In The News

Bitter-Sweet of GM Crops

Pennapa Hongthong January 7, 2004
Genetically modified crops have been hailed as the great savior for farmers in their never-ending struggle to ward off pests and achieve higher productivity. But these claims should be taken with caution, says this commentary in Thailand's The Nation. Before Thai farmers jump on the bandwagon with GM crops, the author warns, they would be wise to learn from the experience of cotton grower...

10,000 Animals to Be Culled as SARS Returns to China

Jonathan Watts January 6, 2004
After a six-month absence, SARS has re-appeared in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, with a 32-year old man confirmed to be infected with a new strain of the virus. Provincial officials have declared a "patriotic" extermination of civet cats - the animal from which the virus is believed to have passed to humans - and variety of vermin. The World Health Organization, however...

UN Calls for More Aid to Help North Korea Reform

Andrew Ward December 3, 2003
North Korea has seen much of its food aid disappear in the past year, presumably as donor nations aim to pressure Pyongyang to stop its nuclear weapons program. In the shift to a market economy, one million people were left without food, and analysts say that the politically-minded decision to cut off aid is starving the public. Without an increase in aid, North Koreans will be in dire straits...

Most of the World Still Does Without

November 25, 2003
The world's hungry and sick are more numerous than many may realize. In a survey of 38,000 people in 44 countries - a feat accomplished in large part thanks to globalization - the Pew Foundation finds that hunger and health problems continue to plague people around the globe. Even in the United States, the report notes, medical care is beyond the reach of more people now than it was in the...

Difficult Times for Coffee Industry as Demand Falls

Tony Smith November 25, 2003
The international market for coffee is not good for the world's millions of coffee farmers. Facing prices at a 30-year low and production increases that outstrip demand, hundreds of thousands of coffee farm workers in Central America and Brazil are being forced off the land or into production of more profitable, yet harmful, coca production. Some former farmers are moving north to find work...

Harvesting Poverty

November 11, 2003
A rift is splitting the American farm lobby, separating those farmers that can prosper on their own and those that rely on subsidies, this editorial in The New York Times argues. This rupture has been catalyzed by the proposal to cap the amount individual farmers can receive in government aid, a move supported by many smaller farmers but feared by their larger counterparts. Currently, the...

Following the Pepper Grinder All the Way to Its Source

R. W. Apple Jr. October 29, 2003
If it had not possessed such a monopoly over pepper during Europe’s Age of Exploration, “India might well never have been colonized at all,” remarks the managing director of Cochin Spices. His company is a modern-day link between the world’s most ubiquitous spice and its oldest source. They buy raw pepper from local farmers in southwest India, where the spice originated, and process it....