At heart, fair trade is a strategy for poverty alleviation. It creates opportunities for producers in the developing world who have been economically disadvantaged by the conventional trading system and ensures they receive a fair price for their goods, and support and education for sustainable farming practices.
All organic food must meet a common set of minimum standards, as defined by the EU. Each EU member state has a national control body; the United Kingdom Register of Organic Food Standards (UKROFS) regulates the activities of six certification bodies in the UK. The oldest and largest, the Soil Association (founded in 1946), currently undertakes 80 per cent of all certification in the UK and is arguably the organic label most trusted by consumers.
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) began in 1997 as a joint initiative between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Unilever, a multinational company and one of the world’s largest buyers of fish. Its aim was to help preserve our dwindling fish stocks by certifying well-managed and sustainable fisheries.
A report released by Friends of the Earth yesterday shows that ‘environment-friendly’ farming - including organics - creates more jobs, uses fewer resources and is more profitable than farming using genetically modified (GM) crops.
Cloned meat moved a step closer to being a supermarket shelf reality yesterday when the European Union's food safety authority was asked to rule on the matter.
It has spawned a dozen urban legends. It gets praised and reviled by bloggers. And it tastes like carbonated cough syrup. But does Red Bull do you any good? Pat Thomas reports
Plant fuels can never meet our current and growing energy needs and, as Robin Maynard reports, adopting a ‘carbohydrate economy’ may prove disastrous for our farmers, our food supply and our future
The President of the National Farmers Union (NFU) Peter Kendall told supermarkets yesterday that their green "rhetoric" would need to become "a reality".
MPs will be given a private screening today of the highly-acclaimed film ‘Black Gold’, a documentary which charts the exploitation of coffee growers in Ethiopia.
Pat Thomas, Health Editor of the <i>Ecologist<i/>, responds to Felicity Lawrence's article in the Guardian on the link between junk food and mental health
