Category: Farm Animals

Farm Animals, General News, Vegan Recipes

UK: We Welcome Welfare labels on meat to say how animal was killed: New law is in pipeline after campaign on halal and kosher livestock that isn’t stunned before slaughter. Link to take part in Government Consultation which closes 6/12/21.

MPs have also been calling for the change.

Sir Roger Gale said: ‘Brexit has presented us with the opportunity to reform our farming systems.

WAV Comment – For a very long time, welfare campaigners in the UK have been calling for this. ALL food should be clearly labelled to show production methods, nation of origin, and how the animal was slaughtered is clearly identified on the packaging. We very much welcome this decades (far too late) late legislation, but are hugely supported by the fact that so many Brits are demanding to see how their food is produced – and that animal welfare is a ‘high up the chain’ concern.

If you personally wish to get involved with, and submit to the consultation, then please go to;

https://consult.defra.gov.uk/animal-welfare-market-interventions-and-labelling/labelling-for-animal-welfare/

The consultation closes on 6/12/21.

Regards Mark

At the moment, it is not compulsory to label meat as halal, so campaigners have argued that those who eat the products and care about animal welfare should be able to make the choice to buy meat killed in a more humane way [Stock image]
At the moment, it is not compulsory to label meat as halal, so campaigners have argued that those who eat the products and care about animal welfare should be able to make the choice to buy meat killed in a more humane way [Stock image]

Welfare labels on meat to say how animal was killed: New law is in pipeline after campaign on halal and kosher livestock that isn’t stunned before slaughter

  • It currently not compulsory to label meat as halal but new bill could change that
  • Campaigners argue shoppers concerned with animal welfare should be able to make the choice to buy meat killed in a more humane way
  • The Bill is in the early stages and is currently the subject of a public consultation 

Welfare labels on meat to say how animal was killed | Daily Mail Online

Halal and kosher meat will have to be labelled in a victory for animal welfare campaigners.

As part of the proposed law, all meat will have to be marked with how the animal was killed.

Animals slaughtered to be compliant with kosher and halal rules are often killed without being stunned first and have their throats slit.

At the moment, it is not compulsory to label meat as halal, so campaigners have argued that those who eat the products and care about animal welfare should be able to make the choice to buy meat killed in a more humane way.

The Bill is currently in the early stages and is the subject of a public consultation. But ministers have privately said they aim to bring in the law – and that it is supported by the majority of the British public.

Animals slaughtered to be compliant with kosher and halal rules are often killed without being stunned first and have their throats slit. Pictured: A meat processing plant [Stock image]
Animals slaughtered to be compliant with kosher and halal rules are often killed without being stunned first and have their throats slit. Pictured: A meat processing plant [Stock image] Photo – Getty Images

Victoria Prentis, minister for farming, fisheries and food, said: ‘As a nation, we care enormously about animal welfare and increasingly about environmental standards.

‘Consumer information and labelling are part of the toolbox that we have when it comes to creating a better food system for people and the planet. It is something that we will be considering in detail with industry and stakeholders in the weeks and months ahead.’

The Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation (CAWF), which the Prime Minister’s wife Carrie Johnson has long been a patron of, has been calling for this policy change for years.

Lorraine Platt, chairman of CAWF and a friend of Mrs Johnson, welcomed the news: ‘With the exception of whole eggs, there are currently no legal requirements to label products with information on how the animal was reared and slaughtered.

‘But the fact is the British public do care about these conditions – over 80 per cent of UK consumers are in favour of food labelling.

‘Where labelling does currently exist, consumers have been able to identify higher welfare products and subsequently many farmers have been rewarded with increased demand. It is our hope that through extending labelling to all farmed produce, we can help the growth of higher welfare farms in the UK.’

MPs have also been calling for the change. Sir Roger Gale said: ‘Brexit has presented us with the opportunity to reform our farming systems.

‘Transparency with consumers must be at the heart of these reforms and implementing labelling for animal welfare represents a critical step forward. In doing so we can empower consumers to make informed decisions about which farming systems they want to support – or avoid supporting.

‘There is an overwhelming democratic mandate for such a move, with around eight in ten British consumers stating animal welfare is an important consideration for them when shopping.’

Under new laws, there will also be stricter animal welfare labelling requirements – with how the animal was reared and cared for prominently displayed on the packaging.

