Experts worry what early decisions on GM corn mean for the health, environmental, and cultural integrity of Mexico’s corn culture and diet.
Mexico’s Corn Defenders Honored with Environmental Prize
The Demanda Colectiva helped open the door to a new government that takes native corn and its protection seriously.
Mexico Calls U.S. Bluff on Science of GMO Corn Restrictions
With documented health risks tied to the exposure to glyphosate, the Mexican government is continuing to approach conversations around genetically modified corn with caution.
Science, Precaution, and Mexico’s GMO Corn Restrictions
A new decree states that any ban on GM feed corn, which is the overwhelming majority of U.S. exports, would only be implemented gradually, pending a full review of the science and the availability of adequate supplies of non-GM corn.
No Reason for Alarm over Mexico’s GM-Corn Ban
U.S. farmers already grow non-GM corn and according to reports, many can and would produce it for Mexico if given time to prepare.
AGRA Retreats from its Own ‘Green Revolution’
Recent changes suggest that AGRA and its donors are concealing their retreat from a failing strategy.
African Community Leaders Tell Congress: Stop Funding African Green Revolution
Research into AGRA shows that the billion-dollar effort to double yields and incomes by 2020 for 30 million small-scale farming households has failed.
Mexico’s Highest Court Rejects Appeal of GM Corn Ban
According to the citizen group Demanda Colectiva, the decision is a win for peasants, Indigenous communities, and consumers.
Selling the Past as Innovation in Africa
Despite criticism, a growing number of farmers, scientists, and development experts are advocate for a shift from high-input, chemical-intensive agriculture to low-input ecological farming.
Does Kenya Need GMO Cassava? Ask the World Food Prize-winner Who Saved Africa’s Cassava
Hans Herren, who won the 1995 World Food Prize for biological pest control, argues that Africa still does not need genetically modified cassava. Rather, natural solutions can treat pests and keep the soil and crops healthy.
Africa’s Farmers: Key to Solving Malnutrition
For the fifth straight year, chronic hunger increased worldwide. But supporting small-scale farmers and ecologically sound farming practices has the potential to nourish communities and the planet.
Opinion | Agroecology as Innovation
While financial interests in the current input-intensive systems are responding to growing calls for agroecology with attacks on its efficacy, it is surprising that they are so ill-informed about the scientific innovations agroecology offers to small-scale farmers who are being so poorly served by “green revolution” approaches.
UN Backs Seed Sovereignty in Landmark Peasants’ Rights Declaration
The Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other People Working in Rural Areas, which was the product of some 17 years of diplomatic work led by the international peasant alliance La Via Campesina, formally extends human rights protections to farmers whose “seed sovereignty” is threatened by government and corporate practices.
Seeds of Resistance, Harvests of Hope: Farmers Halt a Land Grab in Mozambique
“If the associations are registered and the farmers have collective rights to some land, maybe the land grabbing can stop,” Zunguze told me. Association leaders planned to visit neighboring National Farmers Union cooperatives to learn how agro-ecology could help them grow more food for their families and communities.
Opinion | Why Mexican Farmers Are Hopeful About López Obrador’s Win
López Obrador’s victory in Mexico brings hope for Mexican farmers expecting more self-sufficiency through a reduction in dependence on imports, chemical-intensive production methods, and GMOs. Promises of support for sustainable practices on small and medium-scale farms are on the horizon.
Making Rural Mexico Great Again: Leading Candidate Endorses Farmers’ Reform Program
Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the National Regeneration Movement leads the political race to be the next President of Mexico and has endorsed a far-reaching set of reforms to improve Mexico’s rural sector. The program centers on the idea of “food sovereignty” and is sharply critical of NAFTA.
India’s Public Stockholding: “Much more than a welfare program”
India’s food security and stockholding program uses precisely the same policies that the U.S. used in its early farm policy coming out of the Great Depression. Exactly the same: price supports, food reserves, administered markets, subsidies. The U.S. government used them because they work. India and other countries should be allowed to use them, too. Because they work.
WTO and Food Security: Biting the Hand that Feeds the Poor
India’s National Food Security Act (NFSA), is one of the most ambitious food security initiatives in the world, planning to buy food grains from small-scale farmers to distribute to some 840 million poor Indians, two-thirds of the country’s people.
Tuning in to Farmers’ Water Needs: Radio broadcasts aid Malawi irrigation efforts
Farm Radio Trust’s is organizing farmer “listening groups” and developing local radio broadcasts on agricultural development issues in Malawi, a country in East Africa.
Did Monsanto Write Malawi’s Seed Policy?
Malawi’s new draft seed policy, crafted in part by a Monsanto official, defines ‘seed’ as one that is quality certified, overriding the common cultural understanding of the term seed, and preventing local farmers from selling or displaying farm-saved seed at local seed fairs.
