1. So stark beeinflusst die Landwirtschaft den Rückgang von Vögeln

April 2023 | SRF - Echo der Zeit

"Seit 1980 ist die Anzahl von Vögeln laut einer Studie um ein Viertel gesunken. Die Gründe dafür sind nicht neu – aber noch nie so eindeutig nachgewiesen worden."

2. Landwirtschaft und Biodiversität: ein Vergleich von Vogelpopulationen in der Schweiz und Nachbarländern zeigt Nachholbedarf

Mai 2023 | Agrarpolitik-Blog

"Vogelpopulationen in der Schweiz sind kleiner und weniger divers als in Frankreich und Deutschland. Unsere Analyse zeigt, dass die Landwirtschaft dabei eine zentrale Rolle spielt. Der Unterschied wurde in den letzten 20 Jahren kleiner, jedoch vor allem wegen einer Verschlechterung im Ausland."

3. Who’s Tipping the Scales? The growing influence of corporations on the governance of food systems, and how to counter it

April 2023 | iPES Food

"Who decides what you eat? In the third of our briefing note series on food systems governance, IPES-Food documents a history of growing corporate influence over our food, and proposes transformative solutions to democratize governance to serve the public interest. ‘Who’s Tipping the Scales?’ finds that corporate control over our food has become the norm. Corporations have unduly shaped the institutions, policies and norms that govern our food systems. From academic curricula to healthy diet initiatives to high-level advisory bodies – signs of corporate influence in food systems are now pervasive."

4. The Green Revolution and transversal countermovements: recovering alternative agronomic imaginaries in Tunisia and India

April 2022 | Max Ajl & Divya Sharma | Canadian Journal of Development Studies

"This article outlines the visions of Tunisian and Indian dissident political thinkers and agronomists, 1950s–1980s, for decentralised food and farming systems using just technologies. Amidst ascendent US imperialism, these marginalised proposals opposed the Green Revolution model of agrarian development, illustrating broader postcolonial politics of defending political sovereignty and advancing to economic/technological sovereignty. Erasing these dissident voices enabled the legitimisation of the Green Revolution as an ‘inevitable’ way to ensure food security. We argue that recovering this intellectual history is critical to displace the techno-centric Green Revolution narrative, and to inform and support struggles for ecologically attuned alternatives that foreground agroecology."

5. Life on the land: new lives for agrarian questions

February 2023 | Editors | Journal of Peasant Studies

"The politics of food, climate, energy, and the yet unfinished work of ending colonialism run square through questions of land. The classical agrarian question has taken on new forms, and a new intensity. We look at four dimensions of the agrarian question today: urbanization and labor; care and social reproduction; financialization and global food systems; and social movements. On this 50th anniversary of the Journal of Peasant Studies, we as the journal’s editors invite more research, vigorous debate, and scholar-activism on these issues in agrarian politics and beyond. We move into the journal’s next era hoping we might continue to better interpret the world in order to change it…"

6. Aus der Luft gegriffen: CO2 einfangen und speichern

April 2023 | TA-SWISS

"Obwohl Negative Emissionstechnologien (NET) einen Beitrag zur Erreichung der Klimaziele leisten könnten, kommen sie bisher kaum zur Anwendung. Das hängt damit zusammen, dass insbesondere die technischen Verfahren teilweise noch in den Kinderschuhen stecken: nicht vollständig erforscht, in der Praxis weitgehend unerprobt, technisch komplex, enorm kostspielig und vorerst nicht in grossem Massstab einsetzbar. Dazu kommen Fragen zur möglichen Umweltbelastung und zum Transport des CO2 zu den Speicherstätten – sowie ein sehr hoher Mehrbedarf an (erneuerbarer) Energie. Dies ist die Ausgangslage, die TA-SWISS dazu bewogen hat, eine Studie zu beauftragen, um Politik und Öffentlichkeit über Chancen, Grenzen (Kosten, Machbarkeit, Dauerhaftigkeit, Klimawirksamkeit) und Risiken (Umweltaspekte, Nebenwirkungen auf Landwirtschaft und Bevölkerung) verschiedener Methoden zur CO2-Entnahme und Speicherung zu informieren. Damit will die Stiftung eine ausgewogene und faktenbasierte Debatte über den Stellenwert der NET in der Klimastrategie unterstützen. Denn wie und in welchem Zeitrahmen der Ausbau der NET realisiert, welche Technologievarianten und welcher Technologiemix wo zum Zug kommen sollen, muss Gegenstand einer gesellschaftlichen und politischen Auseinandersetzung sein."

7. Open Letter to the Eurpean Parliament: "A post-growth Europe critical to survive and thrive, urge over 400 civil society groups and experts"

Mai 2023 | Beyond Growth Conference

"As political leaders gather for a second conference at the European Parliament on how to move “beyond growth”, we, the undersigned academics and civil society organisations, see the geopolitical crisis as an opportunity to disengage from the socially and ecologically harmful growth competition and instead embrace a wellbeing cooperation."

8. Beyond bad weather: climates of uncertainty in rural India

Sept 2022 | Tanya Matthan | Journal of Peasant Studies

"Drawing on research in central India, this paper argues that emerging climatic risks are inseparable from the systemic risks of capitalist production, particularly in relation to India's ongoing agrarian crisis. Drawing from classic debates in peasant studies around agrarian risk, subsistence, and moral economy, I argue that the intertwined effects of climatic variability and agrarian capitalism have produced a generalized ‘climate of uncertainty’ in rural India. The paper explores how encounters with agrarian risk reproduce social inequalities. It concludes that a deeper reckoning with regional histories of agrarian change is critical to forging just and secure rural futures in the face of the global climate crisis."

9. Coloniality as a Barrier to Climate Action: Hierarchies of Power in a Coal-Based Economy

Dez 2023 | Tara Nair van Ryneveld & Mine Islar | Antipode

"South Africa has a coal-based energy system and extractive economy, largely responsible for its high emission levels relative to countries with similar GDP. This extractive, coal-based economy began during British colonisation and today shows few signs of transitioning rapidly to limit climate change. This paper interrogates the role of coloniality in climate delay, given that colonisation is responsible for establishing fossil fuel dependence in South Africa. Combining theory on decolonisation, specifically colonial hierarchies of power, with a critical discourse analysis, this research uses interview and policy data to show how colonial power hierarchies can lead to climate delay in South Africa, through normalising emissions intensive development and silencing alternatives. In doing so, it highlights the need to recognise the colonial foundations of climate change and the potential for a coalition between decolonisation and climate action to motivate for radical change both in South Africa and at a global level."

10. The Agricultural Dilemma: How Not to Feed the World

Okt 2022 | Glenn Davies Stone | Between the Lines Podcast

"In this episode of the IDS Between the Lines podcast, IDS Fellows Dominic Glover and Lidia Cabral interviews Glenn Davies Stone – Research Professor of Environmental Science at Sweet Briar College, Virginia – author of the book: The Agricultural Dilemma: How Not to Feed the World. In the book and podcast, the author questions everything we think we know about the current state of agriculture and how to, or perhaps more importantly how not to, feed a world with a growing population."