Development/Growth
From Down to Earth: India is going through one of the worst farm crisis in its history. To understand about this crisis we have to investigate the roots of the celebrated Green Revolution and what happened after that. This is the story of Jaunty, the village which was once the flagbearer of the Green Revolution….
Read More about Jaunti Live: The first Green Revolution village now has a farm crisis
Food/Farming
From The Guardian: Cancer rates are the highest in the country, drug addiction is rife, and 900 farmers have killed themselves in two years. How did Punjab turn toxic? A new film explores the roots of its problems; ‘Toxification’ tells the moving stories of farmers at the sharp end of the chemical epidemic engulfing Punjab….
Read More about Poisoned earth, poisoned people: The unravelling of Punjab
ALTERNATIVES
The most disquieting thing wasn’t the disappearance of certain insect species; it was the deeper worry that a whole insect world might be quietly going missing, a loss of abundance that could alter the planet in unknowable ways. “We notice the losses,” says David Wagner. “It’s the diminishment that we don’t see.” (New York Times)…
Read More about The Insect Apocalypse: What does it mean for the rest of life on Earth?
ALTERNATIVES
It’s been five years since the passing of G. Nammalvar, the icon of sustainable farming who died on December 30, 2013, while leading a campaign against the plan to extract methane gas in Cauvery delta. An agriculture scientist, he left his job and travelled across Tamil Nadu spreading the message of organic farming using story-telling….
Read More about Tribute: Dr. G. Nammalvar, messiah of Tamil Nadu’s organic revolution
ALTERNATIVES
From Vox.com: Sri Lanka is perhaps the most famous case of suicides falling after a selective pesticide ban. One study estimated that the suicide rate in the country fell by half after it banned certain pesticides in 1995. According to the World Health Organization, at least 110,000 people commit suicide by consuming pesticides each year….
Read More about After Sri Lanka passed bans on lethal varieties of pesticide, suicides fell by half
Food/Farming
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.”…
Read More about Toxic legacy: New research confirms pesticide link to birth defects
ALTERNATIVES
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….
Read More about Tribute: Masanobu Fukuoka, the ‘one-straw revolutionary’ of agriculture
ALTERNATIVES
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…
Read More about Tribute: Pirating Seeds – The story of Dadaji Khobragade
Economy
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….
Read More about Monsanto and Bayer: Agriculture just took a turn for the worse
Conserve/Resist
From The Guardian: Insects are multitudinous beyond our imagining, and have triumphed for hundreds of millions of years, in every habitat. This makes all the more alarming the great truth now dawning upon us: insects as a group are in terrible trouble and the remorselessly expanding human enterprise has become too much, even for them….
Read More about The insect ecosystem is collapsing due to humans. It’s a catastrophe
Education/Awareness
From The Citizen: “Hitler used organophosphate gases to execute thousands in his gas chambers, we are now using the same to kill our farmers in the open fields,” said Kishor Tiwari on the recent deaths of more than 40 farmers from pesticide poisoning in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal. Tiwari heads a government task force for farmers’ welfare….
Read More about “Hitler used it in gas chambers; We’re using it in the open fields”
Bookshelf
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….
Read More about How ‘Silent Spring’ ignited the modern environmental movement
Food/Farming
From The Indian Express: According to Kishor Tiwari, chief of a Maharashtra government task force for the welfare of farmers, more than 40 farmers had died and at least 2,000 more hospitalised from pesticide inhalation in Vidarbha and Marathwada. He has termed the deaths of farmers from pesticide inhalation as “genocide committed by the state”. …
Read More about 40 farmers dead, 2000 hospitalised: Task force chief calls it ‘pesticide genocide’
Economy
From The Guardian: Chemicals and agribusiness giant Bayer has approached the European Union to approve its $65bn takeover of Monsanto, eliminating direct competition between two of the biggest players in the industry. If approved, the merger would be an extremely risky consolidation of corporate power, and a serious threat to food supplies and farmers worldwide….
Read More about This corporate merger threatens food supplies worldwide. Who’ll stop it?Conserve/Resist
From Scroll.in: Honeybees, which play a vital role in pollinating food crops, are declining at an alarming rate in India. It is not just pesticides that are contributing to their decline. Ironically, it might be the very efforts to promote bees in India that could be leading to a further decline in their diversity and prevalence….
Read More about Bees are disappearing in India – and we are slowly learning why
Carol Van Strum prepares to work on her property with her dogs Maybe and Mike
Risa Scott/RF Scott Imagery
Conserve/Resist
From The Intercept: In a lifetime spent battling the chemical industry while enduring extreme personal tragedy, 72-year-old Carol Van Strum amassed disturbing evidence about the dangers of industrial chemicals —and the practices of the companies that make them, including Dow and Monsanto. Now, her archive, dubbed ‘The Poison Papers’, is finally in the public domain….
Read More about The Poison Papers: Carol Van Strum vs The chemical industry
Lalitha Gowda with her children Sharad and Bharathi, victims of endosulfan poisoning
Aparna Pallavi / CSE
Education/Awareness
Hundreds of Endosulfan-affected people, this time from Karnataka, are threatening to sit on a fast until death from May 27 to demand better care from the government. Here are exhaustive reports from Down to Earth magazine, which first exposed the issue in 2001, chronicling one of the worst and longest-running pesticide poisoning episodes in history….
Read More about Spotlight: The continuing trauma of the endosulfan victims
William Mitchelle/Meme Super
Economy
From The Wire: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is currently assessing the likely adverse effects on competition of the proposed merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont. If it goes through, the merger will create the world’s biggest chemical and materials company. But there are a dozen reasons and more why it must be stopped….
Read More about Why India’s Competition Commission must stop the Dow and DuPont merger
A protest on August 8, 2013 in Delhi against the BRAI bill and Monsanto
Karan Vaid/Greenpeace
Education/Awareness
The Guardian reports: It’s a myth that pesticides are essential to feed a fast-growing global population, according to UN food and pollution experts. Their new report is severely critical of the global corporations that manufacture pesticides, accusing them of “systematic denial of harms”, “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics” and heavy lobbying of governments to obstruct reforms….
Read More about UN experts bust ‘myth’ that pesticides are necessary to feed the world
The team from Safe Harvest interacts with Farmers in Niwali (Sendhwa)
YourStory
ALTERNATIVES
Safe Harvest is a conglomeration of eight civil society organisations that have been working towards and promoting non-pesticide management (NPM) practices among some of India’s poorest and most disenfranchised communities. Today, they work with a farmer base of close to 50,000 across 11 states, many of whom have seen a 20% rise in their income….
Read More about This company is helping 50,000 farmers across 11 states grow and sell pesticide-free food
