EU and Japan should use their trade deal to do more for animals

27 January 2022

WAV comment – so, under the JEEPA; the EU imports cattle, hens and pigs from Japan. But hey, does the EU not export (from Germany) pig meat to China  ?   Germany is one of the largest meat exporters in the world with approximately 58 million pigs are slaughtered in Germany every year.

So, lets get a grip – the EU produces pig meat within the EU (Germany) that it then exports outside of the EU.  At the same time through JEEPA, the EU is importing pig meat from Japan on the other side of the planet ! – this must be so effective in reducing all the meat transportation miles and cutting down on air and sea miles I don’t think. 

Sounds to me like a to hell with the environment; as long as we have good export and import figures, who cares !

Why not German pig meat be sold in the EU, and Japanese pig meat sold in Japan or China ? – this shown the environmentally destructive results of ‘economic partnership agreements’ that our master politicians pride themselves on so much.  Fools or sense ?

Regards Mark

From Eurogroup for animals.

The EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (JEEPA) entered into force in February 2019, but the partners have not yet started any discussion on animal welfare. At the occasion of the third joint civil society meeting under the trade deal, Eurogroup for Animals calls on the EU and Japan to make use of the provisions on animal welfare cooperation listed in the agreement to foster a transition towards a more sustainable food system, in which animal well being is respected.

Read our report.

While JEEPA liberalised the trade in most animal products without any condition related to animal welfare, it also provided two channels that could be used to improve animal well being: the provisions on animal welfare cooperation, and the chapter on Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD), which covers wildlife trafficking, sustainable aquaculture and fisheries. 

While the EU does not currently import significant amounts of animal products from Japan, reduced tariffs have still led to more imports of Japanese animal products. For instance, between 2018 and 2019, imports of Japanese fresh and chilled beef increased by 31% and pig meat imports more than doubled.

As tariff reduction was not conditional on the respect of any animal welfare standards, and as Japan has poor legal requirements in the field, the increase in trade is likely to have favoured mostly industrialised intensive farming practices. This is not only detrimental to animal welfare, but also fuels challenges such asclimate change, biodiversity loss, antimicrobial resistance, and the spread of zoonoses. 

Using the mechanisms available under JEEPA to promote higher animal welfare is thus essential to ensure that trade policy does not impede the EU’s efforts in combating these problems.

In July 2020, in a reply to a joint letter sent by Eurogroup for Animals, Japan Anti-Vivisection Association (JAVA) and Animal Rights Center Japan (ARCJ), the European Commission agreed that increased animal welfare cooperation should be part of the EU-Japan cooperation. At the occasion of the third anniversary of JEEPA, Eurogroup for Animals reiterates its call for concrete actions to take place in the field through the publication of a report on what the EU and Japan could do for animals under JEEPA. 

The report describes the areas that would be the more promising for EU-Japan animal welfare cooperation either because of the EU imports (cattle, hens and pigs), or because the sectors are key in Japan and therefore any improvement to animal welfare could have a significant impact on animals and on the sustainability of food productions (laying hens and broiler chickens), and lastly  because the EU exports live animals who end up being farmed in these sectors in Japan (horses). 

Hopefully, 2022 will be the year such a cooperation starts. This would contribute to the achievements of the objective listed in the Farm to Fork strategy: to use its trade policy to “obtain ambitious commitments from third countries in key areas such as animal welfare”.

Read our report.

Regards Mark

26 January 2022

Experts and animal welfare campaigners are appalled as Spanish seafood company Nueva Pescanova announced plans to open the world’s first octopus farm despite multiple ethical and ecological concerns.

Nueva Pescanova hopes to begin marketing farmed octopus this summer, before selling 3,000 tonnes of octopus a year from 2023 onwards. The commercial farm will be based close to the port of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. As of yet, the conditions in which the octopus will be held captive – the size of the tanks, the food they will eat and how they will be killed – have not been disclosed by the company. 

Experts have been ringing alarm bells about the ethics and sustainability of octopus farms for many years. The London School of Economics concluded in a landmark report last year: “We are convinced that high-welfare octopus farming is impossible.” Compassion in World Farming released a report in 2021 warning that octopus farming is a “recipe for disaster”. In 2019, researchers concluded that “for ethical and environmental reasons, raising octopuses in captivity for food is a bad idea”. 

Cephalopods are solitary animals that are highly inquisitive, intelligent, and carry out complex behaviours and interactions with their environment. They are territorial animals and could easily be damaged with no skeletons to protect them. The barren and confined conditions of farming systems therefore create a high risk of poor welfare, including aggression and even cannibalism. Aquatic animals are the least protected of all farmed species and at present, there are no scientifically validated methods for their humane slaughter. 

Farming octopuses would also add to the growing pressure on wild fish stocks. Octopuses are carnivores and need to eat two-to-three times their own weight in food over their short lifetime. Currently, around a third of the fish caught worldwide is turned into feed for other animals – and roughly half of that amount goes into aquaculture. So farmed octopus are likely to be fed on fish products from stocks already overfished and at the expense of the food security of coastal communities.

PACMA, the Spanish political party for the animals, is organising a demonstration against the farm on the 5th February 2022. PACMA invites any organisations willing to support their demonstration to email laspalmas@pacma.es providing the logo of your organisation.

This issue would seriously undermine the values of a society that is moving towards empathy and compassion towards other species, and an entire scientific community from all over the world is speaking out against the atrocity of opening this farm

PACMA

Regards Mark