This is part of a raft of legislation under the Animal Welfare Bill including plans to ban boiling lobsters alive and outlawing the sale and import of ‘cruel’ animal products such as fur and foie gras.

Halal meat is worth around £2.6billion a year in the UK, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).

It accounts for around 20 per cent of all lamb and mutton sold, despite Muslims only comprising around 5 per cent of the population.

This is because ‘halal consumers eat more meat per capita than the general population’, says the AHDB.

About 42 per cent of all halal meat is not stunned before slaughter, according to the Food Standards Agency.

Slaughter of kosher livestock – the method is known as shechita – is a small percentage of all animals killed accounting for only 0.5 per cent of all cattle, 0.1 per cent of sheep, 0.3 per cent of chickens. 

Enjoy

Regards Mark

Environmental, Farm Animals, General News, Vegan Recipes

UK: UN COP26 Climate Summit – vegan eating can reduce food-related carbon emissions by 73%. Eating meat and dairy is part of what got us into this mess. So Why No Vegan Food At the Summit ???? – Take Action Below.

Important Note – we have just tried to e mail and telephone the office of Alok Sharma, and everything seems to be closed down – we are even told the wrong number by phone; which we took from his official ‘contact’ area on his site !! – strange. Lets hope he is getting the message about all this. Thus, the action links given below may not now work at present. All I can say is keep trying now and again.

Regards Mark

WAV Comment – Is this not like inviting the senior arsonist as a principal guest to the firefighters annual ball ?

What the hell are these people on ? – and they call themselves experts and politicians who are supposed to be dealing with the climate situation !

The United Nations’ COP26 climate summit—which will be the largest summit that the U.K. has ever hosted—is fast approaching, and we learned that there’s a plan to serve animal-derived food at the convention, even though animal agriculture is devastating for animals and the planet.

Vegan foods have a far smaller carbon footprint than their animal-derived counterparts. Speak out today to ensure that the COP26 climate summit sets a good example for the world to follow. See action below.

The 26th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP26) Climate Change Conference is fast approaching. Urge the president of COP26, Alok Sharma, to set a meaningful example during this climate crisis by serving a fully vegan menu at the event.

Eating Vegan Is Better for the Environment
The fishing, meat, dairy, and egg industries are not only cruel to animals but also catastrophic for the environment. For decades, the U.N. has identified animal agriculture as a leading cause of deforestation, pollution, ocean dead zones, habitat loss, species extinction, and the spread of zoonotic diseases.

Vegan foods have a far smaller carbon footprint than their animal-derived counterparts—even when comparing imported plant proteins to flesh from grass-fed, locally farmed animals—and a switch to vegan eating can reduce food-related carbon emissions by 73%. Quite simply, eating meat and dairy is part of what got us into this mess.

Animals can feel pain in the same way as humans. Just like us, they value their lives and don’t want to suffer.

In her natural environment, a hen will cluck to her chicks before they even hatch while sitting on the eggs in her nest. They peep back to her and to each other through their shells. In the ways that matter, humans and other animals are the same. There is no moral justification for exploiting animals for human purposes.

The COP26 Climate Summit Should Set an Example
Given everything that we now know about the devastating impact of animal agriculture on the environment, serving meat, dairy, or eggs at a climate change summit would be like distributing cigarettes at a health convention.

Plant foods are the way forward, and a vegan menu would not only allow attendees to dine with a clear conscience but also set an important example for the world to follow.

Take action and tell Sharma to serve only vegan food at the event.

Send emails to:

Alok Sharma
alok.sharma.mp@parliament.uk

Take action against this mentality:

Urge the COP26 Climate Summit to Serve a Fully Vegan Menu | PETA

Environmental, Farm Animals, General News

How Many CO2 Emissions Does the Meat Industry Produce? (Hint: Way More Than You Think).

How Many CO2 Emissions Does the Meat Industry Produce? (Hint: Way More Than You Think)

What we eat impacts our planet – but how destructive is the meat industry?

The effects of the climate crisis are becoming more obvious and more severe. As a result, researchers are eager to dissect the climate breakdown, not only to better understand it, but to find ways to intervene. 

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a leading driver of the issue. In fact, CO2 makes up the largest portion of anthropogenic (human caused) greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). IPCC is the world’s leading authority on climate science. 

