Plant-based meat maker Upton’s Naturals and the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA) have fired the latest salvo in the battle over the labeling of plant-based products in a lawsuit* challenging Oklahoma’s new ‘Meat Consumer Protection Act.’
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From a viral pandemic to the movement for racial justice to the worsening climate crisis, Senator Cory Booker says the massive challenges facing the US right now are all tied to a “savagely broken food system”. And last week, his most recent challenge to that system gained new momentum, when a coalition of 300 farm, food, and environmental advocacy organizations sent a letter to Congress urging legislators to pass a bill that would eventually eliminate the country’s largest concentrated animal feeding operations (Cafos).
French President Emmanuel Macron has been hammering the idea of developing the country’s plant protein production for a long time. He did so at the G7 in Biarritz in August 2019, at the International Agricultural Show in Paris in January 2020 and during his televised speech on 12 March this year. A strategy to reduce French imports of vegetable proteins is finally on the table with €100 million of the country’s recovery plan being allocated to the production of plant-based proteins.
Even as thousands of their employees fell ill with COVID-19, meatpacking executives pressured federal regulators to help keep their plants open, according to a trove of emails obtained by USA TODAY. The emails show how a major meatpacking trade group, the North American Meat Institute, provided the U.S. Department of Agriculture with a draft version of an executive order that would allow plants to remain open. A week later, President Donald Trump signed an order with similar language, which caused confusion over whether local health authorities could close plants due to COVID-19 outbreaks.
An outbreak of African Swine Fever threatens to keep German pork locked in the European Union with China, South Korea and Japan all banning shipments, a major setback in an already challenging year for meat producers following COVID-19 outbreaks at plants.
In a time when we’ve experienced an actual pandemic-induced meat shortage along with an executive order aimed at keeping slaughtering plants open, the idea of meat availability playing a role in the election isn’t so far fetched. In fact, it’s happened before. With Mike Pence accusing Kamala Harris of trying to take meat away, Paul Shapiro examines the role of meat shortages in elections.
New Zealand suspended shipments of live cattle after a vessel carrying more than 5,800 cows sank during rough weather on the way to China, leaving dozens of sailors missing and dead animals floating in the sea. The large cargo ship called Gulf Livestock 1 was traveling from Napier, on the eastern coast of New Zealand’s North Island, to an international seaport about 170 miles from Beijing.
A legal battle over a large hog farm in rural Hendricks County has been progressing like other previous lawsuits against concentrated animal feeding operations in Indiana: the neighbors who brought the complaint have been losing.
President Donald Trump wants to dramatically expand aquaculture production in the United States, but a coalition of environmentalists believes his plan would be bad for the oceans, unnecessary for food security and difficult to implement.
Spraying chicken with chlorine is a quick fix for poor hygiene standards in U.S. agriculture. But as Britain looks to a trade deal with the U.S. to replace the EU, its consumers are wary of lax standards. Will Brits be forced to eat chlorinated U.S. chicken? It’s a question that’s dividing the nation.
A judge handling a high-profile lawsuit over the use of dairy terminology on plant-based products has blocked attempts by the State of California to prevent Miyoko’s from using the terms ‘butter,’ ‘lactose-free’ and ‘cruelty-free’ on its products.
