Rice-eating peoples are very particular about the rice their diets are based on, writes Ted Greiner. And they have a strong aversion to yellow grains, the tell-tale sign of the deadly mould that causes beri-beri disease. That alone makes GMO 'Golden Rice' a non starter; 107 Nobel Laureates had better start eating their words.
… Beri-beri disease and resistance to GM 'Golden Rice' Ted Greiner | 13th July 2016 Comment GMOs Health Food Culture Society rice-leaf-cut.jpg Rice-eating peoples are very particular about …
Japanese rice farmers won a reprieve last week when TTP negotiations in Hawaii ended without conclusion on opening Japan up to cheap US rice imports, writes Nicole L Freiner. But with Japan keen to export more cars to the US, the victory is a temporary one. At stake is a way of life, an ancient land-rooted religion, and the future viability of Japan's farming villages.
… Japan's 'sacred' rice farmers evade TPP death sentence - for … News Japan Food Farming Society Trade USA rice-fields-niigata-japan-cut.jpg Japanese rice farmers won a reprieve last week when TTP …
For the women farmers of Tamil Nadu life has long been a struggle, Sheelu Francis told Tristan Quinn-Thibodeau, all the more so following the advent of 'Green Revolution' industrial agriculture. So now women's collectives are organising to restore traditional foods and farming methods, resulting in lower costs, higher yields, improved nutrition, and a rekindling of native Tamil culture.
… "Farmers were encouraged to grow all [rice] paddy, paddy, paddy, because of … government subsidies which promoted growing rice, especially with hybrid seeds and chemicals. Rice paddies use lots of water, so when it is …
GMO promoters enthuse about how GM crops will be able to help the poor and hungry, far in the future, writes Claire Robinson. But they are silent about the currently-planted GM crops - 99% of them herbicide-tolerant or insecticidal. Could it be because opponents of the technology are being proved right at every turn?
… them. At all. 3. Talk a lot about golden rice and gene editing What GMO promoters do want to talk about is: GMO golden rice, which they say will save poor people … promise, not actual delivery. GMO golden rice has been beset by basic R&D problems and …
Bhutan is well on its way to becoming the greenest nation on the planet. In his Special Report for the Ecologist, photojournalist MICHAEL BUCKLEY explores the reasons why the country's ecosystems and dazzling biodiversity remain intact - and highlights the one thing that threatens this admirable integrity...
… Dekalb Vietnam. In 2012, the International Rice Research Institute and Monsanto spent US$2 billion to develop a GM rice that is iron-fortified to deal with the … in India and Bangladesh. The resulting GM rice was found to pale in comparison with …
The shadowy parallel court system of major trade agreements makes it difficult for countries to ban broad-spectrum insecticides.
… International Trade Editor’s Picks village-rice-fields-japan-cut.jpg The shadowy parallel … ongoing worldwide insect extinction event, rice-field insects such as dragonflies that …
The new People Need Nature report - published to coincide with this week's annual Oxford Real Farming Conference - warns that modern farming practices are not good for wildlife. But they're not good for humans either. And with predictions that we will need to produce 70 per cent more food to feed a third more mouths by 2050 the question of seed ownership and diversity cannot be ignored. KATHRYN HINDESS reports
… have become homogenised. Three crops - wheat, rice and corn (also known as maize) - account … seeds include staple food crops like maize, rice, wheat, potatoes and teff (in Ethiopia). …
I have to confess I've been feeling thoroughly gloomy about the state of the nation lately, and I blame a certain supermarket chain that I shall call 'Blank'
… Another local shop says no-one buys her rice because they order it from Blank home … because we provide good products and cheap prices. They like it.' They like it because …
A recently discovered peatland in northeast Peru contains two years worth of US carbon emissions, writes Joe Sandler Clarke, but it's under threat from the rapidly advancing 'palm oil frontier'. Now scientists are calling for the wetland's immediate protection - before it's too late to save it.
