Towards a new “Phood” System ?
How Big Pharma will (not) save European farmers, their cows, and you
This post is authored by Mathéa Debant, a third year Biology student in the Sustainable Challenges track at Radboud University. Originally written to address “Why are animals important to humans?” for an assignment in the course “Human and Environmental Genomics”, this essay evolved into an investigation of how the pharmaceutical industry is taking over the European Food system.
Bjorč the calf and its mother Bublina at Farma Privastki, Rajecke Teplice, Slovakia
In February 2020, frustrated from at-home medical studies, I dodged the Covid-19 quarantine in Paris for a Workaway on a small farm in Rajecke Teplice, Slovakia.
For three months, I assisted Ferro the farm caretaker, fighting against frozen pipes and runaway animals. Bjorč, an endangered Slovakian Spotted Calf, triggered thoughts about the impacts of human selection on the animals we eat. From our first encounter until the last, when he lay still and cold on my plate, he made me contemplate precisely why animals are so important to us.
The first time I met him, Bjorč escaped from the barn, and Ferro called him “Houdini teľa”, a joke about the calf’s escape skills. Ferro would often proudly share ancient Slovakian stories about wild cow breeding, tales that recent genomic studies have actually confirmed1. This semi-wild farming makes native cattle unique; while most cows are bred for milk or meat, Slovakian Spotted and Pingzu cows excel in both. Central European farmers have enhanced this trait through selection as far back as 6400 BCE2. Given that Carpathian mountainous soils never gave much more than potatoes, animal farming and trading became crucial to Slovak culture over time.
But now, Slovak farmers, once leaders in dairy production, are facing growing difficulties, and the native cows are almost extinct. While milk production and meat weight are increasing steadily, Slovak cows are dying younger due to poor health, and indigenous breeds are disappearing3. After the collapse of the USSR, small farms vanished, and firms took over dairy production, supported by post-communist policies promoting the massive import of “turbomilker” Holsteins4. Farmers couldn’t survive the capitalist forces without practicing risky in-breeding, which ultimately leads to increasing calves’ mortality rates and genetic disorders among cows .
Since then, conditions for cows are steadily worsening56. Simultaneously, Slovakian households grapple with the ripple effects of inflation, particularly inflaming meat and dairy prices7. With climate change mitigation recognized as a top priority, the animal agro-industry is required to transform rapidly, since it has been identified as one of the main drivers in the accelerating collapse of biodiversity worldwide8. But opportunities for meaningful sustainability change are highjacked by short-term financial interests. Reluctant to compromise business-as-usual, the animal industry avoids confronting the brutality of intensive farming. Instead, it exploits climate uncertainty as an opportunity to further so-called “green” productivism, despite the harm of the production model itself and the redundancy of new products. The industry’s commitments to change rely on oversimplified versions of both the climate and of the animal’s body.
It is not new that Big Food and Big Pharma both share interests in and take legitimacy from denying animal sentience. But the more recent alliance between the two paints bleak scenarios for European food systems. Since 2019, the probiotic Bovaer has been used in Slovakia to lower methane emissions from cows9. Made by the Dutch company DSM, it is promoted as a natural alternative to antibiotics. However, there’s clear evidence that it speeds the extinction of local breeds and cultural knowledge10. One of the reasons for this is that the main ingredient, 3-NOP, works better on common Holstein cows than on local ones. This encourages rationales of expanding ‘efficiency’ instead of supporting restoration of native breeds. Moreover, 3-NOP speeds up a cow’s metabolism, producing propionate and hydrogen instead of methane, and acidifies cells similar to what happens during intense exercise. This effect is lasting even in young calves. Recently, the dairy industry has taken the lead in advancing genomic research on maternal inheritance, but much remains unknown as 3-NOP causes unexpected changes in gene expression. Cows are more often locked up in stables all year round because the effect of the substance is more uncertain when they go to pasture. It directly worsens cows’' wellbeing, and strangely, it also seems to increase cow’s milk’s productivity .
