Category Archives: Farming

Danish firm’s ‘climate-controlled pork’ claim misleading, court rules

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Campaigners say decision against Danish Crown, Europe’s largest pork producer, sends resounding message

Europe’s largest pork producer misled customers with its “climate-controlled pork” campaign, Denmark’s high court has ruled in the country’s first climate lawsuit.

Campaigners argued that Danish Crown greenwashed its meat with round, pink stickers on its packaging that said pigs were “climate-controlled”, along with a marketing campaign that claimed its pork was “more climate-friendly than you think”.

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Tories accused of hypocrisy for supporting farmers’ protests

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Campaigners and human rights experts point to crackdown on climate and Gaza protests

The Conservatives have been accused by human rights experts of hypocrisy after cracking down on climate and Gaza protests while celebrating and endorsing farmers’ protests in Wales.

Rishi Sunak joined a protest of farmers in Wales last Friday, after they had obstructed a road while campaigning against the Labour government’s new farming subsidies scheme. But this week he vowed to crack down on protests, referring to them as “mob rule”. On Wednesday, the Welsh Conservative leader, Andrew Davies, along with many of his colleagues greeted and posed for photographs with farmers who formed a large group outside the Senedd and blocked a main road with tractors.

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Sunak stands with net zero and climate conspiracy group at farming protest

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Demonstration against Welsh Labour policy included No Farmers No Food campaign calling for end to climate measures, and Welsh Tory leader

Rishi Sunak attended a protest alongside a group which has posted conspiracy theories about climate change, and which campaigns against net zero, the Observer can reveal.

The prime minister has been accused of “pandering to extremists” by farmers and wildlife groups, who have asked him to “listen to reason and logic” rather than conspiracy theories.

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Tory and SNP anger as speaker allows Labour’s amendment on Gaza ceasefire vote – UK politics live

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Move will help Keir Starmer head off threatened rebellion from his MPs

New 20mph limits are helping cut speeds and will save lives, the Welsh government has insisted. PA Media says:

Drivers are travelling on average 4mph slower on main roads in Wales since the rollout of a new lower speed limit for built-up areas, data collected by Transport for Wales (TfW) shows.

The Welsh Labour government, which implemented the change in September last year, insists the lower speeds will lead to fewer collisions and people injured.

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Europe live: Ursula von der Leyen rejects cooperation with extremist parties

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European Commission president says she will never work with parties such as AfD or National Rally, no matter how big a vote they secure in European elections

Campaign Corner: Slovakia

As the campaign kicks off for the June European elections, more parties are presenting their candidates.

We believe that this is an attempt to take over the agricultural protest movement by extreme and irresponsible groups, possibly under the influence of Russian agents.

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Sunak faces prospect of fresh byelection defeat after Scott Benton loses appeal against Commons suspension – UK politics live

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Scott Benton loses appeal against recommendation he should be suspended for 35 days for offering to lobby for gambling industry

Here is an extract from the independent expert panel’s report explaining why it has rejected Scott Benton’s appeal against his 35-day Commons suspension.

For the purpose of deciding the appropriate sanction for breaches of the code, the [standards] committee is well-placed for these purposes as an informed and expert body. We will not lightly interfere with their decision on sanction. Under the procedural protocol, we will do so only if the committee’s decision is unreasonable or disproportionate. We do not find that to be the case here.

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I have your back, Rishi Sunak tells farmers at NFU conference

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Sunak becomes first PM to address conference since Gordon Brown in 2008, as Tories court farming sector

Rishi Sunak has told farmers “I have your back”, at the National Farmers Union conference, as he promised to “change the culture” in government around farming.

Sunak was the first prime minister to address the NFU conference since Gordon Brown in 2008, and took three Defra ministers with him to put the Conservative case to farmers.

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From beehive to kitchen table: UK beekeepers call for new law to trace honey’s origin

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British producers to back EU’s proposed regulations to stop trade in adulterated honey

Britain’s beekeepers are backing ­proposed new rules to combat fraud in the supply chain, ensuring a jar of honey can be traced on its journey of up to 5,000 miles from the beehive to the shop shelf.

The European parliament has agreed new labelling rules and a project to establish a traceability system for honey from harvesting to the consumer. The proposed rules are part of an overhaul of the “breakfast directives”, including the honey directive.

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A greener weed: the UK firm growing carbon-neutral cannabis

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Glass Pharms hope its approach could show the way for all kinds of energy-intensive horticulture in the UK

For 26 years, Olivier Dehon worked in the corporate sector, ending up as chief financial officer for Xerox in the UK and Ireland before retiring four years ago. Last month he delivered his first consignment of high-strength cannabis.

Dehon’s dope is legal and above board, produced to supply the UK’s burgeoning market for medical cannabis on prescription. What’s more, Dehon and his colleagues believe it is the first carbon-neutral indoor weed grown anywhere in the world.

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Pregnant women in Indiana show fourfold increase in toxic weedkiller in urine – study

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Seventy perc ent of pregnant women in state had herbicide dicamba in their urine, up from 28% in an earlier study

Pregnant women in a key US farm state are showing increasing amounts of a toxic weedkiller in their urine, a rise that comes alongside climbing use of the chemicals in agriculture, according to a study published on Friday.

