Marisol Ortega
Marisol covers seeds, smallholder farming and the rules that decide who may save, swap or sell them. She has spent a long time around maize fields and seed fairs and still thinks maize is the most political plant there is.
Posts by Marisol
Agroecology on the farm: what changes, season by season
Agroecology is a practice before it is a policy. What changes on a working farm, the FAO's ten elements in plain words, and the trade-offs to admit.
Soil carbon: what the science can promise, and what it can't
Soils hold vast amounts of carbon, but gains are hard to measure and easy to lose. What 4 per 1000, carbon credits and farmers can realistically expect.
Bitter honey: Bt rootworms, GM pollen and the Mayan beekeepers
From resistant rootworms in Iowa to a European court ruling and Mayan honey in Campeche: how GM crops ran into bees, and how Mexico answered.
The FAO, biotech and who gets to speak for farmers
In 2010 the FAO held a biotech conference in Guadalajara as Mexico opened fields to GM maize trials. How the agency has shifted since, and what hasn't.
Biofuels and transgenics: the tortilla, the tank and who pays
Mexico's 2007 tortilla crisis was an early warning. How the biofuel push collided with food prices, how crops were bent toward fuel, and who pays.
UPOV 91 and seed laws, explained from the ground up
What the 1991 UPOV convention requires, why trade deals keep asking for it, and what it means for farmers who save, swap and sell their seed.
Vertical farming, fifteen years on: what the towers actually grew
In 2009 the 'farmscraper' promised to lift farming into city towers. Fifteen years and several bankruptcies later, what did indoor farms grow?
