It is summer in North America and our farms and gardens are now in bloom. Please take a moment to imagine what you might see out there. In pockets across the continent, farmers are cultivating lush landscapes, filled with flowering plants and nourishing foods, using innovation and age-old wisdom. Bees buzz, biodiversity thrives. Imagine this scene for one more moment, aware that the legacy these farmers leave our children includes healthy food and a capacity to thrive through change. Clean air. Fresh water.
A remarkable consensus is growing that these diverse, stable and incredibly productive landscapes are essential to ensuring the survival of our planet. A mounting global food crisis and the instability that climate change poses to life on earth have galvanized support for farming alternatives that offer the resilience necessary to sustain both people and ecosystems.
This year, we stand atop a watershed of planetary dimensions. Industrial, chemically dependent farming has sown a "perfect storm" of hunger, social and environ- mental calamity. Oligopoly control of food, farming and marketing by a handful of global companies subverts our freedoms, undermines our farmers and robs us of the ability to protect our health and environment.
Fortuitously, amidst this crisis, 61 nations convened for a historic meeting in Johannesburg that signaled it is time for change. The weeklong mid-April meeting of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) was led by Robert Watson who, as first head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, shared the 2007 Nobel Prize with Al Gore. This final session capped four years of analysis by 400 leading scientists, policy- makers and development experts. The IAASTD's conclusion was blunt: "Business as usual is not an option." Its report, released on April 15, called for a radical transformation in global policy to address the root causes of the food crisis by investing in ecologically sustainable small-scale diversified farms supported by equitable trade policies.
Continue reading First Word: The Seeds of a New Agriculture »
First Word
It is summer in North America and our farms and gardens are now in bloom. Please take a moment to imagine what you might see out there. In pockets across the continent, farmers are cultivating lush landscapes, filled with flowering plants and nourishing foods, using innovation and age-old wisdom.
News
Solutions
Alemany Farm and the Rise of Urbaculture
Under the hum of speeding traffic on a nearby freeway, you can hear a new sound emerging from the low-income outback of San Francisco. It’s the laughter of 60 high-school kids swinging farm tools mingled with the songs of Redwing Blackbirds. It’s coming from Alemany Farm and it forms a chorus brimming with new hope for the future of agriculture.
An Organic Renaissance Takes Root in California’s Cities
You might say that Urban Agriculture (Urbaculture) has been growing by leeks and pounds, but even in the best of times, growing local can prove a tough row to hoe. Los Angeles’ South Central Community Garden is a case-in-point. This organic oasis cropped up in one of LA’s poorest neighborhoods following the 1992 riots triggered by the videotaped police-beating of Rodney King.
The Non-Pesticide Advisor: What’s Bugging You?
PAN’s Guide to Alternative Pest Management, Adapted from 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth gives you information about Ecological pest management (EPM) and five simple steps to help green your life.
Help Yourself: Resources for a better world
List of resources for a healthy life.
A New Era for Agriculture
Johannesburg: “Business as Usual is Not an Option”
On April 7, 2008, as the world’s newspapers carried headlines about falling grain stocks, soaring prices and food riots, representatives from 61 nations gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa, to adopt a United Nations report that identifies urgently needed solutions for addressing underlying problems of the global food system.
North America & Europe Assessment
In North America and Europe (NAE), science and technology have dramatically increased agricultural productivity over the last 50 years, but the IAASTD notes that these gains have been accompanied by environmental costs, especially loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, and declining water quality.
Latin America & the Caribbean Assessment
Despite its abundant natural resources, the IAASTD finds, the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region suffers from one of the most highly inequitable land distribution systems in the world.
Transforming the Land to Achieve Self-Sufficiency
In 1984, the Oray family in the Philippines experienced the collapse of world sugar prices. When thousands of seasonal sugar workers lost their jobs and widespread famine resulted, Rodolfo “Dolpo” Oray decided to change the way they farmed on their 5.5-acre plot
Healthy Futures Conference
Report from the March 2008 conference, “Reclaiming Our Healthy Future: Political Change to Protect the Next Generation”
Silent Snow: The Arctic Paradox
Marla Cone has spent 22 years covering environmental issues, including 18 years at the Los Angeles Times. She is the author of Silent Snow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic (Grove Press, 2006).
Household Poisons & Dr. Seuss
Excerpt from Will Allen's The War on Bugs
Stories from the PAN Network
Oil Palm Plantations Threaten People and the Environment
PAN and Rainforest Action Network investigate Malaysias Oil Palm plantations and how the West’s insatiable hunger for processed foods—and its increasing appetite for food-based “agrofuels”—is ravaging forest communities. Palm oil, one of the cheapest agrofuel sources, is actually fueling global warming. Indonesia is the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter (behind the U.S. and China) due largely to the destruction of forests to establish palm oil plantations.
Last Word
A New Era of Agriculture Begins Today
The report of the first UN International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), approved April 11, 2008, is a sobering account of the failure of industrial farming. It calls for a fundamental change in the way we do farming, to better address soaring food prices, hunger, social inequities and environmental disasters.
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