Jefferson Currie II is at war with flies.

Spotted flypaper dangles from the ceiling of his home in North Carolina’s Scotland county. He shows off a two-quart jar trap, marketed as an outdoor pest control solution for farms, full of flies he’s caught indoors. On Zoom meetings for his job as the Lumber Riverkeeper with the non-profit Winyah Rivers Alliance, he mutes himself and goes offscreen to avoid distracting others with the heavy thunk of his pump-action, salt-shooting plastic fly gun.

The flies are here, said Currie, because North Carolina’s poultry industry has given them the perfect feeding grounds: massive piles of feces, urine and sawdust bedding, cleared from industrial-scale chicken barns. These heaps of waste are left exposed to the elements for days on end before being worked into agricultural fields as fertilizer. He lives half a mile from a facility with 16 such barns and within a mile of a dozen more, which grow birds on a contract basis for companies such as Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms and Mountaire Farms.

“I come outside some mornings, and with my cup of coffee I get a nice mouthful of chicken litter,” Currie said with a rueful grimace. “Chicken manure in the mouth: It just tastes good, smells good, feels good.”

Large “dry litter” poultry operations like those of Currie’s neighbors have swelled across North Carolina in recent decades. According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the state sold over 972 million meat birds in 2022, up from about 663 million in 1997. Nearly three-quarters of those birds came from farms averaging over 918,000 chickens each per year.

That growth has probably stemmed, at least in part, from North Carolina’s uniquely permissive regulatory regime. Dry litter facilities are exempt from the waste permitting requirements that apply to industrial swine or cattle operations. State law forbids local governments from zoning land to restrict poultry barns. Concerned communities have practically no way to slow the spread of poultry production or demand mitigation of its harms.

While the state department of agriculture and consumer services gathers details about poultry farm locations, which could help assess the industry’s collective impact in a given area, it will not share any data with researchers or regulators, citing a law that keeps identifiable farmer data secret. No other state, including larger producers like Alabama and Georgia, places such lax requirements on industrial poultry growers.

A joint investigation in 2022 by the Charlotte Observer and the News & Observer in Raleigh estimated that North Carolina’s poultry operators generate about 2.5bn pounds of manure each year, creating substantial pollution. (Bob Ford, executive director of the North Carolina Poultry Federation, did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.)

The industry’s rise has acutely affected rural counties like Scotland (22.4 million broiler chickens sold in 2022, compared with 7.7 million in 1997) and neighboring Robeson (52.9 million in 2022, 16.9 million in 1997). The region includes some of the state’s densest populations of Black, Latino and Native residents, among them Currie, an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.

With few state-level avenues for regulatory relief available, Currie and fellow Lumbee activist Donna Chavis, together with the non-profit Friends of the Earth, took their case to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Last April, they partnered with the environmental justice clinic at the Vermont Law and Graduate School to file a formal complaint against the North Carolina department of environmental quality (NCDEQ) under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits race-based discrimination in federally funded programs.

The complaint alleges that NCDEQ is “abdicating its responsibility” to regulate an industry with proven environmental impacts in North Carolina and beyond, including nutrient leaching into waterways and ammonia emissions into the air. Currie said he had personally observed high bacteria levels, algal blooms and fish kills, all tied to runoff from poorly managed chicken waste.

Because these impacts disproportionately fall on communities of color, the complaint continues, Title VI empowers EPA officials to require tighter state rules as a condition of future support. The agency is a major funder, allocating almost $291m to North Carolina’s environmental regulator in the 2022-23 fiscal year alone.

“When you have a state like North Carolina disregarding its public protection mission in favor of an entrenched industry, the legal tools under the big environmental statutes are limited,” said Christophe Courchesne, a Vermont Law professor and attorney who helped file the complaint. He says environmental justice groups have increasingly turned to Title VI as a creative legal strategy, including in North Carolina, where a 2018 settlement over another complaint against NCDEQ led to stronger monitoring of swine facilities.

In the few instances where North Carolina has put restrictions on poultry farms, advocates say, the state rarely punishes violations. For example, explained David Caldwell, Broad Riverkeeper with the non-profit MountainTrue, regulations prevent farmers from leaving piles of chicken waste standing uncovered for more than 15 days, but that rule is often ignored.

Caldwell has partnered with the non-profit SouthWings to conduct aerial monitoring of poultry farms and document uncovered litter piles. “I remember one particular pile of waste as big as my house, and it was never covered up – I probably flew over it 10 times,” he recalled.

On another occasion, Caldwell conducted three flyovers of his watershed’s biggest poultry facility within a 16-day period, documenting the same uncovered litter piles on each occasion. He shared that evidence with NCDEQ, asking the state to require a cleanup; instead, he said regulators just visited the site and asked the operator to cover the piles.

Other riverkeepers told the Guardian that the state refuses to consider their photographs of uncovered waste as evidence of violation, even as it commits few of its own resources to monitoring poultry. Without NCDEQ keeping a close eye on these facilities, said Caldwell, non-profit water protectors are one of the few groups trying to hold the industry accountable.

Josh Kastrinsky, a NCDEQ spokesperson, declined to comment on the Title VI complaint, and a public records request filed on 24 January seeking the department’s internal communications on the matter remained unfulfilled as of press time.

“To date, the department does not have statutory permitting authority for dry litter poultry waste management systems,” Kastrinsky said. “These operations are deemed permitted under [state administrative code] and must comply with certain restrictions and record-keeping on storage and transfer of dry litter.”

Although NCDEQ is the Title VI complaint’s target, North Carolina’s legislature shares much of the blame for the current situation, said Brooks Rainey Pearson, a lawyer with the non-profit Southern Environmental Law Center who was not involved in the filing.

She’s been lobbying for greater oversight of the poultry industry in the capital of Raleigh since 2012 and says the Republican-dominated general assembly hasn’t allowed any progress. House Bill 722, the poultry waste management bill she helped the Democratic representative Pricey Harrison introduce in the last legislative session, was immediately buried by the Republican-led House rules committee.

“We have a legislature that is catering to factory-farm interests. They’re very strong lobbies,” Rainey Pearson said. And legislators from impacted areas often have ties to the poultry industry; Republican representative Jarrod Lowery, who represents Robeson county and serves on the state House’s agriculture committee, was previously a spokesperson for Mountaire Farms and sat on the North Carolina poultry federation board. (He also did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

It’s unclear if the Title VI appeal to the EPA will be any more successful than efforts at the general assembly. While federal standards call for the agency to determine whether it will consider the complaint within 90 business days of receipt, the matter was still listed as “under jurisdictional review” as of 20 March, 11 months after its filing. EPA officials did not acknowledge the Guardian’s requests for an update.

Meanwhile, on 23 January, Louisiana won a US district court case to limit the scope of the agency’s Title VI application in that state. Blakely Hildebrand, another Southern Environmental Law Center attorney who has filed a different civil rights complaint against NCDEQ, called that decision “very concerning” and said its impact on pending cases elsewhere in the country remained to be seen.

