The Changing Climate for Food and Agriculture: A Literature Review

An annotated list of recent articles and studies related to climate change, agriculture and trade.

New Consumer Guides to Safe Plastics and Children's Products Now Available

New science on the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), found in many plastics and children's products, links elevated BPA concentrations to an increased risk for heart disease, diabetes and liver abnormalities. This compelling new science has made the search for safe plastic products increasingly important, but good information for consumers is hard to find.

Smart Plastics Guide

Making smarter purchasing decisions for plastics.

A Food System We Can Believe In

In 2008, prior to Barack Obama becoming president, we defined our nine policy positions for agriculture that could serve as a blueprint for the incoming administration. These policies directly addressed and corrected the six major areas causing the breakdown of our food and farming system.

FDA Decision on BPA Outrages Health Advocates

A broad spectrum of scientists, physicians, and children’s health advocates expressed outrage with the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) announcement that bisphenol A – the hormone disrupting chemical found in numerous consumer products including food can linings and plastic baby bottles – is “safe.” In laboratory studies, the pervasive chemical has been linked to obesity, developmental prob

New Global Contract Needed to Re-Assert Basic Rights, Protect Environment

Global institutions enforcing trade and finance rules have overridden fundamental human rights, stalled international development and harmed the environment, finds three new papers released today by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. A new system is badly needed.

Food Aid Emergency

The UN and donor countries can make emergency food assistance more effective. Hunger is not inevitable. In the 21st century, the world grows enough food, knows enough about redistributive economics, has the political tools to ensure inclusive decision-making, and can afford to provide the basic needs that protect every person’s right to an adequate, nutritious diet.

Trade Talks Collapse, New Direction Needed

Today, trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization in Geneva broke down. It has now been seven years since the Doha Round of negotiations began at the WTO. People want global agreements to solve food insecurity, to get them out of poverty and to avoid the devastating effects of climate change. If trade can help these goals, it should be used.

WTO Doha Negotiations Threaten to Encourage Inefficient Food Aid Delivery

Revised rules on food aid in the latest negotiating text at the World Trade Organization fail to reduce adequately the scope for the sale of food aid and encourage a highly wasteful, trade distorting system, according to a letter sent to trade ministers today from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Canadian Foodgrains Bank and Oxfam International.

Penicillin in Peril

The reckless use in animals of tried-and-true human antibiotics has contributed to the development of serious antibiotic-resistant human disease. The most straightforward way to address resistant diseases such as CA-MRSA is to curb unnecessary use of all antibiotics important to human medicine in U.S. livestock operations, including penicillin and tetracycline.