Category: farming

  • Dr Agnes Kalibata responds to a report on the 2021 summit that she is leading as a special envoy for the UN secretary general

    As you note in your article (Farmers and rights groups boycott food summit over big business links, 4 March), farmers have for too long been on the fringes of global discussions about hunger, poverty and climate change, despite being the frontline of our food systems and the custodians of our natural resources.

    The UN food systems summit marks a momentous opportunity for farmers, producers and many others who support them to be at the heart of the year-long consultative process that has been launched to improve our shared food system.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The roads were icy and the wind biting cold as we started our 10,000-km journey through the heart of America one January morning. Sristy Agrawal, Rajashik Tarafder — young physicists pursuing their PhDs — Rumela Gangopadhyay, a theatre artiste, and I wanted to witness the state of farming in rural America, the quintessential “Trump country”.

    Shooting in the frigid weather amid a pandemic was gruelling, but the warm welcome we got from farmers — Republican or Democrat, black or white — made up for it. We were surprised to learn that the American farm landscape, like India’s, is dominated by small farmers. They make up 90% of all farms, but produce only 25% of the market value. This was our first clue to America’s rural crisis. In the last decade, income of small farms has consistently been in the red.

    The post How ‘Big Ag’ Ate Up America’s Small Farms appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • 4 Mins Read 22-year-old climate activist Disha Ravi has recently become the face of India’s ongoing farmer protests. She had been for over three years a prominent environmental campaigner, but she’s now been arrested at her home in Bengaluru and charged with sedition and criminal conspiracy by Delhi authorities. In a defiant message, Ravi made clear that there […]

    The post India Climate Activist Disha Ravi Arrested: ‘I Supported The Farmers Because They Are Our Future’ appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • 4 Mins Read Given the enormous role agriculture plays in driving global emissions, the expert scientific consensus is that our food system must change if we are to stand a chance against climate change. But doing so will require seismic shifts across the entire food supply chain, from retailers to manufacturers, and crucially, farmers and ranchers, who are […]

    The post A New Program Is Looking To Help Farmers Pivot To The Alt Protein Economy appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • In 1996, Eddie Wise, the son of a sharecropper, purchased a farm with a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Twenty years later, the USDA foreclosed on the property and evicted him. Reveal investigates his claim that he was discriminated against because of his race.

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    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • The herbicide dicamba is causing a civil war in farm country. Plus, honeybee rustling in California’s almond groves. Lastly, sulfur and its link to asthma in children.

    Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • This episode was originally broadcast July 1, 2017.

    Picture an American farmer. Chances are, the farmer you’re imagining is white – more than 9 out of 10 American farmers today are. But historically, African Americans played a huge role in agriculture. The nation’s economy was built largely on black farm labor: in bondage for hundreds of years, followed by a century of sharecropping and tenant farming.

    In the early 1900s, African American families owned one-seventh of the nation’s farmland, 15 million acres. A hundred years later, black farmers own only one-quarter of the land they once held and now make up less than 1 percent of American farm families.

    The federal government has admitted it was part of the problem. In 1997, a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture said discrimination by the agency was a factor in the decline of black farms. A landmark class-action lawsuit on behalf of black farmers, Pigford v. Glickman, was settled in 1999, and the government paid out more than $2 billion as a result. But advocates for black farmers say problems persist.

    On this episode of Reveal, reporter John Biewen of “Scene on Radio” tells the story of a black farmer who says the USDA treated him unfairly because of his race.

    Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • In 1996, Eddie Wise, the son of a sharecropper, purchased a farm with a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Twenty years later, the USDA foreclosed on the property and evicted him. Reveal investigates his claim that he was discriminated against because of his race.

    To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.