For decades, it’s been widely accepted that transportation is a huge part of the carbon problem, and it is. But another field’s carbon footprint is also problematic – the meat industry. But how many CO2 emissions does animal agriculture actually produce? And is it enough that we must curb our eating habits?

What is carbon dioxide?

Carbon dioxide is an acidic colorless gas that occurs naturally in the Earth’s atmosphere. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, making it integral to life on Earth.

CO2 is harmless in small amounts, but human activity causes levels of the gas to surge. Writing for Forbes, chemical engineer Robert Rapier highlighted that global carbon dioxide emissions have tripled in the last 55 years, sitting at 32.3 billion metric tons last year.

Why is carbon dioxide harmful?

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, meaning it creates a cover that traps heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. When concentrations are too high, the planet’s carbon cycle can’t process it efficiently enough. This causes global temperatures to increase, a phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect. 

Global climate change has led to loss of sea ice, rising sea levels, and more frequent and severe heat waves and droughts, according to NASA. Climate breakdown is also linked to stronger hurricanes, flash flooding, increased wildfires, erosion in coastal areas, ocean acidification, and biodiversity loss, the government agency highlights. 

“The effects of human-caused global warming are happening now, are irreversible on the timescale of people alive today, and will worsen in the decades to come,” NASA sums up.

How much carbon dioxide does meat produce?

Awareness of the transportation and fossil fuel industries’ impact on the environment has been growing for decades. But a sector that often slips under the radar is animal agriculture. 

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), global livestock production makes up 14.5 percent of all anthropogenic (human caused) emissions – 7.1 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent per year.

There is some debate surrounding the widely accepted FAO figure of 14.5 percent. Research published this year claims that this figure is ‘now out of date’. The article argues that the minimum estimate for animal agriculture’s emissions should be updated to 16.5 percent. 

“Some will contest the importance of a few percentage points. Yet even the difference between 14.5 and 16.5 percent is the difference between animal agriculture being responsible for close to one in seven, or one in six of all emissions,” the article reads.

Which foods have the lowest carbon footprint?

In 2019, researchers published the most comprehensive analysis to date of farming’s environmental impact. Looking at emissions per 100 grams of protein, beef emits just under 50kg of CO2 equivalents, according to the analysis. Lamb and mutton emit just under 20kg, while farmed prawns and pig meat emit 18.19kg and 7.61kg respectively. 

For context, grains emit 2.71kg of CO2 equivalents per 100g of protein and soybeans emit 1.98kg.  And peas – a common ingredient in plant-based meat (like Beyond Burgers) – emit just 0.44kg. 

Comparing emissions per kilogram of food (rather than per 100g of protein), plant-based sources are still significantly lower than animal-based ones. 

Producing a kilogram of beef emits 60kg of CO2 equivalents, the researchers concluded, while pea production emits just 1kg per kilogram of food. 

Lamb, poultry, and pork generate 20kg, 6kg, and 7kg of CO2 equivalents respectively. Contrastingly, root vegetables and apples both produce 0.4kg. Rice (4kg), tomatoes (1.4kg), nuts (0.3kg) and bananas (0.7kg), to name a few, also carry a smaller carbon footprint.

“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use,” Joseph Poore, who led the study, said in a statement. He added that the impact of ditching animal products is ‘far bigger’ than flying less or opting for an electric car. 

How Many CO2 Emissions Does the Meat Industry Produce? (Hint: Way More Than You Think) – Plant Based News

Regards Mark

Farm Animals, General News, Uncategorized

The Unemployed Epidemiologist Who Predicted the Pandemic.
The Unemployed Epidemiologist Who Predicted the Pandemic by Stacey

With thanks to Stacey at ‘Our Compass’ as always;

https://our-compass.org/2021/09/13/the-unemployed-epidemiologist-who-predicted-the-pandemic/

Regards Mark

This is a 5 page post – pages can be selected from the numbers at the end.

Source The Nation

By Eamon Whalen

In early March 2020, Rob Wallace, an evolutionary biologist who had been adrift after an unceremonious exit from the University of Minnesota, flew to New Orleans and then got on a bus to Jackson, Miss., where he was scheduled to speak at an event on health and racial injustice. Wallace, who turned 50 this summer, has been studying and writing about infectious diseases and their origins for half his life. For almost as long, he’s been warning that the practices of industrial agriculture would lead to a deadly pandemic on the scale of Covid-19—or worse. “A pandemic may now be all but inevitable,” he wrote of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in 2007. ”In what would be a catastrophic failure on the part of governments and health ministries worldwide, millions may die.”

