Indigenous Food Systems Network

Diabetes may be linked to pollutants
Published: Jan. 29, 2010 at 4:00 PM - UPI

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- There is growing evidence diabetes -- especially among indigenous people -- may be linked to environmental pollutants, U.S. and Canadian researchers say.

One-out-of-four indigenous adults living on reserves in Canada have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, The Dominion reports.

At GRAIN, we are extremely concerned that today's global land grab is only going to make the food crisis worse. For it pushes an agriculture geared toward large scale monocultures, GMOs, throwing farmers off the land in favour of machines, and lots of chemicals and fossil fuels. This is not an agriculture that will feed everyone. It's an agriculture that feeds speculative profits for a few and more poverty for the rest. Of course we need investment.

Since the time of contact with non Indigenous settlers in the southern interior of B.C. many traditional Indigenous harvesters including hunters, fishermen, and gatherers from the Ktunaxa, Nlaka’pamux, Secwepemc, St’at’imc, Syilx, and Ts’ilqotin nations have repeatedly expressed concern about the declining health and abundance of culturally important foods in our respective traditional territories. Therefore, the Interior of B.C.