Consolidated food production is more vulnerable to disruptions from diseases and plays a role in spreading them.
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The California Air Resources Board is weighing a change to its low carbon fuel standard, which critics say overvalues gas from livestock manure lagoons.
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The average dairy farmer managed to turn an annual profit just twice between 2000 and 2021 driving two-thirds of family-scale farms out of business, a new report finds. Export-oriented dairy policies have failed to secure fair prices for farmers.
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Shell buys biogas company that will turn cow manure into burnable gas. Opponents say these taxpayer supported projects expand dirty gas infrastructure and polluting industrial animal farms.
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Antitrust enforcers made merging milk monopolists divest plants to preserve regional competition. Now those plants are closing.
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Government subsidies to build methane biodigesters encourage a dirty industry to expand.
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Methane emissions from industrial hog and dairy operations are rising and contributing to climate change, yet the industry faces little regulation.
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A shrinking handful of corporations and cooperatives control a growing portion of global dairy production, to the detriment of rural communities and the environment, argues a new report by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).
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Last week, seven corporate agriculture interest groups sued the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) to halt the extension of a public comment period on a proposed mega-dairy expansion in Winona County, MN. The suit highlights broader efforts by agribusiness to silence opposition from rural residents who speak out against large concentrated animal feeding operations in their communities.
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On January 4, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Idaho’s “ag-gag” law, finding it an unconstitutional violation of free speech. The decision marks the first time a federal appeals court has ruled against an ag-gag law. Opponents of the law, which had been in effect since 2014, hope that the ruling will provide a precedent for overturning ag-gag laws in several other states.
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In Wisconsin, some of the state’s biggest agricultural cooperatives want to weaken farmers’ control over their own cooperatives. Farmers in the state argue that the changes–in the form of amendments to the state agricultural laws–are simply meant to enhance the power of larger-scale cooperatives, and stray from the true intent and purpose of a farmer cooperative.
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Residents of rural communities near large-scale farms may soon find it harder to protect their drinking water from pollution from agriculture, thanks to a bill introduced recently by Representative Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington’s 4th district.
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