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Opinion: Imperial County residents deserve to benefit from a potential lithium boom

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Thursday, September 26, 2024

Imperial County consistently ranks among the most economically distressed places in California. Its Salton Sea, the state’s biggest and most toxic lake, is an environmental disaster.The county also happens to be sitting on enough lithium to produce nearly 400 million batteries, sufficient to completely shift America’s auto industry to electric — and, if officials manage this moment carefully, to revolutionize the local economy and political culture.This doesn’t need to come at the expense of the environment; companies are pioneering a method to extract the mineral from underground briny water and inject the water back into the ground in a closed loop, yielding the cleanest, greenest lithium on the planet.It’s understandable why the prospect of a new clean industry, a “white gold rush,” would be appealing to residents. Capitalizing on the resource is not simple, however. If industry is allowed to drive the process completely, the result could be further economic and environmental exploitation. There’s a better way forward, though — an opportunity to ensure that residents directly benefit from the lithium extraction boom, while supporting the global shift to clean energy and ensuring that companies that invest in the Imperial Valley can turn a profit.This pocket of California is emblematic of the potential and the risks that have long faced impoverished communities in resource-rich regions.As often happens, public officials have been working to roll out the red carpet for big investors, including trying to create a clear plan for infrastructure and a quicker permitting process. To get community groups’ support, they are playing up the potential for jobs, including company commitments to hire local workers.But Imperial Valley residents, who have been on the receiving end of get-rich schemes around water and real estate in the past, are worried that their political leaders may be giving away the store.Decades of racial exclusion and broken promises have led to a deep distrust of outsiders who assert that things will be better this time.Irrigation at the turn of the last century was supposed to bring an agriculture boom, but the early result was a broken canal that released enough water over nearly two years of disrepair to create what is now the Salton Sea. The Salton Sea was then supposed to fuel tourism, but the failure to replenish it with anything but agricultural runoff helped kill fish, birds and recreation. In recent decades, a plan to attract solar farms delivered little employment and more worries about agricultural displacement.A lithium boom could be different, but there is cause for caution.Today’s battery technology — necessary for electric vehicles and energy storage — relies on minerals including cobalt, magnesium, nickel and graphite. And mineral extraction is often accompanied by obscured environmental risks. In Imperial Valley, environmental and community organizations are worried about lithium extraction’s water use as well as waste and air pollution as production steps up and truck traffic increases. The region’s childhood asthma rate is already more than twice the national average and dust from the drying lake is toxic, so any extra environmental health risk is a big deal.Local communities are also concerned about how much benefit they will see while the industry profits. They note that the electric vehicle boom driving lithium demand occurred precisely because of public policy. Tesla, for example, has benefited from multiple rounds of state and federal zero-emissions-vehicle incentives, including the sale of emissions credits that accounted for 85% of Tesla’s gross margin in 2009 and rose to $1.8 billion a year by 2023.Behind these policies and financial incentives have been public will and taxpayer money.Imperial Valley residents, not just companies, deserve a return. Rather than promising to only pay for community “benefits,” such as environmental mitigation, contributions to municipal coffers or jobs, the companies extracting lithium could make payments directly to the people and communities that live there.There are models for this type of approach. The Alaska Permanent Fund, for example, gives an annual amount to all state residents from oil extraction revenue.Ensuring that the surrounding communities benefit from a new lithium boom also requires thinking about how to attract not just the companies extracting the lithium but those that will use it further down the supply chain — and generate more and better jobs. So far, Imperial County has had limited success in attracting related industries. Last year, a company said it would build a “gigafactory” there to assemble batteries. However, the company’s previous efforts in the United Kingdom and Italy have stalled.A potentially promising future for modern transportation and energy storage may be brewing in Imperial Valley. But getting to a brighter future will require remembering a lesson from the past: Community investments tend to be hard-won. Ensuring that everyone benefits is essential for achieving a more inclusive and sustainable future.Manuel Pastor is a professor of sociology and director of the Equity Research Institute at USC. Chris Benner is a professor and the director of the Institute for Social Transformation at UC Santa Cruz. They are co-authors of “Charging Forward: Lithium Valley, Electric Vehicles and a Just Future.” This article was produced in partnership with the Conversation.

The distressed California region could have an economic turnaround if companies make payments directly to the people that live there.

Imperial County consistently ranks among the most economically distressed places in California. Its Salton Sea, the state’s biggest and most toxic lake, is an environmental disaster.

The county also happens to be sitting on enough lithium to produce nearly 400 million batteries, sufficient to completely shift America’s auto industry to electric — and, if officials manage this moment carefully, to revolutionize the local economy and political culture.

This doesn’t need to come at the expense of the environment; companies are pioneering a method to extract the mineral from underground briny water and inject the water back into the ground in a closed loop, yielding the cleanest, greenest lithium on the planet.

It’s understandable why the prospect of a new clean industry, a “white gold rush,” would be appealing to residents. Capitalizing on the resource is not simple, however. If industry is allowed to drive the process completely, the result could be further economic and environmental exploitation. There’s a better way forward, though — an opportunity to ensure that residents directly benefit from the lithium extraction boom, while supporting the global shift to clean energy and ensuring that companies that invest in the Imperial Valley can turn a profit.

