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Vandana Shiva: Our Hunger Games

Source: The Asian Age

Hunger and malnutrition are man-made. They are hardwired in the design of the industrial, chemical model of agriculture. But just as hunger is created by design, healthy and nutritious food for all can also be designed, through food democracy.

We are repeatedly told that we will starve without chemical fertilisers. However, chemical fertilisers, which are essentially poison, undermine food security by destroying the fertility of soil by killing the biodiversity of soil organisms, friendly insects that control pests and pollinators like bees and butterflies necessary for plant reproduction and food production. read more

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College Inc.: US Universities’ Focus on Profit

Source: Indypendent

Imagine a business that rakes in billions of dollars in taxpayer funds, but provides its customers with a defective product that fails for more than half of them–though that track record hasn’t stopped the business owners from enjoying ever-increasing profits.

Sounds like the parasites of Wall Street or the insurance industry, doesn’t it?

But according to a U.S. Senate report, the same is true of a growing number of colleges and universities–the expanding sector of higher education that is run for profit. read more