This article describes what seems to be a growing concern over agricultural practices and food safety. Culturally this is a major concern for German’s because of the tainted food outbreaks that have been popping up in Europe over the past 15 or so years. Although this article specifically focuses on chicken, you can still sense that the Mad Cow outbreaks have the German people touchy when it comes to food issues.
I chose this article because I wanted to see how the Germans viewed a problem that we have been having lately here in the US. There has been fairly extensive media coverage of factory farms here in America. I wanted to see how this issue is viewed from the point of Germans. I was surprised that the article reads just like an article concerning the same topic here in the States. Germans seem as focused on the dangers of over medicating the livestock to reduce production costs. The one difference I see in the article is the response from the agricultural industry. In Germany, the farmers seem more compliant with the consumer’s wishes and concerns. Here is a quote from the president of the National Association of Chicken Producers, “I haven't used antibiotics for half a year now.” I really don’t see our national body of chicken farmers reacting that way. I think here in the US the factory farms would treat the consumers like we just don’t know any better and should shut up.
The price of chicken, like in the US, is still a concern in Germany. This is shown in the article by comparing the cost of regular chicken with organic chicken, and then stating that the percentage of organically raised chicken sales has stayed stagnant at 1% for quite some time. This shows that the Germans desire affordable food prices, like we do here in America.
This article (written by Friederike Schulz) can be found at http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15658748,00.html
There are a lot of similarities between food production and the wishes of the buying public between Germany and America. In my experience, many Germans want their meat products to come from happy, free-range and organic sources. Food is less expensive than in this country, but better food products cost more and are often bought by those in higher socio-economic classes. That sounds like the US as well, doesn't it?
ReplyDeletei find it interesting that prices on things like clothes seem to be higher in Germany, but here food prices are what are hiked up. However, i guess people never really want to spend that much on food if they donyt have to, all around the developed world.
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