#dairy industry targets

[farmerstrend]

Kenya Dairy Board’s 10-Year Plan: More Milk, Sustainability, and Climate Action

The Kenya Dairy Board unveils a 10-year plan to transform the dairy sector by focusing on sustainability, increasing milk production by 2.5 billion litres, and ensuring environmental and economic benefits for farmers. Kenya’s 10-year Dairy Industry Sustainability Roadmap aims to produce an additional 2.5 billion litres of milk annually, promoting sustainable farming, reducing greenhouse gas…

[lydiardbell]

Finally... A backpack that meets MY country boy needs

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Canada's Farmers Fight Production Battle to Fuel United Nations War Machine," Brantford Expositor. July 13, 1942. Page 5. ---- Canadian cheese producers expect this year to exceed contracts for shipments to England, as they did last. Photo shows man testing aroma of card after milling. Future crop conditions augur much greater excess of cheese production over contract than in 1941, when conditions were comparatively poor. In 1941 contracts called for 112,000,000 pounds: 115,000,000 pounds were shipped to England. New contracts set 125,000,000 as goal. Photo shows delivery of milk at a cheese factory.

The kitten, forbidden to enter the milk shed, slipped in with the photographer. Electric milkers are widely used in dairy industry, though manual method persists. High quality of Canadian dairy products is appreciated by this calf, enjoying a meal at the milk stand. Herds have been increased to meet growing needs an importance of food as war weapon places greater responsibility on the farmer.

In spite of production difficulties, shortage of labor, supplies and materials due to the tremendous demands of war industries, cheese production continues to increase. Milk sheet at cheese factory shows dally deliveries by farmers.

Canadian cheddar cheese is regarded as best in world, winner of many international prizes. This young man is putting the hoop on a cheese after it is bandaged.

[collapsedsquid]

The Border Patrol conducted unannounced raids throughout Bakersfield on Tuesday, descending on businesses where day laborers and field workers gather. Agents in unmarked SUVs rounded up people in vans outside a Home Depot and gas station that serves a breakfast popular with field workers.  [...]

“We’re in the middle of our citrus harvesting. This sent shockwaves through the entire community,” said Casey Creamer, president of the industry group California Citrus Mutual, on Thursday. “People aren’t going to work and kids aren’t going to school. Yesterday about 25% of the workforce, today 75% didn’t show up.” He pushed back on the Border Patrol’s claims they’re targeting bad people. He said they appeared to be general sweeps of workers.  “If this is the new normal, this is absolute economic devastation,” said Richard S. Gearhart, an associate professor of economics at Cal State-Bakersfield.  In the short term, he predicted farms and dairies could make up the losses, but that homebuilders, restaurants and small businesses would be most hurt financially.  But he’s worried about the long-term.  “You are talking about a recession-level event if this is the new long-term norm,” he said.  Agriculture comprises about 10 percent of Kern County’s gross domestic product and undocumented workers may comprise half of the workforce, he said. And the Central Valley provides about a quarter of the United States’ food. 

[probablyasocialecologist]

One simple way to look at it is to take the rate of emissions reductions achieved in countries that have successfully decoupled, and see how long it would take for them to fully decarbonize. That’s essentially what Jefim Vogel and Jason Hickel — researchers at the University of Leeds and the Autonomous University of Barcelona, respectively — did in the Lancet Planetary Health study. They found that, if 11 high-income countries continued their achieved rates of emissions reduction, it would take them more than 220 years to cut emissions by 95 percent — far longer than the net-zero-by-2050 timeline called for by climate experts. “The decoupling rates achieved in high-income countries are inadequate for meeting the climate and equity commitments of the Paris Agreement and cannot legitimately be considered green,” the authors wrote. In an interview with Grist, Vogel likened optimism around gradual decoupling to saying, “Don’t worry, we’re slowing down,” while the Titanic races toward an iceberg.

[...]

