Agriculture
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Who’s pulling Boris Johnson’s strings on GMOs?
Were you surprised when one of the very first things Boris Johnson did on becoming Prime Minister was to declare his desire to “liberate” the UK “from anti-genetic modification rules”? If it left you wondering, “Where did that come from?”, then you should pay careful attention to the wave of revulsion that has just greeted… Continue reading
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Dead Zones: Industrial Agriculture versus Ocean Life
Worldwide, there are now over a thousand coastal areas where fish can’t breathe. The nitrogen that makes crops grow is also destroying offshore ecosystems. Continue reading
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Global Breaking News on GMOs and Pesticides 3 August 2020
3 August 2020 — Sustainable Pulse Editors’ picks New Report Shows Africa’s Green Revolution is “Failing On Its Own Terms” Fourteen years ago, the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller foundations launched the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) with the goal of bringing Africa its own Green Revolution in agricultural productivity. Armed… Continue reading
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UK: GE deregulation amendment is withdrawn – but there is more work to do
In its last meeting before the summer recess, the House of Lords finally debated Amendment 275 of the Agriculture Bill, which proposed to deregulate products of gene editing in UK agriculture. Continue reading
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Post-Brexit Agrochemical Apocalypse for the UK?
The British government, regulators and global agrochemical corporations are colluding with each other and are thus engaging in criminal behaviour. That’s the message put forward in a new report written by environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason and sent to the UK Environment Agency. It follows her January 2019 open letter to Werner Baumann, CEO of Bayer… Continue reading
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Global Breaking News on GMOs and Pesticides 27 July 2020
27 July 2020 — Sustainable Pulse Editors’ picks As Evidence of ‘Hormone Disruptor’ Chemical Threats Grows, Experts Call for Stricter Regulation A growing number of chemicals in pesticides, flame retardants, and certain plastics have been linked to widespread health problems including infertility in women and men, diabetes, and impaired brain development, a set of reviews of hundreds of… Continue reading
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British people won’t thank the NFU for its stance on gene editing
So if the NFU is truly defending higher UK food standards, why is it simultaneously enabling the introduction of this controversial, risky technology that the British public, if asked, would surely reject? Continue reading
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Pesticides speed the spread of deadly parasites
Even low concentrations of pesticides can increase transmission and weaken efforts to control the second most common parasitic disease Continue reading
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Is lab-grown meat the future of food?
Documentary on ‘clean meat’ fails to question the technology’s rationale and blindly accepts dubious claims made by its promoters Continue reading
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DesSmog UK: Appointing the experts
17 July 2020 — DesSmogUK Who would you call if you were to set up a group to maintain “animal welfare and environmental standards” in post-Brexit trade deals? Someone who knew about and enjoyed protecting environmental standards, perhaps? Maybe someone who knew about and liked animal welfare? Continue reading
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
The New Dark Age 