicing more extensive production systems, having flock sizes ranging from 25 to 250 birds. In case of layers the cage system is rapidly replacing the deep litter system. However in broiler farming, the deep litter system is more prevalent.
It is estimated that in year 2000, Indian Poultry Industry contribution to the GDP was about Rs 80 billion which reached to Rs. 300 billion by the Year 2005.
Lessons From China
Fast food is a $28 billion industry in China today, where there are already more than 900 McDonald’s and 2,000 KFC restaurants. This is no surprise, given that China has one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, with a burgeoning middle class that sees “meat” as a social status symbol signifying wealth and privilege (much like the upwardly-mobile consumers in many other developing countries). To feed this demand for animal foods, China has courted agribusiness investment from the likes of Tyson, Smithfield Foods and Novus International, and is well on its way to becoming one of the world’s top meat-consuming countries. Yet, even as Chinese society increasingly emulates the Western-style diet, a legacy of ecological damage resulting from their currently unsustainable agricultural practices looms behind them, casting a dark shadow over a future that may prove even bleaker. That is, even though factory farming is not yet the main “meat” production method in China, almost a million acres of Chinese grassland are already reduced to desert annually as a result of overgrazing and intensive farming, and China surpassed the U.S. as the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gasses in 2008. If factory farming becomes widespread in China, these problems—and many others—will become more devastating, not only to this country of 1.3 billion people, but to the rest of the world as well.
For decades, animals, people and the planet have suffered the severe consequences of factory farming as it is conducted in the Western world— and the export of this corporatized method of mass-production can only exacerbate the ethical, ecological and social problems it causes. The implications of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations expanding across the globe are especially disturbing because most of the countries targeted by agribusinesses have even fewer animal welfare, environmental, health, and labor regulations than the U.S. or Europe, so the abuses inherent to factory farming would only worsen. Even as individuals we can make a positive difference by supporting activists in developing nations who proactively promote a diet free from animal products and work to prevent these industries from gaining a foothold in their countries.
For decades, animals, people and the planet have suffered the severe consequences of factory farming as it is conducted in the Western world— and the export of this corporatized method of mass-production can only exacerbate the ethical, ecological and social problems it causes. The implications of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations expanding across the globe are especially disturbing because most of the countries targeted by agribusinesses have even fewer animal welfare, environmental, health, and labor regulations than the U.S. or Europe, so the abuses inherent to factory farming would only worsen. Even as individuals we can make a positive difference by supporting activists in developing nations who proactively promote a diet free from animal products and work to prevent these industries from gaining a foothold in their countries.
We want to stop these killing houses. These are very, very sinful. Therefore in Europe, so many wars. Every ten years, fifteen years, there is a big war and wholesale slaughter of the whole human kind. And these rascals, they do not see it. The reaction must be there. You are killing innocent cows and animals. Nature will take revenge. Wait for that. As soon as the time is ripe, the nature will gather all these rascals, and club, slaughter them. Finished. They will fight amongst themselves, Protestant and Catholic, Russian and America, and France and Germany. This is going on. Why? This is the nature's law. Tit for tat. You have killed. Now you become killed. Amongst yourselves. They are being sent to the slaughterhouse. And here, you'll create slaughterhouse, "Dum! dum!" and killed, be killed.
~ Srila Prabhupada (Room Conversation -- June 11, 1974, Paris)
Industrial Mega Dairy Proposal For Andhra Pradesh, Plan Opposed
P S Jayaram, 18 August 2011
The Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) has raised objections to the establishment of the ambitious ‘Kisan’ Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh after environmentalists and animal lovers raised serious concerns over the proposal to set up mega dairies in collaboration with a foreign company as part of the SEZ.
According to AWBI Chairman Dr R M Kharb, the establishment of mega dairies in the coastal district involved several environmental and animal welfare risks and possible violation of rules. The AWBI is a statutory body of Government of India, working under the aegis of Ministry of Environment and Forests.
