Posted in Grenelle, agriculture, biodiversity, climate change, food on May 19, 2008 | 1 Comment »
A bill which lays down the terms under which GM crops can be cultivated in France and creates a body to oversee its use is making its way painfully through the French legislature. This bill has generated a lot of fuss in parliament and the media. What is it all about? The bill seeks to align France’s [...]
Posted in agriculture, air quality, water on May 15, 2008 | No Comments »
A recent European study put the spotlight on pesticide content in wine. This study failed to generate any public debate in France. According to Dominique Techer, owner of Chateau Gombaude-Guillot in Pomerol and member of an assocation of wine-growers who want to see a kinder form of grape growing for the environment, the subject is [...]
Posted in Grenelle, agriculture, biodiversity, renewable energy, transport on May 12, 2008 | No Comments »
Six months after the Grenelle de l’Environnement, its conclusions have finally been translated into a legislative bill which was unveiled in parliament on April 30. The text has been welcomed by NGOs as a more or less faithful rendition of the spirit and the letter of the Grenelle but there is concern about how to [...]
Posted in agriculture, food on April 16, 2008 | No Comments »
Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, in an interview with Libération on Tuesday.
Qu: Are the “food riots” a factor in world instability?
JZ: Yes because they are not conjunctural but structural. They are not directly linked to climate phenomena (drought in Australia) or economic development (wealthy classes changing dietary habits in India [...]
Posted in agriculture, food, health on March 31, 2008 | 1 Comment »
A new study released last week by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) in Europ based on 40 bottles of wine showed that all the conventional wines tested contained residues of pesticides, some of them up to 10 different types. The survey sample - which included low-cost wines as well as high-end wines from famous producers - included wines from [...]
Posted in agriculture, food, health on March 23, 2008 | No Comments »
This exceptional documentary by Marie Monique Robin - based on a three-year investigation on four continents - was shown on Arte earlier this month. There is a blog which provides lots of background to the documentary and an interview with the journalist at Rue89.com.
Posted in agriculture, food, recycling, renewable energy on March 16, 2008 | No Comments »
Tomato growers in a seaside town in the southwestern deparment of the Landes have signed an agreement with Canadian oil company Vermilion to mass produce tomatoes in greenhouses heated using byproducts from oil drilling at Parentis-en-Born
The deal envisages building 17 hectares of greenhouses by 2012 which will provide the capacity to produce 30 to 85 million tons [...]
Posted in agriculture, food, health, waste disposal, water on February 24, 2008 | No Comments »
Most of those strawberries that you can buy at any French supermarket at this time of the year come from Huelva in southern Spain, Europe’s biggest strawberry production hub. They look more or less edible and are priced to sell - at 2.20 euros for a 250 g packet, it is hard to say no. [...]
Posted in Grenelle, agriculture, health on January 13, 2008 | No Comments »
Last week was a long and turbulent one for GM crops here in France. First a scientific panel appointed by the government to evaulate the risks of GM crops ruled that there were “serious doubts” on the product, opening the way for President Nicolas Sarkozy to invoke an EU safeguard clause which would result in [...]
Posted in agriculture, food on November 10, 2007 | No Comments »
The Alimenterre film festival focusing on food starts on November 19th at the Entrepot cinema in the 14th arrondissement. Films will be shown at 8pm on four consecutive Mondays followed by a round-table debate. Topics covered include peasants, GM crops, big agribusiness and biofuels. The programme includes “We Feed The World” by Erwin Wagenhofer, an [...]
