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Category: Food

  • “They Are Starving,” Says Doctor Back from Gaza; World Food Programme Warns North in “Full-Blown Famine”

    Seg2 famineguest

    The World Food Programme is warning northern Gaza has reached a “full-blown” famine that is spreading south. This comes after the Israeli military has spent months blocking the entry of vital aid into Gaza, attacking humanitarian aid convoys and opening fire on Palestinian civilians waiting to receive lifesaving aid. We get an update on conditions among the besieged and starving population of Gaza — including of children now suffering from the psychological effects of intense and prolonged trauma — from Dr. Walid Masoud, a vascular surgeon and a board member of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund who is just back from heading a medical mission to Gaza.


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • What will it take to get companies to embrace reusable packaging?

    For several months last year, patrons of a Seattle coffee shop called Tailwind Cafe had the option of ordering their Americanos and lattes in returnable metal to-go cups. Customers could simply borrow a cup from Tailwind, go on their way, and then at some point — perhaps a few hours later, perhaps on another day that week — return the cup to the shop, which would clean it and refill it for the next person. If it wasn’t returned within 14 days, the customer would be charged a $15 deposit, though even that was ultimately refundable if the cup was returned by the end of 45 days.

    Tailwind’s head chef, Kayla Tekautz, said her cafe started the program out of a desire to address the environmental scourge of disposable plastic foodware and other packaging, the vast majority of which cannot be recycled. It was a partnership with a reusable packaging and logistics company called Reusables.com, which provided Tailwind and another Seattle area store, Cloud City Coffee, with branded cups and a QR code-operated drop-off receptacle. 

    But the cafe quickly ran into trouble. It was “overwhelming” to explain the return system to every interested customer, Tekautz said. Many were hesitant to participate after learning that they could only return the cups to Tailwind or the other drop-off location, 6 miles away. Plus, Tailwind’s QR code reader kept malfunctioning, requiring repeated visits from a mechanic. At the end of last summer, Tailwind quietly ended the return program. “It just didn’t work,” Tekautz said. (Reusables.com didn’t respond to Grist’s request for comment.)

    In an effort to reduce consumption of single-use plastic, Seattle has spent the past several years encouraging local businesses to offer reusable cups, dishes, utensils, and packaging. It has made some laudable progress. Concertgoers at the Paramount Theater and attendees of the Northwest Folklife Festival, for example, can now order their libations in reusable polypropylene cups. And since 2022, students at the University of Washington have been able to check out bright green reusable food containers from a company called Ozzi.

    Reusable cups offered at the Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle. Courtesy of Reuse Seattle

    These programs are helping Seattle avoid single-use plastic and create a “waste-free future,” according to the city’s reuse website. It’s a target that’s being pursued by many American cities, and at the global level too. Disposable plastic foodware and packaging — which accounts for nearly 40 percent of all plastic production — can only be phased out if there are robust, efficient reuse systems to replace them. 

    But some businesses, like Tailwind, have struggled to get reusable containers off the ground, often because of the small scale and disconnected nature of existing reuse programs. Instead of pooling resources and employing just one or two large cleaning and logistics services, businesses have so far chosen among several competing initiatives — or in some cases, have created and run their own programs. The result is a slew of incompatible containers, specific to just a few stores or locations, and inefficient systems for gathering, washing, and transporting between customers’ homes, sanitation facilities, and storefronts.

    Having so many companies creating their own designs and logistics can be expensive, causing them to miss out on economies of scale that could make reuse more affordable and easily adoptable. According to Ashima Sukhdev, a policy adviser for the city of Seattle, she should be able to “pick up a coffee from my local cafe, and then drop it off in the lobby of my office building. Or drop it off at the library, or at a bus stop.”

    What Sukhdev is describing would represent a highly unusual level of coordination across company lines. At coffee shops, this would mean reusable mugs shared not only between Tailwind and Cloud City, but also Starbucks and Peets. For grocery stores, it could mean picking up a jar of olives at Safeway, dropping off the empty container at Walgreens, and then having the same jar refilled with jam and sold at Whole Foods. Achieving this would require companies to rethink the way they compete with each other and differentiate their products. It would also require big changes from consumers, who have been trained for 70 years to expect disposability in just about every aspect of daily life.

    Pat Kaufman, right, with Reuse Seattle team members. Courtesy of Reuse Seattle

    Experts say these changes are necessary. “For this solution to become a reality, you’re gonna need standards,” said Pat Kaufman, manager of Seattle Public Utilities’ composting, recycling, and reuse program. 

    Kaufman is currently on a yearlong sabbatical working for a nonprofit called PR3, which is trying to create those standards. The questions they’re facing are: What will standardized reusable packaging systems look like — and what will it take to get companies, and consumers, to adopt them?

    Every year, the world produces about 400 million metric tons of plastic — almost entirely out of fossil fuels like oil and gas. Some of this is used in essential products like contact lenses and medical equipment, but a much greater fraction goes toward sporks, cups, bags, takeout containers, and other items that get thrown away after just a few minutes of use. Most of this plastic will never be recycled due to technical and economic restraints; more than 90 percent of all plastics get sent to a landfill or incinerator, or turn up as litter in the environment, where they degrade into microplastics and leach hazardous chemicals. Plastics manufacturing causes additional harms, including air pollution that disproportionately affects low-income communities and communities of color living nearby. 

    For all of these reasons, public pressure to cut back on single-use plastics has escalated dramatically in recent years. Many companies have responded by launching trials and pilot programs allowing customers to borrow and return reusable cups, bottles, trays, jars, and other containers. These include small players like Ozzi, as well as behemoth brands like Walmart and Coca-Cola. There have been “more trials than Donald Trump,” said Stuart Chidley, co-founder of a reusable packaging company called Reposit.

    Returnable containers from Reposit are offered at Mark & Spencer grocery stores in the U.K. Courtesy of Reposit

    As in Seattle, however, their efforts have been siloed, making it hard for the reuse sector to grow. According to a recent report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, or EMF — a nonprofit that advocates for a “circular economy” that conserves resources — even companies that have pledged to dramatically scale down their use of plastics have only replaced 2 percent or less of their single-use containers with reusables.

    “To realize the full benefits of return systems, a fundamentally new approach is required,” the authors concluded.

    The four types of reuse systems

    The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has identified four broad categories of reuse systems, based on who owns the containers and where they’re refilled or returned: refill on the go, refill at home, return on the go, return from home.

    Refill on the go: Consumers bring their own reusable containers to grocery stores and other locations, and refill them there — think the bulk section of a supermarket, where shoppers refill their own jars or bags with nuts, grains, and other foods.

    Refill at home: Consumers own their own reusable containers but instead of refilling them at a store, they order refills in the mail. For example, you order concentrated dish soap tablets and then dissolve them in a dispenser you already own.

    Return on the go: Businesses own containers and let consumers borrow them — often by charging a deposit that is refunded when the container is returned. This system involves container drop-off points at grocery stores, coffee shops, and other designated locations outside the home.

    Return from home: Businesses own the reusable containers, which logistics providers pick up from people’s homes and then transport to a washing facility so they can be used again — much like milkmen of old.

    The EMF report focuses on reusable containers that you can return to the coffee shop, grocery store, or another drop-off point — known as “return on the go” — as opposed to those that consumers own and bring with them to stores. It says that three things need to happen to make reuse mainstream. First, companies have to achieve high return rates, so they don’t lose inventory when people steal or forget to return their containers. Second, they have to share infrastructure for washing, collecting, sorting, and delivery in order to achieve economies of scale. Third, reusable containers must be standardized. The third pillar makes the other two much easier to achieve, since it’s simpler to share logistics, scale up, and familiarize customers with reuse systems if they share common characteristics — for instance, if containers are designed with similar shapes, sizes, and materials. 

    To that end, PR3 has spent the past four years drafting standards for reuse systems, with a particular focus on container design. Through a “consensus body” composed of members from big business, the advocacy world, and government, PR3 is hoping to eventually certify the world’s first reuse standards under the International Organization for Standardization (known as ISO, to prevent confusion around different acronyms in different languages). This would lend legitimacy to the PR3 proposals, as the ISO maintains one of the world’s most widely accepted catalogs of standards. Others within its portfolio cover everything from food safety to the manufacturing of medical devices, and have been voluntarily adopted by many large companies and government bodies. 

    PR3 released a draft of its standards last year, and it’s been updating them behind closed doors since then. Specific standards on washing protocols are set to be published for public review this week, and the nonprofit hopes that its consensus body will vote to finalize standards for container design later this year.

    Hand with yellow rubber gloves wash many white plastic cups in a large basin of water
    A worker from Taiwan’s Blue Ocean, an environmental protection company, cleans reusable mugs in Taoyuan. Sam Yeh / AFP via Getty Images

    PR3 released a draft of its standards last year, and it’s been updating them behind closed doors since then. Specific standards on washing protocols are set to be published for public review this week, and the nonprofit hopes that its consensus body will vote to finalize standards for container design later this year.

    So, what makes a good reusable container system? It’s complicated. Containers have to hold up under the stresses of logistics and transportation. They have to be relatively inexpensive. Perhaps most intangibly, they have to seem reusable, so customers don’t accidentally throw them in the trash. This can be accomplished through design elements — like containers’ color, texture, shape, and weight — or through other means, like easily recognizable drop-off boxes for used containers. Some reuse advocates support deposit fees, in which customers pay a small amount, usually just a dollar or two, in order to borrow a reusable container. They get the deposit back once they’ve returned the container.

    None of these features is guaranteed to work. In designing draft standards, PR3 has often had to make educated predictions about which ones consumers will respond to. And those predictions can have far-reaching implications. If you assume customers will frequently lose or forget to return their containers, for example, then it probably won’t make sense to design thick containers that are capable of withstanding hundreds of uses.

    “In the real world, return rates vary wildly,” Claudette Juska, PR3’s technical director and one of its co-founders, told Grist. “You don’t want to design a container for 400 uses if it’s only going to be used four times.” The most recent version of PR3’s standards say containers must be designed to withstand at least 20 uses and reused in practice at least 10 times.

    On the other hand, it may be counterproductive to design containers with the expectation that they won’t be returned. According to Chidley, with Reposit, cheap-looking and -feeling containers could actually cause low return rates, since people might be more careless with them. His philosophy is to use features like color, weight, and shape to communicate containers’ reusability, making it less plausible that people will confuse them for disposables.

    PR3 doesn’t have much specific advice on these characteristics, but some entrepreneurs Grist spoke with said they’ve hit higher return rates through particular design choices. For Chidley, this means making containers “beautiful” through high-quality, heavier materials with stylish branding. His containers are available at Marks & Spencer grocery stores across England and Scotland. Lindsey Hoell, founder of a reusable container logistics company called Dispatch Goods and a member of PR3’s standards panel, has forgone sharp-edged takeout food containers in favor of ones with smoother edges that “feel fancier.” And because so many single-use plastics are either black or white, her containers are bright red. “There’s a lot of soft science of what makes a consumer feel like something is durable,” she told Grist. Her containers are available across most of the U.S., mostly through grocery and meal delivery programs like Blue Apron and Imperfect Foods.

    To some extent, the discussion about expected use cycles and perceived quality is really just another way of asking what kinds of materials reusable containers should be made of: durable plastic or something else? Answering that question can bring into conflict businesses’ economic interests with concerns about health and the environment. 

    In the published draft of its standards from last year, PR3 recommended that reusable containers be “plastic-free,” citing plastic additives’ wide-ranging impacts on human health and ecosystems. Plastic can be cheap, light, and durable, but plastic-related chemicals have been shown to build up in people’s bodies and the environment, where they may contribute to hormone disruption, cancer, and reproductive harm.

    PR3 panel members like Jane Muncke, chief scientific officer for the nonprofit Food Packaging Forum, supported the recommendation. “I don’t think plastics are suitable materials for reusable packaging,” she told Grist. She’s concerned about chemicals migrating into foods and beverages — especially hot, acidic, or fatty foods, which are better at soaking up some plastic additives. Durable plastics are also largely nonrecyclable; after being turned into new products a few times, they have to be thrown away or “downcycled” into lower-quality products like carpeting.

    Still, many entrepreneurs and even the PR3 founders themselves have moved away from a hard-line stance against plastics. Hoell, for example, originally got into reuse because she was frustrated by plastic-strewn beaches in California — “I’m a surfer and I hate plastics,” she told Grist. She started out making stainless steel containers but soon discovered that rigid plastics had much lower up-front costs, giving her more wiggle room to deal with lower return rates. She didn’t have to worry as much about frequently lost, stolen, or damaged containers. 

    Plastic was also easier to transport because of its light weight, Hoell added, and she cited some analyses suggesting that it has a lower carbon footprint than alternatives like steel. (These findings are controversial, however; critics say it’s misleading to focus only on plastic-related carbon emissions and not the materials’ other dangers, like toxic chemicals leaching from landfills.)Dispatch Goods now only makes its containers out of polypropylene, a kind of plastic that’s generally considered more inert than others (although it can still leach hazardous chemicals). Other reuse logistics companies like R.world, which operates in Seattle and is also represented on the PR3 panel, have similarly opted for polypropylene containers instead of metal or glass.

    At Seattle Pacific University, a reusable container program for students eating at the Gwinn Commons dining hall also uses rigid plastic. The containers’ low cost allows Sodexo, the school’s foodservice provider, to charge students just $5 to participate in its reuse system all year, without tracking return rates or worrying too much about lost inventory. “We don’t have a list of subscribers,” said Andrew Chaplin, the dining team’s general manager. The program “runs itself.”

    Representatives from PR3 told Grist that plastic has been a hot topic of debate among consensus body members, and that the final version of the standards is likely to move away from the “plastic-free” recommendation. “The standards are going to address this with the understanding that if the world can move away from plastic, great, but in the meantime, before that’s feasible, we’d better move where we can,” said Amy Larkin, PR3’s co-founder and director, who pointed out that moving to reusable plastics will still make a huge dent in overall plastic demand. “Let’s get rid of 90 to 95 percent of the production of single-use packaging.”

    Rather than calling for specific container shapes and sizes, PR3 has drafted a few broad requirements — like that containers be designed to “optimize durability,” and that they follow “best practices for recyclability.” They must comply with existing food-safety regulations. Optionally, companies may label products with a universal symbol — kind of like the ubiquitous “chasing arrows” used to indicate recyclability. Such a symbol doesn’t yet exist for reuse, but PR3 has proposed one: a black, white, or orange rose-like pictogram along with the word “reuse.”

    More specific design elements are included only as recommendations. To make washing easier, for instance, PR3’s draft says reusable containers should have interior angles no smaller than 90 degrees, as well as “feet” to maximize airflow during drying. They also say containers should “nest” to save storage space and make transportation easier.

    A stack of greenish reusale containers on a shelf
    A stack of reusable plastic to-go containers at a restaurant in Denver. Hyoung Chang / The Denver Post via Getty Images

    This flexible approach fits into a category that EMF calls “bespoke with shared standards,” where containers can vary from brand to brand while still sharing common characteristics — like where labels are placed, or the width of a bottle’s mouth. This leaves big brands free to design their own unique packaging if they want to. 

    PR3’s approach aims to appease big businesses by allowing them to keep using containers that look and feel very different, so long as they conform to a set of broad requirements. “Product companies want that kind of autonomy,” Juska told Grist.

    Coca-Cola, for example, sets itself apart with its iconic — and patented — hourglass-shaped Coke bottle. And beauty companies are notorious for differentiated packaging: Walking down the perfume aisle, you might see bottles shaped like everything from a high-heeled shoe to a kitten.

    Many reuse advocates want to do away with those unique container designs, going even further than what PR3 has suggested in order to enable sharing among different companies — a situation where packaging is considered “pooled” within a market. So instead of an extravagant diversity of perfume bottles, all fragrances might come in interchangeable cylindrical jars.

    A small number of companies — especially in Europe — already do this. For example, through a German program called Mach Mehrweg Pool (roughly translated to “Make Reuse Pool”), brands share a collection of identical glass jars that can be filled with different foods. When consumers return the empty containers to a supermarket, a logistics provider picks them up and brings them back to food producers for cleaning. Another organization called the German Wells Cooperative runs a similar program for reusable soda and water bottles, counting more than 150 beverage makers as members.

    Other companies that have experimented with pooling, however, have only done so within the brands they control. Coca-Cola, for instance, has a “universal bottle” initiative in South America in which a single, standardized reusable bottle can be used for all of its beverage brands — Fanta, Sprite, Coke, and others. But the initiative is not universal across company lines; you couldn’t refill a Coke bottle with Pepsi. 

    Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of Loop, a “global reuse platform” that is represented on the PR3 panel, said standard-setters shouldn’t try to resist companies’ impulses to differentiate. Brands should be allowed to experiment with both unique and standardized reusable packaging and then “let the market decide” which is preferable, he told Grist. Others, like Kaufman, have raised concerns that pooling might not make sense for some particular products — like baby food, since shared containers can increase the risk of contamination, and babies are more vulnerable to illness.

    There is already evidence, however, that companies are leaving money on the table by choosing not to pool their containers. According to EMF’s direct comparison of pooled and nonpooled standardized packaging, pooling containers reduces the cost of reusable packaging systems by up to 28 percent.
    Plus, at least some intervention — perhaps regulation or financial incentives — is likely required to create conditions that are more favorable to reusables; a hands-off, market-led approach is what has led to today’s proliferation of throwaway plastics. EMF’s modeling suggests that only reuse systems “built collaboratively from the outset” can reach cost parity with single-use. Exactly what that collaboration will look like, however, is unclear, since the kinds of government regulations that could help foster it might be incompatible with the United States’ free market ethos and antitrust laws. Internationally, some cities and countries have done more than the U.S. to promote reuse, but none has gone as far as what EMF is suggesting.

    Plus, at least some intervention — perhaps regulation or financial incentives — is likely required to create conditions that are more favorable to reusables; a hands-off, market-led approach is what has led to today’s proliferation of throwaway plastics. EMF’s modeling suggests that only reuse systems “built collaboratively from the outset” can reach cost parity with single-use. Exactly what that collaboration will look like, however, is unclear, since the kinds of government regulations that could help foster it might be incompatible with the United States’ free market ethos and antitrust laws. Internationally, some cities and countries have done more than the U.S. to promote reuse, but none has gone as far as what EMF is suggesting.

    Even in the absence of robust regulations, PR3’s standards are likely to nudge the country — and the world — in the right direction. Once they’re finalized, PR3 plans to submit them to the American National Standards Institute, the U.S. member organization of the ISO. From there, the standards would be opened up to public comment, potential revisions, and then final approval. PR3 would have to go through a separate submission and review process to get the standards approved by member countries of the ISO. 

