Plus, Nigel Farage’s year of speaking at far-right groups ...

From the Editor's Desk

This week, DeSmog and Nigerian outlet Premium Times expose how Ireland’s dairy giants are offloading cheap, ultra‑processed fat‑filled milk powder (FFMP) into West Africa, calling it “healthy and sustainable.”

The problem is, FFMP is not really milk — it’s skim milk powder sprayed with vegetable fat, dense in lactose and fed to customers  throughout West Africa, where many young people are lactose-intolerant. 

DeSmog uncovered documents that show how executives from Ireland’s big dairy companies were told in 2023 that selling the milk powder products – which contain up to 37 percent lactose – could potentially have adverse impacts on the populations in Nigeria and Senegal.

Yet, dairy kings like Kerrygold and Lakeland Dairies continue to rake in huge profits from sales in those nations. 

And how do they lure customers into drinking this fake milk? Deceptive advertising, with green‑pasture branding and slick celebrity campaigns. Cheaper than fresh milk, FFMP has a long shelf life and is also marketed as a “good” source of protein – despite containing significantly less protein than whole milk powder. 

“This is an ultra-processed product that is banned from even being described as milk in the EU,” says Paul Murphy, a member of the Irish parliament and former MEP, who believes DeSmog’s findings reveal “highly unethical marketing practices” by Irish companies.

“The big agri-food companies are [the] only ones who gain – at the expense of the climate, human health and livelihoods,” Murphy says. Dive into this alarming investigation here.

Irish Big Ag’s false advertising of its milk powder products in West Africa is exactly the sort of deception that Canada’s new anti-greenwashing law, Bill C-59, aimed to root out across the Atlantic when it was passed last fall.

But now there’s corporate pressure building for Prime Minister Mark Carney to backtrack on the law’s truth-in-advertising requirements. DeSmog’s Mitch Anderson wrote about how Canadian Big Oil claimed the law is the reason for delays in sustainability reports and that it’s “silencing” the oil industry, as DeSmog reported last fall.

All of this adds up to a new scenario for Canada’s role in climate action. DeSmog’s Managing Editor Geoff Dembicki appeared on the popular Canadian podcast Canadaland, where he spoke about PM Carney's backsliding as a climate leader at a time when Trump’s all-out war on clean energy could be a huge economic opportunity for Canada. Geoff looks at how Carney’s focus on pipelines and carbon capture has the nation moving backwards. Check it out.

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Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director
 
P.S. DeSmog continues to keep you informed about threats to our climate across the globe — from up-to-the minute reporting to essential database profiles that help others fight climate denial and delay. Can you donate $10 or $20 right now to support more of this essential work?

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

How Ireland’s ‘Mediocre’ Milk Powder Made it Big in West Africa

— By Brigitte Wear, Phoebe Cooke, Beloved John
and Shauna Corr (13 min. read) —

Polluting dairy industry accused of using “highly unethical” marketing to pass off ultra-processed “poor quality by-products” as milk.

Canada’s Oil Patch Blames Anti-Greenwashing Law for Delayed Sustainability Reports

— By Mitch Anderson (4 min. read) —

The global push for climate transparency is just getting started.

With Friends Like These: Nigel Farage’s Year of Speaking at Radical
Right-Wing Groups

— Adam Barnett and Rei Takver (9 min. read) —

The Reform UK leader has addressed several anti-climate outfits with ties to Donald Trump – while making nearly £1 million on top of his MP’s salary.

While JP Morgan Promises ‘Net Zero,’ Billions Flow to Big Oil

— By Giorgio Michalopoulos and Stefano Valentino (8 min) —

While promoting “Paris-aligned” green investing, JP Morgan’s “green” funds have funneled over $4 billion to the fossil-fuel majors, betraying the firm’s promises and undermining efforts to achieve net zero.

Fast Tracking a Pipeline to BC’s Coast Will Undermine Canada’s Security

— By Mitch Anderson (5 min. read) —

A revived Northern Gateway proposal tops the fossil fuel industry’s wish list. Carney should think twice before fulfilling that risky pipe dream.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: Irish Farmers' Association

Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) is Ireland’s largest farming representative organization and its most active lobbyist on agriculture, food and the environment. The IFA co-founded Agri Aware, a private charitable trust that describes itself as “an independent body to provide the general public with information and education on the importance of agriculture and food to the Irish economy.” In 2020, DeSmog reported that workbooks produced by Agri Aware and distributed to over 3,000 primary schools had misrepresented the climate impacts of raising cattle and sheep. Professor John Sweeney, a climatologist at Maynooth University, told DeSmog “the simplistic and one-sided language in this publication presents a misleading educational message” that underplays methane emissions from livestock and suggests trees cancel them out. Over the past decade, the IFA has frequently cited technology innovation and efficiency improvement as methods for reducing the agriculture sector’s climate impact. However, in 2021 the European Court of Auditors presented evidence that efficiency measures had so far failed to cut emissions. It stated that due to its growing livestock herd, Ireland had “seen substantial emissions increases.”

Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database, Ad & PR Database, and Koch Network Database.