ANVISA Proposes Ban on Endosulfan, Partial Ban on Acephate
Friday, September 4th, 2009Following up on its review of 12 pesticides banned or severely restricted in other nations, Brazil’s National Sanitary Vigilance Agency (ANVISA) is proposing a ban on the use in that country of the active ingredient endosulfan in pesticides used in growing cotton, cocoa, coffee, sugarcane and soybeans. The proposal, released for public comment today, also […]
Sam’s Club to Sell Fair Trade Certified Coffee from Brazil
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009From Walmart: Sam’s Club Introduces New Fair Trade Certified Coffee from Brazil Brazilian coffee farmers link with mass market coffee consumers Today, Walmart, TransFair USA, SEBRAE-Minas Gerais and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced that a new Fair Trade Certified coffee from Brazil will be sold to Sam’s Club members across the country. […]
Time for a New Biodiesel Policy in Brazil?
Friday, July 17th, 2009Luiz Prado says it’s time for Brazil to adopt a “serious” national policy on biodiesel. I think he has a point. Brazil has had a biodiesel policy — er, make that a biodiesel program — since 2003. It has a number of elements, but the lynchpins are a blending mandate (currently set at B4), and […]
FONTAGRO to Fund IDB Studies on Climate Change Impact on Agriculture
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009From the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB): FONTAGRO extends agreement with IDB The Bank will manage the Fund until 2011 and finance climate change impact studies The Inter-American Development Bank and the Regional Fund for Agricultural Technology (FONTAGRO, for its initials in Spanish) have extended until 2011 their agreement whereby the IDB will continue to manage […]
What the Other Guy Blogs About: Biofuel from Coffee
Saturday, January 24th, 2009When it was first reported that biofuel could be made from coffee oil, I read as many press reports and blog pieces on it as I could find, because the concept intrigued me. Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), after all, is a major coffee growing region. And no, I am not just referring to […]
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, […]