    What would happen next is unclear. Other ISO standards — like for information security and energy efficiency — have been voluntarily adopted by individual companies or industry groups, either because they contain genuinely useful guidance on a complicated issue or because they increase businesses’ perceived trustworthiness. 

    ISO standards can also inform government regulations and international agreements. According to Juska, PR3 is already in talks with Canada’s environment ministry to shape new rules on reusable packaging, and the same thing could happen in any number of other jurisdictions. Juska is also hopeful that PR3’s standards will be acknowledged by or incorporated into the United Nations’ global treaty to end plastic pollution. The latest draft of the treaty mentions the need for standards — including for reusable packaging systems — some three dozen times, which Juska said is indicative of how “desperately needed” they are.

    “If we want everyone to move in the same direction, we need to set some design parameters for how we want the system to function,” she said.

    This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What will it take to get companies to embrace reusable packaging? on May 1, 2024.

    This post was originally published on Grist.

  • ‘This Is a Choice Companies Are Making to Raise Fees’: CounterSpin interview with Sally Dworak-Fisher on delivery workers

     

    Janine Jackson interviewed the National Employment Law Project’s Sally Dworak-Fisher about delivery workers for the April 26, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

     

    Janine Jackson: Less than four months after it came into effect, Seattle is looking to “adjust”—as it’s being described—the app-based worker minimum-payment ordinance calling on companies like Uber and DoorDash to improve labor conditions for employees.

    Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson described the ordinance’s impact on the local economy as “catastrophic.” The Seattle Times reports that the “whiplash reversal comes as both drivers and businesses complained about the added cost of delivery, largely in the form of service charges added by the companies in the wake of the new law”—”in the wake of” being the load-bearing language here.

    Common Dreams: DoorDash and Uber Using Customers as Pawns to Punish Workers—Don’t Fall for It

    Common Dreams (3/28/24)

    The story of a recent piece by our next guest is in its headline: “DoorDash and Uber Using Customers as Pawns to Punish Workers—Don’t Fall for It.” So here to help us break down what’s going on is Sally Dworak-Fisher, a senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project. She joins us now by phone from Baltimore City. Welcome to CounterSpin, Sally Dworak-Fisher.

    Sally Dworak-Fisher: Thank you so much for having me.

    JJ: Though more and more people are taking on gig work—for reasons largely to do with the conditions of non-gig work—I think it’s still safe to say that more mainstream news media consumers use app-based delivery systems than work for them. And reporters know what they’re doing when they explain this story by saying, for instance, “Companies like DoorDash have implemented regulatory fees in response to the new law, causing the cost of orders to go up.” What’s being skipped over in that formulation, or that explanation, of what’s happening here, that there was a new law and now costs have gone up? What’s missing there?

    SD: Sure. Well, it’s not a surprise that companies might choose to pass on some percentage of new costs to consumers, but they’re by no means required to, and compliance with bedrock pay standards, or any workplace law or social safety net, is part of running a business. If you need to charge a certain amount so you can pay your employee a minimum wage, you don’t normally issue a receipt that says, this is due to the minimum wage law. The practice of specifically pointing the finger at some new law seems really designed to make customers angry at the law, and pit them against the workers. It’s a business choice, it’s not a requirement.

    And businesses could choose to, for instance, not pass on the entire cost of the law, or not pass on any of it, if they can afford to do that within their profit margin. So this particular situation, where customers are getting receipts that, in effect, blame the law, seems like a play to pit workers and consumers against one another.

    JJ: Absolutely. In your piece that I saw in Common Dreams, you note that charging new service fees is an effort to “tank consumer demand and available work.” What are you getting at there? Why would a company want to draw down consumer demand, and then, more specifically, why would they want to lessen available work?

    SD: My point there was just that, in so doing, they can also again create an outcry, a backlash, with workers themselves also saying, “Hey, the law isn’t working as intended. We need to change it.” But, really, it’s a manufactured crisis, and it’s not the law that’s to blame there. It’s really the policy of the business that’s to blame.

    JJ: And we don’t see media, at least that I’ve seen, digging into that kind of elision, that kind of skip.

    Seattle Council May Make U-Turn on Delivery Drivers' Pay as Fees Increase

    Seattle Times (4/26/24)

    SD: Another interesting thing to note would be, so they add a $5 fee that’s purportedly because of the new legal requirements. But it’ll be interesting to know how much of that fee from all those people is really going through the compliance, versus how much is going to profit. And their data is not easily shared.

    JJ: And I wanted to ask you about that data. Companies are saying these new service charges are a necessary counterbalance to increased labor costs. Though according to, at least, the Seattle Times, they have declined to release internal data. So we’re being asked to trust the very companies that fought tooth and nail against this ordinance, against paying workers more. We’re just supposed to trust their explanation of what the impact of that ordinance has been. That is, as you say, an information deficit there.

    SD: Yes, and I think that they closely guard their information, and don’t turn it over to policymakers. It’s sort of shadow-boxing, in a way, because they have all the information. So I would hope that policymakers would make them show their work, in effect.

    JJ: Or at least make a point of the fact that they’re not; that they’re making assertions based on something that they’re not proving or illustrating. We can call that out.

    SD: And that was part of our point, is that this law has only gone into effect two months ago. Just be cognizant of the fact that this is a choice that the companies are making to raise these service fees. And before you go about rushing to judgment on anything, demand the data, and see what’s going on.

    CounterSpin: ‘The Gig Economy Is Really Just Pushing People Into Precarious Work’

    CounterSpin (4/3/20)

    JJ: When I spoke with Bama Athreya, who hosts the podcast the Gig, she was saying that there’s a glaring need for a bridge between labor rights advocates and digital rights advocates. Because these companies, they’re not making toasters. Their business model is crucial here, and part of that involves, in fact, data, and that, beyond our regular understanding of workers’ rights, there needs to be a bigger-picture understanding of this new way of doing business.

    SD: That dovetails with something that we talk about frequently here, which is the algorithmic control and the gamification of the work. These corporations are really well-versed in touting flexibility, but the day-to-day job of an app-based worker is highly mediated, monitored, controlled by algorithms that detail how much they’ll be paid, when they’ll be paid, when they can work. There’s a whole lot of algorithms and tech that come into play here. But I do just want to say, it doesn’t make them special. These are just new ways of misclassifying workers as independent contractors.

    JJ: It’s just a new shine on an old practice.

    Another thing that Bama Athreya pointed out was that it’s often presented to us as, “Well, I guess you’re going to have to pay $26 for a cup of coffee, because the workers want to get paid more.” And that’s the pitting workers versus consumers angle that a lot of elite media take.

    Intercept: Uber CEO Admits Company Can Afford Labor Protections for Drivers

    Intercept (1/7/22)

    But also, if we look at other countries, companies like Uber say, “Well golly, if you make us improve our labor practices, I guess we’ll have to”—and then they kick rocks and look sad—“I guess we’ll just have to go out of business.” And then a government says, “Well, yeah, OK, but you still have to follow the law.” And then they say, “Oh, all right, we’ll just follow it.” They can do it.

    SD: And I think they’ve admitted that. I believe that the Uber CEO, after California passed AB 5, which is a law regarding who’s an employee and who’s an independent contractor in that state, Uber, I’m pretty sure, was on record saying, “Well, we can comply with any law.”

    And, honestly, I think that really gets into, what do we as a society want in terms of our policies? Do we want just any business? Don’t we have minimum wage laws for a reason? If you can’t make it work while still paying a living wage, then consumers aren’t in the business of subsidizing that. I’m sorry, but not every business is entitled to run on the lowest wage possible.

    JJ: And I wish a lot of the folks were not saying, out of the same mouth, that capitalism is this wonderful thing where if you build a better mousetrap, then you succeed, and if you don’t, well, you don’t. And that’s why they have to be rewarded, because of the risk they take. When then, at the same time, we’re saying, oh, but if you want to fall afoul of certain basic human rights laws, we’ll subsidize that, and make sure you get to exist anyway. It’s a confusing picture.

    SD: I mean, should we bring back child labor?

    JJ: Yeah. Hmm. You thought that would be a less interesting question than it turns out that it is.

    Let me just ask you, finally, what should we be looking for to happen from public advocates, which we would hope elected officials would be public advocates, and also reporters we would hope would be public advocates. What should they be calling for, and what should they notice if it doesn’t happen? What’s the right move right now?

    Sally Dworak-Fisher

    Sally Dworak-Fisher: “Uber and Lyft, in particular, buy, bully and bamboozle their way into getting legislatures to enact the policies that they favor.”

    SD: I think whatever can be done to support the movement. There’s movements across states of app-based workers demanding accountability, and really trying to shine a light on what’s really going on here. I think the more reporting on that, and exposing—you know, every worker should have flexibility and a good job, but the flexibility that’s offered app-based workers is not necessarily the flexibility that a regular reader might assume.

    In 2018, NELP issued a report with another organization, called Uber State Interference, and we really identified these ways that Uber and Lyft, in particular, buy, bully and bamboozle their way into getting legislatures to enact the policies that they favor. And now, coming out of the pandemic, as workers are successfully organizing again, like they’ve been doing in Seattle and New York City and Minneapolis, the companies are orchestrating a backlash. So understanding the context of what’s going on, and exposing it, would go a long way in solidarity with the workers.

    JJ: We’ve been speaking with Sally Dworak-Fisher from the National Employment Law Project; they’re online at NELP.org. And her piece, “DoorDash and Uber Using Customers as Pawns to Punish Workers—Don’t Fall for It,” can be found at CommonDreams.org. Thank you so much, Sally Dworak-Fisher, for speaking with us this week on CounterSpin.

    SD: A pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.

     

    The post ‘This Is a Choice Companies Are Making to Raise Fees’: <br></em><span class='not-on-index' style='color:#000000; font-size: 23px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 25px; font-family: 'Open Sans','sans-serif'; padding-bottom: -10px;'>CounterSpin interview with Sally Dworak-Fisher on delivery workers appeared first on FAIR.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Your Food Could Have 10 Times as Much of This Toxic Pesticide Under New Proposal

    When you bite into a piece of celery, there’s a fair chance that it will be coated with a thin film of a toxic pesticide called acephate. The bug killer — also used on tomatoes, cranberries, Brussels sprouts and other fruits and vegetables — belongs to a class of compounds linked to autism, hyperactivity and reduced scores on intelligence tests in children. But rather than banning the pesticide…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Your Food Could Have 10 Times as Much of This Toxic Pesticide Under New Proposal

    When you bite into a piece of celery, there’s a fair chance that it will be coated with a thin film of a toxic pesticide called acephate. The bug killer — also used on tomatoes, cranberries, Brussels sprouts and other fruits and vegetables — belongs to a class of compounds linked to autism, hyperactivity and reduced scores on intelligence tests in children. But rather than banning the pesticide…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sam on Students for Justice in Palestine, Sally Dworak-Fisher on Delivery Workers

     

    Palestinian flag at Columbia encampment

    Columbia encampment (CC photo: Pamela Drew)

    This week on CounterSpin: Lots of college students, it would appear, think that learning about the world means not just gaining knowledge, but acting on it. Yale students went on a hunger strike, students at Washington University in St. Louis disrupted admitted students day, students and faculty are expressing outrage at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism (emphasis added) canceling their valedictorian’s commencement speech out of professed concerns for “safety.” A Vanderbilt student is on TikTok noting that their chancellor has run away from offers to engage them, despite his claim to the New York Times that it’s protestors who are “not interested in dialogue”—and Columbia University students have set up an encampment seen around the world, holding steady as we record April 25, despite the college siccing the NYPD on them.

    Campuses across the country—Rutgers, MIT, Ohio State, Boston University, Emerson, Tufts, and on and on—are erupting in protest over their institutions’ material support for Israel’s war on Palestinians, and for the companies making the weapons. And the colleges’ official responses are gutting the notion that elite higher education entails respect for the free expression of ideas. Students for Justice in Palestine is working with many of these students. We’ll hear from Sam from National SJP about unfolding events.

     

    Delivery worker in Manhattan's East Village

    (CC photo: Edenpictures)

    Also on the show: App-based companies, including Uber and DoorDash, are adding new service fees, and telling customers they have to, because of new rules calling on them to improve wages and conditions for workers. The rather transparent hope is that, with a lift from lazy media, happy to typey-type about the worry of more expensive coffee, folks will get mad and blame those greedy…bicycle deliverers. We asked Sally Dworak-Fisher, senior staff attorney at National Employment Law Project, to break that story down.

     

    Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at the TikTok ban.

     

    The post Sam on Students for Justice in Palestine, Sally Dworak-Fisher on Delivery Workers appeared first on FAIR.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Ex-Industry Growth Centre keeps focus on food SMEs

    The food and agribusiness sector grew 80 per cent over the last eight years with the assistance of Food Innovation Australia, according to the former Industry Growth Centre’s final impact report. The report, to be released on Thursday, comes as the former government-funded centre looks to continue its focus on supporting small to medium-sized enterprises…

    The post Ex-Industry Growth Centre keeps focus on food SMEs appeared first on InnovationAus.com.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.

  • The best coffee for the planet might not be coffee at all

    This story was produced by Grist and co-published with Slate.

    When Henri Kunz was growing up in West Germany in the 1980s, he used to drink an instant coffee substitute called Caro, a blend of barley, chicory root, and rye roasted to approximate the deep color and invigorating flavor of real coffee. “We kids drank it,” Kunz remembered recently. “It had no caffeine, but it tasted like coffee.”

    As an adult, Kunz loves real coffee. But he also believes its days are numbered. Climate change is expected to shift the areas where coffee can grow, with some researchers estimating that the most suitable land for coffee will shrink by more than half by 2050, and hotter temperatures will make the plants more vulnerable to pests, blight, and other threats. At the same time, demand for coffee is growing, as upwardly mobile people in traditionally tea-drinking countries in Asia develop a taste for java. 

    “The difference between demand and supply will go like that,” Kunz put it during a Zoom interview, crossing his arms in front of his chest to form an X, like the “no good” emoji. Small farmers could face crop failures just as millions of new people develop a daily habit, potentially sending coffee prices soaring to levels that only the wealthy will be able to afford. 

    To stave off the looming threats, some agricultural scientists are hard at work breeding climate-resilient, high-yield varieties of coffee. Kunz, the founder and chair of a “flavor engineering” company called Stem, thinks he can solve many of these problems by growing coffee cells in a laboratory instead of on a tree. A number of other entrepreneurs are taking a look at coffee substitutes of yore, like the barley beverage Kunz grew up drinking, with the aim of using sustainable ingredients to solve coffee’s environmental problems — and adding caffeine to reproduce its signature jolt.

    A cup of brown powder hovers over a device with a gold coil
    A pesron pours coffee into filter on scale

    Stem’s cell-cultured coffee powder is prepared, roasted, and extracted. Courtesy of Jaroslav Monchak / STEM

    A crop of startups, with names like Atomo, Northern Wonder, and Prefer, is calling this category of throwbacks “beanless coffee,” even though in some cases their products contain legumes. Beanless coffee “gives you that legendary coffee taste and all the morning pick-me-up you crave, while also leaving you proud that you’re doing your part to help unf–k the planet,” as the San-Francisco based beanless coffee company Minus puts it. But it’s unclear whether coffee drinkers — deeply attached to the drink’s particular, ineffable taste and aroma — will embrace beanless varieties voluntarily, or only after the coming climate-induced coffee apocalypse forces their hand.

    Coffea arabica — the plant species most commonly cultivated for drinking — has been likened to Goldilocks. It thrives in shady environments with consistent, moderate rainfall and in temperatures between 64 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit, conditions often found in the highlands of tropical countries like Guatemala, Ethiopia, and Indonesia. Although coffee plantations can be sustainably integrated into tropical forests, growing coffee leads to environmental destruction more often than not. Farmers cut down trees both to make room for coffee plants and to fuel wood-burning dryers used to process the beans, making coffee one of the top six agricultural drivers of deforestation. When all of a coffee tree’s finicky needs are met, it can produce harvestable beans after three to five years of growth, and eventually yields 1 to 2 pounds of green coffee beans per year. 

    a woman with a head scarf picks red berries from a shrub
    A worker picks coffee berries in Karnataka, India. Rising temperatures and erratic weather patterns are forcing India’s coffee growers to change the way they farm, leading to reduced crop yields and concerns with quality. Abhishek Chinnappa / Getty Images

    If arabica is Goldilocks, climate change is an angry bear. For some 200 years, humans have been burning fossil fuels, spewing planet-warming carbon dioxide into the air. The resulting floods, droughts, and heatwaves, as well as the climate-driven proliferation of coffee borer beetles and fungal infections, are all predicted to make many of today’s coffee-growing areas inhospitable to the crop, destroy coffee farmers’ razor-thin profit margins, and sow chaos in the world’s coffee markets. That shift is already underway: Extreme weather in Brazil sent commodity coffee prices to an 11-year high of $2.58 per pound in 2022. And as coffee growers venture into new regions, they’ll tear down more trees, threatening biodiversity and transforming even more forests from carbon sinks into carbon sources.

    At many times in the past, coffee has been out of reach for most people, so they found cheaper, albeit caffeine-free, alternatives. Caro and other quaint instant beverage mixes, like Postum in the U.S. and caffè d’orzo in Italy, were popular during World War II and in the following years, when coffee was rationed or otherwise hard to come by. But the practice of brewing non-caffeinated, ersatz coffee out of other plants is even older than that. In the Middle East, people have used date seeds to brew a hot, dark drink for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years. In pre-Columbian Central America, Mayans drank a similar beverage made from the seeds of ramón trees found in the rainforest. In Europe and Western Asia, drinks have been made out of chicory, chickpeas, dandelion root, figs, grains, lupin beans, and soybeans. These ingredients have historically been more accessible than coffee, and sometimes confer purported health benefits.

    A black and white old ad for Postum -- a coffee alternative
    An illustrated advertisement from 1902 for Postum by the Postum Cereal Company of Battle Creek, Michigan. Jay Paull / Getty Images

    Today’s beanless-coffee startups are attempting to put a modern spin on these time-honored, low-tech coffee substitutes. Northern Wonder, based in the Netherlands, makes its product primarily out of lupin beans — also known as lupini — along with chickpeas and chicory. Atomo, headquartered in Seattle, infuses date seeds with a proprietary marinade that produces “the same 28 compounds” as coffee, Atomo boasts.  Singapore-based Prefer makes its brew out of a byproduct of soymilk, surplus bread, and spent barley from beer breweries, which are then fermented with microbes. Minus also uses fermentation to bring coffee-like flavors out of “upcycled pits, roots, and seeds.” All these brands add caffeine to at least some of their blends, aiming to offer consumers the same energizing effects they get from the real deal. 

