Highlights from this article on the grist:

Monsanto has, in the last few weeks, gone from Wall Street hero to Wall Street doormat.

Thousands of farmers are reconsidering the merits of Monsanto's flagship Roundup Ready crop varieties...

What we're seeing is signs that GMO technology is much cruder and less effective than its champions have let on. After decades of hype and billions of dollars worth of research, much of it publicly funded, the industry has managed to market exactly two traits. More devastating still, it has failed on its own terms: it has not delivered the promised dazzling yield gains...

Harvest: Recipes from an organic farmThe Stevens' moved out of the city to get away from the rat race and who can blame them when they moved onto an idyllic farm and started an organic farm and vineyard. Christine's alchemical powers in the kitchen also spawned Harvest, a cook book.

The style that Stevens goes for is something akin to British food writer Tasmsin Day Lewis, a mix of family anecdotes mixed with recipes and a focus on home grown, local and seasonal produce. The pictures in the book are beautiful and capture the essence of life on the Stevens farm in the Slanghoek valley of the Western Cape. The farm has post card perfect views, and a wonderful situation, beautifully captured by photographer Russell Wasserfal along with fantastic pictures of the enticing dishes.

There's something about spring in the air that has brought about an upsurge in vegetable juicing and green smoothie making in our household.

Last night, for instance, we juiced a really delicious 'red' concoction – beetroot, cucumber, apple and pineapple – that our four-year old, red moustache in evidence, voted as 'even better' than the carrot juice we have finally got him to quaff.

My other half has expounded the health benefits of green juice for an age now. But no matter how many times I hear about how alkalising, high in anti-oxidants, rich in fibre, calcium and iron it is, there is something about the taste that is, well, I'm just not that mad about green juice.

Many people know that honey is good for us and many more know how great it tastes, but not everyone knows just how many different aspects there are to honey. Anthropologists and archaeologists believe that man has been hunting for honey for over 10 000 years. We have been keeping bees for millennia and they are mentioned in many religious texts. They provide us with many natural products including, honey, propolis, beeswax and pollen, all of which have been extremely useful to us. This post is only going to focus on honey.

Honey is made from the nectar found in flowers which is collected by bees and then partially digested before being regurgitated and stored in the honeycomb as a source of food for the bee larvae. Honey is sweet because it is made up of the sugars fructose and glucose and trace elements of amino acids and other beneficial qualities.

I lifted the lid on the cardboard box containing my to take a peek.

The young woman behind the desk at Nourish, the health shop at Dean Street Arcade, joined me, and we silently stood looking at the array of avocado pear, caramelised onion, mushroom, sprouts and what looked like cream, but I had been assured was actually cashew nut cheese.

She pointed to my son and whispered 'Is he going to eat this?'. I shrugged. I couldn't get my four-year old to eat a normal pizza, nevermind this affair. I assured her, my mouth already watering at the prospect of tasting what was infront of me, that I hadn't sampled the fare yet either. 'I'm just helping out' she smiled, 'and I hadn't seen one of them before'...

Every school week a box of vegetables is dropped off at my son's school with my name on it. It sits, in amongst similar boxes, awaiting pick-up. It must be said that I often forget and my box finds its way into the school fridge until I remember the following day to collect it.

My pack is always brimming over with a variety of fresh vegetables, picked on the morning of delivery. This might sound pretty obvious, but I have used other box delivery schemes in Cape Town where, because of logistics and through no fault of their own, you only receive your vegetables a couple of days after picking. This can make a huge difference to the state of your vegetables (Harvest of Hope's are firm, crisp and FRESH – gorgeous!).

Bet you thought the day could never come. All this blarney about fish running out is just part of the whole green thing, people are just over-reacting, as usual... right?

Wrong. The prediction is that if we continue fishing as we are now, we will see the end of most seafood by 2048.

Imagine, for a moment, an ocean without fish. Your meals without seafood. Imagine the global consequences. This if the future if we do not stop, think and act.

The End of the Line is a film that reveals the impact of overfishing on our oceans and our global love affair with fish as food.

The major feature doccie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, is screening overseas at the moment, and is due in South Africa in September at a cinema near you.

learning the permaculture way with SEEDSeed embodies what permaculture is all about. The Seed permaculture courses teach you how to design and grow your garden in a way that mimics the diverse biological systems in nature. The garden works as a whole system, providing ecological sustainability, whilst at the same time meeting human needs. Looking at a permaculture garden you may be forgiven for thinking that this is organised chaos! Yet as in nature, there is method in madness.

Plants are planted in a manner that conserves space and allows them to benefit each other. Seeds Saturday courses teach you the principles behind permaculture and how to go about adding permaculture to your own garden. The courses take place at

Second Edition Cape Town Green MapWe've been working on a project with the City of Cape Town's Environmental Resource Management Dept and A & C Maps for the last eighteen months and today we're launching the second print edition of the Cape Town Green Map, ahead of World Environment Day tomorrow. The online map was launched a year ago, and Open Green Map, the global green map system we are affiliated with, is also turning one tomorrow.

South Africa is apparently the first country in the world to issue a wine bottle seal certifying the "wine has been grown and produced sustainably". The seal is issued by the Wine and Spirit Board and is intended for bottled wines only.

Every seal carries a unique number, through which the wine’s provenance (wine speak for where it comes from) can be tracked from vine to bottle. The system starts this year and is a voluntary system available to wineries that have passed the accreditation of the Integrated Production of Wines' (IPW) set of sustainable principles, at farm, winery and bottling levels. IPW covers a range of issues such as integrated pest management, the health of workers, the conservation of biodiversity and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as how waste is handled.