McDonald’s has a long history of employing business practices that are devastating to the lives of workers and their communities. Key among these: the fast food chain continues to source potatoes grown with drift-prone pesticides that put the health of nearby rural and Indigenous communities at risk, despite claiming “sustainability priorities” and “responsible sourcing.”
This interview with Churdan, Iowa farmer Patti Naylor is the second blog in our series focusing on key issues of concern in the Farm Bill to those in our network. In this blog, Patti focuses on her vision for a Farm Bill process that better serves her farm and community. Many provisions in the Farm Bill legislation introduced in the House of Representatives will be harmful to farmers, rural communities, workers and the environment. Meanwhile, debates on the federal legislation are moving full steam ahead.
This week, the Hawaiʻi legislature made a momentous decision to pass a bill that would ban the neurotoxic pesticide chlorpyrifos.
The bill, SB 3095, includes several other protections from and disclosures around pesticides that can harm children, including buffer zones around schools. The bill now heads to Hawaiʻi Governor David Ige — who can sign or veto the legislation.
From food access and nutrition programs, to crop insurance and agricultural research, the Farm Bill determines much about the food we eat, how its grown and its impacts on rural workers and communities. Here at PAN, we’re striving toward a future characterized by worker justice and healthy communities, fair farm economies and a food system that works for us into the future
Despite widespread opposition, The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has green-lighted the Bayer-Monsanto merger.
The Bayer-Monsanto merger was approved on the heels of the authorization of the Dow-DuPont and Syngenta-ChemChina mergers. As a result, just three corporations will control 59 percent of the seed market and 64 percent of the pesticide market — globally.
The vast majority of farmworkers in the U.S. are immigrants, and at least half of them are undocumented. We depend on these many immigrants, who have come in search of a better life, for our nation’s abundant and safe food supply.
The Bayer-Monsanto merger has hit a roadblock in the U.S. The agribusiness giants have been waiting for the Department of Justice (DoJ) to approve the business coupling, but last week the department’s antitrust division revealed worries that the merger could hurt competition, and they don’t think Bayer’s proposed plan to sell off some businesses before the deal is finalized goes far enough.
The last few weeks have seen encouraging momentum around the world in protecting bees and other pollinators from harmful pesticides. As bees are responsible for pollinating one out of every three bites of food we eat — making them key actors in our food system — this news is extremely welcome.
PAN board member Kyle Powys Whyte holds the Timnick Chair in the Humanities at Michigan State University. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Community Sustainability and a member of the Potawatomi Nation. PAN’s Executive Director Kristin Schafer recently chatted with Kyle about Indigenous food sovereignty and how PAN’s work intersects with his own.
With the 2018 growing season approaching, agricultural states across the country are stepping up to ensure farmers don’t experience the same pesticide drift epidemic that wreaked havoc on farmland last summer.
Application of the drift-prone herbicide in question, dicamba, led to an estimated 3.6 million acres of crop damage last year after a rushed approval of Monsanto’s new dicamba-resistant seed line.