    “We’ve tried all of the coffee alternatives,” said Maricel Saenz, the CEO of Minus. “And what we realize is that they give us some resemblance to coffee, but it ultimately ends up tasting like toasted grains more than it tastes like coffee.”

    A Prefer company display of its “beanless” coffee raw ingredients, including bread, barley, and soy. Courtesy of Prefer

    In trying to explain what makes today’s beanless coffees different from the oldfangled kind, David Klingen, Northern Wonder’s CEO, compared the relationship to the one between modern meat substitutes and more traditional soybean products like tofu and tempeh. Many plant-based meats contain soybeans, but they’re highly processed and combined with other ingredients to create a convincing meat-like texture and flavor. So it is with beanless coffee, relative to Caro-style grain beverages. Klingen emphasized that he and his colleagues mapped out the attributes of various ingredients — bitterness, sweetness, smokiness, the ability to form a foam similar to the crema that crowns a shot of espresso — and tried to combine them in a way that produced a well-rounded coffee facsimile, then added caffeine. 

    By contrast, traditional coffee alternatives like chicory and barley brews have nothing to offer a caffeine addict; Atomo, Minus, Northern Wonder, and Prefer are promising a reliable daily fix. 

    “Coffee is a ritual and it’s a result,” said Andy Kleitsch, the CEO of Atomo. “And that’s what we’re replicating.” 

    An espresso shot made with Atomo beanless coffee. Courtesy of Atomo Coffee

    Each of these new beanless coffee companies has a slightly different definition of sustainability. Northern Wonder’s guiding light is non-tropical ingredients, “because we want to make a claim that our product is 100 percent deforestation free,” Klingen said. Almost all its ingredients are annual crops from Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Turkey, countries whose forests are not at substantial risk of destruction from agriculture. Annual crops grow more efficiently than coffee trees, which require years of growth before they begin producing beans. A life cycle analysis of Northern Wonder’s environmental impacts, paid for by the company, shows that its beanless coffee uses approximately a twentieth of the water, generates less than a quarter of the carbon emissions, and requires about a third of the land area associated with real coffee agriculture.

    Michael Hoffmann, professor emeritus at Cornell University and the coauthor of Our Changing Menu: Climate Change and the Foods We Love and Need, said he was impressed with Northern Wonder’s life cycle analysis, which he described as nuanced and transparent about the limitations of its data. He praised the idea of using efficient crops, saying that some of those used by beanless coffee companies “yield far more per unit area than coffee, which is also a big plus.”

    a large coffee plantation with rows of small green plants
    An aerial view of a coffee plantation near Ribeirao Preto in Sao Paulo, Brazil. DeAgostini / Getty Images

    But there are trade-offs associated with higher yields. Daniel El Chami, an agricultural engineer who is the head of sustainability research and innovation for the Italian subsidiary of the fertilizer and plant nutrition company Timac Agro International, pointed out that higher-yield crops tend to use more fertilizer, which is manufactured using fossil fuels in a process that emits carbon. Crops that use land and other resources efficiently can require several times more fertilizer than sustainably grown coffee, he said. For this reason, El Chami just didn’t see how Northern Wonder could wind up emitting less than a quarter of coffee’s emissions.

    Other beanless coffee companies are staking their sustainability pitch on their repurposing of agricultural waste. Atomo’s green cred is premised on the fact that its central ingredients, date seeds, are “upcycled” from farms in California’s Coachella Valley. Whereas date farmers typically throw seeds away after pitting, Atomo pays farmers to store the pits in food-safe tote bags that get picked up daily. Atomo’s current recipe also includes crops from farther afield, like ramón seeds from Guatemala and caffeine derived from green tea grown in India, but Kleitsch said they’re looking to add even more upcycled ingredients.

    brown grounds in a silver circlet
    Atomo beanless coffee grounds include date seeds “upcycled” from farms in California’s Coachella Valley. Courtesy of Atomo Coffee

    Food waste is a major contributor to climate change, and Hoffmann, the Cornell professor, said repurposing it for beanless coffee is “a very good approach.” Minus, which also uses upcycled date pits, claims its first product, a canned beanless cold brew (which is not yet available in stores), uses 94 percent less water and produces 86 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than the real thing. Those numbers are based on a life cycle analysis that Saenz, Minus’ CEO, declined to share with Grist because it was being updated. 

    (Atomo expects to release a life cycle analysis this spring, and Prefer is planning to conduct a study sometime this year.) 

    Despite beanless coffee companies’ impressive sustainability claims, not everyone is convinced that building an alternative coffee industry from scratch is better than trying to make the existing coffee industry more sustainable — by, for instance, helping farmers grow coffee interspersed with native trees, or dry their beans using renewable energy. 

    El Chami thinks the conclusion that coffee supply will dwindle in an overheating world is uncertain: A review of the research he coauthored found that modelers have reached contradictory conclusions about how climate change will change the amount of land suitable for growing coffee. Although rising temperatures are certainly affecting agriculture, “climate change pressures are overblown from a marketing point of view by private interests seeking to create new needs with higher profit margins,” El Chami said. He added that the multinational companies that buy coffee from small farmers need to help their suppliers implement sustainable practices — and he hoped beanless coffee companies would do the same. 

    Whether demand for beanless coffee will increase depends a great deal on how much consumers like the taste. 

    I, for one, enjoyed the $5 Atomo latte that I tried at the Midtown Manhattan location of an Australian cafe chain called Gumption Coffee — the only place on Earth where Atomo is being sold. The pale, frothy concoction tasted slightly sweet and very smooth. Atomo describes its espresso blend as having notes of “dark chocolate, dried fruit, and graham cracker.” If I hadn’t known it was made with date seeds instead of coffee beans, I would have said it was a regular latte with a dash of caramel syrup added. 

    My $5 latte made with Atomo beanless grounds. L.V. Anderson / Grist

    The Northern Wonder filter blend that I ordered from the Netherlands (about $12 for a little more than a pound of grounds, plus about $27 for international shipping) had to overcome a tougher test: I wanted to drink it black, the way I do my regular morning coffee. I brewed it in my pour-over Chemex carafe, and the dark liquid dripping through the filter certainly looked like coffee. But the aroma was closer to chickpeas roasting in the oven — not an unpleasant smell, just miles away from the transcendent scent of arabica beans. The flavor was also off, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong. Was it a lack of acidity, or a lack of sweetness? It wasn’t too bitter, and it left a convincing tannic aftertaste in my mouth. After a few sips, I found myself warming up to it, even though it obviously wasn’t coffee. My Grist colleague Jake Bittle had a similar experience with Northern Wonder, describing the flavor it settled into as “weird Folgers.” If real coffee suddenly became scarce or exorbitantly priced, I could see myself drinking Northern Wonder or something like it. It would certainly be better than forgoing coffee’s flavor and caffeine entirely by drinking nothing at all in the morning, or acclimating to the entirely different ritual and taste of tea. 

    Klingen concedes that the aroma of beanless coffee needs work. Northern Wonder is developing a bean-like product that, when put through a coffee grinder, releases volatile compounds similar to those that give real coffee its powerful fragrance, like various aldehydes and pyrazines. But beanless coffee could win over some fans even if it doesn’t mimic coffee’s every attribute. Klingen said drinkers often rate his product higher for how much they like it than for how similar it is to coffee. “With Oatly, oat milks or [other] alt milks, there you see the same,” he said. When you ask consumers if oat milk tastes like milk, they say, “‘Eh, I don’t know.’ But is it tasty? ‘Yes.’”  

    a bearded man drinks coffee from a glass in a nice kitchen
    Northern Wonder cofounder and CEO David Klingen drinks a “Coffee Free Coffee” oat latte. Courtesy of Northern Wonder

    Just as the dairy industry has tried to prevent alternative milk companies from calling their products “milk,” some people raise an eyebrow at the term “beanless coffee.” Kunz — the German entrepreneur who grew up drinking Caro and is now trying to grow coffee bean cells in a lab — takes issue with using the word coffee to describe products made out of grains, fruits, and legumes. “What we do — taking a coffee plant part, specifically a leaf from a coffee tree — it is coffee, because it’s the cell origin of coffee,” Kunz said. Drinks made from anything else,  he insists, shouldn’t use the word. Kunz’s cell-cultured coffee product hasn’t been finalized yet and, much like lab-grown meat, faces fairly steep regulatory hurdles before it can be sold in Europe or the United States.

    The specter of plant-based meat and dairy looms large over the nascent beanless coffee industry. A slew of startups like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods hit the scene in the mid-2010s with products that they touted as convincing enough to be able to put animal agriculture out of business. But in recent years, these companies have faced declining sales in the face of concerns about health, taste, and price.

    Jake Berber, the CEO and cofounder of Prefer, fears something similar could happen to beanless coffee businesses. “My hope for everyone in the industry is to keep pushing out really delicious products that people enjoy so that the whole industry of beanless coffee, bean-free coffee, can profit from that, and we can sort of help each other out,” he said.

    A person in a black apron with the word "Prefer" on it smooths out brown grounds in a baking hseet
    A Prefer worker lays out fermented base for roasting. Courtesy of Prefer

    Different beanless coffee companies are staking out different markets, with some positioning themselves as premium brands. Saenz wouldn’t say how much Minus wants to charge for its canned cold brew, but she said it will be comparable to the “high-end side of coffee, because we believe we compete there in terms of quality.” Atomo is putting the finishing touches on a factory in Seattle with plans to sell its beanless espresso to coffee shops for $20.99 per pound — comparable to a specialty roast. 

    “The best way to enjoy coffee is to go to a coffee shop and have a barista make you your own lovingly made product,” Kleitsch said. Atomo is aiming to give consumers a “great experience that they can’t get at home.”

    In contrast, Northern Wonder and Prefer are targeting the mass market. Northern Wonder is sold in 534 grocery stores in the Netherlands and recently became available at a leading supermarket in Switzerland. Prefer, meanwhile, is selling its blend to coffee houses, restaurants, hotels, and other clients in Singapore with a promise to beat the price of their cheapest arabica beans. Berber predicts that proposition will get more and more appealing to buyers and consumers in the coming years as the cost of even a no-frills, mediocre espresso drink approaches, and then surpasses, $10. A warming planet will help turn coffee beans into a luxury product, and middle-class customers will get priced out. Then, Prefer’s bet on a climate-proof coffee replacement will pay off. 

    “We will, in the future, be the commodity of coffee,” Berber said. 

    This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The best coffee for the planet might not be coffee at all on Apr 10, 2024.

    This post was originally published on Grist.

  • Suspected food poisoning in Vietnam leaves 1 student dead, nearly 40 hospitalized

    In a case of suspected food poisoning in Vietnam, an elementary school student died after eating breakfast at an eatery in front of her school on Friday, while about three dozen other pupils who did the same fell ill and had to be hospitalized, officials said.

    The fifth-grader who died had fainted inside Vinh Truong Primary School in the southern city of Nha Trang at about 6:55 a.m., according to the city’s People’s Committee.

    School staff quickly administered first aid and called an emergency number for assistance. The student was taken to Khanh Hoa Provincial General Hospital, where she died. 

    Though the exact cause of her death is unknown, the student was suffering from an underlying heart disease, according to the provincial Department of Health in a report by Voice of Vietnam, a state-controlled news website. 

    In all, about 37 students from two schools — Vinh Truong Primary School and Tran Hung Dao secondary School — were taken to hospitals for emergency treatment, according to Vietnam’s Tuoi Tre News.   

    Relevant bodies are investigating the incidents.

    String of cases

    In recent years, Nha Trang, which is about 450 kilometers (280 miles) northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, has had several cases of food poisoning.

    In March, nearly 350 diners at the restaurant Tram Anh Chicken Rice showed symptoms of food poisoning after eating rice and chicken, most of whom had to be hospitalized, according to Tuoi Tre News.

    In 2023, nearly 400 students at a school were sickened in what the Khanh Hoa Department of Health later identified as salmonella poisoning, the report said. 

    On Friday, 28 students from Vinh Truong Primary School and Tran Hung Dao Secondary School were still being monitored and treated at the hospitals.

    A Vinh Truong Primary School official told Vietnamese media that the students ate rice with chicken, chicken sandwiches and egg sandwiches at the indoor eatery.

    Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Suspected food poisoning in Vietnam leaves 1 student dead, nearly 40 hospitalized

    In a case of suspected food poisoning in Vietnam, an elementary school student died after eating breakfast at an eatery in front of her school on Friday, while about three dozen other pupils who did the same fell ill and had to be hospitalized, officials said.

    The fifth-grader who died had fainted inside Vinh Truong Primary School in the southern city of Nha Trang at about 6:55 a.m., according to the city’s People’s Committee.

    School staff quickly administered first aid and called an emergency number for assistance. The student was taken to Khanh Hoa Provincial General Hospital, where she died. 

    Though the exact cause of her death is unknown, the student was suffering from an underlying heart disease, according to the provincial Department of Health in a report by Voice of Vietnam, a state-controlled news website. 

    In all, about 37 students from two schools — Vinh Truong Primary School and Tran Hung Dao secondary School — were taken to hospitals for emergency treatment, according to Vietnam’s Tuoi Tre News.   

    Relevant bodies are investigating the incidents.

    String of cases

    In recent years, Nha Trang, which is about 450 kilometers (280 miles) northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, has had several cases of food poisoning.

    In March, nearly 350 diners at the restaurant Tram Anh Chicken Rice showed symptoms of food poisoning after eating rice and chicken, most of whom had to be hospitalized, according to Tuoi Tre News.

    In 2023, nearly 400 students at a school were sickened in what the Khanh Hoa Department of Health later identified as salmonella poisoning, the report said. 

    On Friday, 28 students from Vinh Truong Primary School and Tran Hung Dao Secondary School were still being monitored and treated at the hospitals.

    A Vinh Truong Primary School official told Vietnamese media that the students ate rice with chicken, chicken sandwiches and egg sandwiches at the indoor eatery.

    Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • From Seedling to Superstar: 20 Years of Vegan Inspiration From PETA’s Mascot

    It’s International Carrot Day! The best way to show that you carrot all about animals, the planet, and your health is to go vegan—and PETA’s charismatic mascot Chris P. Carrot is rooting for everyone to make the compassionate switch.

    From gentle mother cows who protectively coddle their young to curious hens who establish meaningful friendships, every animal is someone with their own feelings, interests, personalities, and needs. The meat, egg, dairy, and fishing industries exploit and kill billions of these sensitive living beings every year while destroying the environment. The United Nations has said for many years that a global shift toward vegan living is necessary to combat the climate catastrophe and other environmental crises.

    For International Carrot Day, join Chris in his mission to spare animals, protect Mother Earth, and bolster human health by going vegan.

    20 Years of Activism: See How Our Vivacious Veggie Has Championed Animal Rights

    January 29, 2004: Chris P. Carrot entered the presidential race with his running mate, Colonel Corn, to urge everyone to get back to their roots by eating more fruits, veggies, and grains.

    chris p carrot and colonel corn mascots

    August 14, 2005: Chris walked the red carpet before the Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson with the compassionate star and target of the event—who only agreed to do the roast on the condition that Comedy Central donate to PETA and air our ads during the special.

    January 31, 2007: In an article in the National Hog Farmer, Chris was cited as the main reason why Smithfield decided to stop confining pregnant pigs to gestation crates—or stalls so tiny that the animals can’t even turn around in them. The article noted that it “appears that US grocery stores and restaurants will do whatever they have to do to keep that PETA guy in the carrot suit from standing in front of one of their stores.”

    May 23, 2008: Chris attended the Veggie Pride Parade in New York City with Penelo Pea Pod, despite silly claims that root vegetables and legumes don’t belong together. One agitated hot dog vendor apparently blamed the duo for his lack of success, saying, “It’s because of the vegetarians …. It’s one of my worst days in four years.”

    carrot and green mascot holding hands on the street

    June 30, 2009: Chris made a star appearance at San Francisco’s Gay Pride Parade with PETA’s “Lettuce Ladies” and “Broccoli Boys.”

    carrot mascot at SF pride parade

    June 8, 2010: Chris joined Toronto’s first annual Veggie Pride Parade.

    mascots of carrot, green beans, pig, and chicken march in parade

    August 30, 2010: Chris attended a “Tea Party” rally to promote vegan living.

    Chris P. Carrot mascot holds an "eat me" sign next to a cow mascot

    January 22, 2013: Chris attended President Barack Obama’s second inauguration with Celery Stalk and Mother Earth and distributed PETA’s vegan starter kits and copies of the video “Glass Walls,” a groundbreaking exposé of the meat industry narrated by Sir Paul McCartney.

    Chris P. Carrot mascot stands next to Mother Earth mascot and veggie mascot

    June 16, 2015: Chris led the PETA brigade at the Capital Pride festival in Washington, D.C.

    January 20, 2017: Chris attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration and urged the crowd to go vegan.

    Cow, pig, and carrot mascots at 2017 inauguration

    September 20, 2017: Chris traveled with his old pal Colonel Corn to Charlotte, North Carolina, for the International Day of Peace to promote nonviolence in food production.

    mascot chris p carrot and colonel corn holding signs that say "give peas a chance"

    January 10, 2024: Chris joined the campaign trail in Iowa to urge attendees at the first caucus of the 2024 primary season to go vegan for animals, the environment, and human health. He went on to South Carolina to continue his work.

    carrot mascot at rally

    Join Chris by Going Vegan

    The adventures of PETA’s carrot mascot represent just one of our projects to change the world for chickens, cows, pigs, fish, and other animals around the world. Let’s crunch our way to a brighter, greener future together! Order PETA’s free vegan starter kit to start saving animals today:

    Go Vegan!

    The post From Seedling to Superstar: 20 Years of Vegan Inspiration From PETA’s Mascot appeared first on PETA.

    This post was originally published on Animal Rights and Campaign News | PETA.

  • This grass has toxic effects on US livestock, and it’s spreading

    This story was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a nonprofit news organization.

    America’s “fescue belt,” named for an exotic grass called tall fescue, dominates the pastureland from Missouri and Arkansas in the west to the coast of the Carolinas in the east. Within that swath, a quarter of the nation’s cows — more than 15 million in all — graze fields that stay green through the winter while the rest of the region’s grasses turn brown and go dormant. 