Back in Scotland county, Currie is determined to keep up his fight. He’s motivated by the flies that the underregulated poultry industry attracts to his home, but much more important to him is its impact on the surrounding waterways. The Lumber River gives the Lumbee their name, and he said its swamps offered the community shelter during the expansion of European settlement.

“I want the water to be something that is sacred and important and held in the kind of respect that I hold it. And I think other tribal members do as well,” said Currie. “I want us to do better as a state, as a country, because we can do better.”

The World Bank must take a “quantum leap” to provide new finance to tackle the climate crisis or face “climate-driven economic catastrophe” that would bring all the world’s economies to a halt, the UN climate chief has said.

Simon Stiell warned that there were just two years left to draw up an international plan for the climate that would cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with the goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

“There’s no room now for half measures,” he warned, referring to the global heat that has surpassed records for the past 10 months. “Averting a climate-driven economic catastrophe is core business.”

But Stiell held out a promise of global economic renewal, for the developed and developing world, if countries shift to a low-carbon economy.

“Bold new national climate plans will be a jobs jackpot and economic springboard, to boost countries up that global ladder of living standards,” he said. “[They will] increase food security and lessen hunger. Cutting fossil fuel pollution will mean better health and huge savings, for governments and households alike.”

Governments will meet next week for the annual spring meetings of the World Bank, with its fellow taxpayer-funded development banks from around the world and the International Monetary Fund. These institutions will play a key role in determining whether developing countries gain access to the finance they need to cut emissions and adapt to the effect of the climate crisis.

“For many countries, they will only be able to implement strong new climate plans if we see a quantum leap in climate finance this year,” Stiell said.

He called for reform at the development banks that would enable the governments that fund them to provide much more climate finance to the developing world. This would involve greater pledges of overseas aid and debt relief for those labouring under the heaviest burdens, but most importantly changes to the banks’ lending practices that would give poor countries greater access to finance.

Leaders of developing countries, including Mia Mottley of Barbados and William Ruto of Kenya, have said such reforms could unlock hundreds of billions of dollars of finance. At present, lending practices are rooted in conservative estimates of developing countries’ economic capabilities and are not geared towards tackling the climate crisis.

“We can’t afford a talkfest [at the spring meetings] without clear steps forward, when there is an opportunity to make real progress on every part of the new climate finance deal all nations need,” Stiell told an audience of geopolitical experts at the Chatham House thinktank in London on Wednesday afternoon.

Ajay Banga, the new president of the World Bank, was installed last June after the resignation of the Donald Trump appointee David Malpass, after a series of gaffes that suggested he did not take the climate crisis seriously. Banga will be under pressure at the spring meetings, the core business of which takes place next week in Washington DC, to show that he is willing to address the climate crisis.

Stiell called for the World Bank and governments to “step up the pace” on climate finance, including by addressing new sources of funds. These could include a frequent flyer levy and taxes on the carbon emissions from shipping.

Stiell also warned of the impacts of the “global cancer of inequality”, which he said was worsening and was impeding efforts to make the deep cuts in emissions, and the investments in adapting to the impacts of extreme weather, that are necessary to avoid catastrophe.

“Business as usual will further entrench the gross inequalities between the world’s richest and poorest countries and communities that unchecked climate impacts are making much worse,” he said. “These inequalities are kryptonite for cooperative global climate action, and every economy, every country and its people pays the price of that.”

Stiell is executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 1992 parent treaty to the 2015 Paris agreement. Under the Paris terms, countries have until early next year to present new national plans – called nationally determined contributions, or NDCs – to cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with the target of holding temperature rises to “well below 2C” above preindustrial levels, while “pursuing efforts” to limit them to 1.5C.

Current NDCs, most of which run to 2030, are inadequate to cut emissions to the extent needed. The UN is pinning its hopes on a revision of NDCs, to run beyond 2030, that would require much deeper cuts. At the Cop29 UN climate summit in Azerbaijan this November, countries are expected to set a new finance goal to enable the new rounds of NDCs due to be submitted next spring.

Many scientists believe that the 1.5C limit is already well beyond reach, pointing to the past 10 months of record temperatures on land and at sea.

However, the Paris agreement cannot be said to be breached based on the temperatures of one year alone, and many other scientists, heads of global institutions, political leaders and experts argue that the world must keep aiming for a 1.5C limit in order to galvanise action. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the gold standard of global climate science, has found that 1.5C is still possible, though an overshoot of temperatures is likely and some form of removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is also likely to be needed.

Tunnellers, fliers, crawlers: your nominations for the UK invertebrate of the year have been pouring in, paying tribute to these wonderful creatures and testifying over and over again to the wonder and awe that they inspire.

We still have a few days till the voting starts, and we haven’t yet worked out which of your many, many suggestions will be added to the list – but the love and enthusiasm for the UK’s invertebrates has bowled us over, so we thought we’d round up some of the tributes to your favourite spineless creatures here.

Please keep sending us your thoughts, and get ready to vote this weekend.

Hummingbird hawk-moth

The first time I saw one up close I couldn’t believe my eyes. So weird and beautiful. It was when I had been made redundant from a job I hated and was trying to figure out what to do next. My neighbour’s children were transfixed by the hawk-moth and I took delight in their curiosity. That’s when I decided to go into teaching. I still only see one very occasionally, they are quite rare. Inspirational insects deserve recognition. Kate Jannaway, 51, works in SEND support for an FE college, Brighton

Red-tailed bumblebee

I’d like to posit that the humble bumblebee deserves this accolade for one simple reason: it brings joy. Regardless of one’s age, it is hard to not see a bumblebee and experience a moment of glee; this tiny, fuzzy, creature, flying around with what seems like little consideration of any of its surroundings, has the capability to make anyone smile. At a time when conservation of wildlife is becoming more and more pressing, I think it is important to highlight the everyday species that often inspire children to explore the field into adulthood. Ronnie Matczuk, 24, bar operations manager, London

Common woodlouse

They are little troopers of the insect world, doing so much for us, which most are not aware of. Highly evolved from the oceans (which is why they like it a little damp) to be on land with us, cleaning our soil, recycling dead matter, curl up when scared like a pangolin, and the moms even have a little pouch to keep their babies in! They live for a long time compared to others their size, love being with each other, do so much for the environment and yet are still so humble. Love them so much. Kathleen Woodward, 45, works in a museum, Derby

Dark-edged bee-fly

These characterful little insects are early emergers and their appearance gives real hope that spring is close. They look fantastic with furry ginger bodies and an outrageously long proboscis and have a fascinating lifestyle. This includes spinning display flights and territorial disputes amongst the males and the female coating her eggs with sand or soil before flicking them into the nest holes of solitary bees. What’s not to love? Nick Morgan, 63, accountant, North Yorkshire

