Food and Mouth Disease - Time for Action

(Foot and mouth disease has affected most parts of mainland Britain with 1700 cases and 3 million animals slaughtered. Here, Paul Freestone considers the lessons that need to be learned.)

The media coverage of the foot and mouth disease crisis has predictably centred on the "desperate plight" of livestock farmers. Livestock farming and the meat industry must be preserved at any cost and that cost is staggering. Hundreds of thousands of animals, the vast majority healthy or, given time, able to recover, have been slaughtered in an attempt to contain the disease. The animals have nothing more than economic value to the farmers. Anything which interrupts the strict deadlines of fattening schedules or levels of milk production means just one thing. It is ironic that the current slaughter - where animals are killed on the farm - is actually more humane than transporting the animals perhaps hundreds of miles to the horrors of the abattoir. Every night the TV news shows distressed farmers who have seen all their livestock killed right in front of them. These farmers are constantly sending animals for slaughter but this never seems to cause them any distress - once the animal is out of sight it is simply out of mind. The final indignity for the animals is being piled together and burnt in a huge open air funeral pyre. One farmer described the whole process as "grotesque". No one could dispute this but isn't the everyday slaughter demanded by livestock farming equally grotesque? Some people appear shocked at the scale of the slaughter but it is nothing in comparison with the 2 million cattle, 18 million sheep and 16 million pigs (not to mention well over 800 million poultry) slaughtered in the UK every year.

During the course of the 20th century a shift of monumental proportions - from food grains to feed grains - occurred in world agriculture. One third of the world's total grain harvest is fed to cattle and other livestock. Meat production is the most expensive, inefficient and environmentally damaging method of producing food. It requires 16 kilos of feed to produce just one kilo of grain-fed beef. A middle class American consumes over a ton (2240 lbs) of grain each year - 80% of this indirectly as livestock feed. If the world's grain harvest was consumed directly by humans it would feed up to five times as many people. Vegetarians require only 50% of the resources needed to feed the average meat eater, whilst vegans use only 25-30% as much. While up to a billion humans suffer from chronic hunger and malnutrition millions in the West are dying from the "diseases of affluence". Rates of heart disease, bowel cancer and obesity are rocketing in the USA and Europe as consumption of saturated animal fats hits record levels. Ironically, developing countries that are unable to feed their own people export grain to the West for animal feed. During the famine of 1985, Ethiopia was still producing significant amounts of grain but virtually all of it was being exported to the West for animal feed.

Radical government action is needed. The economic insanity of pumping endless public money into maintaining livestock farming must be stopped. BSE was the most costly peacetime disaster to hit the UK. Consumers must be told exactly how the food industry operates with a detailed programme of education to improve the appalling dietary habits of modern Britain. It is especially important to get the healthy eating message across in schools where the junk food culture is so deeply entrenched. One school has already taken the radical step of removing all junk food from the dinner menus, and at break times fresh fruit is available instead of sweets and crisps. Teachers noticed an immediate improvement in levels of concentration and a decrease in hyperactive behaviour. Home economics should be re-established with an emphasis on healthy eating.

All food subsidies should be scrapped with the exception of grants for conversion to organic methods. Organic must become the norm not the exception. There is a massive demand for organic produce which British farming has failed to supply - 80% of organic food is imported. The use of agrichemicals involves a staggering cost to the environment and the bill for cleaning up polluted water is currently met by increases in water rates. The absurd mantra of "cheap food" must be exposed for the sham that is really is. The supermarket price does not include the massive subsidies paid to farmers or the clean up costs to the environment, nor does it include the cost to the NHS of dealing with the self-inflicted diseases of affluence. If consumers had to pay for the real cost of meat and dairy produce sales would certainly plummet.Any attempt to reform modern farming practices will be met with enormous resistance from powerful vested interests who care only for their profits. If reforms are not made then it will only be a matter of time before the next food scandal hits the headlines. Factory farming lies at the root of the problem. Farmers have been quick to point the finger of blame at infected meat from abroad as the cause of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. This is pretty rich considering that the British meat industry is entirely responsible for BSE, which has now infected most of Europe. The fundamental lessons of BSE have not been learned. After BSE it was recommended that the use of pigswill should be banned. This wasn't implemented simply on the grounds of increased costs. Pigswill infected with the foot and mouth virus is the most probable cause of the current outbreak of the disease. Intensive farming methods have been a disaster for the environment, the economy and consumers who stuff themselves with mass produced, highly refined, nutritionally deficient junk laden with saturated fat and chemical residues. All cattle in the UK today can be traced back to just 12 bulls reared in the 1950s. This is one reason why diseases like BSE and foot and mouth spread so rapidly. The gene pool is so limited that immune systems simply fail to work effectively.

Weeks into the outbreak the government continues to pursue a ruthless policy of mass culling and burning carcasses (some vets have suggested that burning is actually helping to spread the virus). This policy is based on the deranged notion of maintaining Britain as free of a virus which is rarely lethal to animals and does not affect humans. A highly effective programme of vaccination could be implemented at very low cost. There are improved new vaccines available, which have superseded the older versions. But the long term future must involve a substantial reduction of livestock farming in the UK. The essential debate about how our food is produced must include all interest groups as has happened in Sweden where huge reforms have been introduced. The Swedish model clearly demonstrates what can be achieved in the face of fierce opposition. The price of food has risen in Sweden but they don't have food scares, food poisoning or the crippling costs of dealing with BSE and foot and mouth disease.

How can any society which claims to be civilised allow the mass cull of mainly healthy animals? Stupidity, greed, arrogance and every other perverted human characteristic hold sway over compassion and respect. When I became a vegetarian over 30 years ago, and more recently a vegan, I was regarded as a crank. Today vegetarianism is not only widely accepted but is steadily increasing in the wake of BSE and other food scandals which have highlighted the despicable treatment of animals within the meat industry. The establishment of a food chain with animal protein at the top has dire consequences for the whole of human and animal kind. Veganism is based on a reverence for all life. Why should this be perceived as odd? Deeply entrenched cultural attitudes are notoriously difficult to shift and I do not expect to see the vegan diet adopted overnight. But if anything comes from the current obscenity it will be a demand for safe food which respects the environment and the right of animals to live genuinely natural lives.

Paul Freestone, June 2001

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This page created 30 June 2001 by Paul Appleby.