Mad cow disease had wreaked havoc in England at the beginning of this century, so that the slaughtered animals were burned in large piles in the open air. Animal scientist Imke de Boer (56) still remembers how shocked she was when she saw the television images. She recently realized again how we deal with animal diseases. During a visit to a chicken stable in the Netherlands, she had to take an extensive shower on arrival and dress in special company clothing – including underwear – in order to enter as a ‘freshly washed Martian’.
See here what intensive livestock farming is forced to do to keep the system running. Extreme hygiene regulations are supposed to keep viruses out, and if they do slip through, there is widespread culling. As happened last year with 4.9 million partly healthy poultry in the Netherlands because of bird flu.
How long will this remain acceptable? A question that has become more relevant now that the bird flu virus no longer shows up every winter, but every winter. And now for the first time it stuck all year round.
Imke de Boer is neither a zoonosis expert nor an ethicist, but as professor of animals and sustainable food systems at Wageningen University, she does have her ideas. In 2020, De Boer and her team won the prestigious Rockefeller Food System Vision Prize with a vision of the future for Dutch agriculture, in which she advocates a switch from ‘more to better’ food. Away from the agriculture, which is mainly aimed at maximum production, as it has developed in the Netherlands in recent decades.
‘I am a systems thinker’, she says at the dining table of her farmhouse in the Achterhoekse Lievelde. ‘Someone who zooms out and then takes an integral look at the future of the food system from the perspective of the earth, animal welfare, zoonoses, health and therefore also whether our agriculture is still ethically responsible.’
Recently published book in De Boer’s Does the animal still fit on our plate? she searches for herself an answer to the ethical question: can we still keep and kill animals for the production of our food? In a chapter she pays separate attention to zoonoses (infectious diseases that can transfer from animals to humans) and the massive culling that goes with them. At a time, she casually notes, there are more birds being kept than flying around in the wild. Her answer in the book: ‘The more I delve into this matter, the more I wonder whether you can still keep animals at all from the point of view of zoonoses.’
Animal diseases are of all times, why are you now looking for an answer to that question?
‘Twenty years ago I also had difficulties with it during the foot-and-mouth crisis (a major European outbreak of the livestock disease, foot-and-mouth disease, red.). With those burning piles of animals in England and gripping arms full of dead animals in the Netherlands. We are now at the point where an animal disease, the bird flu, does not seem to go away. It is no longer once every few years, but year round. The continued culling of animals is no longer tenable.
‘Social norms and values have also changed. We really need to look for alternatives now. And then look beyond just vaccinating to prevent spread. Reducing the livestock population is also logical when viewed from a zoonotic perspective.’
How did we get to this point?
‘We have forgotten that we are inextricably linked to nature. The wild ancestors of our chickens lived in the forest and did not have bird flu. By unknowingly keeping ducks and geese in areas where wild waterfowl also lived, the virus has been transferred from wild to domestic waterfowl. These infected geese and ducks have subsequently infected farmed chickens, and wild waterfowl are now carrying the virus around the world.
‘And now we are in the situation where the rapid culling of animals after an infection is the only way to be able to continue exporting meat and eggs. Because that’s how we agreed in Europe. But I don’t think it’s acceptable to kill healthy animals on a large scale to avoid an export block. Not only because of the risks for the animal, but also because of our own health, we have to switch to a different system. The bird flu not only makes animals sick, but it can also make us sick.’
How do you think it should be?
‘Here comes my hobbyhorse: circular agriculture. Start by no longer feeding animals foods that humans can eat, such as corn and grains. In the case of chickens: only give them residual flows from biscuit factories, bakeries and other processing industries. And keep those animals where the residual flows are. Then you end up with far fewer animals, and you run less risk of spreading diseases in an area. And all those livestock transports around the world are such a big risk. By producing more locally, you also have to transport fewer animals, which greatly reduces the chance of introducing diseases.
‘It also helps to restore the balance in the countryside. More variety, fewer animals in an area and smaller barns means that the consequences of an outbreak are less serious and the risk of new, worse virus variants is smaller. It works just like in the plant world: monoculture, lack of variety, increases the risk of crop diseases. And if we tackle the problems in agriculture in an integrated manner, we can also solve the problems with nitrogen, water quality, climate and biodiversity in one fell swoop.’
Such an approach seems a long way off. The mayor of the chicken capital Barneveld said in de Volkskrant that he does not think the culling of a poultry farm in his municipality is a good time to talk to the farmer and stop altogether. Do you think so?
‘Yes! Zoonoses, animal welfare, nitrogen, drought, less biodiversity: all that together, how blind do you have to be not to see that these problems in the Netherlands require a system change? I don’t see this anywhere in policy. It is all based on the control model, in which we, like Martians, have to stall, cull or vaccinate on a large scale. These are panic measures that you also saw with corona, without really looking at the causes. We have to move towards a ‘resilience model’, in which varied agriculture is resilient and attuned to the carrying capacity of the environment.’
We have the most efficient agriculture in the world, is often the argument for maintaining the large livestock sector in the Netherlands. Moving production abroad means greater environmental damage, right?
‘You could say we’re the best, but apparently that means we’re culling millions of healthy animals to keep the system running. Are we really the best? We should not be too arrogant either, because chickens in Africa still eat waste streams. Kipster is successful with it in the Netherlands. Export their concept around the world, not the eggs and the meat.’
Your message is not common at Wageningen University, the institute that is also seen as the designer of intensive agriculture as we know it here. What is it like to work there?
‘During my studies it was often about achieving higher productivity, how a hen can lay more eggs. But that was with the knowledge of the time. I don’t like blame, I prefer to talk about responsibility. Wageningen has a responsibility for the situation we are in now. I take my responsibility by thinking about a different food system. That is not always easy in Wageningen, no, and sometimes hard fighting. But I keep doing it. To inspire a young generation.’