GRACE Communications Foundation
I recently read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and was shocked. Published in 1962, it attacked the use of pesticides and read like a story that might have been written today about the detrimental effects of ____ (fill in the blank), a product that hasn’t been properly tested, but is being sold anyway.
Nothing says summer like strawberries, but before you bite into your next, read this. Methyl Bromide, a soil fumigant often used on strawberry crops, was phased out in the US by 2005 because it was depleting the ozone layer. The phase out was based on the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and the Clean Air Act. And what did they replace it with? Another toxic pesticide.
"Vanishing of the Bees" follows the story of American beekeepers who are rapidly losing their bees to the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The investigation reveals that the culprit may be tied to our industrial farming practices.
US-born James Whitlow Delano has spent the last 17 years traveling throughout Asia shooting challenging human rights situations and environmental disasters.
My Grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s, turned 93 on Valentine’s Day. My grandparents loved fresh, whole foods - they gardened, cooked and bought in bulk to preserve food for the winter. My grandmother picked blackberries along the sides of roads by their house and they bought peaches from a farmer in the town next to theirs.
Industrial agriculture and monocropping has caused the extinction of thousands of breeds of fruits, vegetables and livestock. The July issue of National Geographic highlights the hopeful work of seed preservation in this article, Food Ark.
Over at GOOD magazine, July’s 30-day Challenge is to Waste Less. (Twitter hashtag: #30daysofgood) Here at GRACE, we've been having a great time checking out the the GOOD staff updates and the responses to the questions they've been putting to their readers.
Major American universities are practicing "land-grabbing" - buying up African farmland in deals that will likely result in displacement of small farmers, environmental devastation and the further impoverishment and political destabilization. Students and alumni: you have the power to change this.
There's a new GMO in town: Monsanto's GE sweet corn. If you're unhappy about this, you're not alone. Food and Water Watch has initiated a national campaign to pressure Walmart to refuse to sell products using the GE corn.
A new study found high levels of arsenic in infant formula, energy bars, cereal bars and energy gels containing organic brown rice syrup. But there are still no regulatory limits for arsenic in food.
City folk are now peeing glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup - but that isn't the only news that's garnered Monsanto headlines recently. Here's a "roundup" (ouch) of important Monsanto and GMO news.
In a little-known Hallmark holiday back-story, the disturbing nature of which rivals even Valentine’s Day, the woman who founded Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis, actually spent the last years of her life fighting against its commercialization. In the short nine years that it had existed, for Anna, the day lost its meaning. Obviously, she lost her fight against the day’s commercialization; today Mother’s Day has become one of the most financially successful U.S. holidays.
For over a decade an international debate has raged over the cause of the global decline of honeybees. In just the past month, three separate studies have connected bee die-offs and neonicotinoid pesticides- a culprit blamed by farmers and scientists since the debate began.
King Corn is a humorous and touching documentary about two best friends who decide to move to Iowa to grow an acre of corn after finding out through laboratory hair analysis that their bodies are primarily made out of corn. But this is not your typical buddy picture. While it traces a year in the life of two friends, the film focuses on the history of corn in modern America and the filmmakers' relationship with the crop they've decided to grow.
Though healthy soil is invaluable, industrial agricultural practices degrade this natural resource by causing erosion, nutrient depletion, and soil contamination.
Pesticides are used extensively by industrial crop producers. Find out how these toxins damage the environment and compromise human health.