Common cockchafer

Cockchafers (known also as maybugs – though they’re not true bugs, they’re beetles) are such delightful, characterful things. As their nickname suggests, adults are abundant in late spring/early summer – they’re often spotted bumbling along or flying into things (for those who do mothing, they can be a lovely surprise as they quite often find their merry way into traps). Though the adults live for only five to six weeks, in which time they reproduce and females lay their eggs, their larvae remain in the soil for up to two years, chomping on plant roots. As well as being very friendly-looking beasts, they’ve also had a great cultural impact – including as emblems of queer zoology. An 1896 drawing of two male cockchafers copulating by the French naturalist, Henri Gadeau de Kerville, is thought to be the first rendering of same-sex sexual behaviour in a non-human animal. Cockchafers have also caused their fair share of aggravation in the agricultural world; a 15th-century French court actually placed the beetles on trial for crop destruction. Though then they were deemed “irrational and imperfect creatures”, I plead the contrary. Biliana Todorova, 23, doctoral candidate, Oxford

Rhinoceros beetle

Out for a walk along Kerridge Hill, I was startled when a big black beetle landed on my hand … My instinctive reaction was to instantly slap it off my hand – but fortunately I was holding my camera in that hand, and I just managed to stop myself and take a look at what it was first. I’m glad I did! The female rhinoceros (the males have a horn) was so delicate and obliging I managed to swap her over to my left hand and snap a few portraits of her beautiful glossy armour before we went our separate ways. Despite the scary appearance she seemed curious, and moved very slowly and tickled my hand as she walked daintily around, exploring this strange new landscape. Why is our first reaction to a strange insect usually to immediately try to kill it? Anthony Skellern, semi-retired graphic designer, Bollington

Common sexton beetle

What a marvellous clear-up job they do for us. I used to wander in the countryside all the time, and one day I spotted a red squirrel tail lying among the dead leaves on the ground. I tugged at it and up came a whole red squirrel, to my astonishment. It seems it would be the food supply, for some time, for the larvae of this beetle. Without that help the world would be covered in tiny smelly corpses, with flies hovering about and their own larvae feeding on them. I have often felt guilty about my action, rendering the industrious beetle with an arduous repeat burial. Hilary Kirkby, 77, retired, south of France

Manx shearwater flea

The Manx flea is one of the only insects found exclusively in the UK. It is threatened with extinction and listed as critically endangered by the IUCN. It is found only on the windswept Isle of Rùm, off the west coast of Scotland within a single colony of Manx shearwaters (Puffinus puffinus), which serve as its hosts. So often invertebrate advocacy focuses on charismatic groups like bees and butterflies, but this year we have the opportunity to highlight one of the “small majority” of invertebrates overlooked by most people because they aren’t as appealing. The Manx flea is as British as Stonehenge, symbolises the plight of many threatened parasites, and is an incredibly unique insect worthy of a place to compete for UK invertebrate of the year! Mackenzie L Kwak, 30, academic, Japan

Harvestman

A class, not a species. But I’m referring to one of its members: what many people call “daddy long legs”. An amazing arachnid that thrives despite eating (apparently) nothing. I’ve never seen one eat anything – and I share my house with these creatures (as well as their annoying cobwebs) all the time. It looks impossibly, wondrously frail, its gossamer legs a marvel of articulation. They sit in corners, motionless. Never seen them outside. Where would they live without humans? I don’t know. Wonderful, mysterious survivors. Simon Jones, 68, book translator, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire

Devil’s coach-horse

It’s possibly the most ferocious beetle there is in the UK: a fearsome predator that’s mega aggressive, eats other invertebrates, and has scorpion-like pincers. It terrifies and delights people bug spotting in equal measure, but is not well known about (although common) as active at night. The name alone lets you know how vicious it can be, and they wouldn’t be afraid to bite humans either! Like a honey badger in beetle form. Jess Richards, Staffordshire

Medicinal leech

The European medicinal leech was overused in past centuries for medical purposes and although they’re considered near threatened, they are endangered in the UK. They are still used in medicine because of their incredible saliva, which has uses as an anticoagulant and has its own anaesthetic effect! These creatures have been used by humans for thousands of years and we’re only now fully understanding their amazing physiology, as we’ve pushed them to the brink of extinction in some countries. They’ve got three jaws and a hundred teeth, they’re slimy and a little creepy, but they’re incredible little creatures who we owe it to save. Avery Kilmarnock

Common garden snail

I used to enjoy getting out into the natural world, but now my disability is so limiting that I’m rarely able to leave home. I so love the way that whenever it rains our garden is suddenly alive with snails, all rushing about (at a snail’s pace) to make the most of what to them is perfect weather. It’s fascinating to watch a life form so unimaginably different from us getting on with its daily business as if we weren’t here. Lois Pass, 59, Southend-on-Sea,

Strawberry spider

If people say we have dull-looking invertebrates in this country then they have never seen this spider. Its common name is the strawberry spider and with the bright colour and markings you will see why it gets its name. It’s a favourite because it not only builds an awesome orb web, but then weaves two leaves together to make a bell shape and hangs that in the top of the web as a retreat. It took me five years to find one of these spiders and I was so pleased to see and photograph it.

So when you next see a spider around maybe salute him or her for the good they do. Or at the very least if you have one in your home and you’re not keen just try and help it back outside. It’s important to remember it’s not just our planet, and everything from the largest to the smallest deserves our respect and its place on this sphere we call home. James Chisnall, 44, engineer, West Sussex

Bumblebee

Best. Invertebrate. EVER. As the Bumblebee Conservation Trust puts it: “Bumblebees are large, furry and charismatic four-winged insects.” And with a Latin name of “Bombus” – which perfectly describes them – how can you not adore them! Fluffy bums, hard-working and so very lovely. From early spring to late autumn and sometimes even into early winter, they give me such joy and hope to watch them – which I do for hours, every year! A vital part of the ecosystem and of our lives – definitely my No 1. Vicky, Hampshire

The US Environmental Protection Agency has set legally enforceable drinking water limits for a group of the most dangerous PFAS compounds, marking what public health advocates hailed as “historic” rules that will dramatically improve the safety of the nation’s water.

PFAS, known as “forever chemicals”, are ubiquitous in the environment and thought to be contaminating drinking water for over 200 million people across the US. Any exposure to some highly toxic varieties of the compounds is considered a health and cancer risk.

The agency’s action marks the first time in 27 years it has put in place new drinking water limits for contaminants, and the rules are part of the Biden administration’s broader effort to rein in PFAS pollution.

“Americans have been drinking contaminated water for decades, but today’s action will finally get these toxic chemicals out of our water,” said Melanie Benesh, vice-president for government affairs at Environmental Working Group, which tracks PFAS water pollution across the globe, in a statement.

Officials said the rules will reduce exposure for 100 million people and help prevent thousands of illnesses, including cancers. Michael Regan, the EPA administrator, said the rule is the most important action the agency has ever taken on PFAS. “The result is a comprehensive and life-changing rule, one that will improve the health and vitality of so many communities across our country,” said Regan, who will announce the rule in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Wednesday.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 15,000 chemicals often used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and are linked to cancer, liver problems, thyroid issues, birth defects, kidney disease, decreased immunity and other serious health problems.

After years of issuing health advisories, the EPA on Wednesday set maximum contaminant levels (MCLs), which are the highest level at which a contaminant can be in water. Critics say PFAS’ dangers have been known for years and the EPA has been slow to respond.

