>> Hi, this is Keeve Nachman again. Welcome back. This is the final segment of today's lecture. >> I wanted to talk a little bit about how our food animal production model may or may not be expanding internationally. >> I was actually asked to talk about food animal production overseas for a class. >> And it wasn't something that I had spent a lot of time on in my own research because most of what I do focuses on our domestic practices. >> But, I thought it would be interesting to go to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the WHO >> and look at their animal production data by country. >> And what I found was fairly surprising. >> So, I wanted to show you some figures that show changes in production volumes by country over time from 1961 to about 2009. >> And so, this first figure is the production of chickens. >> And you'll see that we are, are the number two contender right now. >> But the country of China is producing far more chickens than any other country in the world. >> This next figure is cattle production. And you'll find that the US is number three in cattle production, but Brazil and India are far out >> producing us in terms of cattle. >> Some of the other, same countries that are leaders in poultry are also producing quite a bit of cattle, China being one in particular. >> This is swine production and what's painfully obvious from this figure is that China is outproducing the rest of the world in swine. >> The rest of the world, save the US, is pretty much in the noise here. >> And I have another version of this same figure with China taken out. >> And you can see the US is producing a fair share of the world's production of swine, >> followed by a number of other countries as well. >> So anyways, we are not the only ones producing in the volumes that we discussed before. >> One thought I wanted to share with you is that American companies that are producing food animals have begun to expand internationally to buy up operations in other places. >> So, one way to assess this is to acquire annual reports from some of the integrator companies >> that are well known here in the states to look to see whether or not they discuss some of their international operations. >> And sure enough, because they're trying to convince stake holders of their profitability, they are very quick to brag about their international expansions. >> Over the course of the lecture, I've highlighted a couple of problems that we've noted through our research with the way the US government regulates food >> animal production companies. >> Now that some of the same companies are setting up shop in foreign countries, there are concerns that in some of the lower and middle income countries that are now hosting these operations, some of the same regulatory protections may not exist. >> Among these are workforce protections. >> I mention that >> US food animal production sites are not under OSHA oversight. >> But, conditions may be even worse in some of these operations overseas. >> The environmental regulations that may control some of the releases from food animal production sites here in the states >> may be considerably stronger than what's available in other countries that may, either have very weak, unenforced, or non existent environmental regulations. >> I've criticized FDA for its oversight of antibiotics and arsenic based drugs. >> Some of those same policies may not exist in some of the newer countries that are hosting some of the domestic food animal producers. >> Another important consideration is that, in some cases when these integrator companies are setting up shop in foreign countries, the meat that's produced at those sites may not be intended for >> the citizens of the host countries. But instead, may be exported to other countries, where they might be able to get more money for the meat that's produced. >> And that introduces a number of ethical considerations where, despite being the countries that host production, they may not be the ones benefiting from inexpensive meats, or the revenue from producing meat. >> But instead, they're the ones burdened with the environmental degradation and public health concerns associated with the location of those facilities. >> So, there certainly are some justice issues associated with domestic companies setting up shop overseas. >> Let's take a step back. >> We've covered quite a bit and I'm hopeful that at this point, you're not too terribly depressed. But, let's think about some of the most important messages from today's lecture. >> The first thing is that we've really radically changed the way we produce animals for food. And we'd argue that many of the changes that have been put into place over the past 50 years really pose serious risks to people and environmental quality. >> And I think one of the most important messages I'd like to communicate to you is that there are certain populations that are really bearing the brunt of these risks. >> And these are the people who work in these operations, or the people who live around these operations and have to face this stuff day to day. They're the ones who really pay the price just to give us inexpensive animal protein. >> And what it looks like thus far is that American producers think the model works so well here that they've decided to take the show on the road. >> And what we're seeing is >> these types of operations popping up all through different countries around the world. >> So, we've set a really terrible precedent for the production of food animal.
