We Must Fix Our Food System to Prevent Future Pandemics 

Dear Ministers, 

We, the undersigned, call on the Federal government to create a roadmap to shift Canada to a predominantly plant-based food system, including phasing out all factory farming, by 2030 to prevent future pandemics and other zoonotic infectious diseases.  

As we venture beyond the one-year mark since the official declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative that the Federal government create a long-term strategy to mitigate the risk of future pandemics, and that requires taking a serious look at how we breed, confine, and slaughter animals.

Animal farming is a leading source of risk for the incubation and spread of zoonotic infectious diseases, including the risk of a next pandemic that could be even more deadly and disruptive than COVID-19. 

Producing animal products at scale inevitably involves crowding animals together in sheds, feedlots, and places of slaughter. It also brings workers into contact with these animals and involves crowding them together in slaughterhouses.¹ In a white paper titled The connection between animal agriculture, viral zoonoses, and global pandemics, the Humane Society International argues that Intensive Livestock Operations (ILOs), in which thousands of animals are kept in close proximity, creates the perfect breeding ground for more novel viruses to emerge: 

“Keeping large groups of animals in densely stocked facilities creates “unique ecosystems,” identified as a risk factor facilitating the development of zoonotic pathogens with the potential to infect human populations.”²

Moreover, animal agriculture requires enormous amounts of land, and is thus chiefly responsible for human encroachment on wild animal habitats.² This, together with its crowding many stressed animals together in unsanitary conditions, makes animal agriculture a nearly perfect mechanism for the incubation and spread of new and emerging infectious diseases from wild animals to farmed animals and to humans. 

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warns that:

“Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of agriculture, intensive farming, mining and infrastructure development, as well as the exploitation of wild species have created a ‘perfect storm’ for the spillover of diseases from wildlife to people.”³

The IPBES moreover warns that: 

“Future pandemics are likely to happen more frequently, spread more rapidly, have greater economic impact and kill more people if we are not extremely careful about the possible impacts of the choices we make today.”⁴

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) observes that “…3 in every 4 new or emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals,” and animal agriculture played a central role in the incubation and transmission of the vast majority of deadly and disruptive pandemics, including not only SARS and MERS, but bird flu, swine flu, Ebola, Nipah virus, mad cow disease, and many others.⁵

As tragically deadly and disruptive COVID has been, with a case fatality rate of between 1.38% and 3.4%, other pandemics with origins in animal agriculture and its encroachment on wild animal habitat have been much more lethal. MERS has had a case fatality rate as high as 36%, Nipah virus a fatality rate as high as 75%, and Ebola a fatality rate as high as 90%. 

While these diseases have fortunately been less transmissible and easier to contain, the ideal conditions that animal agriculture provides for the incubation and transmission of ever more virulent zoonotic infectious diseases pose a profound risk of generating a disease that is at least as transmissible as COVID, but as deadly as Ebola.⁶

The risks posed by animal agriculture in generating deadly and disruptive zoonotic infectious diseases are as present in Canada as in other countries. In just the last few months, Canada has seen the emergence of rare swine flu variants and an outbreak of COVID on a mink farm which threatened to incubate new COVID variants. 

As Animal Justice documents in a new report on disease outbreaks and biosecurity failures on Canadian farms, there have been over 45 outbreaks of Avian Influenza and 19 cases of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy that are transmissible to humans on Canadian farms. More generally, there have in recent years been over 434 recorded outbreaks of infectious diseases on Canadian farms, with the potential for transmission to humans in 2 disease types, including outbreaks of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PED), Avian Influenza, and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).  

Over 80% of antibiotics in Canada are given to farmed animals.⁶ Meat bought in stores has been found to contain antibiotic resistant bacteria, and infections with such bacteria are common among workers in animal agriculture and people residing near concentrated animal feeding operations. ⁷

By any epidemiological standard, this is a disaster waiting to happen. In order to mitigate the risk of zoonotic infectious diseases, including deadly and disruptive future pandemics, Canada cannot continue breeding, confining, and killing animals for food on the scale that we do. We must start planning for a fundamental shift to safer and more sustainable food production.

We therefore urge the Federal government departments of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and Health Canada to work together to create a roadmap to shift Canada to a predominantly plant-based food system, including phasing out all factory farms by 2030, to prevent future pandemics. 

This roadmap should include: 

1. A moratorium on all new development and expansion of intensive livestock operations (ILOs), or factory farms
   
   Large scale livestock operations pose the primary risk of incubating and transmitting zoonotic infectious diseases. These risks cannot be adequately mitigated by attempting to tighten biosecurity measures, which as Animal Justice’s recent report on disease outbreaks and biosecurity notes are often laxly enforced.

   From Humane Society International (HSI):

   “Pathogens can spread in unexpected ways. Ventilation systems in place to regulate air quality, heat, and humidity have been implicated as a major gap in biosecurity and can generate significant quantities of airborne dust with the potential to spread infectious agents, as can flies and other insect vectors. Waste management may be an under-recognized driver of microbial leaks. Animal waste disposed of on land or used in aquaculture can contain a large pathogen load and poses an infection risk to wildlife. Depopulation of infected poultry flocks and moving them out of barns can stir up organic materials. Trucking infected poultry on public roadways is a suspected transmission route, generating infected dust and aerosols to susceptible poultry near infected farms.”