This pocket of California is emblematic of the potential and the risks that have long faced impoverished communities in resource-rich regions.

As often happens, public officials have been working to roll out the red carpet for big investors, including trying to create a clear plan for infrastructure and a quicker permitting process. To get community groups’ support, they are playing up the potential for jobs, including company commitments to hire local workers.

But Imperial Valley residents, who have been on the receiving end of get-rich schemes around water and real estate in the past, are worried that their political leaders may be giving away the store.

Decades of racial exclusion and broken promises have led to a deep distrust of outsiders who assert that things will be better this time.

Irrigation at the turn of the last century was supposed to bring an agriculture boom, but the early result was a broken canal that released enough water over nearly two years of disrepair to create what is now the Salton Sea. The Salton Sea was then supposed to fuel tourism, but the failure to replenish it with anything but agricultural runoff helped kill fish, birds and recreation. In recent decades, a plan to attract solar farms delivered little employment and more worries about agricultural displacement.

A lithium boom could be different, but there is cause for caution.

Today’s battery technology — necessary for electric vehicles and energy storage — relies on minerals including cobalt, magnesium, nickel and graphite. And mineral extraction is often accompanied by obscured environmental risks. In Imperial Valley, environmental and community organizations are worried about lithium extraction’s water use as well as waste and air pollution as production steps up and truck traffic increases. The region’s childhood asthma rate is already more than twice the national average and dust from the drying lake is toxic, so any extra environmental health risk is a big deal.

Local communities are also concerned about how much benefit they will see while the industry profits. They note that the electric vehicle boom driving lithium demand occurred precisely because of public policy. Tesla, for example, has benefited from multiple rounds of state and federal zero-emissions-vehicle incentives, including the sale of emissions credits that accounted for 85% of Tesla’s gross margin in 2009 and rose to $1.8 billion a year by 2023.

Behind these policies and financial incentives have been public will and taxpayer money.

Imperial Valley residents, not just companies, deserve a return. Rather than promising to only pay for community “benefits,” such as environmental mitigation, contributions to municipal coffers or jobs, the companies extracting lithium could make payments directly to the people and communities that live there.

There are models for this type of approach. The Alaska Permanent Fund, for example, gives an annual amount to all state residents from oil extraction revenue.

Ensuring that the surrounding communities benefit from a new lithium boom also requires thinking about how to attract not just the companies extracting the lithium but those that will use it further down the supply chain — and generate more and better jobs. So far, Imperial County has had limited success in attracting related industries. Last year, a company said it would build a “gigafactory” there to assemble batteries. However, the company’s previous efforts in the United Kingdom and Italy have stalled.

A potentially promising future for modern transportation and energy storage may be brewing in Imperial Valley. But getting to a brighter future will require remembering a lesson from the past: Community investments tend to be hard-won. Ensuring that everyone benefits is essential for achieving a more inclusive and sustainable future.

Manuel Pastor is a professor of sociology and director of the Equity Research Institute at USC. Chris Benner is a professor and the director of the Institute for Social Transformation at UC Santa Cruz. They are co-authors of “Charging Forward: Lithium Valley, Electric Vehicles and a Just Future.” This article was produced in partnership with the Conversation.

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Helene just pummeled America’s chicken farming capital

Hurricane Helene, the Category 4 storm that slammed the American Southeast over the weekend, has killed more than 110 people — and likely millions of chickens. Almost half of the more than 9 billion chickens farmed for meat in the US, known as “broiler” chickens, are raised and slaughtered in the region. Georgia is the […]

