McDonald’s Earned More Revenue From Europe than U.S. in 2009
Washington, D.C. – Decades of trade rules that dismantled or restructured farm safety net programs in the European Union have displaced sustainable, domestic feed grain production and escalated dangerous soy imports from Latin America—and helped turn European farms into polluting factory farms while driving down food quality and expanding waistlines, according to a new report from consumer organization Food & Water Watch.
The report, The Perils of the Global Soy Trade, reveals that EU member states’ (EU-15) net soy meal imports grew 57.1 percent since global WTO trade rules entered force, from 12.9 million metric tonnes (28.4 billion pounds) in 1995 to 20.2 million metric tonnes (44.5 billion pounds) in 2007. During the same period, the EU-15 shed 1.7 million farms—nearly a quarter of all farms. “International trade rules have created a soybean industrial complex that is fattening both livestock and humans in Europe, just like it has in America,” says Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter.
Trade rules have made soy a cheaper alternative to domestic feed, helping transform pig and poultry holdings in Europe into factory farms like their U.S. counterparts. With this shift to cheaper feed comes more processed, industrialized, fast food. In 2009, McDonald’s actually earned more revenue from Europe (41 percent) than the United States (35 percent.) Now, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil made largely from soybeans is a key shortening in processed desserts and frozen foods as well, adding even more soy to European diets.
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