SUBSIDIES

VEGCONOMIST: A new report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) has underlined the importance of a shift towards plant-based foods to address climate change. The European Climate Risk Assessment report notes that the Farm to Fork Strategy and international dietary guidelines call for reduced animal product consumption and a shift towards plant-based diets. The authors find that this would reduce freshwater consumption and dependency on imported animal feed, while achieving healthier dietary patterns. Reducing animal product consumption would also free up a substantial quantity of cereal…

HARRIET MARSDEN: The EU aims to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 – but has been investing four times as much money into carbon-intensive livestock farming than growing plants, research has found. More than 80% of subsidies given to farmers through the bloc's common agricultural policy (CAP) went to animal products in 2013, according to a study published last week in the journal Nature Food: 38% directly and 44% for animal feed. The "vast majority" of CAP subsidies are going towards products that are "driving us to the brink", said study co-author Paul Behrens,…

3BEE: Food for Profit is the first documentary to show the thread that binds the meat industry, the lobbies and political power. At the centre are the billions of euros - exactly 397 - that Europe allocates to intensive livestock farms, which mistreat animals, pollute the environment and pose a danger to future pandemics. Food for Profit is the result of a investigation conducted over five years by journalist Giulia Innocenzi, who wrote and directed the docufilm together with Pablo D'Ambrosi. Food For Profit premiered on Thursday 22 February at the European Parliament in Brussels... The…

ANASTASIA SLOAN: Even in cities that accommodate allergens and veganism, an extra $0.50 to $1 is almost always tacked on to coffee for nondairy milk. ​This additional fee, according to a recent class action lawsuit against Dunkin’, is discriminatory. The lawsuit — filed in late December in Northern California’s federal district court on behalf of all U.S. consumers who have paid more at Dunkin’ for nondairy milk alternatives within the last four years — seeks no less than $5 million for class members. The named ​plaintiffs “all suffer from lactose intolerance and milk allergies,” making it…

THE HUMANE LEAGUE: Over the last few decades, residents of Oklahoma have watched their state transform before their eyes. The Illinois River—which supplies drinking water for communities of thousands—has changed from sparkling blue to a murky shade of green. Families who have farmed land for generations are being forced off of it. Since 1990, over three-quarters of agricultural jobs in the state have vanished. The reason? Factory farms. Over 220 million animals are raised and slaughtered in Oklahoma each year. Nearly all come from “concentrated animal feeding operations,” or CAFOs. Big Meat…

NOAH J. WESCOMBE: Veganism, as both a philosophy and social movement, faces numerous challenges to the communication of its ideas across society. As a unique modern counterculture, it stands in contravention of prevailing anthropological discourses that dominate conceptual frameworks. This has led to difficulty in constructing updated virtue epistemologies that result in veganism as a logical moral conclusion. It is clear that new social discourses need developing, and that this is a primary concern for affirming moral agency... An optimal, up-to-date approach to communicating veganism is…

JACOB R. PEACOCK: Animal welfare, environmental, and public health advocates believe plant-based meats present a valuable opportunity to mitigate significant negative externalities of industrial animal agriculture, like animal suffering, greenhouse gas emissions, and antimicrobial resistance... The private and public sectors have taken note as well; in 2022, the “plant-based meat, seafood, eggs, and dairy companies” foods industry attracted at least 1.2 billion in private investment activity and at least 874 million in public funding... This enthusiasm has been propelled in some significant…

GEORGINA GUSTIN: When researchers at the United Nations published a bombshell report in 2006 called “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” the livestock industry soon realized it had a major public relations challenge on its hands. Media outlets around the world covered the report and its main findings: Livestock are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions that need to be reined in, and cutting emissions from the industry should become a focus of public policy, on par with cutting emissions from fossil fuels. It was the first time such a high-level report had come to this conclusion. In the…

CHARLOTTE POINTING: 'Feeding Tomorrow' is the people who grow food and the people who eat food working together to transform the entire ecology of the planet,” says farmer Mark Shepard in the new documentary Feeding Tomorrow, released on January 23. The film, which has already won multiple awards, including Best Feature Documentary at the Ceres Food Film Festival, guides viewers through the current reality of the food system, which prioritizes fast and cheap production, and as a result, is destroying ecosystems, fuelling climate change, and threatening our health. But, as the name suggests,…

OSCAR RUEDA: To limit global warming at 1.5°C, climate mitigation pathways project the need to remove 100–1,000 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) has been the most prominent carbon removal method considered. However, massive BECCS deployment would likely require cropland expansion to produce the biomass feedstock needed. Such an expansion may worsen biodiversity due to the loss of natural land and food and water security due to competition for land and water resources. A transition from consuming animal-source proteins to…