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farmers & farming

Food/Farming

Toxic legacy: New research confirms pesticide link to birth defects

8th September 2018

From Non-gmoreport.com: The most disturbing finding of the study was the epigenetic effects of atrazine; which means its not just those who are exposed to it that faced health risks, but also their descendants. Dr. Winchester calls the discovery of this link between pesticides and epigenetic changes “the most important next discovery in all medicine.”…

ALTERNATIVES

Tribute: Masanobu Fukuoka, the ‘one-straw revolutionary’ of agriculture

15th August 2018

August 16th marks ten years since the passing of the legendary Japanese farmer and author Masanobu Fukuoka, who initiated the natural farming movement. Here’s a documentary on his life and work, along with notes by Larry Korn, Fukuoka’s American student and the translator of his book, ‘One Straw Revolution,’ considered the ‘bible’ of natural farming….

ALTERNATIVES

Tribute: Pirating Seeds – The story of Dadaji Khobragade

6th June 2018

Grown over a million acres of farmland, the HMT rice variety – developed by Dadaji Ramaji Khobragade, a small cultivator and self-trained plant breeder – brought a measure of prosperity to several hundred thousand farmers in Maharashtra and neighbouring states. Bharat Mansata pays tribute to the legendary farmer and seed saver who died on Sunday…

Economy

Monsanto and Bayer: Agriculture just took a turn for the worse

4th June 2018

Bayer’s $66 billion takeover of Monsanto represents another big click on the ratchet of corporate power over farming and food. With the ‘Big-Six’ of global agribusiness now set to turn into the ‘even bigger three’, farmers and consumers face more GMOs and pesticides, less choice, and deeper price gouging. Agroecology has never looked more attractive….

Conserve/Resist

Charles Eisenstein: Opposition to GMOs is neither unscientific nor immoral

3rd May 2018

The pro-and anti-GMO positions will remain irreconcilably polarized as long as larger questions remain unexamined. What’s at stake here is much more than a choice about GMOs. It is a choice between two very different systems of food production, two visions of society, and two fundamentally different ways to relate to plants, animals, and soil….

Food/Farming

Video: Farmers’ voices from around the country confirm a nationwide crisis

9th January 2018

This series of videos feature farmers – many of them from remote villages – from Assam to Andhra Pradesh, expressing their views, concerns and apprehensions about the future. Produced by farmer support organisation I4Farmers, they confirm once again what we know well – the agrarian crisis that has gripped rural India is only getting worse…

Conflict/Dispossession

A disaster for the whole world: Anuradha Mittal on agribusiness in Africa

6th January 2018

Displacing pastoralists, displacing smallholder farmers, arresting and charging them as terrorists if they protest–and the land is given away to foreign investors to grow what? Sugar and cotton. Imagine trucks full of food aid coming into Ethiopia, while trucks full of cotton and sugar are leaving the country. Hunger in Africa is a political problem….

Development/Growth

Why the BJP lost rural Gujarat

23rd December 2017

From Rediff.com: In the recent elections, the Congress made stunning gains over rivals BJP in rural Gujarat, winning 62 of 109 seats. According to food policy analyst and activist Devinder Sharma, this is a direct result of Gujarat’s prolonged and acute agrarian crisis being ignored by the ruling party, the urban-centric media and pollsters alike….

Food/Farming

Why my fellow American farmers are killing themselves in record numbers

18th December 2017

Recently, a powerful feature by The Guardian reported on the US’ accelerating farmer suicide crisis, part of a global farmer suicide crisis, which most acutely manifests in India. Layton Ehmke, farmer-turned-journalist, writes on how there’s no way to make a living growing food in America, and how poverty and shame are driving some to suicide….