    But the fescue these cows are eating is toxic. The animals lose hooves. Parts of their tails and the tips of their ears slough off. For most of the year, they spend any moderately warm day standing in ponds and creeks trying to reduce fevers. They breathe heavily, fail to put on weight, and produce less milk. Some fail to conceive, and some of the calves they do conceive die.

    The disorder, fescue toxicosis, costs the livestock industry up to $2 billion a year in lost production. “Fescue toxicity is the most devastating livestock disorder east of the Mississippi,” said Craig Roberts, a forage specialist at the University of Missouri Extension, or MU, and an expert on fescue. 

    By the early 20th century, decades of timber-cutting and overgrazing had left the ranching region in southern states barren, its nutrient-rich native grasses replaced by a motley assortment of plants that made poor forage. Then, in the 1930s, a University of Kentucky professor spotted an exotic type of fescue growing in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, which seemed to thrive even on exhausted land. Unlike most native grasses, Kentucky-31, as it was called, stayed green and hearty through the winter. Ranchers found the species remarkably resilient and, if not beloved by cattle, edible enough to plant. Over the next 20 years, much of the country’s southern landscape was transformed into a lush, evergreen pasture capable of supporting a robust cattle industry. 

    cows wallow in a stream in a green field
    Cattle in Elk Creek, Missouri, submerge themselves in a pasture pond to cool off in between grazing on non-native fescue grass, which can raise a cow’s temperature and give them a constant fever, one of the symptoms of fescue toxicity. Terra Fondriest via FERN

    As early as the 1950s, however, ranchers began to notice tall fescue’s disturbing effects: One study showed that cattle had to be fenced out of other grasses before they’d touch fescue. When they did eat it, the cows saw only one-sixth of their normal weight gain and lost eight pounds of milk production a day. 

    Between the cells in fescue grows an endophyte, a fungus living symbiotically inside the grass. The endophyte is what makes the fescue robust against drought and overgrazing, but it’s also what makes it toxic. When scientists engineered a version of fescue without the fungal endophyte, in 1982, its hardiness disappeared and ranchers saw it die out among their winter pastures. Farmers learned to live with the health impacts of the toxic version, and today it remains the primary pasture grass across 37 million acres of farmland. 

    It’s a longstanding problem, and it’s spreading. Warming temperatures from climate change are now expanding the northern limit of the fescue belt, and the grass is marching into new areas, taking root on disturbed land, such as pastures. Northern Illinois and southern Iowa could already be officially added to the fescue belt, Roberts said, introducing toxicosis to new farming regions. 

    “It’s becoming not just present but part of their normal pastures,” he said, noting that he increasingly gets calls from farmers in this region who are wondering what to do.

    an illustration of a cell slide with squiggly line just inside a rectangular cell
    Amelia Bates / Grist

    As more farmers find themselves facing the challenges of toxic fescue, there are two strategies emerging to finally solve the decades-old problem, though in diametrically opposed ways. One involves planting a modified version of tall fescue — called “friendly fescue” — in which the toxic endophyte has been replaced by a benign one that still keeps the grass hearty and green all winter. Another would abandon fescue altogether and restore the native grasses and wildflowers that once dominated the region, as well as help revitalize natural carbon sinks and fight climate change.

    For a variety of reasons — some economic, some cultural — neither solution has really taken hold with most fescue belt ranchers. But the debate embodies the agricultural industry in the era of climate change: As ecosystems shift and extreme weather makes farming even more precarious, ranchers are facing tough decisions about how to adapt their land use practices. What is best for business, and will that ultimately be what’s best for the land and for the changing climate? 

    Friendly fescue hit the market in 2000, developed by Pennington Seed Inc. It looks identical to toxic fescue and behaves almost identically, thus requiring little change to the ranching habits of fescue belt farmers over the last 70 years. 

    It would seem an ideal fit for an industry focused on maintaining the status quo amid climate challenges. But ranchers have been slow to embrace it. For one thing, friendly fescue, formally known as “novel endophyte fescue,” costs twice as much as the toxic variety — $4 for a pound of seed versus $2. And replacing one grass with another is labor-intensive; a 2004 report by the University of Georgia said it would take farmers who made the switch about three years to break even. Matt Poore, a professor of animal science at North Carolina State University, chairs the Alliance for Grassland Renewal, a national organization dedicated to eradicating toxic fescue. Yet Poore, who also raises cattle, has only converted 30 percent of his fields, preferring to do it slowly. “The fear of failure is a big deal,” he said. “You’re sticking your neck out there when you go to kill something that looks really good.” 

    Many farmers would like to avoid the risk of total pasture makeovers, if they can. Until now, toxic fescue ranchers have found ways to scrape by, and a parade of treatments have come out through the decades, promising relief from toxicosis. 

    They can supplement their cows’ diets with grain (an expensive remedy), or cut and dry their fescue and feed it to them as hay, which reduces its toxicity somewhat. They can dilute the toxicity of their fields by planting clover among the fescue, or clip the especially toxic seed heads before cows can graze them. They can try to genetically select cows with moderate fescue tolerance, which can salvage as much as a quarter of their losses. 

    Poore counts over 100 such remedies. “If you do enough of those things you can tell yourself you don’t really have a problem,” he said. Meanwhile, the lush ground cover that fescue displays in winter is seductive. 

    cows eat grass in a green field
    An overgrazed non-native fescue pasture in Elk Creek, Missouri. Terra Fondriest via FERN

    A lack of trust, too, is a problem. In the early 1980s, when researchers introduced endophyte-free fescue, it was hailed as the answer to toxicosis, a way to save the industry. Ranchers trusted the scientists, and they lost a lot of money when that version withered in the fields. The sting of that debacle persists as researchers try to convince ranchers to trust friendly fescue. “The sins of the past have come back to haunt us,” MU’s Roberts said. “It’s going to take a while to overcome that screwup.”

    Every March, Roberts and other scientists travel around the fescue belt giving workshops on friendly fescue to anyone who will listen. He tries to assuage farmers who are worried about the expense and labor of pasture conversion. 

    There aren’t good numbers on adoption rates, because seed companies are guarded about how much they sell. But Robert says he knows it’s rising. Some states promote it more than others, by offering cost-shares, for example, and hosting workshops like those Roberts leads.

    It doesn’t help that endophyte-free fescue — the one that fails in the winter — remains on the market. The state of Kentucky even provides cost-share funding for ranchers who switch from toxic fescue to endophyte-free fescue. And several Kentucky ranchers said they were still unclear on the differences among toxic fescue, endophyte-free fescue, and friendly fescue. Farm supply stores often don’t even stock friendly fescue seed, as it’s less shelf stable.

    Roberts noted that toxic fescue exudes fluids that “pretty much destroy the food web,” poisoning insects that quail and other creatures feed on. A 2014 study showed that climate change could increase the endophyte’s toxicity. Friendly fescue soil, by contrast, has more microbes than toxic fescue soil. And water quality is better with friendly fescue, since sick cows don’t have to congregate in streams and ponds to stay cool.

    Despite the confusion and slow uptake, Roberts is optimistic, noting the 30 years it took for farmers to embrace the revolution of hybrid corn in the early 20th century. And he can point to some wins. Darrel Franson, a Missouri rancher who remembers the endophyte-free fescue debacle, nevertheless decided to take the risk, converting his 126 acres to friendly fescue. He loves the results. “It’s hard to argue with the production potential of tall fescue and the length of season it gives us,” he said.

    Roberts’ employer, the University of Missouri, is betting that a modified version of exotic fescue will appeal to ranchers more than the idea of converting to native grasslands. “What we’re promoting is environmentally friendly as well as economically sound,” he said. “When you seed a nontoxic endophyte and add legumes [to dilute pasture toxicity], that works as well as anything, and we have a lot of data on it. It may take another 20 years for it to catch on, but it’s not going away. It’s too good.”

    For decades, Amy Hamilton and her late husband, Rex, fought fescue toxicosis in Texas County, Missouri, the heart of the Ozarks. They watched their and their neighbors’ cows lose tail switches, hooves, and parts of their ears to gangrene. Finally, they’d had enough. 

    But the Hamiltons didn’t reach for an artificially modified version of an exotic grass. Instead, in 2012, they converted 90 acres of pasture to native warm-season grasses, using their own money and cost-share funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS. The effects were immediate; the next year they documented increased conception and weaning rates in their cows and calves. Since then, they’ve converted another 75 acres. A former soil conservationist with a degree in agronomy, Hamilton’s mission became to annihilate fescue, on her property and across the fescue belt.

    A senior woman stands in a field of purple tall flowers and grass
    Amy Hamilton stands in a patch of prairie blazing star in one of the Hamilton family’s native grazing fields in Elk Creek. Terra Fondriest via FERN

    I visited Hamilton’s ranch in November 2022. She and her family run about 45 cows and 150 bison. She and her daughter Elizabeth Steele, who helps run the family’s native seed company, walked through a pasture where fescue grew 15 years ago. Now big bluestem, little bluestem, and sunflowers fill the main body of the pasture, and freshwater cordgrass and ironweed decorate a creek’s edge. Quail have returned for the first time in decades. 

    Unlike the Hamiltons’ neighbors’ pastures, however, this field was not green; most of the plants had gone dormant for winter. Hamilton reached through a thick mass of bluestem and pointed to two diminutive, green plants: wild rye and a sedge species, cool-season grasses that provide a native analogue to fescue — and, crucially, winter forage.

    “This is what would have been here pre-settlement,” said Steele, referring to the land before Europeans arrived. “A functioning grassland with different plants serving different functions. Nature’s design is not for monocultures.” 

    To understand the fescue-native debate requires an understanding of the ecological tradeoff between warm- and cool-season grasses. Simply put, warm-season grasses grow in the summer, harnessing the strong sunshine to grow tall and robust; then they go dormant in the winter. Cool-season grasses do the opposite, putting their evolutionary resources into frost-tolerance. As a result, they tend to be smaller than their warm-season counterparts, providing less biomass and less food per plant for the cows that graze them. 

    a line of cattle eat grass
    Cattle belonging to the Hamiltons graze on freshly cut eastern gamagrass that was harvested for seed on the family’s land in Elk Creek. Terra Fondriest via FERN

    Hamilton and Steele have decided to bet on biodiversity. Instead of a year-round monoculture of fescue, they have a biodiverse mix of warm- and cool-season grasses, along with wildflowers. It’s not as visibly lush as a fescue field, but the benefits to cattle health, soil health, and climate resistance make it worth it. “It is a kind of faith that these prairies evolved for the good of the native species that were here,” Hamilton said.

    Even with the leaner cool-season grasses, their native fields produce twice as much forage as the old fescue fields and generate a much higher amount of organic matter, enriching the soil and allowing the pasture to hold more water. A soil-health specialist from NRCS tested their soil’s organic matter content before the 2012 restoration, then again five years later. The result was pastureland that holds up to a half gallon more water than a typical fescue field. 

    In a warming climate with more extreme droughts — much of the Ozarks was in severe drought last year — that extra water storage can make a critical difference for cattle and soil health. The southeastern U.S., the heart of the fescue belt, faces a future of more intense drought and floods. The Hamiltons’ biodiverse style of ranching helps address both extremes, and they expect their native ecosystems will be more resilient to climate change. 

    “[The extra water] trickles into our stream through the year, as opposed to running off in a flood,” said Steele.

    A woman holds a child near a field of tall grass and two children squat nearby
    From left: Elizabeth Steele, her niece Scout Kipp, and sons Otis Ray and Jacob work on making a native flower bouquet near Amy Hamilton’s home in Elk Creek last July. Terra Fondriest via FERN

    The roots of native grasses also reach three times deeper than fescue roots, making them drought-resistant as well as efficient carbon sinks. Grasslands are uniquely good at carbon sequestration. Unlike forests, they store more than 80 percent of their carbon underground, where it’s more safely sequestered than in aboveground trees where the carbon can potentially volatilize and return to the atmosphere. 

    What’s more, intensive grazing of monocultures makes it hard to sequester carbon. A 2019 study, published in the journal Nature, showed that native, biodiverse, restored grasslands hold more than twice as much carbon as monocultures. The deep roots of the Hamiltons’ native species lock carbon deep underground, where it can take hundreds or even thousands of years to return to the atmosphere.

    In the years since the Hamiltons converted their fields, the use of native warm-season grasses has gained momentum in the ranching industry. The University of Tennessee — firmly in the fescue belt — opened the Center for Native Grasslands Management in 2006 aimed at getting ranchers to incorporate native warm-season grasses, known as NWSGs, into pastureland. The Missouri Department of Conservation conducts workshops to familiarize ranchers with NWSGs. Research by the center found that pastures of native switchgrass financially outperform fescue pastures. 

    And Patrick D. Keyser, the center’s director, says native grasses significantly outperform fescue in climate resiliency. Fescue, he says, wants it to be 73 degrees and rainy every other day. “Think Oregon or Scotland,” he said. Native warm-season grasses in the fescue belt, on the other hand, can go weeks with blistering heat and drought without a problem. “To them, the worst climate projections that we’re getting really aren’t a big deal. From a resiliency standpoint, they absolutely win.” 

    If replacing fescue with natives is moving slowly in general, replacing it with native cool-season grasses, to get year-round forage, remains nearly unheard of. As with friendly fescue, cost is partly to blame. Elizabeth Steele’s “cowboy math” estimates that a native conversion today would cost around $365 per acre, a scary number for ranchers. 

    A hand holds tiny grass seedlings
    Amy Hamilton holds seed from a native grass within a savannah restoration area on Hamilton family land in Elk Creek. Terra Fondriest via FERN

    Proponents of native conversion also face a more complicated obstacle than cost as they seek buy-in from ranchers. The debate over how beef cattle are raised is caught up in the culture war over climate change. By some estimates, meat production accounts for nearly 60 percent of the greenhouse gases generated by the food system, with beef as the leading culprit. Even as the concept of “regenerative ranching,” a method of cattle farming that tries to restore degraded soil and reduce emissions, has secured a toehold in the industry, “climate change” remains a political term in farm country, one that is largely avoided. 

    Ranchers like Amy Hamilton risk being marginalized as “progressives.” So while she believes diverse native grasslands will make pastures more resilient to climate change, she doesn’t mention that when proselytizing to fellow ranchers. Insead, she talks about increased water infiltration, more abundant wildlife, and improved soil health — things that matter to ranchers no matter their thoughts on climate change. 

    She also tells them that native conversion pencils out. Hamilton doesn’t fertilize her pastures, and she rarely uses hay, as most ranchers do to supplement their cows’ fescue diet. And Steele estimates that, because native pastures produce more forage than fescue monocultures, increased forage and resulting weight gain makes up for the initial conversion costs in less than two years. “The more you emulate natural systems, the less money you have to spend on stuff like baling machines, herbicides, toxicosis effects, and fertilizer,” she said. That extra forage also allows ranchers to feed more cows. So if a rancher wants to expand their herd size, they can either expand their fescue acreage, for $3,000 an acre, or spend $365 an acre to convert the land they already have to natives. 

    Saving money matters in the fescue belt. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, 60 percent of farms in Texas County, Missouri, run a deficit, and every state in the fescue belt loses money on agriculture, except for Illinois, which is largely a crop state. 

    “Agriculture is so hard that if you don’t do it with your pocketbook in mind, you can cause people to go broke. I don’t want to do that,” Hamilton said. 

    A senior woman stands in a large srorage room filled with stacks of large bags
    Amy Hamilton stands in one of the cooled seed storage rooms at the headquarters of Hamilton Native Outpost in Elk Creek. Terra Fondriest via FERN

    Hamilton estimates that more than 100 other fescue belt ranchers she’s in touch with are in the process of converting some or all of their pasture to native grasses. One of them, Steve Freeman, co-owns Woods Fork Cattle Company with his wife, Judy, in Hartville, Missouri. Freeman has converted 80 acres of fescue to natives, with plans to convert 180 more in three years. In total, that will make a third of his pasture diverse native grasslands.

    “Almost all my inspiration has come from going to [the Hamiltons’] field days every year and seeing what this land could be,” Freeman told me on the phone. For him it’s not just about eradicating fescue toxicosis, it’s about the whole suite of benefits for biodiversity, soil health, and water retention. “I realized we’re not going to get there with the grasses we have.”

    Freeman notes the power imbalance between the informal effort to promote native grasses and the universities and beef industry groups that are pushing modified fescue. “There’s no money that backs this,” he said of native restoration. “The novel endophytes and those kinds of things, there’s a lot of money to be made. They’ve helped the universities. I think [Hamilton] is starting to change people’s minds, but it’s been 15 years of doing this.”

    For his part, MU’s Roberts hears the subtle dig at his work. “Friends of mine in conservation groups think the university professors are hooked on fescue,” he said. “They’re not. What they’re hooked on is a long grazing season, good yield, and good quality. They’re hooked on criteria, not on a species.”

    Either way, change on this scale takes time. The University of Missouri claims that 98 percent of pastures in the state are still toxic, with ranchers slowly opening up to either friendly fescue or native forage. “I’m sure there are ranchers out there that think we’re absolutely nuts,” Hamilton said. “But some of them are interested in thinking about new ways of doing things.”

    As we drove out to visit her cows, we passed some of her neighbors’ fields. In one, a herd of emaciated cattle had grazed a fescue field down to stubble. In another, all but a few cows stood in the middle of a pond, trying to cool themselves on a mild, cloudy day. 

    “These are good people,” Hamilton said. “They’re just trying to make a living.”

    This story was originally published by Grist with the headline This grass has toxic effects on US livestock, and it’s spreading on Mar 27, 2024.

    This post was originally published on Grist.

  • How bad will heatflation get?

    Sometimes climate change appears where you least expect it — like the grocery store. Food prices have climbed 25 percent over the past four years, and Americans have been shocked by the growing cost of staples like beef, sugar, and citrus. 

    While many factors, like supply chain disruptions and labor shortages, have contributed to this increase, extreme heat is already raising food prices, and it’s bound to get worse, according to a recent study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. The analysis found that heatflation could drive up food prices around the world by as much as 3 percentage points per year in just over a decade and by about 2 percentage points in North America. For overall inflation, extreme weather could lead to anywhere from a 0.3 to 1.2 percentage point increase each year depending on how many carbon emissions countries pump into the atmosphere.

    Though that might sound small, it’s actually “massive,” according to Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School. “That’s half of the Fed’s overall goal for inflation,” he said, referencing the Federal Reserve’s long-term aim of limiting it to 2 percent. The Labor Department recently reported that consumer prices climbed 3.2 percent over the past 12 months. 

