Kenya

It’s not always just Monsanto screwing with the food system

Creating a food system that is "good, clean, and fair" involves more than the buy-local mantra and the anti-Monsanto-ADM-WalMart rhetoric I and so many others constantly chanting. Sometimes even more evil and insidious obstacles lie in our way.

Witness what's taking place in Kenya:

Is it really a savior for smallholder farmers in the global south?

In the latest Victual Reality, I addressed the "eat-local backlash" — the steady trickle of media reports seeking to debunk the supposed social and environmental benefits of eating from one’s foodshed. Some of the charges are easy to refute. Hey, in Maine, it takes more energy to produce hothouse tomatoes in January than it does […]

Controversy in Kenya

A major controversy is brewing in Kenya right now about whether to remove the ban on wildlife hunting in order to raise money for conservation. Poaching has been devastating Kenyan wildlife; the logic is that since big-game hunters will pay lots of money to hunt big game, this will offer greater incentive to protect species and funnel money into underfunded conservation efforts.

A message from Kenya and Biopact

Over on the Biopact website -- probably the best website for up-to-date international news on bio-energy science and markets -- they have posted an interesting commentary, based on a BBC interview, on how small Kenyan farmers, Mr. Peter Ndivo and Mr. Samuel Mauthike, are affected by the confusion engendered by concepts such as "carbon footprints," "fair trade," and "food miles."

Biopact's message? Buy your vegetables and fruits locally, if you must, but please allow developing countries to supply your biofuels.

Herd It Through the Decline

Climate change ravages land and livelihoods of Kenya’s nomadic herders As climate talks continue in Nairobi, Kenya, the world’s climate-change canaries aren’t far away. Severe floods in the country’s northern and coastal regions have killed more than 20 people and forced 60,000 to relocate over the last few weeks, and a flood-drought cycle is disrupting […]

A review of Wangari Maathai’s autobiography Unbowed

October 2004 was an exciting time to be a tree-hugger in Wangari Maathai‘s home country of Kenya. When she was announced as winner of that year’s Nobel Peace Prize, many of my environmentally inclined friends and colleagues were eager to help her figure out what to do with the giant megaphone she had just been […]

Kenyan eco-activist Wangari Maathai wins Nobel Peace Prize

Wangari Maathai with good reason to smile. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize. It is a small room for such a momentous decision. And it’s made even smaller by the impressive portraits of past winners lining the walls, listening in on the secret deliberations of the Nobel Peace Prize committee. Amidst the daily drumbeat of war stories, […]