Sharing the Ascension Experience
Dr. Amir Sharon of Tel Aviv University has discovered a transgenic fungus strong enough to convert even the most resilient plant parts into bioethanol, a chemical used for biofuel. Strengthened with an anti-death gene, this fungus is resistant to harsh conditions such as heat and toxic substances – both of which are released while converting … Read more
Africans feeding Americans – it sounds like one whopper of a fish tale. Africa remains a continent of episodic starvation and chronic food shortages; tens of millions of sub-Saharan Africans are unable to reliably and consistently feed themselves. But these imbalances coexist with pockets of increasingly vibrant commercial farming throughout much of the continent.Uganda is … Read more
Diminishing land and water resources due to increasing pressure from industrialization and urbanization pose real threats to the global rice production and its future, Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said today. He said other factors like climate change and uncertainties over policy and trade practices had also greatly influenced the world’s rice situation. Addressing the … Read more
In 1996 world leaders gathered at the World Food Summit in Rome pledged to halve the number of hungry people in the world by 2015. This commitment was reiterated in 2000 as part of the United Nations (UN) development goals. In the meantime millions of tonnes of food and other resources have been poured into … Read more
Recent grants from two Church of the Brethren funds–the Global Food Crisis Fund and the Emergency Disaster Fund–include $50,000 to support agriculture in North Korea, which continues to experience periodic famine. “The Church of the Brethren’s reaching out to North Koreans goes beyond the matter of food security,” said Howard Royer, manager of the Global … Read more
Nearly 500,000 Indian farmers are facing the prospect of famine as a plague of rats that strikes once every 50 years threatens to destroy their crops, rice paddies and village granaries. Efforts to control the rodent plague in the north east Indian state of Mizoram have led the local government to offer a reward of … Read more
To measure a farmer’s ability to produce “more crop per drop”, agricultural scientists now use the term “water productivity”. Farm water productivity can be as high as 20kg/cubic metre water with cereals, or about 10kg/cubic metre with oilseeds and legumes, but such high efficiencies are obtained only in the best managed crops. Almost any factor … Read more
The country is almost self-sufficient now in rice production because of the modernisation of the production system and the use of high yielding variety of seeds as well as chemical fertiliser. For Bangladesh this is all the more important because of the size of population and its rate of growth. During the last four decades … Read more
The cooperative production model has increasingly come to define the development strategies of the “Bolivarian Revolution.” In its August 2005 report, SUNACOOP registered a total of 83,769 cooperatives, with more than 40,000 cooperatives created in 2004 and almost 30,000 more cooperatives formed in the first eight months of 2005. The total number of associates in … Read more
An Indian hobbyist has created a purely organic nutrient mixture for growing plants in water.Although it is still an evolving science, hydroponic agriculture (growing plants in water solution rather than soil) is spreading fast the world over.The nutritional requirement of the plants in this system of soilless farming is met by the nutrient mixtures, called … Read more