There's been a growing trend for traceability in the meat industry, in part, due to the fact that the factory aspect of large-scale farming is increasingly being questioned. The beef industry has seen significant environmental scrutiny, but what about Britain's 10.8 million pigs slaughtered each year? What about the chemicals associated with 'factory' farming?
Over 85% of UK pig farms are Red Tractor approved. This is an industry wide standards authority which aims to reassure consumers that their meat is reared to certain welfare standards. With few questions from the average consumer, Red Tractor approval means the pigs have most likely still had their tails docked, teeth clipped and have been administered with prophylactic antibiotics throughout their life. You can be confident that the welfare standards of the pigs produced in factory farms was the lowest possible in order to get the certification that they did. Every action taken is done so in order to drive down costs. That's why if the use of amoxicillin increases growth rate by 10% on only a 1% increase in feed then that's the choice that will be taken.
The issue is who's in control - it's big business. The same goes for pesticide use. Many farmers want to cut the use on their land, but research has shown that often they don't feel like they have access to the correct information in order to do so. Agrochemical companies have a monopoly on the industry and not just in the UK. A report by the UN in 2017 said that “systematic denial of harms” and “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics” were all part of how the industry had made farmers dependent upon their products.
There's been news flashes around all sorts of pesticides having unwanted effects across the globe, from bioaccumulation to contaminated waterways to impacts on non-target organisms. The cause of 'colony collapse disorder' and the reduction of honeybee populations by 50% over a 25-year period in the USA and the UK has been directly linked to highly controversial 'neonicotinoids'. The irony behind this is, of course, bees are a key contributor to our global agriculture systems as a pollinator of our crops.
With Brexit (possibly!) just weeks away, a potential No Deal is raising questions about how government will respond in terms of regulations on animal welfare, pesticide use and antibiotic laws. Will we see a reversal in the 40% reduction in antibiotic use over the last three years as import markets are opened to US and Chinese imports? Will they stand up to lobbying by the companies selling the UK antibiotics and pesticides or will financial incentives they bring be too great?
What | hope I have illustrated here is twofold. That fundamentally factory farming is a profit driven system at all costs, that is kept behind locked doors to not impede our blind consumerism, and that we can't trust labels or big businesses or even governments to make the right choices for us and our planet. That is up to us.