    The link between heat and rising food prices is intuitive — if wheat starts withering and dying, you can bet flour is going to get more expensive. When Europe broiled in heat waves in 2022, it pushed up food prices that were already soaring due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (known as the breadbasket of Europe), researchers at the Europe Central Bank and Potsdam Institute in Germany found in the new study. Europe saw a record-breaking 9.2 percent inflation that year, and the summer heat alone, which hurt soy, sunflower, and maize harvests, might have been responsible for almost a full percentage point of that increase.

    To figure out how climate change might drive inflation in the future, the researchers analyzed monthly price indices for goods across 121 countries over the past quarter-century. No place on the planet looks immune. Countries in North Africa and the Middle East, where hot temperatures already push the comfortable limits of some crops, are expected to see some of the biggest price shocks. 

    The study’s results were striking, Wagner said, but at the same time very believable. He thinks the calculations are probably on the conservative end of the spectrum: “I wouldn’t be surprised if follow-up studies actually came up with even higher numbers.”

    It adds up to a troubling picture for the future affordability of food. “The coronavirus pandemic demonstrated how sensitive supply changes are to disruption and how that disruption can awaken inflation,” David A. Super, a professor of law and economics at Georgetown University Law Center, wrote in an email. “The disruptive effects of climate change are orders of magnitude greater than those of the pandemic and will cause economic dislocation on a far greater scale.”

    The world began paying attention to the dynamic between climate change and higher prices, or “climateflation,” in March 2022, soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, when the German economist Isabel Schnabel coined the term in a speech warning that the world faced “a new age of energy inflation.” A few months later, Grist coined the term “heatflation” in an article about how blistering temperatures were driving up food prices. 

    The difference between the terms is akin to “global warming” vs. “climate change,” with one focused on hotter temperatures and the other on broader effects. Still, “heatflation” might be the more appropriate term, Wagner said, given that price effects from climate change appear to come mostly from extreme heat. The new study didn’t find a strong link between shifts in precipitation and inflation.

    The research lends some credibility to the title of the landmark climate change bill that President Joe Biden signed in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act. While it’s an open joke that the name was a marketing term meant to capitalize on Americans’ concerns about rising prices, it might be more fitting, in the end, than people expected. “We shouldn’t be making fun of the name Inflation Reduction Act, because in the long run, it is exactly the right term to use,” Wagner said.

    This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How bad will heatflation get? on Mar 27, 2024.

    This post was originally published on Grist.

  • 10 Reasons to Switch to Coconut Sugar

    We can show empathy for animals through our choices, including the foods we eat.

    Though you may be aware of cane sugar’s harmful effects on human health and the environment—from heart disease and obesity to deforestation—consuming it also has consequences for our fellow animals.

    Two young brown calves n field

    The sugar industry uses bone char—produced by charring cows’ bones—as a filtering and bleaching agent. These bones come from the meat industry, where cows languish in crowded, filthy feedlots before a slaughterhouse worker kills them by shooting them in the head.

    Cows are unique individuals with tender personalities. Research suggests that these gentle giants possess remarkable cognitive abilities, memories, and problem-solving skills. They form deep social bonds and grieve when they’re torn away from those they love, sometimes shedding tears over their loss. Cows, like all animals, value their lives and don’t want to be killed.

    Sugar teaspoonSugar | Melissa Wiese | CC By 2.0

    For those who want to sweeten their dishes without harming animals, we have a solution: coconut sugar. Unlike conventional cane sugar, coconut sugar is made by converting liquid sap into sugar granules through heat evaporation. The more we support vegan sugar, the less demand there will be for sugar processed using animals’ bones.

    Not only is coconut sugar vegan, it also boasts a rich flavor profile, with hints of caramel and butterscotch, making it a delightful addition to various dishes. Plus, coconut sugar has tons of health properties for humans, including the following:

    1. Electrolytes

    It contains potassium, magnesium, and sodium, which are essential for regulating your body’s water content and many heart, nerve, and muscle functions. It has nearly 400 times more potassium than regular sugar.

    1. A low-glycemic index

    Cane sugar has a glycemic index (GI)—a measure of how quickly a food elevates our blood sugar levels—of 60, while coconut sugar has a GI of 35. This is much closer to the GI of the sugar in fruits, which is around 25.

    Sugar cubesSugar | Uwe Hermann | CC by SA 2.0

    1. Minerals

    It contains iron, zinc, and calcium, which offer many health benefits, including stronger bones.

    1. Nitrogen

    Coconut sugar has trace amounts of nitrogen, which your body needs to produce proteins in muscles, skin, blood, hair, and nails.

    Sugar CrystalSugar | Marko Knuutila | CC by 2.0

    1. Vitamin C

    Vitamin C, also found in coconut sugar, is best known for boosting your immune system and helps maintain healthy joints and skin, too.

    1. Antioxidants

    Coconut sugar contains antioxidants, which fight off the oxidation of cells in the body and can slow the aging process.

    CoconutCoconut | Srinayan Puppala | CC By-SA 2.0

    1. Short-chain fatty acids

    It has healthy fats that help prevent high cholesterol and heart disease.

    1. Inulin

    It also contains a small amount of inulin, a dietary fiber that helps keep your gut healthy, reduces your risk of colon cancer, and manages your blood sugar.

    1. Less sucrose

    While standard table sugar is pure sucrose, coconut sugar is only about 75% sucrose. The other 25% comprises nutrients, fiber, and other “good stuff.” For the same amount of conventional sugar, you’re consuming less of the “bad stuff” while increasing your nutrient intake.

    Raw coconutsCoconut for Life | Easa Shamih | CC By 2.0

    Coconut sugar can replace cane sugar in a 1:1 ratio. Its consistency resembles brown sugar, so make sure you give it a little extra time to dissolve or to combine with other ingredients when cooking or baking.

    You can use coconut sugar virtually anywhere you’d use cane sugar, including in your morning coffee or your favorite vegan dessert recipe. So next time you’re craving something sweet, reach for coconut sugar. It will satisfy cravings without compromising compassion.

    Order a Free Vegan Starter Kit!

    The post 10 Reasons to Switch to Coconut Sugar appeared first on PETA.

    This post was originally published on Animal Rights and Campaign News | PETA.

  • Flour Massacre Called ‘Aid-Related Deaths’—Rather Than Part of Israel’s Engineered Famine

     

    Over 100 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded on February 29, when Israeli snipers opened fire on people approaching a convoy of trucks carrying desperately needed supplies of flour. The attack was quickly dubbed the flour massacre.

    Corporate media reporting was contentious and confused, mired in accusations and conflicting details that filled the news hole, even as media downplayed the grave conditions in Gaza created by Israel’s engineered famine. With headlines layered in verbal opacity, the massacre prompted yet another egregious moment in media’s facilitation of Israel’s continuing genocide in Gaza.

     Linguistic gymnastics

    NYT: As Hungry Gazans Crowd a Convoy, a Crush of Bodies, Israeli Gunshots and a Deadly Toll

    This New York Times headline (2/29/24) was described as “a haiku to avoid saying Israel massacres Palestinians that they’re deliberately starving in Gaza.”

    On the day of the massacre, the New York Times (2/29/24) published this contrivance:

    “As Hungry Gazans Crowd a Convoy, a Crush of Bodies, Israeli Gunshots and a Deadly Toll”

    It was met with ridicule as it slid across online platforms. Assal Rad (Twitter, 3/1/24), author and research director at the Iranian American Council, called the piece of work “a haiku to avoid saying Israel massacres Palestinians that they’re deliberately starving in Gaza.”

    Another Times headline (2/29/24) read, “Deaths of Gazans Hungry for Food Prompt Fresh Calls for Ceasefire.” Nima Shirazi, co-host of the podcast Citations Needed  (Twitter, 3/1/24), noted that “the New York Times just can’t bring itself to write clear headlines when Israeli war crimes are involved.” Shirazi offered this revision: “Israel Slaughters Starving People as It Continues Committing Genocide.”

    Professor Jason Hickel (Twitter, 2/29/24), along with Mint Press‘s Alan MacLeod (2/29/24), flagged the use of the neologism “food aid–related deaths” when it turned up in a Guardian headline (2/29/24): “Biden Says Gaza Food Aid–Related Deaths Complicate Ceasefire Talks.” MacLeod noted, “Virtually the entire Western media pretend they don’t know who just carried out a massacre of 100+ starving civilians.”

    Linguistic gymnastics—a longstanding plague pervading Western media coverage of Palestine (FAIR.org, 8/22/23)—were so popular in news headlines and reporting that Caitlin Johnstone (Consortium News, 3/1/24) compiled a list of them, adding  “chaotic incident” (CNN, 2/29/24) and “chaotic aid delivery turns deadly” (Washington Post, 2/29/24) to those already mentioned.

    Sana Saeed, media critic for Al Jazeera, decoded the latter kind of construction for AJ+ (3/29/24), arguing that such passive language has been used “consistently to sanitize the violence that a powerful state is unleashing against civilian populations.”

    As the genocide enters its sixth month, media analysts, investigative reporters and social media users have become adept at recognizing pro-Israeli contortions and patterns of language that justify Israel’s war on Gaza. This has become an essential aspect in exposing Israel’s genocide.

    ‘Anarchy rules in Gaza’

    Economist: A new tragedy shows anarchy rules in Gaza

    Economist (2/29/24): “As with many events in the war between Israel and Hamas, the facts are destined to remain fiercely contested.” 

    The Economist (2/29/24), under the headline, “A New Tragedy Shows Anarchy Rules in Gaza: A Shooting and Stampede Kill 122 and Injure Hundreds,” went into the worst pro-Israel spin, with reporting that seemed to blame Palestinians for their own murders. Parroting Israeli press directives, the piece claimed Palestinians were killed by “trampling” each other in their own “stampede.”

    The piece was written in literary prose: “Death descended on a coastal road in Gaza,” the reporter (not present at the scene) wrote. Then “catastrophe befell an aid convoy,” as if it merely happened upon bad luck.

    Then the writer made a prediction: “As with many events in the war between Israel and Hamas, the facts are destined to remain fiercely contested.” That’s likely to come true, especially when major media outlets abdicate their responsibility for evaluating claims.

    Timeline of changing denials 

    BBC: What video and eyewitness accounts tell us about Gazans killed around aid convoy

    Even in special “Verify” mode, the BBC (3/1/24) can’t bring itself to say in a headline who it was that killed Gazans.

    Many other writers and journalists have documented the string of vacillating Israeli statements that help explain the contorted reporting. Al Jazeera reporter Willem Marx (Twitter, 3/1/24) traced a timeline of how the Israeli military changed its story over the course of the day.

    The IDF began by claiming there had been trampling and pushing that led to injuries around the aid truck. Then, hungry Palestinians had “threatened their soldiers,” or “appeared in a threatening manner,” so the IDF shot at them. Later that day, Israeli officials claimed there were two separate incidents, one that involved trampling and the other that led to shooting. By the end of the day, they alleged only to have provided support to a humanitarian convoy, and that no shots were fired at all by the military.

    When the BBC (3/1/24) verified that a video released by the Israeli military exhibited four unexplained breaks in the footage and was therefore invalid, the outlet still used the passive voice, referring in the headline to “Gazans Killed Around Aid Convoy.” One sentence of the detailed, confused article quoted Palestinian journalist Mahmoud Awadeyah: “Israelis purposefully fired at the men…. They were trying to get near the trucks that had the flour.” Earlier, however, Awadeyah was problematized when identified “as a journalist for Al Mayadeen, a Lebanon-based news station whose broadcasts are sympathetic to groups fighting Israel.”

    Independent and international media 

    Mondoweiss: Flour soaked in blood: ‘Flour Massacre’ survivors tell their story

    “Israel’s use of food as a weapon of war reaches new heights,” Mondoweiss (3/4/24) reported.

    If we compare corporate outlets to independent media, in which reporting was based on ground sources, humanitarian actors and aid workers, we find very different content.

    Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghoul (2/29/24), who was at the scene of the massacre, said that “after opening fire, Israeli tanks advanced and ran over many of the dead and injured bodies. It is a massacre, on top of the starvation threatening citizens in Gaza.”

    EuroMed staff (2/29/24) on the scene confirmed that the Israeli military had fired on starving Palestinians. EuroMed’s findings were summarized in a videotape by Palestinian news agency Quds News Network and posted by the Palestine Information Center (3/4/24).

    Mondoweiss (3/4/24) reported details of the massacre from eyewitness accounts. One survivor recounted how an Israeli checkpoint “split the crowd in two,” preventing those who had entered the checkpoint from passing back to the northern side. Then Israeli soldiers opened fire on the crowd. International observers visited the injured survivors at al-Shifa’ Hospital, “confirming that the majority of wounds from the hundreds of injured people were due to live ammunition.”

    In context of famine

    MEE: Hungry Palestinians looking for food made Israeli soldiers feels unsafe, says army

    Middle East Eye (2/29/24) put IDF claims in the context of a Gaza “on the brink of famine as a result of the Israeli blockade.”

    Reporting in the alternative press also placed the massacre within the context of the rapidly increasing famine in Gaza.

    The headline for the Electronic Intifada (2/29/24) read, “Palestinians Seeking Food Aid Killed as Israel Starves Gaza.” The outlet said an “engineered famine has taken hold in Gaza, with people resorting to eating wild plants with little nutritional value and animal feed to survive.”

    Middle East Eye’s reporting (2/29/24) included the dire condition Palestinians are currently facing: “Much of Gaza’s population is on the brink of famine as a result of the Israeli blockade, according to the UN and other humanitarian organizations.”

    The day of the massacre, Democracy Now! (2/29/24) opened its broadcast with a clear statement and the relevant context: “Israel Kills 104 Palestinians Waiting for Food Aid as UN Expert Accuses Israel of Starving Gaza.” Its first guest, UN special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri, said, “Every single person in Gaza is hungry.” He accused Israel of the war crime of intentional starvation. He emphasized that famine in the modern context is a human-made catastrophe:

    At this point I’m running out of words to be able to describe the horror of what’s happening and how vile the actions have been by Israel against the Palestinian civilians.

    Common Dreams (3/3/24) reported on Israel’s obstruction of aid convoys, and cited UNICEF on the deaths of children who

    died of starvation and dehydration at a hospital in northern Gaza as Israeli forces continue to obstruct and attack aid convoys, fueling desperation across the territory…. People are hungry, exhausted and traumatized. Many are clinging to life.

    It concluded, “These tragic and horrific deaths are man-made, predictable and entirely preventable.”

    In the days before the massacre, numerous outlets had been documenting the growing famine looming over Gaza. This is the material independent media made use of for contextualizing the massacre.

    The New York Times, on the other hand, put the massacre into an entirely different context. A piece (3/2/24) headlined “Disastrous Convey Was Part of New Israeli Effort for More Aid in Gaza,” cited as confirmation “Western diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity.” It said that international aid groups “suspended operations” because of “rising lawlessness,” as well as Israel’s refusal to “greenlight aid trucks.” It blamed starving Gazans by claiming that aid convoys had been looted either by “civilians fearing starvation” or by “organized gangs.”

    ‘How is this not a bigger story?’

    Al Jazeera: Palestinians seeking aid attacked by Israeli forces again

    “How is this not a bigger story?” one observer asked of this Al Jazeera report (3/6/24).

    As Common Dreams and Mondoweiss reported, the flour massacre was not the first time the IDF killed starving Palestinians, and it would not be the last. As Mondoweiss (3/4/24) put it: “In less than a week, Israel has committed several massacres against the hungry. On Sunday, March 3, Israel bombed an aid convoy, killing seven people.”

    Quds News Network (3/2/24) reported that Israel targeted hungry civilians again at Al Rasheed Street in northern Gaza while they were waiting for humanitarian aid. And  Quds (3/4/24) reposted Al Jazeera footage that captured the moments when Israel’s military opened fire at other hungry Gazans, this time at the Al Kuwait roundabout, as they looked for food aid.

    Al Jazeera (3/6/24) continues to document the murders of Palestinians desperate for aid as they come under Israeli fire. On a longer videotape, a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch says these attacks violate ICJ orders:

    The idea that these people are being killed as they scavenge for meager rations of food is just appalling, and is a reminder why there must be international immediate action to prevent further mass atrocities.

    Following the Al Jazeera report, Assal Rad (Twitter, 3/6/24) expressed dismay:

    Israeli attacks on Palestinians waiting for or attempting to get aid have repeatedly happened this week, yet there has been no media coverage since the massacre that killed over 100 people. Israel is attacking civilians it’s deliberately starving. How is this not a bigger story?

    Normalizing starvation and massacres

    Floutist: "Israel and the perversion of language."

    The Floutist (11/16/23) addresses “the perversion of language that the defense of Israel’s violence requires.”

    Sana Saeed (Twitter, 3/4/24) observed:

    So just to be clear: Much like how Israel normalized attacking and destroying hospitals, and it was accepted by the international community, Israel is now normalizing shooting and killing the people it is starving as they seek food.

    Media have failed to inform the US public on the horrific conditions experienced by starving civilians in Gaza. They blamed Palestinians for their own deaths, covering for the Israeli military as it carried out a massacre. They further dehumanized Palestinians by characterizing starving people as an unruly mob who trampled one another.

    To paraphrase Patrick Lawrence (Floutist, 11/16/23) on the distortion of language in defense of Israel’s violence against Palestinians: It corrupts our public discourse, our public space, and altogether our ability to think clearly. This corruption is as vital as US bombs to the Israeli genocide against Palestine: Without these verbal distortions that justify, distract, deny and consume corporate information spaces, the genocide could not be carried out.

    The post Flour Massacre Called ‘Aid-Related Deaths’—Rather Than Part of Israel’s Engineered Famine appeared first on FAIR.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • New Vegan Products to Look For in 2025, Spotted First at Expo West

    Every year at Natural Products Expo West, companies gather to show off new and exciting vegan products that will hit store shelves soon. This year, PETA staffers had a chance to try some of these items and get a sneak peek into the future of animal-friendly foods. Here’s a recap of the products we spotted, which you can expect to see in stores later in 2024 and into 2025.

    Easy Eats

    From healthy packaged meals to meat-free protein options that will help make dinner easy and delicious, quick foods were everywhere at Expo West this year.

    The collaboration between NotCo and The Kraft Heinz Company was the star of the show, with the launch of its animal-friendly Oscar Mayer NotHotDogs and NotSausages, which have the familiar savory, smoky taste but no animal flesh—because every animal is someone who feels love, pain, joy, and fear and deserves our respect.

