Category Archives: Meat industry

Investors drop Brazil meat giant JBS

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Top investment house delists world biggest meat producer over lack of commitment to sustainability issues

The investment arm of northern Europe’s largest financial services group has dropped JBS, the world’s biggest meat processer, from its portfolio. The Brazilian company is now excluded from assets sold by Nordea Asset Management, which controls a €230bn (£210bn) fund, according to Eric Pedersen, its head of responsible investments.

The decision was taken about a month ago, over the meat giant’s links to farms involved in Amazon deforestation, its response to the Covid-19 outbreak, past corruption scandals, and frustrations over engagement with the company on such issues. “The exclusion of JBS is quite dramatic for us because it is from all of our funds, not just the ones labelled ESG,” Pedersen said.

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Revealed: new evidence links Brazil meat giant JBS to Amazon deforestation

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Photographs by employee appear to show company trucks being used to transport cattle from allegedly prohibited cattle farm

New evidence appears to connect JBS, the world’s biggest meat company, to cattle supplied from a farm in the Brazilian Amazon which is under sanction for illegal deforestation.

This is the fifth time in a year that allegations have surfaced connecting the company to Amazon farmers linked with illegal deforestation.

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Coronavirus: world treating symptoms, not cause of pandemics, says UN

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Ongoing destruction of nature will result in stream of animal diseases jumping to humans, says report

The world is treating the health and economic symptoms of the coronavirus pandemic but not the environmental cause, according to the authors of a UN report. As a result, a steady stream of diseases can be expected to jump from animals to humans in coming years, they say.

The number of such “zoonotic” epidemics is rising, from Ebola to Sars to West Nile virus and Rift Valley fever, with the root cause being the destruction of nature by humans and the growing demand for meat, the report says.

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Revealed: Covid-19 outbreaks at meat-processing plants in US being kept quiet

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Testing has found positive cases at North Carolina facilities, but officials refuse to release the information

A chicken processing facility in western North Carolina reportedly underwent widespread testing for Covid-19 in early June.

Workers at the plant were scared. Several employees had already tested positive and the company, Case Farms – which has been repeatedly condemned for animal treatment and workers’ rights violations – was not providing proper protective equipment.

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Meat giants selling to UK linked to Brazil farms in deforested Amazon reserve

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Greenpeace report shows cattle indirectly sold to JBS, Marfrig and Minerva came from protected Serro Ricardo Franco park

Three international meat companies have indirectly sourced cattle from farms that deforested a unique, protected Amazon reserve, a new report from Greenpeace has found – and two of them later sold meat from the area to the UK.

The revelations come as the Brazil-based companies involved, JBS, Marfrig and Minerva, are under increasing pressure to come clean about their Amazon supply chains. They are now known to have broken commitments made to Greenpeace and Brazilian federal prosecutors  more than a decade ago.

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Revealed: UK banks and investors’ $2bn backing of meat firms linked to Amazon deforestation

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Investigation uncovers ties between financial institutions and three Brazilian firms connected to environmental destruction

British-based banks and finance houses have provided more than $2bn (£1.5bn) in financial backing in recent years to Brazilian beef companies which have been linked to Amazon deforestation, according to new research.

 Thousands of hectares of Amazon are being felled every year to graze cattle and provide meat for world markets.

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‘Unstoppable’: African swine fever deaths to eclipse record 2019 toll

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With world’s attention on Covid-19, warnings that lack of measures to contain pandemic could lead to culling of record number of pigs

The African swine fever (ASF) pandemic will be even worse this year than in 2019, say experts, warning that the spread of the highly contagious virus, which is fatal to pigs, is unrelenting.

With world attention on the human viral pandemic of Covid-19, concern is growing that countries are not focusing enough on halting the spread of ASF through better biosecurity practices, cooperation on intensive vaccine development, or transparency regarding outbreaks.

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‘Exploitative conditions’: Germany to reform meat industry after spate of Covid-19 cases

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Ban on use of subcontractors and fines of €30,000 for slaughterhouses breaching new labour regulations a ‘historic moment’, say campaigners

The German government has announced a series of reforms of the meat industry, including a ban on the use of subcontractors and fines of €30,000 (£26,000) for companies breaching labour regulations, as slaughterhouses have emerged as coronavirus hotspots.

