Mexico’s DF Promotes Organics
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009Over the last couple of years, there have been several signs that the government of Mexico’s Federal District (DF) — the zone encompassing Mexico City and its environs — is growing more serious about cleaning up its act and going green. The GDF finally issued the implementing regulation for its breakthrough waste law. It published […]
Pesticide Residue Levels in Brazilian Food
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009Which fresh food sold in Brazil has been found most likely to present “irregular” pesticide residues — levels higher than those permitted by regulation, or even residues of pesticides banned or not authorized for use on the foodstuff it is found on? Peppers. In 2008 more than 64% of the pepper samples analyzed by the […]
Bolivia Bans Dozens of Pesticides, Activists Call for Rest of LAC to Follow
Monday, February 2nd, 2009At the close of the meeting of the Latin American section of the Pesticide Action Network (known by its Spanish acronym RAP-AL) in La Paz last week, host country Bolivia announced that it was banning all pesticides with active ingredients classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as extremely (Class 1a) or highly (Class 1b) […]
Brazilian Export of Organic Produce
Sunday, January 11th, 2009Brazil’s Agriculture Ministry (MAPA) reports that between August 2006 and September 2008 Brazil exported 37,000 metric tons of organic produce worth about US$26.7 million, 32% of it to The Netherlands, 15% to Switzerland, 12% to the US and 7% to the UK. Over half (56%) of the exports were organic soy. Organic exports in 2007 […]
Outlook for “Green Jobs” / Prognóstico para “empleos verdes”
Monday, December 15th, 2008While the idea of creating a “green economy” with “green jobs” has been around quite a while, it really started to gain serious consideration as the climate change debate heated up, and recently moved front-and-center during the US presidential elections and the debates about how best to respond to the global financial crisis (here, here, […]
Promoting Organic Produce in Developing Countries / Facilitar la agricultura orgánica en los países en desarrollo
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008Temas Note: I have been preparing an upcoming series of posts on organic production in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), which is much more complex and multi-layered an issue than you might think. This news is timely and welcome for LAC, since the region has become one of the biggest producers of organic produce […]