Citizens in both the European Union (EU) and the United States (U.S.) are demanding a healthier, more just and more sustainable food system. As parties negotiate the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), proposed trade rules threaten to undermine the good food and farm movements on both sides of the Atlantic. The negotiations are taking place at a formative time: consumer interest in locally grown, organic and minimally-processed food is expanding in both regions, along with public policy supporting these consumer choices. At the same time, globalisation and an increasingly concentrated and vertically integrated agricultural sector are pushing food production, in particular the meat sector, toward increasing overall production through industrialised systems located where labour is cheap and environmental and animal welfare standards are weak or non-existent.
If agreed to, TTIP would be the largest and most comprehensive bilateral trade agreement ever signed, as well as a blueprint for future international agreements. Consequently, TTIP not only threatens current efforts in the EU and U.S. to build a healthier, more compassionate and more sustainable food system, but the trade deal could also expand factory farming worldwide by harmonising standards of two of the largest meat markets (U.S. and EU) and setting the terms for global standards in future trade deals. Eliminating all tariffs on agricultural products in the market-access chapter as proposed would favor ever cheaper production methods. Likewise, TTIP’s focus on reducing or eliminating regulatory differences and protections—“regulatory harmonisation”—would promote cheaper industrialised practices prevalent in the U.S. and increasingly prevalent in the EU. As a result, TTIP is likely to stand in the way of much-needed regulatory reform in the U.S. as well as proposals in the EU that seek to address climate change, animal welfare and the role of GMOs in the food system.
Chapter 1: The current U.S. and EU meat industries
The U.S. is the largest producer of beef in the world at 11.4 million tonnes (over 12.5 million American tons), and large-scale industrial feedlots dominate the U.S. industry. Such facilities can hold more than 18,000 head of cattle at a time. In comparison, a feedlot with 200 head of cattle is considered “large” in the EU. The U.S. is also the largest exporter of pork, and both sectors have experienced a shift from family farms to large operations controlled by consolidated global corporations. Over the last two decades, 90 percent of the independent pig farms in the U.S. have been wiped out, leaving one company in control of over half of the pork production in the country and depressing prices paid to farmers. A similar story can be told about chicken production. In 2012, the average size of U.S. broiler chicken operations was 166,000 birds, a number that pales in comparison with the largest operations, such as in California, where the average broiler inventory per operation at any one time exceeded 1.7 million birds, making the U.S. the largest poultry meat producer and second largest exporter.
The expansion of industrialised farming in the EU has been slower than in the U.S. About 40 percent of the land area in the EU’s 28 Member States (EU-28) is farmed, and family farms in the EU’s 28 Member States were responsible for rearing 71.1 percent of all livestock in 2010. Organic farms are a growing share of EU agricultural holdings, comprising a significant percentage in some countries such as Austria. The family farm model is nonetheless threatened as the EU’s meat sector becomes increasingly concentrated. Through mergers and acquisitions and expansions into additional countries, five producers now dominate in the major meat-producing countries.
Although the EU beef industry has contracted since the early 2000s, Europe remains third in global production of beef at over eight million tonnes. EU beef production is considered at a competitive disadvantage compared to the U.S., with higher costs and more regulatory restrictions. Three countries—France, Germany and the U.K.—accounted for roughly half of the total EU beef production in 2013. Instead of the feedlot system, pasture finishing of beef is common in Ireland and to a lesser degree in the U.K. and France, while silage systems predominate in the rest of Europe.