   Moreover, from Animal Welfare Institute (AWI):

   “Concentrated Animal Farming Operations (CAFOs) present serious risks to the environment and public health and diminish the quality of life in neighboring communities, often those of lower socioeconomic standing. Various studies confirm that the tremendous amount of waste generated by livestock operations contaminates water supplies with excessive nutrients, pathogens, and pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics and growth hormones. CAFOs also emit large amounts of pollutants that contribute to respiratory illnesses such as asthma, bronchitis, and lung disease, and are one of the largest emitters in this country of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that exacerbates climate change.”

   In order to adequately mitigate the risks of zoonotic infectious disease and address the other public health and environmental problems posed by ILOs, therefore, Canada needs to undertake a rapid shift away from intensive livestock farming.

   As a first step in this direction, the Federal government must enact a moratorium on all new development and expansion of ILOs.

   This moratorium should immediately prohibit the construction of any new ILOs and prohibit the expansion of currently operating ILOs. In support of the moratorium, the Federal government should also establish a transition assistance program that provides owners of ILOs and those interested in starting new or expanding existing agricultural enterprises with grants to transition to growing crops for direct human consumption.

2. A plan to phase out new subsidies to animal agriculture

    

   Right now, federal and provincial governments in Canada help fund meat, dairy, and egg production to the tune of billions of dollars each year through subsidies, grants, and loans.

   In 2019, for example, the federal government began handing out $1.75 billion over eight years to nearly 11,000 dairy farmers across Canada to compensate for market losses.⁸ The Canadian government also announced a $6-million investment to help promote pork exports⁸ and, last year, a $ 691-million gift to egg and chicken farmers.⁹

   In order to mitigate the risk of future pandemics, subsidies being distributed to ILOs that pose tremendous risk of causing another worldwide pandemic, must end.

3. A plan to help educate consumers and help them access healthy plant-based food

    

   In order to transition to a plant-based food system to mitigate the risks of zoonotic infectious diseases, it’s imperative that the government support Canadians in making the transition as well.

   In early 2019, many Canadians were pleased with the updated Canada Food Guide, given it was founded on large bodies of scientific research and evidence, public consultations, and for the first time it recommended eating healthy and sustainable plant-based foods more often.

   The Dietary Guidelines that accompanied the guide also recommended that “food and beverages offered in publicly funded institutions should align to Canada’s Dietary Guidelines” and limit the availability of highly processed foods. Subsequently, the first ever Food Policy for Canada was introduced following public consultations in 2017. The policy was intended to “help Canada build a healthier and more sustainable food system….” The 2019 budget allocated $134 million in initial investments to support the food policy.

   Unfortunately, since Health Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food made these announcements nothing has really changed for Canadians. The Canada Food Guide and Dietary Guidelines that accompany the guide have not been operationalized in any meaningful way, and despite a commitment to create a National School Food Program, none of the $134 million investment was specifically allocated to this program.

   In light of the above, Nation Rising put forward for your serious consideration the following recommendations, including a minimum investment of $400 million (10% of the $3.9 billion invested in animal agriculture industries in the 2019 budget).

   a) Dedicate significant funding to operationalize the Canada Food Guide through a branded education program – similar to ParticipACTION – that would educate Canadians on healthy eating food options, and the health benefits of consuming whole plant-based foods.  This could be accomplished through government-funded public service announcements via social media, radio, television, and print, that would promote the recommendations in the evidence-based Canada Food Guide.

   b) Allocate necessary investments to create and implement a world-class National School Food Program that will rival existing programs in G7 countries, and:

   – Shift the mandate for the National School Food Program to the Minister of Health given its focus on childrens’ and youths’ health;

   – Ensure the program aligns to the Canada Food Guide and Dietary Guidelines, thereby introducing plant based food options and removing carcinogenic foods; as well as

   – Remove any conflicts of interest by excluding lobbyists and industry leaders in the planning, development, and implementation of the program.

   c) Invest in creating a policy which will bring to life the commitment to offer only foods that align to the Dietary Guidelines in publicly funded institutions. This would include colleges, universities, hospitals, prisons, government buildings, and more.
   

4. A plan to help producers transition to plant-based food production

    

   Canada’s federal and provincial governments have created a system where intensive livestock farmers are dependent on subsidies. It is now incumbent on those same governments to create meaningful policies and funding to enable and incentivize animal agriculture farmers to transition to plant-based farming with no loss of dignity or income.

   Plant-based protein can be produced without the use of animals, and without the threat of zoonotic diseases.

   The demand for plant-based protein is also growing. According to the National Research Council of Canada, “the market for alternative proteins, including plant-based proteins, is expected to grow at 14% annually by 2024 — up to a third of the protein market.”⁹

   The government has invested some money into safer and healthier plant protein production over the last couple of years, providing nearly $100 million to Merit Functional Foods⁹, which produces plant-based protein from Canadian peas and canola, for example, but this is just not enough to fund a full transition to safer food production that we so urgently need.

   Canadian governments should also look to initiatives being led in the U.S. and Europe, such as Transfarmation¹⁰, by international advocacy group Mercy For Animals, The Vegan Society’s Grow Green campaign¹¹, the Rancher Advocacy Program (RAP), and ReFarm’d¹² for examples on how to help animal farmers transition to safer plant-based food production to mitigate the risk of future pandemics.

We ask you to act now, with the urgency of knowing that the lives of all Canadians are at risk, and create a roadmap to phase out all factory farming and transition Canada to a predominantly plant-based food system to prevent future pandemics.