Musings on sustainable food systems, agriculture vs. agroecology, and more!
This really is a time of change for the EU. As of next year, the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – a behemoth that costs Europeans 58 billion Euros per year and represents almost 40% of the EU’s budget – is due to be reformed. And on March 13th, the European Parliament is expected to vote on … Continue reading The Gap in the CAP (Take Action!)
It is always fascinating to see how closely our study topics are related to current policy discussions. In one of our classes, we talked in-depth about fishing quotas and their adverse effects, including discards – this is the part of a fishing vessel’s haul that is a) not profitable enough (being too small and young, … Continue reading Fishy: EU Ministers and Parliament Fight over Discard Ban Policy
This Al Jazeera opinion piece by UN University research associate Kei Otsuki draws a compelling picture about how Brazil has established itself as a role model in becoming one of the first (so-called) developing countries to create a sustainable and local food procurement system for its schools. In doing so, it has met four internationally-set … Continue reading The Path to Local Food in Brazil's Schools
Yesterday marked the first day of a period in US politics that was never supposed to happen – the deadline to prevent sequestration ran out, triggering through-the-board spending cuts of $85 billion dollars. This article (and the one-minute-video) gives a great overview of what stands behind it – basically, it was a bipartisan deal of … Continue reading Sequestration – When Partisan Politics Affect Real Food Security
In a country where 60% of the population is involved in agriculture, and 70 – 80% of agricultural work is done by women, within the legal system women farmers are still almost invisible. Though 18% of family farms in India are headed by women, only 2% of land is owned by them. According to a study carried out by Oxfam India … Continue reading India's Women Farmers Claim Equal Rights
In the latest stage of an extended legal tussle, mid-January of this year the Canadian Supreme Court refused to hear a case that claimed the Conservative government’s actions in abolishing the Western Canadian Wheat Board were unlawful since they failed to take into account a plebiscite by the very farmers that had been using the … Continue reading The Grand Wheat Board Controversy
Bhutan just doesn’t stop being inspirational. After championing a Gross National Happiness Index instead of measuring development in Gross Domestic Product, they have now announced that they will be the first country on its way to be exclusively organic. According to Pema Gyamtsho, Bhutan’s minister of agriculture and forests, the kingdom adopted its National Organic Policy out … Continue reading Bhutan – 100% Organic!?
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the oral arguments in a case that promises broad ramifications for the future of seed patents in America and, by extension, globally. The case of Vernon Bowman v. Monsanto is complex and shows gaps in the current legal framework with regard to seeds as patentable items that might make … Continue reading Of Farmers and Supreme Court Judges
During my undergraduate degree in Political Science, I wrote my Bachelor’s Thesis on Russia’s definition of food security and their food policies in general, so I still follow news about that topic with great interest. To summarize my 50-page paper in two sentences, Russia seems to be striving for total food independence (meaning that all … Continue reading Russia's Ban on U.S. Meat Exports – Is It Legit?
Sometimes it’s easy to follow along the news and never really connect the dots. I would venture to say that everybody has heard about the civil war in Syria, although as the novelty wears off it sadly gets less and less news coverage, though conditions for locals are far from improving. I most certainly was … Continue reading Connecting The Dots – Syria's Destroyed Agricultural Sector