Damaged farms after a hurricane are an animal welfare catastrophe and a hazard to public health. | Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals Hurricane Helene, the Category 4 storm that slammed the American Southeast over the weekend, has killed more than 110 people — and likely millions of chickens. Almost half of the more than 9 billion chickens farmed for meat in the US, known as “broiler” chickens, are raised and slaughtered in the region. Georgia is the nation’s top chicken producer, processing 1.3 billion chickens annually. Over the weekend, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters that 107 poultry facilities in the state had been “damaged or totally destroyed by the storm.”  Georgia’s Department of Agriculture didn’t respond to questions about the precise number of chickens that perished during Hurricane Helene. But given that poultry companies typically pack anywhere from 20,000 to 52,000 chickens into each barn, which can run as big as nearly twice the length of a football field, an estimated 2.14 million to 5.56 million birds are likely to have died. (The true total could be modestly different, as some birds could’ve survived damages, and some barns could’ve been temporarily empty, as companies clear them out for a few weeks between flocks.) Some of the nation’s largest poultry companies — including Aviagen, Pilgrim’s Pride and Wayne-Sanderson Farms — suspended operations at their local facilities due to power outages in recent days. A spokesperson for Clemson University’s agriculture program told Vox that while this is a fluid situation and it is still evaluating the hurricane’s damages, 45,000 chickens died at one South Carolina poultry operation due to generator failure. Friends of Georgia Farm Bureau | One of many poultry houses flattened… Virtually all chickens raised for meat in the US are confined in these sprawling warehouses, which bear no resemblance to the small barns of America’s agricultural past. These factory farm operations often have at least several sheds, housing hundreds of thousands of birds on one site at the same time. If enough facilities are compromised during a natural disaster like Hurricane Helene, millions of animals can perish, their last moments likely frightening and painful. Their deaths also threaten the economic health of farmers and the poultry industry. Georgia’s agriculture commissioner, Tyler Harper, has requested immediate federal relief for the state’s agricultural sector.  When hurricanes strike factory farms, they can also flush untold amounts of animal manure into groundwater or rivers and streams, exacerbating the challenges that governments and their residents face in the wake of pounding storms. Hurricane Helene is the latest — but not the first — striking, high-stakes example of how our factory farming system imposes tremendous cruelty onto animals and also imperils human health. The industry has no reason to change, even after a catastrophe like this, because taxpayers cover much of the economic loss meat companies incur from natural disasters.  How taxpayers subsidize factory farming’s risks This is far from the first time a hurricane has torn through the Southeast’s poultry industry. It’s happened multiple times over the last quarter-century, a period in which Big Ag has only doubled down on building more, and bigger, factory farms.  In 1999, Hurricane Floyd put much of eastern North Carolina underwater, killing an estimated 2.4 million chickens, 100,000 pigs, and half a million turkeys. North Carolina pig farms store the animals’ waste in giant manure “lagoons,” and several overflowed during Floyd, sending toxic sludge containing bacteria and viruses (including E. coli) into waterways and drinking water, according to the state’s climate office. Chicken factory farms store manure in giant pits or as large mounds, creating a similar pollution risk as hog farms. Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018 also caused devastation in North Carolina, killing millions of chickens and thousands of pigs, both of which caused damage to some manure lagoons, resulting in “fecal soup” discharge. Later the same year, Hurricane Michael destroyed over 80 chicken barns in Georgia that housed more than 2 million chickens. Manure can seep into groundwater and contaminate private wells that many rural communities rely on for drinking water, a perennial concern heightened after major storms.    Despite that history, the poultry and pork industries haven’t done much to mitigate the risks posed by natural disasters by, say, raising fewer animals on their farms or making major changes to how they manage the enormous amounts of manure their animals generate. That’s because US taxpayers bear much of the cost, both for the environmental cleanup and the dead chickens and pigs.  When natural disasters hit a typical chicken farm, the meat company — which technically owns the chickens, not the farmer — receives $3 per mature bird from the US Department of Agriculture, about 75 percent of the bird’s market value. The farmer that supplies to the meatpacker receives just 33 cents per bird. Many chicken farmers, most of whom raise birds on a contract basis for meat companies, are already toiling in precarious economic conditions. Hurricanes and other natural disasters can make it much worse.   The federal government also reimburses economic losses from other severe weather, like heat waves and cold snaps, and disease outbreaks. Over the last two years, a highly pathogenic strain of bird flu — known as H5N1 — has resulted in the death of more than 100 million poultry birds, and the federal government has given well over $1 billion to the poultry industry, much of it going to the largest companies.  Livestock production is both a leading driver of climate change and, as Hurricane Helene demonstrates, a victim of it. As global warming increases the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, policymakers should question the factory farming model. Instead, as a recent federal accounting of the US agricultural system shows, we’re doubling down on it, raising more and more animals on bigger and bigger farms. “In addition to all the environmental problems associated with the factory farm model, and the public health problems that it causes, at the end of the day the extreme concentration of animals is just a fundamental vulnerability,” said Chris Hunt, deputy director of the nonprofit Socially Responsible Agriculture Project. “It’s a vulnerability to unexpected shocks to the system … The fact that poultry is not only concentrated on [factory farms], but is also concentrated geographically, is certainly problematic.”

Agriculture
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Climate

Bottom-breathing turtle among Queensland endangered species under threat from invasive fish

Record floods propel aggressive Mozambique tilapia throughout Mary River, compromising efforts to save ancient fish and endangered turtlesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastRecord floods have propelled an aggressive invasive fish species across a south-east Queensland river catchment, compromising efforts to save endangered and ancient fishes and turtles.The Moonaboola (Mary) river catchment is home to several threatened species, including the Mary River turtle, the white-throated snapping turtle (known for breathing through its bottom), the Mary River cod and the Australian lungfish, which has survived for 150m years and is considered a living fossil. Continue reading...