“Absolute decoupling is not sufficient to avoid consuming the remaining CO2 emission budget under the global warming limit of 1.5 degrees C or 2 degrees C and to avoid climate breakdown,” concluded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its most recent assessment. Instead of making growth greener, some economists call for a whole new economic paradigm to address converging social and ecological crises. They call it “post-growth,” referring to a reorientation away from GDP growth and toward other metrics, like human well-being and ecological sustainability. Essentially, they want to prioritize people and the planet and not care so much what the stock market is doing. This would more or less free countries from the decoupling dilemma, since it eliminates the growth imperative altogether. Raworth, the professor at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, calls her version of the post-growth agenda “doughnut economics.” In this visual model, the inner ring of the doughnut represents the minimum amount of economic activity needed to satisfy  basic needs like access to food, water, and shelter. The outer ring signifies the upper limits of natural resource use that the Earth can sustain. The goal, she argues, is for economies to exist between the inner and outer rings of the doughnut, maintaining adequate living standards without surpassing planetary limits.  “Our economies need to bring us into the doughnut,” Raworth told Grist. “Whether GDP grows needs to be a secondary concern.”  Vogel and Hickel go a little further. They call for a planned, deliberate reduction of carbon- or energy-intensive production and consumption in high-income countries, a concept known as “degrowth.” The rationale is that much of the energy and resources used in high-income countries goes toward carbon-intensive products that don’t contribute to human welfare, like industrial meat and dairy, fast fashion, weapons, and private jets. Tamping down this “less necessary” consumption could slash greenhouse gas emissions, while lower energy demand could make it more feasible to build and maintain enough energy infrastructure. Some research suggests that reducing energy demand could limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C without relying on unproven technologies to draw carbon out of the atmosphere.

[political-us]

The new tariffs imposed by the U.S. on China, Mexico, and Canada will have widespread effects on American goods and services. Here’s how they are likely to impact different aspects of the economy:

1. Higher Costs for Businesses and Consumers

Many American businesses rely on imported materials, components, and products from these countries. Tariffs increase the cost of these imports, forcing companies to either absorb the costs (reducing profits) or pass them on to consumers.

Industries such as automotive, electronics, manufacturing, and retail will see price hikes, making everyday goods more expensive for American consumers.

2. Inflationary Pressure

Tariffs function like a tax on imported goods, leading to higher prices across the board.

If companies pass increased costs to consumers, inflation could rise, making goods and services more expensive and potentially prompting the Federal Reserve to reconsider interest rate policies.

3. Supply Chain Disruptions & Business Uncertainty

Companies that rely on raw materials, electronics, and auto parts from these countries may face delays and shortages, forcing them to find alternative suppliers or move production, which takes time and money.

Some businesses might restructure their supply chains by sourcing materials from other countries or increasing domestic production, but this transition isn't immediate and could further increase costs.

4. Retaliation from Trading Partners

Canada, Mexico, and China have signaled that they may impose their own tariffs on U.S. exports, which could hurt American industries that depend on international trade, such as agriculture, aerospace, and manufacturing.

Farmers, in particular, could face declining demand for crops like soybeans, corn, and dairy products, which were previously targeted in retaliatory tariffs during the Trump-era trade war.

5. Impact on the Stock Market & Business Investment

Investors dislike uncertainty. If businesses anticipate lower profits due to higher costs or potential trade disruptions, stock markets may react negatively.

Companies may delay hiring or expansion plans due to concerns over higher operational costs and shifting trade dynamics.

6. Possible Job Losses in Affected Industries

If businesses face significantly higher costs and declining demand due to retaliatory tariffs, some industries could see layoffs or reduced hiring.

Manufacturing and export-dependent sectors, such as automotive, steel, and agriculture, may be hit the hardest.

Potential Silver Linings

Some industries, like domestic manufacturing and steel production, could see short-term gains if companies decide to shift production back to the U.S. instead of relying on imports.

