Ascension Cafe

About 20 airplanes, 5,000 trucks, and 40 ships deliver food aid to poor countries every day, according to the WFP. The average daily expenditure on food in the developed world is $10; WFP food rations cost 29 cents per person fed per day.Food drops from low-flying airplanes are mostly a thing of the past. Today, … Read more

The problem, perhaps, is that techniques such as inter-cropping, agroforestry, green manuring, composting and biological pest control offer less prospect of commercial gain to those who have money to invest. The hundreds of millions of people who would gain are the much-derided practitioners of so-called “peasant agriculture”, who have very little money, but who are … Read more

A method that uses roughly only one-hundredth the fresh water customarily needed to grow forage for livestock may leave much more water available for human consumption, as well as for residential and industrial uses. The method for lessening water use is being tested by 42 wireless sensors being installed in a forage-growing hydroponic greenhouse built … Read more

“Lettuce has become like bread,” says Lior Hessel, CEO and a co-founder of OrganiTech, which is based in the northern town of Yokneam. “It has to be on the supermarket shelves 12 months a year.” A robotics engineer by trade, Hessel and his brother, Ohad, began thinking about solutions for lettuce cultivation as they were … Read more

She became the face of famine, yet no one knew her name. Birhan Weldu’s emaciated face became the despairing image of Ethiopia in 1984 and was beamed to TV screens all over the world. Now Birhan, who miraculously survived the 1984 disaster that claimed the lives of one million Ethiopians, has become a symbol of … Read more

Renowned agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan called for empowering farmers with knowledge and skill to make India hunger free. “We need to cover the entire country with the right infrastructure and empower the farmer community,” said Swaminathan, chairman of the National Commission on Famrers (NCF). He cited the recent project launched by the prime minister making … Read more

Developed countries fear giving up the security of basic food production, while transitioning and developing countries are motivated at becoming self-sufficient and even exporters.Global rice, wheat and coarse grains stocks as a percent of consumption have fallen to dangerously low levels that have not been experienced in several decades, with the global marketplace seemly paying … Read more

A production system that requires no electricity, generator or running water has been created for food applications in the developing world. The innovative system has been developed by small Canadian-based non-profit organization, Malnutrition Matters, which focuses on food technology applications in developing countries. The charity believes that the VitaGoat system demonstrates how simple innovations in … Read more

Christian Aid is concerned about the possible effects of genetically modified (GM) crops on developing countries and on the poor in those countries – so many of whom depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and an adequate and reliable food supply.Our first contribution to the GM debate, Selling Suicide: Farming, False Promises and Genetic Engineering … Read more