Record floods have propelled an aggressive invasive fish species across a south-east Queensland river catchment, compromising efforts to save endangered and ancient fishes and turtles.The Moonaboola (Mary) river catchment is home to several threatened species, including the Mary River turtle, the white-throated snapping turtle (known for breathing through its bottom), the Mary River cod and the Australian lungfish, which has survived for 150m years and is considered a living fossil.The Burnett Mary Regional Group (BMRG), a conservation group, led an eight-week survey of the river and its tributaries including a 200km canoe expedition and sampling at 61 sites using environmental DNA and netting. According to the findings, record floods in 2022 enabled an exotic fish called the Mozambique tilapia to proliferate.Prof Mark Kennard, the deputy director of the Australian Rivers Institute at Griffith University, was concerned by how “massively” tilapia had spread. “It’s quite alarming how abundant they are,” he said. “Sometimes you’ll see thousands of fish swimming around.”The tilapia invasion was an unwelcome additional pressure for endangered fish and turtles, he said, competing for their food and preying on their eggs and young.Kennard said the Mary River was a “hotspot of threatened aquatic species” and one of the last remaining large rivers on the east coast without a large dam on it.The riverbank was already degraded due to human occupation and agriculture, he said. Then extreme flooding scoured the riverbed, removing crucial spawning habitat for lungfish and stripping out the large hollow, submerged logs where cod lay their eggs.Unfortunately, the survey revealed the numbers of endangered fish and turtle species had not improved despite conservation efforts over the past three decades, Kennard said.Dr Anthony Chariton, who researches aquatic ecology at Macquarie University but was not involved in the Mary River study, said while flooding was a natural part of Australian aquatic environments climate change was affecting the dynamics. “So sometimes floods are more frequent and larger, and then you get prolonged periods of drought.”An Australian lungfish, another threatened species that lives in the Moonaboola catchment. Photograph: Mark KennardHe said extreme floods could introduce a lot of material – pollution, rubbish, sediment and nutrients from the soil – into waterways, with potentially long-term effects for river ecosystems.Tom Espinoza, the CEO of the BMRG, said there were about eight invasive fish in the river that should not be there, but the floods had enabled the tilapia to reach previously inaccessible areas.“Tilapia have a distinctive feature in their ecology that they chase flow,” he said. “So they’re really good colonisers. Every time the river flows, they’ll chase it upstream.”skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe study, supported by commonwealth and Queensland disaster recovery funding, brought together local traditional owners, environmental and resource management groups and scientists from Griffith University and the National Environmental Science Program’s Resilient Landscapes Hub.Espinoza said the community was “really invested and environmentally informed” and keen to protect the river and its species.The study has provided a stocktake of where threatened species were living, which could help target habitat restoration efforts, including planting aquatic plants and adding hollowed out logs and other structures that provide protection to baby turtles.Kennard said this was the beginning of a longer-term resilience strategy for the river. “We’re in it for the long term”, he said. “I’m concerned that these rare, endemic species are going to continue to decline progressively over the next 50 years, unless we can do something about it now.”

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The US Weakens a UN Declaration on Antibiotic Resistance

But when those leaders meet at the U.N. on Thursday to adopt the Political Declaration on Antimicrobial Resistance, that concrete goal and others will be missing from the latest draft. After months of negotiations and edits to the proposal, these ambitious—and likely effective—commitments have been replaced with a toothless target: to “strive to meaningfully reduce” […] The post The US Weakens a UN Declaration on Antibiotic Resistance appeared first on Civil Eats.

