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The dairy industry really, really doesn’t want you to say “bird flu in cows” – Vox.com

H5N1, or bird flu, has hit dairy farms — but the dairy industry doesn’t want us saying so.

The current, highly virulent strain of avian flu had already been ripping through chicken and turkey farms over the past two years. Since it jumped to US dairy cows for the first time last month, it’s infected more than 20 dairy herds across eight states, raising alarms among public health authorities about possible spread to humans and potential impacts on the food supply.

One Texas dairy worker contracted a mild case of bird flu from one of the impacted farms — the second such case ever recorded in the US (though one of hundreds worldwide over the past two decades, most of them fatal).

Map showing eight US states that have detected bird flu in dairy cows as of April 12: Texas, Michigan, Idaho, New Mexico, Kansas, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Ohio.

Whatever fear-mongering you may have seen on social media, we are not on the cusp of a human bird flu pandemic; the chances of further human spread currently remain low. But that could change. As the virus jumps among new mammal species like cows, the risk that it’ll evolve to be able to spread between humans does increase.

But the American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP), an organization of beef and dairy veterinarians, declared in a statement (condemned by public health experts) last week that it doesn’t believe bird flu in cows should be considered bird flu at all.

“The AABP will call this disease Bovine Influenza A Virus (BIAV),” the association’s executive director K. Fred Gingrich II and president Michael Capel said in a statement, encouraging federal and state regulators to do the same. “It is important for the public to understand the difference to maintain confidence in the safety and accessibility of beef and dairy products for consumers.”

In other words, industry vets are trying to rebrand bird flu so that we keep calm and keep buying cheeseburgers. “They’re worried about selling products,” bovine veterinarian James Reynolds, a professor at Western University’s vet school, told me, calling the group’s statement “disease-washing.”

Covering bird flu over the last two years, I’ve seen a lot of wild stuff, but this may be one of the weirdest. And it’s more than just a terminological or political spat: It reflects an inescapable paradox about how we produce food.

The meat industry’s infectious disease trap

Naming infectious diseases is always political.

In this case, the cattle industry appears desperate to distance itself from the bird flu news cycle and avoid the perception that it’s contributing to human disease risk. But animal agriculture is one of the top drivers of zoonotic diseases — and growing global demand for meat, dairy, and eggs may be putting us at ever-greater risk of new outbreaks.

To understand why, one of the most elegant models I’ve found is the “infectious disease trap,” a concept coined in a 2022 paper by New York University environmental scientist Matthew Hayek.

Farming animals for food requires lots of land — much more land than it would take to grow an equivalent amount of plant-based foods. More than a third of the planet’s habitable land is devoted to animal agriculture alone, making it the world’s leading cause of deforestation as forests are cleared for farms. That in turn leads to more human and farm animal encounters with wild animals, a major source of new zoonotic diseases.

Animal agriculture’s land use can be shrunk through intensification — densely packing animals into factory farms — which limits deforestation and helps reduce meat’s climate footprint.

But such operations are terrible for animal welfare, and they exacerbate zoonotic disease risk in other ways, allowing viruses to rapidly tear through factory farms filled with thousands of stressed, genetically identical animals.

That’s exactly what’s been happening at chicken and turkey farms across the US over the last two years — and to prevent further spread, farmers have killed more than 85 million poultry birds on farms hit with bird flu since 2022, often using a grisly method that kills them via heatstroke. Our current food system is a recipe for brewing more virulent disease strains and, many experts fear, it’s a ticking time bomb for the next pandemic.

As long as global meat production expands, Hayek’s model explains, both low-density and factory farm-style animal agriculture trap us with rising disease risk.

What does this mean for the future of bird flu in cows?

A lot remains unknown about how bird flu has spread so rapidly among cows on dairy farms as far apart as Michigan and New Mexico.

One plausible theory is that the disease is moving with cows being trucked across the country, just as a human disease might move with people.

In recent years, as the dairy industry has increasingly consolidated into large factory farms, long-distance transportation of cows has become very common, Reynolds explained. Young female calves are often trucked from northern states to warmer climates in the south, then shipped back north when they’re old enough to become pregnant and produce milk. “There’s kind of a constant movement that really didn’t exist much 20 years ago,” Reynolds said.

Long-distance shipment can inflict extreme suffering on farmed animals, who are treated more like cargo than sentient beings. It’s also a hallmark of intensive animal agriculture systems described in the infectious disease trap model, allowing diseases to jump to new regions.

At least 18 states have restricted cow imports from states where dairy cows have tested positive for bird flu. The dairy industry recognizes the risks, Reynolds said, and is making efforts to improve biosecurity on these cross-country journeys. Meanwhile, regulators are scrambling to track the disease and stem its spread — but experts have argued those efforts don’t go nearly far enough, failing to require widespread testing.

