Agriculture
-
False Promises: The ‘Green Revolution in Africa’ is failing on its own terms
A negative report card. Yield increases for key staple crops in the years before AGRA were just as low as during AGRA. The number of people going hungry has increased by 30 percent during the AGRA years. (Click image to download report.) The Gates Foundation’s billion dollar project is a vicious circle that drives small-scale… Continue reading
-
Global Breaking News on GMOs and Pesticides 13 July 2020
13 July 2020 — Sustainable Pulse Editors’ picks India Set to Restrict Who Can Spray Glyphosate Herbicides in Big Blow for Bayer Glyphosate is the most used weedkiller in India with over 675,000 Kg of it spread on Indian farmland in 2018-2019, however a new change on who is allowed to spray glyphosate, which is… Continue reading
-
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, Pandemic Edition (July 2020)
6 July 2020 — Climate & Capitalism A special edition of Ecosocialist Bookshelf: six books we recommend for understanding the deadliest global health crisis of our time Ecosocialist Bookshelf is an occasional feature. This edition focuses on viruses and health care, on capitalism’s failure to protect human health, and radical alternatives. Continue reading
-
Challenge eyed to class action plan for Bayer Roundup settlement
A plan to delay any new Roundup cancer claims for years and shift the key question of whether or not the weed killer causes cancer from a jury to a hand-picked panel of scientists faces potential opposition from some of the plaintiffs’ attorneys who initiated and led the mass tort claims against Roundup maker Monsanto,… Continue reading
-
From Toxic Food to Agrarian Disaster: Dirty Deals Done Dirt Cheap
During the early days of the coronavirus lockdowns, in some quarters there was a certain degree of optimism around. Although millions of people were suffering, the hope was that the Covid-19 crisis would shine light on societal and economic systems across the world, exposing some of the deep-rooted flaws of capitalism. There was a belief that people… Continue reading
-
Global Breaking News on GMOs and Pesticides 12 June 2020
Chemicals manufacturers BASF and Bayer have been given enormous payouts of Covid-19 support cash from the British government just weeks after announcing plans to distribute billions to shareholders in dividends. Continue reading
-
Lockdown Catastrophe: The Need for Resilient Food Systems Agroecology
There is no doubt that, contingent on World Bank aid to be given to poorer countries in the wake of coronavirus lockdowns, agrifood conglomerates will aim to further expand their influence. Continue reading
-
Regulatory chicanery – Biotech lobby quietly hijacks the UK’s Agriculture Bill to change the definition of ‘GMOs’
MPs, peers and the research establishment are urging the government to introduce genome editing into UK food and farming by sidestepping parliamentary and public scrutiny. Continue reading
-
Poisons Mean Extinction: For Bees and Humanity
The choices before humanity are clear, a Poison Free Future to save Bees, Farmers, our Food and Humanity. Or continue to use poisons, threatening our common future by walking blindly to extinction through the arrogance that we can substitute bees with artificial intelligence and robots. Continue reading
-
Nature can’t be patented
It’s official and we won: Conventionally-bred animals and plants are not patentable. [1] It may seem obvious to us, but corporations like Bayer (buyer of Monsanto), Syngenta and Carlsberg fought hard against this outcome. Without a patent, they cannot control and profit from the biological information in those plants and animals! Continue reading
-
Glyphosate Overuse Leads to Serious Immune System Concerns
16 May 2020 — Sustainable Pulse Editorial By Henry Rowlands, Sustainable Pulse Director In a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is dominating the global psyche, it is of course important to delve deeper into the background reasons for the failure of our immune systems to be able to cope with the serious threat of infectious… Continue reading
-
COVID-19 bulletin 23: will a ‘shock-resistant food system’ be adopted?
Since the coronavirus pandemic took over and some supermarket egg and flour shelves are still bare here – and in parts of America – there has been greater public awareness of the fragility of our food system. Continue reading
-
‘Our Food System Is Very Much Modeled on Plantation Economics’
Janine Jackson interviewed the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Ricardo Salvador about the coronavirus food crisis for the May 8, 2020, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. Continue reading
-
Book Review: Capitalist Pigs: Pigs, pork, and power in America
How pigs became commodities and key elements of the interlocked social, economic and political institutions of US capitalism. Continue reading
-
Coronavirus shows we must change how we live or face self-destruction
EXCERPT: Indigenous societies… are based on worldviews where human needs are balanced with the needs of other life forms. This worldview inherently acknowledges the constraints of an ecosystem, the essence of sustainability. When the integrity of an ecosystem is guarded, the integrity and very existence of human communities are guarded as well. In a philosophical… Continue reading
-
Covid-19 as symptom: Notes on the production of a virus
Understandably, these days we hear a lot about the symptoms of Covid-19 (dry cough, high fever, etc.). Conversely, there is much less discussion of the virus as a symptom. Let’s say then that to intervene on the symptoms of the virus it is necessary not only to have specific scientific knowledge, but also to put… Continue reading
-
Dependency, Distress and No Durable Agronomic Benefits: The Story of Bt Cotton in India
In the early 2000s, genetically modified (GM) Bt insecticidal cotton was being heavily promoted in India on the basis that it would cut pesticide use dramatically, boost yields and contribute to the financial well-being of farmers. Private sector Bt cotton hybrids now cover over 90% of the area under cotton. Continue reading
-
Capitalist agriculture and Covid-19: A deadly combination
A socialist biologist explains the tight links between new viruses, industrial food production, and the profitability of multinational corporations. Continue reading
-
Dicamba litigation against Bayer, BASF poised to explode, lawyers say
Claims say weedkilling products developed by the former Monsanto and other chemical companies are destroying and contaminating crops, including organic Continue reading
-
Global Breaking News on GMOs and Pesticides
6 March 2020 — Sustainable Pulse Editors’ picks Next Generation Effects from GMO Crops Are a Serious Risk for Ecosystems – New Study A new peer reviewed paper published in the international Environmental Sciences Europe journal has focused for the first time on the risk assessment of so-called next generation effects from GM Crops. The… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 