31/January/22

 

In an excerpt from his new book, British farmer James Rebanks explores what he calls “the devastation industrialized agriculture has wrought on our landscapes and foodscapes” and argues that “the global challenge of how we live sustainably on this planet is really a local challenge". He writes that during a trip to the US, all the American farmers he met told him the same thing: "America had chosen industrial farming and abandoned its small family farms, and this was the result — a landscape and a community that were falling apart. They showed us fields of oilseed rape that were full of weeds because they were now resistant to the pesticides that had been overused. They spoke of mountains ripped open for minerals, and rivers polluted, and farming people leaving the land or holding on in hidden poverty. And the worse it all got, the more people seemed to gravitate to charlatans with their grand promises and ready-made scapegoats to focus all their anger on. I felt I had landed in a future that didn’t work." Civil Eats

 

 

Ecuador's constitutional court has ruled that the introduction of transgenic seeds and crops into the country for research purposes is unconstitutional, reaffirming the 2008 constitution which declares Ecuador free of GMOs. The Court also mandated that traditional knowledge be included in the definition of "quality seed", and that this definition is not limited to Western scientific knowledge. The ruling is another step towards keeping Ecuador free of transgenic seeds and crops, and towards valuing and strengthening native seeds. Acción Ecológica (Spanish text)

 

 

A new "Brexit Freedoms" Bill will be brought forward by the government, under plans unveiled by the prime minister, Boris Johnson. The Bill will make it easier to amend or remove outdated "retained EU law" - legacy EU law kept on the statute book after Brexit as a bridging measure – and will accompany "a major cross-government drive to reform, repeal and replace outdated EU law". [GMW comment: This bonfire of EU regulations is extremely likely to result in weakened protections for health, the environment, and social rights.] UK Government