Between 2016 and 2022, the EPA’s advisory health limit was set at 70 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOS and PFOA, two commonly produced compounds used for decades.

Last year, after science showed no level of exposure to the two chemicals in drinking water is safe, the EPA set non-enforceable advisory health limits of 0.02 ppt and 0.004 ppt for PFOA and PFOS, respectively.

“This reflects the latest science showing that there is no level of exposure to these contaminants without risk of health impacts, including certain cancers,” the EPA wrote.

The new enforceable limits for PFOA and PFOS are four ppt each, the lowest level at which water-testing technology can reliably obtain readings. The EPA noted in a release that the law requires it to consider feasibility and water treatment costs in addition to health risks.

It also set limits of 10 ppt for any combination of three other PFAS compounds, including PFNA, PfHxS, and HFPO dimer acid, more commonly called GenX. For any combination of those three compounds and PFBS, the agency set a variable limit.

EPA scientists calculated that the new limits will result in thousands of fewer birth-weight related infant deaths, kidney cancer deaths, bladder cancer deaths, and deaths from cardiovascular disease.

Though the rules only address several PFAS compounds, the technology water utilities are installing will address many of the compounds. However, the technology does not address some of the newly discovered “ultra short chain” PFAS that are not well studied. Public health advocates say the problem highlights the need to regulate PFAS as a class and prohibit their non-essential uses.

Water utilities have long opposed the rules because they did not want to have to pay for upgrades, which they say will cost billions of dollars and lead to increased bills for customers.

The proposed limits established early last year contributed to a wave of utility lawsuits aimed at PFAS producers such as 3M, DuPont and Chemours. The companies settled some class actions, agreeing to pay up to $15bn to help fund upgrades to municipal water filtration systems.

However, more lawsuits are playing out as water utilities or well owners not covered by the class actions sue. The Biden administration also made billions of dollars available though the Inflation Reduction Act, but the cost to upgrade the nation’s water systems could be as much as $400bn. In part citing the regulatory and legal environments, 3M announced last year it would stop making PFAS.

Over the last year, EPA has periodically released batches of utility test results for PFAS in drinking water. Roughly 16% of utilities found at least one of the two strictly limited PFAS chemicals at or above the new limits. These utilities serve tens of millions of people. The Biden administration, however, expects about 6-10% of water systems to exceed the new limits.

Water providers will generally have three years to do testing. If those test exceed the limits, they’ll have two more years to install treatment systems, according to EPA officials.

Record-breaking rain in recent months has drastically reduced the amount of food produced in the UK, farming groups have said.

Livestock and crops have been affected as fields have been submerged since last autumn.

It has been an exceptionally wet 18 months. According to the Met Office, 1,695.9mm of rain fell from October 2022 to March 2024, the highest amount for any 18-month period in England in recorded history. The Met Office started collecting data in 1836.

The UK will be reliant on imports for wheat in the coming year and potentially beyond because of the drastic reduction in yields.

Prices of goods such as bread and other food made using grains are already rising and are likely to rise further, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).

Wheat production is down 15% since November, the biggest reduction in cropped areas since 2020. Oilseed rape is down 28%, the biggest reduction since the 1980s, and winter barley is down 22% at 355,000 hectares, the biggest reduction since 2020.

The areas that have been planted are likely to produce poor-quality crops as the soil is waterlogged, and some crops are likely to fail. The AHDB said: “The unfavourable weather is putting the yield at risk of being significantly reduced.”

David Eudall, the board’s economics and analysis director, said: “We may see wheat production fall from about 14m tonnes to about 10m tonnes or less, so wheat processors, flour millers and bakers will be looking to import greater quantities of wheat this season for production into bread and animal feed.

“If we see continued lower production from poor weather, stubborn costs (eg fertiliser) and unprofitable prices, we will continually need more imports and further expose our market for a staple product in bread to the world trade.”

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has reported that the rain, combined with unseasonably low spring temperatures, is taking a toll on livestock farming, with a “bleak attrition rate for lambs born this spring already clear”.

Farmers have said they are facing a crisis. The NFU vice-president, Rachel Hallos, said: “People should be in no doubt about the immense pressure UK farm businesses are under thanks to this unprecedented and constant rain. It’s no exaggeration to say a crisis is building. While farmers are bearing the brunt of it now, consumers may well see the effects through the year as produce simply doesn’t leave the farm gate.

“Combined with input costs which have been soaring for two years, the awful impact of this extreme weather on farmers cannot be overestimated. I have real worries for not just the financial situation of many NFU members, but also the impact this is having on them personally.”

The government has opened a farming recovery fund scheme, under which eligible farmers can access grants of between £500 and £25,000 to return their land to the condition it was in before exceptional flooding due to Storm Henk in January.

The farming minister, Mark Spencer, said: “I know how difficult this winter has been for farmers, with extreme weather such as Storm Henk having a devastating impact on both cropping and grazing, as well as damaging property and equipment.

“The farming recovery fund will support farmers who suffered uninsurable damage with grants of up to £25,000, and sits alongside broader support in our farming schemes to improve flood resilience.”

Octopuses could lose vision and struggle to survive due to heat stress by the end of the century if ocean temperatures continue to rise at the projected rate, a new study has found.

While previous research has suggested octopuses are highly adaptable, the latest research found heat stress from global heating could result in impaired eyesight and increased deaths of pregnant mothers and their unborn young.

The researchers said loss of vision would have significant ramifications for octopuses as they are highly reliant on sight for survival. About 70% of the octopus brain is dedicated to vision, and it plays a crucial role in communication and detecting predators and prey.

Researchers exposed unborn octopuses and their mothers to three different temperatures: a control of 19C, 22C to mimic current summer temperatures, and 25C to match projected possible summer temperatures in 2100.

Octopuses exposed to 25C were found to produce significantly fewer proteins responsible for vision than those at other temperatures.

“One of them is a structural protein found in high abundance in animal eye lenses to preserve lens transparency and optical clarity, and another is responsible for the regeneration of visual pigments in the photoreceptors of the eyes,” Dr Qiaz Hua, a recent PhD graduate from the University of Adelaide’s School of Biological Sciences and the study’s lead author, said.

The study also found that higher temperatures were associated with higher rates of unborn offspring and an increased rate of premature deaths of pregnant mothers.

Eggs did not hatch for two of the three octopus breeds kept at 25C. The researchers said this was due partly to the deaths of mothers while eggs were in early development stages.

Less than half the eggs hatched for the third brood kept at this temperature. The scientists said the mother of this brood displayed “visible signs of stress” not observed in mothers exposed to lower temperatures. They found the hatchlings that survived exhibited an “immense amount of thermal stress and are unlikely to survive into adulthood”.

Hua said it meant “global warming could have a simultaneous impact on multiple generations”.

She said the research highlighted that “even for a highly adaptable taxon like octopuses, they may not be able to survive future ocean changes”.

Bronwyn Gillanders, the head of biological sciences at the University of Adelaide and a co-author of the study, said of the research: “It’s only a change of three or so degrees and you’re starting to see the impairment of organisms.”

