Agriculture

03/12/20
Author: 
Marc Fawcett-Atkinson
Johann Wieghardt trying out plant-based deli meats for the first time. “Better than I thought it would be. Would consider eating it if I was going to become vegetarian,” he said. Photo by Rochelle Baker

Dec. 3 2020

Vegetables are becoming increasingly common in an unusual place: the grocery store meat aisle.

Sales of alternative, or plant-based, meats are booming worldwide. Driven by skyrocketing demand from consumers striving to cut back on meat and companies facing increasing pressure to reduce their environmental footprint, the market is anticipated to reach $23.1 billion by 2025.

26/11/20
Author: 
Jonathan Watts
The decline in smallholdings worldwide is causing a rise in destructive monocultures. Photograph: Taina Sohlman/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy

Nov. 24, 2020

Researchers warn land inequality is rising with farmland increasingly dominated by a few major companies

One per cent of the world’s farms operate 70% of crop fields, ranches and orchards, according to a report that highlights the impact of land inequality on the climate and nature crises.

Since the 1980s, researchers found control over the land has become far more concentrated both directly through ownership and indirectly through contract farming, which results in more destructive monocultures and fewer carefully tended smallholdings.

26/11/20
Author: 
Marc Fawcett-Atkinson
Skyrocketing land prices make it difficult for many mid-sized farms, like this one near Vancouver, B.C., to break even. It's one factor contributing to land inequality worldwide. Photo by Marc Fawcett-Atkinson

November 26th 2020

More than two-thirds of the world’s fields, ranches and orchards are owned by one per cent of its farmers, according to a report released Tuesday.

Land inequality — the concentrated ownership of land — is skyrocketing globally, including in Canada and the U.S. It’s a trend driven by large-scale industrial farming and export-oriented agricultural policies with wide-ranging impacts on everything from food security to climate change.

22/11/20
Author: 
Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN Business

November 19, 2020

New York (CNN Business)Tyson supervisors at a pork processing facility in Waterloo, Iowa took bets on how many workers would get infected with Covid-19, even as they took measures to protect themselves and denied knowledge of the spread of the illness at work, according to new allegations in a lawsuit against the company and some employees.

04/11/20
Author: 
Marc Fawcett-Atkinson
Making agriculture more sustainable is a widely shared goal — but how to make necessary changes remains up for debate. Photo by Rural Health Professions Action Plan/Wikimedia Commons

November 4th 2020

Canadian agribusinesses are asking for a standardized scale to measure their environmental impacts — a request some advocates worry is little more than smoke and mirrors.

27/10/20
Author: 
Stephen Pyne
A burning forest. Photo by Matt Howard on Unsplash.

October 23rd 2020

This article was originally published by Yale Environment 360 and appears here as part of Canada's National Observer's collaboration with Climate Desk.

 

There is a paradox at the core of Earth’s unravelling firescapes.

31/08/20
Author: 
Tom Philpott
California Flag - A growing body of research shows there’s a flip side to the megadroughts California farmers face: megafloods. Photo:Flickr/Martin Jambon

August 31st 2020

This story was originally published by Mother Jones and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration

28/08/20
Author: 
Tom Philpott
Selection of packaged meats - Caption: The soil that makes one of the globe’s most important farming regions so productive is vanishing before our eyes.’ Photograph: Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler/ Grid Engine/ CC0

August 28th 2020

This story was originally published by The Guardian and appears in the National Observer as part of the Climate Desk collaboration

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