The government may use tariff revenues to invest in domestic industries or subsidies, potentially offsetting some negative effects.

Bottom Line

The new tariffs will likely increase costs for businesses and consumers, contribute to inflation, and create uncertainty in financial markets and supply chains. While some domestic industries might benefit, the risk of retaliatory tariffs and economic slowdown poses a challenge for the broader U.S. economy.

[darkmaga-returns]

The bird flu is a re-run of covid. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is basic pattern recognition.  The pandemic planners have a playbook; they used it for covid and now they are using it for bird flu; with one difference.  With covid, they targeted us directly.  With bird flu, they are targeting us indirectly through our food supply.

It is currently being claimed that bird flu is widespread in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in poultry, dairy cows and cats, and has resulted in several human cases in the US, including a recent case in Wyoming.  By coincidence, yesterday, the US Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) gave conditional approval for an updated bird flu vaccine for poultry.

An outbreak of bird flu at a farm in New Zealand in December resulted in the culling of almost 160,000 hens.  But, warned New Zealand’s Biosecurity Minister yesterday, a different strain of the flu was circulating globally and would likely arrive in New Zealand.

At the end of January, GAVI “Vaccines Work” was delighted to announce that restrictions had been put in place in the UK to curb the spread of bird flu.  Almost 1.8 million farmed and captive birds have been culled in the past three months due to avian flu outbreaks across the UK.

Reuters reported yesterday that there has been an outbreak of bird flu in Canada.

And so, it goes on.  Countries’ pandemic-vaccine industries are moving in lockstep just as they did with covid.  In the following, Clayton Baker explains more about their pandemic playbook which they used for covid and are now using for bird flu.  “Learn it, and you can understand how to put an end to it,” he writes.

Although he refers to the pandemic industry in the USA, similar can be applied worldwide.

[mariacallous]

President-elect Donald Trump built his campaign on the promise of the “largest deportation operation in American history.” In early December he told NBC’s Meet the Press that he planned to start by deporting convicted criminals and then “the others,” including whole families where some members are in the US legally.

The human and financial costs of such an operation would be staggering. There are an estimated 11 million undocumented people in the US and a further 2.3 million who have been released into the US after crossing the border illegally during the Biden administration. According to an analysis from the American Immigration Council, deporting all of these people would cost nearly $968 billion over more than a decade, as well as requiring 24 times the detention capacity currently available and more than 1,000 new immigration courtrooms.

Mass deportations would also have a big impact on America’s meat industry, which is heavily reliant on undocumented laborers. Around 23 percent of workers in the meatpacking industry are undocumented and 42 percent are foreign-born, says Steven Hubbard, senior data scientist at the American Immigration Council. The meatpacking industry, where animals are slaughtered, processed, and packaged for human consumption, has one of the highest ratios of foreign-born workers of any industry in the US, says Hubbard.

The industry’s reliance on undocumented labor made it a target of immigration raids under earlier administrations. In August 2019 immigration authorities arrested 680 people in raids on seven food-processing plants across Mississippi, just one of several rounds of raids that targeted meatpacking plants during the previous Trump administration.

Wages in the meatpacking industry are low, and conditions are dangerous. A 2018 analysis of data from the Occuputational Safety and Health Administration by The Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that amputations happen on average twice weekly across US meat plants. Some meatpacking companies also hire incarcerated laborers to work in their plants.

“Poultry has been maintained as a pretty low-cost protein in this country, and that is largely on the backs of low-wage workers and people with precarious statuses,” says Angela Stuesse, an anthropologist at the University of Carolina, Chapel Hill, who has studied poultry workers in Mississippi.

In recent earnings calls, shareholders in some publicly traded meat companies have asked whether the Trump administration’s deportation plans—among other issues—may pose a challenge to their industry. “We’ve been there before. It did not impact our business,” said Tim Klein, CEO of National Beef, which is owned by the Brazilian food company Marfrig, in response to a question from a shareholder. In response to a similar question in a Tyson Foods earnings call, CEO Donnie King said, “There’s a lot that we don’t know at this point, but I would remind you that we’ve successfully operated this business for over 90 years, no matter the party in control.”

