Alan Dubock writes:
The worlds growing population and limited land resources require high intensity of food production. Human nutrition needs both macronutrients and micronutrients. One way of providing micronutrients in staple crops of the poor is biofortification, through plant breeding. All methods of plant breeding are acceptable and safe, and …
LIAM CONDON, Member of the Board of Management and President of the Crop Science Division at Bayer AG writes:
I have a passion for learning about different cultures and languages. This probably comes from the fact that I grew up in Ireland, an island separated from continental Europe, so I always …
This is the fourth edition of the Quartz Africa Innovators, our annual series identifying some of the most ambitious and imaginative minds on the continent. The 30 movers and thinkers on this list range across fields from the arts and science to technology and entrepreneurship and beyond.
They all have one …
Intensive, high-yielding agriculture may be the best way to meet growing demand for food while conserving biodiversity, say researchers.
But their study says the approach makes sense only if it is linked to more wilderness being spared the plough.
Intensive farming is said to create high levels of pollution and damage the …
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) just released its 2018 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report. Two alarming facts immediately stand out.
First, for the third straight year — and after a long period of decline — the number of undernourished people in the world has …
Bees and pesticides (and not just insecticides) have been the focus of activists and scientists alike, particularly since a 2006-2008 wave of Colony Collapse Disorder, during which millions of domestic honeybees disappeared.
For a few years, environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council claimed that insecticides, particularly …
Why do we turn on our radios? For music, entertainment and maybe for news, if we’re feeling virtuous. Hardly anyone in the United States would say they turn on their radios for the advertisements. But if you’re a farmer in Eastern or Western Africa, a radio advertisement could be the …
Scientists at the Australian National University (ANU) have engineered tiny carbon-capturing engines from blue-green algae into plants. This breakthrough promises to help boost the yields of important food crops such as wheat, cowpeas, and cassava. Read …
When examining Nigeria’s potential to step into an agricultural leadership role in the region, it’s important to consider what it took to get this far — as well as the forces that long opposed GMOs throughout that nation, writes bioinformaticist Abraham Isah. Read …
… agriculture needs to adapt. The only question is how can we move forward in a way that does not repeat the mistakes of the GMO (genetically modified organism) era? The answer lies in newer technologies that allow us to responsibly develop crops that never integrate non-native elements into a …
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