Europe’s cows get a geopolitical upgrade

(Bartosz Brzeziński – Politico) For years, the EU treated its cows, pigs and chickens mainly as a source of emissions to be reduced. On Tuesday, the European Commission gave them a new job title. Livestock, it now says, is critical infrastructure. Its official livestock strategy, presented in Strasbourg, runs on the vocabulary of security policy. Herds underpin “strategic autonomy.” Grazing animals guard against land abandonment on the eastern flank. Food production is “preparedness.” A sector responsible for around two-thirds of EU farm emissions and that uses a third of its land is no longer a problem to manage but an asset to defend. “Livestock is not only about agriculture,” Raffaele Fitto, the Commission’s executive vice president for cohesion and reforms, told reporters. “It is about competitiveness, it is about food security … and it is about Europe’s future.” – Europe’s cows get a geopolitical upgrade – POLITICO