Day 287 - 25 Oct 96 - Page 15
1 me, that he did not see why the animals, cattle, from which
2 McDonald's got its beef should be in any different position
3 to any other cattle.
4
5 MR. MORRIS: That is right.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you have the reference to that?
8
9 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
10
11 MR JUSTICE BELL: I think I have a note of that anyway.
12
13 MR. MORRIS: Yes. If I can deal with Mr. Cesca in the order of
14 his evidence. On day 224, page 9, we talked about -- this
15 is before Germany, this is the Brazil end, that he had the
16 documents, if you remember, from the Agricultural Council
17 of the American embassy in Brazil, regarding how Brazilian
18 cattle were fed on soya meal, amongst other things. That
19 is at the bottom of the page 9.
20
21 He said, "Yes, I have no reason to refute those points made
22 in the advice to him." So I can get that out of the way.
23 That backs up what is said in the fact sheet about grain
24 fed to South American cattle for McDonald's use. That is a
25 section that McDonald's have not complained about, anyway,
26 but...
27
28 When we come to Germany, use of Brazilian soya for cattle
29 for McDonald's in Germany, day 224, pages 50 and 51,
30 Mr. Cesca was put some information about soya suppliers
31 from Brazil make 30 percent of the European Community's
32 demand. This is an old article. I think it was ten years
33 old, this article I was putting to him. Since 1965 the
34 soya growing area has increased twenty-fold to nine million
35 hectares, this represents some eighty percent of Brazil's
36 agricultural land base.
37
38 "Then the article talks about", I put to him, "the study
39 in the southern parts of Brazil, saying that 88 percent of
40 the soya was grown on land which as a rule had formerly
41 been used for labour intensive food crops. Is there
42 anything in that which contradicts your own experience?"
43 Answer, "No." Labour intensive obviously meaning that the
44 change in the production would have resulted in massive
45 dispossession of otherwise labour intensive farmers,
46 self-sufficient farmers, or whatever. I am not really
47 dealing with this in the most logical way, I am dealing
48 with it as it comes up.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Never mind. Get through your point. If need
51 be, I will put them in an order which suits me.
52
53 MR. MORRIS: So he moves on to say that he accepts what
54 Mr. Gonzales says about traceability. That is pages 50 and
55 51. That, well, Mr. Gonzales had said -- I will just refer
56 to what Mr. Gonzales said. It was actually day 61 --
57 sorry, no, day 67, pages 54 and 55, that traceability in
58 Germany had developed from nothing, or next to nothing,
59 over the last five years up to when he gave his evidence.
60 He said, "Yes, roughly, that is correct." So traceability