Gillanders noted the study was not a direct reproduction of what would happen with global heating, as the octopuses were exposed to a more rapid increase than what would happen over coming decades, and she said it was “hard to tell” if the study’s results would mimic reality in 2100. But she said it was clear that rising temperatures would be bad for octopuses.

Jasmin Martino, an aquatic ecologist at the University of New South Wales who was not involved in the study, said the findings contradicted previous literature, which had suggested that cephalopods – a group including octopuses and squids – may be relative “winners” during the climate crisis due to their adaptability.

“This study reveals that in regions of inescapable heat stress, like the tropics, thermal stress responses may overwhelm octopuses’ capacity to cope,” she said.

More than 800 predominantly Black female and non-binary actors have signed an open letter in solidarity with Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, who has been targeted with online racial abuse after the announcement of her casting in a new production of Romeo & Juliet.

Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim and Marianne Jean-Baptiste are among the 883 signatories of the letter, alongside actors Lolly Adefope, Freema Agyeman, Wunmi Mosaku, and Tamara Lawrance.

It reads: “Too many times, Black performers – particularly Black actresses – are left to face the storm of online abuse after committing the crime of getting a job on their own.”

It comes after a statement by the Jamie Lloyd theatre company condemning the “barrage of deplorable racial abuse” that has been directed at Amewudah-Rivers and saying further harassment would be reported.

The abuse, the company – run by the director Jamie Lloyd – said, followed the announcement of the show’s cast including Amewudah-Rivers as Juliet and Tom Holland as Romeo.

Wednesday’s letter, which was organised by Enola Holmes actor Susan Wokoma and the writer Somalia Nonyé Seaton, stated: “When news of Francesca Amewudah-Rivers’ casting in Jamie Lloyd’s production of Romeo and Juliet was announced so many people celebrated and welcomed this news. Many of us took to social media to shower our baby sis with love and congratulations – a huge deal for someone so young in their career. A huge rising talent.

“But then what followed was a too familiar horror that many of us visible Black dark skinned performers have experienced. The racist and misogynistic abuse directed at such a sweet soul has been too much to bear. For a casting announcement of a play to ignite such twisted ugly abuse is truly embarrassing for those so empty and barren in their own lives that they must meddle in hateful abuse.”

Lynch is best known for her roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films (MCU) as well as for playing MI6 agent Nomi in the 2021 James Bond film No Time to Die. Atim is a double Olivier award-winning Ugandan-British actor, singer, composer and playwright who has appeared in a number of stage and TV shows, while Jean-Baptiste came to prominence following her role in the 1996 film Secrets & Lies, for which she received Oscar, Golden Globe and Bafta nominations.

The signatories welcomed the theatre company’s statement and said they hoped it would “extend to committed emotional support for Francesca on her journey with the production”.

They added: “Too many times theatre companies, broadcasters, producers and streamers have failed to offer any help or support when their Black artists face racist or misogynistic abuse. Reporting is too often left on the shoulders of the abused, who are also then expected to promote said show.

“We want to send a clear message to Francesca and all Black women performers who face this kind of abuse – we see you. We see the art you manage to produce with not only the pressures that your white colleagues face but with the added traumatic hurdle of misogynoir. We are so excited to watch you shine.”

Romeo & Juliet runs at the Duke of York’s Theatre from 11 May to 3 August and marks Amewudah-Rivers’ West End debut. The actor has previously starred in Shakespeare plays Macbeth and Othello as well as Sophocles tragedy Antigone across London theatres. She also starred in two seasons of the Bad Education on BBC.

The play will also be the Spider-Man star Holland’s first big theatre role since his debut in Billy Elliot: the Musical.

Lloyd is known for mounting bold, megastar-led versions of classic plays such as Doctor Faustus with Kit Harington, Betrayal with Tom Hiddleston and The Seagull with Emilia Clarke. His new production of the musical Sunset Boulevard, with Nicole Scherzinger, recently ended a sold-out run at London’s Savoy theatre and is transferring to Broadway in September.

Last year Lloyd directed Taylor Russell and Paapa Essiedu in a revival of Lucy Prebble’s play The Effect at the National Theatre, before opening at the Shed in New York in March.

Romeo & Juliet is billed as “a pulsating new vision of Shakespeare’s immortal tale of wordsmiths, rhymers, lovers and fighters”.

When the waters rose, Meike and Dörte Näkel weren’t worried. People in this part of the world, the Ahr valley in Germany, are used to it. The river flooded in 2016, bursting its banks and rising almost four metres, and before that in 2013, 1910 and 1804. Many lives were lost in 1804 and 1910, in catastrophes remembered only in stories read from history books to bored schoolchildren. The sisters’ great-grandmother Anna Meyer lived through the 1910 flood, although she never spoke of it to Meike and Dörte.

They are the fifth generation of their family to make wine in the village of Dernau. Meike, 44, is blond, thoughtful and a little serious; Dörte, 42, who has dark hair that comes down to her waist, is quicker to laugh. Both have the same steady gaze. Their father, Werner Näkel, is a hero in the Ahr, widely credited with transforming it from a place where sugar was added routinely to cheap, bad wine into a region with award‑winning vintages.

After studying at the prestigious Hochschule Geisenheim University, the sisters took over the family estate, Meyer-Näkel, and its 23-hectare (57-acre) vineyard. Its winery, where the wine is made and stored, is in a warehouse on the banks of the Ahr.

This is red wine country. Tourists come from across Germany and the surrounding countries to hike the red wine trail, walking from village to village to drink pinot noir from local producers, sometimes at tables in their vineyards. The hills are stubbled with vines that, from a distance, look like the quills on a porcupine. The slopes are so steep that you wonder how anyone could pick the grapes without tumbling down, yet every September the harvest is brought in without incident, mostly by hand. The Ahr threads its way through the villages of Schuld, Altenahr and Dernau, then Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler – the biggest town in the Ahr valley – and on to Sinzig, before joining the Rhine near Bonn.

By 8am on 14 July 2021, the rain was pounding and the river was near-bursting. The sisters and their employees worked quickly to lay down sandbags and close the doors and windows to the winery. When everything was secure, Meike and Dörte sent everyone home.

After that, it all happened so quickly. Around 10pm, the Ahr burst its banks. A gate was smashed by a wave of water. The winery was flooded within an hour. The corrugated iron sheeting on the warehouse walls began to buckle and fold. The water rose so quickly that the sisters took refuge up a flight of stairs in the winery, but they weren’t sure if the metal platform on which they were sitting would collapse. There was no way of accessing the roof and nowhere else to go. “We thought: it’s not so far – maybe we can swim to the vineyards, to get to a drier place,” says Dörte.

They entered the water. It was only 15 metres or so from the winery to higher ground. “But there was no chance of swimming,” Dörte says. “The water just took you where it wanted to.” For a while, they clung to a fence, until the water rose so much that the fence was beneath their feet. The water was five metres deep, at least, and fast-flowing. It was relentless; they could no more swim their way out of it than they could make it run uphill. Just when they feared the worst, the sisters washed into a plum tree.

