‘Farmageddon’ nears – but it’s business as usual on the EU farm

It has been a decade since the link between Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and its human version Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) was first reported by the UK government.

Mad cow disease, the ultimate in modern Frankenstein horrors, captured the public imagination like few other diseases and launched an almighty backlash against factory farming methods.

Ten years on, intensified farming is being blamed yet again as a key factor in the emergence of avian influenza, the latest zoonosis, or disease passed from animal to human, to hit the headlines. In a report released earlier this year, the US National Academy of Sciences attributed the emergence of the deadly H5N1 virus to conditions on Asian factory farms. The disease, went the theory, developed in intensive poultry units and went on to proliferate, not only through wild birds, but also through exports of live birds and the use of pellets as fertiliser.

Zoonotic diseases are nothing new – viruses have been jumping from animal to man throughout history. But the signs are that modern industrial farming practices increase the risk of diseases crossing the species barrier. Tony Hart, co-director of the National Centre for Zoonosis Research at the University of Liverpool, recounts the process that led to an outbreak of the deadly Nipah virus in Malaysia when the country’s pork industry was undergoing rapid expansion in the late 1990s. The disease, which causes fever and encephalitis in humans, spread from fruit bats to humans via the intensively farmed pigs.

The outbreak had devastating consequences, killing 40% of the 257 people infected and costing the economy more than $450 million.

In the EU, where industrial farming is alive and well, at least in most parts of the EU, the potential for the emergence of new zoonotic diseases would still appear to be fairly high. Intensified animal production is creating a narrowing genetic base, particularly in dairy animals, poultry and swine. The economic imperative to multiply high-yielding breeds favours the spread of recessive genes responsible for traits such as depression and poor immunity. “Livestock are highly inbred to produce maximum yield in the shortest time. This creates animals which are prone to become carriers of disease,” says Hart.

Conditions on farms can promote the development of highly resistant strains of bacteria, turning crowded pens into potential hotbeds of disease and increasing the risk of transmission to humans. Positive developments such as January’s outright banning of the routine use of antibiotics in livestock feed for growth promotion purposes are a step forward, but the root causes of livestock vulnerability to disease are, according to animal welfare campaigners, not being tackled with sufficient vigour. “We expect to see an increase in the use of antibiotics on farms,” says Dil Peeling, senior policy officer at the Eurogroup for Animal Welfare. “The routine use of antibiotics may be banned. But, in the same system, animals are kept in stressful conditions that reduce immunity. In some cases, genetically they have less immunity, so we are forced to rely more on biosecurity [antibiotics] when minor diseases come up.”

Thomas Cierpka, spokesperson for the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, points to the “horror scenario” of continued transportation of livestock over long distances. Already healthy animals are more likely to contract disease in cramped and stressful conditions. It was live animal transport that turned foot and mouth disease into a major epidemic costing the UK the equivalent of two years in Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments in terms of livestock and revenue losses.

But Peeling says: “With EU expansion, we are transporting longer distances, increasing the number of countries involved in transportation and increasing the spread of infection.

“Everybody recognises it’s happening, but nobody has the political will to do anything about it,” Peeling adds.

CAP with its historical emphasis on quantity rather than quality continues to drive harmful industrial farm practices, according to Peeling. He argues that initiatives introduced under former agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler to restore the credibility of CAP by separating direct payments from production have fallen badly short of expectations. “There was a move to shift CAP from [intensified] production, to support people’s livelihoods, animal welfare and the environment,” says Peeling. “The problem is that CAP has gone backwards since Fischler’s idea.” He argues that the future of subsidised overproduction in industrial farms will continue in new member states. “New accession states believe that the future of agriculture must be the same as that which they have seen in western Europe. They are not learning from old mistakes, so we’re seeing funds going towards intensification,” says Peeling.

The doom-mongers warn that intensified agricultural practices, a necessary consequence of the relentless drive towards greater economic efficiency, are driving Europe to the brink of ‘farmageddon’. They point to evidence that industrial farming is encouraging the emergence of zoonotic diseases. Improved livestock farming conditions that promote a diverse genetic base and increased immunity still appear to be a long way off. It seems that for the foreseeable future at least, it will be business as usual down on the EU farm.