International Agricultural Policy

Industrial agriculture is responsible for both colossal environmental and climate damage as well as global injustice. It is high time for a socially and politically oriented regulation of the agrifood industry. We hope that this atlas will stimulate a broad-based social debate on this vital topic.

In many southern montane regions of the EU, the growing presence of immigrants has come to counterbalance the decline and ageing of the local rural populations and agricultural workforce. The paper examines problems as well as potentials of this development.  

Crop-picking in both Italy and Spain, increasingly depends on migrant workers. The paper analyzes the most important aspects of recruitment strategies, living conditions and institutional regulations in both countries.

In the current context of continued economic recession, the secondary labour market for temporary migrant workers in Greece has become increasingly precarious. This is exemplified by the strawberry production in Manolada.

Many of the world's largest agro-industrial corporations are pushing forward the poorly-defined idea of "Climate-Smart Agriculture"(CSA) to re-market industrial agriculture as 'climate-ready'. This report uncovers how some advocates of CSA are embracing the extreme genetic engineering tools of synthetic biology ("Syn Bio") to develop a set of false solutions to the climate crisis.

Through misuse, we lose 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil every year. For the International Year of Soils in 2015, this Atlas shows, why the soil should concern us all. Jointly published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies.

We prepared this issue for highlighting ongoing reforms in the field of rural development and agriculture in Turkey. Gökhan Günaydın, Abdullah Aysu and Sibel Caşkurlu are some of the authors who contribute in our feature articles section.