Beef over beef
The political debate on CETA has dominated Dutch news the past few weeks. Koen van Zon (History and Art History) wrote a for Dr Liesbeth van de Grift's Vidi-project in which he sketched the historical context of the recent controversies.
Food safety
Interestingly, many of the protests are concerned with the Canadian standards of food safety. It is not the first time that controversy arises over hormone-treated meat: the origins of this symbol date back to the 1970s, when a scandal around hormone-treated meat in a school cafetaria led to a European ban on using growth hormones in cattle breeding.
Science vs. trade interests
With European consumers in an uproar, pressure mounted on the European Community to take a stand in the debate on growth hormones. The European Commission responded by initiating a scientific investigation. The scientific evidence came slowly, however, and by the mid-1980s, many member states had banned growth hormones. The question of growth hormones was now no longer a question of scientific evidence, but of trade interests. Almost forty years on, the issue of hormone-raised beef still sparks controversy. The question is what impact the recent controversies will have on the negotiations, and which new coalitions will form this time around.
Consumers on the March
This blog is part of Liesbeth van de Grift's Vidi project ''. This research project analyses the claims of representativeness of consumer organizations and the strategies they use to substantiate these claims, and what these organizations describe as 'consumer interest'. It highlights the inextricable intertwining of regional, national and global governance in the second half of the twentieth century.