They would spend the next eight hours shivering in its branches. It was so loud. Boom. Crash. Boom. The roar of the water, but also the screams of their neighbours, trapped on their roofs. They had a torch. Terrifying, random things streaked past in the dark. Trees, cars, shipping containers, petrol tankers; entire houses, detached from their foundations like boats that had slipped their moorings. The tree on which they were sitting suddenly didn’t seem so sturdy. “There was no chance to get to another place,” says Meike. “The strength of the water was so incredible.”

The sisters turned off the light. If something was barrelling towards them, a chewed-up tree or a fuel truck, it was better not to know. If death couldn’t be avoided, why look it in the face? The sisters sat in the darkness, listening to the shrieks and groans of the crashing water and the wails from nearby rooftops, and waited.

Upstream of Dernau, the chaos had begun hours earlier. The rain had fallen with such intensity that by 5.30pm the main road in Altenahr had become a second river. People sought refuge on higher ground, in the village’s 15th-century church. Around 9pm, the villagers who had stayed on lower land to protect their homes and businesses began shouting to each other. The river is coming, they yelled. The river is coming.

Across the region, 150mm of rain fell in 72 hours. The water level is believed to have risen as much as 10 metres that night, although no one knows for certain, because all the measuring apparatus was washed away, leaving only high-water marks on buildings for the scientific record.

All over the Ahr, in Ahrweiler, in Dernau, in Altenahr, the cemeteries gave up their dead. The freshly buried rose first, then the long-departed. Rescue workers would later sift through the mud and the silt to recover these bodies, but also those whose lives were stolen by the flood waters. That night, 188 people died in Germany, many older people who were asleep or unable to get to higher floors.

The Ahr valley is the Florida of Germany, with a high percentage of elderly residents who retire to towns such as Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler for the climate and scenery. Many were not warned of what was coming, even when it might have saved lives. Twelve disabled people died in a care home in Sinzig nine and a half hours after the Ahr had flooded upstream. Evacuation should have been possible. German prosecutors are considering bringing negligent homicide charges against an Ahrweiler district official; the individual in question denies any wrongdoing.

Entire buildings were washed away with their inhabitants trapped inside. Bodies were found as far away as Rotterdam, 150 miles north-west. Steffi Nelles, 48, the owner of Haus Caspari, a family-owned guesthouse on the main square in Altenahr, watched in horror from her upstairs window as the house across from her was wrenched from its foundations with an elderly couple stuck inside. She didn’t know if her building would be next.

In Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, scarcely a street in either of the twinned towns was spared. About 8,800 homes were destroyed across the region. When the waters receded on the morning of 15 July, people who had lived in Ahrweiler their entire lives couldn’t orient themselves. “It was like I was standing on the moon,” says Marc Adeneuer, 60, a wine producer. “It was unbelievable.” He stood in the town square for 15 minutes, trying to understand where he was. He went to the cemetery where his son and his father were buried. Their headstones had disappeared.

In their plum tree, as they waited for a rescue they weren’t sure would come, Meike and Dörte tried to keep their spirits up. First, they assessed their options. What had become of the 380 barrels in their winery? Had any survived intact? They soon came to the conclusion that everything must have been destroyed. They tried to remember if they had flood insurance. (They did.) The next question: would they cut their losses and walk away? “It sounds really crazy, but I think it was a survival thing, from the brain,” says Meike. They were in accord: they would rebuild. “We are like our wine,” says Meike. “We have deep roots inside.”

In the historic town of Ahrweiler today, the fish-scale roofs glint in the winter sun and the medieval timbered houses lean charmingly. But inside the buildings, everything is new, from the plush carpets to the thick, richly patterned wallpaper. In Hotel Villa Aurora, the most luxurious hotel in town, art deco lamps gleam gold and bronze. At the nearby Adenauer winery, you can drink from fine crystal glasses on pale wood benches. Everything is new and nicely done.

It was paid for with insurance money, government money – federal and state authorities made available €30bn (about £26bn) for reconstruction – and the owners’ own funds. “We have to get away from this idea that: ‘Oh my God, there was a flood, we are such poor people, please come here and visit us because it’s so bad,’” says Carolin Groß, the head of marketing at Ahrwein, an association of local wine producers. “No. We want to talk about quality.” Adeneuer agrees: “We don’t want pity.”

But the tourists haven’t returned in their old numbers. There aren’t enough hotels open, but, more importantly, the infrastructure isn’t there. The railway line between Walporzheim and Ahrbrück was washed away in the flood and won’t be rebuilt until the end of 2025. The picturesque Ahr cycle path is mostly closed. Many of the campsites that appealed to younger and more cost-conscious tourists won’t reopen; they should never have been permitted in the first place. The hillsides are too rocky and vertiginous, while the schist bedrock doesn’t allow water to infiltrate, meaning that rainwater shoots off the hills in torrential flows.

Without enough beds, or a way of getting to the nearby cities of Cologne and Bonn, the tourists mostly don’t come; when they do, they visit only for the day, leaving before dinner instead of wining and dining until late in the night. “When you want to spend your holiday, you want to have it nice,” says Dörte. “It’s understandable. People want to help the Ahr valley, but they don’t want to walk through the dirt on their holidays for two weeks.”

All along the Ahr, and especially in the villages further up the valley, construction trucks spray gravel across the road and spindly cranes pick at the hillsides. The landscape is pockmarked with diggers and piles of earth. Everywhere you go, you see construction placards and metal fencing, workers in hard hats and scaffolders with poles, portable toilets and piles of building materials. Almost three years on, children go to school in shipping containers. You will find derelict houses along all the main streets in Altenahr and Dernau. Some are being renovated by students, some await demolition, some have owners who are involved in tortuous disputes with governments and insurers.

Nelles is in the latter camp. When I visit her at Haus Caspari, the Altenahr guesthouse her grandfather bought after the second world war, she is close to tears from stress. The main, eight-bedroom guesthouse – there are two smaller buildings that Nelles hasn’t even begun to refurbish – is a building site, with more than a dozen people at work. We struggle to hear each other over the burring of drills. Nelles says she was assured by various professionals that government funds and insurance payouts would cover the cost of her rebuild, only to realise later that she couldn’t claim as much as she had hoped, by which point work had already started. She is €800,000 short of what she needs to complete the work.

“So, we have no plan for what to do now,” she says, blinking back tears. “This is my parents’ house. We made this plan and everything was going to be finished for them and they were looking forward to it. They’re in their late 70s. They can’t really understand it.”

After the floods, when the entire German press decamped to the Ahr, Nelles’ neighbours gave interviews and started crowdfunding pages that raised thousands of euros. “You think you’re so stupid,” says Nelles. “Why didn’t you go on television and put your kids in the front row and say: ‘We are poor people – please give us money’? Because other people did that and they are now finished with building – they live a good life.”

