The
main lesson we can draw from the brilliant work on planetary climate
change by the Nobel-Prize-winning team of UN scientists and Al Gore is
clear: A global crisis requires a global response.
If climate change were the only such crisis facing the planet, we would have our collective hands full, but it is not. Even as the world’s governments are struggling to find a way to cooperate and allow humanity to do what is necessary to survive in a radically altered climate, a closely connected global crisis is screaming for our attention: How can we transform the current process of growing food into a sustainable system that provides adequate food for all?
The shifts in weather are already affecting agriculture dramatically, and industrialized agriculture is a major contributor to these climatic changes. While solutions may be regional and local, a truly sustainable agriculture requires one global policy framework that encompasses climate, water scarcity, the application of science and technology, and fair trade.
The shifts in weather are already affecting agriculture dramatically, and industrialized agriculture is a major contributor to these climatic changes. While solutions may be regional and local, a truly sustainable agriculture requires one global policy framework that encompasses climate, water scarcity, the application of science and technology, and fair trade.
The shifts in weather are already affecting agriculture dramatically, and industrialized agriculture is a major contributor to these climatic changes. While solutions may be regional and local, a truly sustainable agriculture requires one global policy framework that encompasses climate, water scarcity, the application of science and technology, and fair trade.
Many in the Global South remain too poor to buy available local food, while they are denied access to the land and resources necessary to grow it themselves. As the disparity between rich and poor grows, tropical ecosystems are devastated by the expansion of large-scale, chemical- and biotech-intensive corporate monocultures and the emission of global warming “greenhouse gasses” continues to increase.
What is needed are fair, non-polluting regional and local solutions protected by a global policy framework that is not tilted toward corporate technologies and “free-trade” arrangements that continue to favor the haves over the have-nots but, rather, upholds equitable and sustainable food and farming systems around the world.
First Word
The main lesson we can draw from the brilliant work on planetary climate change by the Nobel-Prize-winning team of UN scientists and Al Gore is clear: A global crisis requires a global response.
News
Features
Return to Malaysia: PAN Celebrates its 25th Anniversary
In December 2007, Pesticide Action Network International marked its
25th Anniversary by returning to Penang, Malaysia, the city where it
began. In 1982, civil society leaders from 16 countries met in Penang
to challenge the “Green Revolution” vision that chemical pesticides and
input-intensive agriculture offered the best solution to world hunger.
Report from Penang: Malaysia Was Amazing!
Martha Guzman shares the experience of an international meeting, in
Malaysia, where the Pesticide Action Network was launched 25 years ago.
In Penang, I had the pleasure of discovering the amazing work of people
from around the world who are contributing to bringing justice to our
lives.
Aukland Residents Respond to Aerial Spraying
Sally Lewis remembers the first time she noticed the planes releasing
clouds of pesticide over her New Zealand home. As the mist settled to
earth, “it felt like soft rain landing on my skin, as harmless as
that,” Lewis later told reporters. “We were told the spray was entirely
safe, so I just stood there watching the planes.”
California vs. the Light Brown Apple Moth
Australia’s light brown apple moth (E. postvittana, or LBAM) is an
omnivorous “leafroller” whose larvae are capable of doing significant
economic and cosmetic damage to a wide range of plants. LBAM has
invaded New Zealand and other countries where export quarantines have
been in effect for decades. But the tiny brown insect wasn’t identified
in the U.S. until late 2006, when a retired entomologist trapped one
outside his home in Berkeley, California.
Affiliates
Clean New York
Clean New York was founded in September 2006 to help “women of all ages” campaign
for environmental health and safety. CNY has pressed for the removal of
toxic flame retardants from consumer products
Breast Cancer Fund
Determined to eliminate the environmental causes of the disease, BCF
volunteers have also been “climbing steadily.” BCF’s widely known
“Climb Against the Odds” raises funds for public education and policy
advocacy by pitting breast cancer survivors, family and friends against
some of the world’s most dramatic summits
The Future of Food
An Eater’s Manifesto
It used to be that food was all you could eat. Today there are
thousands of other edible food-like substances in the supermarket.
These novel products of food science often come in packages elaborately
festooned with health claims, which brings me to a somewhat
counterintuitive piece of advice: If you’re concerned about your
health, you should probably avoid products that make health claims.
The World Needs Sustainable Family Farming
To avoid a major food crisis, governments and public institutions have
to adopt policies aimed at promoting the production of the most
important energy in the world: food! Yet there is a global struggle
over different models of production.
Organic Crops Outperform Chemical Farming
Researchers from the University of Michigan have found that yields in
developed countries were almost equal on organic and conventional farms.
How Organic Farming Mitigates Climate Change
The world won’t be saved by any one thing. Fifty years ago the “Green
Revolution” promised to end hunger; today corporations promise that
genetically engineered crops will solve the climate crises. They won’t.
Push-Pull Technology Transforms Small Farms in Kenya
The technique involves intercropping silverleaf desmodium, a fodder
legume, with maize, napier and Sudan grass to provide both immediate
and long-term benefits.
Pesticides, Health and Commerce
The Secret History of the War on Cancer
One of the reasons I allow myself to think the time is right for this
book is the response from the business community. As word got out about
my intentions, I began to hear from people I’d never met and others I’d
never imagined were sympathetic. They offered me stories I’d never
heard before and documents I could never find in libraries or
government dockets. I was stunned by what I found out.
Pesticides and Breast Cancer
An estimated 1.15 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer in
2002 and 411,000 died from the disease. There are an estimated 4.4
million women alive who have had breast cancer diagnosed within the
last five years, and the incidence rate continues to climb in all age
groups.
How the U.S. Became a Toxic Dumping Ground
Over half a century, hundreds of millions of tons of these chemicals
have been sprayed from nozzles, coated onto seeds, and leaked from
factories and waste dumps into the soil and water supply.
Solutions
ALBA: This Land Grows Farmers
ALBA was founded to advance economic viability, social equity and ecological land management among limited-resource farmers.
Non-Pesticide Advisor
Weapons of Moth Destruction
PANorama
PAN's Staff in Action
Help Yourself
Resources for a Better World
Last Word
We Need to Reclaim the Food System
Vandana Shiva