Food & Agriculture

NAIROBI

Growing Peas and Greens to Maximise Water Usage

By Miriam Gathigah
Amid warnings that Kenya’s agricultural water use is surpassing sustainable levels and adversely affecting food security, biodiversity researchers say that agrobiodiversity should be considered as a vital tool to combat this.

Water Flows Again in the Valley

By Zofeen Ebrahim
Staring out at his golden wheat field with satisfaction, 50-year old Alamgir Akbar says with a sigh of relief: "We've had a good crop this season.”

U.S. Strategy on Water, Development a “Major Advance”

By Carey L. Biron
U.S. officials Tuesday formally unveiled the government’s first comprehensive strategy aimed at integrating water into all U.S. development funding and programmes, a step long urged by advocates and development experts.

Stressed Ecosystems Leaving Humanity High and Dry

By Stephen Leahy
Everyone knows water is life. Far too few understand the role of trees, plants and other living things in ensuring we have clean, fresh water.

Organic Cooperative Proves that Agriculture Can Prosper in Cuba

By Ivet González
“The people are the only thing that matters,” says agronomist Miguel Ángel Salcines, who then goes on to list a series of other “secondary” factors that have turned Vivero Alamar, an urban farm on the outskirts of the Cuban capital, into a rare success story in the country’s depressed agricultural sector.

Indigenous Brazilians Learn to Fight for the Right to Food

By Clarinha Glock
Indigenous communities in remote areas of Brazil have begun to recognise that they have the right to not be hungry, and are learning that food security means much more than simply having food on the table.

Caribbean Farming Gets Its Roots Wet

By Desmond Brown
As Caribbean communities grapple with the entwined challenges of climate change and food security, modern technologies offer hope that the region's stagnating agricultural sector can be made more profitable.

Environmentalists See Seeds as Key to Agricultural Reform

By Silvia Giannelli
As the global agricultural sector is faced with ever-greater challenges, the question of how to reform and improve the sector is a controversial and difficult one. So Terra Futura, a three-day exhibition and conference on agricultural good practises held annually in Florence, brought the debate back to its roots: seeds.

How to Save a Fish … a Lake and a People

By Mabvuto Banda
Lloyd Phiri, a fisherman from Senga Bay on Lake Malawi’s shores in Malawi’s central region, knows that the lake’s water levels are dropping. He can see it in his catch, which has shrunk by more than 80 percent in recent years.

No Sweet Consolation for Women Diabetics

By K. S. Harikrishnan
The disease itself may not discriminate on the basis of gender, but when it comes to healthcare for patients with diabetes, women in India find themselves at a disadvantage compared to men.

South Asia in Search of Coordinated Climate Policy

By Amantha Perera
With a combined population of over 1.7 billion, which includes some of the world’s poorest but also a sizeable middle class with a growing spending capacity, South Asia is a policymaker’s nightmare.

Protecting Niger’s Desert Salt Pans

By Ousseini Issa
The Bilma community has mined the salt pans in the massive Ténéré desert region in northern Niger for centuries. But the threat of the ever-encroaching desert has become a real concern as locals here struggle to cope with a decline in salt prices.

U.S. Gov’t Accused of “Corporate Diplomacy” for Biotech Industry

By Carey L. Biron
A consumer protection group here is accusing U.S. diplomats of engaging in a concerted and at times forceful advocacy campaign on behalf of genetically modified seeds and even specific biotechnology companies, particularly aiming to influence governments in developing countries.

Israeli Students Vow to Eradicate Malnutrition

By Pierre Klochendler
At the Gymnasia Herzliya School in Tel Aviv, 20 ninth and tenth graders are testing the simplest, cheapest and fastest way to solve the problem of malnutrition among their peers around the world.

In Trinidad, Causes Debated as Flooding Worsens

By Peter Richards
Officially, the Caribbean's rainy season begins in June, coinciding with the start of the hurricane season. But recently, heavy rains have signalled an early start to the rainy season, flooding streets, swelling rivers and causing widespread damage to crops.
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