Plants have evolved techniques for protecting themselves from heat and insect attacks – but when both these stresses happen at once, one defense may neutralize the other.
Small-scale farmers are likely to be hit hard if open-air markets close due to coronavirus fears. This could have a longer-term impact on the food supply chain.
A form of government rationing is now needed, says one of the UK’s leading food supply experts.
Nic Taylor/Flickr
South Africa is already an established player in global fruit exports, especially citrus. But it has failed to take full advantage of the rise in demand for other fruits.
Most households didn’t want their future generations to become farmers.
DIVatUSAID/Flickr
Kai Mausch, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) and David Harris, Bangor University
Understanding rural household aspirations and taking them seriously in development planning could offer great potential in shaping the future of rural spaces.
Climate change has advanced the arrival of spring by as much as several weeks in some parts of the US. This can mean major crop losses and disconnects between species that need each other to thrive.
Avocados are grown in several parts of Kenya.
Juliya_Ka/Shutterstock
Mulubrhan Amare, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Smallholder avocado farmers in Kenya face several barriers to participating in export markets.
Indigenous young people take part in the first Hornbill Festival organized by the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS), 16 September 2018.
Fazry Ismail/EPA-EFE
Golden Rice – a controversial genetically modified product designed to combat malnutrition – has been approved as safe in the Philippines. But key questions remain unanswered.
Planting cover crops, like this red clover in Sussex County, Delaware, can help return carbon to farm fields.
Michele Dorsey Walfred/Flickr
Storing more carbon in soil helps slow climate change and makes croplands more productive. But there are two kinds of soil carbon that are both important, but function very differently.
Peter McGrath, The InterAcademy Partnership; Michael Norton, European Academies’ Science Advisory Council , and Nina Hobbhahn, European Academies’ Science Advisory Council
The sustainability of African agriculture is critical to the continent’s food security and for maintaining agriculture’s contribution to Africa’s rural communities and national economies
Barkandji Elder Uncle Badger Bates explaining traditional plant use. Indigenous Australians have unrivalled knowledge of their Countries.
Zena Cumpston
The recent bushfire horror exposed fundamental flaws in the way we treat the land. First Peoples know the way out of this ecological crisis – if only Australia would listen.
The future of farming is ours to decide.
Raggedstone/Shutterstock
We all need to eat. Experts imagine how the next agricultural revolution can feed us while fighting climate change and habitat destruction, instead of accelerating it.
Tomatoes’ ancestors looked very different.
Foxys Forest Manufacture/Shutterstock
Through genetic detective work, scientists have identified missing links in the tomato’s evolution from a wild blueberry-sized fruit in South America to the larger modern tomato of today.
Managing Director, Triple Helix Consulting; Chief Executive Officer, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research; Professorial Fellow, ANU Fenner School for the Environment and Society, Australian National University