Dr Kharb, in a letter to the promoters of Kisan SEZ, raised several environmental concerns over the proposed project by a consortium of IFFCO, Fonterra, a New Zealand-based dairy company and Global Dairy Health, an Indian firm. The letter was in response to a petition by the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations (FIAPO), an umbrella body of Indian animal welfare groups across the country, seeking the intervention of AWBI to stop the project.
Dr Kharb said: “The proposed project is a corporate farm where animals will come under tremendous stress. The animals will be kept at high stocking densities which might result in them contracting diseases which could lead to an increased likelihood of emergence of novel zoonotic diseases.”
The genetically-manipulated high-yielding cows that are proposed to be introduced in the farm have shortened life span, reduced fertility, greater propensity for diseases, physiological and development problems, environmentalists argue. “Cow slaughter and transportation for slaughter results in additional problems. The management of the amount of animal waste is also a key challenge and often results in degradation of local environment,” the AWBI Chairman said. According to the convener of FIAPO, Arpan Sharma, the consortium had proposed to import 9,000 high yielding pregnant cows from New Zealand over a three year period. There were also plans to import frozen embryos and semen for subsequent breeding.
“As consumers in developed countries are demanding an end to inhumane confinement systems as is proposed in the SEZ, foreign animal production companies are looking to developing countries like India as a dumping ground for such industrial farm animal production,” Sharma alleged.
“The Indian standards lag behind those of some of the developed nations with progressive animal welfare standards not being implemented by foreign companies in Indian markets. This is unfair to Indian consumers, as most of us would prefer products with high animal welfare standards,” he said.
In such mega dairies, the cows are typically kept almost exclusively indoors with little or no access to natural surroundings. Cows farmed intensively like this are bred to produce unnaturally large amounts of milk which can make them more susceptible to several health problems.
Sharma pointed out that Lincolnshire in UK had recently refused permission to a cattle farm similar to the one being proposed in AP. “It is clear that the west itself is moving away from such production systems and India should not permit the establishment of such models that have demonstrated negative impacts on the environment,” he contended.
According to AWBI Chairman Dr R M Kharb, the establishment of mega dairies in the coastal district involved several environmental and animal welfare risks and possible violation of rules. The AWBI is a statutory body of Government of India, working under the aegis of Ministry of Environment and Forests.
Dr Kharb, in a letter to the promoters of Kisan SEZ, raised several environmental concerns over the proposed project by a consortium of IFFCO, Fonterra, a New Zealand-based dairy company and Global Dairy Health, an Indian firm. The letter was in response to a petition by the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations (FIAPO), an umbrella body of Indian animal welfare groups across the country, seeking the intervention of AWBI to stop the project.
Dr Kharb said: “The proposed project is a corporate farm where animals will come under tremendous stress. The animals will be kept at high stocking densities which might result in them contracting diseases which could lead to an increased likelihood of emergence of novel zoonotic diseases.”
The genetically-manipulated high-yielding cows that are proposed to be introduced in the farm have shortened life span, reduced fertility, greater propensity for diseases, physiological and development problems, environmentalists argue. “Cow slaughter and transportation for slaughter results in additional problems. The management of the amount of animal waste is also a key challenge and often results in degradation of local environment,” the AWBI Chairman said. According to the convener of FIAPO, Arpan Sharma, the consortium had proposed to import 9,000 high yielding pregnant cows from New Zealand over a three year period. There were also plans to import frozen embryos and semen for subsequent breeding.
“As consumers in developed countries are demanding an end to inhumane confinement systems as is proposed in the SEZ, foreign animal production companies are looking to developing countries like India as a dumping ground for such industrial farm animal production,” Sharma alleged.
“The Indian standards lag behind those of some of the developed nations with progressive animal welfare standards not being implemented by foreign companies in Indian markets. This is unfair to Indian consumers, as most of us would prefer products with high animal welfare standards,” he said.
