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Appeal for help from everyone
Dear SANET colleagues,
CENESTA (Centre for Sustainable Development Studies and Application) in
Iran is one of the very few NGOs in that country, and the only one devoted
entirely to seeking alternatives in sustainable development. It has
carried out, often under very difficult circumstances, many programmes and
campaigns for environmental protection and sustainable agriculture. It is
now launching a new programme of publications in an effort to promote
sustainable agriculture in Iran.
Up to recently, Iran, being an oil rich country, was engaged in a highly
subsidized programme of modernising agriculture by providing free synthetic
organic pesticides for pests declared "public pests" and extremely cheap
pesticides and fertilisers for the rest. Now with the economic cost of
these chemicals, and much less oil money, and as a result of the campaigns
of groups like CENESTA, the government has agreed to drastically reduce
subsidies for pesticides and fertilisers. A part of the money going to
subsidies will instead be used to promote academic and applied research for
alternatives.
A special issue of the most popular agricultural journal/magazine Zeitun
(Olive) in Iran is being devoted to sustainable agriculure, with focus on:
1. Problems of fertiser use and the need to get away from chemical
fertilisers, and
2. IPM and problems of pesticide use.
CENESTA has been given the opportunity to produce its contents, and this is
a unique opportunity.
We need articles, news items and interviews of interest to show what is
going on in the above areas in various countries, including other
developing countries and the industrialised ones.
There is a short deadline on this issue, it has to come out before the
spring solar equinox (21 March). Any one interested in helping with items,
please let me know. You may send items as email or email attachments in
Microsoft Word for Windows or Mac, or any other major word processor.
The items that are published in Persian will be summarised in English, and
a copy will be sent to the contributor.
Many thanks for your solidarity in this effort.