The New Dark Age

The GMO maize plan announced last week has sparked significant backlash, with agricultural stakeholders expressing concerns over what they call erosion of agricultural sovereignty, potential export failures, and bio-security threats. The national agriculture sector is heading for a major confrontation as in a rare show of unity, farmers, scientists, exporters, seed industry leaders and academia issued a blistering warning against the government’s proposed approval of GM corn cultivation. They are calling it a “suicide attack” on food security, human health and a multi-billion dollar export industry. Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) and Basmati Growers Association warn that GMO corn, a highly cross-pollinating crop, will hurt $1 billion Basmati
exports and cause loss of EU and other international markets. The News Pakistan

Almost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, a study has found. Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year. Based on a worldwide farming population of 934 million, this means approximately 46% of farmers are being poisoned every year. The greatest estimated number of poisonings was in southern Asia, followed by south-east Asia and east Africa. The highest national incidence of poisoning was in Burkina Faso in west Africa, where nearly 84% of farmers and farm workers were reported to have experienced poisoning. The Guardian