The study, led by the Indiana University school of medicine, showed that 70% of pregnant women tested in Indiana between 2020 and 2022 had a herbicide called dicamba in their urine, up from 28% from a similar analysis for the period 2010-12. The earlier study included women in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio.

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Farmers’ protests continue across Europe as tractors head to Antwerp port – Europe live

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Demonstrations expected to continue in several countries as European parliament will hold exchange with stakeholders

Here are the latest images from the farmers’ protest in Antwerp.

Farmers staged a protest in Sofia today, calling for the resignation of Bulgaria’s minister for agriculture, Kiril Vatev.

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Australian red meat industry’s net zero target based on land-clearing data that is ‘not reliable’

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Meat and Livestock Australia says it has reduced emissions by 65% on 2005 levels but data analysis suggests figures underpinning claim are ‘erroneous’

Greenhouse gas reduction figures celebrated by Australia’s red meat industry are based on unreliable land-clearing data and could be erroneous, an independent analysis has found.

In Queensland, where roughly 44% of the national cattle herd grazes and the majority of land clearing has occurred, the Statewide Landcover and Tree Study (Slats) has recorded deforestation at almost twice the rate of the national system used to calculate emissions on the red meat industry.

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EPA again OKs use of toxic herbicide linked to Parkinson’s disease

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Agency’s draft report backs paraquat’s safety but lawsuit’s plaintiffs say EPA ignored evidence of Parkinson’s risk

The US Environmental Protection Agency is doubling down on its controversial finding that a toxic herbicide is safe for use across millions of acres of American cropland, despite what public health advocates characterize as virtual “scientific proof” the product causes Parkinson’s disease.

The agency in 2021 reapproved paraquat-based herbicides for use, but a coalition of agricultural and public health groups sued, charging that the EPA had ignored broad scientific consensus linking the substance to Parkinson’s.

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UK farmers vow to mount more blockades over cheap post-Brexit imports

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Inspired by French action, British campaigners say they will continue slow tractor protests after Dover roads were blocked

Farmers say there will be further French-style blockades following a slow tractor protest at Dover against low supermarket prices and cheap food imports from post-Brexit trade deals.

Around 40 tractors and other farm vehicles blocked roads around the Kent port for several hours on Friday evening by driving slowly and carrying signs with slogans such as “No More Cheap Imports”.

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Fresh Del Monte says it cannot be held liable after violence at Kenyan farm

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Civil claim relating to alleged killing, rape and attacks by guards at pineapple farm should be struck out, claim firm’s lawyers

Fresh Del Monte has claimed it should not be held liable for a civil lawsuit alleging killing, rape and violence by security guards at its Kenyan pineapple farm because it is domiciled in the Cayman Islands.

In the high court in Thika on Thursday, lawyers for the company’s Kenyan subsidiary, Del Monte Kenya, also applied to have a case against the farm struck out altogether.

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Environment Agency failed to protect River Wye from chicken waste, court to hear

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Campaigners argue in legal challenge that loophole has allowed poultry farmers to pollute river

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The Environment Agency and the UK government failed to protect the River Wye from catastrophic decline by allowing pollution from industrial chicken farming to saturate the land and devastate the protected river, a legal challenge is to argue.

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Macron calls for farming reform as food producers hurl eggs at European parliament

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Demonstrations calling for help with taxes, costs and environmental rules overshadow EU leaders’ summit

Europe’s farming sector is facing a big crisis and must “profoundly” change its rules, Emmanuel Macron has said after a European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels was overshadowed by protesting farmers hurling eggs, dumping manure and lighting fires.

Speaking as hundreds of farmers from Belgium, the Netherlands and elsewhere blocked streets around the European parliament with tractors, the French president said there should be a joint EU mechanism to guarantee fair prices paid to farmers by food giants and supermarkets. He said regulations should be simplified, after weeks of farmer protests across Europe have blockaded motorways.

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‘Hypocritical’ European politicians weaken climate policies amid farmer protests

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Under pressure from the far right in upcoming elections, environmental concessions being made across continent

Exhausted by an energy crisis, burdened by bureaucracy and angry at efforts to curb their pollution, Europe’s farmers say people are not listening to their plight.

“Over the last few years we’ve spoken out vigorously, but we haven’t been heard,” Europe’s biggest farming lobby, Copa Cogeca, said on Wednesday in an open letter to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. “The survival of European family farming as it is known today is in danger.”

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EU to delay new green rule in bid to appease protesting farmers

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Delay to rules on setting aside land to encourage biodiversity offered as concession amid continuing protests

Farmers protesting across Europe have won their first concession from Brussels, with the EU announcing a delay in rules that would have forced them to set aside land to encourage biodiversity and soil health.

About 10,000 French farmers stepped up their protests on Wednesday, with at least 100 blockades on major roads across France, as 18 farmers were arrested for blocking traffic as they tried to reach the wholesale food market at Rungis, south-east of Paris and 79 others were detained after they managed to get inside.

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Belgian port blockaded as farmer protests spread across Europe

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Roads around Zeebrugge could be obstructed until midnight on Wednesday, hitting commercial trade

The Belgian port of Zeebrugge was blockaded on Tuesday, causing gridlock on surrounding roads as a wave of farmer protests spread across Europe.

Authorities at the North Sea port, one of the biggest in Europe, said all access roads were blocked by 5pm (1600 GMT) on Tuesday, in a demonstration that will hit commercial trade, including imports and exports of food to and from the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia.

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