You may have read last year that Ireland was to a lead in the global
response to the emerging hunger crisis. It was hard to miss. There was
a high profile launch at the UN in September 2008, with huge media
coverage and Ban Ki Moon and Bono smiling on approvingly. Much was
made of Ireland's moral obligation, given our own history of famine,
to stand shoulder to shoulder with the 1 billion people who go to bed
hungry every night.
It was with considerably less fanfare that the Government announced
the latest of its cuts to overseas aid spending in last month's
emergency budget. It didn't even make it into Brian Lenihan's budget
speech. If it had you would have heard that €100 million in funding
was cut. The baldness of the figure indicates how carefully the
decision was measured. This, added to the €95 million cut from Irish
Aid's budget in February (which may also have passed under your
radar), adds up to a 21.8% reduction of the projected total for 2009.
It now stands at €696 million.
Our aid commitments are tied directly to the size of our economy and
set at a percentage of gross national income (GNI). Therefore, as our
economy contracts (or implodes) so to, regrettably, will the aid
budget. However, even the most pessimistic predictions from our
economic talking heads warn of an 8% shrinkage, so the cut's passed on
to Irish Aid are grossly disproportionate.
Ireland, along with other developed nations, has made a commitment to
reach a figure of 0.7% of GNI for overseas aid spending. That is just
70 cent out of every €100 the Government spends but with these latest
cuts we are now further from this target than when we first made the
commitment. These numbers totally undermine one of the key
recommendations from the Hunger Task Force that Ireland should 'work
to ensure that governments internationally fulfil their commitments to
eradicate hunger'.
These are difficult times for us all no doubt but while last month's
budget may mean some harsh lifestyle choices for some of us here in
Ireland, it may be a question of life itself for many people in the
bottom billion, the euphemistic term for the one in six people across
the globe that live on less than $2 a day.
There were riots across the developed world in 2007 as prices for rice
and other cereal commodities reached their highest price ever. Even as
those prices have dropped back somewhat, the International Monetary
Fund estimates that prices for basic staple foods still remain 71%
higher today than in 2005. Add to this the effect of the global
recession on lowering wages and you get a sense of the real crisis
that looms in other parts of the world.
Since 2008 the UN World Food Programme has added approximately 30
million more people to the swelling numbers of those it must provide
basic food and water rations to. In order to meet this growing demand
it estimates it will need to increase its budget by a fifth to €6
billion in 2009. These are simply the funds that are required for
emergency rations to stave off famine. It is an altogether bigger
question to begin to tackle the underlying causes - under-development
in agriculture; increased urbanisation; climate change - that lead to
food insecurity.
In the face of these appalling realities, Ireland is not the only
country shirking its responsibilities. A coherent international
response was conspicuous by its absence at last month’s major
international summits. At the G20 meeting the leaders of the developed
world bandied about incomprehensible figures for bank bailouts and
economic stimuli (how many zeros in a trillion anyone?). On the
Franco-German border, NATO members committed to sinking untold further
human and economic resources into the conflict in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile the cost of feeding a family in that country has increased
by nearly 75% in recent time. As a result children are being taken out
of school and put to work and daughters are being married off at a
younger age, just to put food on the table.
But let's return again to that €100 million figure. In the context of
our national finances, with €90 billion of bad debt to be absorbed and
€3 to be recouped in expenditure, it represents a cheap and cowardly
political decision when compared with larger, tougher choices that
could have been made. Yet, in the context of those who rely on the
projects and programmes of work funded through Irish Aid, this cut
will cost lives and increase the suffering and degradation of many.
This money – whether through direct government-to-government
donations, administered through multilateral funds, or supporting the
work of our missionaries and NGO’s – trickles directly down to put
food in the bellies and hope in the lives of those at the greatest
distance but suffering the worst consequences of our ailing
international economic system. April’s emergency budget has reduced
the flow from that tap, precisely when it is most needed.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Thou Shalt Not Intensively Farm
That Irish pork scare and the outbreak of swine flu have raise some
difficult questions for the pig farming industry. These incidents of
course are just the latest in millenia of bad press. The Bible set the
tone early. 'Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall
ye not touch; they are unclean to you. ' (Leviticus 11.8) As reviews
go, it's hardly good for business. And yet, we continue to partake in
the sins of this particular flesh. If the snake in the Garden of Eden
had an odor, it would surely be that of grilled rashers.
