Support from worldwide personalities
professor Margherita Hack, Astrophysicist, Italy
I consider extremely important the campaign "Stop EU subsidies to livestock industry". Factory farms are a major cause of pollution, both for emissions of methane of these great concentration of animals and for the increasing destruction of forests to make room for livestock industry.
Forests are the most effective "lung" that enables our atmosphere to regenerate.
The animals reared in conditions so unnatural are often ill, their meat contains toxins and is often of poor quality; furthermore, the excessive production of meat facilitates the abuse of this food - food that is proven to be responsible for many serious diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
From the point of view of ethics, it is excruciating to consider to what suffering this animals are subjected, true meat machines, reared to fatten quickly, to reproduce rapidly, in overcrowded conditions, to meet the gluttony of the animal man, who believes he is the master of all the other species, when instead it is absolutely possible to live without any meat whatsoever, like I did, vegetarian since I was born.
Jens Holm, Member of European Parliament, Sweden
I fully support the NEIC petition which asks an end to CAP funding for livestock and fishing industry.
We should abolish meat subsidies, let meat bear its own environmental costs and work to make modern vegetarian food cheaper.
Today's wasteful meat production doesn't bear its own environmental costs. Let us, therefore, build the foundation of an environmentally friendly and sustainable food consumption. The struggle against climate change begins here and now, at the dinner table.
In a response from the European Commission to my interpellation (April 24, 2007, H-0198/07), the Commission acknowledges that meat production has a negative effect on climate change. That is positive. Unfortunately, the Commission does not consider that any special measures need to be taken.
Continued pressure and development of public opinion are clearly necessary.
Julia "Butterfly" Hill, renowned environmentalist, USA
I am a huge advocate for humans lightening our ecological footprint on this planet, so that we might leave a better world than we have inherited. I am a Joyous Vegan as part of my commitment, and although I know that not everyone will make the same choice, it is a profound waste of hard-earned tax dollars to subsidize the animals for food industry. I know that America is far worse than the European Union in this and many other matters, and I continue to work for change here in the U.S. as well. I look forward to the EU phasing out the subsidizing of animals for food, and I am committed to doing all I can to work for the same thing here in the U.S.
dr. Mario Tozzi, Geologist, First Reasearcher within the Italian National Council of Research, Italy
Factory farming is one of the activities with the greatest impact on the environment of the planet Earth. In the world, today there are more than a billion and two hundred million of cattle and they need, in order to be "finished", of industrial quantities of cereals and water, infrastructure and drugs, that produce a high impact on the environment.
They trample and destroy soil structure and deplete the planet, forcing the destruction of entire regions of tropical forest, to find new pastures and new land for cereals. Land which remains fertile for a few years, and then has to be abandoned because of its fragile structure.
Eat less steaks, in this way you gain in health and help preserve the planet.