Healthy soil teems with bacteria, fungi, viruses and other microorganisms that help store carbon and fend off plant diseases. To restore soil, scientists are finding ways to foster its microbiome.
We will one day grow food in conditions as extreme as Mars. Developing the controlled environments required will help not only space explorers but also support our own survival here on Earth.
SNAP helps millions of Americans get food on their tables.
Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com
Cutting the program formerly known as food stamps would hurt low-income Americans and the whole economy. As research indicates that it’s working well, this drive to defund is baffling experts.
Climate change, rising food demand and globalization are putting pressure on world food production. New research explores the risk of failures in several of the world’s breadbasket regions at once.
Roasted maize for sale in Nairobi as grain prices reach historic highs in Kenya.
Reuters/Noor Khamis
Kenya’s high consumer food prices are worrying because they are unresponsive to the policies pursued. The country needs to address this and improve planning to attain stability.
Traditional taro pits can be used to grow nutritious vegetables for the entire household.
Graham Lyons
Robert Edis, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research; Geoff Dean, University of Tasmania, and Graham Lyons, University of Adelaide
We set out to discover whether it’s possible to reduce the alarming rates of non-communicable diseases in Pacific nations while improving nutrition security and income.
A fishmonger pleads for customers in a Kenyan market.
Reuters/Thomas Mukoya
Danielle Resnick, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
The harassment of informal food vendors by national and municipal governments remains a major impediment to improving the resilience of the urban poor in African cities.
To help feed a growing world population, restore biodiversity and slow climate change, a geologist calls for a moon shot effort to restore healthy soil around the world.
The impact of plant disease may be reduced if people are made aware of the many pathways for plant-killing microbes – and why preventing their spread matters to us all.
Planting a diverse blend of crops and cover crops, and not tilling, helps promote soil health.
Catherine Ulitsky, USDA/Flickr
Conventional wisdom says we need industrial agriculture to feed the world. Not so, says geologist David Montgomery: Practices that focus on creating healthy soil can transform agriculture.
Some 17 million South Africans rely on social grants.
Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
South Africa’s social grants, which benefit a third of the country’s population, are widely celebrated. But these grants fall far short of addressing the country’s malnutrition challenge.
Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum founder, holds his book about the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Reuters/Denis Balibouse
Urban consumers in Africa are rapidly growing and they are demanding high quality, pesticide free food.
New research challenges the assumption that world food production must double by 2050 to keep up with demand. The authors call for more focus on conservation through measures such as these diverse winter cover crops planted on a Pennsylvania dairy farm.
Mitch Hunter
According to widely-cited estimates, world food production must double by 2050 to keep up with population growth. New research challenges this target and calls for balancing growth with conservation.
Sorting bags of food dropped by air from a World Food Programme plane in Padeah, South Sudan, March 1, 2017.
AP Photo/Sam Mednick
At a time when poverty and hunger levels are declining around the world, famine is recurring, driven by conflicts and natural disasters. But timely action by governments and aid groups can save lives.