In partnership with
Your inside scoop on the week’s biggest stories
{{current_date_full}}
Independent newsrooms like ours don't answer to advertisers, shareholders or governments — we answer only to you. If you value bold and brave reporting, consider supporting us today.
Frankie Goodway,
Saturday Editor
"Hi there. This week’s big topic: milk. Specifically, the kind from cows. Maybe you haven’t been craving a glass of the white stuff in the middle of the heatwave, but ice cream has definitely been at the top of my priorities all this week.
Then our environment team dropped their latest bombshell. I’ve been at the Bureau for seven years (exactly today, in fact!), so it doesn’t surprise me to discover there’s exploitation at the heart of our food system.
Even so, the margins dairy farmers are facing on the milk they sell – fractions of a penny per litre, often slipping into overall losses – are shocking. But of course, the exploitation doesn’t end there. Farmers under pressure sell up, or sell out: crowding thousands of cows into sheds where they never see grass.
PS: I’m still happy to hear any feedback you have about the new look!
‘Battery’ cattle farms double as supermarkets squeeze farmers
What’s the price of milk these days? Well, it’s out of the hands of dairy farmers. Price squeezes have pushed farmers to intensify, and there are now twice as many factory-style dairy farms, where cows are kept indoors all year round, in the UK as there were 10 years ago. The same is true of the largest “megadairies” – there is now more than 40, including one with 2,600 cows.
A legal loophole means the government doesn’t monitor how many of these farms exist, despite concerns about animal welfare and pollution associated with more intensive farming. So we counted and mapped them instead.
Inside the story
This was an investigation we had to tell with farmers, not just about them. Intensive cattle farming doesn’t happen because someone has a burning desire to lock several hundred cows in a shed. It’s the result of ever-tightening margins making large-scale production seem like the only feasible option.
Because of that, we thought very carefully about how to present the intensive farms we mapped across the UK. You have a right to know if your area is becoming a hot spot for this kind of farming – particularly when it correlates with more pollution incidents. But these farms are also often homes as well as workplaces, and publishing addresses goes too far and could put people at risk. That’s why you can’t zoom in on the map to a precise location.
⚡ Immediate impact
Andrew, the reporter, and Grace, who runs impact for the environment team, made sure the story would reach the animal welfare and environmental NGOs who could put it to good use. The result was an immediate call for new rules on labelling milk, so we can see whether the cows it came from ever got a chance to see the sky. We’re also sharing this story with MPs to make sure they consider it when looking at the regulations around permits and supermarket supply chains.
Expanding ethically takes time. AI giants can’t be bothered
Major AI companies keep thumping the same message: AI is inevitable. It will show up in the apps you use, whether you want it or not. It’s time to pick a side: ChatGPT or Grok, Sam Altman or Elon Musk. Choose your overlord. But when Franz, the Bureau’s CEO, interviewed Karen Hao about her book, Empire of AI, this week, she urged us to reject that framing and instead think about resistance, moving slowly, and building AI that actually helps people, instead of racing towards a future only a few billionaires want to make reality.
Inside the story
The event brought a brilliant mix of Bureau readers together: activists, journalists, educators and experts. When it came time for questions, the topics ranged from regulation to education, and the best grassroots models for resisting the AI empire in favour of people-powered movements.
My favourite was a Korean campaigner who seized the moment to ask Karen to help plan an alternative AI summit for the real people involved in – and exploited by – the supply chains for massive chatbots. Karen had the perfect example to follow: a similar event held in Lusaka, Zambia. Suddenly, plans for a global collaboration were being made, right in front of me.
⚡ More impact this week
The Oversight Board, the somewhat ominously named group of experts who act as a kind of Supreme Court for Meta, has invited our tech reporter Niamh McIntyre to an expert roundtable on political deepfakes. Niamh’s recent investigations have exposed AI slop hate networks run through Facebook, one of Meta’s businesses – she’s the authority on how our politics are being exploited for profit. On the panel, she’ll be able to advocate for changes to Facebook’s rules that will preserve democracy, freedom of the press and access to accurate information.
When governments fail to track how our environment is changing, it’s up to investigative journalism to fill in the gaps. We do it with the help of our brilliant community of Bureau Insiders. Please join us today:
What we’ve been reading
🔴 This clever look at how climate change affects our basic needs tracked how floods have forced hospital closures carbonbrief.org
🔴 Why are people experiencing breaks from reality when conversations with AI chatbots spiral? france24.com
🔴 More than £325bn in dirty money flows through the UK each year – and the figure more than doubles if you include the UK’s overseas territories theguardian.com
If you like Uncovered, feel free to forward it to a friend! It’s free to subscribe.
ADVERTISEMENT
Sound familiar?
Over 4 million people have had the same lightbulb moment.
Morning Brew is a free daily newsletter that breaks down what's happening in business, finance, and tech — clearly, quickly, and with enough personality to make it the best email in your inbox.
No yelling. No filler. Just the news, finally making sense.
