Agriculture
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UK: The Dirty Dozen
Concerned about pesticide residues in your food? As featured in the Guardian, The Independent and the Daily Express our list of the ‘dirtiest’ fruit and vegetables reveals the 2020 produce most likely to contain cocktails of multiple pesticides. Continue reading
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Eustice goes ahead with unpopular plan to dismantle GM safeguards
Earlier this week George Eustice, the Environment Secretary, revealed plans to stop the likes of me being able to object to field trials of experimental genetically engineered crops. At least, I think that’s what he announced. The details of what is actually going to change were both vague and downplayed, occupying a mere 65 of the 1200-odd… Continue reading
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Global Breaking News on GMOs and Pesticides 24 September 2021
24 September 2021 — Sustainable Pulse Editors’ picks Protests Around the World Target Global Corporate Food Empire Street and online people’s protests against the ‘global corporate food empire’ greeted the opening of the UN Food Systems Summit (UN FSS), as the Global People’s Summit (GPS) on Food Systems launched a Global Day of Action on… Continue reading
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Groups slam Commission plans to deregulate new GMOs
Commission reportedly aims to exempt some new GMOs from safety regulations within four years and change regulation for all new GMOs within 10 years Continue reading
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Global Breaking News on GMOs and Pesticides
3 September 2021 — Sustainable Pulse Editors’ picks Breakfast at Monsanto’s Sheds Light on Health Dangers of World’s Most Used Weedkiller: Exclusive Interview Sustainable Pulse interview with Lee A. Evslin, M.D., author of the new eye-opening book Breakfast at Monsanto’s and board-certified pediatrician and Fellow in the American Academy of Pediatrics. What led to your… Continue reading
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Saving the climate with agriculture
Many of us are worried that industrial agriculture is fueling the climate crisis. We are losing fertile soil, and pesticides are killing bees, butterflies and birds. I’ve received many questions asking what a better agriculture system could look like. Continue reading
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Robbing the Soil, 2: ‘Systematic theft of communal property’
In 1549, tens of thousands of English peasants fought — and thousands died — to halt and reverse the spread of capitalist farming that was destroying their way of life. The largest action, known as Kett’s Rebellion, has been called “the greatest practical utopian project of Tudor England and the greatest anticapitalist rising in English… Continue reading
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Global Breaking News on GMOs and Pesticides 20 August 2021
20 August 2021 — Sustainable Pulse Editors’ picks US EPA Bans Use of Neurotoxic Insecticide Chlorpyrifos on Food Crops In a historic victory for farm workers, environment, and public health, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today it will be revoking all tolerances of chlorpyrifos, effectively banning all food uses of the toxic, brain-damaging pesticide in… Continue reading
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How to improve pesticide regulation
Concrete steps to improve pesticide regulation are proposed in a new open-access commentary, “Novel strategies and new tools to curtail the health effects of pesticides”, published on August 3, 2021 in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health. Continue reading
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The stories we trust: Regulating genome edited organisms
EXCERPT: In repeating industry narratives, decision-makers (and the media) pave the ground for a handful of corporations to advance false solutions that serve their encroachment of food systems. To help clarify valid claims from technological bluff, we recommend institutions, regulators and funders to carry out a ‘hype test’ by asking: What makes gene editing superior… Continue reading
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The Gates Foundation’s “Corporate Merry-go-round”: Spearheading the Neo-liberal Plunder of African Agriculture
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is dangerously and unaccountably distorting the direction of international development, according to a new report by the campaign group Global Justice Now. With assets of $43.5 billion, the BMGF is the largest charitable foundation in the world. It actually distributes more aid for global health than any government.… Continue reading
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Book Review: Imperial roots of the global food system
Why do we eat what we do? This is the question Chris Otter seeks to answer in Diet for a Large Planet. It is very timely. In recent years there has been growing anger and horror at a food system that delivers both unhealthy and environmentally destructive diets. Food has become deeply politicized. Continue reading
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Toxic Corporations Are Destroying the Planet’s Soil
A newly published analysis in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science argues that a toxic soup of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides is causing havoc beneath fields covered in corn, soybeans, wheat and other monoculture crops. The research is the most comprehensive review ever conducted on how pesticides affect soil health. Continue reading
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Former Tory Party advisor wants us to swallow GM food
An article has been published in the Financial Times, with the headline, “We must overcome the fear of genetic engineering in our food”, and the subhead, “From countering climate change to saving bananas, new gene-editing technology could prove crucial”. Continue reading
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On Paul Kingsnorth and Unruly Nature
7 May 2021 — MROnline by Anthony Galluzzo In a 2010 essay entitled “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist,” the English émigré environmental writer Paul Kingsnorth recounts his journey into and out of the environmental movement. The essay appeared in the inaugural issue of Dark Mountain, the journal attached to the Dark Mountain group—inaugurated by Kingsnorth… Continue reading
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New trade deal could affect our health and the environment
The latest report in our Toxic Trade series is out!!! It reveals that the UK could be opening the door to 119 pesticides banned for health and environmental reasons as we attempt to join a huge trade deal currently agreed between 11 countries around the Pacific Rim. Continue reading
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UK gene editing public consultation announcement expected mid-June
This month the UK government is expected to follow through on Boris Johnson’s promise to “liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti–genetic modification rules” by removing safety checks and (probably) GMO labelling and traceability from some crops and livestock made with experimental new genetic engineering techniques. It comes after a public consultation that… Continue reading
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We should all be worried about the United Nations Food Systems Summit
Since Ms. Kalibata [Agnes Kalibata, president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA)] was named special envoy [to the UN Food Systems Summit], there has been a public outcry over this clear conflict of interest. 176 civil society organizations from 83 countries sent a letter to the UN Secretary General António Guterres… Continue reading
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Global Breaking News on GMOs and Pesticides 21 May 2021
21 May 2021 — Sustainable Pulse Editors’ picks Glyphosate Herbicides Significantly Associated with Preterm Births – University of Michigan Study Exposure to a chemical found in the weed killer Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides is significantly associated with preterm births, according to a new University of Michigan study published Wednesday. The study, published in Environmental… Continue reading
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Microsoft vs Indian Farmers: Agri-Stacking the System
In April, the Indian government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Microsoft, allowing its local partner CropData to leverage a master database of farmers. The MoU seems to be part of the AgriStack policy initiative, which involves the roll out of ‘disruptive’ technologies and digital databases in the agricultural sector. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 