Animals Farmed: Mink Covid cull, Dutch livestock protests and net zero farms

Welcome to our monthly roundup of the biggest issues in farming and food production, with must-read reports from around the webEuropean farmers are on alert after recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza among wild and domestic birds in western Russia and Kazakhstan. When bird flu was detected in the same area of Russia in the summers of 2005 and 2016, epidemics followed in northern and eastern Europe. EU officials have warned poultry producers to step up surveillance against possible outbreaks of avian flu among wild and domestic birds.At least 2.5m million mink are being culled in Denmark after outbreaks of Covid-19 in as many as 63 farms. Denmark is among the largest mink exporters in the world and produces an estimated 17m furs a year, most of which are exported to China. There have also been recent outbreaks on mink farms in the US. After the culling of a million mink on Dutch fur farms over the summer, the Netherlands brought forward its ban on mink farming by three years to 2021. A ban on fur farming has also been proposed in Poland. Continue reading...