Category Archives: Farming

​World largest meat company faces legal challenge over green credentials of $6bn global expansion

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Greenpeace petitions Dutch courts to order JBS to disclose how its aims are compatible with responsibilities to climate and human rights

The world’s biggest meat company, JBS, faces a landmark legal challenge to disclose how its $6bn (£4.5bn) global expansion plan is compatible with responsibilities to the climate, nature and human rights.

Courts in the Netherlands, where JBS is headquartered, will assess the petition filed by Greenpeace for information on whether the company is compliant with Dutch laws on “duty of care” as well as its own publicly stated commitments.

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Berry tough: Ribena seeks to make hardier blackcurrants to beat extreme weather

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£200,000 investment comes after harvests in Britain hit by wet winter, spring frost and hail, then heatwaves

The owner of Ribena is to invest £200,000 in helping blackcurrant bushes withstand stress after extreme weather put a squeeze on this year’s UK harvest.

That harvest is now under way in the berry’s main growing regions including East Anglia, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Kent and Scotland. It is expected to be about 10% below the average of 10,000 tonnes, as the climate crisis drives extreme weather across Britain and elsewhere.

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Experts warn of ways screwworm could spread in the US and new difficulties in keeping it at bay

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Scientists worry that current eradication efforts won’t be able to contain parasitic infestation pushing into US

When conservationists set up cameras in remote regions of Central American forests, they wanted to monitor illegal cattle movement, which can lead to deforestation. But in recent months, they discovered another alarming development: wildlife rapidly infected with the new world screwworm.

It’s a warning sign of how the fly could spread in the US – and it signals new difficulties in pushing it back south, a process that will probably take years, experts say.

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Catnip lotion as effective as Deet at repelling mosquitoes, study finds

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Researchers testing a cheap, homegrown oil in Uganda found what cats knew all along – it worked as well as the artificial chemical used globally

A homegrown catnip lotion has proven “just as effective as Deet” as a mosquito repellant in trials carried out in Uganda.

Catnip, or Nepeta cataria, is a common herb from the mint family. The chemical in the plant that causes feline euphoria – nepetalactone – also has insect-repelling properties but this has not previously been commercialised.

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Typical English roast dinner potentially ‘drenched’ in 102 pesticides, says report

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Greenpeace finds cocktail of pesticides including seven banned in EU may have been used on seven categories of vegetables and soft fruit

It is a beautiful early summer Sunday afternoon and you have stopped for a pub lunch. A waiter sets down a roast served with carrots, peas, parsnips, potatoes and onion gravy, and then for pudding, strawberries and cream. It feels like the perfect rustic meal to accompany a day in the country.

However, a report by Greenpeace, published on Thursday, has found that the ingredients of the traditional Sunday roast have potentially been treated with a cocktail of more than 100 pesticides. Data from the Fera pesticide usage survey for 2024, showed 102 – including seven banned in the EU – were used on seven vegetable and soft fruit categories.

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Water flows to parched NSW wetlands could be turned back on within weeks as drought fears loom

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Water minister Rose Jackson calls drying in Gwydir region ‘devastating’ as bill passes upper house

Water flows to parched New South Wales wetlands where an urgent rescue mission to save dying wildlife unfolded are a step closer to resuming after legislation passed the state parliament’s upper house.

The water minister, Rose Jackson, told the parliament on Thursday night the impact of a halt to environmental flows in the internationally significant Gwydir region had been “devastating” as she introduced legislative amendments she said would allow flows to resume.

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Fertiliser shortages will have ‘dramatic’ effect on global food prices, warns farming boss

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Powerful property and farming firm Grosvenor Group says knock-on effect of Iran war could arrive next year

Fertiliser shortages caused by the Iran war have driven up costs for UK farmers by up to 70% and will have a “dramatic” impact on food prices globally next year, according to one of Britain’s most powerful property and farming companies.

Mark Preston, executive trustee of the 349-year-old Grosvenor Group, controlled by the Duke of Westminster, said fertiliser “was already quite expensive” before the 50% to 70% surge in prices since the start of the Iran war in late February.

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EU trade deal could force UK to restrict use of weedkiller linked to cancer

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Glyphosate is currently sprayed on cereal and pulse crops to dessicate them and make them easier to harvest

A new trade deal with the EU could lead to restrictions on the use of the controversial weedkiller glyphosate on UK food crops.

The full-spectrum herbicide, which kills almost every plant it touches, is often sprayed on wheat, oats and other cereal and pulse crops shortly before harvest to desiccate them and make them easier to handle.

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‘They don’t belong in our environment’: US vineyards battle spotted lanternflies as invasive insects spread

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From Virginia to New York, the bugs drain vines, cut yields and leave growers resorting to one simple fix: squash them

Around grape harvest time about three years ago, an employee at Zephaniah Farm Vineyard in Leesburg, Virginia, noticed bugs, about 1in long with gray and black wings and a bright red underwing, atop some trees.

While the insects were pretty, they were there for the grapevines and not welcome guests at the vineyard, which sits atop a farm that the Zephaniah family has run since 1949.

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Irish police clear Dublin blockade staged by fuel price protesters

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Hundreds of officers deployed to regain control of O’Connell Street on sixth day of protests by farmers and hauliers

Police have cleared a blockade of central Dublin by farmers and hauliers who were protesting about fuel prices, signalling a possible end to six days of protests that have rocked Ireland.

