Last week we explored the arguments being used against sustainable agricultural practices being able to feel the world – and that only more of the “green revolution” concepts will do. The biggest players in the food industry—from pesticide pushers to fertilizer makers to food processors and manufacturers—spend billions of dollars every year not selling food, but …
Did you know that July 11, 1987 was the very first “World Population Day”? [1] World Population Day was designed “to track world population and bring light to population growth trends and issues related to it”. That year, the world’s population was 5 billion – a result of about 200,000 years of population growth – …
For the past few weeks we’ve been talking about the Green Revolution, and the problem of feeding 9 billion people. With respect to the Green Revolution, opinion is still divided as to how to assess its impact. Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya (a movement of 500,000 seed keepers and organic farmers) said that the Green …
The promise of the Green Revolution was that it would end hunger through the magic of chemicals and genetic engineering. The reasoning goes like this: the miracle seeds of the Green Revolution increase grain yields; higher yields mean more income for poor farmers, helping them to climb out of poverty, and more food means less …
Last week I talked about the fears associated with feeding a world population of 7 billion – let alone 9 billion – and mentioned that there are those who see organic agriculture as a niche market, unable to provide the calories needed for those 9 billion. The topic is extraordinarily complex, and we can only …
According to the World Population Clock at the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, the population of the world is now 6.92 billion people. We’re supposed to reach 7 billion by the end of October of this year, according to the United Nations. This is much faster than anyone had expected and represents an …
We’re often asked if there are traces of pesticides in conventionally grown natural fibers – because people make the assumption that if pesticides are used on the plants, then there must be residuals in the fibers. And because the chemicals used on conventional cotton crops are among the most toxic known, such as aldicarb ( …
We’ve often been asked where we stand on the question of growing fiber crops on agricultural land when so many people go to bed hungry each night. In today’s world, you must add another “F” to the equation: fuel, because there is such a growing interest in biomass as energy. In fact, the picture is …
I just don’t know what it takes to change people’s habits. We need a huge wake up call about the disastrous state of our oceans! Our oceans are our life support system. And they’re in trouble. Because this is a blog about textile issues, I wanted to remind you that the textile industry is the …
When we talk about wool, we almost always mean the fiber from sheep, although the term “wool” can be applied to the hair of other mammals including cashmere and mohair from goats, vicuna, alpaca and camel from animals in the camel family and angora from rabbits. As with many discoveries of early man, anthropologists believe …
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