ALTERNATIVES

Yogendra Yadav: The Indian farmer’s what-the-hell moment has truly arrived

11th December 2017

From The Indian Express: Yogendra Yadav, who is part of a platform of over 180 farmers’ organisations that have come together to raise key demands, says: “(One of the things) I have seen, which cuts across all farmers, is anger against government. This all-round disenchantment is more so against the current government at the Centre.”…

Conserve/Resist

Illegal GMOs and the criminal plan to alter the genetic core of India’s food system

12th November 2017

Colin Todhunter writes: Despite four high level government reports that have advised against adopting Genetically Modified crops in India, there are alarming reports of GM okra, soyabean & brinjal being cultivated illegally in thousands of acres. The industry’s strategy is to flood the country with illegal GMOs so that there’s nothing you can do about it….

ALTERNATIVES

Narsanna Koppula: The man behind the upcoming Permaculture Convergence

8th November 2017

Narsanna Koppula, a pioneer of permaculture in India, founded Aranya Agricultural Alternatives, with an aim to provide alternate solutions to the present chemical agricultural practices. Later this month, Aranya, which has impacted thousands of farmers in Telangana and Andhra, is playing host to the International Permaculture Convergence, the biggest event on the permaculture calendar globally….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Kadwi Hawa: A harsh wind is blowing

31st October 2017

Set in a village in Bundelkhand, which hasn’t seen rain in the last 15 years, the soon-to-be-released Hindi film Kadvi Hawa is a stark story about how climate change affects us all. Instead of capturing the socio-economic impact, director Nila Madhab Panda says, he is interested in looking at the emotional impact of climate change….

ALTERNATIVES

Manoj Bhargava’s simple inventions could be a game changer for Indian villages

21st October 2017

Billions in Change, the brainchild of Indian-American entrepreneur Manoj Bhargava, shows how simple but life-changing inventions provide clean water, electricity, and improve rural lives. The innovations include a RainMaker device that can turn dirty water clean, a low-cost, portable solar-based power generator and a ‘cost-free fertilizer’ that is made by gathering whatever is laying around….

Development/Growth

Devinder Sharma: The match is fixed against Indian farmers

15th October 2017

If you think farmers have suffered unknowingly, you are mistaken. It’s in fact part of a global design. For GDP to grow, the prescription is to reduce the dependency of a large proportion of the population on agriculture. The entire effort is to create conditions that force people to abandon farming and migrate to cities….

Bookshelf

How ‘Silent Spring’ ignited the modern environmental movement

12th October 2017

As much as any book can, Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” changed the world, by describing it. An immediate best-seller, this classic book launched the modern environmental movement, which, in turn, led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and a host of green laws. On the 55th year of its publication, a tribute….

Food/Farming

In drought-prone Maharashtra, a farmer leaves his entire crop for birds

11th October 2017

From The Better India: Ashok Sonule of Kolhapur has left his harvest-ready jowar crop remain on his land for birds to feed on. His logic is simple. “Birds and animals have suffered a lot this year, with lakes drying up and crops wilting. There are few fields in this area the birds can call home.”…

Conflict/Dispossession

How World Bank’s economic chakravyuh is trapping Indian farmers

30th September 2017

From GGI News: In 1996, the World Bank directed India to move 400 million people out of agriculture. Former PM Manmohan Singh had repeatedly expressed the need to shift 70% farmers. Only then will cheap labour be available for infrastructure development. The economic design is well laid out. Agriculture is being killed for economic growth….

ALTERNATIVES

Sunita Narain: Old answers for ‘new’ monsoon

14th September 2017

From Down to Earth: India’s vicious cycle of crippling drought and then devastating floods, which happens every year, is getting a new normal. First, floods and droughts come together. Secondly, rainfall is not only variable but also extreme. There’s only one answer: obsessive attention to building millions and millions of connected and living water structures….

CLIMATE CRISIS

What’s causing so many changes to India’s monsoons?

4th September 2017

From The Third Pole: For the third year in a row, India’s monsoon season has produced floods in the northwest/northeast, while south India has a rainfall deficit. The key question right now is whether we’re headed towards increased monsoon extremes, or whether global warming is causing shifts in the duration, intensity and frequency of rainfall….