*By Martín Vainstein, a political scientist specializing in gender, environment and affections from the University of Buenos Aires, trained as an activist and campaigner in London.
In Argentina and at the beginning of 2020, the alert light was turned on before the possibility of an agreement with China to build 25 mega farms to raise, kill and dress pigs.
From then until today, the campaign to stop this agreement has mobilized thousands and thousands of people throughout the country. What are the details of the agreement, how is it replicated in the region and why are we saying no?
The details of the agreement
It is estimated that in a first stage they will install some 25 productive farms of approximately 12,500 pigs each, where they will seek double the number of 350,000 pigs in Argentina today, and production would be boosted to 700,000 tons per year immediately and 900,000 tons per year in four years. Each farm would be an integrated facility, from processing grains for animal feed to raising pigs, slaughtering and packing for export to China.
Raw details, numbers and plans. Sentient beings are transformed into figures, parts and food. Any type of agreement based on cruelty and that perpetuates an extractive and speciesist system is inconceivable to us. In the section that follows we explain why we said no to the agreement and what we propose instead.
Why do we say no and what do we propose?
Added to the speciesist factor are the institutional and socio-sanitary impacts that an agreement of such magnitude entails. Let’s go with the data:
– The agreement is being carried out behind the backs of the citizens. Given the requests for public information, the responses were to go and review a tweet in which the Foreign Ministry said that there was no such agreement. Taking into account that in 2018 the Escazú Agreement that ensures access to public information on socio-environmental matters entered into force, the management of the pig agreement is a crack in democracy.
– For every kilo of pork, 5,900 liters of drinking water are used. This level of consumption is unsustainable considering that 7 million people live in the country who still do not have access to drinking water. If we take into account that Chaco, the first province where they would settle, is in a water crisis, the outlook is even worse.
– 78% of the available agricultural land in the world is used for the livestock industry, more than 60% is to produce food for confined livestock. In a country and a region with high poverty rates, food production should be focused and focused on the availability of food for all, not on the promotion of the meat industry.
The waste produced by the pigs ends up in pools that, as has already happened with the mega-mining experience, can then filter and end up in the water table, source of drinking water for the population. Added to this danger is bad odors: exposure to an intense bad odor causes sweating, increased heart rate, nausea, headache, respiratory, eye, and gastrointestinal disturbances, among others.
Two years ago China suffered a strong outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF). To prevent its spread in that country, it is estimated that between 180 and 250 million pigs were burned and buried alive. In the current context of pandemic Do we want to be the factory of the next?
The livestock industry is responsible for 14.5% of greenhouse gases And at a time when we are trying to reduce our emissions and mitigate the effects of the climate crisis, the promotion of the livestock industry is unfeasible.
Given the panorama that the pig agreement presents us, from Climate Save Movement we propose the plant-based deal.
On August 31, the plant-based deal was launched in more than 80 cities around the world. The objective is to achieve a change in the ways of eating, going from animal sources to others of plant origin, agroecological and sustainable. The cessation of monopolies, of large landowners, subsidies to the meat industry and the reconversion to forms of community, family work and with the redistribution of subsidies towards the promotion of plant-based diets.
The three demands of the plant-based settlement
– Give up: Misuse of the land, degradation of the ecosystem or deforestation for livestock purposes.
– Redirect: An active transition away from animal-based agricultural systems to plant-based food systems.
– Regenerate: Restore key ecosystems and reforest the Earth.
We are already thousands and thousands of people and hundreds of businesses and organizations that are part of the agreement. Would you like to be part? All the information is available on our Instagram and you can join from www.plantbasedtreaty.org.
We went from a national agreement to a global solution. How is the pig agreement reflected in the region?
The pig agreement in the region
Latin America was the region that grew the most in the world in pig production, with a weighted average of 4.6%, which meant that African Swine Fever is already confirmed in our continent.
Argentina, Brazil and Chile are among the countries that are preparing to increase their production and export of pigs to China. In the Dominican Republic, the existence of ASF was officially declared with 98% of the swine population being epidemiologically compromised with 60,000 pigs killed.
with this panorama Do we continue betting on cruel or extractive models or do we transform it into joint, community construction, with food safety and sovereignty, cruelty-free and plant-based?