Pressure is mounting on Australia’s dairy farmers, from farm gate prices to animal welfare concerns, and technology that could produce milk without cows.
Indoor plant factories have high energy costs since LEDs replace the sunlight outdoor plants get for free. Scientists found a way to dial back how much light is needed by breaking it into tiny bursts.
How can we feed a growing world population while protecting the environment? One key strategy is to improve yields on small farms, which produce much of the food in the world’s hungriest countries.
Advocates have argued for years about whether genetically engineered crops are safe to grow and eat. Plant pathologist and geneticist Pamela Ronald calls for a more nuanced discussion.
Australia’s risks losing its valuable native plants that could help solve a global food problem. So do we need new laws to stop the seeds being taken overseas?
South Africa’s agricultural industry has struggled over the past 20 years due to the country’s rush to liberalise the sector while other countries continued to support their farmers.
Today, just three companies – Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta – account for about half of all commercial seed sales. More and more, agricultural patents are used to increase the control these and similar…
Peter Langridge, Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics
AUSTRALIA 2025: How will science address the challenges of the future? In collaboration with Australia’s chief scientist Ian Chubb, we’re asking how each science discipline will contribute to Australia…
Perhaps I was naive, but when I discovered the extent of the chemical soup applied to typical fields I was astonished. As part of our ongoing investigations into the impact of pesticides on bees, we looked…
Resource-intensive agriculture, despite its productivity, nevertheless has failed to feed the world’s current population, never mind the nine billion people expected by 2050. This system that currently…