Category Archives: Farming

Alpine dingoes at risk of extinction after Victorian government extends right to cull

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At least 468 shot by government controllers last year out of an estimated population of as few as 2,640 in the state’s east, advocates say

Traditional owners and dingo advocates say a Victorian government decision extending the right to kill dingoes on private and public land until 2028 could threaten local populations with extinction.

A government order, which took effect on Tuesday, declared dingoes were “unprotected wildlife” under the state’s Wildlife Act. The ruling means dingoes can be killed by trapping, poisoning or shooting across large parts of eastern Victoria, despite being listed as threatened under the state’s Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.

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Warming climate putting people at greater risk of kidney disease – study

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Researchers are finding heat-related illnesses can also contribute to heart disease and cognitive impairment

At a dialysis center in Atlanta, Lauren Kasper tended to patients resting in hospital beds, some too sick to be transferred to a chair. Many arrived in wheelchairs or walked with canes, their bodies weakened from kidney disease.

As she hooked them up to dialysis machines, Kasper, a nurse practitioner, was struck by how young many of her patients were.

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Australia politics live: Littleproud heckled at Canberra farmers protest; Greens senator urges Chalmers to override RBA and cut interest rates

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Peter Dutton and David Littleproud addressed the crowd of hundreds from as far as Western Australia. Follow today’s news live

PM speaks on social media ban for kids

Anthony Albanese is doing the media rounds this morning, speaking on the government’s announcement it will ban children from social media platforms. This came after the South Australian announcement yesterday it would be moving to ban children under 14.

Well, we want to work with the states and territories. What we didn’t want to develop is eight different systems. We know this is a national issue and it’s pretty simple. We want to get kids off their devices and on to the footy fields, on to the netball courts, into the swimming pools.

We want them to have real experiences with real people, and we know that social media is causing social harm, which is why we put funding in the budget to have a trial to make sure that we get it right.

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Two hundred sheep killed in truck fire in remote NSW

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Driver, a 32-year-old man, escaped blaze in the early hours of Saturday unharmed

Two hundred sheep have been killed in a truck fire near a remote town in western New South Wales.

A truck fire broke out on the Mitchell Highway at Girilambone, north of Nyngan and 610km north-west of Sydney, about 12.50am on Saturday.

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Thieves try to steal almost half a tonne of olives as harvest begins in Spain

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Police find group ‘collecting olives in flagrante’ near Seville, with lucrative fruit a tempting target for criminals

Police in southern Spain have thwarted the theft of almost half a tonne of olives as the country’s harvest season begins and the lucrative fruit becomes a tempting target for opportunistic thieves and professional criminal gangs.

The verdeo – or collecting of the green olives – takes place in the early autumn and marks the beginning of the harvest season. As it got under way in Seville province this week, officers from Spain’s Guardia Civil force prevented 465kg (73st 2lbs) of olives from being stolen near the town of Albaida del Aljarafe.

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UK’s methane hotspots include landfills and last coalmine

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Greenpeace urges Labour to ‘fulfil international obligations’ as critics question accuracy of official data

The UK’s worst methane hotspots include the last coalmine, livestock farm clusters, landfills, power plants and North Sea oil and gas wells, according to an analysis.

The process has also thrown up serious doubts over the UK’s ability to calculate its methane emissions.

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US to survey dairy cattle brought to slaughter to study bird flu infections

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Regulators will inspect cows to see how widespread virus is and determine whether ageing and cooking inactivate it

The US will track bird flu infections in dairy cows brought to slaughter to understand the ways the virus infects meat and will also continue testing raw milk cheeses to see whether the virus is inactivated in the ageing process.

The renewed focus on the US food chain is the latest front in the effort to combat the infectious bird flu virus, or H5N1, which has triggered alarm bells across the world as a potential future pandemic.

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Brexit delays to seed imports could hit crop production, say growers

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Tomato and pepper growers call for UK to strike deal with EU to avoid disruption and duplicate testing

Vegetable growers in the UK have said crops could be adversely hit this year after post-Brexit border changes resulted in delays to seed imports.

Trade bodies representing UK tomato and pepper growers said new rules for seed imports from the EU were causing delays of up to six weeks for deliveries, disrupting their growing schedules and finances.

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Sheep and goat plague won’t halt production of feta, say Greek farmers

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Producers insist they have enough milk despite culling of thousands of animals due to livestock virus

Greek farmers have denied that production of feta cheese is likely to be hit hard by the outbreak of a deadly virus among goats and sheep that has led to the culling of thousands of animals.

Livestock industry officials sought to dispel fears that the cheese, a mainstay of the Mediterranean diet, could be imperilled because of the rate at which the highly infectious disease has spread.

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Flu vaccine will curb bird flu risk for US farm workers, CDC deputy director says

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US launches major vaccination campaign in a bid to prevent healthcare strain and potential mutations of H5N1 virus

In the face of serious concerns over the spreading bird flu virus in US agriculture, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is pushing a major flu vaccination campaign among farm workers in a bid to prevent healthcare strain and combat potential mutations from the highly pathogenic bird virus.

Part of the campaign will seek to combat disinformation about vaccines, which has hampered previous efforts.

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US pays $2bn to Black and minority farmers after years of discrimination

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Payouts are ‘an acknowledgement’ of US’s long history of refusing to process loans from Black farmers, USDA says

The Biden administration has doled out more than $2bn in direct payments for Black and other minority farmers discriminated against by the US Department of Agriculture, the president announced Wednesday.

