The IFOAM Seeds Platform just published the Global Safety & Risk Assessment Protocol for New Genomic Technologies, a new guidance for governments and the private sector for the assessment and regulation of new GMOs.

The report says global direct government expenditures in the three sectors are $1.25 trillion a year—around the size of a big economy such as Mexico. To subsidize fossil fuel consumption, countries spend about six times what they pledged to mobilize annually under the Paris Agreement for renewable energies and low-carbon development.

Farmers in the Global South bear the brunt of European public investments in dangerous pesticides outlawed by the EU.

Organic Trade for Development in Albania, Serbia and Ukraine

We would like to extend our congratulations to our media partner and member, Bio Eco Actual, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary

A petition for a Writ of Kalikasan to stop the commercial propagation of genetically modified rice and eggplant, specifically Golden Rice and Bt eggplant, was successfully granted by the Supreme Court of the Philippines on 18 April 2023.

A new funding opportunity titled "Business Incubator and Accelerator (BIA) for Mountains and Islands" will be launched by the end of April in 10 countries: Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Fiji, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Peru, the Philippines, and Uganda.

The urgent need to transform our food systems is now widely acknowledged. To promote this pathway and the food systems approach, IFOAM - Organics International and the World Future Council organised a virtual workshop on "Scaling up Agroecology in the Himalayas". 

Several Public Private Partnerships promoted by the Organic Trade 4 Development in Eastern Europe project have started in Albania, Serbia, and Ukraine. While we wait for the results of their work in the upcoming months, read more about the initiatives shaping the future of the organic sector in Eastern Europe.

A survey of pesticide use in India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Laos released by PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP) reveals that the majority of pesticides being used in selected farming communities are considered as Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) or banned in one or more countries.