News

2014-09-22 | permalink

One country in French West Africa cultivates GMO

The only country in francophone West Africa that has approved a GE crop for cultivation is Burkina Faso. Bt cotton, developed by Monsanto in collaboration with INERA, is the only GE crop approved and registered in Burkina Faso for cultivation. (GAIN Report)

2014-09-22 | permalink

Soy does not provide food to the Argentine people

Argentine researcher confirms scientific evidence on harmful effects of agrochemicals

Preliminary results show severe damage to the human genome in sprayed populations in GM soy-producing areas

The good work of the late Prof Andres Carrasco continues in Argentina, as the interview below with his colleague, the biochemist Raúl Horacio Lucero, shows. Dr Lucero's new research has revealed severe damage to the genome of people exposed to agrochemical spraying in Chaco province.
(.....) Dr Lucero explains in the interview, recently the Ministry of Health of Córdoba released a comprehensive report on cancer in Córdoba province, with numbers confirming researchers' worst suspicions. The finding that caused most alarm is that the highest rate of cancer deaths occur in the "pampa gringa" area, where more GMOs and chemicals are used. Here, the cancer death rate is double the national average. Dr Lucero says, "This was official confirmation of what we have denounced for years. Cancer cases multiply like never before in areas with massive use of pesticides."

2014-09-18 | permalink

Ghana should forget GMOs

Big Agriculture has targeted Africa with GMOs. Monsanto and friends, with USAID, are targeting several African countries as insertion points, and Ghana is one of these. Their plan for Ghana is described here: G8 Cooperation Framework to Support The “New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition” In Ghana PDF , also known as the G8NA. If you read it there is lots of flowery language about helping smallholder farmers and women. The program it spells out does exactly the opposite and will destroy lives and livelihoods. (.....) We should forget GMOs and concentrate on agroecological agriculture. The only reason why our “development partners” are opposed to this is because their multinational corporations shall lose the attempts to monopolize our food through GMO patents. They see our agricultural wealth as raw material to be extracted from Ghana in order to power their economic engine. We need to control and develop our agricultural wealth to power Ghana’s economic engine. For Life, The Environment, and Social Justice!

2014-09-16 | permalink

Buy healthful food from environmentally sound farms

What Size Farm Is Best for the Planet?
There’s a kind of farm that has caught the imagination of the food-conscious among us. It’s relatively small, and you know the farmer who runs it. It’s diverse, growing different kinds of crops and often incorporating livestock. It may or may not be organic, but it incorporates practices — crop rotation, minimal pesticide use, composting — that are planet-friendly. Customers are local restaurants, local markets and us: shoppers who buy into a farm share or visit the farmers market. There’s a lot to like about that kind of farm, and advocates believe it’s the pattern for what our agriculture ought to look like. The vision of small, diversified farms feeding the world, one community at a time, is a popular one. But is it a viable one?
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Ultimately, we all vote with our wallets, every day. The best way to get an environmentally sound system that grows healthful food is to buy healthful food from environmentally sound farms. And it doesn’t have to be farmstand kale. It could be frozen peas.