KK-Forum,
Har ikke fått KK på to dager og dette kommer kanskje for seint.
Kunne KK følge opp dissidentsynet på munn og klovsyken. Jfr. NRK 1 "21" i
kveld der en dissident ang. munn og klovsyke fikk komme til orde (en
professor fra landbrukshøgskolen, husker ikke navnet)?
Herved en oppfølger fra ZNet Commentary (4. mars) til Jon Ivar Skulleruds
innlegg om munn og klovsyken forleden.
Et sitat:
... Yet the superstores, as they often
boast, are far more efficient than small shops. They exert an iron grip on
their suppliers, they employ just one fifth of the staff per unit of
turnover, they enjoy, in most places, lower business rates. Consumers have
not benefitted from these economies. The current epidemic of foot and mouth
is the result of structural market changes introduced solely to safeguard
the profits of the superstores.
They buy, for example, only from the biggest farmers, employing the fewest
staff. This means that more animals are crammed together, with fewer people
to check their state of health. ...
Er alle veterinærene enig i masseslaktprosedyren?
Knut Rognes
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Subject: ZNet Commentary / George Monbiot / Foot and Mouth / Mar 4
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How the Superstores Gave Us Foot and Mouth
By George Monbiot
"You enterprised a railroad through the valley," John Ruskin charged the
railway companies in 1889. "The valley is gone, and the gods with it; and
now every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour, and every fool
in Bakewell at Buxton." God knows what he would have made of the 21st
century livestock trade.
Today, every sheep in Northumberland can be at Devon in half a day, and
every sheep in Devon at Northumberland. And, as the government discovered to
its astonishment this week, their diseases travel with them. Why is this
happening? Almost everyone, radical commentators included, agrees that it's
because the public wants "cheap food". They're wrong.
There's no doubt that the modern food economy encourages long distance
transport. Between 1965 and 1998, the international trade in food tripled,
to 600 million metric tonnes. In Britain the transport of milk has increased
30-fold since 1980. To meet the demands of the global economy, livestock
hauliers routinely break the rules requiring them to rest, feed and water
the animals they are transporting, in some cases all the way from Britain to
Beirut.
But of one thing we can be sure: none of this has anything to do with the
needs of consumers. This myth can be dismissed by means of a complex
research procedure called going shopping. In my home town, independent
butchers selling local meat charge some 30% less than the superstores. Even
the organic lamb on sale in the farmers' market marginally undercuts the
poisoned produce the big chains sell. Yet the superstores, as they often
boast, are far more efficient than small shops. They exert an iron grip on
their suppliers, they employ just one fifth of the staff per unit of
turnover, they enjoy, in most places, lower business rates. Consumers have
not benefitted from these economies. The current epidemic of foot and mouth
is the result of structural market changes introduced solely to safeguard
the profits of the superstores.
They buy, for example, only from the biggest farmers, employing the fewest
staff. This means that more animals are crammed together, with fewer people
to check their state of health. They lobby to ensure that the burden of
regulation falls not on them and their suppliers, but on small business.
This is one of the reasons why so many local abattoirs have collapsed in
Britain, forcing farmers to send their animals ever further afield.
Ironically, the food poisoning which helped justify the tighter inspection
regime is mostly the result of the large scale agro-industry the
supermarkets have encouraged: the sins of the giants are visited upon the
dwarves.
They have lobbied too, to be allowed to cheat their customers, by changing
the rules on provenance. "Scotch beef" and "Welsh lamb" now come from
animals pastured in Scotland or Wales for just two weeks. They are trucked
all over the United Kingdom so that the stores can change their designation
and thus raise the price of their meat. This is not about cheap food. It's
about expensive food.
But most importantly, by trading directly with the big producers they
control, the big chains have cut out the middleman. The result is that
livestock markets have disappeared as swiftly as the slaughterhouses. Now,
in order to sell their animals to independent butchers, farmers in some
parts of the country must drive them hundreds of miles. The superstores
themselves have centralised their distribution networks, trucking livestock
from Land's End to John O'Groats and the butchered meat back to Land's End.
Their profits are extracted only at enormous cost to ourselves. The billions
they make are matched by the billions the taxpayer spends on road building
and maintenance, environmental remediation, hospital bills for the victims
of food poisoning and, of course, mass slaughter programmes. The animals pay
too, by means of the appalling conditions in which they are reared and
trucked. Yet the savings the supermarkets make are not passed to the
farmers, and they are not passed to consumers.
The power of the superstores ensures that others must be blamed for the
disasters they precipitate. The farmers being investigated in Northumberland
may well have neglected their animals, but since the big chains started
buying their pork from gigantic industrial batteries, the farmgate price has
collapsed, forcing the remaining producers to spend ever less time and money
on their pigs. Badgers are blamed for bovine TB, while the mass transit of
infectious cattle is overlooked. And the underlying problem, we are
universally informed, is us.
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