And whatever steps are being taken now to stop the spread, the infectious disease trap model shows us that if we’re chasing zoonotic diseases after they’ve infected farm animals, we’re already behind.

Escaping that trap requires a much broader societal rethinking of our factory farm system.

This story appeared originally in Today, Explained, Vox’s flagship daily newsletter. Sign up here for future editions.

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Gwanda women embrace First Lady’s Cook-out Competition – Chronicle

Gwanda women embrace First Lady’s Cook-out Competition

Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu, [email protected]

WOMEN have been urged to embrace First Lady Amai Auxilia Mnangagwa’s “Traditional Cook-Out Competition” as part of efforts to unlock great empowerment and life-changing opportunities.

Speaking recently during a Gwanda District Traditional Cook-Out Competition, Gwanda Tshitaudze legislator, Cde Fisani Moyo, said the hosting of the competitions at the district level will go a long way in incorporating more women to take part in the programme.

The event was held concurrently with the Gwanda District’s belated International Women’s Day commemoration.

The Traditional Cook-Out competition programme was pioneered by the First Lady in 2021 out of the realisation that the consumption of indigenous foods has been on the decrease in the country, as most people are opting for fast foods, which expose citizens to the negative after-effects of some of the processed foods.

Ms Nontokozo Tshili came out first in the competition followed by Ms Onica Mangena who came second and Ms Esther Ncube who emerged third. The competition had 19 women.

The winners will represent the district at the provincial competition, which will be held in Beitbridge next month. All the 19 participants received prize money, a certificate and food hampers.

Cde Moyo urged women to use the “Cook-Out Competition” to display their cultural diversity and challenged young women to take an active part in the programme. The legislator also said recipes should be passed from one generation to the other to ensure their preservation.

“The traditional cook-out competition provides a platform for various tribes and communities to showcase their delicacies. It also provides a platform for knowledge sharing and sharing of skills on how to best prepare these traditional dishes. Traditional foods are key to our health as a country,” he said.

“Food plays a crucial role in defining our identity as a country and it’s a crucial part of our tourism and hospitality sector. I’m glad that these competitions have cascaded down to the district level, which shows that we are leaving no one and no place behind.

“We hope to see these cook-out competitions being held even at ward level as we want to see more women taking part and embracing the programme,” he said.

Cde Moyo urged women to take the cook-out competitions seriously as they could unlock great opportunities, urging the women to safeguard their recipes.

He said preparing traditional foods was a great way to remind the youths about their origins and traditions and applauded participating women for applying diversity and creativity as they prepared their dishes.

Cde Moyo also said the cook-out competition was a great way of reviving traditional dishes within the communities, especially in urban areas.

He said women continue to play a crucial role in developing their communities hence their input must be celebrated.

The legislator noted concerns over gender-based violence and how it affects development, as it hinders women from realising their full potential. “As we celebrate the belated International Women’s Day, let’s take time to reflect on the important role women are playing in developing their communities. Let’s all take a stand against gender-based violence as it is killing our nation instead of building it,” he said.

Ms Nontokozo Tshili who came out first in the competition said the cook-out platform has helped her to identify her talent in cooking. She said she is looking forward to representing the district well in the provincial competitions. Ms Tshili said she will go on to develop and enrich her skills in cooking. “I would like to thank the First Lady for introducing this programme and I’m grateful for this opportunity to learn from others and develop my skills. This programme has brought empowerment to us as women,” she said.

“I’m glad to be one of the women who will be representing the district at the provincial competitions and I promise to do my level best,” she said. —— @DubeMatutu.

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Eviction looms as company wins land dispute – The Herald

Eviction looms as company wins land dispute

Fidelis Munyoro

Chief Court Reporter

Two members of a housing cooperative found themselves homeless after the High Court ordered them to vacate from the piece of land allocated to them because the land belongs to a company which is leasing the property from the State.

Mr Willard Rufu and Mr Samson Mutsagondo had already built their houses on the residential stands allocated to them by their cooperative Tirivepano Housing Cooperative in Retreat, Southlea Park.

The two are now facing eviction and demolition of their houses after Brumford Services (Pvt) Ltd, which is the holder of a lease agreement with the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works in respect of Stand number 5098 Saturday Retreat, Harare, after the company instituted eviction at the High Court claiming that the two men who are members of the housing cooperative invaded the property and built their structures without permission.

It applied for a summary judgment arguing that the two men had no bona fide defence to its claim.

The company premised its application on the basis that it has title to the property based on a lease agreement it signed with the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works on March 31, 2020.

The lease agreement, it argued, was still extant, and the company continues to pay monthly rentals for the property to the State.

The property was zoned as industrial land and that position was made clear in a letter dated August 31, 2022 from the then Minister of Local Government and Public Works.

It was also argued that the two had no legal documentation that gave them the right to occupy the property and the Ministry had not backed up their claims to be lawful allottees of the property.