It’s not clear whether the Trump regime would target meatpacking facilities operated by the biggest firms in the industry, given the favorable treatment these companies received at times during the first Trump presidency. During the Covid-19 pandemic, President Trump issued an executive order that allowed plants to keep operating, even as meatpackers were some of the hardest hit by infections. The US House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis later found that Tyson’s legal department drafted a text of the proposed order.

“These large meatpacking companies prevented additional protections from being put in place to protect workers, in part by engaging in a concerted effort with Trump administration political officials to insulate themselves from oversight, to force workers to remain in dangerous conditions, and to shield themselves from liability for any resulting worker illness or death,” the committee concluded in the report released in December 2022.

The supply of labor is tight in meatpacking plants and the farming industry as a whole, says Cesar Escalante, a professor at the University of Georgia’s College of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences. The industry is in need of more workers, says Escalante, who argues that the US should expand the H-2A seasonal agricultural worker visa scheme to include more livestock workers. Smaller farms are more likely to be affected by a lack of workers, says Escalante, while larger farms may switch to mechanization.

If meatpacking workers are deported en masse, then that could translate into a rise in prices for consumers. A report from Texas A&M Agrilife Research estimates that eliminating immigrant labor on US dairy farms would nearly double retail milk prices. It’s not clear what the impact of Trump’s deportation plan would be on meat or food prices more generally, because so much about the plan remains unknown. “We don’t know yet how this is all going to pan out,” Hubbard says.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from DeSmog Blog:

In the chilled section of any major supermarket, from London to Lagos, you’re likely to find a taste of Ireland – a stick of premium butter wrapped in gold or green packaging, celebrating a superior product from grass-fed pastures. 

But the gleaming image of Ireland’s agri-produce hides a number of inconvenient truths, among them the damage the sector is wreaking on Ireland’s climate targets, as well as its waterways and soils.

Ahead of a general election due no later than March next year, DeSmog has launched a new interactive map revealing the power of the Irish agribusiness sector and its hundreds of connections spanning politics, marketing, academia and industry.

Dairy production in Ireland has boomed since 2011, as the EU started phasing out its cap on milk production, with a devastating impact on the climate. Latest figures show that instead of cutting its agricultural emissions, Ireland has increased them – by 10 percent over the period 2010-2023.

While profitable for dairy industry bosses, the expansion is highly detrimental to Ireland’s declared aim to cut agriculture emissions by 25 percent by 2030, as part of its legally binding commitment to achieve net zero emissions no later than 2050.

Intensive farming practices lead to excessive levels of nitrates in fertilisers and manure, harming the lush green pastures Ireland prides itself on. These nitrates lead to oxygen-sucking algae growth in lakes and rivers, and have contributed to 99 percent of Ireland’s ammonia air pollution. 

Despite a slight reduction in overall emissions last year, Ireland is still “well off track” in meeting its EU and national climate targets for 2030, according to its Environmental Protection Agency – in large part due to the methane from Ireland’s unchecked dairy production. The agriculture sector was responsible for over a third (37.8 percent) of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2023, the highest proportion in Europe. 

The intensive farming lobby appears to be in the driving seat. Major dairy processors in particular have been ramping up lobbying efforts around Ireland’s derogation from the EU Nitrates Directive, designed to tackle farming pollution. The country’s exemption allows certain farms to use larger amounts of manure as fertiliser, despite the fact it releases significant amounts of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is 265 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 100 year period.

[beardedmrbean]

Q “How do you tell if someone is a vegan?” 

A: “You don’t have to, they’ll tell you.” 

Maybe it’s jokes like that, highlighting society’s stereotypical view of vegans as arrogant virtue-signallers, that have led to a slump in demand for some plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy, as well as a slew of business failures among manufacturers of plant-based food – most recently Heather Mills’s company VBites, which has just announced it is going into administration. 