Last May, the United Nations (U.N.) released the first draft of a global plan to tackle antibiotic resistance that aligned with a call from world leaders’ expert advisors to take “bold and specific action.” That included a commitment to reduce the use of antibiotics used in the food and agriculture system by 30 percent by 2030. But when those leaders meet at the U.N. on Thursday to adopt the Political Declaration on Antimicrobial Resistance, that concrete goal and others will be missing from the latest draft. After months of negotiations and edits to the proposal, these ambitious—and likely effective—commitments have been replaced with a toothless target: to “strive to meaningfully reduce” antibiotic use in agriculture. Now, experts and advocates are concerned that this new, vague provision, among other weakened commitments, will be included in the final declaration. “I think it’s a serious mistake,” said Andre Delattre, the senior vice president and COO for programs at the Public Interest Network, which has advocated for reducing antibiotic use on farms as a matter of public interest for years. “We’ve known for a very long time that the overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture is really problematic for public health. Saying we’re going to reduce without setting targets just shows we’re not as serious as we should be about the problem.” The news comes at a pivotal moment. While the urgency of antibiotic resistance as a public health threat is well known, a new study released last week upped the ante. According to a systemic analysis of the problem, researchers predicted deaths directly caused by resistance will increase nearly 70 percent between 2022 and 2050, rising to around 2 million per year globally, with another 8 million deaths associated with the issue. In the U.S., the largest volume of antibiotics are used in animal agriculture. Also, the preventive dosing of animals with medically important drugs—that is, drugs for treating humans—is still routine. This use of drugs can drive the development of resistant bacteria that then threaten human lives. Reducing or eliminating the use of medically important antibiotics in livestock would slow the development of resistant bacteria, experts say, safeguarding the efficacy of important drugs for longer. “It is estimated that by 2050, as many as 10 million people globally will die annually from antibiotic-resistant infections unless the United States joins with other countries to quickly take aggressive action to address this issue.” U.S. officials were at least partially responsible for weakening the U.N. declaration’s commitments on animal agriculture. The advocacy organization U.S. Right to Know obtained a document showing that the U.S. was one of a few meat-producing countries that suggested deleting the 2030 goal. The organization also cites the fact that a Washington, D.C. trade group representing the animal drug industry objected to the goal. In response to questions about involvement in the U.N. declaration, a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) spokesperson referred Civil Eats to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). FDA officials did not respond by press time. Steve Roach, the Safe & Healthy Food Program Director at Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), has been tracking U.S. policy on antibiotic use in agriculture for years. He said that on the international stage, he’s seen the U.S. “actively undermining” stronger policies time and time again. “The U.S. always seems to be aiming for something weaker,” he said. For example, he said the U.S. worked to keep targets for the reduction of antibiotic use out of international food safety standards. The U.S. was also one of five countries—all top users of antibiotics in animal agriculture— that did not sign onto an earlier global agreement, called the Muscat Ministerial Manifesto on AMR, that did include targeted reductions. And Roach said that this approach on the global stage mirrors how federal agencies continue to approach the issue at home. “We’ve been calling for targets for years, and FDA is always saying, ‘We don’t have enough data to determine how much use is inappropriate. So, therefore, we don’t support targets,’” he said. The FDA does track the volume of medically important antibiotics sold for use in animals, but it is still not tracking exactly how those drugs are being used on farms. Instead, it has funded small pilot projects and is now in the process of working with the meat industry on a voluntary reporting system. The agency outlined some of those efforts in a letter sent to Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) last week. The letter was in response to concerns Booker raised in July about updates he felt would weaken guidance the FDA creates for the industry on responsible antibiotic use. Booker’s team was far from satisfied with the agency’s response and said that after more than a decade of attention, they found it incredibly troubling that basic issues of data collection and setting concrete targets were still unresolved. “It is estimated that by 2050, as many as 10 million people globally will die annually from antibiotic-resistant infections unless the United States joins with other countries to quickly take aggressive action to address this issue. That is why I am deeply concerned that the FDA has caved under pressure from special interests for decades and failed to take any meaningful steps to address this overuse in industrial livestock production,” Booker said in an email to Civil Eats. “Not only has the FDA been unwilling to use its legal authority to reduce the massive overuse of antibiotics on factory farms in the U.S., but the agency is now actively working to block international commitments to address antimicrobial resistance.” In 2016, the agency banned the use of medically important drugs on farms solely for the purpose of making animals get bigger, faster. That change led to a big drop in overall drug use. But pork producers and cattle feedlots still routinely add antibiotics to feed and water, often for long stretches, and drug use in those sectors has been rising over the past two years. At the end of August, the USDA reported its recent testing even found antibiotic residue in about 20 percent of beef samples labeled “raised without antibiotics.” And over the past year, companies that once committed to moving their supply chains away from routine antibiotic use have been backtracking. Multiple experts expressed dismay over what they said now feels like continued steps away from stronger regulations that can adequately protect public