GroundTruth is the new official blog of the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America, which showcases perspectives from the global PAN community with an interactive format for public participation.
GroundTruth bloggers challenge the proliferation of pesticides worldwide and promote basic rights to health and environmental integrity, as well as ecological approaches in agriculture. They report on and decode the latest pesticide science, offer timely analysis, and share news and opportunities for action. PAN says the blog is intended to spark solutions-oriented dialogue and link readers to resources and opportunities to go deeper.
In the month since its inception, GroundTruth has already posted an array of informative and thought provoking blogs. Examples include:
- A discussion on the mounting evidence that insecticide exposure has contributed to the drastic decline of honeybee populations.
- A challenge to recent claims that bed bugs have staged a resurgence in America due to the ban on dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT).
- An account of an international seminar on GMOs in Rio de Janeiro.
“The timing for the GroundTruth conversation couldn’t be more urgent,” says PAN North America’s Vice-chairperson, Kathryn Gilje. “On average we are exposed to 10 to 13 pesticides in our food and drink every day.” The situation is even worse for the world’s poor farmers with inadequate knowledge and equipment for safe pesticide use.
Matt Styslinger is a research intern with the Nourishing the Planet project.
Danielle Nierenberg, an expert on livestock and sustainability, currently serves as Project Director of State of World 2011 for the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental think tank. Her knowledge of factory farming and its global spread and sustainable agriculture has been cited widely in the New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and
other publications.
Danielle worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. She is currently traveling across Africa looking at innovations that are working to alleviate hunger and poverty and blogging everyday at Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet. She has a regular column with the Mail & Guardian, the Kansas City Star, and the Huffington Post and her writing was been featured in newspapers across Africa including the Cape Town Argus, the Zambia Daily Mail, Coast Week (Kenya), and other African publications. She holds an M.S. in agriculture, food, and environment from Tufts University and a B.A. in environmental policy from Monmouth College.
