There’s a great new report out from the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The report shows that the fast food industry could “fully absorb” a minimum wage increase from $7.25 to $15 over four years. “Fully absorb” is technical talk for: the industry can easily pay workers more without […]
Check out this fabulous new report from the new non-profit, the U.S. Right to Know Network. “Seedy Business: What Big Food is hiding with its slick PR campaign on GMOs” [PDF] includes amazing detail about the ways GMO companies have been working to control the narrative about the benefits and risks of GMOs. The report […]
by Anna Lappé for Al Jazeera America In October in Istanbul, farmers, agricultural researchers and advocates from around the world gathered for the Organic World Congress, organized by the 42-year-old International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM). With 800 affiliates in 124 countries, IFOAM comes together every three years to gauge its global efforts to promote chemical-free […]
A few weeks ago, at an international summit of the global network for organic agriculture, delegates from Fiji were excited to share the news that one of the islands in the tiny archipelago nation had gone 100 percent organic. The community had kicked out all toxic pesticides and imported, synthetic fertilizer. The impetus for the decision […]
by Anna Lappé for Earth Island Journal The climate movement could learn some lessons from the fight against Big Tobacco via EIJ: As a sneak peek into Earth Island Journal’s Winter 2015 print issue, we are unlocking writer-activist Anna Lappé’s new column, “Digging Deeper” At 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 21, the 400,000 people gathered […]
by Anna Lappé for Earth Island Journal The face of Berkeley vs. Big Soda is the face of mainstream America At Tuesday night’s Berkeley vs. Big Soda victory party in the heart of downtown, the results rolled in slowly, but spirits were high. Early returns around 8:00 p.m., with only 8 percent of precincts reporting, showed the […]
by Anna Lappé for TakePart A few years ago, I was at a biotechnology trade meeting listening to a panel on GMOs. Throughout the two-hour session, the panelists all sang the praises of the technology—not too surprising at an industry event. (At the time, the GMOs under commercial planting were limited to seeds genetically engineered […]
by Anna Lappé for Al Jazeera America On Nov. 7, Martin Sheen’s latest film, “A Prayer for Rain,” will be released in U.S. theaters. It brings to life the story of the tragic chemical disaster 30 years ago in Bhopal, India, and raises the question, Are we safe from a similar tragedy unfolding again? Chemical […]
by Anna Lappé for World Food Day When my first daughter was born, we lived in a tiny walkup apartment in Brownstone Brooklyn. In the heart of the 8.3-million-large metropolis of New York City, one might think that getting farm-fresh produce from family farmers we trusted would be tough. Instead, we had access to […]