health. “The U.S. government will do whatever it can to fight the serious public health threat of antimicrobial resistance—as long as that action has no impact on anyone whatsoever, as long as nobody has to make any changes to what they’re doing,” Roach said. “It’s really disappointing, because the U.S. could be a leader on this issue, and it just consistently chooses not to.” In the absence of government leadership, Delattre said, watchdog groups will have to work harder. “The commitment as it’s drafted now says it’s supposed to aim for meaningful reductions by every member country. Those numeric targets represented an idea of meaningful reduction,” he said. “Whether they’re in there or not, they’re the sort of thing we need to aim for, and it’s what we’ll be holding the U.S. farm animal industry to going forward.” Read More: What Happened to Antibiotic-Free Chicken? Medically Important Antibiotics Are Still Being Used to Fatten Up Pigs The FDA Is Still Not Tracking How Farms Use Antibiotics Poultry Implosion. According to a lawsuit filed today, an ambitious plan to create a poultry company dedicated to slower-growing chickens involved rapid company growth that led to its downfall—and ultimately harmed farmers raising its birds. Although Cooks’ Venture set out to raise healthier birds under better farm conditions, it replicated the contract system used by bigger industry players like Tyson and Perdue, placing financial risk on the shoulders of producers. In the legal complaint, farmers say the company’s leadership misled them by misrepresenting the financial health of the operation. As a result, many took on debt to house and care for the chickens in anticipation of a long-term payoff. When the company went out of business without notice, it left farmers in the lurch. The lawsuit also alleges the individuals in charge of the company conspired with the Arkansas Department of Agriculture to kill more than a million chickens after the company folded—so they wouldn’t have to process them or pay farmers for the flocks—and left farmers to clean up the mess. The lawsuit will be one of the first brought under new rules finalized by the Biden administration intended to better enforce the Packers & Stockyards Act. Read More: The Race to Produce a Slower-Growing Chicken The Continuing Woes of Contract Chicken Farmers Food-and-Climate Funding.  As companies, advocates, and investors gather in New York City for Climate Week, multiple organizations are calling attention to the flow of capital toward food and agriculture systems that accelerate climate change—and how to redirect those funds. Given meat’s outsized climate impacts, the global meat industry is at the top of the list. A group of 105 food and environmental organizations sent a letter to the world’s biggest private banks demanding they halt new funding for industrial livestock production and require meat and dairy clients to report emissions reduction targets. Meanwhile, Tilt Collective, a new nonprofit promoting a rapid shift toward plant-based diets, released a report highlighting investment opportunities. According to its analysis, investments in transitioning to a plant-based food system could reduce energy emissions far more than investments in renewable energy or electric vehicles, while also delivering other benefits, like reduced water use and biodiversity loss. Nonprofits that work directly with the biggest food and agriculture companies are also in on the action. The Environmental Defense Fund released a report for investors on how they can play a role in reducing methane from livestock, while Ceres updated its investor-focused reporting on the 50 biggest food companies’ greenhouse gas emissions reporting and reductions. Their data showed that only 11 of the 50 companies reduced their overall greenhouse gas emissions compared to their base years, while 12 increased emissions. Lack of progress on emissions reductions was largely linked to the food companies’ supply chains. So while many companies did cut emissions from their own operations by shifting to renewable energy, for example, they struggled to reduce those that happened in farm fields and feedlots, which typically represent about 90 percent of a food company’s overall emissions. Read More: The IPCC’s Latest Climate Report Is a Final Alarm for Food Systems, Too Methane From Agriculture Is a Big Problem. We Explain Why. Fresh Cafeteria Fare. A lengthy progress report on California’s farm-to-school grant program—the largest in the nation—found the state’s efforts are paying off. More local food is getting into schools while supporting farmers. Between 2020 and 2022, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) distributed about $100 million to increase locally farmed food served in school cafeterias. The results of this program—which includes farm-fresh meals and nutrition education efforts—disproportionately benefitted students from lower-income families who were eligible for free or reduced-price meals. At the same time, the funding went primarily to small- and mid-size farms, more than half of which were owned by women; more than 40 percent were owned by producers of color. Participating farms were also much more likely to be organic or transitioning to organic production compared to the state average. They were also likely to be implementing and/or expanding other environmentally friendly practices. Still, despite California’s advantages over other states—namely a super-long growing season that overlaps with the school year and a plethora of farms selling fruit, vegetables, meat, and dairy—the total money spent by school grantees on local food represented just 1 percent of total food budgets. And schools cited many challenges common across the farm-to-school landscape: price constraints, processing capacity, and staffing. “The challenges around changing a complex school food system are substantial,” said Dr. Gail Feenstra, one of the researchers involved in the report, in a press release. “Fortunately, the state’s strategic and innovative investments in the entire farm to school supply chain—meaning funding for school districts, farmers, and also their regional partners, combined with support from CDFA’s regional staff—are beginning to address those long-standing challenges.” Read More: New School Meal Standards Could Put More Local Food on Students’ Lunch Trays Farm-to-School Efforts Just Got a Big Influx of Cash. Will It Help More Schools Get on Board? Pandemic Disruptions Created an Opportunity for Organic School Meals in California The post The US Weakens a UN Declaration on Antibiotic Resistance appeared first on Civil Eats.