Despite veganism being endorsed by a number of celebrities, such as the BBC’s controversial wildlife presenter Chris Packham, it doesn’t seem to have made much headway beyond those segments of the market that are either apocalyptic about climate change or fanatical about animal rights – or both. Perhaps much like Mr Packham himself. 

Then there’s the argument that veganism is good for your health, which has been on an increasingly sticky wicket, deconstructed by books such as the award-winning The Great Plant Based Con by Jayne Buxton. There is also a growing backlash against ultra-processed foods, which many vegan products are. 

But Ms Mills had the gall to blame “gaslighting” by the meat industry for the collapse of her vegan food empire. As a member of the meat “industry”, I take exception to that. Of course it is not really an industry at all in the UK – it is made up of family farms, in stark contrast to the public relations agencies promoting vegan diets. 

Farmers have been hounded and smeared by radical vegan activists for years. I wrote in these pages back in September about Laura Corbett, the Gourmet Goat Farmer, who was targeted by vegan “activists” on social media. Her business was attacked by malicious Trip Advisor reviews. 

Indeed, I would suggest that consumers have been put off by the taint of fanaticism surrounding vegan foods. Recent research has shown that omnivorous consumers are less likely to buy products if they are labelled with the V-word. While it is too early to consign veganism to the history books, I suspect when that history is written it will be seen as a fad that was rejected by the British public largely because the wild behaviour of its more extreme followers trashed the brand. 

It always seemed unlikely that, after millennia evolving on an omnivorous meat-rich diet, we would then wholly abandon it. There is only one species that has ever done that: the panda. And that has not been an unqualified success. 

If the vegans had wanted to actually persuade people to eat better, rather than hector them, they could have chosen a much less blunt message. But a more effective, nuanced approach, focused on stopping the harmful aspects of meat and dairy production, was not pursued and all livestock farmers were tarred with the same brush. This happened even after the positive environmental role of grass-based beef farmers was recognised by the authorities, as they began to be paid carbon credits for the net carbon they sequester.

We can’t allow vegans to continue to ruin the debate about food. We need a real food counter-revolution. 

[sewagetreatmentplant01]

Netsol Water: Leader in Sewage Treatment Plant Manufacturers in Delhi

Water pollution is turning into a global crisis, as industries and urban centers produce massive amounts of wastewater each day. In populous areas like Delhi, the challenge of an effective sewage treatment has never come at such a crucial juncture. Netsol Water is one of the best Sewage Treatment Plant Manufacturers in Delhi, providing best solutions for waste waste management.

Untreated water is one of the major threats to public health, ecosystems, and the environment. It ruins the freshness of fresh-water sources, poses a threat to aquatic life and may unleash a waterborne diseases upsurge. And so comes companies like Netsol Water, breathing hope and practical solutions.

Netsol Water: A Brief Overview

With a mission to come out strongly with this vision in solving the needs of India pertaining to water treatment, Netsol Water has picked up the pace in this multiple-choice game-like environment of Delhi. The firm offers systems for designing, manufacturing, and installing the most sewage treatment plants (STPs) specifically designed according to the diversified needs of various industries.

 

What's special about Netsol Water?

Customized Solutions: Netsol Water knows that no two places are alike when it comes to sewage treatment. They thus ensure that solutions put in place specifically target the problem at hand and also meet the local regulatory compliances, based on their work with clients.

Latest Technology: By being on the forefront of water treatment technology, Netsol Water ensures efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and environmental friendliness of plants.

Comprehensive Services: Netsol Water offers complete services right from consultancy to installation and then next-line maintenance, thus making it a one-stop shop for all types of sewage treatment requirements.

Commitment towards Sustainability: Netsol Water doesn't treat water; it does water management sustainably with industries.

