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You’re probably more familiar with the work we do in the U.S. But the Organic Consumers Association is also a co-founder of two other organizations: Vía Orgánica, based in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and Regeneration International, which has staff and close allies working in the U.S., Mexico, South Africa, Australia, Belize, the Philippines, London and elsewhere.

Reporter Tracy L. Barnett recently was assigned to cover the work of these two organizations, for an article in Permaculture Magazine.

Calling it the “one of my most inspiring assignments so far this year,” Barnett produced a version of the story that appeared in several online publications, including the Esperanza Project. 

Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned of a looming food crisis. 

The impact of climate change on land is “already severe,” the panel reported. Unless we act fast, climate change will eventually lead to global food shortages and higher food prices.

What can you do?

TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress to pass the Climate Stewardship Act!

Dear Prole,

I hope this missive finds you well. If not, I’ll blame it on yet another act of technofascism.

Your rights to be healthy without drugs and speak freely are being thwarted. Alas, a large swath of the general populace will never know their health choices are being eliminated.

This is an uphill battle of Sisyphean proportions. A virtual witch hunt. A deletionreminiscent of the Library of Alexandria burning. A multi-tentacled greedy schema.

Those of us who stand for health freedom and, criticize Big Anything, are losing posting privileges, getting banned, being buried, finding ourselves deranked, and proverbially becoming imprisoned.

It sounds conspiratorial because it is. We are blowing the whistle. But it’s become a silent one.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) still hasn’t agreed to the Sunrise Movement’s demand for a #climatedebate, but that hasn’t stopped candidates from focusing on the issue.

Supporters of Organic Consumers Association’s “Cook Organic, Not the Planet” campaign, along with supporters of Regeneration International, a nonprofit OCA helped launch in 2015, will be happy to hear that this election cycle, candidates are finally talking about climate change. More important, most of the candidates recognize that it will be very difficult to solve the climate problem by focusing on fossil fuels and emissions reduction alone. They realize that we also have to draw down and sequester the excess carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere—and they know that the most efficient, most practical and most “shovel-ready” way to do that is to rapidly scale up regenerative organic farming and ranching practices that increase soil carbon.

Sometime in the near future, a 12-year-old boy will take on Bayer-Monsanto in a U.S. courtroom. Jake Bellah has non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer linked to exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. He and his parents allege that exposure to Roundup caused his cancer.

An article in the Guardian this week featured the story of Oliver Strong, who died from acute myeloid leukemia in June 2015 at the age of 12. Concerned that their otherwise healthy, athletic son’s cancer was caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, Oliver’s parents set up a foundation that is working with Texas Children’s Hospital and the Baylor College of Medicine to study the correlation between exposure to chemical toxicants and childhood cancer.

Citing statistics from the National Cancer Institute, the Guardian reported that cases of pediatric cancer in the U.S. surged by almost 50 percent from 1975 to 2015. The institute predicted that in 2018, up to 16,000 children, from birth to age 19, would receive a new cancer diagnosis.

Are all these cancers caused by exposure to chemicals? Probably not. But most are, says Dr. Zach Bush, a former cancer researcher. Bush, who said he was taught that cancer was a genetic disease, says his research now supports the theory that most cancers can be tied to exposure to chemicals.