Moreover, cows seem to eat less when given Bovaer, as, the propionate is known to stimulate hormones that reduce appetite, however no study to-date can determine the precise impact on feeding behavior1112. Bovaer has been proven harmful to pain-vocalizer mammals like pigs and humans, but for cows, there has been no acknowledgement that the acidification following the metabolic rush can cause painful stomach ulcerations and cognitive disorders1314. This is ironic for Slovak cows, who learned to hide pain to survive predation. This once-advantageous stoicism – the Bjórc-bastic side-eye - paradoxically contributes to their extinction.
Animal suffering remains a convenient taboo that helps to create differential and partial perspectives on animal bodies15. In cows, any cognitive disorder and physical suffering due to metabolic hyperactivity, or digestive discomfort caused by ultra acidity is both under-considered and under-studied16. Problematized to mainly answer efficiency needs, the field of Animal Sciences can’t even effectively formulate inquiries on cows' welfare1718. Meanwhile, the claim that cows are not harmed is backed by a lack of data and an absence of validated methods. The European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), is responsible for assessing the risk of a product’s impact on animal health, but European experts avoid any extrapolations of pathologies and pain experienced among species, omitting it as it is deemed too challenging to assess19. This not only leaves a huge animal welfare blind-spot, it also discourages investigation into any potential toxic impacts20. There is no pathology, thus there is no diagnosis. In reality, there is probably a number of studies that reveal 3-NOP's real impacts, but most studies used as evidence of Bovaer’'s "safety" have been censored to unprecedented levels21 :
The Dutch drug firm DSM merged in 2022 with Firmenich, the Swiss Perfume giant, known for its high-tech irrigated jojoba farming in the occupied Palestinian Territories, and who was also exposed last year for longstanding links to child labour in Egypt2223. The group DSM-Firmenich plans this year to divest from its theme of Animal Nutrition and Health and instead focus on Human applications, like vegan protein and “alternative” functional foods24. Profitable products like Bovaer will remain part of the company’s "sustainability" portfolio, alongside fake meat, Cannabidiol pills and bulletproof material2526. But the firm’s commitment to sustainability is questionable due to many dubious practices. Recently, the Swiss Competition Commission has alleged that the firm is in violation of the EU Antitrust Law, profiting from international military conflicts and aggressions27. The firm now invests massively in education, funds student awards, constructs Biotech research centers accross European campuses, and builds their head offices within Dutch and Swiss universities28. They have also taken a step further in their quest to manage food system knowledge. Recently, they have massively invested in ‘Human/Machine Knowledge engineering”, and “develop methods to extract, organise and access stored knowledge that helps food decision-makers, scientists and political experts”. Last February, DSM-Firmenich launched the GENIUS lab at TU Delft and Maastricht University to explore AI opportunities to tackle unknowns and improve methods for assisting human experts29, in line with EFSA’s focus on “the paradigm shifts in terms of gathering new data and re-engineering available ones”30. EFSA has thus offered DSM-Firmenich the privilege of supervising any input that would compromise business-as-usual, and allows DSM-Firmenich to rewrite the core of risk-assessment good practices, definitions, and requirements within supposedly public European Agencies.
The influence of Big Industry is increasing, particularly in European food policies like Farm to Fork3132. It mainly favors livestock leaders and over-represents pharmaceutical interests, as highlighted in the recent EFSA Strategy 2027 report33. It (re) introduces the concept of a “Pharma Food System”, which “envisions a diet centered around functional, processed foods, enhanced with pharmaceutical substances, referred to as Phoods”34. This approach is being restructured to fit into One Health and Green Growth narratives. The development of corporate fusions between big-pharma and big-agro is an imaginary straight out of science fiction. In Margaret Atwood’s Oryx & Crake, mega agro-pharma corporations rule the world in the year 2100. Transgenic animals and humans designed for their health or survival benefits, giant organs or even predatory and defense capabilities, transgress the human-animal divide and hasten apocalypse. So too in Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Wind up Girl. Given the state of the climate and biodiversity crises, of which agriculture is a central part, this moment calls for mass public mobilization to prevent industrial distortions in food and environmental policy. Current European farming policies pave the way for ever-more intensive food systems fit to feed our burning world. Such a focus overlooks animal physiology and routinely legitimizes suffering on behalf of sustainable mitigation efforts. If it is not surprising that the industry neglects animal perspectives, EFSA’s recent servility is alarming, particularly since proposals last summer to deregulate gene-editing3536. Bovaer is part of gene-edited micro-biotics concerned by the proposal, and some hope that the deregulation will decrease the costs of the product. Meanwhile, it joins a catalogue of intensive and expensive farming. From January 2025, Bovaer is compulsory in all Danish dairy farms with more than 50 cows, but pain explorations and welfare assessment will not be conducted before 2028, despite protest from farmers37.
