Labels sometimes mislead pork shoppers

 

 

Labels sometimes mislead pork shoppers, such as a wrong assumption that organic means lower greenhouse gas emissions. They are actually higher, said a report published in Nature Food scientific journal.

The study evaluated different types of pig farming in the United Kingdom and Brazil including woodland, organic, free range, RSPCA (The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) assured, and Red Tractor (Assured Food Standards)  certified.

It assessed each system’s’ impact across four areas: land use (representing biodiversity loss), greenhouse gas emissions, antibiotics use and animal welfare. The study concludes that none of the farm types performed consistently well across all four areas.

However, there were individual farms that did perform well in all of them, including an indoor Red Tractor farm, an outdoor-bred and indoor-finished RSPCA assured farm and fully outdoor woodland farm. 

“Outliers like these show that trade-offs are not inevitable,” said lead author Dr Harriet Bartlett, Research Associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. 

“Somewhat unexpectedly we found that a handful of farms perform far better than average across all four of our environmental and welfare measures,” said senior author Andrew Balmford, professor of Conservation Science at the University of Cambridge. However, none of the current label or assurance schemes predicted which farms these would be.

“The way we classify farm types and label pork isn’t helpful for making informed decisions when it comes to buying more sustainable meat. 

“Even more importantly, we aren’t rewarding and incentivising the best-performing farmers. Instead of focusing on farm types or practices, we need to focus on meaningful outcomes for people, the planet and the pigs – and assess, and reward farms based on these,” said Dr Bartlett.

The findings also show that common assumptions around food labelling can be misplaced. For instance, organic farming systems, which consumers might see as climate and environmentally friendly, have on average three times the CO2 output per kilogram of meat of more intensive Red Tractor or RSPCA assured systems and four times the land use. 

However, these same system on average use almost 90 fewer antibiotic medicines, and result in improved animal welfare compared with production from Red tractor or RSPCA assured systems.

The way we classify livestock farms must be improved, Dr Bartlett said, because livestock production is growing rapidly, especially pork production, which has quadrupled in the past 50 years and already accounts for nine per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock.

The study reached its conclusions using data from 74 businesses in the United Kingdom and 17 Brazilian breed-to-finish systems. Each made up of one to three farms and representing the annual production of more than 1.2 million pigs.

“To the best of our knowledge, our dataset covers by far the largest and most diverse sample of pig production systems examined in any single study” said Dr Bartlett.

James Wood, professor of Equine and Farm Animal Science at the University of Cambridge, said “this important study identifies a key need to clarify what different farm labels should indicate to consumers; there is a pressing need to extend this work into other farming sectors. 

He said “it also clearly demonstrates the critical importance that individual farmers play in promoting best practice across all farming systems.”

                           

 

U.S. orders cows be tested for avian flu

 

The United States has answered the Canadian Food Inspection Agency by requiring a test for avian influenza on all cows destined for Canada.

The testing becomes mandatory today.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier announced testing would be required for all cattle crossing state borders.

Thirty-four herds in nine states have tested positive for the virus which has been responsible for the death of millions of chickens and turkeys in the United States and Canada. Infected poultry flocks are killed and quarantine zones restrict traffic around those farms.

There are no similar slaughter and quarantine-zone orders for cattle.

The U.S. has now begun to test ground beef from retail stores. Milk testing has turned up the virus in 20 per cent of samples.

Loblaws defies critics, boosts profit

 

Loblaws is defying critics, posting a 9.8 per cent increase in profits for the first quarter while shoppers in the Ottawa area are calling for a boycott of Loblaws-owned stores, including Zehrs Markets, Superstores and Shopper’s Drug Marts.

The company also increased quarterly dividends by 15 per cent.

It’s net earnings amounted to $459 million on revenues of $13.6 per cent, which was a 4.5 per cent increase.

The company said more people are coming into its stores, that It is gaining on competitors, that it has experienced less “shrink which includes shop-lifting and that its prices remain below Statistics Canada’s measures for calculating inflation.

The call for a boycott includes all things Loblaws owns, including President's Choice (PC) financials.

“I’m going to be closing my PC bank account,” said Emily Johnson, who created the Reddit group r/loblawsisoutofcontrol where the boycott began. “I’ve already moved all of my prescriptions to my local pharmacist as well.”

Johnson said people can also donate food or money to their local food bank, and to share news and information about the boycott on social media to ensure the movement continues to grow.

“You might not be able to to boycott, but other folks in your circle may be able to, and that’s a big way of encouraging solidarity among Canadians,” she said.

She is also critical of Loblaws' refusal to sign on to a code of practice that has support from all other major grocery retailers except WalMart.

NFU says workers need better health protections

The National Farmers union is using May 1, International Workers Day, to call for better protection for workers’ health and safety and especially for temporary foreign workers.