    The Kraft Heinz Not Company’s booth also highlighted the vegan version of the classic creamy Kraft boxed Mac & Cheese, which offers a way to experience a nostalgic taste without exploiting mother cows for their milk.

    Asian-inspired eats made a huge splash, too. Some of the products included the following:

    • OMNI’s Plant-Based Teriyaki Bao Buns are soft and satisfying.
    • Rawmyun’s Savory Curry Ramen is low-oil instant ramen made with rice noodles.
    • Sobo Foods’ Chinese “Pork” & Chive Dumplings feature a whopping 19 grams of vegan protein.
    • 24vegan’s Vegetable Green Curry with Organic Brown Rice microwave meals are a healthy and quick lunch option.

    We also saw packaged Korean kimbap from at least four brands—Baba, Ocean’s Halo, Sunlit, and UNLIMEAT—possibly inspired by the viral success of Trader Joe’s frozen vegan version.

    ocean's halo vegan veggie kimbap

    UNLIMEAT, a Korean brand, is also launching its products in U.S. markets, with items like Bulgogi Jumukbap and vegan Pork Mandu.

    UNLIMEAT vegan products at expo west

    Vegan chicken is a hit every year, because choosing this delicious and crowd-pleasing option spares the lives of countless intelligent, playful birds. We spotted a few new products, including Chef Chew’s Kitchen’s Spicy Fried Chicken Fillet, Golden Platter’s Angry Birds 100% Plant-Based Chick’n Nuggets, New Breed’s Jamaican Jerk Chik’n, and TiNDLE’s Parmigiana Stuffed Chicken.

    Other vegan meats we can’t wait to buy in stores include OMNI’s Lion’s Mane Mushroom Steak and Umaro Foods’ Superfood Bacon made from seaweed protein.

    For snack time, we loved Parmela Creamery’s Snackables, a Lunchables-style kit with crackers, vegan cheddar cheese, and smoky “meat” slices, and WunderEgg’s Plant-Based Egg(less) Salad.

    Finless Favorites

    The fishing industry threatens all marine animals—including fish, crabs, octopuses, and whales—who simply want to live in peace. That’s why more people are turning to vegan options for a taste of the sea. Some of the exciting new animal-friendly products we saw at Expo West included Avafina Organics’ Chiaviar, vegan caviar made from chia seeds and seaweed, as well as Franklin Farms’ Plant-Based Tuna, Konscious Foods’ Plant-Based Smoked Salmon, and UNLIMEAT’s Plant-Based Tuna flakes.

    Milk-Free Marvels

    Dairy is dead—at least the kind that uses milk stolen from baby cows. The future of food is animal-free, and there’s no sign that the vegan dairy industry will slow down anytime soon. Never Better Foods’ Better Than Mozzarella is melty and made with chickpea protein, Simply V’s Plant-Based Cream Cheese comes in a bar for easy measuring, and UMYUM’s dairy-free Camembert cheese and slow-churned butter are stunningly creamy.

    We saw cow-free milk and creamers from several brands we know and love. Califia Farms launched a limited-edition Cookies ‘n Crème Almond Creamer, Oatly introduced vegan coffee creamers in several sweet flavors, and TiNDLE expanded from its vegan chicken roots with a new Barista Oat Milk.

    Califia Farms cookies n cream vegan creamer and heavy whip at Expo West 2024

    Creamy “cheese” sauces were popular, too. House Party’s Cheesy Dip is perfect for a party, and Le Grand’s Mac ‘N Cheeze Sauce makes whipping up your favorite comfort dish easier than ever.

    Savory Snacking

    Crackers and chips were everywhere, with a healthy spin and a focus on protein. Rivalz stuffed snacks are made with pea flour and brown rice and have 8 grams of protein per serving—along with a huge flavor punch. Mamame Whole Foods Tempeh Chips transform a staple vegan protein into a crunchy, satisfying snack made with black-eyed beans.

    “Cheesy” snacks were especially popular: Brutal’s Velvet Cheddar Lupini Bean Puffs, Fair & Square’s allergen- and animal-friendly Cheddar Cheeze Crackers, Mary’s Gone Cheezee Cheddar Flavor Crackers, and Vegan Rob’s Dairy-Free Cheddar Captain Booty (from the creator of Pirate’s Booty).

    vegan rob's captain booty snack seen at expo west 2024

    Sensational Sips

    With all the walking and tasting we did, we stopped by the RISE Brewing Co. booth for an energy boost, where we tried its canned Nitro Cold Brew Coffee.

    The herbal teas and sparkling botanicals from Rishi Tea & Botanicals are perfect for midweek relaxation, while the fruity canned cocktails from Mixed Up have us excited for summer hangouts.

    Stellar Sauces and Spreads

    Sauces can make a meal 100 times better. We loved Cocojune’s Lemon Dill Labneh and Mr. Bing x Fabalish Creamy Vegan Chili Crisp Ranch.

    Bees work hard to make honey to feed their hives, so we were happy to see some bee-free sweeteners: Mellody’s new Spicy Habanero Plant-Based Hot Honey and Bee Mindful Honee, which is made with apples and also available in a hot version.

    We also saw some uniquely flavorful dips, including Growee Foods’ tangy Spiced Mango Dip & Spread and Hodo Foods’ Organic Chili Crisp Dip.

    And we can’t forget about Prime Roots’ Koji-Foie Gras spread, which achieves a deep buttery and savory flavor without force-feeding and killing ducks and geese.

    Tempting Treats

    Doughy’s Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough is a newcomer that you can enjoy raw or baked. Eclipse launched creamy plant-based ice cream bonbons covered in crunchy chocolate and available in three flavors: Coffee Almond Crunch, Hazelnut Chocolate Truffle, and Peanut Butter Pretzel. And Holi Scoops’ Discos are frozen cookie dough ice cream bites made with adaptogenic plants.

    These are just some of the animal-friendly products featured at Expo West, and there are sure to be many others to look forward to in the coming years as more people go vegan for animals, the planet, and their own health. To learn more about making the transition for yourself, order our free vegan starter kit today:

    Send Me a Free Vegan Starter Kit!

    The post New Vegan Products to Look For in 2025, Spotted First at Expo West appeared first on PETA.

    This post was originally published on Animal Rights and Campaign News | PETA.

  • Deviled Potatoes, Sham Ham, and Other Vegan Easter Recipes

    Traditions are important, and we can continue to enjoy them while making choices that are better for animals. This includes making all our favorite Easter dishes the vegan way—without animal flesh, eggs, dairy, honey, or anything else that was stolen from animals. Easter is a time to celebrate the renewal of life, so it makes perfect sense to choose animal-friendly foods.

    Here are a few stunning vegan recipes to make this Easter.

    Cafe Indigo’s Famous Vegan Carrot Cake

    Carrot cake is a sweet, spiced dessert that just screams springtime, so it’s a great choice for your Easter spread. This version features a decadent dairy-free buttercream frosting made with cow-friendly cream cheese and vegan butter.

    vegan carrot cake© VegNews

    Cows are loving, devoted mothers. But in the dairy industry, they’re separated from their babies so that their milk can be stolen from them. That’s why choosing vegan options is so important.

    Potato Leek Vegan Quiche

    Tofu is a great base for this hen-friendly quiche, which can be made with vegan pie crust that’s homemade or store-bought. Feel free to make this recipe your own by adding your favorite veggies or even some pig-friendly vegan bacon.

    Vegan Chocolate Crème Eggs

    Cadbury Creme Eggs may have been a staple of your childhood Easter celebrations—before you learned how painful and deadly the dairy industry is for cows who are used for milk chocolate. But luckily, these vegan crème eggs are a creamier, richer, and more delicious version.

    If you don’t have time to get your hands dirty in the kitchen, hop on over to our egghaustive list of vegan Easter candy.

    Vegan Deviled Potatoes

    Instead of making deviled eggs this Easter and harming chickens, try these deviled potatoes. They’re made with egg-free vegan mayo, Dijon mustard, and black salt (aka “kala namak”) for some added “egginess.”

    vegan deviled potatoes© It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken

    Hens are loving mothers who cluck to their chicks while sitting on the eggs, and they chirp back to her and to each other from inside their shells. But the egg industry treats them like egg-producing objects, not individuals. In the U.S., the egg industry exploits more than 305 million hens each year, stealing their eggs, cutting off the end of their beaks with a hot blade, and killing their male chicks.

    Vegan Ham Roast with Maple Glaze

    This sham “ham” is a showstopping centerpiece for your Easter celebration, with a sweet maple glaze that creates a golden-brown crust. Choosing this roast or a store-bought option like Tofurky’s Plant Based Ham Style Roast with Amber Ale Glaze spares the lives of countless pigs who are used for their flesh. Pigs are playful, intelligent, friendly animals who love many of the same things as humans, like listening to music, playing ball, and even getting massages. Keep them off your Easter table and make this delicious recipe instead:

    Order Your FREE Vegan Starter Kit

    Send Me a Vegan Starter Kit

    Vegan Hot Cross Buns with Cardamom and Rum

    These classic yeasted sweet buns are made without eggs taken from chickens or milk stolen from cows, so you can feel great about participating in this Easter tradition.

    Vegan ‘Rack of Lamb’

    We love this super-innovative recipe for “rack of lamb” that no baby sheep were killed to create. Lambs leap with excitement, cuddle with their favorite toys, and love to play with their flockmates. They deserve to enjoy their full lives in peace, instead of being killed for Easter dinner when they’re less than a year old.

    Go vegan this Easter and all year long. Order a free vegan starter kit to help you make the transition today:

    Send Me a Free Vegan Starter Kit!

    The post Deviled Potatoes, Sham Ham, and Other Vegan Easter Recipes appeared first on PETA.

    This post was originally published on Animal Rights and Campaign News | PETA.

  • Chasing Wienermobiles: PETA’s Role in Creating Oscar Mayer’s Vegan Hot Dog

    Hot dawg—victory! Following years of PETA campaigns, Oscar Mayer will be releasing vegan wieners and vegan sausages. NotHotDogs and Italian- and bratwurst-style NotSausages—from a collab between TheNotCompany (NotCo) and Oscar Mayer—will be available nationwide in grocery stores this spring. The products consist of ingredients like pea protein, bamboo fiber, and mushrooms. PETA relishes applauding this major mark of progress after persistently urging the company—behind the scenes and publicly—to make vegan versions of its products.

    Oscar Mayer vegan hot dogs and sausages, launching in spring 2024© Kraft Heinz

    Chasing Wienermobiles: Urging Oscar Mayer to Make Vegan Hot Dogs

    PETA’s campaign pushing Oscar Mayer to offer vegan products has included chasing the company’s Wienermobiles for years. Animal advocates in pig masks have caused them to pack up and dash off from events early, but after the catalytic converter was stolen from one of the vehicles, we offered to replace it—if the company would offer vegan wieners.

    a PETA animal advocate in a pig outfit holding a sign that reads "Meat Is Murder" by an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile

    The Wienermobiles traverse the country, enticing people to try Oscar Mayer meats, which can set them on the road to developing life-threatening health problems. Long before the flesh-carrying conveyance nearly brought about its own demise by crashing into a suburban home, we trailed it around the country as it conducted a talent search for children to sing the Oscar Mayer theme song. At one stop, our “pig” even managed to clamber aboard the mobile meat mover, and he was poised to take the fiberglass frank for a spin when he was apprehended by the authorities.

    We also own stock in Oscar Mayer’s parent company (Kraft Heinz) and have spoken up at its annual shareholder meetings, urging it to shut down its dirty, cruel slaughterhouses and convert to producing vegan foods. Nearly 70,000 people signed our action alert urging the company to make vegan hot dogs.

    protestors at a wienermobile

    The compassionate collab between NotCo and Oscar Mayer is, frankly, a definitive victory: Our constant campaigning for Oscar Mayer to make this move paid off.

    Why Oscar Mayer Must Keep Offering Vegan Choices

    Every year, Oscar Mayer sells countless hot dogs made from the flesh of cows and pigs raised in horrific conditions and violently killed in slaughterhouses.

    Every living, feeling cow or pig is someone, not something. Cows are intelligent, have good memories, and develop close friendships. They mourn the deaths of their loved ones, sometimes shedding tears over their loss. The bond between mother cows and their calves is particularly strong, and there are countless reports of mother cows who continue to call and search frantically for their babies after workers take them away.

    Pigs are clever, friendly, loyal, and intelligent. They’re clean individuals who avoid soiling their living areas, and, given the opportunity, they love playing for hours, lying in the sun, and exploring their surroundings with their powerful sense of smell. But when pigs and cows are exploited in the meat industry, they’re robbed of everything that’s natural and meaningful to them.

    animal advocates dressed as a pig and a cow, holding signs that say "Love Me, Don't Eat Me"

    What You Can Do

    It’s easy to make kind choices, including buying vegan hot dogs and vegan sausages. Try PETA’s free vegan starter kit:

    Order a Free Vegan Starter Kit

    The post Chasing Wienermobiles: PETA’s Role in Creating Oscar Mayer’s Vegan Hot Dog appeared first on PETA.

    This post was originally published on Animal Rights and Campaign News | PETA.

  • 5 Palestinians killed by air drop of food aid into Gaza


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • A ‘Grande’ Statement: Chef Babette Davis Glued Her Hand to a Starbucks Counter

    On International Women’s Day (March 8), 74-year-old grandmother and renowned chef Babette Davis made headlines by supergluing her hand to the counter of a Starbucks store in Inglewood, California in support of PETA’s campaign against the chain. But why such a dramatic gesture?

    Sticking it to Starbucks w/ Chef Babette

    Posted by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) on Friday, March 8, 2024

    The issue at hand—pun intended—is that the coffee giant continues to charge extra for the vegan milks it agrees are better for the planet and that don’t rely on the exploitation of mother cows and their calves. Davis, along with PETA and supporters including James Cromwell and Sir Paul McCartney, is urging Starbucks to align its actions with its stated environmental goals by ending its upcharge policy.

    In the U.S., cows are the primary source of emissions of the greenhouse gas methane, which is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the atmosphere. In addition to driving the climate catastrophe, the dairy industry tears calves away from their beloved mothers so that the milk meant to nourish them can be sold to humans. Once the cows’ bodies wear out after repeated pregnancies, they’re sent to slaughter.

    “By incentivizing dairy, Starbucks is helping to prop up an industry that is built on the subjugation of females, is environmentally destructive, and penalizes the millions of Americans who are lactose intolerant, most of whom are people of color like me. My friends at PETA and I are calling on Starbucks to take its social responsibilities seriously and stop prioritizing profits over the health of the planet and our communities.” – Chef Babette Davis

    Despite publicly admitting that dairy is the biggest contributor to its carbon footprint and acknowledging the positive impact that dairy-free milk options have on furthering its stated environmental goals, Starbucks continues to charge as much as 90 cents more for these products, lagging far behind its many competitors that offer vegan milk at no additional charge. In the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, and the U.K. as well as at the majority of its stores in France, Starbucks has already dropped the vegan milk upcharge, and its stores in China, India, and elsewhere offer at least one vegan milk option at no additional cost.

    As a prominent figure in Inglewood, California, where she operates her popular restaurant, Stuff I Eat, Davis is deeply invested in promoting health and wellness, particularly among Black communities. She sees Starbucks’ pricing policy as a barrier to access for those seeking healthier, animal-free alternatives, especially considering that 80% of Black and Indigenous Americans and more than 90% of Asian Americans are lactose intolerant.

    Join Chef Babette in Stirring the Pot!

    As the world celebrates women’s achievements, let’s rally behind those like Davis, whose actions speak volumes for a more just and sustainable future for all species. Please join us in demanding change at Starbucks. After all, a better world begins with each of us taking a stand.

    Tell Starbucks to End the Upcharge

    The post A ‘Grande’ Statement: Chef Babette Davis Glued Her Hand to a Starbucks Counter appeared first on PETA.

    This post was originally published on Animal Rights and Campaign News | PETA.

  • Farmworker Festival Dials Up Pressure on Wendy’s Billionaire Chairman

    Palm Beach, Florida, is one of our nation’s true billionaire enclaves, whose denizens include some of the world’s most powerful corporate barons, with sunny oceanfront estates valued at eight- and nine-digits. But for the next three days, the farmworkers who harvest the produce plenishing the menu items and grocery store shelves that deliver their profits, are coming to town.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Ukraine’s Zelenskiy In Turkey For Talks On Global Food Security, Defense Cooperation

    WASHINGTON — In a high-profile televised address, U.S. President Joe Biden ripped his likely Republican challenger Donald Trump for “bowing down” to Russian President Vladimir Putin and urged Congress to pass aid for Ukraine, warning that democracy around the world was under threat.

    In the annual State of the Union address, Biden came out swinging from the get-go against Putin and Trump — whom he called “my predecessor” without mentioning him by name — and on behalf of Ukraine, as he sought to win over undecided voters ahead of November’s election.

    The March 7 address to a joint session of Congress this year carried greater significance for the 81-year-old Biden as he faces a tough reelection in November, mostly likely against Trump. The president, who is dogged by questions about his physical and mental fitness for the job, showed a more feisty side during his hourlong speech, drawing a sharp contrast between himself and Trump on a host of key foreign and domestic issues.

    Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine

    RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

    Biden denounced Trump for recent remarks about NATO, the U.S.-led defense alliance that will mark its 75th anniversary this year, and compared him unfavorably to former Republican President Ronald Reagan.

    “Bowing down to a Russian leader, it is outrageous, dangerous, and unacceptable,” Biden said, referring to Trump, as he recalled how Reagan — who is fondly remembered by older Republicans — stood up to the Kremlin during the Cold War.

    At a campaign rally last month, Trump said that while serving in office he warned a NATO ally he “would encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to alliance members who are “delinquent” in meeting defense-spending goals.

    The remark raised fears that Trump could try to pull the United States out of NATO should he win the election in November.

    Biden described NATO as “stronger than ever” as he recognized Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in the audience. Earlier in the day, Sweden officially became the 32nd member of NATO, ending 200 years of nonalignment. Sweden applied to join the defense alliance after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Finland became a NATO member last year.

    Biden called on Congress to pass a Ukraine aid bill to help the country fend off a two-year-old Russian invasion. He warned that should Russia win, Putin will not stop at Ukraine’s border with NATO.

    A group of right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives have for months been holding up a bill that would allocate some $60 billion in critical military, economic, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine as it defends its territory from Russian invaders.

    The gridlock in Washington has starved Ukrainian forces of U.S. ammunition and weapons, allowing Russia to regain the initiative in the war. Russia last month seized the eastern city of Avdiyivka, its first victory in more than a year.

