Activities by Nwaegies

Presently NWAEG members are involved in a variety of projects, none of which are formally projects of the organization, but all of which follow the general spirit of critical analysis and active political engagement driving the academic work.

	2005; Cornell NWAEG special symposium: Empowering Local Communities through Agriculture: Traditional perspectives from Chiapas to Central NY Click on the poster thumbnail for a larger image. Click here for the conference schedule.	Annual Meeting Speakers: Doug Boucher John Soluri Bruce Ferguson Helda Morales Catherine Badgley Brendan O’Neill Tatiana Schreiber Tom Dietsch Allison Hornor Steve Vanek
Steve Vanek's PowerPoint presentation Soil Fertility Management & Cover Crop Intensification in the Bolivian Highlands Bruce Ferguston's PowerPoint presentation Farmers As Stewards: An Emerging Strategy for Conservation in Mesoamerica

GMO ERA Project The GMO ERA Project is a pioneering initiative involving public sector scientists, most of whom have strong expertise in environmental science. The Project has 250 member scientists from 25 countries, and is the second Phase of work that began in 2002. Many of these members have conducted scientific work on environmental impacts of genetically modified organisms (GMO). The Project is identifying and developing scientific methodologies and tools that can be used for environmental risk assessment (ERA) and management of transgenic plants, in accordance with the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and other international agreements. The methodologies have been tested against real case studies in Kenya, Brazil and Vietnam, which have been or will be published by CABI (Commonwealth Agriculture Bureau International).

Now Published Volume One: A Case Study of Bt Maize in Kenya by David Andow and edited by A. Hilbeck. PDF of entire cover

One of our members has been working with Cubans since the Revolution, on the development of ecologically rational agriculture. This work is especially important at the present time with Cuba making world-shaking advances in ecologically sustainable agriculture under conditions of sudden loss of foreign imports of fuel, feed, and fertilizer.

Several members have been working in the rain forest area of Nicaragua on questions relating agriculture, logging and deforestation. We are working with Nicaraguans in trying to develop a method of resource use that is rational ecologically and socially just.

Several other members have been involved in the general move towards making the use of genetic engineering safe for human health and the environment. One member sits on the national board for evaluating environmental risks and another has been highly visible in the national debate about bovine growth hormone.

One member is involved in a long-term study of ecological and human health consequences of agricultural change in the highlands of Chiapas, especially among Native American Mayans.

One of our members has been working with colleagues from the University of El Salvador on a project devoted to establishing sustainable agricultural activities in the basin of lake Ilopango, outside of San Salvador.

Several members have been recently involved in the development of farmer-based methods of generating pest management techniques, mainly working through the Ministry of Agriculture in Nicaragua.

One of our members is involved with an international research team investigating the ecological characteristics of a traditional system of bean productions in Costa Rica.

NWAEG members edited or wrote several books (e.g. Agroecology, MacMillan; The Ecology of Intercropping, Cambridge: The Dialectical Biologist, Harvard: Humanity and Nature, Westview; Fruits of Crisis: Gambling on Nontraditional Export Agriculture in Central America, North Carolina; The New Green Revolution, Ocean Press), and many articles and editorials. Our special contribution to this field has been in emphasizing the inseperability of biological, technical and social aspects of agricultural development. Our critique of subordinate development and magic bullet technologies led to an emphasis on complex interactions among species and environments, multiple goods for agriculture, democratization of research and policy, grass roots empowerment and respect for the intimate, detailed knowledge that people have of their own circumstances as complementary to "scientific knowledge.