Operation fractious meat. Reflections on globalization, food security and rights

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The recent news from Brazil about the carne fraca operation prompts reflection about the impact of globalization on food security and rights. All it took was one event-while serious, but entirely predictable-to expose the flaws in the systems that are supposed to ensure the integrity of the food supply chain. How is this possible?

Brazil’s federal judiciary has revealed the existence of a solid pactum sceleris for the international trafficking of damaged meat adulterated with dangerous chemicals. Politics and public health, in the pay of leading meat industries, covered up the illicit trafficking with false health certificates.

A momentous food crisis, the likes of which have not been seen in a long time. The BSE and dioxin scandals in Central European meats on the eve of the new millennium were worth structural reform of food law, in Europe as in other countries. (1) Thanks to which several successive crises, from GMOs to banned dyes (Sudan Red), bird flu, and horse meat sold as beef(HorseGate), could be handled more effectively.

Operation fractious meat. The logic of ‘convenience at any cost’

However, it is time to question whether the maddening increase in interdependencies between economic and social models of distant countries can really guarantee the supply of safe and healthy food for the global community. The logic of ‘convenience at any cost’ has led to the polarization of supply chains in some areas of the planet. (2) Which, having passed all limits of natural resource exploitation, appear destined to implode. Just as happened in Brazil.

The surge in international demand for meat, in particular, has accelerated dramatically due to consumption trends in and around China. But deforesting the Amazon in the name of soy and pasture was not enough, nor was blowing up processing plants. Agricultural and livestock systems have not been able, nor could they have held up. And their collapse has caused new dangers, which corruption and false papers have failed to cover in the medium term.

Blame Brazil or neo-liberal policies?

So, we must ask, is it ‘all Brazil’s fault’? Or is it instead thanks to the neo-liberal policies that Europe first is pursuing with arrogance? The impact of CETA on workers’ and consumers’ rights, as well as on domestic production chains, has not yet been measured. And already Brussels resumes closed-door TTIP negotiations.

That same European Commission-which today clumsily tries to ‘close the pen of the oxen that have already run away,’ after rotten and adulterated meat from Brazil has invaded the Old Continent-is quick to declare that the security crisis will not hinder the course of negotiations for a further free trade agreement, with the Mercosur countries. Instead of pressing the ‘pause’ button and initiating a‘gap analysis‘ whose outcome, moreover, is manifest and improbable.

No more mercantile speculation

Current European policies show the ropes, in agriculture and food as on other fronts. We need to reverse course, put food safety back at the center and add food security, that is, security of supply. Review the criteria for supporting local supply chains, with a view not only to greening or bucolic attractions but also to stimulating employment and production systems. Which we can no longer allow to be mothballed by mercantile speculation.

The basis of food sovereignty, in terms of production and supplies, must be ensured. Italian cattle and poultry, not just frac meat. To guard social stability, solidarity and the health of individuals.

Dario Dongo

Notes

(1) European Commission white paper on food safety, 12.2.00. Next, General Food Law (EC reg. 178/02) and Hygiene Package (EC reg. 852, 853, 854, 882/04 et seq.). See the book https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/sicurezza-alimentare-regole-cogenti-norme-volontarie-libro-dario-dongo/

(2) The concentration of some global supplies on individual regions of the planet also tends to overlook the food security risk that cyclically affects various agricultural commodities

Dario Dongo
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Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.