Dan sends in this nugget from South Africa, about the constraints that huge farms face there. By way of background, "one farmer, one bullet" is an Anti-Apartheid slogan that was directed rather pointedly at the large land-owning rural whites, who where the instruments and beneficiaries of Apartheid.

End of the giant farms

Yolandi Groenewald

There is no place for large farms in South Africa and some areas of game parks should be distributed to the landless, a top land official told the Mail & Guardian last week.

Tozi Gwanya, director general of the Department of Land Affairs, also said that "one farmer, one farm" should be seriously considered.

"Though it is a bad slogan," he smiled. "It reminds me too much of one farmer, one bullet." ... read more »

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Posted on 21 November, 2008 - 20:26

First of two round-ups on gender and the food crisis. The first from the excellent Foreign Policy In Focus (to whom I still owe a piece on the Doha WTO round which, while apparing irrelevant, is as urgent as ever). ... read more »

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Posted on 4 November, 2008 - 05:36

The mad travel schedule just doesn't seem to let up. So here are a couple of post-cards from the road. First, I was lucky enough to join some of the finest US food justice activists at an event in New York City last week. There were many highlights, all of which you can see here, but the most sustained and deserved applause went to Gerardo Reyes Chávez, a leader and organizer for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). You can hear his speech below.

... read more »

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Posted on 23 October, 2008 - 05:06

The mad travel schedule just doesn't seem to let up. So here are a couple of post-cards from the road. First, I was lucky enough to join some of the finest US food justice activists at an event in New York City last week. There were many highlights, all of which you can see here, but the most sustained and deserved applause went to Gerardo Reyes Chávez, a leader and organizer for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). You can hear his speech below.

... read more »

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Posted on 23 October, 2008 - 05:06

Next week sees World Food Day. Some of us will be trying to draw some indication about food policy out of the McCain and Obama camps by holding a big event in New York City. But in Asia, the Pesticide Action Network is telling it how it is, for nearly a billion people. Below, the press release for World Foodless Day. ... read more »

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Posted on 8 October, 2008 - 18:54

A few days back, I posted a piece from Pambazuka News on the effects of the food crisis on women. Below is the fact-filled source for much of that article, by Women Thrive Worldwide and is well worth a read. ... read more »

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Posted on 31 July, 2008 - 13:23

The splendid George Caffentzis has kindly allowed me to share this piece, written for Turbulence in the UK.

Starvation Politics: From Ancient Egypt to the Present

... read more »

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Posted on 31 July, 2008 - 03:19

Here's something on the WTO now up at Comment is Free.

When the World Trade Organisation talks collapsed in Seattle in 1999, there were parties in the streets, and a wailing and renting of clothes in the corridors of power. The failure of the Doha round of WTO talks in Geneva this week has drawn a more muted reaction from both its boosters and critics. In Seattle, it was possible to tell a story in which the voices of people on the streets mattered, and in which the disenfranchised had scored a victory against an unaccountable front company for international capital. This week's failure had less to do with global justice, and much more to do with the growing pains of international capitalism. ... read more »

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Posted on 30 July, 2008 - 18:41

When advocates of free trade policies pick a developing country poster-child, they often go for Brazil and Argentina. Which is why a new report, below, is especially useful in undermining the myths around agricultural trade liberalisation. The most important observation:

South America's soybean industries are winners from global trade liberalization, but few of the benefits go to rural communities. Based on high-input, industrialized monoculture farming, employment and wages have both declined despite dramatic increases in production.

Now read on... ... read more »

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Posted on 18 July, 2008 - 21:41

Couple of articles at odds with one another on the prognosis for free trade, given the current political climate, and the food crisis. The Washington Post has editorialised about why "an obscure Frenchman" - Pascal Lamy, current head of the World Trade Organization - "might be able to save the world. The only question is when he should do it."

Away from the free-trade leg-humping comes a more sober article from Bloomberg on the fading enthusiasm for free trade. ... read more »

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Posted on 17 June, 2008 - 05:25