Agriculture

09/01/21
Author: 
Eric Doherty
Aerial view of a biofuel crop harvested in Kahului, Maui, Hawaii, on March 5, 2018. Photo by Forest and Kim Starr/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0 US)

January 5th 2021

On Dec. 16, the B.C. government released the CleanBC 2020 Climate Change Accountability Report, which revealed that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation, the single biggest source in B.C., have risen by 23 per cent since 2007, and six per cent in 2018 alone.

05/01/21
Author: 
The Energy Mix
Oil palm plantation - Achmad Rabin Taim/Wikimedia Commons

JANUARY 4, 2021

While other kids attend school, tens of thousands of children are toiling away in Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil plantations, vulnerable to trafficking and routinely exposed to pesticides and other workplace dangers. And their only hope for a better life lies in public pressure against Big Palm Oil. 

13/12/20
Author: 
Amrit Dhillon in Delhi and Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Protesting farmers listen to a speaker at the Delhi-Haryana state border in Singhu . Photograph: Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images

Dec. 11, 2020

Digging in: on the frontlines as farmers lay siege to Delhi

hen the sacks were ripped opened, almonds poured out, more than 10,000kg of them. It was not the first donation that had been sent to the Indian farmers defiantly camped out along the periphery of Delhi. In previous days trucks had rolled up and disgorged sacks of rice, pulses, flour, vegetables, sugar, tea and biscuits.

03/12/20
Author: 
Marc Fawcett-Atkinson
Johann Wieghardt trying out plant-based deli meats for the first time. “Better than I thought it would be. Would consider eating it if I was going to become vegetarian,” he said. Photo by Rochelle Baker

Dec. 3 2020

Vegetables are becoming increasingly common in an unusual place: the grocery store meat aisle.

Sales of alternative, or plant-based, meats are booming worldwide. Driven by skyrocketing demand from consumers striving to cut back on meat and companies facing increasing pressure to reduce their environmental footprint, the market is anticipated to reach $23.1 billion by 2025.

26/11/20
Author: 
Jonathan Watts
The decline in smallholdings worldwide is causing a rise in destructive monocultures. Photograph: Taina Sohlman/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy

Nov. 24, 2020

Researchers warn land inequality is rising with farmland increasingly dominated by a few major companies

One per cent of the world’s farms operate 70% of crop fields, ranches and orchards, according to a report that highlights the impact of land inequality on the climate and nature crises.

Since the 1980s, researchers found control over the land has become far more concentrated both directly through ownership and indirectly through contract farming, which results in more destructive monocultures and fewer carefully tended smallholdings.

26/11/20
Author: 
Marc Fawcett-Atkinson
Skyrocketing land prices make it difficult for many mid-sized farms, like this one near Vancouver, B.C., to break even. It's one factor contributing to land inequality worldwide. Photo by Marc Fawcett-Atkinson

November 26th 2020

More than two-thirds of the world’s fields, ranches and orchards are owned by one per cent of its farmers, according to a report released Tuesday.

Land inequality — the concentrated ownership of land — is skyrocketing globally, including in Canada and the U.S. It’s a trend driven by large-scale industrial farming and export-oriented agricultural policies with wide-ranging impacts on everything from food security to climate change.

22/11/20
Author: 
Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN Business

November 19, 2020

New York (CNN Business)Tyson supervisors at a pork processing facility in Waterloo, Iowa took bets on how many workers would get infected with Covid-19, even as they took measures to protect themselves and denied knowledge of the spread of the illness at work, according to new allegations in a lawsuit against the company and some employees.

04/11/20
Author: 
Marc Fawcett-Atkinson
Making agriculture more sustainable is a widely shared goal — but how to make necessary changes remains up for debate. Photo by Rural Health Professions Action Plan/Wikimedia Commons

November 4th 2020

Canadian agribusinesses are asking for a standardized scale to measure their environmental impacts — a request some advocates worry is little more than smoke and mirrors.

27/10/20
Author: 
Stephen Pyne
A burning forest. Photo by Matt Howard on Unsplash.

October 23rd 2020

This article was originally published by Yale Environment 360 and appears here as part of Canada's National Observer's collaboration with Climate Desk.

 

There is a paradox at the core of Earth’s unravelling firescapes.

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