Ururú, one of just six of the remaining Amazonian Akuntsu tribe, died 1 October 2009. Now just five remain and since they are all either closely related or past reproductive age, the end of this tribe is inevitable.

This week the Independent reported that the fate of Akuntsu tribe “represents the long-planned realisation of one of the most successful acts of genocide in human history”. For years the tribe lived peacefully and sustainably deep in the rainforest in Brazil, but then in the 1980s soy plantations and cattle ranches took over the region; this was the beginning of the end for the Akuntsus.

Fiercely industrious, the new migrant workers knew that one thing might prevent them from creating profitable homesteads from the rainforest: the discovery of uncontacted tribes, whose land is protected from development under the Brazilian constitution.

As a result, frontiersmen who first came across the Akuntsu in the mid-1980s made a simple calculation. The only way to prevent the government finding out about this indigenous community was to wipe them off the map.

At some point, believed to be around 1990, scores of Akuntsu were massacred at a site roughly five hours’ drive from the town of Vilhena. Only seven members of the tribe escaped, retreating deeper into the wilderness to survive.

Cattle ranching is the main cause of deforestation in the Amazon; soy plantations, which predominantly provide feed for animals in the West, are close behind. Corporations behind these industries don’t care about the rights of indigenous people, they only care about the money. People are forcibly removed from their ancestral lands and poisoned by pesticides from soy plantations; their lives ruined. But whilst we continue to buy cheap meat in vast quantities, the soy and meat industries will do whatever they need to do to provide it for us. Protect the rights of indigenous people, challenge governments and corporations, but don’t forget to take personal responsibility too.

Read the full Independent article here: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/decline-of-a-tribe-and-then-there-were-five-1801795.html

A new investigation again shows the damaging impact of cheap factory farmed meat sold in Europe because of it’s total reliance on soy from Latin America as animal feed. Soy plantations not only result in mass deforestation but also horrific human rights abuses as indigenous people are poisoned and forced from their land. From the Ecologist website:-

Cheap meat has become a way of life in much of Europe, but the full price is being paid across Latin America as vast soya plantations and their attendant chemicals lead to poisonings and violence.

Much of the cheap meat and dairy produce sold in supermarkets across Europe is arriving as a result of serious human rights abuses and environmental damage in one of Latin America’s most impoverished countries, according to a new film launched in conjunction with the Ecologist Film Unit.

An investigation in Paraguay has discovered that vast plantations of soy, principally grown for use in intensively-farmed animal feed, are responsible for a catalogue of social and ecological problems, including the forced eviction of rural communities, landlessness, poverty, excessive use of pesticides, deforestation and rising food insecurity.

The investigation is part of Friends of the Earth Europe’s Feeding and Fuelling Europe programme, in collaboration with other groups including Friends of the Earth members in the Netherlands, Paraguay, UK, Uruguay, the Ecologist magazine, Via Campesina and Food and Water Watch.

Friends of the Earth Food Campaigner Kirtana Chandrasekaran explains in the film that we need to stop factory farming for meat and dairy, use home grown feeds and more extensive methods of farming and direct subsidies for factory farming in to “better quality” farming.

The UK is a land-scarce country. As the population keeps growing and communities around the country fight to save the last of our wild areas from new road and housing developments, how will we find the land to be able to grow more food to feed animals? Consumption of meat and dairy has to be tackled but no-one seems to have the guts to say it.

See the 10 minute film and read the full article on the Ecologist website: www.theecologist.org/trial_investigations/336873/killing_fields_the_true_cost_of_europes_cheap_meat.html

Alpro is set to be bought by Dean, the U.S.’s largest dairy processor. At the moment Alpro is part of the Vandemoortele group, Belgium’s largest privately held food company which makes frozen dough, margarines and vegetable fats. But, it seems 325 million euros was enough to pursuade them to sell Alpro and Provamel to Dean.

According to the Vandemoortele website, “for over 25 years, Alpro has been championing a healthier, more sustainable way of producing tasty products”. But now they will belong to a company that is in no way healthy or sustainable. Milk contains saturated fat and is not a healthy part of our diet. It has been linked to cancer, especially breast cancer, as well as heart disease. Dairy cows produce massive amounts of methane and often they are fed soy that is imported from Latin America, which causes the destruction of the rainforest and is often genetically modified.

What I liked about Alpro was the fact that their soy is not genetically modified, they take great care with regards to where the soy comes from (ie not from deforested Amazon) and that they really seem to care about health, fair trade and the environment. For many vegans, Alpro is the preferred choice, but knowing their money is now going to a milk company will no doubt change this. How do we know they’ll keep up the same standards? The Body Shop, Innocent, Green & Blacks - they’re all doing it. One day it’s just all going to be one huge company that owns all the others. What ever happened to consumer choice?

