Fat cats and laughing pigs
EU farming directives sound funny, but the effect on small-scale agriculture won't be so humorous
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"So how do you keep your pigs so happy?"
- Farmer's sign reads "EU directives"
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By Brian Kimberling
The Prague Post
(February 26, 2003)
Brussels used to be funny. The European Union bureaucracy headquartered there would issue legislation on, say, the proper size of a European orange or the maximum permissible curvature of a European banana, along with a pompous proclamation about transcontinental unity. Amid such risible politics, you hardly noticed the few hundred Greek fruit farmers whose livelihood had just disappeared. You just laughed.
These days, however, the rulings from Brussels are, while still patently absurd, so ominously disruptive and comprehensive -- not to mention frequent -- that they make the erstwhile communist regime here look benevolent. With EU entry just a year away for the Czech Republic, it is worth a look at some of the ridiculous things the Eurocrats have been ordaining. It may also be worth looking for somewhere else to live -- at least if you are a farmer.
Take January's ruling that European pigs must have toys. I'm not making this up. I read it in The Times (London). At least British farmers have 90 days to comply with a ruling from Brussels that requires that pig habitats undergo "environmental enrichment" through the introduction of "manipulable material," for which the UK Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs recommends: balls.
"We mean footballs and basketballs," explained a spokesman. He also recommended that the balls be provided in different colors.
What applies to British farmers applies elsewhere in the EU, presumably, when determined initially in Brussels, and what applies elsewhere within the EU will apply here eventually. In Britain, if farmers neglect to amuse their pigs, they may face up to £1,000 (47,000 Kc/$1,600) in fines or three months in jail.
Pigs are apparently known to chew on each other's legs and tails, but also to enjoy using their noses for activities reminiscent of foraging -- I take this to mean rolling a ball along, rather than eating it -- therefore a certain logic or justification exists in providing them with toys. Instead of injuring one another, they will frolic together -- until the benevolent farmer slits their throats, at least.
February's order that all eggs must be stamped, however, is just ridiculous. Beginning next year, every European eggshell must announce its national origin and other details relating to the hen that produced it, as well as its "method of production" (I had always assumed there was just one: incubation. However, the European Commission appears to know better).
It is hard to divine a shred of sense in this directive. All the information that must appear on each individual egg in the future already appears on egg cartons.
Curious, I went to my refrigerator and checked my Czech eggs. Sure enough, there was a prodigious amount of gibberish on the eggshell. Most of it would be intelligible only to a certified European egg inspector, though the place of origin, Pisek, was clear enough.
It is not surprising that a large and established organization like Ceska vejce can afford an egg-stamping machine. Smaller farmers, however, will not be able to afford it. The initial cost of a basic inkjet printer for labeling eggs is £5,000 in Britain. A British hen is expected to produce approximately 50 British pence of profit over her entire lifetime -- about 24 Kc over eight years. Therefore an aspiring chicken farmer would need more than 10,000 hens for several years just to get started. Who knows how much special eggshell ink costs, or how much is necessary for normal operations?
Clearly the victims of this preposterous ruling will be free-range farmers and other small-scale operators. With mind-boggling effrontery, a Brussels official compounded injury with insult by telling English farmers that labeling eggs "would be a nice job for farmers' wives."
What advice will he give the Czechs in their turn: "Never mind education -- have your children play with the pigs"?
Who knows what silly edicts March will bring? One almost suspects that the pig-toy manufacturers or eggshell-printer factories are paying substantial kickbacks to the political fat cats to sew up a monopoly in the New Europe.
Looking back, however, at the long-term effects of EU directives, especially in England, the future begins to look grim.
During the United Kingdom's foot-and-mouth crisis, the EU was held responsible for greatly exacerbating the spread of the disease. EU directives or policy had resulted in the closure of thousands of slaughterhouses; those remaining were few, far between and exceedingly crowded. Foot-and-mouth was thus easily and rapidly spread from Devon in the southwest to Cumbria in the north. Mass culls of these bloated slaughterhouse populations aggravated the damage to an already debilitated rural economy.
There is no way to predict what, if any, adverse environmental or health repercussions EU agricultural directives may ultimately have, here or elsewhere. It can only be noted that they are very unnatural, thus likely to have unnatural consequences, as exemplified in the rapid spread of foot-and-mouth. Meanwhile, from an economic perspective it is clear that big pan-European agribusiness stands to gain while smaller local farmers go under. EU entry will probably decimate the Czech farming population. And the directives outlined above are surely just the beginning.
At least the pigs will be amused.
-- The author is a free-lance writer
living in Prague.
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