A number of meat plants across the country have temporarily closed after hundreds of workers tested positive for Covid-19 in recent weeks.

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Millions of US farm animals to be culled by suffocation, drowning and shooting

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Closure of meat plants due to coronavirus means ‘depopulation’ of hens and pigs with methods experts say are inhumane, despite unprecedented demand at food banks

More than 10 million hens are estimated to have been culled due to Covid-19 related slaughterhouse shutdowns. The majority will have been smothered by a water-based foam, similar to fire-fighting foam, a method that animal welfare groups are calling “inhumane”.

The pork industry has warned that more than 10 million pigs could be culled by September for the same reason. The techniques used to cull pigs include gassing, shooting, anaesthetic overdose, or “blunt force trauma”.

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Trump to order meat-processing plants to continue operating amid pandemic

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President to sign executive order meant to soften blow of a chicken and pork shortage among other meat on US supermarket shelves

Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order on Tuesday meant to soften the blow of a chicken and pork shortage among other meat on American supermarket shelves.

The order will use the Defense Production Act to classify meat processing as critical infrastructure, forcing meat production plants to stay open as the president and agricultural leaders say the coronavirus outbreak is threatening the country’s food supply.

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‘We did it to ourselves’: scientist says intrusion into nature led to pandemic

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Leading US biologist Thomas Lovejoy says to stop future outbreaks we need more respect for natural world

The vast illegal wildlife trade and humanity’s excessive intrusion into nature is to blame for the coronavirus pandemic, according to a leading US scientist who says “this is not nature’s revenge, we did it to ourselves”.

Scientists are discovering two to four new viruses are created every year as a result of human infringement on the natural world, and any one of those could turn into a pandemic, according to Thomas Lovejoy, who coined the term “biological diversity” in 1980 and is often referred to as the godfather of biodiversity.

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Bamboo rats left in limbo as breeders push back against China wildlife ban

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Farms forced to shut down operations as search continues for source of Covid-19 amid uncertainty over new industry rules

Just a few months ago Cheng Yongcai ran a thriving farm that produced 20,000 bamboo rats a year in Qingyuan in northern Guangdong province.

It was an operation that his local government actively encouraged with loans and other support, he says.

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Cattle gridlock: EU border delays add to coronavirus strain on meat trade

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Possible slaughterhouse shutdowns and staffing issues put pressure on ‘vulnerable’ supply chains, as campaigners call for restriction of live exports

Campaigners have called for the suspension of all live animal shipments out of Europe, and a restriction to the shortest possible journeys within Europe, over welfare and animal diseases concerns – as meat supply chains face potentially debilitating strain.

Last week queues of up to 60km (37 miles) formed at the Polish/German border on Wednesday after Poland announced that it was shutting to foreigners. Although the closure was supposed to apply solely to people, cargo experienced a knock-on effect, with some trucks reportedly taking as long as 18 hours to get through border controls. More queues formed at the Bulgarian/Turkish border.

Sabine Fisher of German animal welfare group Animal Angels said: “One driver told us that it had taken him three hours to travel 300 metres. There were trucks of sheep, bulls, cows. I’ve never seen a queue like it.”

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World’s biggest meat company linked to ‘brutal massacre’ in Amazon

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Investigation traces meat sold to JBS and rival Marfrig to farm owned by man implicated in Mato Grosso killings

A new investigation has linked the world’s biggest meat company JBS, and its rival Marfrig, to a farm whose owner is implicated in one of the most brutal Amazonian massacres in recent memory.

The report by Repórter Brasil comes as JBS faces growing pressure over transparency failings in its Amazon cattle supply chain.

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Shenzhen could be first city in China to ban eating of dogs and cats

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Officials says move reflects bond between pets and people – ‘the consensus of all human civilisation’ – rather than coronavirus fears

Shenzhen is set to become the first city in mainland China to ban the eating of dogs and cats, if a draft regulation released by the municipal government in a wider push to restrict the consumption of wild animals is approved.

On Monday, China’s National People’s Congress issued an order to ban all consumption of wild animal meat and further restrict the wildlife trade nationwide. The measures are expected to be enshrined in the country’s wildlife protection law later this year.

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