Before his trip to Jackson, Wallace had been closely monitoring the outbreak of a novel virus in Wuhan. Though he’d been spooked by a news report that showed a delivery driver in China practicing extreme social distancing, he went ahead with the trip. As an underpaid academic, he needed the money, and as an American, he didn’t expect anything to happen to him. “I too had been infused with a peculiarly American moment, wherein financial desperation meets imperial exceptionalism,” he wrote.

When Wallace returned from his trip, he threw himself back into writing and research with such fervor that he managed to ignore a pounding headache. When the shortness of breath started, his teenage son yelled at him through the computer screen to see a doctor. After he filled out an online questionnaire, Wallace was diagnosed with Covid-19 over the phone.

He’d been infected with something he’d been warning about for years, and like so many around the country and the world, all he could do was to hope to keep breathing. “No test. No antiviral. No masks and no gloves provided. No community health practitioner stopping by to check on me,” Wallace wrote.

“You can intellectually understand something but still not assimilate the oncoming damage,” he told me later, as he recalled the “sour vindication” of having his worst fears come true. “So there’s an aspect of rage, and an arrival at an understanding.”

I met Wallace for coffee on an afternoon in late June. We sat on benches under the shade on the campus of a liberal arts college near his home in St. Paul, Minn. He was dressed in a pale-red short-sleeve shirt, dark jeans, and sneakers. He wore rectangular black-rimmed glasses and a Minnesota Twins baseball hat and had a five o’clock shadow

Wallace looks more like a dad on the way to his kid’s Little League game than a lab-coat-wearing scientist who used to consult with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United Nations. That could be because he hasn’t had a job in academia for more than a decade, a circumstance he attributes to his decision to take the implications of his scholarship seriously.

That’s why the book Wallace published last October came with a provocative title—Dead Epidemiologists: On the Origins of Covid-19. Though there are many “brilliant, bright, amazing, and hardworking” epidemiologists whose work he cites, their impact is limited, Wallace said: “They are in the business of cleaning up the mess the system brought about, and that’s the extent to which they’re willing to go.” In his first essay on Covid, “Notes on a Novel Coronavirus,” published in January 2020, Wallace wrote that an epidemiologist is like a “stable boy with a shovel following around elephants at the circus.”

“As an epidemiologist, you’re supposed to want to put yourself out of business,” Wallace said. “Everyone has bills to pay; I understand that. But the extent to which your corruption might lead to a pathogen that could kill a billion people—that’s where my line is.” While he’s not the only Cassandra whose warnings of a pandemic like Covid-19 went unheeded, there are few as clear-eyed about where to direct the blame. “Agribusiness is at war with public health,” he wrote in the March 2020 essay “Covid-19 and the Circuits of Capital,” and if no serious action is taken, the interval before the next pandemic will be “far shorter…than the hundred-year lull since 1918.”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5
Farm Animals, General News

The Truth About Cows Raised for Human Consumption.

Watch, rage and repent

Regards Mark

The Truth About Cows Raised for Human Consumption (animalequality.org)

 

 

The public deserves the truth. For this reason, Animal Equality’s investigators take their cameras where the industry does not want you to see.

Animal Equality is committed to exposing the terrible fate of cows, calves, and steers exploited by both the meat industry and the–only seemingly less cruel–milk industry.

Our investigative team has captured images and footage from around the world showing the harsh living conditions, inherent suffering, and brutal abuse that farmed animals endure.

The evidence we have gathered over the years shows calves left outside to die in freezing temperatures in the US, calves beaten and force-fed in the UK, and pregnant cows slaughtered in Brazil.

In addition to documenting animal welfare issues, Animal Equality’s investigative team in Brazil has uncovered the devastating environmental impact of beef production in the Pantanal, one of the world’s most biodiverse areas.

Behind all of this suffering and destruction are industries that treat cows as money-making machines. It’s a system of endless suffering; calves separated from their mothers, females exploited for their milk, and males killed for their meat. That’s why the animal agriculture industry–relentless in its pursuit of profits–is so careful not to reveal what is happening behind closed doors.

