North America

Pesticides touch every aspect of our lives: from supermarket food residues, to chronic disease, to biodiversity loss and climate change. But signs of change are everywhere. People all over the world are seeking healthier alternatives in their own lives and taking collective action to create real change in our food and farming system. In addition to coalition organizing, we bring our strength in grassroots science and strategic communications to campaigns. Explore our current campaigns and find out how you and your community can get involved. Since our inception more than 30 years ago, PAN has recognized the importance of collaboration. Building a healthy, sustainable food system and tackling corporate control of agriculture are challenges much too large for any one organization to take on alone. Cultivating powerful, effective partnerships is core to our work — part of our organizational DNA. At Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America, we work to create a just, thriving food system. For too long, pesticide and biotech corporations have dictated how we grow food, placing the health and economic burdens of pesticide use on farmers, farmworkers and rural communities. We work with those on the frontlines to tackle the pesticide problem — and reclaim the future of food and farming. PAN North America is one of five regional centers worldwide. We link local and international consumer, labor, health, environment and agriculture groups into an international citizens’ action network. PAN works to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with ecologically sound and socially just alternatives. We challenge the global proliferation of pesticides, defend basic rights to health and environmental quality, and work to ensure the transition to a just and viable food system.

In 1944, Dan West began outlining a simple but groundbreaking plan to tackle hunger around the world. His philosophy still inspires Heifer’s work today. Partnering with farmers across a range of different livestock and crops, we create unique solutions to local challenges. Together, we build inclusive, resilient economies, so communities can develop effective ways to end global hunger and poverty in a sustainable way. Heifer International was born from that simple idea of empowerment, and for 75 years the organization has worked tirelessly to give families a hand up, rather than just a handout. We work in 21 countries around the world to strengthen local economies and build secure livelihoods that guarantee a living income to local farmers. We work to end hunger and poverty in partnership with the communities we serve. Our programs support entrepreneurs around the world, creating lasting change from the ground up. It begins with a seed investment of livestock or agriculture, followed by mentorship to help project participants build a business, and ultimately to gain access to supply chains and markets. These families are able to earn a living income and continuously lift up their communities as they train the next generation of leaders. By supporting and training the world's farmers, ranchers, and female business owners, we're investing in a new breed of success.

We're the innovative, national campaign working to make global poverty a focus of U.S. foreign policy. The Borgen Project is a Seattle-based nonprofit organization that combats global poverty by advocating for a refocus of U.S. political attention and funding toward programs that improve conditions for the world’s poor. Our purpose is to inform, engage, and mobilize the public to encourage U.S. Congress to support legislation that benefits the global economy. Every year, the world loses 0.3% of its fertile soil due to erosion and mismanagement. On the surface, this may not seem like much, but it means that over the past 100 years, the earth has lost 30% of its fertile soil, and this number will continue to grow, leading to more food insecurity globally. This erosion is due to over-farming land and the increased use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. However, around the world, farmers and agricultural departments have begun to practice sustainable farming, a practice where farmers rotate crops to let the soil regain its nutrients while also supplementing it with animal manure instead of chemical fertilizer. As a result, the soil should remain in a natural state so that it is able to be useful for years to come. Here is some information about regenerative farming in South Africa. In South Africa, regenerative farming has become essential to the agricultural model because the country has suffered irregularity in its rainy season, as well as a lack of crops that can actually survive in the region. Farmers began the movement amongst their own community, and it gradually grew to receive national attention. Their model concentrates heavily on planting as many native crops as possible and avoiding non-native crops that require large amounts of water. Other regions of the world tend to choose crops that provide the soil with specific benefits. However, South African farmers learned that rotating native crops that did not necessarily have the same benefits was easier because they required less water. At the end of 2019, the Western Cape Department of Agriculture began two larger studies; one to examine the feasibility of regenerative farming, and the other to monitor its effects. These studies help to bolster regenerative farming in South Africa and have provided insight into how the process specifically works in South Africa since the climate is arid. So far, many of these studies have concluded that in South Africa, the secrets to regenerative farming are increasing biodiversity, using native crops and using manure from local animal farms.