Fact Sheets: All

Consumers get a lot of information about the things they buy, whether it’s monitoring the progress of a package making its way across the country or the label in a shirt. So should consumers expect any less when it comes to food? Everything from public opinion polls to the explosive growth of programs that connect consumers directly to farmers show that consumers don’t want mystery meat — they want to know what they’re eating and whether it is safe.

Most Americans dont spend much time thinking about the water in the ground beneath our feet, yet this water plays a vital role in our lives. Water pumped from the ground makes up about 40 percent of our national drinking and agricultural supplies and affects the health of all our freshwater.

Water activists in Colombia are pushing a popular initiative to add explicit protection for the human right to water to the nation‚ constitution. The initiative follows similar reform efforts that succeeded in Uruguay in 2004, Ecuador in 2008 and Bolivia in 2009. These constitutional reforms demonstrate the close parallels between the movement for access to safe and sufficient water and the movement for democracy that is sweeping the Americas. After three years of popular mobilization to build support, the Colombian reform measure is now up for debate before the nation‚ congress.

The bottom line:
Hawaii should not be treated as a testing ground for industrial fish production , especially since these facilities comes with many unanswered ques-tions. What a few individuals stand to gain economically is minor when compared with what the public could lose economically, socially and environmentall

Kona Blue Water Farms has successfully marketed not only the kahala it raises by the thousands in cages off the coast of Hawaii, but also the idea that its version of open ocean aquaculture is environmentally sustainable. This is highly questionable. The company might not have a sustainable business model, either.

Mahi-mahi is a sweet and mild-flavored whitefish that may also be sold as “dolphin-fish” or ‚el dorado.”

A new venture proposing to place a dozen untethered, self-powered, open-ocean fishpens off the Big Island’s North Kohala coast is applying for a variety of permits, including a conservation district lease on 246 acres of the sea, with the hopes of raising tuna…

If you eat food, care about the environment or value your health, you should lend your support to S.B. 416. This piece of legislation was offered by California Senator Dean Florez (D-Shafter) and addresses a major public health threat in California‚ food system and environment: the practice of feeding healthy animals low doses of antibiotics to make them grow faster and to keep illness from spreading between animals confined closely together.

The Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute – a non-profit research institute associated with the for-profit SeaWorld – is currently planning to develop the first commercial open ocean aquaculture project in federal waters, five miles off the coast of San Diego, California. Building on its fish farming enterprise in Baja California, Mexico, Hubbs-Seaworld is proposing to grow 1,000 metric tons of striped sea bass to start, with the goal to produce 3,000 metric tons of fish annually by the fifth year of operation. This is more than three times the size of the only other existing commercial offshore aquaculture facility in the United States. Although this is pitched as a pilot research project, representatives of Hubbs-Seaworld have explicitly boasted that the facility will ultimately be transferred to a for-profit business entity. Hubbs-Seaworld and the for-profit corporation would share revenue from the project. From 1998 to 2007, Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute received more than $700,000 from the Department of Commerce for open ocean aquaculture research. Now, after receiving public dollars to fund its preliminary work, Hubbs-SeaWorld plans to make money off of our public fish resources.

When you think of an embassy, you might think of diplomats dining with world leaders and consulate staffers assisting travelers who have lost their passports. Lately, however, ambassadors representing the United States have been carrying out a less traditional sort of mission in the European Union: promoting the interests of biotechnology companies and the genetically modified products they are attempting to sell around the world.