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Farmers warn Mexico’s GM corn ban will raise food prices
Mexico’s farmer associations are teaming up and pushing back through legal battles in opposition to a presidential decree to ban genetically modified (GM) maize and glyphosate in Mexico by 2024. The Mexican government led by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has carried out a battle against scientific innovation…
Gene editing can prevent eucalyptus from becoming invasive
Gene editing can prevent eucalyptus — a tree highly valued in Kenya and elsewhere for its hardy timber, wood fuel and medicinal extracts — from invading native ecosystems, a team of international researchers has shown. Dr. Steve Strauss of Oregon State University led a team of scientists in the research,…
African farmers face new threats as invasive pests proliferate on a warming planet
Climate change is encouraging the proliferation of new crop insect pests that pose a serious food and financial threat to African farmers. From tree-drilling beetles to leaf-munching worms and fruit-puncturing flies, invasive pests are destroying food and inflicting financial ruin on farmers in Africa. Mango farmers in Southern Africa have…
Agroecology in Africa: Silver bullet or pathway to poverty?
A model of agroecology that limits farming inputs in Africa to solely indigenous materials is meeting resistance from farmers and others who worry it will most likely force even more people on the continent into poverty and hunger. “The agroecology promoters will use terms like indigenous foods, indigenous crops, indigenous…
Saving Africa’s agroecological food baskets from the agroecology movement
As agroecology activism increases within the global food system, many African communities involved in agriculture and food production, as well as consumers, are getting confused. This confusion stems from antagonism between the continent’s need for a green revolution — defined as access to improved seeds and modern pest management technologies, including…
Health and forests suffer as East Africa continues to rely on biomass fuels
Fears are growing over the fate of East Africa’s air quality and forests as the region’s population rapidly expands and continues to rely heavily on the use of biomass fuels like charcoal. “The grim picture is that high levels of poverty will continue to push more people in the region…
Despite scientific consensus on safety, consumers remain confused about GM foods
Despite nearly three decades in the marketplace and near-universal scientific consensus on their safety, a new international survey finds that majorities of people in most countries remain confused about genetically modified (GM) foods, perhaps due to years of demonization by anti-science activists. However, the Pew Research Center survey also…
Agroecology must be based in reality, not romanticism, panelists agree
Agroecology has a role to play in transforming agriculture — so long as the movement doesn’t trump the science or farmers’ needs. That was the consensus of the three panelists who joined the “Agroecology: What is it, anyway?” webinar hosted on Alliance for Science Live. Agroecology is both a…
Oxfam: The world’s poor suffer disproportionately from carbon emissions generated by the rich
The world’s poor and marginalized people are suffering the most from climate change impacts, though they contribute the least to the carbon emissions that are driving global warming, according to new research by Oxfam. The 3.1 billion people who comprise 50 percent of the world’s poorest population generate just 7…