DAIRY

ALEX FOX: A new study projects that if current trends continue, land clearing for agriculture will eat away at the habitats of nearly 90 percent of land animals by 2050... Humans have appropriated more than three-quarters of Earth’s lands for our own endeavors. According to research published in 2016, that leaves just 11.6 of the planet’s 57.3 million square miles of land to house the wealth of global biodiversity... The researchers behind the new report, published last week in the journal Nature Sustainability, say that unless the world’s systems of food production undergo massive…

NEW INDIAN EXPRESS: A 2017 FIAPO report revealed that calves were weaned off their mothers’ milk during the first three months at 74 per cent of the 451 dairies surveyed in India. In December, similar malpractices at the dairy farms were unearthed in a video titled Unholy Cattle of India by Bengaluru Brigade for Animal Liberation (BBAL). Indian dairy cooperative society, Amul, filed a case against the person who had uploaded this video for targeting the company by using its advertisements. To prevent the video from being taken off as well as to expose the hidden cruelty in the dairy…

JOSH MILBURN: The Singapore Food Agency has approved “chicken bites” containing meat made from real chicken cells that were grown outside of a chicken’s body. Alongside similar news from Israel, the Singapore ruling is being hailed as a watershed moment for cultured meat and the broader field of cellular agriculture. Admittedly, these bites aren’t quite what cellular agriculture’s biggest advocates might hope they would be. Some problems are decidedly practical. For example, the bites remain pricier than meat produced by farming and killing chickens. This will be a major obstacle for…

ESTHER LESLIE: There was a moment, in the early days of the pandemic, when reports surfaced here and there of improvements in air and water quality across the world, as production and traffic abruptly diminished. Images circulated of herds of mountain goats and wild boar exploring deserted city streets and schools of dolphins exuberant in the Bosporus. Some were hoaxes, but all spoke momentarily to the idea that the disruption that had come from some sort of imbalance in human-animal relations, and could result in a re-righting in favor of nature. In these hopes, nature was made to play a…

KAT SMITH: A new study reports that food production’s environmental damage isn’t factored into the final cost. Researchers from Augsburg University in Germany published the findings in the journal Nature Communications. If it was, meat would cost 146 percent more, researchers found. Dairy products would have to be 91 percent more expensive than they currently are... The new study also found that the climate impact of land use is primarily caused by clearing rainforests and draining peatlands in order to grow animal feed... Food production is responsible for approximately a quarter of global…

AMY JONES: Conservative MPs have formed a new vegan pressure group in order to expand the “proud British tradition” of the philosophy and way of living that seeks to exclude all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose. The Vegan Conservatives were launched on Thursday to promote a meat-free diet and “prevent dangerous climate change, reduce pandemic risk, and protect animals”. To mark the launch of the new caucus, 10 Tory MPs pledged to take part in Veganuary – adopting a plant-based diet for the month of January. The group includes Crawley…

JANE DALTON: Animal-welfare activists are planning a legal challenge to the government to force ministers to end factory farming in the UK to halt damage to the environment and human health... In the legal case, believed to be the first of its kind in the world, members of a group called Humane Being are crowdfunding with the aim of raising £60,000 to force ministers to curb intensive animal agriculture. They say it is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions and risks starting new pandemics by spreading viruses, as well as causing deforestation, animal cruelty and antibiotic resistance...…

MERRITT CLIFTON: Keith Akers in 2000 authored The Lost Religion of Jesus: Simple Living & Nonviolence In Early Christianity, a rare easily read work of scholarship which has only risen in stature in the 20 years since first publication. With The Lost Religion of Jesus, Akers joined –– and has now long helped to lead –– a growing legion of historians and theologians who have come to believe that the real focal issue of Jesus’ life and death was opposition to animal sacrifice. This, by extension, meant opposition to all meat-eating, since animal sacrifice was practiced in Judaism as a…

SHANE STARLING: In an analysis of vegan diets that included observational data it began collecting in 2017, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) found no widespread deficiencies in calcium, zinc, selenium or iron among those pursuing plant-based diets in a sample of about 60 Berlin residents. While “vegan test subjects had lower values than the mixed-food group for the minerals zinc, selenium and calcium”​ the deficit was not considered to be substantial, similarly for iron... Vegans also had lower LDL cholesterol levels as well as higher levels of Vitamins C, K and E and…

DAMIAN CARRINGTON: The cost of the climate damage caused by organic meat production is just as high as that of conventionally farmed meat, according to research. The analysis estimated the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from different foods and calculated how much their prices would need to rise to cover the harm they cause by fuelling the climate emergency. For beef and lamb, organic and conventional production resulted in similar climate costs, the study found. Organic chicken was slightly worse for the climate and organic pork slightly better than their conventional counterparts...…