The topic of the Graz situation is food. Located near a former production plant for animal food and the city´s slaughterhouse, the artists of Schaumbad will reflect the ways of global food production and the routes of food from 3rd world countries all across Europe to Graz.
One of the Graz participants, Rachelle Knowles, is blogging and twittering as we work; you can follow her twitter feed here and read her blog here.
Resources about food production in Austria:
- Verein gegen Tierfabriken – Association against Animal Factories (English/German)
- Kein Schwein braucht Neonicotinoide (der Standard.at, 1. Mai 2013 German only:): Austrian Minister for Environment and Agriculture voted against the EU-wide prohibition of neonicotinoide pesticides, that are known to be one of the reasons of bee mortality. One of the reasons pesticides are needed are the vast monocultures of corn and rape. Corn is mostly produced for intensive livestock farming, which is widespread in Austria. Each Austrian eats approx. 1,25 kg of meat each week, every year 5.601000 pigs are killed. Intensive livestock farming needs a huge amount of feedstuff. A big amount of the feedstuff used is genetical modified soya from Argentina and Brasil, grown on cleared rainforest areas.
- Austria is ranked third in the world for organic farming with 19.7% of agricultural land certified ‘organic’.
- “Austria is the leading country in Europe in terms of organic farming. More than 21,000 organic farmers work on an area of 408,162 hectares. This represents 15.5% of farmers and 17.4% of farming land in Austria. Most organic farmers are members of BIO AUSTRIA that was founded in 1980. BIO AUSTRIA uniting more than 13,000 member farms is not only the biggest association for organic farming in Austria, but in whole Europe.” (Download the PDF)
- Information about food from Styria from the Austrian Embassy in Australia.
- Who can resist the pleasures of seasoned meat with buckwheat? Every tender bite of the authentic, traditional Styrian blood sausage is a moment of joy, pleasure and satisfaction.
Pig farming information:
- Top 10 reasons not to eat pigs (USA statistics – PETA)
General food additive information:
- UK Food Guide – information about E numbers and additives
In 2005, Austrian filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer introduced his independent documentary “We Feed The World”. It shows how the European Union is destroying agriculture in Africa through export subsidies:
http://archive.org/details/EuropeanUnionStarvesPoorCountriesOfTheWorld
Why are there so many illegal African immigrants in the European Union?
Why do the Africans abandon their agricultural lands?
Why is it that in African markets are all kinds of agricultural products from the European Union cheaper than the same ones produced locally?
Why are many small size farmers, fishermen and other independently run small businesses of the EU going out of business?
How is traditional agriculture being destroyed by the EU?
How the Amazon rainforest land, the size of France and Portugal, is being destroyed to grow soya to be exported to the EU to feed EU cows.
The Local African farmers cannot compete against European products whose prices are cheaper due to EU subsidies. Even small and middle size farmers within the EU territory itself suffer because of EU policies. While millions are starving to death around the world, EU countries like Austria daily throw away 2 million kilos of unsold bread a couple of days old.
DEGROWTH – Alternative approach offering soloutions to current ecologic, social and economic conditions : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth; http://www.umweltbuero-klagenfurt.at/sos/?p=505
Permaculture :
- The benefits of alternative farming methods in The Guardian, 23 April 2013;
- Alternatives to factory farming;
- Model Farm Project.