Friends of the Earth released a report today to expose the vast amounts of public money - over £700 million per year - used to support factory farming in England. In their report, Feeding the Beast, they say “Factory farming for meat and dairy is at the heart of a hidden chain that links the food on our plates to rainforest destruction in South America. To make them grow quickly and produce high yields, animals in factory farms are being pumped full of imported soy crops – creating demand for vast plantations that are wiping out forests and forcing communities off their lands in South America”.

A spokesperson from the National Farmers Union said, “We have nothing against small scale, low output, farming systems but to suppose this is a model which will feed the world’s growing population is disingenuous. Either Friends of the Earth is looking to use much more of the world’s land area for farming – which really would put wilderness and rainforest at risk – or it imagines that, in some way or other, the world’s population is going to be dramatically smaller.”

Of course, the NFU don’t want to consider the third option; that people switch to a plant-based diet. Simon Fairlie, co-editor of the Ecologist, made an analysis of different agricultural systems in his article ‘Can Britain Feed Itself?’, published in his magazine The Land. He calculated that with a vegan permaculture system, we could not only feed everyone but we’d also have 8.8 million hectares of land spare.

The UK and Europe import vast amount of soy to feed to animals, particularly chicken and pigs, raised for meat. This has led to the destruction of the Amazon as farmers cut down the trees to grow massive soy plantations. The environmental and human rights impacts are well documented.

DEFRA has sponsored a 5 year project to investigate whether lupins could be grown in the UK which could replace soy in animal feeds. Like soy, lupins have a high protein content of around 30-40%.

According to the European Feed Manufacturers Association, the EU livestock industry imports over 75% of it’s protein requirements, much of which is soy. Around 98% of the soy comes from Brazil and Argentina, both of which produce a large percentage of genetically modified soy.

Whilst the efforts to replace soy are commendable, I can’t see how this plan is feasible. We import hundreds of thousands of tonnes of soy every year to feed animals, how can our land-scarce island provide the space and water to produce so much animal feed? If we really want to stop the imports of soy, or any other food imports, we need to look at the foods we consume and ensure we make choices that require the least amount of natural resources so that we can make the most of what is available to us here in the UK; and that means we cannot continue to eat high levels of animal products.

Dick Bond, the CEO of the world’s largest meat producing company, Tyson, has revealed this week that he is leaving. Considering Tyson’s earnings fell by 68% to $86 million in the last fiscal year, it’s no wonder he decided to leave.  But perhaps there is a more straight forward reason for his sudden resignation. Bond is now 61 and if he eats as much meat as you’d expect the CEO of Tyson to, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a few health issues.

Tyson is not looking healthy either; increased feed prices have taken it’s toll on Tyson and other meat producing companies. It seems Bond still has some faith in the company though, he said “I have a lot of both my time and personal finances invested in Tyson Foods, so I wish the company all the best for future success”. I wonder how long he’ll give it until he moves his investments elsewhere.

Bond has made some unpopular decisions of late. The US Agriculture Department has forecast a chicken production reduction of 1.3% for 2009 and many chicken producers are reducing their production.  However, Tyson has been over producing chicken. Market analyst Timothy Ramey said “We were disturbed by the way Mr. Bond seemed unconcerned with his risky strategy of continuing to overproduce poultry”.

Tyson favour the industrialised farming of animals, especially chicken.  The chicken are fed a diet of soy and other grains, resulting in the destruction of the Amazonian rain forest as well as abuses human rights.  To produce such a damaging ‘product’ is immoral, and even more so if you are deliberately increasing production when you know the demand for it is decreasing.

It’s not a great week for Tyson. Also this week they were ordered to pay a fine of $500,000 after willfully violating worker safety regulations which resulted in the death of an employee.

Tyson are an unethical and unsustainable company, responsible for environmental destruction, animal cruelty and human rights abuses. They are the biggest meat producing company in the world, their products sold in fast food chains, restaurants and supermarkets. But we can stop them. If we don’t eat meat, they have no reason to exist.

The European Union has approved imports of Monsanto’s genetically modified soy bean (MON 89788 ) for the next 10 years.

The imports will be used for food and animal feed rather than for growing. Monsanto’s GM soy is resistant to certain herbicides, which means that farmers can spray the herbicides over their crop and it will kill everything apart from the soy. The herbicides cause severe health problems for people living near the soy plantations in Latin America, resulting in them having to leave their homes in many cases.

Around 90% of the world’s soy bean production is fed to animals. An increasing amount of the crop is now genetically modified. We have no idea how safe it is eat these crops; although we do know they result in adverse health affects in animals.

An interview with Dr Michael Antoniou, a reader in medical and molecular genetics at King’s College London, revealed that feeding animals GM crops such as potatoes, soy and maize resulted in intestinal lesions, liver cell changes, premature death in the young and problems with the kidneys and blood system.

The International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture have just released their ‘Manifesto on Climate Change and the Future of Food Security‘.

