Last night, I had the chance to be on a panel with Brahm Ahmadi, Vini Bhansali and a new friend, Jeff Conant.

Jeff told a fantastic story, from his experience with the Yaqui indigenous people. They were the original recipients of Green Revolution technology, when Norman Borlaug was busy inventing hybrid corn. So what news from the people who've been living with the Green Revolution the longest? They're dying. The apocalyptic ecology, and economics, of the Green Revolution has hit them hard. And their deaths weren't remembered, or even mentioned, when Norman Borlaug shuffled off his mortal coil.

Jeff continues the story below... ... read more »

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Posted on 5 November, 2009 - 22:49

The ever-excellent InterPress Service reports on a new UN report on whether it's a good idea to privatise seeds. The answer: not if you want poor farmers to benefit. The report, written by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Food, is available here. Full disclosure: I advise the Rapporteur, but didn't advise on this report. More below the fold. ... read more »

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Posted on 28 October, 2009 - 14:57

Previously at Stuffed and Starved, we've had posts with names like Let them Eat Rats and Let them Eat Mud. Today, it's Let them Eat Cash - the title of Fred Kaufman's fine new Harpers article on the Gates Foundation's answer to the problems of hunger in Africa.

The article is only available to subscribers, but highly recommended, not least for this splendid exchange where Fred - in a first I think for any journalist - actually manages to call Bill Gates on his shit. ... read more »

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Posted on 22 May, 2009 - 18:14

Here's a film that's well worth watching. It's long, and the framing device of a woman Googling away her ignorance about one of the world's most powerful corporations is, I think, a little crass. But perhaps because the film maker seems so naive, she has been able to get some of the most important men behind the scenes of the pesticide and genetically modified seed business to explain how they came to wield such power. I doubt that a more polished film crew would have been able to draw out some of the confessions that appear in this nearly-two-hour documentary. Highly recommended.

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Posted on 7 April, 2009 - 22:36

Brazil hopes to supply drivers worldwide with the fuel of the future -- cheap ethanol derived from sugarcane. It is considered an effective antidote to climate change, but hundreds of thousands of Brazilian plantation workers harvest the cane at slave wages.... Read more at Truthout [via PW].

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Posted on 25 January, 2009 - 19:11

Why do sensible people make irrational choices? In this fantastic IPS report on why small farmers plant GM seed in South Africa, the answer is "desperation". ... read more »

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Posted on 4 November, 2008 - 07:09

Some good-ish news from the world of agribusiness. Monsanto has reported that it's leaving the recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone business. The Ethicurean asks whether Monsanto's exit from the market might be because people are worried about the toxic effects of rBGH in their milk. Monsanto, however, insists that "This is really a great product… Business has been strong. Sales have been strong." So that's all cleared up then.

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Posted on 18 August, 2008 - 16:35

A little while ago I hailed a popular victory against a NAFTA-compliance measure that would spray large parts of Northern California with a toxin that hadn't been tested on people before, to eliminate a threat that wasn't a threat at all.

Turns out I was a little premature.

From the Retort mailing list comes this update... ... read more »

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Posted on 18 August, 2008 - 16:27

The headline says it all, and the article gives the details.

What's curious for me, though, is the organisation that sponsored the research. On its 'about' page, the Organization for Competitive Markets advertises itself thus:

We are "pro- business" because we believe in free markets and the law of supply and demand to allocate resources properly. We are "conservative" because we view American values such as honesty and morality should be demanded of our businesses and politicians. We are "liberal" because we believe government has a regulatory role to create and enforce the rules of doing business, thereby avoiding crony capitalism. We are "populist" because we have determined our nation is made economically and culturally wealthy by preserving the ability of independent families to produce our food without fear of the economically dominant firms in agribusiness.

In other words, they think that capitalism would be great if it weren't for the capitalists. It's something that my libertarian readers might like to chew over and, if they're libertarian, agree with. Oo, and that reminds me, I know I owe Luddhunter a fuller response, and I'll try to get to that in a couple of weeks time (I'm married to a lapsed libertarian, and have a rehab system that I'm happy to share). Until then, though, I get to post my favourite libertarian joke, as told to me by the excellent Martin O'Neill:
Q: What's the difference between anarchism and libertarianism?
A: Under anarchism, poor people get to shoot back. ... read more »

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Posted on 29 July, 2008 - 06:14

The Financial Times is doing what it usually does - providing concise and honest insight into how the elite bosses think, this time around genetically modified crops. The recent op-ed by John Gapper follows a logic that I've been bumping into increasingly.

1. We need to increase food production to feed the world.
2. Yield-increasing science has worked before.
3. The nay-sayers want to reduce output through organic agriculture.
4. Monsanto, on the other hand, is investing in science.
5. Therefore we ought to embrace GM technology to fight the food crisis.

Almost everything about this argument is wrong. ... read more »

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Posted on 13 June, 2008 - 17:36