Fact Sheets
Agriculture on the Road to Bali
Published September 10, 2013
There are several proposals on the WTO’s agricultural negotiations table, but the dominant discussion ahead of December’s Bali Ministerial Conference is the November 2012 proposal put forward by 46 countries under the auspices of the G-33. The G-33 is a group of developing countries united by primarily...
Chemicals and Obesity
Published July 8, 2013
While diet and exercise are important factors in the obesity epidemic, an emerging body of science demonstrates that exposures to chemical obesogens may be important contributors. A number of chemicals known to disrupt hormones also appear to affect the size and number of fat cells or hormones that regulate appetite...
Who’s at the Table? Demanding Answers on Agriculture in the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Published March 4, 2013
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has the potential to become the biggest regional free-trade agreement (FTA) in history, both because of the size of the economies participating in the negotiations and because it holds open the possibility for other countries to quietly “dock in” to the existing...
Autism, Environment and Diet: Questions and Answers
Published December 10, 2012
Q: What causes autism? A: There is no one cause of autism. Multiple factors in our food and broader environment combine with inherited factors to contribute to autism. All of these factors can play different roles, and can take on various levels of significance in different individuals—all of us are unique in...
No Time to Lose
Published October 26, 2012
For all 147 studies, download the expanded version of the bibliography. 1. Antibiotic resistance and why it occurs Health professionals in training learn the basics of antibiotic resistance summarized, for example, in Levy (1999, 2002),1,2 Tenover (2006)3 and Courvalin (2006).4 As science evolves, it has become clear...
An Update on the World Bank’s Experimentation with Soil Carbon
Published October 4, 2012
At the first Hague Conference on Food Security, Agriculture and Climate Change in November 2010, the World Bank launched its first agricultural soil carbon project in Africa. The Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project (KACP) has been promoted as a “triple win” for mitigation, adaptation and increased crop...
Tiny, Scary, Unregulated
Published October 1, 2012
Note: The September 28, 2012 episode of Radio Sustain also focuses on nanotechnology in agriculture and food, featuring an interview with IATP's Steve Suppan. Listen to the episode. Tiny It seems like the stuff of science fiction: the ability to manipulate matter atom by individual atom into new structures, some...
A Climate-smart Idea?
Published August 31, 2012
This piece is a summary of a longer, more in-depth piece by Doreen Stabinsky entitled Soil Carbon and the Offset Market: Practices, Players and Politics The World Bank and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are promoting “climate-smart agriculture” (CSA), which includes practices that...
Working Landscapes Certificate
Published April 25, 2012
Embracing the latest technologies, diversifying their operation and pioneering new markets are just part of life today for Angela and Kerry Knuth, who farm more than 3,000 acres of corn and soybeans near Mead, Nebraska. Over the past decade, Kerry and Angela have used software and computers to track the true costs of...
Exporting Obesity
Published April 5, 2012
Obesity trends Public health experts no longer accept that the obesity epidemic can be explained solely as the outcome of poor individual choices. They understand, rather, that the food environments or food “defaults” surrounding people constrain the actual choices people are likely to make, i.e., the...
