The modern food system is being shaped by the capitalist imperative for profit. Aside from losing their land to global investors and big agribusiness concerns, farmers and ordinary people are being sickened by corporations and a system that thrives on the promotion of ‘junk’ (ultra-processed) food laced with harmful chemicals and cultivated with the use […]
M.S. Swaminathan, widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution in India, recently passed away (28 September) at the age of 98. An agronomist, agricultural scientist and plant geneticist, Swaminathan played a key role in introducing hybrid high yielding varieties of wheat and rice to India and in encouraging many farmers to adopt high-input, […]
Ecomodernists offer no solutions to contemporary problems other than technical innovation and further integration into private markets which are structured systematically by centralized state power in favour of the wealthy… Chris Smaje “Ecomodernism: a Response to my Critics”, Originally published September 10, 2015 by Small Farm Future In 2017, the then Monsanto Chief Technology Officer […]
A public interest litigation is currently before India’s Supreme Court which challenges the drive to commercialise the growing of genetically modified (GM) mustard in India. On 26 October 2022, however, the country’s apex regulatory body – the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee – sanctioned commercialisation of the crop. The central government has in the past stated […]
We are currently seeing rising food prices due to a combination of an engineered food crisis for geopolitical reasons, financial speculation by hedge funds, pension funds and investment banks and profiteering by global grain trade conglomerates like Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, ADM and Bunge. In addition, agri firms like Bayer, Syngenta (ChemChina) and Corteva cynically regard current circumstances as an opportunity to promote their […]
In March 2022, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of a “hurricane of hunger and a meltdown of the global food system” in the wake of the crisis in Ukraine. Guterres said food, fuel and fertiliser prices were skyrocketing with supply chains being disrupted and added this is hitting the poorest the hardest and planting the seeds for political instability […]
You can go through life with a thousand epigrams or deep quotes that you might come back to over two, four, six decades. Then, the disrupters pop up, those techno fascists, the tinkers and culture blasters. These sociopaths who get the limelight then become part of a new set of epigrams, but not grand ones, […]
The post Reality Privileged: Orwell/Huxley/McLuhan on Steroids first appeared on Dissident Voice.
‘World Localization Day’ will be celebrated on 20 June. Organised by the non-profit Local Futures, this annual coming together of people from across the world began in 2020 and focuses on the need to localise supply-chains and recover our connection with nature and community. The stated aim is to “galvanize the worldwide localization movement into a […]
Man-made chemicals have exceeded the limits of safety for the planet. This statement comes from the first-ever major scientific warning based upon a study of the dangers posed by the flood of chemicals across the globe as three hundred fifty thousand (350,000) chemicals slosh throughout the planet. “We have overwhelming evidence of negative impacts on […]
The post Dangerously Awash in Chemicals first appeared on Dissident Voice.
In October 2020, CropLife International said that its new strategic partnership with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) would contribute to sustainable food systems. It added that it was a first for the industry and the FAO and demonstrates the determination of the plant science sector to work constructively in a partnership where […]
