A high-profile Herefordshire meat supplier has been told it can expand its packing and distribution plant – despite objections from neighbours.

Gavin McEwan | Hereford Times

BRUSSELS — The European Commission scrubbed a push to promote lab-grown and plant-based meats from a key climate proposal at the urging of Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski.

The EU released proposed plans for a strict new climate goal for 2040 on Tuesday. The announcement was marked by several concessions to the farming industry. None of those were enough for Wojciechowski, who, emails seen by POLITICO reveal, wanted to see the agriculture sector entirely exempted from the climate plan.

According to an email exchange from early Tuesday morning, Daniel Mes, a member of Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra’s cabinet, wrote to Wojciechowski’s adviser Joanna Stawowy to advise that, “we have now removed all references to “protein” (i.e. “lab-made meat”) from the text, per the request.”

Lab-grown meat and insect-based foods, in particular, have also been in the crosshairs of several EU governments. Italy last year pushed through a law banning lab-grown meat, which the government said threatened the country’s cultural heritage.

Bartosz Brzeziński and Karl Mathiesen | Politico

A Wensleydale family-run abattoir is to close after 23 years in business.

The owners of McIntyre Meats, based near Bainbridge, say they have taken the decision due to increased bureaucracy and rising overheads.

The company was started by Martin and Lindsey McIntyre 23 years ago.

Lindsey told Richmondshire Today: “It’s not a decision we have taken lightly and we appreciate the impact this will have locally on farmers and the hospitality trade.

“The meat industry is the most regulated in the country and it’s become more and more difficult for us to do business.

“At the same time, the cost of everything, including electricity, is going up.”

The abattoir processes around 20 cattle and up to 500 sheep every week.

The business has eight members of staff.

Upper Dales North Yorkshire Council councillor Yvonne Peacock said the closure was “very disappointing”.

“I wont just affected the farming community but everybody in the whole area.

Joe Willis | Richmondshire Today

In a notable turn of events, pork and hog prices in China experienced a resurgence last week, driven by last-minute stockpiling activities ahead of the Lunar New Year.

This boost in values occurred against the backdrop of inclement weather conditions, including snow and rain, across much of the country, as reported by market participants to Agricensus on Monday.

China’s pig prices have been facing downward pressure due to factors such as weak consumer spending, the resurgence of African swine fever, and abundant hog and pig inventories since around August of the previous year.

According to data from China’s Agriculture Ministry published on Monday, the average price of piglets in China increased by 8.7% week-on-week to CNY26.42/kg ($3.71/kg) last week. However, this still represents a significant 20.5% drop from the same period a year ago.

With hog supplies still relatively ample and high levels of frozen pork storage, analysts from China Post Securities anticipate a decline in pig prices after the festival concludes. Despite the recent uptick, challenges persist for China’s pork market.

Jim Eadie | Swineweb

The European Union has caved in to angry protests from farmers, cutting its target to scrap specific agricultural emissions which formed part of the bloc’s net zero drive.

A demand to reduce nitrogen, methane and other emissions linked to farming by almost a third has been removed from a wider Brussels plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 90 per cent by 2040.

On Tuesday, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, offered a further concession to demonstrating farmers by dropping her controversial proposal to halve pesticide use within six years.

A recommendation urging EU citizens to eat less meat was also removed from the plan.

Joe Barnes | The Telegraph

New Zealanders are being encouraged to celebrate lamb as the meat that made a nation.

February 15 has been designated National Lamb Day as it was on that date in 1882 the sailing ship Dunedin departed from Port Chalmers carrying the first shipment of frozen lamb to London.

Ag Proud chairman Jon Pemberton said the voyage was the start of New Zealand’s journey as a global food powerhouse.

“National Lamb Day is our way of honouring this legacy, celebrating our incredible kai, and acknowledging every individual involved in its journey from farm to fork.

“Let’s raise a chop in salute to our food champions!”

About 5000 frozen carcasses from Totara Estate, near Ōamaru, were on the Dunedin and only one was condemned when it arrived.

However, almost all were nearly lost in the tropics, where crew noticed the cold air in the hold was not circulating properly.

To save the cargo, Captain John Whitson crawled inside and sawed extra air holes.

He almost froze to death himself and had to be pulled out by ropes and resuscitated by crew members.

The success of the frozen exports encouraged farmers to grow their flocks with numbers peaking in 1982 at about 70 million.

That had dropped to about 26 million by 2021, but New Zealand still has the highest density of sheep per farm area in the world.

In 2022 lamb and mutton exports returned $4.4 billion in revenue.

Debbie Jamieson | Stuff.co.nz

Argentina is forecasted to increase 5,1% beef and calf production this year, reaching some 3,3 million tons with a domestic consumption of 2.43 million tons, according to the latest report from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This follows on a record beef exports 2023, 682.000 tons, despite government measures and export levies aimed at curbing prices in the home market in an election year.

The beef shipments (bone-in and boneless) of 682,000 tons, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries of Argentina were collected by the consultancy Safras & Mercado. The volume is 7.7% higher than the 633,000 tons exported in 2022.

“This growth trend is closely tied to China, which bought 73% of boneless meat and virtually all bone-in meat sold by Argentina,” said analyst Fernando Iglesias from Safras & Mercado.

Argentina caters to a different Chinese demand than Brazil’s: the exported animals are mostly cull females aged over 40 months. Brazilian livestock farmers are required to supply young animals as old as 30 months to the Chinese market.

Local analysts agree that one of the factors that allowed Argentina to export more was a “discreet” increase in local production, according to the analyst.

However, “the deterioration of the purchasing power of the Argentine population reduces the ability to keep meat in the domestic market,” said Hyberville Neto, director of the consultancy HN Agro.

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