Agriculture, Beverages & Food

A new PAN North America report reveals that several widely-used pesticides are regularly found in California air far from where they are applied at concentrations that significantly exceed levels deemed "safe" by regulatory agencies Read More

LAGO AGRIO, ECUADOR: ChevronTexaco will face off against indigenous Ecuadorians in an Ecuadorian court and the stakes are massive. On May 6th, attorneys representing more than 30,000 Ecuadorian rainforest peoples will file suit in Lago Agrio, a small oil town in the heart of Ecuador's Oriente region, charging the petroleum giant with systematically destroying their homeland through massive dumping of highly toxic wastewater and crude oil over the two decades of the company's operations in Ecuador. Read More

As more than 160 nations prepare to sign a landmark treaty to control tobacco, the Bush administration is waging a last-ditch effort to gut the accord of its strongest provisions, including a worldwide ban on tobacco advertising. Read More

Brazil will permit the sale of genetically modified soy harvested this year in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, even though it was planted illegally. Consumer and environmental groups are outraged. Read More

Agricultural workers and their families are being poisoned, rural lands, forests, oceans and waters are devastated, biodiversity is being destroyed, and food is unfit for human consumption. With these words, 140 participants from 17 countries at the First Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific Congress in Manila last week warned the world that industrial agriculture as conducted by transnational corporations is undermining the resources needed to sustain food production. Read More

In what is a natural -- but all too rare -- partnership, farmworkers and family farmers have joined forces in the battle against the corporate domination and consolidation of agriculture, as several family farm organizations have endorsed the Taco Bell boycott! Read More

The nation's tobacco companies should forfeit $289 billion in profits for a scheme to deceive and defraud smokers and the general public, the Justice Department says in court filings. Read More

An international list of chemicals subject to trade controls will expand to include all forms of asbestos, three pesticides, and two forms of lead if recommendations made by a committee of government appointed experts is approved under the Rotterdam Convention. The international treaty requires exporting countries trading in a list of hazardous substances to obtain the prior informed consent of importing countries before proceeding with the trade. Read More

A coaliton of farmers is fighting to keep Monsanto's "Roundup Ready Wheat" out of Canada. They say GM contamination would threaten exports. Read More

CANBERRA- Ahead of its mid-April annual general meeting, British American Tobacco (BAT) is facing increasing pressure from human rights groups in Asia and elsewhere to withdraw from a joint-venture partnership with the Burmese military regime. Read More