Environment

As climate change makes it more difficult to practice agriculture in their ancestral homelands, indigenous communities are exchanging seeds in hopes of finding the hardiest varieties.

Monsanto and friends, the biotech industry, its lobbyists and its paid media representation continue to push for monopoly control over the world’s food through its seed supply.

Much of the organic food found in supermarkets is now being grown overseas, and it's largely a mystery as to where or under what conditions.

“We’ve become leaders of [Conamaq] during difficult years … but here we stand.  As long as we have energy, the struggle continues. We will not sell ourselves to any government or political party.” – Mama Nilda Rojas, Conamaq indigenous movement leader

We are made up of the same five elements — earth, water, fire, air and space — that constitute the Universe. We are the soil. We are the earth. What we do to the soil, we do to ourselves. And it is no accident that the words “humus” and “humans” have the same roots.

Nate and Jane Palmer’s farm sits in a clay plain basin adjacent to one of the many wetlands in Monkton, Vermont. Jane recalls the controversy when Vermont Gas first announced its intention to construct a gas pipeline down the western side of the state, a route which would require a right-of-way through the center of Monkton. “We thought it was a dumb idea that would undermine alternative energy efforts,” she says.