The Global Donor Platform for Rural Development has published its eighth issues paper. To download it see here.

Written by Simon Fairlie (editor of The Land magazine, and head of Chapter 7, an organization providing lobbying and planning advice for smallholders, caravan and shack dwellers and similar low income rural people) and taking as its starting point a short book written by the Scottish ecologist Kenneth Mellanby in 1975 called Can Britain Feed Itself? (Mellanby’s answer was yes, if we eat less meat.) this article points out the way Mellanby worked it out ‘was simple, almost a back of the envelope job, but it provides a useful template for making similar calculati

Published by WRAP in June 2008, this report looks at refill systems and their waste management implications. It examines a number of possible products (food and non-food) suitable for refillable packaging and looks at the potential for using a range of different pack types.