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Business

Cambodia Hopes a New Canal Will Boost Trade. but It Risks Harming the Mekong That Feeds Millions.

Cambodia has broken ground to build a $1.7 billion, China-funded canal to eventually link its capital Phnom Penh to the Gulf of Thailand

PREK TAKEO, Cambodia (AP) — The Mekong River is a lifeline for millions in the six countries it traverses on its way from its headwaters to the sea, sustaining the world’s largest inland fishery and abundant rice paddies on Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Cambodia's plan to build a massive canal linking the Mekong to a port on on its own coast on the Gulf of Thailand is raising alarm that the project could devastate the river's natural flood systems, worsening droughts and depriving farmers on the delta of the nutrient-rich silt that has made Vietnam the world's third-largest rice exporter.Cambodia hopes that the $1.7 billion Funan Techo canal, being built with Chinese help, will support its ambition to export directly from factories along the Mekong without relying on Vietnam, connecting the capital Phnom Penh with Kep province on Cambodia's southern coast. At an Aug. 6 groundbreaking ceremony, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said the canal will be built “no matter what the cost.” By reducing costs of shipping to Cambodia's only deep-sea port, at Sihanoukville, the canal will promote, “national prestige, the territorial integrity and the development of Cambodia,” he said. Along with those promises comes peril. Here is a closer look.The Mekong River flows from China through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. It supports a fishery that accounts for 15% of the global inland catch, worth over $11 billion annually, according to the nonprofit World Wildlife Fund. Flooding during the wet season makes the Mekong Delta one of the world's most productive farm regions.The river already has been disrupted by dams built upstream in Laos and China that restrict the amount of water flowing downstream, while rising seas are gnawing away at the southern edges of the climate-vulnerable Mekong Delta.Brian Eyler, director of the Washington-based Stimson Center’s Southeast Asia Program, warns that high embankments along the 100-meter (328 feet)-wide, 5.4-meter (17.7 feet)-deep canal will prevent silt-laden floodwater from flowing downstream to Vietnam. That could worsen drought in Vietnam's rice bowl and Cambodia's floodplains, an area stretching over roughly 1,300-square kilometers (501 square miles). The view from Vietnam's rice bowl A drier Mekong Delta is a concern for Vietnam’s agricultural sector, which powers 12% of its economy. The southwestern provinces of An Giang and Kien Giang would likely be most impacted. The delta's latticework of rivers crisscrossing green fields is vital for Vietnam’s own plans of growing “high quality, low emission rice” on 1 million hectares of farmland by 2030. The aim is to cut earth-warming greenhouse gases, lower production costs and increase farmers’ profits.Water from the river is “essential” not just for Vietnam's more than 100 million people but also for global food security, said Nguyen Van Nhut, director of rice export company Hoang Minh Nhat.Vietnam’s exports of 8.3 million metric tons (9.1 U.S. tons) of rice in 2023 accounted for 15% of global exports. Most was grown in the Mekong Delta. The amount of silt being deposited by the river has already dropped and further disruptions will worsen salinity in the area, hurting farming, Nhat said.“This will be a major concern for the agriculture sector of the Mekong delta,” he said.Cambodia says the canal is a “tributary project” that will connect to the Bassac River near Phnom Penh. President Hun Sen claimed on social media platform X that this means there would be “no impact on the flow of the Mekong River.”But blueprints show the canal will connect to the Mekong's mainstream and in any case the Bassac consists entirely of water from the Mekong, Eyler said.Cambodian authorities are downplaying the potential environmental impacts of the project. “This is their logic-defying basis for justifying no impact to the Mekong River,” he said.A document submitted in August 2023 to the Mekong River Commission — an organization formed for cooperation on issues regarding the Mekong — does not mention using water from the canal for irrigation, though Cambodia has since said it plans to do so. The Stimson Center added it was “logical” that irrigation would be needed during dry months, but that would require negotiating an agreement with the other Mekong countries. The Mekong River Commission told The Associated Press all major projects on the Mekong River “should be assessed for their potential transboundary impacts.” It said it was providing technical support to “increase transparency and cooperation among concerned countries.” Sun Chanthol, the Cambodian deputy prime minister who oversees the project, didn’t respond to a request for comments. Nationalistic rhetoric and tense neighbors Cambodia has rejected criticism of the canal, which is widely seen as an effort by the country's ruling elite to curry support for Prime Minister Hun Manet, who succeeded his father Hun Sen, who led Cambodia for 38 years.The canal is to be built jointly by Chinese state-owned construction giant China Road and Bridge Corporation and Cambodian companies. But it is enveloped in nationalistic rhetoric. The canal would provide Cambodia a “nose to breathe through” by reducing its dependence on Vietnam, Hun Sen has said. Vietnam has avoided openly criticizing its neighbor, instead communicating its concerns quietly. Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said at a press conference in May that Hanoi had asked Cambodia to share information and assess the environmental impacts of the project to “ensure the harmony of interests” of Mekong countries.Many Cambodians remain suspicious of Vietnam’s intentions, believing it may want to annex Cambodian territory. Given the contentious past between the two countries, bigger and richer Vietnam is taking care not to appear to be impinging on Cambodian sovereignty, said Nguyen Khac Giang, an analyst at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. "Although in Vietnam, there are big concerns,” he said.Lost in Cambodia's nationalistic rhetoric are the concerns of people like Sok Koeun, 57, who may lose her home. The tin-roofed cottage where she has lived with her family since 1980 is right where the canal is due to be built. The river provides her with fish to feed her family when she struggles to get by selling sugarcane juice and recycling plastic cans. No one has been in touch, she says, to answer her mounting questions: Will she get compensated? Will she get land? Or cash? Where will they go?“I only learned about it (the canal) just now,” she said.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Agriculture
Climate
Food

Hawaii Has Gone Down Under for Invasive Species Advice – Again

A delegation of Hawaii lawmakers and officials recently returned from a more than $50,000 visit to New Zealand seeking ways the state could better shield itself from invasive species