Science behind Netsol Water's Sewage Treatment Plants

Need of the Multistage Process Netsol Water STPs efficiently employ a multi-stage process so that polluted wastewater becomes usable clean water. A basic description of how such plants function would include the following:

Preliminary Treatment: It removes big debris and waste by screening and grit removal.

Primary Treatment: Sedimentation tanks allow suspended solids to settle, thereby reducing the overall pollutant load.

Secondary Treatment: Organic matter is broken down through biological processes that work through activated sludge or other microorganisms.

Tertiary Treatment: Final filtration and disinfection take away any remaining impurities and pathogens.

Sludge Management: Byproducts from the treatment process are managed safely and are frequently reused for beneficial purposes.

This multi-stage approach ensures that the water leaving Netsol Water's STPs meets or exceeds regulation standards; such water can be safely discharged or reused.

Netsol Water Changing Industries

Netsol Water caters to the diversified sectors, so its versatility can be seen in the diversified sectors that it caters to. Some of these sectors are as follows:

Textile and Dye Industries: Wastewater produced by this section of industries is heavily polluted. So they easily require the specialist treatment solutions of Netsol Water. 

Pharmaceutical Companies: Sewage produced from drug manufacturing should be handled with care. To this, Netsol Water provides precision.

Food and Beverage Producers: From dairy plants to breweries, Netsol Water helps these businesses handle their organic-rich wastewater effectively.

Chemical Sector: Netsol Water's advanced technologies overcome the intricate chemical Sewages.

Automotive Industry: Netsol Water provides the automotive manufacturing and servicing industries with overall wastewater treatment solutions.

Environmental Impact of Netsol Water Delhi

Being one of the top Sewage Treatment Plant Manufacturer in Delhi, Netsol Water has been significantly contributing towards Delhi's environment. With effective wastewater treatment solutions, Netsol Water is assisting in all the ways:

Clean up pollution in the Yamuna River, which is Delhi's primary source of water

Reduce contamination and consequently boost the quality of groundwater

Improve public health by reducing probable waterborne diseases

Support the sustainable goals for the development of Delhi

Innovations and Future Outlook

Netsol Water does not boast of resting on its oars. The company keeps abreast of emerging challenges in water treatment with continuous innovations. A few areas of focus are:

Energy Efficiency: Developing treatment processes that consume less energy, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of STPs. 

Water Reuse Technologies: Enhanced techniques to make treated water suitable for various industrial and agriculture applications. 

Smart Monitoring Systems: Implementing IoT-based solutions for real-time monitoring and optimization of treatment plants.

Modular Designs: Creating scalable modular designs of STPs which can easily expand or change as and when the need arises.

Why Netsol Water?

For the sewage treatment requirements of any business firm at Delhi, Netsol Water offers:

Specialized Consultation: Professional experts to calculate exact requirements.

Tailor-made Design: Space-suitable, budget-suitable, and requirement-suitable STPs.

Installation Process: No Disruption in Its Services.

Comprehensive Training: Your manpower operates and maintains the STP

Ongoing Support: Maintenance and Troubleshooting services are provided to ensure the continuity of the plant.

Conclusion: A Greener Future with Netsol Water

In the middle of the ongoing rapid growth phase of the city, Delhi cannot afford to have anything short of industry-level wastewater management. Netsol Water stands at the forefront of this critical industry: With innovative, reliable, and sustainable solutions for sewage treatment. Netsol Water is top on Sewage Treatment Plant Manufacturer in Delhi, offering solutions for waste waster.

Therefore, by opting for Netsol Water, a Delhi based company would be abiding by the rules of the land while creating an environment for the generations to come that will be cleaner and healthier. And with such companies like Netsol Water, we do have hope for the future because the right technology combined with the right commitment can significantly assist in conquering the obstacles presented in front of us by water pollution and creating a more sustainable world.

Whether a small businessman or industrial giant, if you are based in Delhi and battling against wastewater issues, there is hope for you, perhaps in the form of Netsol Water, transforming those battles into opportunities for environmental stewardship.

