A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only.
www.brucenixon.com
During the past half century vegetables, fruit, meat and milk have lost considerable percentages of mineral
content that is important to health. This is because of artificial methods of fertilising soil that destroy the
microorganisms that release these minerals, as opposed to using crop rotation and manure. Nitrogen
fertiliser actually depresses the biological activity in soil. Organic food contains higher levels of essential
nutrients than non-organic including minerals and 40% more antioxidants.
Some food facts
Pesticides 311 pesticides are available to non-organic farmers. There is little control over how they are used;
for example, crops of Cox’s apples can be spayed 16 times. There are concerns about links between pesticides
and cancers, damage to the nervous system, decreasing male fertility, foetal abnormalities and chronic
fatigue syndrome. Organic farmers are allowed to use only four pesticides and if all farmland switched to
organic, a 98% reduction would be achieved.
Antibiotics are used as growth promoters and to prevent diseases that would otherwise make it impossible to
rear animals in cruel conditions. Overuse of antibiotics is thought o be contributing to increasing cases of
superbugs and the WHO has called for a reduction in their use as a risk to human health. Organic farmers are
limited to their use only for essential veterinary applications. Disease is avoided by good husbandry and lower
density.
Additives Over 300 additives are allowed for non-organic processed foods. Many have been found unsafe and
some have not been tested. Allergies, child hyperactivity and osteoporosis have been linked to some which
are in continued use. Only those required by law are allowed under Soil Association standards.
BSE There have been over 100 deaths probable or confirmed in UK from CJD since 1996 as a result of eating
beef contaminated by BSE as a result of cattle fed with animal protein. Organic standards demand that cows
are only fed a natural diet predominantly of grass, hay and other roughage. No case of BSE has been recorded
in any animal born or reared organically in UK.
Source: The Soil Association
Epidemics and pandemic amongst farm animals and poultry are growing and having devastating effects on
farming. Cheap meat production involves a high degree of cruelty, animals enduring appalling conditions
that must desensitise the workers and owners involved. The scale of pandemics with animal origins that may
wipe out vast numbers of humans is being attributed to the industrialisation and inhumane conditions
involved in animal food production.
Some scientists believe pandemics like avian flu and the current swine flu are a consequence of grossly cruel
and unethical animal husbandry, previously hidden from the public. We are becoming aware of the terrible
conditions in which chickens, turkeys, pigs and cows are being kept to provide cheap meat and milk. As
Professor Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, reminds us, the transfer of
illnesses from animals is not new, but globalisation creates “happy days” for many diseases.
A recent BBC1 Country File programme showed Holstein cows kept inside, fed mixture of cattle feed, never
seeing a field of grass. Weighing three quarters of a ton, standing up to five feet high, they were specially
bred to produce massive amounts of milk. Lameness and udder disease in UK dairy herds are amongst the
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