Farmageddon : the true cost of cheap meat

Farm animals have been disappearing from our fields as the production of food has become a global industry. We no longer know for certain what is entering the food chain and what we are eating - as the UK horsemeat scandal demonstrated. We are reaching a tipping point as the farming revolution threatens our countryside, health and the quality of our food wherever we live in the world. * Our health is under threat: half of all antibiotics used worldwide (rising to 80 per cent in US) are routinely given to industrially farmed animals, contributing to the emergence of deadly antibiotic-resistant superbugs * Wildlife is being systematically destroyed: bees are now trucked across the States (and even airfreighted from Australia) to pollinate the fruit trees in the vast orchards of California, where a chemical assault has decimated the wild insect population * Fresh fish are being hoovered from the oceans: fish that could feed local populations are being turned into fishmeal for farmed fish, chickens and pigs thousands of miles away * Cereals that could feed billions of people are being given to animals: soya and grain that could nourish the world's poorest, are now grown increasingly as animal fodder * Epidemic waste underpins the mega-farming model: while food prices rocket, surplus food is thrown away Farmageddon is a fascinating and terrifying investigative journey behind the closed doors of a runaway industry across the world - from the UK, Europe and the USA, to China, Argentina, Peru and Mexico. It is both a wake-up call to change our current food production and eating practices and an attempt to find a way to a better farming future.… (more)