The pending free trade agreements, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), are designed to ensure that food safety regulations do not impede trade.
China's meat revolution has entailed a massive increase in the concentrations of pigs, cows, poultry on "specialized" farms with intense price competition amongst retailers and processors that provide "cheap" and abundant meat to an urban population. Subsequent food safety problems are resulting in further government incentives for industrialization of the supply chain, with the U.S.
China is the world's largest producer and consumer of pork, the second largest producer of poultry and the fourth largest dairy producer. How and why has China achieved this "meat miracle"? What are the politics of this growth and the role of Chinese and foreign transnationals? Can China continue producing and consuming more or are there social and ecological limits that create "peak meat"?
Industrial meat production is showing serious signs of stress around the world. Bird flu cases are surging in China's poultry. Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDv) is spreading in the U.S. At the same time the meat industry grows more and more concentrated.
At a 2010 Congressional briefing sponsored by Rep. Louise Slaughter, I warned the continued and routine overuse of antibiotics in U.S. meat production could be shooting the global competitiveness of that industry in the foot.