These bacon bombshells have exploded in a contemporary newscylce that
is starting to take on an ever more apocalyptic tone. Is there
something in the Book of Revelation about pork famines and global
piggy pestilence? Yet, snuffle about a little in the undergrowth and
you may unearth an altogether different truffle of truth, one which
points to the malign hand of large-scale industrial farming practices,
rather than the hand of god, in bringing about our current porcine
plagues (too hammy?).
Across the globe, pork products account for some 38 per cent of the
250 million odd metric tonnes of meat produced each year. This
represents a five-fold increase in meat consumption on the middle of
the last century and estimates from the UN say this will climb to 300
million metric tonnes buy 2020 as the taste for meat develops
alongside the economies of emerging markets. To meet this demand the
raising of livestock has become industrialised along factory-like
processes. However, from a number of angles, this mode of production
is being challenged as a false economy; one with potentially hazardous
side-effects.
Domestically, the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food released its first report on the contamination of Irish pork
produce at the the end of May concluding that the source of the
contamination was “contaminated oil operating a burner being used to
dry bread prior to its inclusion in animal feed”.
What the report alludes to but does not address is the much larger
question of just what we are prepared to allow into the food chain as
the industrial farming industry seeks ever cheaper and more plentiful
animal feed. Some of what the offending feed processing plant in
Carlow was licensed to handle included “waste from...coffee, tea and
tobacco preparation and processing...paper and cardboard
packaging...mixed packaging; edible oil and fat.”
It's a simple case of what an old college professor of mine would call
'garbge in, garbage out'. We know now that each of the three major
recent food scares – Belgian dioxins, BSE and foot and mouth – all
resulted from impurity in animal feed. But do we really need another
large scale food-scare before we further refine our lists of what is
and isn't fit for the trough?
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has just upgraded swine flu
to a full blown pandemic status and health experts are looking back to
the viruse's origins in Mexico for clues to its etiology. The virus is
seen a quite similar to a combined human/ avian/ swine flu previously
detected in North Carolina in the US in 1998 that killed huge numbers
of pigs though did not make the leap to humans.
At the time North Carolina was home to, among other things, 10 million
pigs. Researchers considered it likely that the virus had mutated in
the hospitable environs of the cramped and filthy super-sties where
thousands of hogs wallowed together. The virus was able to develop
increased resistance to antibiotics as it was exposed to the low level
preventative doses of drugs that constituted part of the pigs' regular
diet. A similar explanation has been put forward to account for the
emegergnce of avian flu from intensive poultry farming in China.
Now there are murmmerings of a viral epicentre in the Mexican town of
La Gloria where hundreds of residents were struck down by an unknown
respiratory illness in February – before the current swine flu had
been identified. The village happens to be homes to the Granjas
Carroll pig production facility which houses 950,000 pigs. The plant's
parent company, American corporation Smithfield Foods has stated that
none of the pigs at its La Gloria facility have shown clinical
symptoms of swine flu. Still, questions remain about the role of
industrial farming in incubating new and dagerous viruses and while it
would appear that the threat of this swine flu is less than originally
feared, this should not lessen the urgency with which we pursue the
answers.
To some, these stories of mutating viruses and oil guzzling hogs are
the stuff of dystopian science fiction. In fact it is using precisely
this premise that a novel online campaign has been set up to expose
and campaign against heavily industrialised animal husbandry. At
www.themeatrix.com you can journey into The Meatrix where Leo the
chosen hog and his teacher Moopheus reveal “the truth about where your
food really comes from”.
Meanwhile, in the face of such tribulations, we may return to the good
book, for solace and perhaps from some answers too. As the Lord says,
in what appears to be a clear endorsement of free-range farming
principles, “I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from
your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a
thousand hills” (Psalm 50. 9-10). Amen.
Pig Facts
In 2007 Ireland produced 188,000 tonnes of pigmeat
The pig industry is estimated to be worth €368 million in exports to
the economy
7,000 people are employed in the sector, 1,200 of whom work on farms
There are roughly 500 pig producers in the State producing 3.6 million pigs
difficult questions for the pig farming industry. These incidents of
course are just the latest in millenia of bad press. The Bible set the
tone early. 'Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall
ye not touch; they are unclean to you. ' (Leviticus 11.8) As reviews
go, it's hardly good for business. And yet, we continue to partake in
the sins of this particular flesh. If the snake in the Garden of Eden
had an odor, it would surely be that of grilled rashers.
