Australia’s deserts can be a harsh environment but plant life still survives there. So why not use them to develop the next generation of drought-resistant crops?
Sea of Green Farms in Seattle, Washington.
REUTERS/JASON REDMOND
An era of prohibition may soon be over for marijuana, and powerful players are watching. A legal expert explains how smaller, local producers can keep their pot in the game.
Sarah Cusser, The University of Texas at Austin and Shalene Jha, The University of Texas at Austin
Bees and other pollinating insects are under stress worldwide. Research in South Texas shows that simple steps like planting wildflowers near fields can help pollinators and boost farmers’ profits.
Increasing land clearing could leave Australia hotter and drier.
Wilderness Society
Ever since British settlement, water rights in Australia’s north have favoured landowners over traditional owners, effectively locking Aboriginal people out of agricultural development.
Maize can be particularly sensitive to agricultural and climate conditions.
Shutterstock
The Productivity Commission report finds that the agricultural industry is overburdened by red tape but there’s still no clear solution for the best type of regulation.
Britain’s new environment secretary has a tough job on her hands.
Billions of dollars are lost yearly to illegal fishing, with West Africa being one of the worst-affected regions.
Commander, US Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th/Flickr
Excess nutrients from farm fields cause widespread water pollution across the U.S. Bioreactors – essentially, ditches filled with wood chips – are emerging as a way to reduce nutrient pollution.
A lack of differences in major policy areas such as agriculture and trade means local project funding – for roads, boat ramps and the like – reinforces the adage ‘all politics is local’.
AAP/Alan Porritt
On the big national policies affecting non-metropolitan Australia, such as agriculture and trade, the major party differences are minor. That’s why the election focus turns to local projects.
South African President Jacob Zuma arrives at a European Union-South Africa summit in 2012.
Reuters/Yves Herman
It’s unclear what South Africa’s attitude will be to negotiating new deals with the UK and the EU. In the past seven years it has lost its appetite for trade deals, particularly with the developed world.
The key to Rwanda’s agricultural success is good partnership between nongovernmental organisations, the private sector and the government.
Sam Thompson/DFID Rwanda
There’s rarely good news in conservation - but we’ve been studying a program that actually works.
Malcolm Turnbull and his colleagues have pointed $1 billion of the government’s existing green energy funding towards the Great Barrier Reef.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The Coalition has ramped up the race to fund the Great Barrier Reef’s protection. All three major parties have promised hundreds of millions of dollars, but where from, and what will they be spent on?
The silverlead whitefly is a major agricultural pest.
CSIRO
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