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TTIP talks: What’s cooking?
- Perspectives on Food & Farming
Proceedings of the Conference
In the eyes of our policy makers, retailers and trade companies,
being competitive mean nothing more than being the cheapest.
The way TTIP and other free trade agreements are imposed on us
is indeed cheap.
Cheap in phrases, cheap in promises and cheap
in selling out our democracy.”
Sieta Van Keimpema, European Milk Board (EMB)
Sieta Van Keimpema
,
Vice-Chair European Milk Board (EMB)
stressed
that citizens should be guaranteed the right to determine how their food is
produced, animals treated and how food security is guaranteed. In this pro-
cess, farmers need equal treatment, and above all citizens need information
about this trade deal. The whole negotiation process is taking place behind
closed doors, people are locked out and do not know what is cooking. Policy
makers and civil servants insist that food safety, produced with high environ-
mental and animal welfare standards will be maintained.
The way foods are produced in the EU with high standards does not ensure
ban on products which do not respect EU rules. Dairy products that are pro-
duced in the US and Canada using milk stimulating hormones (BST) already
enter the EU market. Using BST is prohibited in the EU and producers risk
high penalties and imprisonment if they choose to use these hormones. The
World Trade Organisation (WTO) has ruled that the EU cannot ban US dairy
imports unless illegal residues are found in the end product, even though it
is common knowledge that these hormones are widely used in the US and
Canada. Similarly it is difficult to control and audit imports of beef using hor-
mones as growth promoters, although there are no isolated hormone free
beef slaughter lines in Canada.
In the US and Canada, there are still a lot of unregistered cattle, animals
that we don’t know how they are fed or what medicines they take. In con-
trast, every calf in the EU is registered from birth until slaughter, so feed,
medication and its whereabouts are known. The cost of these regulations
and control mechanisms are borne by the producers, and ultimately paid by
consumers.
In Free Trade Agreements (FTA) principles such as mutual recognition and
harmonisation of standard mean that protecting EU standards are hollow
phrases. Mutual recognition ultimately means lower production costs for
US producers, uncompetitive prices for European producers and the end of
small-scale family farms both in the EU and US.
In conclusion,
Sieta Van
Keimpema
stressed that this
trade deal could have far
reaching consequences for the
European model of agriculture
and that our political leaders
should not jeopardize that, in
the name of trade.