The controversial criticisms of the Minister of Consumption, Alberto Garzón, against those known as “macro farms“They have opened the debate on the effects of these intensive livestock operations on the environment, the welfare of the animals or the quality of the meat.
In an interview with The Guardian, Garzón accused factory farming of producing “a meat of poorer quality” with practices of “animal abuse” and with “an enormous ecological impact”, statements that have raised doubts in Spanish society about this type of livestock and have caused a strong reaction in this productive sector and in the political sphere.
What are macro farms?
The term ‘macrofarm’ does not appear in any regulation nor does it have an official definition, but it is used by environmental organizations to describe industrial or intensive livestock facilities where large numbers of stabled and feed-fed animals are raised to obtain the maximum production of meat, milk or eggs at the lowest cost and in the shortest possible time.
Also, in Spain there are no official global data that allow knowing the number of livestock farms of all kinds that house hundreds to thousands of animals.
Thus, the Minister of Consumption uses as an example farms with 4,000, 5,000 or 10,000 head of cattle, but in the bovine sector only stands out with a five-digit number the project for the exploitation of 23,520 dairy cows in the Soria municipality of Noviercas.
The Ministry of Agriculture records 115 farms with more than 626 dairy cows and, among those destined to calf rearing, 3,730 with more than 100 wet nurses, but there are no specific data on the largest cattle farms, because they are exempt for now from reporting their polluting emissions.
On the other hand, active farms in the pig and poultry sector are obliged to do so. Thus, the inventory of the Ministry for Ecological Transition called the State Registry of Pollutant Emissions and Sources reveals that there are more than 2,400 farms with more than 2,000 places for fattening pigs of 30 kilos and 550 with more than 40,000 places for poultry.
What is its environmental impact?
Spain is the EU country where citizens have more meat at their disposal, with 98.79 kilos per year per inhabitant, according to the latest FAO data.
And, at least in the pig sector, during the last 13 years it has been registered in Spain a significant decrease in the number of small farms, at the same time that the number of large livestock farms increased.
With data from the Ministry of Agriculture, the number of small pig farms fell by 30% during the last decade, while that of the largest grew by 3%.
And what is its impact on the environment? The agro-livestock sector in 2020 was the third with the most weight in the emission of greenhouse gases in Spain, with 14.1% of the total, behind the 27.7% corresponding to transport and 21.4% of the industry.
An agricultural and livestock activity that increased these emissions throughout the year by 1.2%, mainly as a consequence of the growth of livestock herds, “responsible for 64.8% of emissions from this sector”, mainly due to those coming from manure management, as explained in an Ecological Transition report.
Intensive poultry and pig farming is responsible for 38% of the methane and 24% of the nitrous oxide emitted in Spain, two greenhouse gases with a global warming potential 21 and 310 times higher than that of CO2, respectively, according to the EU Directive on nitrates. In addition, methane was the second gas with the most weight in total Spanish emissions in 2020, 14.3% of the total.
To control the environmental impact of livestock, Spain uses a State Registry that lists the more than 3,700 large farms that report their emissions, but which includes only pig and poultry farms, because beef cattle farms are not listed. still obliged to provide that information.
Does it breach pollutant emission limits?
The fact is that the European Commission announced in December that it will take Spain to the Court of Justice of the EU for no have taken sufficient measures to combat nitrate contamination, after warning since 2018 that this country was not complying with the 1991 Directive on the matter.
This 1991 Directive obliges the Member States to adopt measures to prevent nitrates from agricultural sources from contaminating ground and surface waters, as well as to establish action programs that prevent and reduce this type of contamination.
Spain also exceeds the ceiling set for emissions of ammonia (NH3), an atmospheric pollutant 96% generated by agricultural and livestock activities and which, according to the European Commission, damages human health and the environment because it contributes “to the process of acidification of the soil, the eutrophication of waters and tropospheric ozone pollution “.
With data from the Ecological Transition, Spain exceeded by 34% the ceiling of 353 kilotonnes of ammonia in force in 2019, when 474.4 kilotonnes were emitted into the atmosphere that year, and the figure has continued to grow by 2.7% since then.
The ministry confirms that the increase in these emissions registered since 2013 is linked to the “increase in the cattle herd” and the use of fertilizers.
Do animals suffer abuse?
Regarding the accusations of mistreatment, The General Council of Veterinary Colleges ensures that industrial livestock complies with European and national animal welfare regulations, both on the farm and in transport and slaughterhouse, although environmental organizations denounce that it encourages extreme overcrowding and the objectification of animals and even protects cruel treatment.
The management of intensive pig farms with animal welfare requirements is regulated in a royal decree of 2020 that also limits the maximum number of heads to 750 mothers and 4,000 bait places. Another more recent decree, from 2021, establishes the criteria for poultry farms.
For cattle farms, The Government also finalizes a decree that will establish accommodation and food conditions to prevent animal abuse and will limit the capacity of new farms – not existing ones – to 725 milking cows or 1,400 fattening calves.
Despite the network of national and European regulations to guarantee animal welfare, Greenpeace affirms that in pig farms the number of non-compliances is very high, very few inspections and very few sanctioned facilities. He even questions the legislation itself for being “tailor-made for the industry” and allowing “animals to live in harsh conditions.”
Is it worse quality meat?
Regarding the quality of the meat from animals raised in Spanish industrial farms, it is subjected to rigorous controls, although there are no systems that allow it to be objectively compared with that of extensive livestock farming.
Veterinarians remember that it complies with rigorous sanitary controls throughout the production and distribution chain. And the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, stresses that it is not of lower quality than the rest of the EU.
But is it worse than that of animals raised on extensive livestock farms? The truth is there are no objective evaluation methods to measure the quality of the meat Depending on their origin, although the consumer organization Facua warns that it is worse due to factors such as the forced immobilization of the animals, their diet and the drugs that are administered to them.
Complying with consumer requirements, technical-sanitary regulations and labeling regulations simply means “meeting a minimum quality requirement”, but meat from “a crowded animal” is “much fatter” and is also worse due to the type of food, say sources from Facua, who also ask for stricter protocols on the drugs they can receive.