Full Coverage: Agriculture

04/27/2006 Los medios que han atacado sin tregua la acción de Via Campesina, no consideran vandalismo que Aracruz, la mayor empresa global de plantaciones de eucaliptos para celulosa blanqueada, tenga un historial devastador de destrucción de tierras, biodiversidad y fuentes de agua en el norte de Brasil...

04/27/2006 Last month, on International Women's Day (March 8), nearly 2,000 rural women workers marched to the Aracruz Celulose greenhouse in the state of Rio Grande do Sul and destroyed thousands of eucalyptus seedlings and the accompanying research (...) Why did the women destroy the Aracruz seedlings? The women issued the following press release explaining their actions.

04/27/2006 from Carmelo Ruiz's bilingual blog:
"It is not enough to think of technological solution or substitute one source of energy for another, but instead we need to think of new sustainable decentralized and just societies," concludes Carmelo Ruiz (scroll down the page for this article).

04/25/2006 Indian NGO Navdanya has said that the package announced by the Indian government to prevent farmers's suicides - that seeks to increase the flow of credit into rural areas - will only lead to more frustration and suicides among farmers. Navdanya's assumption is based on the fact that capital intensive agriculture is pushing farmers into debt and suicides.

04/24/2006 Con el argumento de “mejorar” un proyecto de ley (...) el Movimiento Libertario está utilizando los procedimientos parlamentarios para impedir que la actual Asamblea Legislativa apruebe el proyecto de “Ley para el Desarrollo, Promoción y Fomento de la Actividad Agropecuaria Orgánica”

04/24/2006 Crossing the River Nile to enter northern Uganda is more than just a visible example of the immense power of the world's longest river but is also a testimony to the divide between two versions of the same country – a war-ravaged north and a much more prosperous south.

04/22/2006 Sabato 22 aprile nei negozi specializzati in prodotti biologici è stata organizzata la prima giornata di sensibilizzazione sull’economia alternativa promossa da Banca Etica e da Ecor, leader italiano nella distribuzione di prodotti biologici e biodinamici. Dietro questo progetto c’è la consapevolezza, da parte dei promotori, che il biologico non può essere scisso dall’attenzione ai temi sociali e al rispetto dei diritti di tutti: "Abbiamo voluto proporre ai consumatori di biologico, spesso molto attenti ai temi ambientali e della salute, la finanza etica, un altro modo di pensare le proprie scelte economiche di ogni giorno – afferma Fabio Brescacin, presidente e amministratore delegato di Ecor spa. Per chi conosce la finanza etica è stata un’occasione in più per conoscere il biologico: pensiamo che il rispetto per i diritti degli ultimi non possa essere separato dal rispetto per la natura e l’ambiente". E sempre sabato 22 aprile il quotidiano "la Repubblica" ha dedicato uno speciale sull'agricoltura biologica.

04/20/2006 The major thrust of the Indian government's long-term economic package is to arrest farmers' suicides through farm credit, crop, farmer and cattle insurance, improving irrigation facilities and production in the four southern states that have witnessed the highest number of suicides.

04/17/2006 Indian human rights activist Medha Patkar ended her 20-day old fast on Monday after the Supreme Court of India said that it will stop the construction of a dam on the Narmada river if the government does not rehabilitate displaced people. Rahul Kumar reports from the agitation site.

04/17/2006 from Science Blog:
Why cutting out meat is healthier for people and for the planet.

04/17/2006 Though 'feminisation' of agriculture is taking place in rural India with more women taking to farming, cultural attitudes towards women remain intact. As more and more men migrating to cities for work, it is believed that up to 50 per cent of the land is being farmed by women.

04/17/2006 Nine poultry farmers have committed suicide across India because of the bird flu scare. It is believed that nearly 70 per cent poultry farmers in India are in dire straits as demand for chicken and related products has gone down considerably.

04/13/2006 A new report from GRAIN looks at the power politics behind the bird flu, the global response to it and its consequences for the poor. The GRAIN report finds that the agencies of the UN at the forefront of the international response to the virus, both WHO and FAO, are pursuing top-down strategies for wiping out bird flu that in turn are wiping out the foundations for long term, pro-poor solutions in the process.

04/12/2006 Los campesinos recibieron la productiva finca por una reforma agraria gubernamental que en marzo de 1980 arrebató la tierra a la acaudalada, tradicional y cafetalera familia Dueñas, en un intento de quitar banderas políticas a rebeldes izquierdistas armados.

04/10/2006 La política internacional es como una cocina: se juntan unos pocos en nombre de los gobiernos y, con las empresas trasnacionales, refríen los platos que nos obligarán a comer a todos.

04/10/2006 from Climate Change Action blog:
Touted by some as an energy panacaea, biofuels raise as many problems as they solve. What matters is the energy and greenhouse gas balance. Almuth Ernsting's blog shows it's not just about carbon.

04/10/2006 India’s encounter with avian influenza seems far from over. Navapur in Maharashtra, where the avian influenza first broke out in January this year, had barely started breathing a sigh of relief at the containment of the deadly virus when a veterinary laboratory in Bhopal announced the presence of the pathogen in samples collected in Jalgoan district, 140 km away.

04/07/2006 “Por decisión consensuada, todos los gobiernos reafirmaron la moratoria sobre la tecnología de ingeniería genética que amenaza las formas de supervivencia de 1 400 millones de personas que dependen de la semilla conservada de la cosecha”, enfatizó Pat Money, Director del Grupo ETC.

04/06/2006 Más de 170 expositores de las regiones Octava, Novena y Décima darán vida a la 14º Muestra Campesina de Yumbel, que se realizará desde mañana jueves 6 al domingo 9 próximo en las dependencias del Estadio Municipal de dicha ciudad.

04/05/2006 La historia muchos países del sur, desde los tiempos de la colonización, ha estado marcada por la producción agrícola para la exportación. Nicaragua es un ejemplo más, tal vez paradigmático, de este modelo basado en los monocultivos. Algodón, banano, azúcar y café, son algunos de los principales productos que han marcado su historia.