In such mega dairies, the cows are typically kept almost exclusively indoors with little or no access to natural surroundings. Cows farmed intensively like this are bred to produce unnaturally large amounts of milk which can make them more susceptible to several health problems.
Sharma pointed out that Lincolnshire in UK had recently refused permission to a cattle farm similar to the one being proposed in AP. “It is clear that the west itself is moving away from such production systems and India should not permit the establishment of such models that have demonstrated negative impacts on the environment,” he contended.
A New Jungle
Meat once occupied a very different dietary place in most of the world. Beef, pork, and chicken were considered luxuries, and were eaten on special occasions or to enhance the flavor of other foods. But as agriculture became more mechanized, so did animal production. In the United States, livestock raised in the West was herded or transported east to slaughterhouses and packing mills.
The mlecchas, however, make plans to install slaughterhouses for killing bulls and cows along with other animals, thinking that they will prosper by increasing the number of factories and live on animal food without caring for performance of sacrifices and production of grains. But they must know that even for the animals they must produce grass and vegetables, otherwise the animals cannot live. And to produce grass for the animals, they require sufficient rains. Therefore they have to depend ultimately on the mercy of the demigods like the sun-god, Indra and Candra, and such demigods must be satisfied by performances of sacrifice (yajna).
~ Srila Prabhupada (Srimad Bhagavatam1.16.20)
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, written almost a century ago when the United States lacked many food-safety and labor regulations, described the appalling conditions of slaughterhouses in Chicago in the early 20th century and was a shocking expose of meat production and the conditions inflicted on both animals and humans by the industry. Workers were treated much like animals themselves, forced to labor long hours for very little pay under dangerous conditions, and with no job security.
If The Jungle were written today, however, it might not be set in the American Midwest. Today, developing nations like India are becoming the centers of large-scale livestock production and processing to feed the world’s growing appetite for cheap meat and other animal products. But the problems Sinclair pointed to a century ago, including hazardous working conditions, unsanitary processing methods, and environmental contamination, still exist. Many have become even worse. And as environmental regulations in the European Union and the United States become stronger, large agribusinesses are moving their animal production operations to nations with less stringent enforcement of environmental laws.
These intensive and environmentally destructive production methods are spreading all over the globe, to Mexico, India, the former Soviet Union, and most rapidly throughout Asia. Wherever they crop up, they create a web of related food safety, animal welfare, and environmental problems.
If The Jungle were written today, however, it might not be set in the American Midwest. Today, developing nations like India are becoming the centers of large-scale livestock production and processing to feed the world’s growing appetite for cheap meat and other animal products. But the problems Sinclair pointed to a century ago, including hazardous working conditions, unsanitary processing methods, and environmental contamination, still exist. Many have become even worse. And as environmental regulations in the European Union and the United States become stronger, large agribusinesses are moving their animal production operations to nations with less stringent enforcement of environmental laws.
These intensive and environmentally destructive production methods are spreading all over the globe, to Mexico, India, the former Soviet Union, and most rapidly throughout Asia. Wherever they crop up, they create a web of related food safety, animal welfare, and environmental problems.
They are sending animals to the slaughterhouse, and now they'll create their own slaughterhouse. [Imitating gunfire:] Tung! Tung! Kill! Kill! You see? Just take Belfast, for example. The Roman Catholics are killing the Protestants, and the Protestants are killing the Catholics. This is nature's law. It's not necessary that you be sent to the ordinary slaughterhouse. You'll make a slaughterhouse at home. You'll kill your own child-abortion. This is nature's law. Who are these children being killed? They are these meat-eaters. They enjoyed themselves when so many animals were killed, and now they're being killed by their mothers. People do not know how nature is working. If you kill, you must be killed. If you kill the cow, who is your mother, then in some future lifetime your mother will kill you. Yes. The mother becomes the child, and the child becomes the mother.
~ Srila Prabhupada (JSD 6.5: Slaughterhouse Civilization)
