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France to force big supermarkets to give unsold food to charities  By Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian, May 22, 2015 French supermarkets will be banned from throwing away or destroying unsold food and must instead donate it to charities or for animal feed, under a law set to crack down on food waste. The French national assembly […]

TALL SHIPS AFTERPARTY and TTIP TEACH-IN! 4 live bands! Hot stuff  5pm- late Come on out! On July 20th, we’ve got a full afternoon and evening TALL SHIPS AFTERPARTY and TTIP teach in at Thompson’s Point in Portland Maine.  We’ve invited our favorite agrarian bands, including The Parlor, Will Dailey  and Milk and Honey Rebellion- […]

On July 20th, as part of Maine Sail Freight events, the Greenhorns are hosting a training on the secret trade deal TTP and TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) at a public waterfront park in Portsmouth’s Strawberry Banke. If you can't make it, this is your required reading: Maine Agriculture and Food Systems in the Transatlantic Trade and […]

ATTN:: Open Meeting: Northeast Gathering on Domestic Fair Trade Friday August 14, 2015 9:00 am-12:30pm Campus Center 903 UMASS, Amherst This Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Summer Conference Free Meeting, sponsored by The Domestic Fair Trade Committee of NOFA’s Interstate Council’s (IC) Policy Committee, invites activists from the Northeast Region who are engaged in projects […]

From Sustainablepulse.com A federal judge in Argentina has ruled that an unprecedented class action lawsuit, demanding a ban on the release of GMOs and their associated pesticides, can proceed. Source:  www.lacapital.com.ar (Spanish) Translated by GM Watch The lawsuit asks the government to provisionally suspend the uncontrolled open release of GMOs – for example, the sale of RR2 […]

This week’s Ind.ie roundup focuses on de-mystifying two areas relevant to our privacy and freedoms: encryption and trade deals. They can both sound like dull and difficult topics, so I’m going to do my best to make them clearer, with the help of many, much-smarter, people… Encryption Encryption is a way to make data more […]

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June 3, 2015 Dear Senator/Assemblyperson: New York’s $47 billion farm and food sector is a vital component of the state’s economy and provides jobs for thousands of residents. Growing this important part of New York’s economy requires cultivating a next generation of farmers. One of the biggest challenges facing the next generation of farmers in New York is […]

Big news from the National Young Farmers Coalition! The Young Farmer Success Act of 2015 (H.R. 2590) has been introduced in the House by Representative Chris Gibson (R-NY) and Representative Joe Courtney (D-CT) with the goal of adding farmers to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. Under the program, farmers who make 10 years of […]

A commons cannot survive within conventional structures, which are highly permeable and designed for ease of buying, selling, and profit-maximization […] How do we structure commons governance to prevent corruptions, to serve all stakeholders, and to function efficiently? Read On lawyers and sea urchins, a sidebar for the latest edition of STIR magazine! You can pre-order […]

Message from the Our Family Farms Coalition: May 29, 2015 - CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS! We have DEFEATED the first major stage of the Monsanto-backed legal challenge that attempted to overturn our Jackson County ban on genetically engineered crops!!!!  This is a huge win for family farmers threatened by GMO contamination and a win […]

Our friend Jonathan Shepard is a documentary film maker who is the mastermind behind "The Sharecroppers." Recently, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver borrowed some of his chicken footage for their amazing piece. Check out both videos!

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Agriculture Department has developed a new government certification and labeling for foods that are free of genetically modified ingredients. USDA's move comes as some consumer groups push for mandatory labeling of the genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. The certification is the first of its kind, would be voluntary — and companies […]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbQi119hRMg&w=853&h=480] http://www.gmofreemaui.org

(Photo courtesy of Pete Walton, taken at the National FFA Conference) From NPR: Top agribusiness companies, including Monsanto, DuPont, John Deere and Dow, have moved into the information business, offering to help farmers collect that data and analyze it — for a price. But some farmers are starting to worry about how that data will […]

45 LEADING SCHOLARS, AUTHORS AND ACTIVISTS (including our own Severine von Tscharner-Fleming) convened at The Great Hall of Cooper Union, New York City, for a public “TEACH-IN” on the profound impacts—environmental, economic and social—of runaway technological expansionism and cyber immersion; the tendency to see technology as the savior for all problems. A change of direction is […]

Interview can be found on ethicalfoods.com! Seeds live at the heart of our food system. Seeded plants provide us with just about everything we need to live, from most of our foods, clothing, shelter, and even the air we breathe! Seeds are living organisms and part of the great web of life. So to have […]

KAHULUI, Hawaii —The cheers went well into the night. A small army of Maui residents rose up against the big guys and forced a moratorium on genetically modified organisms or GMOs. Now they have to dig in because this fight's not over. One of the big guys is already battling back. Monsanto released a statement […]