“Across the provinces, existing OHS (occupational health and safety) legislation is inadequate to properly protect workers from the mounting health impacts of climate change,” the NFU said in a news release,

“Additionally, farm workers continue to be excluded from many of the provinces’ Employment Standards protections. 

“Without labour and OHS standards enabling workers to take breaks, limit hours worked on the farm, or access life saving measures such as shade, potable water, and appropriate PPE (personal protection equipment), farm workers are vulnerable to the negative health impacts of severe weather and extreme heat.

“This vulnerability is particularly acute for the tens of thousands of migrant workers employed in agriculture, whose closed work permits tie them to a single employer. “Risking deportation if they advocate for their health and safety, migrant workers face increasingly dangerous living and working conditions due to expanded pesticide use, intolerably hot employer-provided housing, wildfire smoke, and extreme weather.,” the NFU said,

It repeated its appeal to “government leaders to advance the rights of migrant workers, including the need to overhaul the agricultural streams of Canada’s temporary foreign worker programs to ensure safe working and living conditions, end closed permits, and offer real pathways to citizenship.”

AAFC lagging on climate-change action

Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has issued a report that includes bad news for the civil servants and politicians who run Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada because they have “yet to develop a strategy for how it would contribute to Canada’s 2030 and 2050 greenhouse gas mitigation and sequestration goals.” 

“Without a strategy to provide the sector with a long-term vision and direction, the department’s path to help achieve Canada’s 2030 and 2050 goals remains unclear.”

AAFC has the On-Farm Climate Action Fund, but the commissioner’s report said“the department’s delays in funding approvals resulted in recipients missing a growing season, which limited the greenhouse gas reduction results achieved by January 2024. In addition, two of the three programs had not yet set or finalized all of their performance targets for climate change mitigation. ... Setting targets and tracking results [is] important.”

Greenhouse gas emissions from farming increased by 39 per cent between 1990 and 2021, the report said.

Darrin Qualman, director of climate crisis policy for the National Farmers Union, defended farmers, noting that subsidy programs are over-subscribed and commodity groups are developing their own ambitious emission-reduction programs.

“Farmers want to do more,” said Qualman, “but they need more support and direction from government.”

He also came to the defence of civil servants at AAFC, saying they are consulting farmers and are working on a sustainable agriculture strategy announcement and have convened the Sustainable Agriculture Strategy Committee where “we consistently see AAFC representatives eager to find ways to increase sustainability and decrease emissions,” Qualman said.

But emissions continue to increase.

            

Tail biting increases with low-protein hog diets

Tail biting increases if hogs are on a low-protein ration, reports veterinarian Hannah Jansen of Southwest Ontario Veterinary Services.

She outlines her work and Netherlands research on a posting on the Swineweb internet site.

Pigs that are fed low protein diets may spend increased amounts of time investigating their environment and foraging for food in an effort to find what they are lacking, she said. 

On the other hand, lowering protein is associated with reduced rates of diarrhea among newly-weaned hogs.

When environmental enrichment is very poor the pigs may increasingly redirect their behaviours towards pen mates. If the act of “nibbling” on a penmate should happen to produce some blood the pigs will become very interested in the blood since it can be an easy source of amino acids and other nutrients that are missing from the diet, Jansen wrote.

They found that:

Hogs on a low-protein diet had a lower feed intake, growth, and gain-to-feed ratio, and were more active than hogs on a normal ration or those on a low-protein diet supplemented with amino acids.

Those on the low-protein diet interacted most often with enrichment materials, such as hanging ropes.

Low-protein pigs showed more tail biting.

 Adding amino acids and extra toys reduced tail biting in the starter phase. but did not help in grower or finisher phases.

Dr, Jansen said this study done in the Netherlands confirms previous findings that pigs that are fed low crude protein rations can be at greater risk of tail biting behaviour.

                           

 

 

 

Starbucks, Lactanet, FCC, DFC join on sustainability

 Starbucks coffee chain, Lactanet dairy services company, Farm Credit Canada and Dairy Farmers of Canada have joined forces on dairy-industry sustainability projects. 

Starbucks has committed $500,000 to support dairy sustainability-focused projects over the course of this year, rewarding the continued efforts of Canadian dairy farmers on their path to net zero.

The partnership includes three projects.

 

The first is already underway for 2024 in collaboration with Farm Credit Canada and Lactanet for FCC’s Dairy Sustainability Incentive Program. 

This program rewards farmers who are successfully adopting environmental best management practices and encourages continued sustainable farming by granting annual incentives of up to $2,000 to FCC customers who meet select criteria. 

As part of its partnership with DFC and overall investment for the year, Starbucks will provide additional funding to the FCC program in two new categories, Top Achieving and Most Improved, further recognizing the sustainability successes of Canadian dairy farmers.