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Social effects of the intensification of livestock production |
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Written by Administrator
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Thursday, 14 February 2008 |
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Many peasant and nomadic farmers depend on livestock for their own security. However the global trend is towards intensification, and in many cases, especially the poultry meat industry, towards vertical integration, with all processes controlled by one parent company. This can disempower the farmers themselves.
The FAO /WHO report, “Diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases”, says “Intensive methods of livestock production may well provide much needed income opportunities, but this is often at the expense of the farmers’ capacity to produce their own food.” 13 Around 160,000 people move from rural areas to cities every day.14 Although rural-urban drift is a multi-faceted problem, there is little doubt that intensive livestock production, with its demand for water and feed crops, its potential for polluting and degrading the local environment and its high rates of production, with which peasant farmers cannot compete, is often a contributory factor. |