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Latest update: 19/10/2012
- Europe - European Parliament - European Union - France - gastronomy
European MPs call for EU-wide ban on foie gras
A group of European MPs called on Thursday for a controversial EU-wide ban on the production and sale of foie gras. The famous French delicacy is made by force-feeding ducks and geese, a process described by animal rights groups as "torture".
A group of European lawmakers, including a member from France’s Green Party, have joined animal rights campaigners in a bid to ban the production and sale of the French delicacy foie gras across the European Union.
Foie gras, a popular national dish in France, is made by force-feeding grain to ducks or geese to produce a fatty enlarged liver.
Animal Equality, a pressure group part of an international campaign to "raise awareness on the torture of thousands of ducks and geese on foie gras farms in five EU countries," welcomed the move by eight prominent MEPs that included the Green Party’s Yves Cochet.
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"We want to help European consumers to open their eyes and ask the European Commission (for) a law to ban not only the production, but also the import and sale of foie gras," said Italian MEP Andrea Zanoni.
The MEPs' call for a ban followed a bid by French producers, backed by the country's junior minister for the food industry Guillaume Garot, to defend the gourmet food at the European parliament.
Important industry in France
With some 35,000 people involved in foie gras production, the demand for a ban is unlikely to go down well in France.
French authorities were not amused when California set a precedent by becoming the first state to forbid the consumption of foie gras in July this year.
“Foie gras is an important part of the French gastronomic heritage and it has been recognised as such by UNESCO. There is no reason France should accept this state of affairs,” a French diplomat told Reuters at the time.
Currently, farming of animals to produce foie gras is banned in 22 EU nations - excluding Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Hungary and Spain - but not the import or sale of what campaigners dub as "torture in a tin".
In Britain, former James Bond star Roger Moore has been calling for its ban alongside People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). However, the famous UK store Fortnum & Mason said in October of this year that it will not be “bullied” into stopping the sale of the product, stating that sales of the product had in fact increased 60% since PETA’s campaign began.
(FRANCE 24 with wires)
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Theophilus. The fact is even
Theophilus. The fact is even if one wanted to visit these farms guess what you'd be arrested for trying to get any evidence of harm against an innocent animal. Your point about PEOPLES choice being the responsibility of the government shouts loudly that you are more interested in the welfare of those animal abusers who USE animals AGAINST their will (choice) when they don't need to. Not so many people in the EU going hungry for the Foie Gras is there?
Vedi2010 I would encourage that also since we no longer NEED to use animals for food and in fact by doing so we take useful land and food resources away from people that we grow already so putting an animal through the torture before killing it just adding insult to injury (death even) and because it is unnecessary and has it's roots in value VANITY I would say it is one of the worst ways we sustain ourselves as a species. (Vanity is from the DESIRE for the taste over and above the nutritional value of it). Eating has become a fashion statement rather than a basic need these days and this industry is at the pinnacle of the wickedness of humanity.
Why not dismantle the Eiffel
Why not dismantle the Eiffel Tower too? The E.U. needs to ban tobacco products not Foie gras. It is bad when governments care more about domesticated animals than they do about their own citizens. Have these activists ever visited a foie gras farm? I would venture to say no.
Ridiculous!
In that case, we should ban chickens, lambs, salmon, snails, rabbits, etc, etc, etc, because they are all being force fed so that they can become fat and juicy to supply the market.
What a ridiculous proposal. Force feeding ducks and geese is not the issue - it's the way they KILL them, that is the issue. And if they are killed mercifully, then where is the problem?
Of course it is torture, what else?
There is nothing "controversial" about ban on the production and sale of foie gras. Let's call things by their names: forcefeeding IS torture. The economic interests of the producers are endangered by the intended ban, so it's basically a question of how much torture our societies are ready to accept for profit.
foie gras is more ethical
Foie gras is more ethical!
Here, in the US, producers get the chicken (or other birds) from egg to the market in few short weeks by fattening it with use of suspect antimicrobials and hormones. This is unethical and unhealthy drugging of the bird. I hear no complaints about this cruelty to chicken or us, who consume hormone and antimicrobial-laced meat.
Traditional French option is by far superior and more ethical, as goose is fattened with real noodles or bread that may be day or two old, not with chemicals. Bread or noodles are not unhealthy to the goose or those of us who eat the bird or its liver.
Growing bigger stomachs and getting fatty livers from too much starchy foods and hormone/antibacterials-laced chicken? It is not illegal in most countries: we call it in humans abdominal adiposity and obesity epidemic.
Foie gras is greener (environmentally-friendly) than most of us think. Green Party should know better.
To ban a ban is to ban a way!
Ban foie gras, and not wars? What a society!