    “Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself,” Biden said.

    “My message to President Putin…is simple. We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down,” Biden said.

    Trump, who has expressed admiration for Putin, has questioned U.S. aid to Ukraine, though he recently supported the idea of loans to the country.

    Biden also criticized Trump for the former president’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, saying those efforts had posed a grave threat to democracy at home.

    “You can’t love your country only when you win,” he said, referring not just to Trump but Republicans in Congress who back the former president’s claim that the 2020 election was rigged.

    Biden “really strove to distinguish his policies from those of Donald Trump,” said Kathryn Stoner, a political-science professor at Stanford University and director of its Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

    By referencing Reagan, Biden was seeking “to appeal to moderate Republicans and independents to remind them that this is what your party was — standing up to Russia,” she told RFE/RL.

    The State of the Union address may be the biggest opportunity Biden has to reach American voters before the election. More than 27 million people watched Biden’s speech last year, equivalent to about 17 percent of eligible voters.

    Biden’s address this year carries greater importance as he faces reelection in November, most likely against Trump. The speech may be the biggest opportunity he has to reach American voters before the election.

    Trump won 14 of 15 primary races on March 5, all but wrapping up the Republican nomination for president. Biden beat Trump in 2020 but faces a tough reelection bid amid low ratings.

    A Pew Research poll published in January showed that just 33 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s job performance, while 65 percent disapprove. Biden’s job-approval rating has remained below 40 percent over the past two years as Americans feel the pinch of high inflation and interest rates.

    Biden, the oldest U.S. president in history, has been dogged by worries over his age. Two thirds of voters say he is too old to effectively serve another term, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll.

    Last month, a special counsel report raised questions about his memory, intensifying concerns over his mental capacity to run the country for four more years.

    As a result, Biden’s physical performance during the address was under close watch. Biden was animated during the speech and avoided any major gaffes.

    “I thought he sounded really strong, very determined and very clear,” Stoner said.

    Instead of avoiding the subject of his age, Biden took it head on, saying the issue facing our nation “isn’t how old we are, it’s how old our ideas are.”

    He warned Trump was trying to take the country back to a darker period.

    “Some other people my age see a different story: an American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution,” Biden said, referring to the 77-year-old Trump.


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Israeli forces has committed a massacre in Gaza City, killing over 100 people waiting for food aid.


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Israel Kills 104 Palestinians Waiting for Food Aid as U.N. Expert Accuses Israel of Starving Gaza


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Israel Kills 104 Palestinians Waiting for Food Aid as U.N. Expert Accuses Israel of Starving Gaza

    Michaelfakhritrucks

    In Gaza City, at least 104 Palestinian refugees were killed Thursday when Israeli troops opened fire on a crowd waiting for food aid. “This isn’t the first time people have been shot at by Israeli forces while people have been trying to access food,” says the U.N.'s special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, who accuses Israel of the war crime of intentional starvation. This comes as reports grow of Palestinians resorting to animal feed and cactus leaves for sustenance and as experts warn of imminent agricultural collapse. “Every single person in Gaza is hungry,” says Fakhri, who emphasizes that famine in the modern context is a human-made catastrophe. “At this point I'm running out of words to be able to describe the horror of what’s happening and how vile the actions have been by Israel against the Palestinian civilians.”


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Why Editing Chickens’ Genes Is a Cockamamie Idea

    It’s been flapping around in the news that some experimenters think changing chickens’ genes will fend off avian influenza (bird flu). How about having respect for these remarkable birds rather than tampering with their DNA in order to keep using them for food? Editing chicken genetics, which only might make the birds less susceptible to disease, is highly problematic in multiple ways.

    Three chicks on orange towel

    Five Reasons Not to Edit Chicken Genetics

    1. It violates individuals: Chickens are living, feeling beings who shouldn’t be bred, exploited, and killed for food or anything else. Too often, deceptive labels like “humane,” “organic,” or “free-range” are used to distract consumers from the egregious misery that the meat and egg industries inflict on these remarkable birds. PETA has campaigned for decades to increase kindness toward them.

    Chickens are smart, social, and sensitive individuals, each with a distinct personality and capable of experiencing love, joy, sadness, and pain—yet they’re among the most abused animals on the planet. From the moment they hatch, billions of chickens raised for food each year are forced to endure enormous suffering, just for a fleeting taste of their flesh.

    chickens crammed into stacked battery cages on an egg farm

    1. It worsens the climate catastrophe: Editing genes in newly bred chickens perpetuates breeding more animals. This escalates environmental destruction due to having to feed them as they grow, manage their waste, transport them to a slaughterhouse, kill them, and process and ship their corpses as food.

    Raising billions of chickens on farms for food produces enormous amounts of excrement every year. Oregon State University agriculture professor Peter Cheeke says that today’s farming amounts to “a frontal assault on the environment,” which leads to widespread fecal pollution of land and water.

    waste runoff pouring from pipes into water that nearby birds are standing in

    1. It squanders tax money: Spending tax dollars on changing chickens’ genes—as the National Institutes of Health does on other tests on animals—is a wasteful expansion of the vivisection industry. That money would be better used to benefit animals, human health, and the planet.
    2. It wastes valuable time: Scientists should spend their time on meaningful and compassionate research—as laid out in PETA’s Research Modernization Deal. Damaging experiments like altering chickens’ genes would cause long-term harm, whereas human-relevant research that doesn’t involve other animals would bring about useful scientific advances.

    piece equipment for animal-free testing donated by a peta science group

    1. It stirs up potential pandemics: Reconfiguring chickens’ genetic makeup—which requires experimenters to be in close proximity to birds in potentially dangerous ways—could lead to future pandemics. And since all viruses, including bird flu, mutate, it could find a way around genetic manipulation.

    Birds used in the chicken industry and crowded into confinement have a high likelihood of contracting and carrying diseases, including avian flu, chronic respiratory illnesses, and bacterial infections. The answer isn’t to alter their genes—it’s to stop exploiting them for food.

    this is how chickens raised for cage-free eggs really live © iStock.com/takobchaiprakobkit

    Why Tampering With Chicken Genetics Is Cruel

    We should respect chickens for who they are, rather than trying to change them. Besides, by breeding them for specific characteristics, humans have already done horrible damage.

    Chickens love their families, value their lives, and are always looking out for others in their flock. They “talk” to their chicks while they’re still inside the shell and have unique calls to warn others of danger coming by land or air. They comprehend cause-and-effect relationships and understand that objects still exist even after they’ve been hidden from view. Inquisitive and intelligent, they have complex social structures as well as adept communication skills and can recall the faces and “pecking order” of over 100 other birds.

    mother chicken with baby chicks, to show the birds in a more natural state and encourage researchers not to meddle with chicken geneticsSuemack

    Focusing on how chickens could be changed to serve speciesism overrides compassion for and curiosity about them as individuals. Choosing kindness instead of using them for food would be better for everyone. Every animal—including every chicken—is someone.

    Mother and baby chicken with straw background next to text that says "Every animal is someone" and in a box "who will you be?"

    Help Stop the Spread of Bird Flu

    Crowded farms and filthy slaughterhouses are instrumental to the transmission and mutation of the bird flu virus, so our best bet at curbing its spread is to stop eating chickens and their eggs. Replacing them with animal-free options is the only way to be safe. And it’s easy to choose vegan chicken products. Have compassion for birds by ordering PETA’s free vegan starter kit:

    Order a Free Vegan Starter Kit

    The post Why Editing Chickens’ Genes Is a Cockamamie Idea appeared first on PETA.

    This post was originally published on Animal Rights and Campaign News | PETA.

  • Thai judge accepts Uyghur bomb suspects request for Halal food

    A judge on Wednesday ordered Thailand’s corrections system to provide two Uyghur terrorism suspects with the Halal food they have been requesting for years, as the pair appeared in court visibly emaciated and in wheelchairs.

    Defendants Adem Karadag and Yusufu Mieraili are accused of carrying out the Aug. 17, 2015, bombing at the Erawan Shrine in central Bangkok that killed 20 people and injured scores more, just weeks after Thai authorities forcibly sent almost 100 Uyghur Muslims to China. They have been in custody since their arrests within two weeks of the attack.

    Mieraili shared that “he, at 35, and Karadag, at 39, have significantly deteriorated in health, losing over 10 kg [22 pounds] due to stomach pains and chronic bloating caused by poor living conditions and inconvenient meal arrangements.”

    The pair – the only two inmates housed at a temporary detention center within a military zone – would skip some meals because they were not provided Halal food as per Islamic principles.

    “For three years, they didn’t provide us Halal food,” Mieraili told the judge. “We told them we don’t eat pork, yet they still served it to us, claiming there was no pork. When we ate, we found minced pork and chicken blood. We can’t eat that. We wanted them to arrange proper meals for us.”

    His statement proved effective.

    “The court will instruct the Department of Corrections to ensure that prisoners are provided food according to their religious rights,” the judge ruled. “Religion is a delicate matter, and a letter will be sent to the prison to arrange Halal food for the defendants as they are entitled.”

    Similar requests

    Karadag and Mieraili made similar requests for Halal food during court appearances in January 2022 and again in August 2023 – the last time they appeared in court. They returned to the Bangkok court on Tuesday and are expected to attend hearings through Friday.

    Since being taken into custody, Mieraili has become fluent in Thai and is able to communicate with his lawyer and interact with prison officials. In court, he served as an interpreter for Karadag who is less proficient in Thai. 

    “Karadag had to have seven teeth extracted recently and now wears dentures,” Mieraili told BenarNews before the court session began. “He has been unable to walk for over six months due to lack of strength, experiencing dizziness upon standing. I had to undergo hernia surgery last week and have been advised by the hospital to remain for another two weeks. Currently, Adem is the only one in the temporary military prison.”

    A man prays at the Erawan Shrine at the Rajprasong intersection, the scene of a deadly bombing a week earlier in Bangkok, Aug. 24, 2015. (Sakchai Lalit/AP)
    A man prays at the Erawan Shrine at the Rajprasong intersection, the scene of a deadly bombing a week earlier in Bangkok, Aug. 24, 2015. (Sakchai Lalit/AP)

    On Wednesday, defense lawyer Choochat Kanphai said the pair wanted to be transferred from the temporary detention center to the Bangkok Special Prison because they thought living conditions and food would be better, but he was told that such requests were beyond the court’s jurisdiction.

    Before court, the attorney spoke to BenarNews about the slow pace of the trial.

    “With 50 witnesses already examined out of a list of approximately 100, we expect the verdict could be read next year,” Choochat said.

    Trial History

    Following their arrests, Karadag and Mieraili saw their trial begin in a military court only to have the case transferred to the Southern Bangkok Criminal Court. This shift occurred after Prayuth Chan-o-cha, the army general who became prime minister after leading a military coup in 2014, was formally elected into office in 2019. 

    The defendants, who identified themselves as Uyghurs from Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, pleaded not guilty in both the military and civilian courts. They could face execution if convicted of charges, which include premeditated killing and possession of explosives.

    Chalida Tajaroensuk, director of the People’s Empowerment Foundation, has been monitoring the case over the years and said the likelihood of reaching a verdict in the near future had improved.

    “The case has made progress, and it seems that the court is genuinely intent on concluding the case promptly,” she said. “Orders were given for the prosecution and defense to eliminate unnecessary witnesses.”

    “The defense’s rigorous questioning aimed at proving discrepancies between actual physical evidence and passport information has raised hopes that both defendants could be acquitted,” she said. “However, everything ultimately depends on the court’s judgment.”

    Chalida expressed her hope for increased attention from civil society and the international community regarding the future of the two if they are acquitted. 

    “The concern is what happens next for them if they are released,” she said. “If China seeks their repatriation, it becomes problematic given their decade-long struggle. We need to collectively consider how to handle this situation, including the possibility of another country offering them asylum, which could ensure their safety.”

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Nontarat Phaicharoen for BenarNews.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Philippines launches patrols around disputed shoal to protect fishing grounds, food security

    The Philippines this month launched coast guard patrols around Scarborough Shoal to safeguard its exclusive economic zone and challenge China, which for 12 years has dominated those waters vital to the Filipino fishing industry, the national security adviser said Friday.

    Eduardo Año said the regular patrols, which began in early February, were in line with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s goal of achieving food security and making it safe for local fishermen to access prime fishing grounds. 

    The triangle-shaped shoal became the focus of a landmark international court case over disputed waters in the South China Sea after Beijing took control of Scarborough Shoal in 2012. 

    “The Philippine government has taken decisive action to protect the rights and safety of Filipino fishermen in the waters of Bajo De Masinloc,” Año said in a statement, using the local name for the shoal.

    “The national government has directed the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) to deploy their vessels for rotational deployment in BDM starting this month,” the security adviser said.

    Scarborough Shoal, a resource-rich rock claimed by the Philippines, China and Taiwan, lies about 120 nautical miles west of Zambales, a coastal province in the main Philippine island of Luzon.

    It has served as a traditional fishing ground and a natural shelter for Filipino fishermen against harsh weather at sea, and is considered a vital link to food security for many coastal communities in the Philippines.

    “These efforts aim to ensure the safety and security of our Filipino fishermen in their traditional fishing grounds. Further, both PCG and BFAR were directed to distribute food packs, groceries and even fuel to support the fishermen in sustaining their activities,” Año said.

    Scarborough Shoal (also known as Bajo de Masinloc, Panatag Shoal and Huangyan Dao) is seen in a satellite photo, Nov. 18, 2015. (CSIS/AMTI – Digital Globe)

    The announcement came amid China’s intensified aggressiveness in the waters in and around the shoal, which has effectively remained under Beijing’s control since a tense standoff with Manila in 2012. China has kept a permanent presence there with two coast guard ships guarding the mouth of the shoal.

    Patrols launched

    From Feb. 1 to 9, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, a Philippine Coast Guard ship, patrolled around the shoal but was harassed and blocked by China Coast Guard and maritime militia ships, according to PCG spokesman Jay Tarriela.

    On Feb. 11, Tarriela said four Chinese ships shadowed the Philippine ship on more than 40 occasions. The official added that the Chinese ships performed dangerous maneuvers, even crossing the bow of the Philippine ship twice.

    Gan Yu, a China Coast Guard spokesman, responded by accusing the Philippine ship of “intruding” into Chinese waters.

    “When the warnings issued by the Chinese Coast Guard were ineffective, the Chinese Coast Guard adopted route control and forced evacuation measures against the Philippine ship in accordance with the law and the on-site handling was professional and standardized,” Gan said.

    Año responded, saying “there is no truth” to the Chinese claim.

    Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Año (center) answers questions from reporters on Thitu Island in the disputed South China Sea during the unveiling of a Philippine Coast Guard monitoring station, Dec. 1, 2023. (Jam Sta Rosa/AFP)

    In December 2023, Chinese ships fired water cannon against three BFAR ships, damaging equipment on the Philippine ships.

    Prior to that, China installed a 300-meter floating barrier at the southeast part of the shoal to block Philippine ships.

    The National Security Council, Año said, “reaffirms the Philippines’ sovereign rights and jurisdiction over Bajo de Masinloc and its surrounding waters,” saying these are recognized under international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

    In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of Manila, which had filed an arbitration case, and against Beijing’s sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea.

    In the landmark ruling, the Permanent Court of Arbitration said the shoal was a traditional fishing ground for many fishermen of different nationalities, including Filipino and Chinese, and that Chinese actions there were illegal.

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Camille Elemia for BenarNews.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘It’s Important to Focus on Big Companies Using the Cover of Inflation to Jack Up Prices’ – CounterSpin interview with Rakeen Mabud on greedflation

     

     

    Janine Jackson interviewed Groundwork Collaborative’s Rakeen Mabud about greedflation for the February 9, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

          CounterSpin240209Mabud.mp3

     

    Janine Jackson: If you buy groceries, you know that prices are high. And if you read the paper, you’ve probably heard that prices are high because of, well, “inflation,” and “shocks to the supply chain,” and other language you understand, but don’t quite understand.

    One article told me that

    economists see pandemic-related spending meant to stabilize the economy as a factor, along with war-impacted supply chains and steps taken by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates

    —all of which may be true, but still doesn’t really help me see why four sticks of butter now cost $8.

    Not to mention that the same piece talks matter of factly about “upward pressure on wages,” which sounds like people who need to buy butter are getting paid more, but I’m pretty sure the language is telling me I’m supposed to be against it.

    How do we interpret corporate news media’s coverage of prices? What aren’t they talking about?

    Rakeen Mabud is chief economist and managing director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative. She joins us now by phone. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Rakeen Mabud.

    Rakeen Mabud: Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be back.

    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Sen. Bob Casey asks congressional investigators to look at 'greedflation'

    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (1/19/24)

    JJ: I want to say, the piece that I’m citing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette isn’t a bad piece. It’s just what passes for media explanation of what is a truly meaningful reality. People are really having trouble buying diapers, and buying food. And so to have journalists saying, “Well, it’s because of the blahdy blahdy blahdy blah that you couldn’t possibly understand”—the unclarity of it is galling to me, and it’s politically stultifying. I’m supposed to get mad at inflation, per se?

    That’s the kind of informational void that Groundwork Collaborative’s work is intervening in. So let me just ask you to talk about what you find when you look into, for example, high grocery store prices right now.

    RM: Yeah, this is a great question, and I love the fact that you’re focusing on the experiences of people, because that’s how we all experience the economy and, frankly, that’s how the economy is made, right, through our actions, through our demand, through our spending. And so it is really important to hone in on what’s going on to people on the ground, as we’re thinking about these big, amorphous concepts like inflation.

    And the reality is, as you point out, prices are sky high for people around the country, and folks are really struggling. Grocery prices, obviously, are particularly worth digging into, because there’s a real salience of food prices in everybody’s lives. We all go to the grocery store on a weekly or maybe biweekly basis, and buy groceries to feed ourselves, and feed our families.

    And my colleagues at the Groundwork Collaborative, Liz Pancotti, Bharat Ramamurti and Clara Wilson, recently authored a report that really digs into what’s going on with grocery prices. And what they find is that grocery price increases have outpaced overall inflation, and families are now paying 25% more for groceries than they were prior to this pandemic, compared to 19% of overall inflation. So there’s this gap between what folks are paying at the till, and what inflation would suggest.

    And this is particularly hitting folks who are on the lower income end of the income distribution harder. In 2022, people in the bottom quintile of the income spectrum spent 25% of their income on groceries, while those in the highest quintile spent just under 3.5%.

