to such intensive scientific attention as they are still mainly raised on marginal land throughout Europe and the market is smaller.
Grassland-based cattle systems have changed radically throughout most of Northern and Western Europe from haymaking to silaging using the highest fertilizer inputs in the world (FAOSTAT), with great loss of non-grass biodiversity in pastures and meadows since WW2 (Johnson and Hope, 2005). Haymaking with low fertilizer use still survives in upland and marginal areas in N and W Europe and in many parts of the CEE countries, especially where traditional breeds of livestock are used. Grasslands, particularly in western regions, have been the predominant system for cow-calf and sheep production in N. America. Because of increased environmental concerns about management of federal lands in the US, there has been renewed interest in range management. Intensive grazing systems are increasingly used in beef cow and dairy herds across NA, where the focus is on increasing profitability per animal, rather than maximizing productivity (Gerrish, 2004). In the future, increased demand for grain for biofuel production may increase costs of animal production, potentially increasing consumer prices to the point where supply of cheap livestock products is reduced in less wealthy parts of NAE.
A major change contributing to increased production and better storage has been in the vertical integration of the livestock chain through standardizing genetics, feeding systems and housing units while increasing communication throughout the sector. In N. America this is particularly apparent in the poultry and pork sectors and in Europe, high throughput automated housing, feeding, slaughtering and processing facilities have grown larger, replacing smaller family-owned businesses (EC, 2001). Across NAE, many animal production, slaughter and processing units are operated by large consortia which control large parts of the food chain, increasingly outcompeting family farms by means of their economies of scale and ability to influence market prices for livestock and products.
Changes in Livestock and Labor
Changing consumer preferences and the meat industry's increased emphasis on pre-cut and pre-packaged meat and growing export levels increased the demand for labor. Between 1972 and 2001 employment in the poultry processing industry increased by 150% in the US, with jobs being on offer mainly as low-skilled manual labor. During this period re-structuring in the industry had led to a re-location of processing plants to rural areas, largely to areas that lacked a unionized tradition. With greater technological innovation, meat processing has become increasingly de-skilled and, in addition to stable or declining real wages, meat processing employment became less appealing for increasingly well-educated native born workforce (Stull, 1994). The industry had undergone a gradual change from unionized urban skilled workforce to rural based mostly non-unionized and low skilled workforce concentrated in manufacturing plants by the 1980s and these characteristics have remained the same since that time (Kandel, 2006) Hispanic workers are over-represented within the food processing industries. Between 1980 and 2000 the proportion of Hispanic meat-processing workers increased from under 10% to almost 30% |
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of the total. Whereas previously about half of the Hispanic workforce in the meat-processing industry was born in the US, by the year 2000, 82% were foreign born.
In the second part of the 20th century, major changes also took place in animal production facilities and investment in buildings and their use have become issues of growing importance for farmers and growers (Gay and Grisso, 2002). Traditional buildings associated with livestock production were general purpose, small scale and reflected production systems relying heavily on manual labor. Faced by rising labor costs, facilitated by a variety of technological developments in machinery, building materials and methods of controlling the environment, a major transformation has taken place where modern high throughput facilities, such as dairy parlors and pig and poultry production units, have largely replaced traditional multipurpose buildings. These provide controlled environments with measured use of feed and prophylactic treatments to prevent disease. Such facilities are also very important in the vertical integration of the meat supply chain.
A less evident contributor to productivity in the NAE livestock sector is the development of effective transport systems that allowed animal feeding and slaughter to be concentrated more closely to feed sources, particularly in beef production. A parallel process was the introduction of vacuum packaging in the late 1960s. This significantly altered the value chain for beef and other protein, since retailers could sell particular cuts of meat without an on-site butchery (Duewer, 1984).
These developments in genetics, management systems and meat handling, combined with the geographical shifts in production, allowed significant restructuring in the beef, pork and poultry sectors leading to the development of confined animal feeding operations, contractual relationships in marketing and specialization in livestock agriculture. These changes have been controversial because intensive livestock production raises ethical and environmental issues. Treating animals as items on a production line offends many NAE citizens who feel this is an unacceptable relationship between humans and other species. Farm animal welfare has become an important area for policy makers, especially in Europe (Webster, 2005). The mass production of animals to specification, while producing cheap and nutritious products, also undermines traditional livestock businesses, reducing local employment and undermining the economic survival of some communities. In an area in which emotions often play an important part in determining attitudes there are a wide range of pressure groups and consumers who criticize intensive livestock production. For example, the development of confined animal feeding operations in NA have resulted in significant conflicts over air and water quality, land use issues (zoning) and regulatory control (Bonanno and Constance, 2006; Donham et al., 2007; Heederik et al., 2007).
Livestock kept in intensive systems can be prone to outbreaks of disease, illustrated by the periodic outbreaks of foot and mouth disease and encephalopathies such as BSE and scrapie; viral diseases in cattle, sheep and pigs and epidemics of viral and bacterial poultry diseases. While epidemic disease has always been part of livestock production, the larger groups of animals and widespread transport to |