Migrant workers are vital for meeting the UK’s demand for year-round fruit and vegetables. But despite improvements since the Morecambe Bay tragedy, allegations of poor conditions and abuse in the horticulture sector persist. Andrew Wasley reports ‘There’s no justice, there’s discrimination… people are treated like cattle, not human beings, I never expected it could be […]
Archive | 2011
Scandal of Europe’s tomato slaves
Across Italy an invisible army of migrant workers harvests tomatoes destined for our dinner plates. Paid poverty wages and living in squalor, medical charities have described conditions as ‘hell’. Andrew Wasley reports from Basilicata, southern Italy In the parched countryside outside the town of Venosa, in Basilicata, southern Italy, along a rough track fifteen minutes’ […]
How food speculation fuels tortilla crisis
A surge in financial speculation on maize is causing vastly inflated prices for corn tortillas – a sacred staple in Mexico – and threatening the health and livelihoods of the country’s poor.As part of a special report examining food speculation the Ecologist Film Unit travelled to Mexico to investigate. The Ecologist Film Unit (EFU) is jointly […]
Revealed: popular antibiotics linked to UK deaths
Millions of us are successfully treated with ciprofloxacin and other fluoroquinolone antibiotics each year. But for some patients the drugs are linked to severe adverse reactions involving terrifying physical and mental health impacts. Andrew Wasley reports Patients who say they’ve suffered severe adverse reactions to a common antibiotic are calling for action to prevent others […]
Fracking Hell: the untold story
Plans by UK companies to extract gas through a controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ could contaminate local water supplies, according to a new report by the Tyndall Centre. The report echoes the findings of a major Ecologist Film Unit investigation and film released late last year which raised the alarm about the process – […]
