#Farming on the eastern border is in trouble because the tractors do not get the correct location information from the GPS positioning system. The interference is apparently coming from Russia. #finland#news#suomimastodon
Traktorit sekosivat itärajalla – piirtävät nyt peltoon vihreitä raitoja | Etelä-#Karjala | Yle https://yle.fi/a/74-20092403
Good from Desmog on the far right EU election MEP candidates spreading manure about food and farming. Some cast doubt on the reality of climate science, while others painted EU regulators as part of an authoritarian “sect” wishing to control citizens through green measures.
THREAD: This might sound crazy, but in Ursula von der Leyen's official schedule, which you can view online, there wasn’t a single meeting with environmental activists listed at any time in the past year. What we did find, in the past 4 months alone, were 3 separate meetings with farming groups.
In the Netherlands, hunter-gatherers of the Swifterbant culture start using pottery around 5000 BC and carry out crop agriculture around 4200 BC. But they also hunt, fish, and gather wild resources, and migrate seasonally 🐟🐗🌰 4/
Our biggest discovery? These people weren't just keeping cattle, they had TWO completely different herds of cattle 🐄🐄The isotopes of the cattle (and sheep!) showed that one herd had lived in the forest 🌲 while the other grazed either on salt marshes or on manured fields 💩 7/
The concentrated ills of concentrated agribusiness, By Bart Hawkins Kreps, originally published by An Outside Chance May 31, 2024
"...Now that American consumers have learned to buy fresh – albeit nearly tasteless – fruit twelve months of the year, it’s essential for Driscoll’s to have suppliers in countries with different seasons. ...Frerick writes: “the Driscoll’s model is based on shifting farming out of the country to companies that don’t...worry about US minimum wage laws or environmental regulations.”
"...It matters not whether these products are truly nutritious. What matters is whether the products are cheap and, in line with WalMart’s directives to suppliers, cheaper year after year. Still, French explains, not cheap enough for WalMart’s own employees to afford – WalMart employees in many states require govt assistance just to feed their families..."
From ChartR: There might soon be a vitamin C-shaped hole in many Americans’ breakfasts: orange juice prices are hitting all-time highs, as a series of poor harvests strain the existing supply of frozen juice futures.
Indeed, while the price of OJ has climbed at an alarming rate in recent years due to reduced production yields, this week saw frozen concentrated orange juice futures ...reach a record price of $4.87 per pound. That’s roughly 5x where they were trading in 2020.
These juiced-up figures have arisen from a blend of bad weather and disease that’s long plagued the world's orange groves...And Florida, world-renowned for its oranges, won’t be able to pick up the slack. The Sunshine State has seen output decline steadily for more than 2 decades, thanks to citrus greening, hurricanes, falling yields, and a booming housing market that’s turned citrus farms into premium real estate.
Chatting to the local farmer (land owner rather than the tenant actually looking after the sheep) and he was claiming that locally nesting Buzzards are killing lambs. I'm suspicious about this, and even web 'rural life' forums you'd kinda think would be anti-raptor seem to be largely unconvinced that this happens. Ravens may seem more likely to blame, but of course a Buzzard's gonna peck at an already dead one. 🤷 #ukBirds#farming
@ghickman Ha. In this case they are, as they’ve their own cattle place elsewhere and just inherited the one round our way (as you do). It includes this which breaks my heart to see falling apart.