Is the Swiss Farmers' Union not taking the pandemic seriously?

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, around 200 farms will be offering a «Buurezmorge» (farmers’ breakfast) this year for Switzerland’s National Day on 1 August.

Products of animal origin, however, increase the risk of zoonoses such as COVID-19 emerging and spreading. For this reason, PETA wrote to the Swiss Farmers’ Union in mid-July urging them to make the breakfast buffets vegan. As no response has been received so far, the animal rights organisation assumes that the buffets will go ahead as planned and that the Union is not taking the risks seriously.

When meat, milk, and eggs end up on the plates at the «Buurezmorge», one has to fear that the Swiss Farmers’ Union is unaware of the gravity of the situation – it is as if those responsible are pouring oil onto a fire. Because for products of animal origin, vast numbers of animals are locked in stalls and are often forced to endure conditions surrounded by their own excrement.They are then slaughtered under conditions that are at times unhygienic. It comes as no surprise that these products are associated with an increased risk of infectious diseases.

Ilana Bollag on behalf of PETA Switzerland

Health risks associated with products of animal origin – background information  

75 percent of all newly emerging infectious diseases are zoonoses transmitted from animals to humans. As far back as 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified the growing demand for animal products as one of the main causes of their emergence. Inger Andersen, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), also warned in 2020: “If we continue to exploit wildlife and destroy our ecosystems, we can expect a steady stream of these diseases passing from animals to humans in the years to come.» COVID-19, avian influenza H5N1, the SARS pandemic, MERS-CoV, the dangerous Ebola fever, and even AIDS – they all share one common denominator: the human appetite for meat, milk, and eggs.

Furthermore, the massive use of antibiotic drugs in animal agriculture is causing more and more pathogens to develop resistance, rendering antibiotics ineffective. Even reserve antibiotics – used in hospitals as last-resort emergency medications when common antibiotics are no longer effective due to resistance – are being increasingly administered to animals. A large proportion of these are excreted unchanged by the treated animals, and the excretions are spread onto agricultural land in the form of liquid manure. From there, they can leach into groundwater through seepage and ultimately end up in our drinking water. Antibiotic resistance leads to thousands of people dying from bacterial infections that would normally be straightforward to treat – in Europe alone, this has already resulted in over 30,000 deaths. In 2019, the WHO even listed antibiotic-resistant pathogens as one of the ten threats to global health.PETA warns that these pathogens could trigger the next pandemic.