Hundreds of people travelled to the Ahr in the aftermath of the floods to work as volunteers. Nelles would be working in a human chain to shift flood debris and suddenly a total stranger would join the chain. “You had this feeling you are not alone,” she says. “People came and helped you.” But there were also disaster tourists. “Families with their children, in white trousers, taking pictures,” Nelles says in disbelief. She felt “like a monkey in a zoo”.

At the time of my visit, Nelles has only enough money to pay the builders for another fortnight. “We don’t know what will happen,” she says. “In the next two weeks, something must happen. I don’t know what. But something must work out.” She takes me on a tour of the partly refurbished building. The reception area has been freshly tiled with green porcelain; the day the tiles arrived was a good day. “For a few minutes, you feel really good,” she says. “You think you did a really good job. But then reality hits you again.”

We go into the basement, where an electrician is at work on a fuse board that takes up most of the wall. This will be Haus Caspari’s kitchen, where Nelles’ sister Andrea Babic, 45, will bake her cakes, which are famous in the village. Babic is with us. She inspects her €8,000 industrial cake mixer, which has been recently delivered.

The sisters have invested in better windows, relocated a lift, blocked up their basement windows and built a small wall to go around the perimeter of the guesthouse. But it won’t protect them from another flood of the magnitude of 2021’s – they know that. So much expense to rebuild. All that equipment in their basement. And the Ahr scarcely three metres away.

There is a well-known term in hydrological circles: flood dementia. “Every couple of decades, people tend to forget about historical events,” says Stefan Greiving, a professor of spatial planning at the Technical University of Dortmund.

The Ahr has always flooded, sometimes with significant loss of life. In 1910, 200 people died in the valley. In a tunnel leading into Altenahr, plaques denote the high-water marks of historic floods. “In the immediate period after the event, there’s a small window of time for implementing and approving radical solutions,” says Greiving. “But this is probably limited to a couple of months after the event.” After the 1910 floods, officials considered building a reservoir near Rech, a small village in the Ahr, to collect water in case of flooding. Instead they built the Nürburgring racing track, to create jobs during a time of high unemployment.

Flood-affected communities in the Ahr are actually disincentivised from making their homes more flood-resilient. In the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, which includes Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler and surrounding villages, people are required to rebuild on a one-for-one basis, meaning exactly as they were. If you are rebuilding a school, say, and you want to move the science laboratory from the ground floor to the third, so that equipment can be protected in the case of another flood, insurers and government funds won’t cover the cost of fitting. Everything needs to be as it was.

“Sometimes, I have the feeling that people could forget about the floods too early,” says Charlotte Burggraf, an employee of the district administration of Ahrweiler. “When you ask them in 10 years, they’ll say: ‘The floods won’t come again.’ But they will. And you don’t know when. You need to be getting protection and you need early-warning systems. And from what I see, that’s maybe a problem in the future. People may forget how dramatic the events of 2021 really were.”

Across the Ahr, people have rebuilt as before, without flood mitigation measures in place. “We see this problem,” says Meike. “They do exactly as it was before. That is a very strange thing. For a lot of people, it’s a very positive mental thing, making things how they were. Perhaps they try to help themselves, by making it as it was.”

The flood of 14 July was particularly catastrophic for multiple reasons. It was the summer, so no one was prepared for it. It happened during the night-time. The authorities failed to issue warnings and mandatory evacuations until it was too late. But it was more than that. The Ahr had not flooded with significant loss of life for more than 100 years. People weren’t prepared. And their homes had been built in places that never should have been inhabited, let alone densely populated.

The Romans knew to build away from the Ahr; the medieval church fathers, too. The churches in Altenahr and Dernau did not flood, because they were built on higher land. When Dörte and Meike were children, they had to walk uphill to their school, situated in an old monastery in Ahrweiler. They would gripe about the steep climb. But the monastery didn’t flood, either. Their father used to tell them that, when he was a child, there were flood-retention areas around the Ahr, which are now built up. Houses were built up stone steps from the road.

“Historical knowledge was more valued in the past,” says Greiving. “Most city centres were built on top of hills, in safe areas. The later extensions to the city entered the flood-prone areas.” Even the best-designed flood defences may fail, particularly in an age of climate emergency. “There is a responsibility for individuals to prepare themselves for extreme events,” says Greiving. “And that is, in our modern societies, particularly in larger cities, an enormous weakness.”

Meike says: “I think, in the past, people were more careful about where they built. Why have we forgotten? Are we so stupid or self‑confident that nothing can harm us? That is kind of crazy.”

When they were studying wine cultivation at university, the Näkel sisters were taught to strip everything away and use only the evidence of their senses. They learned to smell things before tasting them. “Who, in our society, smells an apple before biting into the apple?” asks Meike.

Their father, Werner, had already taught them that winemakers should think not in years, or even decades, but generations. A vineyard will take five years before it produces its first yield and a decade before the yield is of any quality. “The older the vines, the better the wine will be,” says Meike. The week before we meet, Dörte and Meike replanted a vineyard Werner planted with his father when he was 18. The crop was still good, but the rows were too close together for modern methods of harvesting. “Otherwise, we’d have kept it,” says Dörte. “Because they were really nice old vines, with the roots going very deep.”

For years, the sisters had seen the climate crisis affect the way they worked. Their summers went from being wet to dry and hot. There were weeks without rain, something that would have been impossible in the past. Rather than removing the leaves from the vine to keep the grapes dry and healthy, now the sisters left them, to cast a shadow. The harvest moved forward a month, from October to September.

After the July 2021 floods, they knew that climate breakdown would make these extreme weather events more likely. “My father always said: ‘We cannot change the weather,’” says Meike. “We have to work with it.” They drive me to their vineyard, up twisting roads. The vines tumble away from us down the hillside. “Humans are just tiny against nature,” says Dörte, surveying her vines from the top of a hill.

Werner taught them to plan long-term when planting their vines, to understand and respect nature. Their university lecturers taught them to listen to their senses. So, Dörte and Meike have decided to relocate their winery from the banks of the Ahr to the top of a hill. It took them a year and a half to persuade the farmer to sell the land. Their insurance will not cover the relocation, so they are putting up the money themselves. They hope to start construction this winter.

“We are very sure that, in the lives of our children, or our grandchildren, something like the flood will happen again,” says Meike. “And when you look at how a winery works, or what it means to work in a vineyard, we are always talking in generations. What I plan now must also stand in the next generation.” So, they have to move the winery. It’s the only responsible thing to do.

After the flood, the sisters thought they had lost everything. But then the phone calls came: a barrel of wine had been found in this person’s garage, or in front of that building. It was a race against time to recover the 300kg barrels before the wine spoiled in the sun. In all, the sisters rescued nine barrels. They call these wines the Lost Barrels. Afterwards, they had to bring in that year’s harvest. “We didn’t have our own machines; we didn’t even have a bucket,” says Dörte. They wanted to commemorate, in a small way, everything they had been through. They didn’t want to avoid talking about the flood, as their great‑grandmother had done. So they put waves on their 2021 bottles. “We want to keep the memory alive,” says Meike. “To talk about the flood.”

