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Top 10 agribusiness giants: Corporate concentration in food & farming in 2025

Submitted by Ronnie Hall on

Our updated research, co-published with GRAIN, shows how a handful of agribusiness corporations have consolidated unprecedented control over the world's food supply, with devastating consequences for farmers, consumers and the planet.

Today, a handful of agribusiness corporations have consolidated unprecedented control over the world's food supply, with devastating consequences for farmers, consumers and the planet. This new report by ETC Group and GRAIN reveals just how extreme this corporate control has become. It examines the state of corporate concentration in six sectors critical to agriculture: commercial seeds, pesticides, synthetic fertilisers, farm machinery, animal pharmaceuticals and livestock genetics. 

Hands Off Earth's Oceans!

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Civil Society Urges Governments to Protect Oceans From Geoengineering Threats
On the occasion of the United Nations Oceans Conference the Hands Off Mother Earth! (HOME) Alliance, including ETC Group, is calling on governments to take decisive action to safeguard ocean ecosystems from the growing threat of marine geoengineering. Civil society, including climate justice groups, Indigenous Peoples Organizations, human rights and grassroots groups are urging governments to take action to halt any ongoing current or planned marine geoengineering experiments.

Africa is Not A Laboratory

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Civil Society Denounces Degrees Global Forum: Solar Geoengineering is a Dangerous Neocolonial Threat

African civil society organizations are outraged by the Degrees Global Forum being hosted in South Africa next week, calling it an act of climate colonialism effort to co-opt the African climate movement, academics, and youth that will threaten the sovereignty, ecosystems, and futures of African peoples.

Global Declaration: Now is the time to take action for digital justice!

Submitted by Ronnie Hall on

The Global Digital Justice Forum, a coalition of civil society organizations from the Global Majority, decries the tightening stranglehold of political and corporate authoritarianism on the internet
Image of a factory in potential dystopian digital future

February 2025

The unchecked power of the Broligarchy—a handful of Silicon Valley firms operating in sync with current US government leadership—signals a broader global threat to the international rules-based system, human rights, peace, sustainable development, and ecological justice.

Towards Nyéléni III: Women, Oceans and Food Sovereignty

Submitted by Veronica Villa on

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, on 8 March, ETC wants to celebrate a significant event we were invited to in Kerala last year.
Indian fisherwoman with banner

The Indian Fisherwomen Assembly took place in Thiruvananthapuram 5-6 November. It was the culmination of a series of workshops organised by the National Fishworkers Forum (NFF), along with other fisher people's unions, in an effort to implement the 2017 World Forum of Fisher Peoples’ (WFFP) General Assembly’s decision to have more women’s representation in fishworkers’ unions. 

UN climate talks could undermine precaution on geoengineering called for by the biodiversity convention

Submitted by Ronnie Hall on

by Linda Schneider (Heinrich Boëll Foundation) and Silvia Ribeiro (ETC)

Analysis: UNFCCC negotiations on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement risk legitimising dangerous Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) schemes and undermining precautionary work being undertaken in other UN fora.

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COP16: An opportunity to reinforce precaution on geoengineering

Submitted by Ronnie Hall on

Image of panel of speakers at COP16

by Kavya Chowdhry, ETC Group & Coraina de la Plaza, Hands Off Mother Earth! (HOME) Alliance

(See below: "Reinforcing precaution against geoengineering to protect biodiversity and communities", a briefing for COP 16 delegates, from members of the HOME Alliance)

This article was published 28 October, in ECO 70(6), the magazine of the CBD Alliance. It concludes with recommendations for governments negotiating at the CBD’s COP 16, in Cali, Colombia.

Global South-washing

Submitted by Ronnie Hall on

How The Degrees Initiative is imposing its solar geoengineering agenda onto climate research in the Global South

To read the whole briefing online or to download a pdf version please go to geoengineeringmonitor.org

The DEveloping country Governance REsearch and Evaluation for SRM (Degrees) Initiative’s stated aim is to facilitate the participation of countries in the Global South in research relating to the deployment and governance of solar geoengineering, referred to as Solar Radiation Management (SRM).

Corporate Capture of the UN Summit of the Future

Submitted by Ronnie Hall on

A recipe for a dystopian digitalized tomorrow

(New York, 20 September 2024) The looming environmental dangers of massive deployment of digitalization and unleashing AI are being effectively ignored by the UN Summit of the Future taking place in New York on 22-23 September 2024 [1]. Giant technology companies are using the summit to position themselves as the tech saviours who will solve the world crises, with final versions of the text concealing the stark impact of their activities on the planet’s environment.

'Black Box’ Biotech

Submitted by Ronnie Hall on

Integration of artificial intelligence with synthetic biology

This briefing paper, from the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), together with Third World Network (TWN) and ETC Group, is a timely warning about the risks, hype and inequities underpinning generative biology, ahead of the Convention on Biological Diversity's COP 16, which will be held in Cali, Colombia, 21 October-1 November 2024.

Related Issues: 
Synthetic Biology
Related Fora: 
Biodiversity: CBD, SBSTTA, IPBES

Behind Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Submitted by Ronnie Hall on

The Environmental Impacts of Digitalization
Report cover for Behind Sugar and Spice report

The UN is currently hosting a process towards the Summit of the Future (SOTF), scheduled for September 2024, in a bid to promote “multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow”, including through a technology track leading to a Global Digital Compact. 

Related Issues: 
Other technologies
Related Fora: 
Food and Agriculture: FAO, CGIAR, CFS

Protect coastal and marine biodiversity from geoengineering

Submitted by Ronnie Hall on

Briefing for delegates at SBSTTA 26

In a wave of “blue carbon” hype, oceans and coastal areas are increasingly pitched as tools to fight global warming. Around the globe dozens of new projects are projected to increase the ocean's capacity to absorb CO2 with a view to selling the carbon credits generated commercially.

Trojan Horses on the Farm

Submitted by Ronnie Hall on

Challenging the digitalization of agriculture: six key questions
Artist's impression of a digital Trojan horse on the farm

ETC’s new research shows that digitalization is progressively entering farms, big and small, now in areas of the Global South as well as in the Global North. It comes disguised as an alluring high tech input, a Trojan farmhorse, with fleets of drones, smart ‘data-driven’ tractors, fancy apps and sensors. But in the belly of the beast lies the huge agribusiness corporate sector which has joined forces with the Big Data giants to strengthen its grip over our food systems.

Related Issues: 
Farmers' Rights & Food Sovereignty
Related Fora: 
Food and Agriculture: FAO, CGIAR, CFS

A solar geoengineering Trojan horse at UNEA-6

Submitted by Laura Dunn on

A controversial proposal was shut down by Global South countries and broad civil society resistance

Nairobi, Kenya – On the surface, the Swiss resolution on Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) at UNEA-6 could appear to be a neutral call to constitute an expert group on SRM. But whether it was intentional or not, the proposed expert group could act as a Trojan horse for the advancement of solar geoengineering, creating a base for geoengineering advocates to set themselves as the main reference in global discussions on SRM. 

Pollution is not a climate solution: Africa wins the fight against solar geoengineering at UNEA-6

Submitted by Laura Dunn on

Withdrawn resolution on solar geoengineering at UNEA6 is a "victory for common sense", says HOME Alliance

Nairobi, Kenya – In the early hours of this morning at the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) a resolution on solar geoengineering was withdrawn. Numerous African countries, along with many others from the Global South, advocated for the Assembly to reaffirm a precautionary approach to geoengineering, as it has been established by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and other UN bodies.

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