Senator BARTLETT (6:37 PM) —I rise to speak tonight on World Farm Animal Day 1999, which is Saturday, 2 October. This day also marks the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, a significant contributor to Indian independence and one of the greatest spiritual and political leaders of modern times. Gandhi is well known for his compassion towards others, including animals, and it is therefore appropriate that his birthday is memorialised on World Farm Animal Day. Many senators would know Gandhi was a vegetarian, but he was not vegetarian just for religious reasons. He was an ethical vegetarian and, when he lived in London, he was an active member of the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain.

On World Farm Animal Day there will be many events around the globe to highlight the 43 billion animals that are killed each year as part of the world's meat production process. The focus of this year's World Farm Animal Day is the new policies and trade agreements currently being developed which are designed, among other things, to double the world production and consumption of meat and milk in the next 20 years. These policies and trade agreements are being aggressively pushed onto developing nations. The term `livestock revolution' is used to explain the planned expansion and creation of significant and sizeable factory farming operations in developing countries which would breed, cage and slaughter up to 50 billion additional animals per year by the year 2020.

The International Food Policy Research Institute, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Livestock Research Institute have published a report entitled Livestock to 2020: the next food revolution, which aims to promote the meat eating expansion into developing countries. As I mentioned, over 43 billion animals are currently subjected to factory farming and the slaughterhouse each year around the world. This report hopes to double this number through the meat eating expansion and the transition of beef and pork consumption to chicken consumption.

The report projects a 65 per cent expansion in worldwide production and consumption of meat by the year 2020 and assumes that 84 per cent of that expansion will occur in developing countries. It proposes to accommodate this demand through the introduction of Western factory farming and pollution control technologies. It is of concern that international bodies such as the UN—the various components of which do a lot of noble work around the world—are willing to support the promotion of such a significant expansion without adequate consideration of its potential environmental impacts.

Many throughout the Western world are starting to discover the potential health problems of a significantly meat based diet, which has led to the rise of what are colloquially known as `Western' diseases—heart disease and various forms of cancer. Australia is also starting to realise the significant environmental cost of various forms of meat production. Livestock grazing is the number one reason for land clearing. Land clearing is a particular and ongoing problem in my home state of Queensland. It continues to contribute to a massive loss of wildlife habitats, land degradation and numerous other environmental problems. These things are clearly caused by a range of activities, not simply grazing and meat production, but grazing and meat production are major contributors. This needs to be highlighted.

The report Livestock to 2020 will create a range of problems apart from the obvious one of the increase in the number of animals potentially subjected to cruelty through inappropriate farming methods in developing countries. An organisation called the Farm Animal Reform Movement, or FARM, highlights some of these potential concerns. I believe these concerns need to be highlighted before we move too far down the path that is proposed by the Livestock to 2020 report.

These concerns include the fact that the increase in meat production and consumption in developing countries, particularly through factory farming, will inevitably result in a draw down of grain supplies. The majority of grain produced in many developing countries now goes to feed animals rather than people. Livestock in factory farms will be fed grains and legumes raised on land that now feeds people directly, and the increased production of livestock will raise the price of grain. Meat provides but a small fraction of the calories and protein provided by plant foods per hectare of arable land.

In an environmental sense, a meat based diet is very inefficient when compared with a plant based diet. This inefficiency has the potential to exacerbate existing problems with food provision and production in developing countries. Many of these countries are already struggling to feed all their people as populations increase. An increase of such size and rapidity in the methods of meat production of developing countries has the potential to lead to significant environmental degradation. Issues such as soil erosion, water quality, land clearing and the impact on forests, wetlands and other wildlife habitats cannot be ignored simply because of economic opportunity.

In the same way as we highlight the necessity of assessing the environmental impact of developments or any other expansion of industry, we should assess the environmental impact of this development in food production. More water and energy is used to raise livestock than to grow plant foods, and livestock agriculture contributes more pollutants to waterways than all other human activities. Pollution regulations of factory farm discharges in developing countries are unlikely to be as stringent as those in Western countries. Issues such as these must be ad dressed by industries in the West before they seek to further expand such industries in developing countries.

A number of ongoing forms of assistance are provided through aid agencies, including Australian aid agencies, which feeds this expansion. My concern is that the potential flow-on consequences such as those I have mentioned this evening are not being adequately recognised. Groups providing assistance include Australian NGO organisations such as Community Aid Abroad, an organisation with which I have had an ongoing association. I am strongly supportive of Community Aid Abroad, but they are funding intensive factory farms in Africa at present.

Issues such as those that I have raised present potential problems that do need to be properly assessed in advance of encouraging expansion in this direction. The organisation that I mentioned previously, FARM, is preparing a world farm animal status report to comprehensively detail and track the statistics associated with how farm animals are bred and caged, and the associated potential health and environmental impacts. This report will be submitted to major policy advisory groups and government agencies worldwide. FARM is also setting up seminars with the World Bank and similar institutions, with expert testimonies about potential impacts of expanding factory farming and meat consumption.

Again, I highlight the importance of including that sort of information as part of what is considered rather than simply taking a very linear approach to potential industry development. The history of aid provided by Western nations to developing countries is littered with examples of very narrow, short-term approaches being taken without the broader consequences and long-term impacts being adequately assessed. I hope that we are at a stage where we do not continue to make those mistakes.

In conclusion, I would like to quote from Mahatma Gandhi, who I mentioned at the start of my speech—it is a well-known quote that sums up a sentiment that I think would be helpful if it was considered more often in our society:

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.