More than 23,000 farmers were approved for payments ranging from $10,000 to $500,000, according to the USDA. Another 20,000 who planned to start a farm but did not receive a USDA loan received between $3,500 and $6,000.

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Brazilian rancher ordered to pay $50m for damage to Amazon

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Brazil court freezes assets of Dirceu Kruger to pay climate compensation for illegal deforestation

A Brazilian cattle rancher has been ordered to pay more than $50m (£39m) for destroying part of the Amazon rainforest and ordered to restore the precious carbon sink.

Last week, a federal court in Brazil froze the assets of Dirceu Kruger to pay compensation for the damage he had caused to the climate through illegal deforestation. The case was brought by Brazil’s attorney general’s office, representing the Brazilian institute of environment and renewable natural resources (Ibama). It is the largest civil case brought for climate crimes in Brazil to date and the start of a legal push to repair and deter damage to the rainforest.

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Indonesians who paid thousands to work on UK farm sacked within weeks

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Exclusive: Several sent home for slow fruit picking face debts as watchdog investigates alleged illegal fees

Indonesian workers who paid thousands of pounds to travel to Britain and pick fruit at a farm supplying most big supermarkets have been sent home within weeks for not picking fast enough.

One of the workers said he had sold his family’s land, as well as his and his parents’ motorbikes, to cover the more than £2,000 cost of coming to Britain in May and was distressed to find himself unemployed with few possessions.

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Chicken industry must halt expansion to stop ‘environmental scandal’ in River Severn

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Campaigners warn of same ‘tragic events’ as in River Wye if planners ignore pollution risks of intensive production

The chicken industry is facing calls to halt the expansion of intensive production in the River Severn catchment, with campaigners warning that the river is at risk from the same pollution that has blighted the River Wye.

An outcry over the ecological plight of the Wye has effectively halted the proliferation of intensive poultry units across the catchment. Campaigners say that the pollution threat is being transported “from one catchment to the other”.

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Britons asked to send slugs by post for research into pest-resistant wheat

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Snail mail replaced with slug mail as scientists need 1,000 grey field slugs to explore their impact on various crops

It may be known as snail mail, but researchers are hoping the public will use the postal service to send them a different kind of mollusc: slugs.

A team of scientists and farmers carrying out research into slug-resistant wheat say they need about 1,000 of the creatures to explore how palatable slugs find various crops.

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‘It’s not beautiful, but you can still eat it’: climate crisis leads to more wonky vegetables in Netherlands

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Crowdfunding scheme salvages ‘imperfect’ fruit and veg following the country’s wettest autumn, winter and spring on record

When 31-year-old Dutch farmer Bastiaan Blok dug up his latest crop, the weather had taken a disastrous toll. His onions – 117,000 kilos of them – were the size of shallots.

“We had a very wet spring and a dry, warm summer, so the plants made very small roots,” said Blok, who farms 90 hectares in Swifterbant, in the reclaimed province of Flevoland. “Half of them were less than 40mm and normally at this size they aren’t even processed. We would have probably sold them for very little for biomass, or maybe to Poland for onion oil. It’s either far too wet and cold, or far too warm and dry, and there’s no normal growing period in between.”

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Egg farmers say supply not at risk from bird flu after Coles imposes two-carton limit on shoppers

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Supermarket’s restriction applies everywhere except WA as more than 500,000 chickens euthanised due to avian influenza

Egg farmers have rushed to reassure consumers that there is no shortage of eggs after the supermarket chain Coles announced a two-carton limit in response to the avian influenza outbreak in Victoria.

The highly pathogenic H7N3 strain of bird flu has been detected on four farms in western Victoria, and another highly pathogenic strain, H7N9, has been detected at a fifth farm. More than half a million chickens have been euthanised in an effort to stop the spread of the disease.

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Orange-juice makers consider using other fruits after prices go ‘bananas’

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Global industry ‘in crisis’ as fears about Brazilian harvest help push wholesale prices to record highs

Orange-juice makers are considering turning to alternative fruits such as mandarins as wholesale prices have “gone bananas” amid fears of poor harvests in Brazil.

Prices of the citrus drink reached a new high of $4.95 (£3.88) a lb on commodity markets this week after growers in the main orange producing areas of Brazil said they were expecting the harvest to be 24% down on last year at 232m 40.8-kg boxes – worse than the 15% fall previously predicted.

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‘A catastrophe’: Greenpeace blocks planting of ‘lifesaving’ Golden Rice

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Thousands of children could die after court backs campaign group over GM crop in Philippines, scientists warn

Scientists have warned that a court decision to block the growing of the genetically modified (GM) crop Golden Rice in the Philippines could have catastrophic consequences. Tens of thousands of children could die in the wake of the ruling, they argue.

The Philippines had become the first country – in 2021 – to approve the commercial cultivation of Golden Rice, which was developed to combat vitamin A deficiency, a major cause of disability and death among children in many parts of the world.

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Farm owners in California mass shooting to pay workers $450,000

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Workplace killings in 2023 revealed hazardous working conditions of migrant farmworkers in Half Moon Bay

The owners of two mushroom farms in northern California where a disgruntled employee shot and killed seven people last year will pay a total of more than $450,000 in back wages and damages to 62 employees.

In an announcement released on Monday following an extensive investigation, the US labor department said the payment is an element of administrative settlements reached by the department’s wage and hour division with California Terra Garden and Concord Farms.

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