    And this is a trend that we see across the board with essentials. Because if something is essential, you have to buy it. If you earn less money, a bigger proportion of your income is going to go towards those essentials. And so that means that when you see inflation and, frankly, corporate profiteering, which I’ll get into in a second, showing up in spaces for essential goods, it’s always the people who are most vulnerable who are hit the hardest.

    It’s wonderful that you’re really focusing in on groceries. And I think one thing to note, just to zoom out a little bit from grocery prices in particular, is that an underexplored topic still, I think, in the discussions around inflation is the role of corporate profit margins. Because the fact remains that corporate profit margins have remained high and even grown, even as labor costs have stabilized, input costs—the costs of things that are used to produce goods—have come down, and supply chain snarls have started to ease.

    And in a different paper by two other of my colleagues, Lindsay Owens and Liz Pancotti, they find that from April to September of 2023, so that’s very recently, corporate profits drove 53% of inflation. When you compare that to the 40 years prior to the pandemic, profits drove just 11% of price growth.

    There are a lot of explanations out there of what’s causing inflation, but it’s very important to focus on the role of big companies using the cover of inflation to jack up prices. And they continue to do that, even as their own costs are coming down.

    JJ: And I want to say, you can illustrate that point with just data, as these works from Groundwork Collaborative do, but at the same time, you also have, as the kids say, receipts—in other words, earnings calls where CEOs are saying it out loud: Their situation in terms of supply chain, in terms of Covid and whatever, they’re using that as an opportunity to keep prices high.

    Other Words: It’s Not ‘Inflation’ — We’re Just Getting Ripped Off. Here’s Proof.

    Other Words (1/31/24)

    RM: Yes, absolutely. So let’s talk about another essential good, which is diapers. And I think diapers are really a good example, because it illustrates what’s going on right now, and ties together the idea of corporate profiteering, but also this idea that, as scholars Isabella Weber and Evan Wasner put out there, about tacit collusion and implicit collusion. So let’s unpack that. What does that all mean?

    So what they write about is that inflationary environments, when prices are rising across the board, it means that companies, especially those that are in a really concentrated market, can raise their prices, precisely because they know that their competitor is going to do the exact same thing. So if you are one of three big companies, and you know that your competitors are also going to raise prices, there’s no reason for you not to raise prices.

    And that logic also applies in the reverse. So when costs are coming down, if you know that your competitors are going to keep their prices high, you’re also going to keep your prices high, which is I think why we’re seeing, even as input costs come down, prices are staying high, and people are still paying more than they should be, given the cost of input.

    So diapers, right? Diapers, I think, is the perfect example for this. It’s a super, super concentrated market. Proctor & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark control about 70% of the domestic market, and diaper prices have increased by more than 30% since 2019, from about $16–$17 to nearly $22.

    The main thing that goes into producing diapers is wood pulp. It’s also the main input into toilet paper, paper towels, basically paper products that we use around the house. The wholesale wood pulp prices really skyrocketed, by 87% between January 2021 and January 2023.

    But in 2023, between January and December of 2023, [wood pulp] prices declined by 25%, but diaper prices have remained high. So what’s going on here?

    And to your point, the executives at Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble are not hiding the ball. P&G CFO said on their October 2023 earnings call that high prices were a big driver of the reason that they could expand their profit margins, and that 33% of their profits in the previous quarter were driven by lower input costs. And during their July 2023 earnings call, the company predicted $800 million in windfall profits because of declining input costs.

    Same thing on the other side, on Kimberly-Clark’s side; their CEO said in October that the company “finally saw inflection in the cost environment.” And he admitted that he believes the company has a lot of opportunity to “expand margins over time,” despite what they’re “doing on the revenue side and also on the cost side.” So despite large input cost decline, the CEO thinks that the company has priced appropriately, and didn’t anticipate a new price deflation.

    So diapers, I think, is a really clear example of how these big corporations are exercising their corporate power in a moment where things are a little murky for consumers. We don’t know, necessarily; we don’t have all the data at our fingertips, or the time, frankly, to figure out: Is the box of diapers more expensive for sensible reasons or not? And these big companies are taking advantage of both the information asymmetry, and the particular inflationary environment we’re living in.

    JJ: And you don’t have a choice. You’ve got to buy the diapers. You can try to puzzle out why it costs more than it cost a year ago, or six months ago, but you still have to buy them. And that’s the thing.

    I want to draw you out on something, because I see articles—it’s not that media are not ever saying “greedflation,” or that they’re completely ignoring the idea that corporations might be keeping prices high to profit, although it’s still not shaping the dialogue in the way that you would hope. But I do see articles that put “corporate profiteering” in scare quotes, as if it’s not a real thing; it’s just an accusation. And I wonder, what do we call “profiteering,” and how does it differ from capitalism doing its capitalism thing?

    Rakeen Mabud

    Rakeen Mabud: “The truth of the matter is there are vested interests for folks to want to vilify workers, to want to vilify big public investments.”

    RM: This is a question that I’ve gotten over the years, as we’ve done this work. It is not necessarily a bad thing for companies to be making a profit. That’s OK. Companies exist to make a profit. What we’re talking about here is really profits above and beyond what they should be making: excess profits, windfall profits, and companies making these profits on the backs of consumers.

    The example that I always go back to is just the classic price-gouging example. If you are in the middle of a hurricane or a disaster relief situation, and you are a person who sells bottles of water, or gallon jugs of water—if you jack the prices up because you know that people are going to need that water, because there’s no safe tap water to drink, that’s price-gouging, and that is illegal.

    And yet that happens across our economy all the time. And we’ve seen that in particular over the last couple of years, as we’ve experienced the pandemic and have gone through these series of crises. And yet we don’t point it out.

    And I think part of the reason this idea is not taken seriously, again, there’s a couple of reasons. The first is that it doesn’t accord with the traditional story of where inflation comes from. The traditional story of where inflation comes from is, workers are super greedy, they’re asking for higher wages. And so we end up with higher wages, which push up prices, which force people to ask for higher wages. And you end up with what economists call a wage-price spiral.

    The other factor in the traditional story about where inflation comes from is, too much public investment flooding the economy is just going to jack up prices.

    And the reality of the situation is that wasn’t the case here. We have seen historic public investment, and inflation’s come down. We have seen a strong labor market. We haven’t had to put millions of people out of work in order to bring prices down.

    And so the textbook story of how inflation works is not really holding water in the moment. It’s not according with literally the reality that we’re seeing in the data.

    And the truth of the matter is there are vested interests for folks to want to vilify workers, to want to vilify big public investments, and to continue to perpetuate an environment where big corporations can hold power and hold money and earn windfall profits on the backs of consumers. So I think it’s really important to know that this is a narrative that’s new, and it’s a narrative that is challenging for the dominant stories about how inflation works.

    WSJ: Outsize Profits Helped Drive Inflation. Now Consumers Are Pushing Back.

    Wall Street Journal (12/2/23)

    But the reason it has made a toehold, and I think more than a toehold at this point—I mean, even the Wall Street Journal in December had a headline that said, “Outsize Profits Help Drive Inflation. Now Consumers Are Pushing Back.” The reason it’s gotten its feet on the ground is because of the experience of people across the economy, this is exactly how people are experiencing the economy, and it’s the truth of the matter.

    And I think that is really what certainly my work is always trying to do, is let’s get to how people are experiencing the economy and speak to their concerns, because people know what’s up. You don’t need to tell them that big companies are exploiting them. They are very willing to believe it, because it’s how they’ve interacted with the economy for years.

    JJ: I have to say, the idea that there’s an abstraction that I’m supposed to pay obeisance to, and it’s going to keep wages down and public investment down, but somehow I’m still supposed to be for it, is kind of strange to me, the idea that I’m supposed to be so opposed to inflation that I’m supposed to be against higher wages for workers, and I’m supposed to be against more public investment. It just shows how far we’ve gone in fealty to an abstraction, essentially, in terms of economic understanding. I find it very odd to have folks saying, “Oh, I don’t want upward pressure on wages, because somehow that’s going to be bad for me ultimately down the road.” It seems to me a kind of distortion of our understanding of the way an economy should work, and who it should serve.

    RM: Right, I mean, we are the economy. That’s what we’re always saying at Groundwork, that we are the people, the regular people are the people who are the economy, and it’s our wellbeing that reflects whether the economy is doing well.

    And I also think it’s important in conversations about inflation, I think; we pay attention to prices and cost of living and affordability in a moment of crisis. But the truth of the matter is that the high prices that people have been feeling in their household budget long predate this particular inflationary moment: the cost of childcare, the cost of healthcare, the cost of housing, the cost of education. All of these things go beyond what we’re experiencing in this particular moment. They have been burdens on people for decades.

    And there are also structural factors that are perpetuating these burdens. So I think housing costs are a really good example. Housing costs are up about 21%, and we have this longstanding shortage of affordable and high-quality housing in this country. There have been instances, over the course of the last couple of years, where we’ve seen big home builders and landlords celebrating inflation as a way to restrict housing supply. Literally had a home builder say, “We could build a thousand more houses, but we’re not going to, because it’s going to help us restrict supply, and therefore jack up the prices of the homes we can build.” We’ve also seen landlords really celebrating inflation as a way to skim a little bit more off the top by raising rent a little bit higher.

    So all of that is certainly happening, but we also need to pay attention to broader macroeconomic forces in perpetuating this housing crisis. So one of the best ways, kind of a no-brainer, of addressing a housing supply shortage is to build more houses. But the Federal Reserve, since we last spoke, has embarked on an interest rate–hiking rampage. What does that do? Sky-high interest rates crush new housing construction, because it stymies private investment, and it pushes potential buyers, because of high mortgage rates, back into the rental market, which pushes rents up.

    So the Federal Reserve says, “We’re raising interest rates through this theory and this channel that we think works,” which, by the way doesn’t, because again, as I mentioned, we haven’t necessarily seen mass unemployment in order to bring down prices. But they’re saying, we’re trying to bring down prices, guys; we’re trying to bring down prices by raising interest rates. But really what they’re doing is making the problem worse, and they’re perpetuating this cost-of-living crisis that long predates the pandemic.

    And so it’s really important, I think, to also call out big institutional actors, like Chair Powell, to lower rates immediately, given that it’s clear from the data that his rate hikes hadn’t had the intended effect, and are actually making the problem worse.

    Groundwork Collaborative: What's Driving the Rise in Grocery Prices--and What the Government Can Do About It

    Groundwork Collaborative (2/24)

    JJ: One of the latest reports from Groundwork is called “What’s Driving the Rise in Grocery Prices–and What the Government Can Do About It.” So let me ask you, finally, and it’s a lot, but what can government do about the problems that we’re talking about?

    RM: I think, actually, we’re living in an exciting time when it comes to an expansiveness in the policy tools that folks are thinking about and using in order to bring down prices. We’re not in your 1970s inflationary world, where we’re just hoping that the Federal Reserve does its job and hoping for the best. They’ve sort of been discredited, and, again, time to bring down interest rates.

    But we’ve seen President Biden and his administration really taking the issue of profiteering seriously. I mean, just last month, he said to any corporation that has not brought their prices back down, even as inflation has come down, even as supply chains have been rebuilt, it’s time to stop the price-gouging. To have that come from the president, to call out the big corporate actors who are taking advantage of people and lining their coffers, is remarkable.

    And I think it’s not just words, right? The administration has taken some really early actions promoting competition in really concentrated markets—like meat packing, a sector that is really driving grocery-price inflation right now.

    Agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are going hard after junk fees. Those are the sort of, when you check into a hotel, it says resort fee, this fee, that fee, and you never really know what you’re paying for. And the truth is, you’re just paying for these companies to get richer, right? So that in banking, overdraft fees, the CFPB has been going hard after junk fees.

    The FTC and the DoJ are aggressively using their authority to crack down on the concentration that allows these companies to get away with jacking prices up on consumers.

    And so I think what we need to see is a continuation of that. Look at anti-competitive mergers, especially throughout the food industry, but other industries where they’re producing essentials, to make sure that these environments that facilitate and breed both profiteering and tacit collusion are not allowed to be created.  Finalize regulations that improve fairness, competition and resiliency in supply chains.

    And then the last policy idea here was—it feels a little bit unrelated, but it’s actually one and the same—we have a big opportunity to tackle the full problem of high prices coming up, because many of the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the 2017 Trump tax cuts, are expiring at the end of 2025. And one of the best ways to tax excess profits is simply to raise the corporate tax rate. That’s it. It’s a pretty easy policy, and one that people understand and can get behind.

    JJ: Thank you very much. We’ve been speaking with Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative, online at GroundworkCollaborative.org. Thank you so much, Rakeen Mabud, for speaking with us this week on CounterSpin.

    RM: Thank you so much for having me. It was such a pleasure.

     

    The post ‘It’s Important to Focus on Big Companies Using the Cover of Inflation to Jack Up Prices’ appeared first on FAIR.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • How much carbon can farmers store in their soil? Nobody’s sure.

    Dirt, it turns out, isn’t just worm poop. It’s also a humongous receptacle of carbon, some 2.5 trillion tons of it — three times more than all the carbon in the atmosphere.

    That’s why if you ask a climate wonk about the U.S. farm bill — the broad, trillion-dollar spending package Congress is supposed to pass this year (after failing to do so last year) — they’ll probably tell you something about the stuff beneath your feet. The bill to fund agricultural and food programs could put a dent in the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, some environmental advocates say, if it does one thing in particular: Help farmers store carbon in their soil. 

    The problem is, no one really knows how much carbon farmers can store in their soil. 

    “There’s still a ton of research that’s needed,” said Cristel Zoebisch, who analyzes federal agriculture policy at Carbon180, a nonprofit that promotes carbon removal.

    Farmers and ranchers interact with carbon more than you might think. Draining a bog to plant rows of soybeans, for example, unleashes a lot of carbon into the air, while planting rows of shrubs and trees on a farm — a practice called alley cropping — does just the opposite, pulling the element out of the air and putting it into the earth. If America’s growers and herders made sure the carbon on their land stayed underneath their crops and their cows’ hooves, then some scientists say the planet would warm quite a bit less. After all, agriculture accounts for some 10 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions. 

    “We’re really good at producing a lot of corn, a lot of soybeans, a lot of agricultural commodities,” Zoebisch said, but farmers’ gains in productivity have come at the expense of soil carbon.  “That’s something we can start to fix in the farm bill.”

    For more than a year, climate advocates have been eyeing the bill as an opportunity to increase funding and training for farmers who want to adopt “climate-smart” practices. According to the Department of Agriculture, that label can apply to a range of methods, such as planting cover crops like rye or clover after a harvest or limiting how much a field gets tilled. Corn farmers can be carbon farmers, too. 

    But experts say the reality is a bit more opaque. There’s still a lot that scientists don’t know about how dirt works, and they disagree about the amount of carbon that farmers can realistically remove from the air and lock up in their fields. 

    Zoebisch and other advocates say that for the farm bill to be a true success, it’ll have to go even further than incentivizing carbon farming. Congress also, they say, should fund researchers to verify that those practices are, in fact, removing carbon from the atmosphere.  

    Ranchers gather on a wide pasture to learn about regenerative agriculture
    Ranchers in New Mexico learn about soil health and “regenerative” grazing, which has been touted as a way to store carbon in the ground. Mario Tama/ Mario Tama / Getty Images

    Right now, there’s pretty much no good way for a farmer to know how much carbon they’re storing on their land. Current techniques for sampling soil and measuring carbon levels are really expensive and require equipment that’s hard to use, Zoebisch said. It’s a lot more complicated than sending buckets of dirt to a room full of scientists. Researchers need to drill more than a foot deep into the ground and exhume a ‘core’ that has to be handled with care to avoid compacting or disturbing the soil on its way to a lab. 

    “There are so many points where errors could be introduced,” Zoebisch said.  

    Several companies are trying to make the process easier and cheaper, but new technologies haven’t scaled up yet. Beyond taking physical measurements, the USDA uses a model to estimate levels of soil carbon that’s based on severely limited data, and its projections are highly uncertain, so that it’s pretty much useless at the local level, said Jonathan Sanderman, a soil scientist and carbon program director at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts. “You can’t really tell a farmer, ‘This is the exact benefit.’”

    Scientists largely agree that cover crops help sequester some amount of carbon, but just how much is up for debate, and it varies by geography, soil type, and numerous other factors. Planting cover crops in fertile Iowa might not have the same effect as planting them in the sandy soils of southern California. 

    “There is uncertainty in the literature, but from a first principles standpoint it makes sense that cover crops should gain carbon because you’re capturing CO2 out of the atmosphere — a couple tons per hectare — that you wouldn’t have captured” otherwise, Sanderman said. “It’s the nuance we don’t understand.”

    Timothy Searchinger, an agriculture and forestry researcher at Princeton University and the World Resources Institute, said he’s a fan of cover crops because they prevent precious topsoil from getting washed or blown away and nitrogen from polluting rivers and streams, but he thinks their potential climate benefits — and those of other practices like reducing tillage — are often exaggerated. Rather than fixate on soil carbon, he said the farm bill should focus on making agriculture more efficient. Helping farmers produce more food on existing farmland could save carbon-rich forests and peatlands from being cleared to meet demand for crops and livestock. 

    Still, Searchinger acknowledged there might be at least a little potential to store carbon on agricultural lands and said he didn’t want the USDA to stop assisting farmers who want to plant cover crops or try out other “climate-smart” practices. 

    Congress allocated almost $20 billion through the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 to programs that do just that. Some $300 million of it is going to the USDA to ramp up efforts over the coming years to measure carbon in the soil. Currently, the agency draws on long-term data from only 50 sites across the country, Sanderman said. The Inflation Reduction Act funding could increase that number to several thousand.

    That money was “an incredible first investment,” Zoebisch said. “This is going to be great for the next four years of funding. But then what happens after that?” Zoebisch and others want to see funding for soil carbon research made permanent in the farm bill.

    Fulfilling that wish — and the many others held by climate advocates — hinges most of all on a divided Congress’ ability to reach an agreement. The farm bill expired at the end of September, when lawmakers were busy fighting over other things, like how to avoid a government shutdown and who should (or shouldn’t) be Speaker of the House. So instead of agreeing on a new bill, they extended the old one by a year. 

    The extension kept money temporarily flowing to programs that prop up farmers and assist families in need of food. It didn’t, however, do anything to tackle climate change or advance anyone’s understanding of how much carbon is in the mush of decaying plants, bacteria, fungi, and worm poop beneath your feet. 

    This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How much carbon can farmers store in their soil? Nobody’s sure. on Feb 12, 2024.

    This post was originally published on Grist.