DutchNews, September 14, 2015
From the SOMO report's cover |
Dutch banks
have invested millions of euros in a massive chicken farm in Ukraine which is
competing with Dutch poultry farms, the Volkskrant reported on Monday.
The
Ukraine farm, Myronivsky Hluboproduct (MHP) is owned by one of Ukraine’s
richest men and kills and processes 332 million chickens a year, the paper
said. This is roughly three quarters of the Netherlands’ total production of
chicken.
The paper bases its claims on
research by SOMO, the centre for research of multinational corporations.
SOMO’s new report on MHP, titled Chicken Run, shows the extend of Dutch
involvement in the project.
For example, both Rabobank and ING have invested in
the plant and, the Volkskrant says, the involvement of Rabobank is particularly
significant because of its ties to the Dutch farming community.
In addition,
Rabobank has committed itself to improving animal welfare in factory farms and
the rules in Ukraine are much less strict than in the Netherlands, the paper
states.
Technology
Rabobank told the Volkskrant it had no indications that MHP
is breaking national laws and declined to comment on the size of its
investment.
Dutch agribusiness firms are also involved in the Ukraine project,
the report states.
‘Furthermore, MHP has sourced technological equipment for
the Vinnytsia complex from a range of mostly Dutch suppliers,’ it said. ‘In
several cases these companies have received export credit insurances from
Atradius DSB. Since the opening of the EU market for Ukrainian poultry, the
Netherlands has accounted for the majority of EU imports of MHP’s products.’
Ukraine is also home to a massive battery chicken farm which has 23 million
hens. Efforts last year to have egg imports from battery farms in Ukraine failed.
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