How we farm matters, writes Pat Thomas - not just for water, insects, birds and the wider environment, which benefit from organic farming, but also the nutritional value of our food. It's time to value the quality of what we eat, instead of prizing quantity above all.
… Organic farming boosts environment and nutrition Pat Thomas | 1st August 2014 Comment Food Farming Health Organic … wider environment, which benefit from organic farming, but also the nutritional value of our …
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...
… News Food BLT Fast Food Junk Food Pigs Bacon Farming Pesticides Proccessed Food Processed Farming Fast Food Green Lifestyle Agribusiness … Pests And Pesticides Biotechnology Factory Farming Organics Agribusiness Additives …
Antimicrobial resistance is a ticking time-bomb not only for the UK but also for the world, warns the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies
… Thomas | 13th June 2013 News Health Food And Farming shutterstock_127596050.jpg … Association, Sustain, and Compassion in World Farming, announced they had formed the … resistance - the impact of intensive farming on human health that shows the …
Christmas dinner means only one thing for millions of us: turkey. But the intensively reared and genetically manipulated birds that most will consume this holiday season leave a nasty taste in the mouth
… 10 million are eaten at Christmas . Factory farming: it ain't just chickens While most of … reported elsewhere on the cruelty of factory farming – for instance, the suffering of pigs … to justify the ongoing cruelty of factory farming – so much of which is hidden behind …
A once quiet voice, hard to distinguish against the grinding machine of intensive food production is now shouting above the noise. LAURA BRIGGS reports on the growing interest in grass as a feeding option
… is.... Laura Briggs | 18th July 2016 News Farming Food Livestock Grass-fed Industrial Farming Traditional Farming cows grass 1015.jpg A once quiet …
Two decades ago the world's first GM foods went on sale, writes Pat Thomas. The consumer flirtation with GMOs soon died away, yet the biotech industry has grown into a global behemoth, driving agricultural intensification and sending agro-chemical sales through the roof. It's time for us to take a stand once again and insist: there are better, healthier ways of growing food.
… February 2015 Activism GMOs Consumerism Food Farming Corporations Two decades ago the … to deliver. A damaging, outdated approach to farming What this anniversary highlights is … industrialised monoculture chemical-heavy farming was the way to feed the world. No …
Four trustees of the Soil Association just resigned, 'more in sorrow than in anger'. Joanna Blythman, Lynda Brown, Andrew Whitley and former Ecologist editor Pat Thomas all decided they were unable to contribute further to the organisation, the UK's leading organic certifier and the 'mother ship' of British organic farming.
… Pat Thomas | 1st December 2014 Comment Food Farming UK Organic leek-picking-cut.jpg Four … and the 'mother ship' of British organic farming. We expect fellow members of the Soil … think that the organic approach to food and farming is ecologically coherent, humane, …
Is it healthy? Is it organic? Is it fairly traded? How far has it travelled? At times, making informed choices can feel like a full-time job. Here is a pocket guide to buying food from the new book Stuffed
… 2010 Ethical Living Green Living Food And Farming Soil Association Organic Food Labels … genetic engineering or radiation. Organic farming minimises damage to the environment … and support and education for sustainable farming practices. The Fairtrade label can be …
Freedom Food was set up in 1994 by the RSPCA as the first farm-assurance scheme to concentrate primarily on animal welfare. The Freedom Food mark found on eggs, dairy, meat, poultry and salmon products means the animals involved have been reared, handled, transported and slaughtered to standards devised and monitored by the RSPCA.
… Animals Animal Welfare Green Living Food And Farming BTL_Looking_glass_MAIN_11.jpg Freedom … to challenge the orthodoxy of intensive farming and because it focuses simply on basic … the environmental impacts of this kind of farming. This article first appeared in the …
We are what we eat. Concerns about climate change, environmental stress and animal welfare mean that what we eat is an ethical as well as a health issue. LAURA BRIGGS meets two women promoting the new Wildevore diet, claiming it improves the health of the individual, and the world in which they live
… patch, buying locally and from regenerative farming methods, and you’ll be some way to … have to be incredibly choosy. Intensive farming, GMOs, antibiotics and mistreatment of … help regenerate the ecosystem, it’s just most farming systems don’t function this way and …
With the diversity of food crops falling dramatically and just three giant corporations controlling over 75 per cent of the global seed supply, it's no wonder people feel disconnected from their food. LAURA BRIGGS learns more about a new UK Seed Co-operative which aims to redress the balance
… | 10th May 2017 Ethical Living Seed Food And Farming Biodiversoty Resilience seed … BBC Future Food category of the BBC Food and Farming Awards - the Seed Co-operative - is … seed does, and this only works in organic farming systems." The Seed Co-operative is at …
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.
… | 1st April 2009 News Swine Flu H1n1 Factory Farming Agribusiness Biodynamics Organics Wine Beer And Cider Biodynamics Food And Farming Health Society full-pig.jpg In the … coverage has focused on the role of factory farming in the genesis of this virus. Animals …
Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF) is an industry funded certification scheme, with standards aimed at encouraging efficient farming systems that look after the land and the rural community. Its underlying objective is to develop farming standards that are above baseline levels, but these are not aimed at meeting organic standards.
… Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF) is an industry funded … with standards aimed at encouraging efficient farming systems that look after the land and … Its underlying objective is to develop farming standards that are above baseline …
The Panorama programme on GM foods and crops last Monday was a masterpiece of spin, bluster, misrepresentation and outright deceit, write Lawrence Woodward & Pat Thomas, with the BBC's top investigatory strand hijacked to force feed the UK population with the purest of pro-GMO propaganda.
… June 2015 Comment GMOs Media UK Science Food Farming Bangladesh … anyone who raises questions about GM food and farming. Mark Lynas : Sweating manfully in the … who question the GMO approach to food and farming ran right through the programme. …
In the run up to the British general election, Pat Thomas says the various party manifestos are starved of sound policies on food security and sustainability
… Pat Thomas | 21st April 2010 Comment Food And Farming Election 2010 Politics And Economics … proposes: to 'phase out all forms of factory farming of animals and enforce strict animal … to justify an expansion of industrial factory farming, but have been brought into question …
Recent reports of catastrophic declines in bee populations have had scientists buzzing around looking for a plausible explanation. Is it mites? Is it GM crops? Is it mobile phones or habitat loss? It's all of these things, says Pat Thomas, but it's also so much more than that.
… Diversity Colony Collapse Disorder Intensive Farming Gm Pesticides Electromagnetic Fields Parasites Varroa Diversity Farming Food Security Natural World Pollution … by making specific antibodies. Intensive bee farming In a normal colony the queen can live …
Seaweed is known for its culinary uses and has seen a renaissance in past years thanks to its health claims and a distinctive taste - but there are more ecological benefits to seaweed that currently remain untapped.
… Seaweed Biofuels Energy Animal Feed Food And Farming seaweed.jpg Seaweed is known for its … untapped. The primary reason for seaweed farming right now is for bioenergy research …
You may think that by avoiding the near-extinct bluefin you're off the hook and can tuck into other types of tuna. Think again, says Pat Thomas
… in order to be healthy the answer is no. Tuna farming has all the attendant problems of … to be dosed up with hormones. Sadly, the fish-farming of today has more in common with the … Ecologist article 'Fishy Business' ). And farming, which occurs in pens at sea is no …
A gap in the market and the digital age has seen the British organic cut flower industry flourish over the last couple of years - with chemical-free, low air-mile blooms finally seeing their day in the sun. LAURA BRIGGS reports on the homegrown market that offers a bigger variety of flowers and without the environmental costs of imported ones
If you're saying 'it' with flowers this UK Bank Holiday weekend make sure they're locally grown Laura Briggs | 26th August 2016 News Flowers Organic Cut Flowers Environmental Costs British Growers …
Bird flu has been raging through Asia for more than a decade. But it is only recently that most of us have started to pay attention to the story. Pat Thomas seperates fact from fiction and asks whether this is a random act of nature or yet another man-made disaster.
… Bird Flu H5N1 Tamiflu Relenza Risk Food And Farming Health Investigates_3.jpg Bird flu has … to expose the economic reality of intensive farming. From a modern farmer’s perspective … at the contribution of modern intensive farming practices to the emergence of highly …
If you live or spend time in the UK countryside it may have been some time since you spotted the native brown hare - if you've ever seen one at all. That's because the hare relies on an increasingly disappearing biodiverse landscape for its food. LAURA BRIGGS talks to the scientists behind a new study investigating what type of planting - including bioenergy crops - will help stop hare populations from continuing to decline
… | 6th June 2017 Comment Hares Conservation Farming Biomass Biodiversity brown hare.jpg If … hedgerow has been destroyed over 50 years of farming, cutting off the hare's source of food … of farmland, many of which have been lost as farming has intensified. Our research suggests …
Celebrities have a unique ability to engage people in environmental campaigns, writes Pat Thomas. Neil Young is a case in point: his latest album, The Monsanto Years, conveys an eloquent message of the dangers of GMOs and corporate power, and his upcoming European tour offers green campaigners a unique opportunity to engage a broader public in the fight for a green future.
… 31st May 2016 Activism GMOs Media Arts Music Farming Politics monsanto … when I was working with Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), campaigning against the Nocton … & Climate, Freedom & Justice, the Future of Farming, and News You Can Trust. According to …
Increasing quantities of 'hidden GMOs' are finding their way into our diet, writes Pat Thomas. They are coming mainly in US imports for supermarkets and caterers, and in animal feeds used for meat, dairy and egg production. It's time for chefs, pubs, takeaways and restaurants to take responsibility for the food chains that supply them - labelling the GMOs in their meals, and better still, cutting them out.
… Thomas | 31st March 2017 Activism GMOs Food Farming UK USA pub-meal-cut.jpg Increasing … are taken up more and more into the farming and food chain. The internationally … where up to 70% of the public is against farming or eating GMOs, an acknowledgement on …
What does Douglas Gowan know that everyone else wants to keep hidden? For 40 years the story of Brofiscin Quarry – now the most polluted place in the UK – has been suppressed...
… Enviroment Agancy Brofiscin Risk Industrial Farming Health Politics And Economics Waste … the global seed market, promoting monoculture farming and making it harder for farmers to …