The public deserves the truth. For this reason, Animal Equality’s investigators take their cameras where the industry does not want you to see: onto the trucks that transport cows across countries and continents, into the air above the Amazon Rainforest where forests are burned and cleared for cattle farming, and inside factory farms and slaughterhouses. 

Photo – Mark (WAV)
Farm Animals, General News, Vegan Recipes

Vegan Meat Price Parity: Why Cost Not Kindness Will End Animal Agriculture.

 

Vegan Meat Price Parity: Why Cost Not Kindness Will End Animal Agriculture

‘It’s likely that ‘price parity’ between plant-based and animal-derived meats will see the quickest changes made to our food system’

by Dr. Alex Lockwood

 

It will be cost not kindness that ends animal agriculture – but when will we achieve vegan meat price parity?

As much as we care for animals, it’s likely that ‘price parity’ between plant-based and animal-derived meats will see the quickest changes made to our food system

We love cheap food. When asked, we nearly always say we prefer to buy products that are ethical, sustainable, and healthy. But research shows time and again that what actually drives most of our food choices are cost, convenience, and taste.

Most of all, it’s the price. 

Vegan meat price parity

That’s why the question of ‘price parity’ is a hot topic in plant-based food. With price, especially a cheap price, such a driving force in our food choices, the cost of plant-based meats really matters.

Right now, supermarket customers are paying almost 200 percent more for plant-based products in comparison to meat alternatives. 

It’s also why the European dairy lobby is trying to stop plant-based products being sold in ‘dairy’ packaging. If plant-based providers have to use different packaging, this could make plant-based alternatives more difficult to produce and, critically, more expensive to buy.

But lessons from other industries (such as electric cars) show that as technology develops and demand increases, price parity will arrive. But for plant-based meat products, when will that be? Can it really bring an end to the slaughter-based meat products that are currently cheaper and purchased more often?

‘Cheap food paradigm’

We love cheap food. As the UK government’s Behavioral Insights Team wrote in their report ‘A Menu For Change’, price (alongside convenience and taste) is the most important factor for people when shopping. This includes for healthier alternatives.

This isn’t our fault. Supermarkets, advertising, and government policies have spent 70 years creating what food expert Professor Tim Lang calls our ‘cheap food paradigm’. 

This is especially in the UK and US. Along with Singapore, these are the three cheapest food markets in the world. In the UK, we spend only 8 percent of our household budget on food. This is the cheapest in Western Europe. Greeks spend 16 percent, Peruvians 26 percent, and Nigerians 59 percent.

But when you learn that the UK also has the highest food poverty in Europe in terms of people being able to afford a healthy diet, you know something is wrong.

This cheap food paradigm emerged during World War 2. Farmers were asked to grow more food, quickly and cheaply. They were the heroes feeding a country at war, and rebuilding afterward. 

Farmers were doing what they were asked. They began using heavy chemicals and pesticides. They abandoned rotation farming and replaced them with monocultures. Food got increasingly cheap. There were supermarket price wars (continuing today). We lost touch with the true cost of food.

But at what cost?

The true cost of cheap food is a ‘spiraling public health crisis and environmental destruction’ – according to the RSA’s Food, Farming and Countryside Commission. 

Last month’s Chatham House/UN report drove home the point: “Cheap food is driving destruction of the natural world.” The constant demand for economic growth has ‘sustained vicious circles’ of agricultural efficiency, coupled with ‘increased economic competition through the liberalization of trade’.

Cheap foods also tend to be more processed. In the UK, we eat the most ultra-processed foods in Europe, nearly 50 percent of our diets. Compare this to around 11 percent in Italy or 16 percent in Portugal. This massively increases the incidence of Type-2 diabetes and other serious health epidemics.

A price transformation

It’s obvious we need a food transformation. And that includes the price we pay for it. 

What we should do is ask those who can afford more to pay more, while supporting those currently in food poverty to be able to buy better. But that’s another article!

We also know that a whole-foods plant-based diet can be much cheaper than a heavily processed, animal-based diet.

Right now, most meat-eaters overestimate the price of plant-based meat products. And they’re not wholly wrong. 

So if we want to see change happen quickly, we have to get people off the slaughter-based meats and into the plant-based aisles. The quickest way to do that is through pricing.

So when will that happen? It will arrive in three stages.

