One Step Forward, two steps back:
The costs of ignoring ecology in managing pests.
In the 2008 Rachel Carson Memorial Lecture, Charles Benbrook will describe major changes in how conventional farmers in the U.S. are dealing with pests today, and new problems created as a result. He will explain why corporate-driven innovation tends to create new pest and pesticide risk problems, and in the end, tends to leave farmers less well off.
He will discuss and contrast the forces shaping pest management system change in the U.K. and United States, and highlight promising evidence that new science, policy reform, and consumer demand can shift the focus back to preventing pest problems as a first order of business.
Where?
The Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, WC1H 0XG (see map) When? Thursday4th December, 6.30pm
followed by buffet, organic wine, and music
"What we have to face is not an occasional dose of poison which has accidentally got into some item of food, but a persisitent and continuous poisoning of the whole human environment." Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962
Nationally and globally PAN UK promotes safer alternatives to pesticides, the production of healthy food, and sustainable farming