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Inside a pork processing plant in Missouri, before the coronavirus outbreak. Photograph: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

News from around the world

The meat and seafood sectors continue to struggle with the pandemic. A Brazilian court has ordered a pork plant to shut for 14 days over coronavirus fears, and more than 80 crew members on a US trawler tested positive for Covid-19. Observers say meat companies are likely to switch towards more automation in the future to avoid a repeat of the shutdowns. “The coronavirus is going to accelerate the acceptance of slaughterhouse robots, especially in places like the US,” Shai Barbut, a professor of meat science at the University of Guelph in Ontario, told Wired.

While meat plants in the Americas, Australia and Europe have had to shut temporarily or slow down production, there continue to be reports of growth in animal protein. The US giant Cargill has reported a 20% rise in feed production over the past four years from its aquaculture division, driven by the farmed salmon sector. And JBS helped to drive record beef exports from Brazil last year, fuelled by sales to China which were up 50% year-on-year.

Officials in the Netherlands have ordered a cull of 10,000 mink on farms in the country after concerns that infected animals could transmit coronavirus to humans. There are an estimated 140 mink farms in the Netherlands, exporting €90m (£80m) worth of fur a year.

The Bundesrat – the upper body of the German parliament, which represents the country’s 16 federal states – has postponed a vote on limiting the time pigs can be held in cages on farms. If passed, the new rules would mandate bigger cages for pigs and restrict the time they can be housed in them to just a few days.

A pig stands in a cage to be loaded on to a cargo plane en route to China from France. Photograph: Fred Tanneau/AFP

Animals on US farms have reportedly been receiving dosages of antibiotics that are more than five times higher than given on UK farms. The news comes as the UK continues to pursue a trade deal that could allow imports imports of US meat produced under standards outlawed in the country. Last month, the EU outlined new targets to cut sales of antimicrobials used for farmed animals and aquaculture by 50% by 2030.

Intensive farming is creating a reservoir of animal diseases that could spill over and hurt human society, the naturalist Jane Goodall has said. In response, the EU’s agricultural commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski, said the commission was supporting sustainable farming and breeding practices as an alternative to intensive industrial farming.

Brazil has the highest carbon footprint per kg of milk and pork, according to an analysis of 10 countries in Europe, plus Brazil, New Zealand and the US, produced by the World Resources Institute. Poland and Ireland had the highest carbon footprint per kg of milk out of European countries analysed.

News from the UK

Nearly half of all dairy farmers in Wales were forced to cut milk production due to Covid-19. Millions of litres were poured down drains by farmers, compared to 20% of farmers in England. Demand for milk was hit by the closure of cafes and restaurants.

MPs have called for small slaughterhouses to be given financial support to prevent closure. Campaigners have claimed that small abattoirs are essential in supporting local food supply chains and reducing journey times to slaughter for animals. A third of small abattoirs closed in the last 10 years alone – with only 62 now left in the UK.

And from the Animals Farmed series

This month we continued to look at the impact that outbreaks of Covid-19 in meat plants are having on workers and on animals in Ireland, where workers are deeply concerned about their safety, in the UK, where there have been a number of deaths, and Germany, where the government has pledged reform of the sector.

But we also reported on the situation for animals, with farmers continuing to “depopulate” their farms due to the bottlenecks at plants. There is plenty of disagreement over the techniques used.

Bushmeat on sale at the weekly market of Yangambi, DRC. The main animals that are hunted are warthogs, monkeys and Gambia rats. Photograph: Axel Fassio/CIFOR/axel fassio

A story from the open seas linked cows and cocaine dealers – and exposed the realities of the live export trade. John Vidal delved into a key question raised by the coronavirus pandemic – should we be eating wild meat? Is factory-farmed meat better … or worse?

We reported on links between British banks and deforestation in the Amazon. And we wrote about a beautiful farming landscape in Ireland, where they are finding ways to bring back the bees and butterflies. This one is genuinely heartwarming.