By 2023: Plant-Based Proteins

Back in 2019, the independent think tank Rethink X launched its report on the future of agriculture. 

Their analysis suggested that price parity between existing plant-based meats (for example, the Impossible Burger) and animal-derived meats would arrive sometime between 2021-23. 

When this happened, they wrote, adoption of more plant-based eating “will tip and accelerate exponentially.”

It is why companies such as Impossible Foods keep slashing their prices to drive demand, knowing that ‘price parity’ will increase not only sales but awareness and acceptability. 

Are we close to the tipping point?

At the moment, buying a vegan supermarket product twice a week would cost an additional £35 a year, a spokesperson for Insure4Sport, who produced research on cost comparisons, told The Times.

Right now, the early-adopter vegan and vegetarian or adventurous meat-eater will pay the premium price for the new plant-based alternatives. That won’t last.

The plant-based producers know they need to compete on price. Demand is growing. In 2019, demand for plant-based meats grew by 18 percent and 11 percent for the plant-based category overall, according to a study from The Good Food Institute.

More people than ever now support improved access to plant-based options. New research last week from The Vegan Society showed one in three (32 percent) believe the government should be promoting vegan and plant-based diets to address the current climate emergency.

Bill Gates recently urged people to buy plant-based products and drive down the price. “You can also send a signal to the market that people want zero-carbon alternatives and are willing to pay for them,” he told the BBC.

The supermarkets will drive this difference. If Tesco’s is setting a target for a 300 percent rise in vegan meat sales, they’ll still want to compete on price.

So perhaps Rethink X’s prediction that we will reach price parity for existing products by 2023 isn’t far off.

But what about the new world of cell-cultured meat, grown in a lab?

Continued on next page

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Farm Animals, General News, Uncategorized

England: 9/9/21 – Geronimo postmortem results negative for TB, say owner’s lawyers.

Photo – Independent

9/9/21

Geronimo postmortem results negative for TB, say owner’s lawyers

Defra denies claim and says culled animal has ‘TB-like lesions’ and awaits further investigations

A fresh row has broken out between the owner of Geronimo the alpaca and the government over the results of an initial postmortem examination of the culled animal.

Lawyers acting for Helen Macdonald have said the preliminary gross postmortem findings, reviewed by veterinary surgeons, are negative for visible lesions typical of bovine tuberculosis (TB).

However, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said a number of TB-like lesions were found in Geronimo and will be further investigated, adding the full postmortem results will not be concluded until the end of the year.

The dispute is the latest in a long line of battles between Macdonald and the government over the fate of Geronimo, who was put down last week.

The eight-year-old animal, who had tested positive twice for bovine TB and whose fate triggered heated debate across the country, was taken from his home at Shepherds Close Farm in south Gloucestershire on 31 August and later put down.

Lawyers acting for Macdonald, a veterinary nurse, said she had received a letter from the government’s legal department containing the preliminary findings of the postmortem. These findings were reviewed by veterinary surgeons.

In a statement, the lawyers said: “As reviewed by Dr Iain McGill and Dr Bob Broadbent, the preliminary gross postmortem findings are negative for visible lesions typical of bovine tuberculosis.

“For clarity there are no white or cream caseous, enlarged abscesses typical for bTB in alpacas whether in the lungs, bronchial, mediastinal or retropharyngeal lymph nodes.”

Macdonald has formally requested the full findings of the postmortem report and the results of further tests on tissue samples, blood, serum or plasma taken from Geronimo, and other additional test results.

Defra appeared to directly contradict the claims. The chief veterinary officer, Dr Christine Middlemiss, said: “We have completed the initial postmortem examination of Geronimo. A number of TB-like lesions were found and in line with standard practice, these are now undergoing further investigation.

“These tests include the developing of bacteriological cultures from tissue samples which usually takes several months – we would expect to complete the full postmortem and culture process by the end of the year.”

Geronimo was brought to England from New Zealand by Macdonald in August 2017 and tested positive for TB in the same month. He had been living in isolation ever since; he could see some of the other 80-odd alpacas on the farm but was separated from them by a fence.

In July 2018, a court order for the animal’s destruction was sought by the government and he was given a stay of execution, to be slaughtered by the end of August that year.

Macdonald mounted a legal challenge, pleading with the UK government to allow Geronimo to be retested.

