What could be more cheerful than this ubiquitous breakfast fruit? But if you’re not buying them Fairtrade and organic, argues Ed Hamer, then you’re buying into a modern agricultural scandal
Is it possible to live off foraged food alone? Fergus Drennan thinks so and aims to prove it. In the first of his monthly columns he explains why, from April 1 st, he will be eating nothing but wild food – for an entire year...
Only a few years ago, stories about Whole Foods Market became famous for their poetic quality, as journalists waxed lyrical about how the fresh, organic fruit in their stores was proof that you could be a successful business while remaining environmentally friendly. Last year, however, sustained questioning by consumers and regulators alike saw the shine come off the company’s glossy image.
It’s 2008, and feeding ourselves has never been easier. We take for granted a supply of every agricultural commodity on the planet, 365 days a year. Food is cheap. Never in living memory have we spent less on it as a proportion of our total expenditure. Even our poorest citizens can afford the luxury foods of yesteryear, like salmon and chicken.
It was a bad year for the biotech barons. At a conference in January 1999, the consulting firm Arthur Andersen revealed Monsanto executives’ vision of an ideal future – a world in which natural seeds were virtually all extinct and where commercial seeds were genetically modified (GM) and patented.
As the bluetongue virus sinks its teeth into British livestock, there is one appalling certainty: like the outbreaks of Mad Cow Disease and foot-and-mouth before it, some farmers will see no way out, and take their own lives. Farmers in Britain are the profession second most likely to commit suicide (after, bizarrely, dentistry).
Deep in rural Sussex at Wakehurst Place, in a large nature reserve of 500 acres of National Trust woodlands and lakes, stands the Kew Gardens Biological Research Centre. Sixty feet beneath is a nuclear bunker. This is the British National Doomsday vault, home to the UK’s Millennium Seed Bank (MSB). If apocalyptic disaster strikes, this bunker will hold key bio-scientists and all remaining plant life.
In August 2006, German chemicals company BASF applied to start GM potato field trials
in Cambridge and Derbyshire as early as next spring. The GM industry is making many
claims about this product, but are these based on the truth? Andy Rees investigates
Is it worse than Mc Donalds? The BLT sandwich is an icon, the ultimate symbol of convenience culture. Tesco alone sells 5 million a year. This is what the £1.80 you pay for your BLT buys...
By radically changing the way we acquire our food, the development of agriculture has condemned us to live worse than ever before. Not only that, agriculture has led to the first significant instances of large-scale war, inequality, poverty, crime, famine and human induced climate change and mass extinction.
By Clive W. Dennis (winner of the Ecologist/Coady International Institute 2006 Essay Competition)
The Ecologist September 2004 issue caused a sensation with its report on supermarkets: From the chemicals in a bagged salad to the destruction of local shops the report reveals all the facts the supermarkets don't want you to know...
Half way between Cusco and the lost city of Machu Picchu lies the ancient artery of Inca trade and production - the salt terraces. For over 1,000 years little has changed for the salt farmers of Maras. Now, thanks to a clumsy, unnecessary and potentially dangerous attempt at mass medication, this traditional livelihood is at risk. By James Frankham.
Having an allotment is no longer a tiresome hobby practised by old geezers in wellies and donkey jackets. It’s an insurance policy against an uncertain future, as Paul Kingsnorth has found out for himself over the last three years.
According to a Mori poll in March 2004, the fairtrade mark is now recognised by 39 per cent of the British public, up from 11 per cent five years ago. But what difference does fairtrade actually make to the lives of the producers? John Atkin looks at the Nicaraguan community of La Pita who sell half of their coffee on the fairtrade market
In intensive farming animals are viewed as units of production to be ground relentlessly through the system. Nothing could be more different at Kite’s Nest in the Cotswolds, where the livestock is actively engaged in deciding how the farm is managed.