Just not that into ewes: ‘gay sheep’ escape slaughter and take over a New York catwalk

5 décembre 2025 à 16:00

Designer Michael Schmidt’s 36-piece collection was made from the wool of rams who have shown same-sex attraction

When a ram tips its head back, curls its upper lip, and takes a deep breath – what is known in the world of animal husbandry as a “flehmen response” – it is often a sign of arousal. Sheep have a small sensory organ located above the roof of the mouth, and the flehmen response helps to flood it with any sex pheromones wafting about.

Usually, rams flehmen when they encounter ewes during the mating period, according to Michael Stücke, a farmer with 30 years of experience raising sheep in Westphalia, Germany. But on Stücke’s farm, the rams flehmen “all the time”.

California pesticide agency could loosen restrictions on most toxic rat poisons

The Guardian

Par :Tom Perkins

5 décembre 2025 à 14:00

The anti-coagulant rodenticides also unintentionally harm wildlife across the state, including endangered species

The administration of Gavin Newsom, the California governor, is moving to loosen restrictions around the most toxic rat poisons, even as a new state report shows the rodenticides are unintentionally poisoning wildlife across the state, including endangered species.

Blood-thinning, anticoagulant rodenticides were significantly restricted when a 2024 state law approved after 10 years of legislative wrangling required the California department of pesticide regulation to limit the substances’ use unless data showed species collaterally harmed or killed by it had rebounded.

Over a pint in Oxford, we may have stumbled upon the holy grail of agriculture | George Monbiot

The Guardian

Par :George Monbiot

5 décembre 2025 à 07:00

I knew that a revolution in our understanding of soil could change the world. Then came a eureka moment – and the birth of the Earth Rover Program

Report: Experts say seismic waves can check soil health and boost yields

It felt like walking up a mountain during a temperature inversion. You struggle through fog so dense you can scarcely see where you’re going. Suddenly, you break through the top of the cloud, and the world is laid out before you. It was that rare and remarkable thing: a eureka moment.

For the past three years, I’d been struggling with a big and frustrating problem. In researching my book Regenesis, I’d been working closely with Iain Tolhurst (Tolly), a pioneering farmer who had pulled off something extraordinary. Almost everywhere, high-yield farming means major environmental harm, due to the amount of fertiliser, pesticides and (sometimes) irrigation water and deep ploughing required. Most farms with apparently small environmental impacts produce low yields. This, in reality, means high impacts, as more land is needed to produce a given amount of food. But Tolly has found the holy grail of agriculture: high and rising yields with minimal environmental harm.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Why small farmers can’t fix our hunger problem | Cassandra Loftlin

The Guardian

Par :Cassandra Loftlin

4 décembre 2025 à 19:00

Big farmers grab the lion’s share of US government support, and recent cuts have chipped away at small growers’ markets and margins

The most significant food system failure since the pandemic was not a natural disaster: in October, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) was temporarily suspended for the month of November due to the government shutdown

More than 40 million people had to ration food, skip meals and make sacrifices we might associate with the Great Depression, not 21st-century America. Churches, community groups and neighbors sprang into action. They checked on single moms juggling multiple jobs, elderly friends living alone, people with disabilities and large families with children too young for school lunch programs. And though food stamps were restored, the Trump administration is now threatening to pull Snap funds from Democratic-led states.

Groups Express Anixety as Trump Threatens to Derail U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Pact

NYT

Par :Ana Swanson

4 décembre 2025 à 17:09

Hearings that began Wednesday in Washington reflected anxiety over the future of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact and whether the president could end up scrapping it.

Though President Trump negotiated and signed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, he said this year that he wanted to make it a “much better deal.”

Ruined Rice Fields and Broken Rail Lines: Sri Lanka Counts Cost of Cyclone

NYT

Par :Mujib Mashal · Pamodi Waravita and Atul Loke

4 décembre 2025 à 16:06

Officials estimate the damage runs into billions of dollars, a headache for the island nation just recovering from an economic crash.

Locals wading through floodwater from Cyclone Ditwah, at Mannar in northern Sri Lanka, on Thursday.

Snail Theft Hits France Before Holiday Rush

NYT

Par :Ephrat Livni

4 décembre 2025 à 11:05

Shop owners say the thieves who took 990 pounds of snails must have been escargot cognoscenti.

A snail farm in Souligné-sous-Ballon, in western France.

‘It moved … it was hopping!’ One man’s search for a wild wallaby in the UK

The Guardian

Par :Sam Wollaston

4 décembre 2025 à 06:00

Reports of escaped wallabies are on the rise, especially in southern England. But how easy is it to spot these strange and charismatic marsupials – and why would a quintessentially Australian creature settle here?

It was about 9.30 or 10 on a dark, late November night; Molly Laird was driving her pink Mini home along country lanes to her Warwickshire cottage. Suddenly, the headlights’ beam picked up an animal sitting in the road. “I thought it was a deer at first,” Molly tells me. “But when it moved, its tail wasn’t right, and it was hopping. It took me a while to realise, but I thought: that’s a kangaroo!”

Molly’s next thought was: “I’m going insane,” closely followed by, “No one’s going to believe me.” So she got out her phone and filmed it. Later, she posted the video on social media, where she was told it was likely to be not a kangaroo, but its smaller cousin, the red-necked wallaby.

UK farmers lose £800m after heat and drought cause one of worst harvests on record

The Guardian

Par :Damian Carrington Environment editor

4 décembre 2025 à 01:01

Many now concerned about ability to make living in fast-changing climate after one of worst grain harvests recorded

Record heat and drought cost Britain’s arable farmers more than £800m in lost production in 2025 in one of the worst harvests recorded, analysis has estimated.

Three of the five worst harvests on record have now occurred since 2020, leaving some farmers asking whether the growing impacts of the climate crisis are making it too financially risky to sow their crops. Farmers are already facing heavy financial pressure as the costs of fertilisers and other inputs have risen faster than prices.

The environmental costs of corn: should the US change how it grows its dominant crop?

The Guardian

Par :Ames Alexander

3 décembre 2025 à 14:00

Amid concerns over greenhouse gas emissions, the Trump administration has abolished climate-friendly farming incentives

This article was produced in partnership with Floodlight

For decades, corn has reigned over American agriculture. It sprawls across 90m acres – about the size of Montana – and goes into everything from livestock feed and processed foods to the ethanol blended into most of the nation’s gasoline.

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