Regards Mark

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/08/geronimo-the-alpaca-postmortem-results-negative-for-tb-say-owners-lawyers

Farm Animals, General News, Uncategorized

England: On Day of Defra Demo; Post Mortem Results Show ‘Geronimo’ DID NOT Have Bovine TB.

Breaking 8/9/21

Shit really hits the fan now;

On the day of the Defra demo in support of Geronimo and opposing the badger cull because of bovine TB; we are just hearing that from the post mortem on Geronimo, he DID NOT HAVE bTB.

This throws a total new light on the whole issue now.

More to come later

Regards Mark

https://inews.co.uk/news/geronimo-the-alpaca-bovine-tb-death-post-mortem-1188682

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/geronimo-alpaca-tb-test-death-b1916326.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9969559/Geronimo-did-NOT-Bovine-Tuberculosis-claims-owner.html

Farm Animals, General News

“The Dark Side of the New Zealand Dairy Industry” – From Stacey (Our Compass).

This is a 3 PAGE post:

Thanks as always to Stacey at ‘Our Compass’ for sending over this excellent article.

Stacey | Our Compass (our-compass.org)

Regards Mark

Source SAFE (Save Animals from Exploitation) Campaign “The Dark Side of the New Zealand Dairy Industry”

If animal farmers and industry executives weren’t so grossly deceptive, violent, and cowardly, they would just be embarrassing: people often attempt to validate abusing animals as being “intellectually superior” humans; the same people then claim thathumans are incapable of telling the difference between plant milks and cows’ milk.

And their cruel rhetoric also includes the belief that killing can be humane, that harming an animal is better for an animal than not harming an animal.

Intellectual superiority? No. Just entitled, privileged human supremacy.

WAV Comment – I want to touch on this ‘superiority’ issue here with the video to Oxford Uni by Dr Brain May – ‘Queen’ guitarist and doctor of astrophysics – see the video at or watch it below:

England: Setts, Drugs and Rock n Roll. Dr Brian May Speaks In Defence of Badgers at Oxford University. – World Animals Voice

Mark

Too, the USDA has included soy milk as a nutritionally-equivalent, healthy dairy alternative (for the plant activists, soy is predominantly grown for animals, who humans eat, a unarguably inefficient and immoral use of resources and lives), and that in the USA, most cows’ milk is fortified, meaning vitamin is added, it is NOT naturally present. Nevertheless, I am personally unconcerned with the nutrition provided by plant milks because it is for certain 100% healthier for the animals to not use and kill them. As such, why would ANYONE choose suffering over not suffering? More than 500,000 calves and greater than 3 million of their mothers are butchered yearly, just in the USA, so that a different species, beyond infancy and with teeth, can drink the calves’ naturally- and biologically-intended milk instead. That’s an ethical fail, not a demonstration of decency. Or intellect. SL

Source reason

By Rikki Schlott

On August 11, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in favor of Miyoko’s Creamery in its lawsuit against the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), upholding the company’s First Amendment right to use terms like butter and cheese in marketing its vegan products.

Based in Sonoma County, California, Miyoko’s Creamery produces artisanal vegan alternatives to traditional dairy products. In just over five years, its popularity has exploded with distribution in Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and other major supermarket chains.

The company is known for its popular vegan butter made from cashews, coconut oil, and sunflower oil, as well as other high-end alternative products like vegan mozzarella, cream cheese, and cheese wheels—all of which I can attest are very good.

Last year, the company received a threatening letter from the CDFA demanding it alter its marketing in the state. Although its labels clearly read “cultured vegan butter,” the department requested the creamery stop using dairy-related terms on its packaging altogether, claiming Miyoko’s marketing was in violation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s labeling regulations.

California ordered the company to remove the terms butter and cheese and cease to refer to its products as “lactose-free,” “hormone-free,” or “cruelty-free.” Instead, the state suggested that Miyoko market its vegan butter as oh-so-appetizing “cashew cream fermented from live cultures.” To do so would require an inordinate investment to produce custom packaging for sale of the product in California.

The letter doubled down by also ordering the company to scrap its mission statement, “Revolutionizing Dairy with Plants,” and to remove an image of a woman hugging a cow from its website. The photo in question is that of a volunteer at a nonprofit refuge for farm animals, Rancho Compasión, which was started by the creamery’s founder Miyoko Schinner.

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