Mounted units and hundreds of officers regained control of O’Connell Street in a peaceful operation that emptied the thoroughfare of trucks and tractors on Sunday morning.

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Campaigners demand action to break UK’s ‘addiction’ to controversial herbicide

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Use of glyphosate has risen 10-fold in 30 years, raising fears for public health

It was Scottish farmers in the 1980s who pioneered the practice of spraying glyphosate on their wheat just before harvest. Struggling in the damp glens to get their crop to dry evenly, they came up with the idea of accelerating the process by killing it a week or two before harvesting.

Glyphosate, then a revolutionary herbicide that killed everything plant-based but spared animal life, seemed perfect for the job. Soon the practice spread to wetter, colder agricultural regions around the world.

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New UK farm inheritance tax rule will cause ‘significant challenges’, say accountants

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Levy on inherited farms and family businesses worth £2.5m or more comes into force 6 April

A new inheritance tax regime for UK farms and family businesses comes into force on Monday and will present “significant challenges” for those affected, according to accountants.

In October 2024 the government announced plans to levy inheritance tax on farms – prompting an outcry in many quarters.

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Farmers plead for tax breaks, diesel guarantees and help buying fertiliser as national cabinet meets on fuel crisis

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State and federal leaders due to discuss assistance for business sectors but petrol rationing not expected to find backing

Farmers say the federal government must help them with tax breaks and underwriting fertiliser purchases to survive the fuel crisis, with Monday’s national cabinet expected to discuss more assistance to businesses amid ballooning petrol prices.

Federal and state governments have remained tight-lipped about what would be on the meeting’s agenda but state premiers have urged the Albanese government to take a stronger national coordination role in the crisis.

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‘Makes Covid look like a tea party’: Australian food prices could rise for the next year, farmers warn

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Iran conflict could see shortages not just in fuel, but fertiliser and fossil fuel resins – used to make milk bottles

Farmers say Australian consumers could pay more for everyday staples for the next year at least as a result of the US-Israel war on Iran.

But the CEO of dairy farmer cooperative Norco, Michael Hampson, says a six- to 12-month disruption to food supply is likely a best-case scenario, depending on the strait of Hormuz reopening soon and global petrochemical supply chains beginning to stabilise.

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Africa particularly vulnerable as Iran conflict disrupts supply chains, say experts

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Food production in many African countries depends heavily on fertiliser imported from the Gulf through the strait of Hormuz

Countries in Africa, where farmers depend heavily on imported fertiliser and a large share of household income goes on food, are particularly vulnerable to supply chain disruptions caused by the war in the Middle East, experts have said.

The conflict has drastically disrupted trade through the strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane not just for oil and gas but also for fertiliser, which is produced in vast quantities in the Gulf.

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Nearly 4,000 US meatpacking workers to strike at plant run by top Trump donor

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Workers at JBS USA to strike Monday in what will be the first labor strike in the meatpacking industry in decades

About 3,800 workers at JBS USA, the world’s largest meat producer, are set to strike on Monday in what will be the first labor strike in the industry in decades.

The walkout threatens to put further strain on US meat prices – ground beef prices soared 15% last year – and could prove a headache for the Trump administration as it struggles with poor polling on cost of living issues.

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EU agrees to chop meaty names from vegetarian and vegan food products

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Lawmakers will outlaw use of 31 meat-related names as part of efforts to help livestock farmers in food supply markets

EU lawmakers have agreed to ban meaty names such as steak and bacon for vegetarian and vegan foods, but “veggie burgers” and “meat-free sausages” will remain on the table.

Negotiators from the European parliament and EU council of ministers found a recipe for compromise on rules for food names on Thursday, although critics said they were creating needless complexity.

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Germany moves to legalise wolf hunting in response to livestock ‘bloodlust’

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Lower house votes in favour of polarising law after rapid increase in population and attack on grazing farm animals

Wolf hunting will be allowed in Germany under legislation passed by the lower house of parliament in response to a rapidly growing population and a sharp rise in attacks on livestock.

The return and growth of the wolf population in the last three decades has emerged as a wedge issue in Germany, the land of the Brothers Grimm who popularised the spectre of the Big Bad Wolf.

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Syngenta says it will stop making pesticide linked to Parkinson’s disease

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Company will halt production of controversial paraquat weed killer by end of June as it faces thousands of lawsuits

Syngenta, maker of a controversial pesticide linked to Parkinson’s disease, said on Tuesday that it will stop making its paraquat weed killer by the end of June.

The announcement comes as the company is facing several thousand lawsuits brought by people in the US who allege they developed Parkinson’s disease due to their exposure to Syngenta’s paraquat products.

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Beef and lamb get 580 times more in EU subsidies than legumes, study finds

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Report says common agricultural policy provides ‘unfair’ levels of support to unhealthy, meat-heavy diets

Beef and lamb receive 580 times more in EU subsidies than legumes, a report has found, despite scientists urging people to get more of their protein from less harmful sources.

Analysis by the charity Foodrise found the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) provides “unfair” levels of support to meat-heavy diets that doctors consider unhealthy and climate scientists consider environmentally destructive.

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