meat industry

Action at animal feed company Provimi: "No Soy for Factory Farming!"

In the morning of March 16 2005, a group of 25 activist had a go at animal feed company Provimi in the Rotterdam Harbour. Provimi, a world leader in animal feed business, is also a major consumer of soy from South America. The action was organised on the first day of the 'Iguazu Counter Conference' against the greenwashing of the soy industry, organised by Via Campesina Argentina and GRR (Grupo de Reflexion Rural). The activists wanted to point out the role of the North, again exploiting South America's natural resources and people.

Read more...  

A SEED on tour along mega pig stables

In june 2009 A SEED Europe and the German organisation Nandu have visited a large number of locations where local residents have organised themselves against the construction of mega pig stalls. Most dates on the tour featured an information meeting and a street event. But also the informal exchange of information, experiences, arguments and strategies are important objectives of the tour.
We had made a nice flyer to hand out during the tour. Here you find a digital gif-version of the dutch version: front & back.

On another page you can you can read about all tour stops. Read more...  

"Stop the soy violence in Paraguay, solidarity amongst farmers!"

On Tuesday the 11th of May 2006 activists, amongst who the Paraguayan peasant Jorge Galeano, have protested in front of the office of the Zuidelijke Land en Tuinbouw Organisatie (ZLTO, the farmers union of the South of the Netherlands). As the main lobby for the Dutch large scale meat-industry and as the owner of the biggest meat-processor in Europe VION Food Group, the ZLTO is co-responsible for the misery caused by massive imports of animal feed from other parts of the world. For example the deforestation, pollution, land-conflicts, violence and poverty because of the massive expansion of large scale soy production, an important ingredient of animal feed in Europe. Jorge Galeano, Javiera Rulli from the Argentinian organisation Grupo de Reflexión Rural and the rest of the activists use their action to ask solidarity from dutch farmers and farmers unions with their colleagues in Zuid-Amerika.

Read more...  

Actions to stop Straathofs mega pigstables

Guerrilla Gardening in the Dutch Betuwe: “Animal industry equals animal suffering, climate disaster, and deforrestation.”

Friday April 17, 2009- 40 activists of the group 'Stop Straathof' made a vegetable garden on the terrain where agro-industrialist Straathof plans to expand one of his many pig farms. The action was a protest against the animal industry and accompanying soy production for animal feed, that causes a lot of suffering in South America. Read more...  

Pig 8 Soy

“The ugly truth behind the agro-industry, what you eat and what it does to Europe and South America.” During the G8 summit in june 2007 in Germany some actions took place against the meat industry in Mecklenburg, the region where the G8 took place. Here many unscrupulous pigfarmers from the Netherlands, Belgium and North-West Germany profit from the cheap land and weak environmental legislation and build stables for up to 15-thousand pigs. Read more...  

Meat factories booming - Environmental standards sinking - farmers disappearing

This article is published in German in the reader 'Widerstand is Fruchtbar' by the Aktionsbündniss Globale Landwirtschaft zum G8 Gipfel 2007. The text is based on the BUND study “Fleischfabriken boomen – Umweltstandards sinken. Der Boom der Massentierhaltung in Deutschland und seine Folgen fuer die Umwelt”

The production of pork in the EU is increasing rapidly. But while 21,3 million tons are being produced, only 19,7 million tons are being consumed. This translates into an overproduction of almost 10 percent. In order to export this, there are about 200 million Euros in export subsidies for pork in the EU budget. This expresses and proves the power of the Agro-lobby in Brussels and Berlin.
The globalised pig is the main victim of the Agro lobby's attempts to dominate the world market. Read more...  

Pigs and chickens - how animal breeding gets dominated by the biotech-business

With stock-breeding there are animals and feed that those animals are supposed to eat so humans will be able to consume the meat, milk or the egg. This is in general a not very efficient way of producing food, but this is how it has been done for many millenniums. The scale of this process is increasing ever more and on the A SEED website you can find a lot of information about the problems that result from this.

But the developments continue: now there is the Monsanto pig™ that is eating Monsanto feed™. And also The Netherlands is participating with enthusiasm; Hendrix Genetics is one of the world leading companies when it comes to hybrid chicken, pigs and turkeys. Read more...  

Smithfield's sickening activities in Mexico

Until the March 2009, the village of La Gloria in the cactus-filled hills of Mexico’s Sierra Madre was like any other neglected community in the country. However, since April 27 - when Mexico’s health minister told the world that the community of 3,000 was home to the earliest known case of the Mexican flu - events have taken a startling turn. Read more...  

Actions to stop Straathofs mega pigstables

Guerrilla Gardening in the Dutch Betuwe: “Animal industry equals animal suffering, climate disaster, and deforrestation.”

Friday April 17, 2009- 40 activists of the group 'Stop Straathof' made a vegetable garden on the terrain where agro-industrialist Straathof plans to expand one of his many pig farms. The action was a protest against the animal industry and accompanying soy production for animal feed, that causes a lot of suffering in South America. Read more...  

The Soy Campaign

A SEED's soy campaign questions large scale soy production in South America and supports sustainable and local food production in Europe. The campaign has the following goals:

To inform the general public about the social and ecological effects of the massive soy production in Latin America; land conflicts, violence, rising pesticide use, GMOs, deforestation, erosion and loss of food sovereignty.

To link the issue with meat production and consumption in Europe; Most of the soy is used as animal feed in Europe (and China). This meat industry creates animal cruelty and pollution by over-fertilisation.  

To stop the current certification processes; nature conservation organisations and some NGOs, together with companies, are creating criteria for so called 'responsible soy' that are unacceptable for local peasants and don't question the current export-volume neither the use of genetically manipulated seeds.

To give direct support to local initiatives that fight the soy expansion by giving international attention to their struggle, doing solidarity actions in Europe and raising money.

While the problems related to soy production are continuously increasing, a new campaign focus is taking shape: fuel and electricity produced from agriculture products. Recently the threat of climate change and the increasing scarcity of fossil fuels has sped up this alarming development.