Cultures of Resistance

In an effort to help North Korean farmers get beyond the famine that struck their country in the mid-1990s, the Lee & Gund Foundation has made a donation to Agglobe International to purchase and plant cotton and trees at four cooperative farms in North and South Hwanghae Province. In the first of its kind, Agglobe, a Minnesota-based 501c3, has secured a contract with the government of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, to help rehabilitate and develop these four cooperative farms situated between Pyongyang and Kaesong.

In recognition of Fair Trade Month – a campaign sponsored every October by fair trade certifying group TransFair USA – the Cultures of Resistance network brings you the following information on this important movement.

Until quite recently, farming had not changed much for thousands of years. Human and animal power was responsible for tilling the soil and harvesting crops, and nearly all food was produced in close proximity to where it was consumed.

A number of developments in the twentieth century changed all that. Perhaps most important was the availability of plentiful cheap fossil fuels. This made possible the introduction of mechanization as well as the creation of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, greatly improving crop yields.