Does the Bio-Economy Add Up?
Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson Experts do not have an entirely unblemished record of predicting the future of agriculture. In the 1950s it was envisioned that farms would be irrigated with water...
View ArticleRethinking the Risks of Viral Transgenes in Plants
Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson Part I: Transcomplementation and its implications Today marks the publication, in the journal Molecular Plant Pathology, of the Bioscience Resource Project’s newest...
View ArticleThe Killing of the Countryside
Author: by Graham Harvey ISBN: 0099736616 Publisher: Vintage (1998) Visitors to Britain are always being asked to admire the “unspoiled countryside” of a particular region, but landscapes are more than...
View ArticleFood is Different: Why we must get the WTO out of Agriculture
Over the last ten years however a rough consensus has emerged among a large number of family farm groups, academics, economists, trades unions and development organisations that trade liberalisation in...
View ArticleHow the Science Media Failed the IAASTD
Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson Note: An excellent complementary piece, from one of the IAASTD authors, is: The IAASTD report and some of its fallout – a personal note By Dr. Angelika Hilbeck, ETH...
View ArticlePew Commission Report: Industrial Animal Farming Poses “Unacceptable” Risks...
Pew Press Release is reproduced below: The current industrial farm animal production (IFAP) system often poses unacceptable risks to public health, the environment and the welfare of the animals...
View ArticleIndia’s Colourless Revolution: Replacement of Traditional Oils by Soy and...
Dr Rashmi Sharma, Dept. of Chemistry, S.D. Govt. College, Beawar, India The interrelationships between agriculture, food, cooking and health are highly complex and profoundly significant. A...
View ArticleLong-term persistence of GM oilseed rape in the seedbank
Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson A key aspect of transgenic agriculture is control of gene flow. Gene flow is important for many reasons including: 1) protecting intellectual property from unwanted...
View ArticleRoyal Society Science and Agriculture Study Criticised
There are significant concerns about the long term security and sufficiency of global food-crop production due to the potential impact of many factors including climate change, population growth,...
View ArticleUS Crop Yield Increases Owe Little to Biotechnology
Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson The latest advertising campaign from Monsanto claims that already its “advanced seeds… significantly increase crop yields…”, while since the mid-1990s the...
View ArticleValuing Folk Crop Varieties for Agroecology and Food Security
Dr Debal Deb, Founder-Chair, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies, India (Photo Credit: D. Deb) On May 25, 2009, Hurricane Aila hit the deltaic islands of the Sunderban of West Bengal. The estuarine...
View ArticleHow Agriculture Can Provide Food Security Without Destroying Biodiversity
Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson According to conventional wisdom, the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte (pop. 2.5 million) has achieved something impossible. So, too, has the island of Cuba. They are...
View ArticleNew Report Links Food, Climate and Agricultural Policies
Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson Understanding of the ‘problem’ of agriculture took a giant step forward in 2007 with publication of the UN IAASTD report. This report, which was as important for...
View ArticleWay Beyond Greenwashing: Have Corporations Captured Big Conservation?
Jonathan Latham (Photo Credit: auspices) Imagine an international mega-deal. The global organic food industry agrees to support international agribusiness in clearing as much tropical rainforest as...
View ArticleThe Unsettling of America
Author: Wendell Berry ISBN: 0871568772 Publisher: Sierra Club books (1977) In 2002, peasant associations from all over Asia organised an international scientific conference. The motivation for the...
View ArticleAmerica: Becoming a Land Without Farmers
Evaggelos Vallianatos (Photo Credit: Homini:)) The plutocratic remaking of America has a parallel in the countryside. In rural America less than 3 percent of farmers make more than 63 percent of the...
View ArticleHow Millions of Farmers are Advancing Agriculture For Themselves
by Jonathan Latham The world record yield for paddy rice production is not held by an agricultural research station or by a large-scale farmer from the United States, but by Sumant Kumar who has a farm...
View ArticlePoor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics
by Morten Jerven Associate Professor, Simon Fraser University, Canada On 5 November 2010, Ghana Statistical Services announced that it was revising national GDP estimates upwards by over 60 percent....
View ArticleThe Founding Fables of Industrialised Agriculture
by Colin Tudge Governments these days are not content with agriculture that merely provides good food. In line with the dogma of neoliberalism they want it to contribute as much wealth as any other...
View ArticleWhat Will the World Inherit From GE Salmon?
By Dr. Gerry Goeden It’s true; about 50 percent of the fish we eat are farmed. There is good reason for this as, one by one, the world’s commercial fisheries collapse through overfishing. According to...
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