A delegation of Hawaii lawmakers and officials recently returned from a more than $50,000 visit to New Zealand seeking ways the state could better shield itself from invasive species – advice it failed to heed almost two decades ago.The South Pacific nation had originally offered suggestions during a similar trip in 2006, but it it was not until this year that Hawaii invested millions of dollars into biosecurity to battle swarms of fire ants and coconut rhinoceros beetles.That investment follows months of public outcry over the inaction and inability to contain the pests, which threaten to irreversibly harm the environment and economy.Over five days, 17 people – five legislators and representatives of four state departments – visited New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, and its largest city, Auckland, to tour ports, airports and biosecurity facilities. New Zealand is recognized worldwide for its biosecurity program, one started more than 30 years ago. The country’s multi-layered program – with a budget of about NZ$418 million ($260 million in U.S. dollars) – begins off the country’s shores and includes the borders, mail centers and ports, as well as detection, response and management of pests in the country. New Zealand has a minister of biosecurity, a cabinet-level position.The country has already eradicated some invasive species on 100 islands and is in the midst of a government-run campaign to rid the main islands of rats, ferrets, weasels and possums by 2050. Its approach to biosecurity represents “the gold standard,” said Hawaii Rep. Kristin Kahaloa, vice-chair of House food and agriculture committee, who joined the recent trip.By comparison, Hawaii’s biosecurity measures have fallen short despite the long history of invasive species here, which led the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife to designate the state “the endangered species capital of the world.”The state Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program, has faced increased scrutiny since the beginning of 2023, when the beetles spread statewide – destroying coconut palms and eating through some native crops – and the stinging little fire ants became entrenched on Oahu, dissuading some from using public spaces to avoid being stung.Lawmakers responded during the 2024 legislative session by injecting $10 million into specific biosecurity programs. Another $3 million was added to the state agriculture agency’s biosecurity budget, bringing it to $9.2 million.In 2017, the state estimated that it would need to invest $37.8 million every year until 2027 to fully implement a comprehensive Hawaii Interagency Biosecurity Program. Department of Agriculture deputy director Dexter Kishida, part of the delegation, says the additional trip to New Zealand was intended to help lawmakers, his department and others formulate stronger, smarter plans to stem the tide of invasive species. “Otherwise we keep throwing money at CRB, LFA or whatever the next thing is,” Kishida said, using shorthand for coconut rhinoceros beetles and little fire ants.The agriculture department paid approximately $50,000 for the visit, which covered its staff, the legislators and two legislative staffers’ trips, Kishida said. Leeward Community College and the departments of transportation, education and business paid for their own delegates.Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz shared takeaways from the trip in an email newsletter last Wednesday. They included fostering more collaboration among government agencies, creating pathways to new jobs in biosecurity and increasing public awareness.Those are not new ideas, nor are they new to Hawaii. But they now have broad support from key legislators. Paying The High Price Of Inaction More than 20 years ago Hawaii’s invasive species community called for the state’s inaugural biosecurity plan to be modeled on New Zealand’s. Four years later a delegation visited the country to learn about its methods. The Hawaii Conservation Alliance then commissioned a review of the state’s biosecurity. The resulting 22-page treatise, known as “The Warren Report,” was published later that year.It stated that Hawaii was “paying a far higher price overall than necessary for the privilege (or obligation) of trading with a world that contains millions of organisms that are unable to move to Hawaii without human help.”Paula Warren, a senior policy advisor with New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, wrote the report and based her analysis on policies and interviews with government officials and state workers.“One of the people interviewed, when asked what improvements they would make to the biosecurity system, replied after some thought ‘We don’t have a biosecurity system to improve.’ That judgement is both accurate and unduly harsh,” Warren wrote.The 2006 report came to several conclusions, identifying inadequate resources, powers and public support among the causes for Hawaii’s invasive species problems. It found money was wasted on inefficient or ineffective programs, partly because decisions were made in silos. Warren created a long list of recommendations, too, such as better integrating non-governmental invasive species organizations.“It’s a matter of accepting that biosecurity is as large an issue to public safety as terrorism, and I don’t think your government understands that,” Warren told Honolulu Weekly in 2006. None of the lawmakers on the recent visit were in office when the report was published, nor were many of the other state workers in the delegation. Members of the environmental protection and invasive species community – which does the lion’s share of public outreach and research – were notably absent from the trip, too.But Carol Okada – who managed the Department of Agriculture Plant Quarantine Branch when Warren’s report was released in 2006 – was among this year’s delegates visiting New Zealand.Okada is not currently employed by the state and attended as a “community expert on port biosecurity,” Kishida said. She has faced intense criticism of her previous work with the department, dating back to the early 2000s, when several species that remain problems today first became established.That was when the agriculture department needed to embrace its ”role as a broad biosecurity agency that serves interests other than agriculture (notably biodiversity),” Warren wrote in her 2006 report. Warren believed biosecurity would get stronger because ”people want it to.”Among the species that Warren warned about in her report: little fire ants.“Let’s make sure the investments of money and time from these trips have merits,” Kane said. “What did we learn and how did we make changes here? Because if not, it’s just a vacation.”He spoke to his state representative, Sen. Chris Lee, when he returned from New Zealand. Kane said he was excited at the prospect of Lee introducing strong legislation to better help Waimanalo control invasive species. Moving Forward With A Plan to Protect Hawaii Lawmakers appear poised to better address biosecurity in Hawaii but New Zealand is different and its model cannot be copied verbatim.Its biosecurity budget is more than 10 times that of Hawaii’s. Its agriculture sector dwarfs Hawaii’s, with agricultural exports expected to be worth more than $30 billion in U.S. dollars this year. Hawaii’s agricultural sector generated about $700 million in 2022, according to the latest USDA census.Dela Cruz has already taken inspiration from several facets of New Zealand’s food system to use in his multimillion-dollar agricultural hub project in Central Oahu. The hub is planned as a one-stop shop for all things food and agriculture, essentially building out the infrastructure needed to help reinvigorate the state’s agricultural economy. That goal is to replicate the project across the islands.But without ”significant investments in our biosecurity” Hawaii’s biosecurity will not get the boost it needs, he wrote in his newsletter last week.Lee told Civil Beat that Hawaii and New Zealand may be different but they are ”more apples to apples than people realize,” as both are a collection of islands in the Pacific facing the same sources of risks.”There’s definitely an attitude out in the public that there’s nothing we can do about some of these invasive species,” the Senate transportation committee chair said. ”New Zealand’s model? That proves that that’s not true.”This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Agriculture
Business
Conservation

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