Source Glyphosate is the chemical name for "Roundup," which is now sold in many non-Monsanto, non-Roundup formulations. Statistics for Glyphosate usage in the USA: IIIIIIIIIIIIIII Roundup Ready crops - glyphosate-treated acres Corn and soybeans: 160 million acres Cotton: 9-10 million acres Sugarbeets and canola together: 2 to 3 million acres Alfalfa: about 6 million acre […]

This story is part of National Geographic's special eight-month Future of Food series. Rice and wheat do more than feed the world. They have also affected the way we think—in dramatically different ways. That is the result of a study published Thursday in Science comparing people from different parts of China. Researchers led by Thomas […]

CHICAGO, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Cargill Inc has suffered more than $90 million in damages from China's rejections of U.S. corn containing a genetically modified trait developed by Syngenta AG, the grain trader said in a lawsuit on Friday. The damages are a "direct and proximate result" of Syngenta's decision to sell its Agrisure Viptera […]

10 Reasons to Oppose ‘Right to Farm’ Amendments  I grew up on a dairy farm and currently live in a small town in a farming area. I have spent my 50-year professional career working in agriculture, mostly with farmers and people in rural communities. I think farmers have the same “right to farm” as other […]

Float on New York: A Waterborne People’s Climate Convergence August 31 - September 13, 2014  160 Miles in Human Powered Vessels in 2 Weeks A Climate Justice Flotilla   A fleet of full-scale paper boats is going afloat on the Hudson River, charting a course from upstate New York to New York City in a […]

an artist making good work about bodies, and the terrain of production. Jackie Nickerson - Terrain "TERRAIN is Jackie Nickerson’s new work in progress. It is about us in the landscape, how we change the world we inhabit at every moment of our being human, and how, for better and for worse, the habitus that […]

  Young farmers, this is a major situation happening in Ferguson, Missouri. If you haven't heard, click HERE. If anyone is in the area, this is a great event to attend.  From the Ferguson Farmers Market Facebook Page: The people of Ferguson need your love now more than ever before. Come to the Ferguson Farmers Market this Saturday morning […]

A note from our friend Robert LaValva, founder of New Amsterdam Market. August 1, 2014 My decision to stop holding New Amsterdam Market on South Street grew from the frustrations of running a minimally funded organization while also leading a contentious land-use campaign for nearly a decade. Thanks to the overwhelming expressions of support and […]

...due to a lack of scientific evidence from anti-GMO activists, who were labeled as fearmongers. "In the face of all of the uncontroverted scientific evidence that GMOs are safe, the proponent of the GMO-labeling proposal had the temerity to tell Safeway's shareholders that no long-term scientific evidence exists to show that GMO foods are safe," […]

From this June's Foreign Policy Journal The United States will withhold the Millennium Challenge Compact aid deal, approximately $277 million in aid, unless El Salvador purchases genetically-modified seeds from biotech giant, Monsanto. The Millennium Challenge Corporation is “a U.S. foreign aid agency that was created by the U.S. Congress in January 2004,” according to Sustainable […]

The debate really hasn't occurred in Iowa in a prominent way, in part because of the prevalence of GMOs in Iowa agriculture and because of the clout that such agribusinesses as DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto wield in this state. But that doesn't mean there aren't strong feelings in Iowa on both sides of the GMO […]

A Swiss-born man named Ernst Gotsch has spent the past 30 years developing an agroforestry system based on the natural succession of species and soil improvement in Brazil. He has developed and refined a technique of planting which can be applied to different ecosystems, but his actions in Bahia, Brazil have lead to the complete […]

they do not budge. Salvadoran Farmers Successfully Oppose the Use of Monsanto Seeds By Dahr Jamail, Global Research, July 09, 2014 Farmers across El Salvador united to block a stipulation in a US aid package to their country that would have indirectly required the purchase of Monsanto genetically modified (GM) seeds. Thousands of farmers, like […]

Nothing about the proposed lifting of this [no apples from China] regulation is good for American fruit growers or consumers. Aside from reducing the already meager profit margins of the fruit farmer by the addition of a new (HUGE) apple supplier, the importation of Chinese apples opens up the possibility of introducing foreign pest and […]

HAFA is delighted to be a finalist in theTwins “Fans Choose” All-Star Legacy Giving grant program. We need your help. As a finalist, we are now competing against six other top organizations for a $500,000 grant. In this final portion of the program, fans get to choose which organization should get the $500,000 grant. Please go […]

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In 2012, the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology published a study on the chronic toxicity of glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup and GM corn (Monsanto NK603). This study was met with much opposition and after a year of intense pressure, the journal retracted the study. It's back! This study has been republished by Environmental Sciences Europe and contains extra material […]

You'll want to follow the journey of these folks: Pedal & Plow.  Read on for their perspective! It seems everyone has an opinion on “How to Feed the World.” From The most recent National Geographic article, to the works of Michael Pollan, there is increasing awareness of the challenges our food system faces. However in […]