We sampled sewage sludge from 13 wastewater treatment plants across three states. We found every resident adds microplastics to farmland, in dried sewage sludge (biosolids) used as fertiliser.
Sydney’s 14 wastewater treatment plants could be modified to also accept food waste, research shows. The ‘anaerobic digestion’ process would produce energy as well as nutrients for reuse.
Farmland birds like the corn bunting have seen their numbers plummet since 1980.
Aurélien Audevard
A third of South Africa’s farming income depends on irrigation. Disruptions in power supply put huge chunks of the country’s agricultural fortunes at risk.
Many of our rivers are overloaded with nutrients from fertiliser run off and wastewater. Algal blooms, fish kills and poor water follow. One solution? Nutrient offsetting.
More of us now own indoor plants.
Dmitry Marchenko/Alamy Stock Photo
Several batches of palm kernel product imported for dairy farms contained certain chemicals above a safe limit – and there’s an ethical quandary in supporting an industry linked with deforestation.
Common ground: back-channel negotiations have succeeded in brokering deals including over grain exports.
vchal via Shutterstock
This crucial fertiliser component is mostly found in just five countries.
Zawadi Msafiri is seen in a withered maize crop field in Kilifi County, Kenya. The drought situation started in 2021.
Photo by Dong Jianghui/Xinhua via Getty Images
Up to 42,000 tonnes a year of microplastics are removed from sewage, spread on fields as fertiliser and eventually wash back into watercourses.
Widespread protests have followed changes in the subsidised price of Baladi bread, a traditional Sudanese flatbread.
Photo by MUJAHED SHARAF AL-DEEN SATI/AFP via Getty Images
Clemens Breisinger, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ; David Laborde Debucquet, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ; Joseph Glauber, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ; Oliver Kiptoo Kirui, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) , and Paul Dorosh, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Wheat and bread play a central role for food security and political stability in Sudan.