But in their counter-argument Mr Rufu and Mr Mutsagondo claimed ownership of the property through their cooperative that was allocated that same piece of land in 2005.

They claimed to have been in possession of that property since 2005 and were not aware that it had been converted to industrial use as alleged by Brumford.

That conversion of land use, the two argued, was an illegality at law since it was done without their knowledge.

They further argued that their right to stay on the property was premised on an offer letter issued to the housing cooperative, and they could not be evicted from the property because they had a clear right to be in occupation.

After hearing submissions by counsel Justice Paul Musithu granted the application for summary judgment by Brumford, finding that it had proved its claim against the two.

“Resultantly it is ordered that the first and second respondents and all those claiming occupation through the third respondent be and are hereby ordered to vacate Stand 5098 Saturday Retreat, Southlea Park, Harare.

“The Sheriff of Zimbabwe be and is hereby authorised and empowered to demolish any illegal structures erected on Stand 5098 Saturday Retreat, Southlea Park, Harare,” said Justice Musithu.

The two men and their cooperative were also slapped with costs of suit.

In his judgment, Justice Musithu noted that it was clear from the documentary evidence before the court that Brumford was allocated the property in dispute through a lease agreement signed with the Ministry.

The court found that Rufu, Mutsagondo and their cooperative papers were not specific to the property that they were allocated.

“The basis of their claim to the property in dispute is rather obscure,” he said.

“No connection to the property has been set out in the papers. Nothing was placed before the court to justify any claim or entitlement to the property by any of the three respondents.”

To this end, the judge ruled that the respondents had no legal basis to occupy the property in dispute and accepted the submission by Brumford’s lawyer that it would be a waste of time for the matter to go through all the motions of a trial when there is clearly no plausible defence on the merits.

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Imports drive demand for warehousing space – The Herald

Francis Gakanje

Demand for warehousing space in Zimbabwe continues to grow due to the significant amount of imports into the country, which remains high despite progress made in promoting local manufacturing.

According to a recent research publication from Knight Frank Zimbabwe, the country’s limited manufacturing capacity has seen the country’s import bill remain high, driving demand for warehousing space, including in industrial zones.

The Southern African nation imported US$9,2 billion worth of goods in 2023 against outbound shipments valued at US$7,2 billion.

Zimbabwe has made progress in localising some of its value chains, but nearly two decades of economic meltdown until about 2017 eroded the country’s capital base, amid limited foreign investment and restoring the glory of yesteryear may take some time.

President Mnangagwa’s administration, which assumed power in 2017, has been working to address several bottlenecks to rebuild the economy, including addressing the country’s debt situation, doing business reform, engaging and re-engaging all global partners and opening Zimbabwe for business with all friendly nations.

“Storage, distribution, and logistics have emerged as the predominant use of industrial space.

“This has been driven by ongoing challenges faced by the manufacturing sector, particularly competition from imported goods,” said Knight Frank Zimbabwe.

The research findings noted that the industrial space has seen increased conversion into warehousing facilities, including areas such as Westlea, Sunway City, Msasa, and Mt Hampden.

This comes as the country has over the years seen an increase in the development of industrial facilities, some of which have since been converted into warehouses.

“There has been a discernible uptick in supply within Zimbabwe’s industrial market, evidenced by developments in key areas such as Westlea, Sunway City, Msasa, and Mt Hampden,” Knight Frank Zimbabwe added.

Furthermore, new warehousing facilities have been developed along the Airport Road, strategically positioned near the airport, offering convenient access for businesses seeking efficient transportation and logistics solutions.

The research publication noted the emergence of new industrial parks and spaces in Pomona, Msasa and Arlington, near Chitungwiza.

These facilities were developed to meet the changing requirements and demands of the market.

“Additionally, the emergence of new industrial parks and spaces across Pomona, Msasa, and Arlington offer modern facilities to meet evolving market demands,” Knight Frank Zimbabwe said.

Warehouses in Zimbabwe are designed to meet a broad range of needs, catering to various industries such as plasticware and cardboard. The designs primarily prioritise affordability, aiming to serve the growing population of low to middle-income individuals in the country.

Knight Frank Zimbabwe said: “The majority of warehouses in Zimbabwe cater for a diverse range of needs, from plasticware to cardboard, primarily targeting affordability to serve the expanding population of low to middle-income citizens.”

The demand for industrial space spurs economic growth by indicating a vibrant business environment and creating employment opportunities, attracting investments, and promoting business development which leads to increased productivity and innovation.

The potential returns on investment for industrial space can vary between 11 percent and 13 percent depending on the specific location in which it is situated.

Knight Frank Zimbabwe added that “Depending on the location, industrial space yields range from 11 percent to 13 percent.”

According to the publication, average rental rates for industrial space remain steady at US$3 per square metre for spaces less than 1 000 square metres and US$1 for larger spaces.

For more Business stories visit https://www.herald.co.zw/category/articles/business/