[acti-veg]

have you seen the new “wood milk” ad? honestly it seems pathetic that they have to put this much effort into bashing their competition

I thought it was pretty funny to be honest, in a cringey sort of way. I think we're supposed to think that plant milk as a premise is as ridiculous as wood milk, but that's about a decade too late. I’d try it if it were real - I think a lot if people would. The joke doesn’t land because the premise is just not that silly.

People are very comfortable with the existence of oat, soy and almond milk, many non-vegans already use it regularly, and those that don't, don't need to be reminded of what 'real' milk is. Only old conservatives seem to think plant milk is ridiculous, and that's not who the ads are targeting, they're going for Gen Z, who are drinking less dairy than previous generations.

It just seemed like an ad designed by a 40 year old marketing manager trying to relate to 'the youth' and get someone young people respect as the industry's mouthpiece. But how much are their purchasing habits really going to be influenced by Aubrey Plaza deadpanning a script for big dairy because she got paid a shit load of money to do it?

It's not just the ad either, it's part of a wider campaign. They've set up a website for it posing as a start up, even social media accounts which are just obviously corporately managed and very overdone. When you consider the fact that this is all being written and orchestrated by an extremely rich and powerful corporate entity it’s all just a bit embarassing isn't it?

[notwiselybuttoowell]

A public statement signed by more than 1,000 scientists in support of meat production and consumption has numerous links to the livestock industry, the Guardian can reveal. The statement has been used to target top EU officials against environmental and health policies and has been endorsed by the EU agriculture commissioner.

The “Dublin Declaration of Scientists on the Societal Role of Livestock” says livestock “are too precious to society to become the victim of simplification, reductionism or zealotry” and calls for a “balanced view of the future of animal agriculture”. One of the authors of the declaration is an economist who called veganism an “eating disorder requiring psychological treatment”.

The declaration was published a year ago but gave no information on its provenance. Its supporters appear to be overwhelmingly researchers in animal, agricultural and food sciences.

Documents obtained by Unearthed, Greenpeace UK’s journalism project, and seen by the Guardian, show the creation, launch and promotion of the declaration have significant links to the livestock industry and its consultants.

The declaration and associated studies are viewed as “propaganda” by leading environmental scientists. Prof Matthew Hayek of New York University in the US said: “The scientific consensus is that we need rapid meat reduction in the regions that can afford that choice.”

Studies in the highest-ranking scientific journals have concluded that cutting meat and dairy consumption in rich countries is the single best way to reduce a person’s impact on the environment and that the climate crisis cannot be beaten without such cuts. People already eat more meat than health guidelines recommend in most developed nations.

The EU was pursuing policies to reduce meat consumption on environmental and health grounds, but some of these have recently been dropped.

[luxe-pauvre]

