Two important bits of news from the world of agricultural technology. First, we've a report that genetically modified soy beans yield less than ordinary ones. The study was motivated by a professor who heard soybean farmers asking "how come I don't get as high a yield as I used to?". A good question indeed. One answer - it wasn't designed to yield more, it was designed to withstand a herbicide sold by the same company that sells the seed.

But there's a bigger answer to the question of the future of agricultural technology. It comes with a report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). Snappy title? No. Bed-time reading? Hardly. It's hundreds of dense pages long (and I'll be reading it over the next week, so you won't have to).

But already, the IAASTD is an acronym to remember. ... read more »

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Posted on 21 April, 2008 - 03:11

I'll be writing about troubles in Kenya more fully in the future. But this press release from Food and Water Watch caught my eye. It shows how profoundly callous agribusiness can be in the run up to Valentine's day. ... read more »

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Posted on 4 February, 2008 - 20:14

Source: Coalition of Immokalee Workers

It has taken a considerable biting of tongue to hold back on commenting on the US presidential election. I'm a very frustrated immigrant, wanting to vote but unable to. Not that I'd find anyone to vote for particularly.

My partner and I went to the Green Presidential debate a couple of weeks back - and while pleased that there are folk who think that electoral politics should be about more than the Coke or Pepsi? model, we were a little appalled at how loopy some of the candidates were (though Cynthia McKinney probably deserves a vote). ... read more »

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Posted on 4 February, 2008 - 19:42

Al Krebs, the one-man powerhouse behind the Agribusiness Examiner and tireless campaigner against the corporate concentration of power in agriculture, died last week. There's a fine obituary at Counterpunch, where Al himself wrote a great deal, on how Bill and Melinda Gates Do Agriculture, on Corporate Welfare and Mad Cow Disease. ... read more »

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Posted on 16 October, 2007 - 04:48

The World Bank is in the news of late. Its president, Paul Wolfowitz (pictured), has been pilloried for making confetti out of the Bank's ethical rulebook, and showering his sweetheart with it. While this is generally unremarkable behaviour in Washington, he has attracted more attention than his peers because of his institution's crusade against corruption, and his saying things like “to make poverty history, we need to make corruption history”.

The real muck, however, doesn’t come from annals of hypocrisy. The bigger story is one that the media are ill-suited to find. It’s about what happens when the limelight is off the Bank, when the Bank goes about its normal business, and enforces policies that impoverish millions, while saying things like “Our Dream is a World Free of Poverty”, (the World Bank’s slogan). And although it’s tempting to blame the fourth estate and their habits of sensationalism, part of the reason there's no scandal is because the World Bank is in the business of hiding the evidence.

Over the past two weeks, for example, at the very same time that Wolfowitz has been pilloried, the Bank has been quietly airing a draft of its World Development Report which, for 2008, covers agriculture. Few outside a small circle of policy junkies got a chance to look at it (and even they were rushed – pointing out what’s good and bad with a dense 500 page report takes more than two weeks). Yet the report will do far deeper, and more lasting, damage than any Beltway bedroom farce.

To see how it all happens, here's a review of some recent salary-related scandals, which rehearse some of the techniques of scandal and subterfuge that are to be found, on a deeper and more covert scale, in the Bank's latest thoughts on agriculture. ... read more »

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Posted on 17 April, 2007 - 18:14

[Photo credit:tjgiordano]

I have an appalling memory. Birthdays, anniversaries, appointments, I've forgotten them all. The only poem I've ever been able to commit to memory (the only one that's fit to print, at any rate) is this one by William Blake. It's beautiful, haunting, a little too chilling for a candlelit dinner, but entirely appropriate for today's February 14th posting:

The Sick Rose

O Rose, thou art sick!
The Invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of Crimson joy;
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

This Valentines, stay off the roses.

Not only are they pumped full of some of the nastiest agricultural chemicals, the people who grow and pick them likely have a fairly raw deal. ... read more »

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Posted on 14 February, 2007 - 05:15

Lester Crawford was the most senior offical at the Food and Drug Administration, from February 2002 to his resignation in September 2005. His departure, to join the lobbying firm Policy Directions, Inc coincided with accusations that he'd been less than straight in his disclosures of interest, hiding the fact that he owned a great deal of stock in companies that he regulated. His recent guilty plea gives grounds to be concerned whether regulatory authorities really have the best interests of the public at heart.

This matters to food system-watchers. Take, for instance, the obesity crisis in the US. Debates around obesity pit corporate and peoples' welfare directly against one another. Corporations do quite well by selling food high in sugar, salt and fat. People do poorly by eating this food. Hence the tension. Against its mandate, the FDA tends to side with the producers, rather than consumers. And who was chair of the FDA's obesity committee? Lester Crawford. ... read more »

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Posted on 10 February, 2007 - 18:19

The New Anatolian, the Turkish English-language daily, carries a story today about agribusiness giant Cargill. Since the 1990s, Cargill has been operating in the Orghazi district illegally. Its ties with the government have helped it to win, from a court in Bursa, a ruling that would give them an amnesty and a mild fine for unpermitted activity. Cargill's not out of the woods yet - President Sezer might still veto the amnesty.

But Cargill's got a solid history of managing the law, adopting a tactic of build-first-worry-about-the-legality-later. In Brazil, it has built an entire, and entirely illegal, port complex while waiting for appropriate permits to be issued, and then howled when Greenpeace pointed this out to the media. ... read more »

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Posted on 5 December, 2006 - 08:51

The Meatrix turned over 10 million people on to the dangers of industrial agriculture. Even if its final message ('buy organic') didn't quite get to the heart of the trouble with the food system today, it was vastly entertaining, and a great Food System 101 course in just over two minutes.

Now, they've released not only The Meatrix 2:Revolting but, below, The Meatrix 2½. ... read more »

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Posted on 30 November, 2006 - 22:57

The killing in computer games isn't all 'blast'em with your BFG' or 'cast a spell with the Blade of Thringgarrr'. You can now administer an unpleasant end using nothing more than some misplaced pig shit.
... read more »

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Posted on 30 November, 2006 - 22:32