Subjects Archives: Agriculture

  Food Sovereignty Tour + Agroecology Short Course in Venezuela, July 10-22 July 10 to 22, 2011 Please register ASAP! You are invited to participate in a study tour to study food sovereignty, social movements, and social change in Venezuela, July 10 to 22.  The tour will examine issues of land reform, urbanization, rural development, […]

Paul Jay: The title of your upcoming book, Syria’s Democratic Experiment, first of all, what is the experiment?  And then talk a little about how we got there. Joshua Landis: Well, the book really deals with a period at the time of independence — 1946, ’45, ’46 — in Syria, when the French left and […]

High Levels of Radiation Detected in Vegetables, Unprocessed Milk, Water, and Soil
Unnecessary Radiation Exposure Imposed Due to Japanese Government’s Lack of Evacuation Plan and “Declaration of Safety”

  As of 11:30 pm EDT Monday 3/14/11 Three of the six reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear facility were operating at the time of the earthquake — Units 1, 2, and 3.  The reactors shut down when the earthquake hit, but even after they stopped producing power, the reactor cores were very hot and […]

While the advanced capitalist countries are hit by an acute crisis of recession and unemployment, the developing world is facing, apart from the fallout of this crisis, an acute food crisis.  Hunger afflicts the developing world today with a virulence not seen in decades.  World food prices, not just in nominal but in real terms […]

Why, of all possible commodities, did you choose to write a book on rubber? The Devil’s Milk: A Social History of Rubber” width=”260″ height=”393″ border=”0″ title=”BUY THIS BOOK”>THE DEVIL’S MILK: A Social History of Rubberby John Tully BUY THIS BOOK The Devil’s Milk: A Social History of Rubber Book Launch with author John Tully Tuesday, […]

The events of the last weeks are one of those historical moments where the lessons of many decades can be telescoped into a few brief moments and seemingly minor occurrences can take on immense significance.  The entry of millions of Egyptians onto the political stage has graphically illuminated the real processes that underlie the politics […]

There is much confusion about the current economic situation, among left media and organizations as well as in the mainstream media.  This is certainly understandable given its complexity.  But what many are referring to as causes are symptoms of a deeper underlying problem — in other words, sparks that produced the Great Recession by igniting […]

So now we are back in another phase of sharply rising global food prices, which is wreaking further devastation on populations in developing countries that have already been ravaged for several years of rising prices and falling employment chances.  The food price index of the FAO in December 2010 surpassed its previous peak of June […]

The debate over the demographic trends in the United States and other wealthy countries can be described a debate between those who care about our children and those who want more of them.  This is apparent once a little bit of logic is applied to the tales of demographic disaster being hawked by those concerned […]

The “small round” surveys of the NSSO are usually not considered to be so good at capturing trends, because their smaller size makes them non-comparable with the quinquennial large surveys.  However, the 64th Round was a much larger survey than normal (with a sample of 1,25,578 households: 79,091 in rural areas and 46,487 in urban […]

The year 2010 would be remembered as a scam-tainted year when allegations of corruption, both public and private, were difficult to keep track of.  Overwhelmed by these allegations, the government has attempted to focus on the fact that India is among the fastest growing countries in the world.  But even that boastful claim has been […]

I am taking a second, between various important analyses that are currently taking up my time, to refer to two issues that should be known to our people. The United Nations, at the instigation of the United States, the creator of poverty and chaos in the Haitian Republic, decided to send into Haiti its forces […]

Introduction Molière’s 1670 his play, The Bourgeois Gentleman, presented before the court of Louis XIV, mocked a foolish, social-climbing merchant.  In his effort to remake himself, the merchant takes lessons to help him pass as an aristocrat.  In a basic lesson on language, he is both surprised and delighted to learn he had been speaking […]

  Would you say that you’re among the pessimists who regard the five decades of African independence as five lost decades? I’m not a pessimist and I don’t think that these have been five lost decades.  I remain extremely critical, extremely severe with respect to African states, governments, and political classes, but I’m even more […]

Pablo Solón, Bolivia’s Ambassador to the United Nations: To the Via Campesina protesters, to social movements, we can tell you: What you’re doing is key because we, Bolivia, the ALBA countries, are not going to be able to change the reality of these negotiations if the people of the whole world don’t raise their consciousness, […]

  Oscar Martínez is Deputy Head of the International Relations Department of the Cuban Communist Party.  This interview was conducted during the South African Communist Party visit to Cuba this month. What is the nature of the economic problems Cuba is currently experiencing? In the context of our other problems, the US economic and financial […]

The government of the USA has planned for India to become an important consumer of its agricultural exports and crop science.  India has also been planned as a host country for an agricultural research agenda directed by American crop-seed biotech corporations.  This is to be achieved through a variety of programmes in India, some of […]

It is now abundantly clear that each and every response by the eurozone (EZ) to the galloping sovereign debt crisis has been consistently underwhelming.  This includes the joint EZ-IMF operation, back in May, to “rescue” Greece and, in short order, the quite remarkable overnight formation of a so-called “special vehicle” (officially the European Financial Stability […]

The past decade has been one in which export-led economic strategies have come to be seen as the most successful, driven by the apparent success of two countries in particular — China and Germany.  In fact, the export-driven model of growth has much wider prevalence as it was adopted by almost all developing countries. This […]