Increasingly, the coatings that keep supermarket produce fresh-looking and the chemicals used in pesticide-intensive farming are incorporating nanotechnology. Nanomaterial residues in coated produce that could potentially fail to be washed away by consumers have been reportedly imported into the United States. What are the potential health, worker safety and environmental risks?
On June 23, 2011, the G-20 marked a new phase in its evolution as a political entity with its first summit of agricultural ministers. Held in Paris, with a significant investment of French political energy in the process and the outcome, the meeting was nonetheless profoundly disappointing.
Hundreds of thousands of American Indians own land on reservations, but few have access to it. The Cobell settlement will put almost $2 billion toward Indian land consolidation, but is it too little too late?
The US food production system yields a large volume of food that is relatively low in cost for consumers but is often high in calories and low in nutritional value.
Minneapolis, April 21, 2011 — The Africa Carbon Exchange (ACX) was launched in Nairobi on March 24; yet only two days before, Bloomberg headlines announced “Global Carbon Credits Die as Smart Money Backs Indian RECs (Renewable Energy Certificates).”1 While the ACX is positioning itself to be the
Washington, D.C., April 14, 2011 — The new Obama trade policy, as embodied in its free-trade agreement with Colombia, sadly resembles the old Bush trade policy: promoting growth in exports and investment at the expense of local economies and resilient food systems.
This article by Shiney Varghese was published February 28, 2011 on Alternet
Given that nearly three quarters of the "water poor" belong to rural communities, it's time that international deliberations around the right to water focus on rural communities access to safe water.
Minneapolis, March 8, 2011* — The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently declared a “food emergency” was in effect in China due to a once-in-a-century drought affecting one-third of its wheat fields.