In 1947 the Sydney Basin produced “three quarters of the State’s lettuces, half of the spinach, a third of the cabbages and a quarter of the beans; seventy percent of the State’s poultry farms were in…
There is no doubt that the greatest challenge currently facing agriculture is our capacity to feed an anticipated population of 9 billion by 2050. Not only is there an increasing demand for food, but the…
DURBAN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE: With a backdrop of global financial woes and the European Union’s debt crisis, the Conference of the Parties at Durban convened with lower expectations but high stakes…
Phosphorus fertiliser might not spring to mind as highly important to our everyday lives in Australia, but it is critical for our grazing and cropping farms. This is because the majority of Australian…
The world’s population has just hit seven billion and nearly one billion people do not get enough to eat. Agricultural land is being degraded at the rate of 12 million hectares a year and the world faces…
CHOGM: As the leaders of Commonwealth nations meet in Perth, The Conversation is examining the role of the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) Meeting. Daniel Rodriguez from the University…
The Conversation recently published an article looking at the myths about genetic modification. This article is a rejoinder to that piece, and a contribution to the ongoing debate about whether there is…
When my children are my age they will be living in a country with an economy that’s three times larger, and a population that’s twice as large as today. And, on current trends, my children will be living…
Life is woven out of air by light – Jacob Moleschott Before starting to write this article, I asked my eight-year-old boy what he knew about how plants grow. He answered: “Plants take food from the air…
Michael Gilbert’s article starts with a title that poses a question - Will patenting crops help feed the hungry? Fair enough, except he then proceeds to provide an answer, which as the posted comments…
Michael Gilbert, Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics
Rice is the primary source of food for roughly half the world’s population. But it falls well short of providing enough iron, zinc and pro-vitamin A to meet daily nutritional requirements. Iron deficiency…
A recent report in the Wall Street Journal spoke of rootworms in the US state of Iowa that had evolved resistance to a strain of genetically modified (GM) corn developed especially to thwart those rootworms…
We need to stop thinking about food security as an economic problem. Food security is largely discussed in terms of increasing demand pressures and worsening constraints on supply. These discussions miss…
So, we have to feed an extra 2.5 billion people by 2050. For those of us interested in the future of biodiversity on this planet, this poses an uncomfortable challenge. It is also the topic of a recent…