In The News

Hard Realities: Brazil Drops Resistance to Genetically Altered Crops

Larry Rohter September 28, 2003
Brazil, the world's second largest producer of soybeans and one of the world's most important agricultural exporters, has traditionally outlawed genetically modified (GM) crops. Now, populist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has shifted policy, choosing to allow modified soybean seeds. Some poor Brazilian farmers have already been using GM seeds obtained from neighboring Argentina...

Global Anti-GM Sentiment Slows China's Biotech Agenda

Valerie Karplus September 26, 2003
Genetic modification of agricultural products like cotton, rice, and tomatoes has recently allowed small farmers in China to avoid spraying toxic pesticides on their crops. Pesticides – laborious to apply and proven to be harmful to your health – are now becoming obsolete because genetically modified (GM) crops are automatically resistant to the most common agricultural threats. But despite early...

Field of Tears

Jonathan Watts September 16, 2003
Although we cannot know whether Lee Kyung-hae intended to die when he stabbed himself in the heart at last week's WTO meeting in Cancun, people in his hometown see him as a hero who would have given his life to bring attention to the plight of South Korean farmers displaced by trade liberalization. Once a successful farmer and advocate of modern farmer techniques – he even received an award...

Africans' Burden: West's Farm Subsidies

Marc Lacey September 10, 2003
Ugandan cotton farmers are a prime example of developing world farmers who are losing the competition with their subsidized counterparts in Europe and the United States; simply making ends meet is difficult. At the new meeting of the Doha trade talks in Cancun this week, African countries are demanding either an end to the American and European policy of subsidizing farmers – a policy which...

Agriculture on the Table at Trade Talks in Mexico

Kevin Sullivan September 10, 2003
Protesters gathered yesterday around the heavily guarded convention center in Cancun where the latest WTO meeting is taking place. The agricultural subsidies of developed countries is at the top of many representatives' agenda. Negotiators from Mexico to Australia are arguing that the US and the European Union's agricultural subsidies hurt their farmers by 'artificially'...

Protests Greet Yet Another WTO Meeting

Pranab Bardhan September 8, 2003
As the World Trade Organization prepares to meet in Cancun, Mexico, backers and detractors of globalization are clashing again, with each side claiming to represent the interests of the world's poor. Those opposed to globalization in its current form point to an increase in inequality and poverty in countries that have opened up to international capital and corporations, while supporters...

Brussels Blocks Austrian Attempt to Create GM-Free Zone

Andrew Osborn September 3, 2003
A movement against genetically-modified crops in Europe appears to be no match for the powerful US biotechnology lobby. The European Union, bowing to pressure from the US representatives to the World Trade Organization, is well on its way to lifting its 5-year old moratorium on GM crop approvals. The latest battle was won by pro-GM forces this week when the EU Commission told Upper Austria that...