In the last few years the Ecologist has written extensively on the flu – both the garden variety that strikes us on an annual basis and the wider threat of avian influenza, H5N1.
In the past decade, the sales pitch of the biotech companies has shifted with the climate of public opinion. Public scepticism has remained high, but politicians seem to have bought enthusiastically into the GM ‘solution’. In many ways this encapsulates where science has gone wrong – by inventing technologies without first deciding what problems need addressing. If GM crops are the answer, what exactly is the problem?
Battling a fractured back and the vagaries of the weather high in the Pyrenees, is the biodynamic dream of wine writer turned grower Monty Waldin about to turn sour?
Making the transition from wine writer to viticulturist was a leap of faith for Monty Waldin. What could he expect from his new hilltop vineyard in the Pyrenees?
The mainstream farming media dismiss biodynamics as a fad affordable only by the wealthy – so why are big arable farmers sowing seeds under full moons?