STWR - Share The World's Resources

A high-profile scientific report has stressed the global need to promote sustainable biodiversity while supporting small-scale farmers. But will governments have the political will to rethink agriculture beyond business-as-usual, ask Lim Li Ching, Elenita Daño and Hira Jhamtan.

The crisis of rising food prices are leading people to question the fundamental rationale of pushing for more free trade.  What we need now is food sovereignty – the kind that is defined and driven by small farmers and fisherfolk themselves, argues GRAIN.

The epidemic of biopiracy is an assault on our living heritage of biodiversity and cumulative innovation embodied in the traditional knowledge of agriculture and medicine. 

Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh have together seen 89,362 farmers’ suicides between 1997 and 2005.

An Agricultural Crime Against Humanity - Biofuels could kill more people than the Iraq war.

Soaring crop prices and demand for biofuels raise fears of political instability.

Globalization & the Reconstruction of the Agri-Food System

In December 2005, anti-liberalization and antiglobalization protest groups around the globe gathered in Hong Kong where the Sixth World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference was being held. Farmers’ groups that were part of the Hong Kong gathering took the position that agricultural trade rules should be impartial to all World Trade Organization (WTO) member countries and not determined by a handful of agriculture-exporting countries. What suddenly prompted these farmers to come together in this way over the issues of food sovereignty and the expansion of farmers’ rights?