Will development kill us? Globalized livestock production in the "Pandemic Era"

The outbreak of flu pandemics in the 1950s and 1960s originating in Asia, in which novel bird flu viruses infected and killed humans, prompted the idea that a geographical area from which pandemics emerge, exists. This area, located in Asia has been imagined as the “epicenter” of pandemics. Some researchers suggested then that the agrarian landscapes of southern China formed an ecosystem in which viruses of human and animal origin can interact and evolve into new varieties with pandemic potential. Modernizing agricultural production and animal husbandry was proposed as a means to minimize pandemic risks. However, as new disease outbreaks have multiplied across the world during the last years it has become evident that industrial meat production is more likely implicated in the increase of disease transmission between animals and humans. Industrial meat production is characterized by concentration and integration, the reliance on standardized feed and fodder, the expansion of industrial agriculture into forested areas to produce the ingredients for making feed and fodder as well as by the increased use of drugs in animal production. This chapter examines the interlinked processes associated with industrial meat production and the increase in the occurrence of disease transmission between animals and humans. In doing so we will suggest that, pandemics and epidemics are not only public health issues but also require rethinking interspecies relationships in agriculture and beyond.