These bacon bombshells have exploded in a contemporary newscylce that
is starting to take on an ever more apocalyptic tone. Is there
something in the Book of Revelation about pork famines and global
piggy pestilence? Yet, snuffle about a little in the undergrowth and
you may unearth an altogether different truffle of truth, one which
points to the malign hand of large-scale industrial farming practices,
rather than the hand of god, in bringing about our current porcine
plagues (too hammy?).
Across the globe, pork products account for some 38 per cent of the
250 million odd metric tonnes of meat produced each year. This
represents a five-fold increase in meat consumption on the middle of
the last century and estimates from the UN say this will climb to 300
million metric tonnes buy 2020 as the taste for meat develops
alongside the economies of emerging markets. To meet this demand the
raising of livestock has become industrialised along factory-like
processes. However, from a number of angles, this mode of production
is being challenged as a false economy; one with potentially hazardous
side-effects.
Domestically, the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food released its first report on the contamination of Irish pork
produce at the the end of May concluding that the source of the
contamination was “contaminated oil operating a burner being used to
dry bread prior to its inclusion in animal feed”.
What the report alludes to but does not address is the much larger
question of just what we are prepared to allow into the food chain as
the industrial farming industry seeks ever cheaper and more plentiful
animal feed. Some of what the offending feed processing plant in
Carlow was licensed to handle included “waste from...coffee, tea and
tobacco preparation and processing...paper and cardboard
packaging...mixed packaging; edible oil and fat.”
It's a simple case of what an old college professor of mine would call
'garbge in, garbage out'. We know now that each of the three major
recent food scares – Belgian dioxins, BSE and foot and mouth – all
resulted from impurity in animal feed. But do we really need another
large scale food-scare before we further refine our lists of what is
and isn't fit for the trough?
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has just upgraded swine flu
to a full blown pandemic status and health experts are looking back to
the viruse's origins in Mexico for clues to its etiology. The virus is
seen a quite similar to a combined human/ avian/ swine flu previously
detected in North Carolina in the US in 1998 that killed huge numbers
of pigs though did not make the leap to humans.
At the time North Carolina was home to, among other things, 10 million
pigs. Researchers considered it likely that the virus had mutated in
the hospitable environs of the cramped and filthy super-sties where
thousands of hogs wallowed together. The virus was able to develop
increased resistance to antibiotics as it was exposed to the low level
preventative doses of drugs that constituted part of the pigs' regular
diet. A similar explanation has been put forward to account for the
emegergnce of avian flu from intensive poultry farming in China.
Now there are murmmerings of a viral epicentre in the Mexican town of
La Gloria where hundreds of residents were struck down by an unknown
respiratory illness in February – before the current swine flu had
been identified. The village happens to be homes to the Granjas
Carroll pig production facility which houses 950,000 pigs. The plant's
parent company, American corporation Smithfield Foods has stated that
none of the pigs at its La Gloria facility have shown clinical
symptoms of swine flu. Still, questions remain about the role of
industrial farming in incubating new and dagerous viruses and while it
would appear that the threat of this swine flu is less than originally
feared, this should not lessen the urgency with which we pursue the
answers.
To some, these stories of mutating viruses and oil guzzling hogs are
the stuff of dystopian science fiction. In fact it is using precisely
this premise that a novel online campaign has been set up to expose
and campaign against heavily industrialised animal husbandry. At
www.themeatrix.com you can journey into The Meatrix where Leo the
chosen hog and his teacher Moopheus reveal “the truth about where your
food really comes from”.
Meanwhile, in the face of such tribulations, we may return to the good
book, for solace and perhaps from some answers too. As the Lord says,
in what appears to be a clear endorsement of free-range farming
principles, “I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from
your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a
thousand hills” (Psalm 50. 9-10). Amen.
Pig Facts
In 2007 Ireland produced 188,000 tonnes of pigmeat
The pig industry is estimated to be worth €368 million in exports to
the economy
7,000 people are employed in the sector, 1,200 of whom work on farms
There are roughly 500 pig producers in the State producing 3.6 million pigs
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