… the Pastaza-Marañón Foreland Basin peatlands, rice paddies and plantations have begun …
Ladakh is framed by the Karakoram mountains to the north and the Himalayas to the south. Yet even in this remote environment the forces of global consumerism are intruding. Nicola Graydon reports on the locals' inspiring defence of their culture
… the story is very different. Subsidised rice, sugar, wheat and other foodstuffs, … diet and, more importantly, undercutting the price of locally harvested produce. A … flour, for instance, sells for half the price of local flour and is destroying the …
The Midwest's largest ever anti-tar sands demonstration took place in Minnesota last weekend, writes David Goodner, cementing a new alliance of diverse communities united in resisting the pollution and destruction of tar sands exploitation, processing and transportation.
… and Enbridge Sandpiper - threaten the wild rice fields of their ancestral territory. "We …
Rooted in the Andean principles of sharing, resilience and 'Vivir Bien' (Living Well), Bolivian activists in the world's highest capital city are building cooperative, grassroots alternatives to the profit-oriented economy, writes Sian Cowman. Their weekly lunch party is just the most visible way in which they are challenging the injustice of capitalism and the fragmentation it inflicts on communities.
… have been losing ground to fried chicken and rice, such as quinoa, cassava, corn, fava …
The world’s favourite precious metal is hiding a dirty little secret. Laura Sevier reports on the truth behind the glitter, and asks whether gold can ever be green
… and wildlife – a dose the size of a grain of rice can be fatal; and mercury. The aftermath …
Ka Hsaw Wa has seen many of his friends killed and has suffered torture at the hands of the Burmese military. Now he is taking Unocal, one of the US companies that trades with the murderous regime, to court. One of the most wanted men in Burma, talks to The Ecologist.
… programme. By the middle of that year, rice stocks were running perilously low and …
Haiti is a failed state: one of those places that just can’t seem to get its act together, despite the best efforts of benevolent Western powers. Or so the mainstream media would have you believe. Yet history tells us a more complicated story.
… minister. Consequently, import tariffs on rice were eliminated, which led to a massive increase in subsidised US rice exports to Haiti and the devastation of Haitian rice growers. The US also demanded the right …
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.
… a deadly bacterium wiped out half of China’s rice crop, 1,300 million people would be in …
Rebecca is an ordinary woman with extraordinary ambitions, inspiring people all over the world and making 'Shift Happen' through her charity that creates free educational films
… positive ways. We've worked on the issues of rice cultivation, natural disasters, palm oil …
Investigative reporter, TOM FAWTHROP has just returned from the site of the Don Sahong - a hydrodam being constructed in the middle of an eco-paradise of wetlands in Southern Laos where over 200 fish species have been recorded.
… consumed by Lao people. Based on first-sale prices and the Mekong River Commission's … go ahead, then Vietnam will cease to be a rice exporter, and the delta denied sediment … UNDP, FAO and WFP that regularly buy Mekong rice for humanitarian missions would be …
Who needs nature when you can manufacture a superior, ersatz substitute?
… inserted a gene from the human liver into rice to enable it to digest pesticides and … trade-off between looking perfect and [the] price that the mobile operators are prepared to … over the world and ruthless control over the price of what’s sold and what it looks like. …
Agroecology is key to retaking control over food, farming and land from the 'monstrous machine' of agribusiness, biotech, big finance and 'free trade', writes Colin Todhunter, as it represents a truly viable alternative to agriculture for corporate profit. But such are the powers ranged against the world's small farmers that it must be supported by a broad-based, global people's movement.
… monocultures of a few cash-crops like wheat, rice, or sugar, rather than their traditional …
Shrimp has always been associated with the small and the puny. Why then is this seemingly harmless crustacean inspiring angry protests throughout the developing world, and why have so many people died as a result? Dr Mike Shanahan investigates
… to grind about the impacts of shrimp farming. Rice and cattle farmers have found their land … owners can be spectacular, and such is the avarice associated with the industry that the …
India's Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee stands accused of Contempt of Court for evading Supreme Court orders to carry out full biosafety tests on GM crops and publish its data, writes Colin Todhunter. The immediate issue is a herbicide tolerant GM mustard now approved for large scale trials, while earlier findings remain under an impenetrable veil of official secrecy.
… his work here . Also on The Ecologist : ' Rice, wheat, mustard ... India drives forward …