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“Our mission is to provide the highest quality scientific information and analysis to enable a healthy food system and a healthy world”

The Bioscience Resource Project provides scientific and intellectual resources for a healthy future. It publishes Independent Science News, a media service devoted to food and agriculture, and their impacts on health and the environment. It also offers resources for scientists and educators and internships and training for students. Through its innovative scientific journalism and original biosafety review articles, the project provides unique and revealing perspectives on issues that are fundamental to the survival of people and the planet. The project does not accept advertising or corporate funding and is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization. It is completely dependent on individual donations.We invite you to join the Project as a contributor or a donor.

Bioscience Resource Project News and Views

The 9% Lie: Industrial Food and Climate Change

Aug 13, 2019 |

Published August 8, 2019, in Independent Science News:

The 9% Lie: Industrial Food and Climate Change  a new article by Ronnie Cummins

Synopsis: As the result of a joint calculation, the USDA and the US EPA have begun claiming that US agricultures’ contribution to the climate crisis represents 9% of total national green house gas emissions. The size of this number is hugely important in terms of where to search for climate solutions. According to the author these estimates are smokescreens and the true number is approximately 5-6 fold higher. In other words, most US greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture and the food sector. This low-balling is very convenient for the commercial interest groups that benefit from the wasteful status quo of the US food system.

Author: Ronnie Cummins is the co-founder and International Director of the Organic Consumers Association. He is also the founder of Via Orgánica, a network of organic consumers and farmers based in Mexico.

Read the full article at: https://www.independentsciencenews.org/environment/the-9-lie-industrial-food-and-climate-change/

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US Agriculture Needs a 21st-Century New Deal

Aug 13, 2019 |


On July 10th, 2019, Independent Science News published an important new article written by Maywa Montenegro (UC-Davis), Annie Shattuck UC-Berkeley) and Joshua Sbicca (Colorado State University): US Agriculture Needs a 21st-Century New Deal

Synopsis: Since the mid-1930s, the number of U.S. farms has declined sharply and average farm size has greatly increased. This trend is a tale of financial hardship and corporate control. At the same time, agriculture has increasingly contributed to the ecological unsustainability of the U.S. economy. As the authors argue, remedies to both financial unsustainability and its ecological equivalent are at hand.
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The Hydroponic Threat to Organic Food

Jun 25, 2019 |

Published today (Monday, 24th June, 2019) in Independent Science News:
The Hydroponic Threat to Organic Food. Written by Dave Chapman of the Real Organic Project
Synopsis: Over the last seven years large scale industrial food producers have insinuated themselves into US organic certification. The recent inclusion of hydroponics in organic standards is not an example of innovation and improvement. It is an example of conquest and colonization. It is simply a hostile takeover of organic production in contravention of the law and of international norms.
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Fake Food, Fake Meat: Big Food’s Desperate Attempt to Further the Industrialisation of Food

Jun 25, 2019 |

Published June 18th, 2019 on Independent Science News:
Synopsis: The promotion of fake foods seems to have more to do with giving new life to failing GMO agriculture and the Junk Food Industry, and the threat from the rising consciousness that organic, local, fresh food is real food: that which regenerates the planet and our health.
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The GE American Chestnut – Restoration of a Beloved Species or Trojan Horse for Tree Biotechnology?

Jun 25, 2019 |

Published Wednesday, 12th June, 2019, in Independent Science News:
Written by Rachel Smolker, Ph.D. (Biofuelwatch) and Anne Petermann (Global Justice Ecology Project).
Synopsis: Why rush the GE chestnut into regulatory review when even its own creators recognize it cannot fulfill the goal of species restoration? Because the engineered chestnut – using “nothing but a wheat gene” to “restore a beloved iconic species” is a public relations tool for winning over public opinion toward GE trees, and for the use of biotechnology as a “tool of conservation”. This is a strategy that biotechnology industry proponents expect will soften public opposition and open up the potential for commercializing a wide array of GE trees.
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As a GMO Stunt, Professor Tasted Pesticide and Gave it To Students

May 22, 2019 |

Published today (Wed, May 22nd, 2019) by Independent Science News:

Synopsis: “Feeding Dipel to one’s students in a public seminar creates an impressive list of problematic issues: safety concerns, ethics concerns, questionable science, and, not least, by eating a pesticide and encouraging his students to do the same, both the professor and his students broke the law.”

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Ecology's implications for capitalism are too momentous for the capitalist to contemplate. [The plutocrats] are more wedded to their wealth than to the Earth upon which they live, more concerned with the fate of their fortunes than with the fate of humanity. The present ecological crisis has been created by the few at the expense of the many. In other words, the struggle over environmentalism is part of the class struggle itself, a fact that seems to have escaped many environmentalists but is well understood by the plutocrats - which is why they are unsparing in their derision and denunciations of the 'eco-terrorists' and 'tree huggers.'

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