In the report, the impacts of growing animal feeds on the environment are explained:-

“Export-oriented countries such as Argentina and Brazil export millions of tons of GM soybean cultivated under monocultures to Europe to feed intensively reared and highly subsidized animals. This contributes to soil erosion and social desertification of the countryside and allows the maintenance of a highly unhealthy and energy-inefficient meat-based diet”.

The report also covers the combined impact of animal feeds and agrofuels on the Amazon:-

“In Brazil, vast swathes of the Amazon forest have already been cleared for soybean cultivation for cattlefeed. Encouraging soybean biodiesel would bring further devastation to the Amazon… Also, as farmers in the U.S. have switched from planting soy to planting corn, Brazil is trying to make up this difference in soy production and it is doing this by clearing more of the Amazon”.

And livestock’s impact on climate change:-

“Industrial agriculture contributes directly to climate change through emissions of the major greenhouse gases - Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O)… Methane and nitrous oxide are particularly powerful contributors to climate change as the global warming potential of methane is 21 times, and of nitrous oxide 310 times, that of CO2. Since 1970 the emission of these greenhouse gases has increased by 40 percent and 50 percent respectively… In particular ruminants produce methane via enteric fermentation which increases when cattle are fed intensive feed. At 32 percent this is the second largest source of emissions [from agriculture]“.

The report goes on to explain how diets are changing and what this means for our health:-

“The nutritional transition based on meat, dairy and fats increase the incidence of food related diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and strokes. As the South adopts more western-style diets, such diseases are on the rise”.

This report, and the many others which have highlighted the impact of the modern meat and dairy industry - from deforestation, climate change, food security and health - makes it abundantly clear that our chances of creating a healthy and sustainable future are minimal so long as this industry continues.

Contributors to the report included many pro-vegetarian experts such as world-renowned scientist and environmentalist Dr. Vandana Shiva; Frances Moore Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet; Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy, Institute of Health Science and government advisor and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party.

The World Bank has lent $90 million to Bertin Ltda, Brazil’s second-largest beef processors.

According to Mario Menezes, of Amigos da Terra, Brazil looses 1.8 million hectares of Amazon forest every year, and around 70 and 80 per cent is because of cattle ranching. Brazil already exports 300,000 tonnes of beef per year (41% of which from the Amazon) which is more than any other country.  This injection of cash in to the cattle industry will create further destruction.

The Amazon is home to 75 million cows and Bertin Ltda slaughters up to 5,400 cows a day. However, with the use of this loan and others, they aim to double their capacity, which includes expanding their facility in the heart of the most deforested area of the Amazon. By expanding this slaughter house, they will, without question, encourage farmers to clear more forest to raise more cattle. Much of the land in that area is illegally cleared.

The Amazon rainforest is home to a fifth of the world’s plant and animal species and more than 200 indigenous cultures. As the forest is destroyed, we lose hundreds of species each year, indigenous people are forced off their land, the impacts of poverty is exacerbated, and carbon is being released in to the atmostphere - a major contributer to climate change. We are loosing the ‘lungs of the earth’ and we will all suffer as a consequence.

Brazil’s biggest importers of beef include the UK.  And remember, one of the other main drivers of Amazon destruction is soy, 90% of which is fed to animals raised for meat in Europe and China.

Be part of the solution. Stop eating meat and dairy, and ask others to do the same. In the grand scheme of things, it’s really not so much to ask.

Well, nearly… Supplier of KFC and the largest chicken producer in the US, Pilgrim’s Pride, have announced that high animal feed costs have resulted in significant losses in their fourth quarter.

Pilgrim’s Pride share price dropped by 38% earlier in the week but then plummetted another 40% - to prices lower than 2002. They are now attempting to negotiate new terms with their lenders - with the current credit crunch they’ll need a miracle to pull that off  (good luck with that then!!).

Pilgrim’s Pride chickens are fed on soy and corn. Yes, the very same soy that is the cause of rainforest destruction (just ask Greenpeace, who exposed KFC’s secret recipe of ‘of illegal deforestation, land clearing and slavery’ and renamed them Klearing Forest for Chickens).

This is a good example of how unsustainable business practices do not make good business sense. Cheap meat means cheap animal feed and intensive farming which means environmental destruction and human rights abuses and there’s a limit to how long this can go on until the resources run out and more funds are needed to repair the damage and keep the system going. Sustainable business practices, where resources are used efficiently and waste and emissions are reduced, results in lower costs and a far more viable future.

Morningstar equity analyst, Ann Gilpin, pointed out that the entire meat industry is suffering.  She said of Pilgrim’s Pride, Tyson and Smithfield Foods, “”if we liken this to a sickness, they’re all sick.”

Well, she got that right. They are all sick. Sick animals, sick people. I hope they are all closed down and replaced with sustainable, ethical and environmentally responsible businesses.