Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
Agriculture is affected by climate change, with particularly adverse effects in developing countries. Climate change also influences the ecology of weeds, pests and disease, with possible implications for crop protection and pesticide use. Elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) influences plant growth and the nutritional quality of most plant species, with …
Kerala state pollution Control Board has banned the use of the dreaded insecticide across the state. This notification by State Pollution Control Board on the ban on use of endosulfan in Kerala.
Bt Cotton (insect-resistant transgenic cotton) is often portrayed as that technological revolution in Indian cotton cultivation which has changed the cotton scenario in India and pushed it to higher yields to make India the second largest producer of Cotton in the world. This brief report seeks to analyse the major …
This document provides guidance for the environmental risk assessment (ERA) of genetically modified (GM) plants submitted within the framework of Regulation (EC) No. 1829/2003 on GM food and feed or under Directive 2001/18/EC on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This document provides guidance for …
Agricultural pesticides account for at least 250,000 suicide deaths each year, making pesticides the single most common means of suicide worldwide. The proportion of suicide deaths attributable to pesticide self-poisoning varies considerably across the world: in Europe and the Americas fewer than 5% of suicide deaths involve pesticides; in the …
In a prospective cohort study of patients presenting with pesticide self-poisoning, Andrew Dawson and colleagues investigate the relative human toxicity of agricultural pesticides and contrast it with WHO toxicity classifications, which are based on toxicity in rats.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking a ban on the production and use of Endosulfan. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister said that the sufferings caused by the aerial spraying of the pesticide on the estates of the Plantation …
Many pesticides and chemicals are not biodegradable, and due to bioaccumulation, can enter into food chain and ultimately affect human and animal health. Environmental exposure of pesticides to humans through ecosystems may be during cropping/ agriculture practices, consumption of food materials or air inhalation etc. Without pesticides or agricultural chemicals …
Universally, honey is believed to be a natural product. Regulations across the world say as much. The Codex Alimentarius Commission is a global body set up jointly by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop food standards for international trade; it defines …
Aarti Dhar NEW DELHI: The Malwa belt in Punjab has recorded high incidence of breast cancer in the State, according to a study by the United Kingdom-based non-governmental organisation,
The air-breathing freshwater fish Clarias is represented by three species in the aquatic ecosystems of Kerala: Clarias batrachus Hamilton (the walking catfish), Clarias dayi Hora (Malabar catfish) and Clarias dussumieri Valenciennes (Valenciennes clariid). However, the populations of these species are declining sharply in Kerala and Clarias has became rare now. …
With planning permission for Britain's biggest dairy at Nocton about to be re-submitted, The Ecologist travels to California to examine intensive milk production - and finds factory farms, conflict, intimidation, pesticides, pollution and small-scale farmers driven out of business.
A STUDY conducted by the Salim Ali Foundation has found out that all wetlands in India are poisoned with pesticides, said Dr VS Vijayan, former chairman of the Kerala State Biodiversity Board. Offering felicitations at the release of the book
Tango with nature India has been using lakes, ponds and baolis (step wells) since ancient times ('What monsoon means', July 16-31, 2010). Delhi was once replete with water bodies. In the past 50 years, government agencies started disbanding natural ponds, lakes and baolis, declaring their water untested, and therefore, unfit …
P Jonathan Ambrose ENS IF New Delhi Metallo-betalactamase (NDM-1)is the latest superbug that is threatening humans, crops too have their share of superbugs. One of them is Papaya Millibug, a pest which has reportedly destroyed most of the crops in Puducherry and southern Tamil NaduCoimbatore, Erode and Tirupattur. N Ganesh …
This by Friends of the Earth International looks at the evidence used by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) when they look at successful genetically modified (GM) plants. This year’s report shows that in contrast to ISAAA’s claims, there is significant and growing opposition to gm …
Since the completion of the endosulfan review in 2005, a significant amount of new information has become available in relation to both the toxicity and environmental aspects associated with endosulfan. The Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) and the Office of Chemical Safety Environmental Health (OCSEH) have …
A summary of scientific evidence showing that genetically modified (GM) soy and the glyphosate herbicide it is engineered to tolerate are unsustainable from the point of view of farming, the environment, rural communities, animal and human health, and economies.
As part of the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) study, XAD-resin based passive samplers are being deployed for consecutive one-year periods at numerous sites on all seven continents to determine annually averaged concentrations of persistent organic pollutants. Concentrations of banned organochlorine pesticides as well as a number of current-use pesticides …
