Prevention, not cure, must be key in responding to food crises

Date: 26/02/04

Two MEPs discuss the EU's best options for avoiding future outbreaks of animal-related diseases

Unhealthy working conditions and dire animal breeding must be changed globally, says Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf

JUST one year ago Europe was badly hit by the avian influenza virus. More than 30 million animals were killed in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Now the disease has struck south-east Asia, the world's most intensive poultry-producing area.

But this time round, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the threat to human health is much higher.

The WHO's stark warning is due to the fact that thousands of workers involved in eradication measures are in close contact with infected poultry - mainly without the protection of masks or other sanitary equipment.

The poor working conditions of the veterinary staff and farmers should be seen in parallel with the animals' dire breeding conditions. Most of us will remember that, last year, the import of Thai poultry into the EU was banned due to its widespread contamination with carcinogenic nitrofurans.

In a recent European Parliament plenary debate, Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner David Byrne suggested that the current epidemic would hit small family farmers hard and could lead to greater industrialization of the poultry sector in Asia.

Indeed, a huge majority of the three-and-a-half million producers are family farms, each owning less than 100 chickens.

Yet even today more than 70% of all Thai chicken is reared in industrialized conditions by some 100,000 chicken 'production units' - just 3% of the total number of producers - which are often run by international companies.

In these factory farms, highly productive - but genetically uniform - chicken breeds are held under conditions which create an enormous potential for infection once a virus is introduced.

In addition, the epidemic is spread very quickly due to the high level of specialization and transport within the sector. With a view to the globalized specialization in food production, we urgently need a qualified external protection, which the European Parliament asked for two years ago.

According to this concept, all food that is imported into the EU has to comply with the Union's food safety standards. The compliance should be controlled not only at the place of import, but also at the place of origin. In the case of environmental or social standards not being met, the EU could apply tariffs on the imported food and reinvest those tariffs in development programs aimed at improving quality standards in exporting countries.

Only by thoroughly applying this strategy can we face up to the risks caused by industrialized food production and improve consumer protection.

Food is not a standard commodity, trade in food needs fair rules. Producers who want to export to the EU should be obliged to meet European standards of food safety and hygiene, as well as standards on protection of the environment, workers' rights and, of course, animal welfare.

Being the world's biggest net importer of food, the EU has the right to set its conditions for trade.

Avian flu will certainly not be the last epidemic that we will have to face in a globalized food industry. But every new food crisis shows the limits of global specialization, which is focused solely on the comparative advantage of lower production costs - and these are merely a short-term advantage. In the long run, the precautionary approach has to be the leading principle of European food policy.

By promoting less intensive production methods, genetic diversity in plant varieties and animal breeds, shorter distances between producers and consumers, we will reap the long-term benefits of less vulnerable food systems and increased food sovereignty.

Sustainable food production will also reduce the costs for health care, repairing environmental damage and avoid unacceptable mass slaughter.

• German Green MEP Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf is vice-chairman of the committee on agriculture and rural development.

The Union's protection measures must be open and consistent, argues Jan Mulder

THE avian flu crisis in Asia demands immediate action to improve European preparedness. Preventive measures and preparation for possible outbreaks are essential, because contagious diseases, whether humans or animals are susceptible, cannot be banned or ignored, as some wish to think.

Why does Schiphol airport in Amsterdam require arriving passengers to walk over disinfecting mats, yet various other European airports have not taken similar measures? This is the type of question that urgently needs an answer in the European Union. Stepping up protection against contagious animal diseases at the Union's external borders is of utmost importance.

The Parliamentary report following the foot-and-mouth disease crisis called for such action, referring to, among other factors, increased global travel and trade. The US has shown that better control is possible. It is essential that measures taken by member states are similar and that control on execution is present. But further cooperation and integration in this field is necessary: at the moment, the protection used against contagious diseases in the internal market is only as strong as the weakest measures adopted in any member state.

It is therefore a good sign that the Council of Ministers recently agreed to a coordinated approach. But will that prove to be good enough?

This coordinated approach does not go much beyond the rather watered-down compromise reached by Parliament and Council on a new European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in the human field.

The centre will involve a lot of talking and exchange, as Parliament did not support the proposals I tabled, with my colleague Jules Maaten, on behalf of the Liberal Group to provide this centre with the power to take emergency measures. Parliament did not support common purchase of vaccines either.

In the long-run, preparedness must also be enhanced. Non-vaccination policies for certain contagious animal diseases have resulted in decreased research spending to develop vaccines. It is for that reason that for several years already, Parliament has backed Liberal proposals to reserve extra money in the EU agricultural budget to develop special marker-vaccines. Research is ongoing at the moment, but Commissioner David Byrne has apparently not deemed it necessary to use the extra funds at his disposal.

This is a rather astonishing position, considering the various crises that have hit European agriculture in the past few years.

On a more fundamental note, disease outbreaks often prompt calls for less intensive agricultural production systems. I can only point to the various places and circumstances where outbreaks have taken place recently across the globe to prove that this is wrong. An influenza virus does not consider a farming method, but simply infects. Hence disease prevention is often more successful in closed intensive production facilities.

It is also for this reason that I called for free-range poultry to be kept inside in the whole of the EU during the Spring phase of bird migration, as the Dutch product-board has recently ordered.

Furthermore, the aid offered by the Commission to the countries in Asia that have been hit by the virus is to be welcomed. Not only because many countries, farmers and industries suffer from a disaster, but also because, ultimately, helping others to destroy the virus will protect us all.

At the same time, it has come to light that certain countries have been secretive about the outbreak of avian flu, hoping it would go away by itself. This is a wrong attitude and totally undermines trust in world animal disease arrangements. Openness is the best answer - for Asian countries as well.

• Dutch Liberal MEP Jan Mulder is a member of the committee on agriculture and rural development.

Two MEPs discuss the European Union's best options for avoiding future outbreaks of animal-related diseases.