European agriculture breeds pandemic

some thoughts from Tim Turner on the Swine flu..

- There are strong suspicions that the pandemic started in intensive pig production units. The Green Party has warned for a long time that intensive livestock rearing provides the ideal breeding ground for zoonotic disease that are potentially deadly to humans (eg BSE, avian flu, swine flu). The current outbreak needs to be investigated thoroughly and lessons learnt. We can only tackle the multiple threats of disease, climate change, food shortage and land degradation with a reduction in livestock rearing/consumption and a return to more natural methods of farming.

- The spread of the current pandemic has been / will be encouraged by the globalised nature of the economy and its dependence on international business and tourism, as well as unnecessary levels of commuting within countries

- Economies that are localised will be more resilient to the current and future pandemics (and will be more resilient to global recession too!)

- Unequal access to food, sanitation and health services will greatly increase the impact of pandemics on poorer countries and communities and make eradication of pandemics much harder. We must continually work towards a fairer distribution of resources globally and avoid the knee-jerk reaction at a time of global recession and a flu pandemic to think only of national priorities.