While the world’s attention is focused on controlling COVID-19, evidence points at the biodiversity crisis as a leading factor in its emergence. At first glance, the two issues might seem unrelated, but disease outbreaks and degraded ecosystems are deeply connected. Frédéric Baudron, systems agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and … [Read more...]
Ethical consumerism: shepherding back biodiversity
Climate change, over-population, pollution, plastic-filled seas. The threat to biodiversity, which ensures we have any future at all, is overwhelming. What can I do, I ask myself, to turn back the tide? Are my attempts at recycling, buying free range and organic food, signing Greenpeace petitions, boycotting products that contain palm oil and using public transport making any … [Read more...]
Win-win for people and planet: smart shepherding in South Africa
The Karoo, in South Africa, is a harsh environment in which to make a living out of agriculture—the area is mostly devoid of surface water. Its name is derived from the Khoisan word meaning “land of thirst”. The land was traditionally used by pastoralists but drought, overgrazing and predation by wild animals made this activity precarious. Predators were kept in check by … [Read more...]
Stellies farm workers turn carbon credits into cash
How do carbon credits benefit workers on an organic farm and the environment? Twenty-seven employees of the Spier wine estate, in Stellenbosch, have, through a climate change mitigation initiative, shared half the R204 000 paid out from carbon credits – derived from practicing regenerative farming on a section of the organically certified wine farm. An average of R4 000 … [Read more...]
Temporary drought relief for Aliwal North
Extra water released from the Katse Dam at the end of last year is expected to reach drought-stricken Aliwal North, an Eastern Cape town on the Orange River. Water and sanitation director Margeret-Ann Diedricks gave the go-ahead for the release on December 31 in an effort to stabilise water levels in the Orange River. “The water was observed yesterday near Quthing in … [Read more...]
Increased support for organic farmers
As part of their ongoing mission to support emerging farmers, Pick n Pay has made a commitment to provide dedicated organic produce shelf space in 50 of their stores. This commitment was made to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in March this year, in order to further assist in the development of the organic produce sector and emerging farmers around the … [Read more...]
Is this the price of your Sunday roast?
In South Africa the killing of leopards and predators on livestock farms continues, on the grounds that they are a problem to farmers. A leopard caught and left in a trap on a livestock farm in Uniondale died of dehydration and sepsis, and was left to rot in the trap. The use of gin traps (alias 'soft-catch traps'), poisons, denning and hunting dogs is common and still legal … [Read more...]
GM farmers horrors they tried to hide
In a special article for LAB, Claire Robinson, the editor of GM Watch, reports on efforts to silence a scientist whose investigations suggest that the widespread spraying of glyphosate, a herbicide widely used in GM soya farming, is doing serious harm to the health of the population. The spraying of glyphosate herbicide on genetically modified (GM) Roundup Ready soya is … [Read more...]
Savory wins grant for reversing desertification
Allan Savory and his African Centre for Holistic Management International was announced as the winner of the Buckminster Fuller Institute's 2010 Challenge for their surprising trimtab approach to reversing desertification, called "holistic rangeland management." Allan Savory has spent the last 50 years refining and evangelizing for a method of reversing desertification that … [Read more...]
Cape Town supports Meat-Free Day
Cape Town is the first African city, and one of seven leading cities in the world, to officially endorse Meat-Free Day for the sake of animal welfare, human health and climate change. The idea is that Capetonians pick one day a week where they don't eat red meat, opting for more fruit, vegetables and grains instead. Former Beatle and well-known vegetarian Paul McCartney started … [Read more...]