There was a time not long ago when our news sources seemed monolithic, authoritative and trusted. It’s odd to reflect how much we once craved more information on subjects of interest to us: there was ultimately less of it about. Somehow, we were happy to accept that the vastness and complexity of humanity’s last twenty-four hours could be summarised in a handful of curated articles or reports from the studio. Then in the late 1990s came the first blogs, and Wikipedia a little later; soon old-fashioned journalism was all but crushed under the weight of information’s democratisation. The old behemoths started to look biased, elitist, or at best arbitrary in terms of what they chose to report. Newspapers seemed out of touch and were a day late with everything. At least the establishment had a budget: glossy production values allowed us for a while to distinguish between professional news and amateur. But with fewer technical and financial barriers to film-making, even that visual distinction has disappeared. I’ve watched documentaries that have successfully turned me from much of the meat market, but now films about dolphin genocide and the iniquities of the fishing industry leave me confused and guilty when I scan the weekly deli counter. I have no context in which to assess the damning information I receive about the slabs of salmon and tuna that denounce me glassily from the ice; there is no equivalent of peer review for these authored and passionate documentaries. When I read accusations of deliberate one-sidedness I wonder if such criticism is tainted by the financial interests of dark conglomerates, or whether bias even matters much any more. It seemed to matter when Michael Moore made Fahrenheit 9/11, criticising Bush and his War on Terror: I remember the accusations of propaganda and the queasiness they produced in me after watching it. But now, partisanship is a given, and a lack of a strong authorial voice only has the old-fashioned and troubling effect of making us think for ourselves. All I have instead to guide me is how the programme made me feel, which means I am entirely in the hands of how shrill its tone was, how much it seemed to engage with conflicting viewpoints, and technical considerations such as the quality of editing. I am clueless as to how I should judge the fairness of the content. I turn from the tuna and consider the neighbouring arrangement of cheese with as much disquiet, aware that the next devastating exposé will target the violence and misery of the dairy industry. I glance hopefully at the veg, and then recall a report from Tel Aviv University in which researchers had recorded ultrasonic distress signals from tomatoes that were left unwatered or had their stems cut. The result of this avalanche of modern information and the canniness of communication and marketing surrounding it has been a disconcerting lack of confidence in any information source at all. And we are left to respond to that perpetual mode of uncertainty with only anxiety or indifference.

Derren Brown, A Book of Secrets: Finding Solace in a Stubborn World

[ardri-na-bpiteog]

Why does Ireland have the best milk?

Because that's my personal opinion and I'm always right 😌

Although genuinely Ireland has a very large grass-fed dairy industry and the dairy products from Ireland are generally considered quite good. It's part of why we're not meeting our emissions targets though because the dairy industry is very greenhouse gas intensive so that's fun.

[dagwolf]

EVERYONE RECALLS THE SHORTAGES of toilet paper and pasta, but the early period of the pandemic was also a time of gluts. With restaurants and school cafeterias shuttered, farmers in Florida destroyed millions of pounds of tomatoes, cabbages, and green beans. After meatpacking plants began closing, farmers in Minnesota and Iowa euthanized hundreds of thousands of hogs to avoid overcrowding. Across the country, from Ohio to California, dairies poured out millions of gallons of milk and poultry farms smashed millions of eggs.

The supply chain disruptions continue. Last year, there was a rice glut, and big box stores like Walmart and Target complained of��bloated inventories. There was a natural gas glut in both Europe and in India, as well as a surfeit of semiconductor chips in the tech sector. Florida cabbages, microchips, and Asian rice may not seem like they have much in common, but each of these stories represents a fundamental if disavowed aspect of capitalism: a crisis of overproduction.

All economic systems have problems of scarcity, but only capitalism also has problems of abundance. The reason is simple: the pursuit of profit above all else leads capitalism to produce too much of things that are profitable but socially destructive (oil, private health insurance, Facebook) and not enough of things that are socially beneficial but not privately profitable (low-income housing, public schools, the ecosystem of the Amazon rainforest). For over a century, from the Industrial Revolution through the Great Depression, crises of overproduction were the target of criticism from across the political spectrum—from aristocratic conservatives like Edmund Burke who feared the anarchy of markets was corroding the social order to socialist radicals like Eugene Debs who thought it generated exploitation and poverty.

But the idea of capitalism’s inherent predilection for overproduction has almost completely disappeared from economic discourse today. It seldom appears in the popular press, including in stories about producers destroying surpluses, a problem that is instead explained away by pointing to freak accidents, contingencies, and unforeseen dislocations. To be sure, many gluts of the past few years have been the result of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. But overproduction preceded 2020 and shows no signs of going away. Revisiting historical arguments about the problem can help us better understand the interlocking crises of supply chain disruption, deliquescent financial markets, and climate change. The history of overproduction and its discontents offers a set of tools and ideas with which to consider whether “market failures” like externalities and inventory surpluses really are exceptions or are intrinsic to commercial society, whether markets ever actually do equilibrate, and whether the drive for growth is possible without continual excess and waste.