GMO

The biotech industry are lobbying to exclude a new generation of genetic engineering techniques from the European GMO regulations.

Benjamin Joyeux interviews Indian activist Vandana Shiva about biodiversity, seed patents, and the commons.

There are at least 15,000 lobbyists in Brussels, and some of them know the EU institutions better than the institutions know themselves, partly because they are themselves former EU officials.

Nearly 30,000 people took to the streets of Berlin on January 18, 2014 to protest the industrialisation of farming and the E.U.-U.S Free Trade Agreement currently under negotiation. In addition to making their demands heard, the organisers gave a voice and a face to Agrarwende, a citizen movement that is gaining steam in Germany and that calls for a rethinking of agriculture.

Against the backdrop of Spain’s desperate economic situation, the organic industry is one source of positive news. However despite its potential, significant barriers to its development remain.

The German Greens won the premiership of the German land (region) of Baden-Württemberg in 2011, giving them a unique opportunity to implement green policies across a range of areas. For food and agriculture, this meant an ambitious strategy based on high ecological quality standards, versus the industrialisation of our natural resources.