Agriculture

Traditional, Time-Tested Methods and a Modern App Helps Beat Climate Change

Even as erratic weather and extremely high temperatures increase pest infestation and affect harvests, a combination of traditional methods, integrated pest management through intercropping and multilayering is helping farmers in Ahmednagar and Aurangabad districts of Maharashtra, India.

Agricultural Power, Waning Industry Dictate Brazil’s Future

With its accelerated growth agriculture has emerged as a key sector of Brazil's economy, but it is failing on its own to spread prosperity and reduce poverty and inequality, with industry in decline.

Southeast Asian Farmers Adapt, Insure against Growing Climate Risks

As incidents of drought and extreme rainfall increase, farmers in Southeast Asia are partnering with experts to develop targeted weather forecasts to work around the threats and, when adaptation becomes too costly, buy specially designed insurance to protect their livelihoods.

Digitisation Boosts Mechanised Farming Among Kenyan Farmers

When 33-year-old Kimani Mwaniki, an Irish potato farmer in Elburgon, Nakuru County in Kenya’s Rift Valley, heard about a farmer’s virtual school, he didn’t hesitate to enrol. He was keen to learn how the programme will enable him to get higher crop yields for his market in the capital city Nairobi and elsewhere.

Rwandan Farmers Pin Hopes on New Tech to Tackle Food Losses

Rwanda is trying to reduce post-harvest loss by relying on new technologies to increase the amount of food available for consumption and help smallholder farmers confront some challenges caused by the overproduction of staple crops.

Is India on Track to Beat the Perfect Storm?

“The Perfect Storm” was a dire prediction that by 2030 food shortages, scarce water and insufficient energy resources together with climate change would threaten to unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts and mass migration from worst-affected regions.

Making Agriculture Cool

At every conference she has attended on the youth, Nawsheen Hosenally has been frustrated to hear that agriculture is not ‘cool’. The 29-year-old graduate in agricultural extension and information systems knew she wanted to do something to redeem the image of agriculture among young people.

Climate Change Becomes a Reality Check for the North

“This season, the month of May was particularly hot and dry,” says Leo De Jong, a commercial farmer in Zeewolde, in Flevopolder, the Netherlands. Flevopolder is in the province of Flevoland, the largest site of land reclamation in the world. Here a hectare of land costs up to 100,000 Euros. “At the moment, we are spending between 20,000 and 25,000 Euros per week on irrigation.”

After a Historic Success, Urgent Challenges Face the WTO

In 2015 the international community took some huge strides forward on a number of vital issues. There was the agreement on the United Nations new Sustainable Development Goals.

WTO: Giant Steps in the World Conference

World Trade Organization (WTO) members concluded the Tenth Ministerial Conference in Nairobi on 19 December by securing an historic agreement on a series of trade initiatives. The “Nairobi Package” pays fitting tribute to the Conference host, Kenya, by delivering commitments that will benefit in particular the organization’s poorest members.

Weak Agriculture Finance Feeds Malnutrition in Zimbabwe

Successive poor harvests have diminished Ndodana Makhalima's household food stocks and the family’s nutrition status.

A subsistence farmer in Lupane, about 110 kilometres north of Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo, 56 year-old Makhalima has learnt to live with hunger on his door step.

Emulating the US Opposed by the US

The US once led the post-war global effort against hunger and food insecurity, but corporate influence on government trade negotiators now seek to prevent other countries from using some of the very measures it pioneered.

Farmers to COP 21: Don’t Bite the Hand That Feeds You!

When Dr. Evelyn Nguleka says that the world’s people shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds them, she explains that she’s not only referring to protecting farmers, but also to safeguarding the environment.

India Holds Up Farmers’ Plight from Extreme Weather for COP21 Delegates

“If you look at the submitted Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs, the national commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2030) by over 150 countries, most have announced mitigation-centric targets, whereas climate change is also about adaptation. India is among the few that has given a comprehensive INDC,” Ashok Lavasa, a key official of India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and part of its COP21 team at Paris, told IPS.

Farmers Urge Solutions at Climate Change Talks

Recognizing that agriculture plays a significant role in global warming, farmer associations say they want to offer solutions, and they’re urging governments to include them in negotiations during the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 in Paris.

Analysis: Are Young People the Answer to Africa’s Food Security?

Are you young, energetic, creative, ambitious and need a job? Africa's agriculture sector needs you!

OPINION: Keep Family Farms in Business with Youth Agripreneurs

Finding a way to allow youth to contribute their natural and ample energies to productive causes is increasingly the touchstone issue that will determine future prosperity.

From Bangladesh to Bihar

Times are a-changing for Bihar, a state popularly described as a state of mind. The recent elections have brought back Nitish Kumar as the chief minister for the fifth time. Since his first innings as a developmental CM from 2005, he has transformed Bihar from being an archetype of India’s backwardness to one of its fastest growing states. Besides improving governance, he has also politically empowered women in that benighted state. Not surprisingly, the women’s vote was decisive for his electoral success. He now has the historic opportunity to shift gears towards sustainable gender-based development.

Caribbean Agriculture Looks to Cope with Climate Change

Climate change represents a clear and growing threat to food security in the Caribbean with differing rainfall patterns, water scarcity, heat stress and increased climatic variability making it difficult for farmers to meet demand for crops and livestock.

Urgently Needed: Studies Linking Land Degradation, Migration, Conflict and Political Instability

Some 135 million people could be displaced by 2045 as a result of land desertification, according to a recent UK ministry of defence report. This figure could rise to 200 million who are displaced by other climate change impacts like natural disasters by 2050, said British environment refugee specialist Norman Myers.

Zimbabwe’s Smallholder Farmers Seek Address Food Security and Health Risks with Air Tight Storage Technology

Last season, Mollene Kachambwa lost a tonne of the 5 tonnes of maize the family harvested to weevils and fungi.

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richard durrett