Environmental groups have been in the forefront of the challenge to the unsustainable practices of global food companies
Thanks to resolute environmental advocacy, transnational companies are starting to pay attention to public concerns about the way food is produced, and the long-term impacts of decisions based on their desire for short-term profits. While the pressure on food companies comes from many quarters, three issues in particular deserve special attention:
Biotechnology and Genetically-Modified (GM) Food: a fierce debate has raged for several years about whether agricultural biotechnology will increase yields and nutritional content, how it will affect human health and ecological biodiversity, and what impact its introduction will have on the ownership of land and food production/distribution systems. While scientists continue to disagree about health and environmental data related to GM food, environmental advocates have nonetheless developed at least three solid arguments against the unrestrained expansion of biotechnology:
- As long as consumer resistance to GM food persists in Europe, Asia and elsewhere, farmers who either embrace or have GM seeds forced upon them face substantial market losses if they cannot provide conventionally-grown crops for export.
- Whatever the benefits in yield that biotech may provide, farmers have long recognized that global overproduction depresses their revenues. In the absence of global supply management mechanisms, higher yields do not improve producer welfare, especially when the inputs associated with biotech crops are so expensive. As for biotech as a solution to global hunger, it has long been established that famine derives more from food distribution failures than from aggregate food shortages.
- Most importantly from the AAI perspective, the current patent system and World Trade Organization rules on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) guarantee that the spread of biotechnology will accelerate concentration in the agri-chemical industry and give a few companies complete control over what can be grown anywhere in the world.
Pesticide Residues in Food, Soil and Water: ever since the public health effects of insecticides like DDT were exposed by environmental pioneers several decades ago, advocacy groups have helped build a growing awareness of one of the darker sides of "Green Revolution" industrial agriculture -- its reliance on toxic chemicals that persist in the environment long after serving their original purpose. Agri-chemicals poison the soil and water around the sites where they are applied, and pose significant health risks to the farmers and workers who use them, especially in developing countries where awareness of the danger is more limited. Residues from these pesticides also show up in the consumer food supply, provoking new debates about their link to cancers and other systemic diseases. Environmental advocacy groups provide vital public education on these issues, while confronting the companies that produce and market agri-chemicals so as to to improve disclosure and safety measures. They also help build markets for sustainably-produced alternative and organic foods that are free from pesticide contamination.
Social, Environmental and Animal Welfare Consequences of Factory Farming: environmental advocates also focus on industrial-scale Confined Animal Feedlot Operations (CAFOs), the preferred meat and poultry production system for giant food companies. Aside from the air, ground and water pollution that CAFO's generate, they also raise serious concerns about cruelty to animals, proliferation of bacterial diseases, and the danger to public health of rising antibiotic resistance caused by corporate efforts at damage control in a fundamentally unsustainable system. Farmers, environmentalists and animal welfare activists have worked together to raise the profile of factory farming as a public menace, winning several important victories, including various state laws to limit the size of livestock production operations, and recent campaigns against major fast food retailers like Kentucky Fried Chicken to guarantee ethical treatment of animals slaughtered for their products.
Follow the links to the groups listed at right for much more detailed information about environmental advocacy in North America related to transnational food companies.