Meike and Dörte are outliers in the Ahr. It has been nearly two years since the floods and flood preparedness is not on the national agenda. Some municipalities have implemented useful initiatives, but there is no overall leadership, says Greiving. “There is no long-term vision. What is the overarching goal or objective for a flood-resilient Ahr valley in 20 years?”

Before I leave the Ahr, I walk along the main promenade that connects Ahrweiler and Bad-Neuenahr. The river is low and gentle today. There is construction all along it, on both sides of the bank. Recently rebuilt houses sparkle in the sun. I pause in front of a white, three-storey house that looks to be freshly repainted. A child’s bedroom on the ground floor faces the river. I can see a brightly patterned duvet and clowns hanging from a mobile. From their bedroom, a few metres away, the child will see the Ahr flow past. As they sleep, it will continue to flow, in all its danger and beauty.

At a press conference in February, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, told a room full of reporters: “We’re not going to do that fake meat. That doesn’t work.” He’d been discussing legislation under debate in the statehouse that would ban cell-cultivated meat – an emerging technique that, instead of slaughtering animals for consumption, grows meat in a lab using a small sample of animal cells.

A few weeks later, a Republican member of the Florida legislature – and cattle rancher – Dean Black took to the House floor, saying, “Cultured meat is not meat … it is made by man, real meat is made by God Himself … If you really want to try the nitrogen-based protein paste, go to California.”

In March, Florida passed the legislation both men had been addressing: making it the first state in the nation poised to ban “lab-grown” meat. (DeSantis still needs to sign the bill.)

Florida isn’t the only state on track to ban cell-cultivated meat. Three other states – Alabama, Arizona and Tennessee – are currently debating legislation that would ban the production or sale of cell-cultivated meat, despite the fact that cell-cultivated meat isn’t actually on sale anywhere in the country. Sixteen states plus the federal government have already instituted regulations on labeling cell-cultivated meat, such as prohibiting companies from using the word “meat” in their marketing, or requiring them to print a disclosure explaining that the product contains cell-cultured products.

But experts say these new laws sweeping red states aren’t so much about the many safety, ethical and environmental questions lab-grown meat pose – they’re about the culture wars.

“These are political efforts to rile up voters,” says Sparsha Saha, a lecturer on meat politics at Harvard, who notes that cell-cultivated meat is a long way away from being produced on scale to reach most consumers. “Meat is inherently political. We know that meat attachment is higher on the right. We know that masculinity norms tend to be stronger among conservative men – and meat is associated with masculinity … If you’re a politician and you want to make sure that conservative men are getting mobilized to come out and vote, this is a really good political strategy.”

At the same time, the focus on cell-cultivated meat serves as a distraction from other, more important food issues, Saha says, like “the fact that a lot of people can’t afford their groceries any longer”.

Lab-grown meat is still a new technology. In 2013, a Dutch scientist created the first cell-cultivated meat product for human consumption. Growing cell-cultivated meat requires taking a sample from an actual animal, and then feeding that sample nutrients like amino acids, vitamins, sugar and salts while it grows in a bioreactor. This, supporters say, eliminates many of the environmental problems – deforestation, water contamination, greenhouse gas emissions – posed by animal agriculture.

Although more than 150 companies are now working in the cell-cultivated meat industry worldwide, it’s not yet widely available to the public: Only two restaurants in the US have sold cultivated meat. In 2023, restaurants in San Francisco and Washington DC sold cell-cultivated chickens developed by Upside Foods and Good Meat – but those products are no longer available at either restaurant.

As the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) debated federal regulations for this new technology, states across the US began requiring special labels for cell-cultivated meat. In 2018, Missouri became the first state to pass such a law. The following year, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming followed suit. Kansas, Louisiana, Georgia and Texas have since joined them.

Chloe Marie, a research specialist at Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Agricultural and Shale Law, said it was “pretty unclear” who would have the authority to regulate cell-cultured food: “We were very much in uncharted territory. And so because of that, many stakeholders started pushing for some regulatory actions.”

A new Republican-sponsored bill introduced to Congress earlier this year, the Fair and Accurate Ingredient Representation on Labels Act of 2024, would authorize the USDA to regulate “cell-cultured” and “imitation” meat product labels. Democratic senator Jon Tester and Republican senator Mike Rounds also introduced a bill to ban cell-cultivated meat in school lunch and breakfast programs, even though it’s not currently available in any school lunches – or anywhere else in the US – with backing from the US Cattlemen’s Association. (Although conservatives have strongly favored labeling efforts for cell-cultivated meat, they’ve called out labeling of other products, like sugary drinks and junk food, as government overreach.)

The state bans introduced this year go a step further and prohibit the development and sale of cell-cultivated meat. Anyone found in violation of the ban in Florida or Alabama could be charged with a misdemeanor, while those who violate the ban in Tennessee could be fined up to $1m.

“We want to protect our cattle and our ranches,” said Arizona representative Michael Carbone.

The US Cattlemen’s Association, the main lobbying group for American beef producers, is also pushing back against lab-grown meat, saying in 2022 that “cell-cultured products cannot be independently produced – the technology is shrouded in intellectual property protection and requires intensive capital resources” which “could lead to the monopolistic control of America’s sovereign food supply”.

While defenders of these bills say they’re concerned about the safety of new techniques, experts say there’s also a politicized fear of science at play. “Historically, science has been a friend to agriculture. And instead of us being accurate about that relationship in the past, I think what we’re seeing on the right is this undermining of science that perhaps started with Covid, if not earlier with vaccines,” said Saha.

Amid these bans, California is investing in cell-cultivated meat. As animal agriculture is increasingly recognized as a key contributor to the climate crisis, lab-grown meat has been pointed to as a potential solution. Though many environmental experts worry it’s a solution that will come too late – and that allowed us to forgo the difficult work of rethinking our relationship with meat and agriculture. In 2022, California became the first state in the nation to publicly fund cell-cultivated meat research. And the year before, the USDA gave Tufts University in Massachusetts $10m to support a cellular agriculture institute. However, the vast majority of funding for cell-cultivated meat has come from venture capital.

The North American Meat Institute, the country’s largest trade association for meat packers and producers, and dozens of biotech investors have spoken out against bans like the one Florida is set to pass – arguing that it will stifle innovation and limit consumer choice.

“We think consumers should be able to decide for themselves whether they want to try cultivated seafood. The USDA and FDA should continue to regulate food products in this country, not state legislators who lack the required expertise in food safety,” said Justin Kolbeck, co-founder and CEO of Wildtype, a cultivated seafood company, who says he and his colleagues have traveled to Arizona, Alabama and Florida to discuss pending bans. “Rather than bowing to special interest groups who are trying to stifle innovation, we’ve encouraged state legislators to work with our industry on clear labeling.”

Even if Desantis signs his state’s cultivated meat ban into law in coming weeks, Marie suspects the issue won’t be laid to rest. “A lot of environmental or food conscious associations have challenged many of these labeling laws,” she said. In states like Arkansas and Mississippi, companies sued to challenge laws that would have prevented them using terms like “meatless meatballs” and “plant-based jumbo hotdogs”. Marie says she “would not be surprised if they also challenge these banning laws”.