While we wait for (and demand) regulations aimed at increasing corporate accountability, it is critical to continue trying to buy from the smallest possible producers, and invest in community farming and animal sanctuaries, disrupting capitalism-as-usual. While it is true that most of our individual environmental footprints don’t weight much compared to industry or mega polluters like Taylor Swift, the voices of WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) human consumers are much louder than those of exploited human and nonhuman producers who have little purchase and political power. Boycott still remains a powerful tool to protest for societal change, particularly impactful in the realm of food. Industrial encroachments on food, agriculture and the growing intersection with pharmacological interests will only further challenge the well-being and existence of animals like the Slovakian Spotted Calf. The consequences extend beyond just livestock welfare; they reshape our conception of food by reinforcing oppressive hierarchies, while throwing fuel on the fire of the already devastating reduction in biodiversity. Extinctions are already estimated at 1,000-10,000 times the natural rate due to the anthropocene. The discussions regarding deregulation of genome-editing by new genomic techniques, animals and microbes, including probiotics and synthetic foods, are open until June 202538. Last week, the Nutrition and Food Innovation Unit has launched a public consultation on new developments in biotechnology applied to animals: an assessment of the adequacy and sufficiency of current EFSA guidance for animal risk assessment39. Interested parties are invited to submit their comments by 19th of March.
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van Marle-Köster et al, (2021). Unintended consequences of selection for increased production on the health and welfare of livestock. Archives Animal Breeding, [online] 64(1), pp.177–185. doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/aab-64-177-2021.
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Kasarda, Radovan, and Nina Moravčíková. “Genetic Uniqueness of Local Cattle Populations as Part of Homeland Heritage.” Environmental History, 8 Dec. 2021, pp. 127–145, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58092-6_9
Habel, Jonas, and Albert Sundrum. “Mismatch of Glucose Allocation between Different Life Functions in the Transition Period of Dairy Cows.” Animals, vol. 10, no. 6, 13 June 2020, p. 1028, https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10061028
Oba, Masahito, and Michael S. Allen. “Hypophagic Effects of Ammonium Are Greater When Infused with Propionate Compared with Acetate in Lactating Dairy Cows.” The Journal of Nutrition, vol. 133, no. 4, 1 Apr. 2003, https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/133.4.1100
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Kennedy, Katherine M., and Michael S. Allen. “Hepatic Metabolism of Propionate Relative to Meals for Cows in the Postpartum Period.” Journal of Dairy Science, vol. 102, no. 9, Sept. 2019, pp. 7997–8010, https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2018-15907
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17th meeting of the Scientific Network on Risk Assessment of Genetically Modified Organisms, 17th GMO Network meeting May 2024
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The Underdog. “Bovaer Is an Anti-Fertility Weapon?” Substack.com, The Daily Beagle, 20 Dec. 2024, thedailybeagle.substack.com/p/bovaer-is-an-anti-fertility-weapon
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Luxury perfumes linked to child labour, BBC finds, 28 May 2024
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167th Plenary meeting, GMO Panel: https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2024-12/Minutes_GMO_PL167_OPEN.pdf
New developments in biotechnology applied to animals: an assessment of the adequacy and sufficiency of current EFSA guidance for animal risk assessment EFSA Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms: https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2024-07/-minutes_20.pdf
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