Food and Agriculture

Big Meat Unveils Battle Plans For COP28

November 29, 2023 Rachel Sherrington, DeSmog. Educate! Big Ag, climate crisis, COP28, Food and Agriculture, Meat

Major meat companies and industry lobby groups are planning a large presence at COP28 in a few days time, equipped with a communications plan to get a pro-meat message heard by policymakers throughout the summit, DeSmog can reveal. Documents seen by DeSmog and the Guardian show that the meat industry is poised to “tell its story and tell it well” in the lead up and during the Dubai conference, which comes on the heels of the world’s hottest ever year. The files relate how the world’s largest meat company, JBS, is planning to come out in “full force” at the summit, along with other big industry hitters such as the Global Dairy Platform and the North American Meat Institute.

This Thanksgiving, Consider The Wellbeing Of Family Farmers

November 24, 2023 Tommy Enright, Wisconsin Examiner. Educate! Congress, Family Farms, Farm Bill, Farmers, Food and Agriculture, Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving, families across America are gathering around tables to enjoy the season’s bounty. Yet, behind the scenes, a complex web of challenges threatens the agricultural foundation of this tradition. The recent one-year extension of the 2018 Farm Bill by Congress has brought temporary relief, but the call for a new, comprehensive five-year farm bill echoes loudly. Wisconsin Farmers Union is raising its voice, emphasizing the urgent need to address issues plaguing family farmers and the agricultural sector as a whole. Gratitude for the bipartisan support in extending the 2018 Farm Bill is tempered by a pressing reality: the long-term stability of family farmers still hinges on a new, five-year farm bill.

The Policy Paradoxes Of Underutilised Crops

November 14, 2023 Radiant Project Staff, Resilience. Create! Food and Agriculture, Monocrops, Seeds

Why do nearly 50% of our calories come from the same three crops: wheat, rice, and maize? What led to such a homogenisation of our diets? Underutilised crops (UCs) or forgotten crops are less common species, landraces, cultivars, or heritage varieties whose use, production, and consumption is currently limited. Despite their current depreciation, they boast a long history of cultivation in many parts of the world and hold great nutritional and environmental promise for the future of our food systems. What role for policy and a value chain approach which considers access to seeds, the ecological aspects of agricultural production, the power positions of stakeholders, the nutritional value of food, and food security and sovereignty?

New Report Issues Damning Verdict On Food’s Fossil Fuel Addiction

November 2, 2023 Clare Carlile, DeSmog. Educate! climate crisis, Food and Agriculture, Fossil Fuel, Plastics

Food systems are responsible for at least 15 percent of all global fossil fuel consumption, according to a major report launched ahead of the COP28 climate summit. The analysis shows that the production, transport, and storage of food are driving greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of the EU and Russia combined. Ultra processed foods like snacks, drinks and ready meals, along with chemical fertilisers made from natural gas, are singled out as major sources of pollution. Published today (Thursday), the research comes weeks before global leaders gather in Dubai to discuss ways to limit catastrophic global heating.

How Do You Buy Groceries When There’s No Grocery Store?

October 29, 2023 Kennedy Smith, ILSR.org. Create! Food and Agriculture, Food Deserts, Food Security, Grocery Stores

When a new mobile grocery market launched in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, its first stop was Maple City Apartments, a 40-unit complex for low-income, elderly relatives. Maple City’s residents have felt the region’s lack of grocery stores acutely. The nearest full-service grocery store is at least five miles away,[1] which leaves few options for people who don’t have access to a car or good public transit. But the County’s residents can now buy groceries from a farmers market on wheels. It started when the Cooperage Project, a regional nonprofit organization, wanted to get fresh, healthy food to people during the pandemic, rather than having them settle for the shelf-stable, highly processed options that chain dollar stores offer.

Pushback Continues Against Genetically Modified Salmon

October 16, 2023 Casey Smith, Indiana Capital Chronicle. Resist! Food and Agriculture, Genetically Engineered, Indiana, Salmon

As demand for seafood grows, including across the Hoosier state, a remote Indiana farm is harvesting thousands of pounds of salmon every year — on land. But the genetically modified fish teeming in the Albany tanks are continuing to draw pushback from environmental advocates who say the “Frankenfish” threaten local ecosystems and are not a sustainable food source. Engineered by biotech company AquaBounty Technologies Inc., the “AquAdvantage” salmon is the first such altered animal to be cleared for human consumption in the United States. The boycott against the salmon has largely come from activists with the Block Corporate Salmon campaign.

Education, Science, And Sovereignty: PROINPA Vs. The US Blockade

October 7, 2023 Chris Gilbert and Cira Pascual Marquina, Venezuelanalysis. Resist! Education, Food and Agriculture, Sanctions, Science, US Imperialism, Venezuela

High up in Venezuela’s Andes, the township of Mucuchies is home to a campesino-led initiative striving for sustainable agricultural production. Integral Producers of the Highlands [PROINPA, for the organization’s Spanish-language initials] is widely recognized not only for its top-notch seed potatoes but also for its scientific initiatives such as a state-of-the-art biotechnology lab, a germplasm bank, and, most recently, an aeroponic seed production facility. One of the secrets to PROINPA’s success is its democratic organization and its emphasis on education. Founded 24 years ago, the organization’s structure has an assembly of associated producers as its topmost level of decision-making, meaning that the producers themselves are in charge.

