Eggs

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has surged to its highest level since 2008, the country’s space agency (Inpe) reports. A total of 11,088 sq km (4,281 sq miles) of rainforest were destroyed from August 2019 to July 2020. This is a 9.5% increase from the previous year. The Amazon is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming. Scientists say it has suffered losses at an accelerated rate since Jair Bolsonaro took office in January 2019. The Brazilian president has encouraged agriculture and mining activities in the world’s largest rainforest.

In Denmark, all the farmed minks in the country — some 17 million of them — have been destroyed after mutant coronavirus strains were detected in animals on many farms. Spillover — the transmission of animal disease to people — happens all the time. But the far greater threat to human health doesn’t come from spillovers in the wild. It comes from the way we farm and market animals. You have to ask yourself, when will we learn?

Nearly all soya is used by the farming sector as a livestock feed for chickens, pigs and other animals. The biggest users are chicken producers; soya makes up around a quarter of the diet of birds. It has been the cheapest source of protein poultry available to farmers since the ban on meat and bonemeal after BSE. Soya remains key to producing fast-growing, low-priced chickens.

A dozen institutional investors with $7tn under management are joining forces to pressure food producers, restaurants, retailers and pharmaceutical companies to cut antibiotic usage and tackle the growing dangers of drug resistance to hundreds of thousands of patients.

The policy debate over algae-forming farm nutrients in the western Lake Erie region drew a familiar face from the national political scene on Monday when U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) appeared as a featured speaker on a virtual seminar sponsored by the Environmental Law & Policy Center.