Revealed: Meetings Blitz Between Big Ag And Anti-Green Lawmakers

October 5, 2023 Clare Carlile, DeSmog. Educate! Big Ag, Corporate lobbying, Europe, Food and Agriculture, Green Economy, Transparency

Agriculture lobby groups have been in constant contact with a small group of influential European politicians, holding an average of over two meetings a week while the bloc negotiated flagship reforms to protect nature and climate, DeSmog can reveal. Between January 2020 and July 2023, over 400 meetings took place between industry and key members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who have been at the forefront of efforts to stall reforms since the Farm to Fork strategy launched in 2020. DeSmog documented meetings held by six MEPs from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest group in parliament.

Mexico: Indigenous Farmers Organize To Protect Maize

October 4, 2023 José de Jesús Cortés, La Prensa Latina Media. Create! climate crisis, Food and Agriculture, Mexico, Seed bank

Indigenous farmers from southern Mexico are organizing and creating seed banks to defend traditional maize from the climate crisis, in the midst of the Mexican government’s fight against genetically modified grains, mainly from the United States. In Oaxaca, southern Mexico, Bernardino Cruz, 48, planted two hectares of maize at the beginning of the rainy season, predicting a good harvest until the rains stopped during the last month. For this reason, he changed his planting method from rainfed to irrigated so as not to lose the production of the native “belatove” corn, an ear about 10 centimeters long composed of mostly white kernels.

A Major Win Against Factory Farming In Oregon

September 30, 2023 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. Create! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Factory Farming, Family Farms, Food and Agriculture

In July, Gov. Tina Kotek signed Oregon Senate Bill 85, which places a moratorium on factory farms’ ability to use unlimited amounts of groundwater. While some advocates consider the bill to be a diluted compromise, it has potential to significantly limit the destructive activities of CAFOs in a state where a healthy remnant of the family farming economy still thrives. On a national level, it represents the first major state legislative victory against factory farming in the U.S. in years. SB 85 is the product of a years-long organizing effort, whose ultimate goal is to pass a full moratorium on new factory farms in Oregon.

A Coal Mine Turned Garden Feeds 2,000 Texans Every Month

September 25, 2023 Alejandra Martinez, Next City. Create! Coal Mining, Communty gardens, Food and Agriculture, Land Restoration, Texas

Five homeschoolers pick fist-size garlic cloves, green jalapeños, strawberries, squash and kale on a breezy Thursday morning in late June. They’re volunteering at a local food garden where bright orange marigolds attract bees from a local keeper’s hive. The 1-acre garden has yielded about 10,000 pounds of produce for six food pantries since it began harvesting in April 2022. Texan by Nature, which manages the garden and was founded by former First Lady Laura Bush, estimates it has served approximately 2,000 people per month in Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties. Located in Freestone County about 60 miles east of Waco, NRG Dewey Prairie Garden is a part of a massive effort to restore a 35,000-acre lignite coal mine.

A Guide To Six Greenwashing Terms Big Ag Is Bringing To COP28

September 23, 2023 Rachel Sherrington and Hazel Healy, DeSmog. Educate! Big Ag, climate crisis, COP28, Environment, Food and Agriculture, greenwashing

As some of the biggest companies – in particular meat and dairy firms – grow more concerned about their climate-villain images, they are turning to greenwashing techniques: well-known tactics deployed by oil and gas industries to shift the debate away from meaningful action. Often valid concepts in and of themselves, the problem lies in how they are touted as enviro-friendly actions while companies fail to cut their contribution to global heating. The agriculture industry has a lot to be worried about. Meat emits around a third of global emissions of methane, and action to cut this greenhouse gas has been identified by the UN and world leaders as the quickest route to slowing global heating. Farming also relies on synthetic fertilisers that are both fossil-fuel-based and emit greenhouse gases, and drives deforestation.

Animal-Grade Prison Food Indicts US Society

September 18, 2023 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Food and Agriculture, health, Human Rights

I’ve written in the past about an awful experience I had in prison a decade ago while serving 23 months in prison after blowing the whistle on the CIA’s torture program. I was doing my time at the Federal Correctional Institution at Loretto, Pennsylvania, a low-security prison in the Appalachian Mountains. One of the very first things I found, on my very first day, was that the food was bad. Very bad. I arrived in prison on a Thursday. The next day, Friday, was “fish day.” A fellow prisoner warned me to skip the fish. “We call it sewer trout,” he said. “you don’t want to put that in your body.” Sure enough, when I got in line in the cafeteria, I saw boxes stacked behind the servers.

Revealed: How Big Dairy Is Milking Net Zero

September 18, 2023 Alex Park, DeSmog. Educate! Big Dairy, climate crisis, False Solution, Food and Agriculture, net zero

Dairy is a serious, but under-discussed source of planet-warming gases. Cows produce methane, a greenhouse gas that absorbs more atmospheric heat than carbon and is currently responsible for 25 percent of all global warming today. But its problems go well beyond the farm. The dairy industry’s emissions are also growing fast. From 2005 to 2015, dairy’s gaseous output increased by 18 percent. And while the highest levels of milk consumption per person are still concentrated in the Global North, most of the recent increase has occurred in low and middle-income countries where rising affluence has led to greater demand for dairy.

Hundreds Set To Launch Hunger Strike Inside Stewart Detention Center

September 7, 2023 Sean Summers, Unicorn Riot. Resist! Detention, Food and Agriculture, Georgia, Hunger Strike, Prisoner rights

Last weekend, hundreds of people detained at the Stewart Detention Center announced plans for a hunger strike in response to inedible food and inhumane conditions inside the notorious Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in rural southwest Georgia. Though detainees have continued to eat while they negotiate with the facility’s staff, as many as 800 people are set to refuse food starting this week if their demands are not met. On the morning of Saturday, Aug. 26, roughly 300 people held inside the Stewart Detention Center were brought out of their holding cells for their morning meal.

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