Thursday, July 5th, 2012
A map can be a powerful visual tool, but can a map help solve world hunger, rejuvenate agricultural soil, and prevent mosquito-borne infections? Can a map help slow global warming and spur sustainable economic development in tropical regions around the world? Perhaps a map alone can’t do these things, but a map can help display
Wednesday, July 4th, 2012
Non-government organisations working on agriculture-related issues last week launched a plan aimed at protecting the land use rights of the country’s smallholder farmers. The Land Core Group Program Plan, which was in development for nine months, runs until the end of 2014 and “is meant to serve as a framework to guide all agencies and
Monday, July 2nd, 2012
Forest Research UK (FR) has developed an application that will allow foresters to create detailed maps of current woodlands on the public forest estate. This application integrates airborne LiDAR, an active sensor technology also known as light detection and ranging, that can measure the distance to a target by illuminating it with pulses from a
Monday, July 2nd, 2012
When John Bartman planted this spring at his Marengo farm, he had a touchscreen mounted in his tractor automatically telling the machine to add more seed here, less there. More fertilizer in this field, less in that. The technology, called geographic information systems (GIS), records every step of the farming process – from planting to
Thursday, June 21st, 2012
Of the many issues being ‘framed’ in the formal and informal dialogues taking place at Rio+20, sustainable agriculture is a key one. It has its own section of the final draft of ‘The Future We Want’ outcome document which includes a resolution by our governments to: “increase sustainable agricultural production and productivity globally, including through
Thursday, June 21st, 2012
Water held in soil plays an important role in the climate system. The dataset released by ESA is the first remote-sensing soil moisture data record spanning the period 1978 to 2010 – a predecessor of the data now being provided by ESA’s SMOS mission. The datasets are now available to the science community for
Monday, June 18th, 2012
Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, Michelle O’Neill, has announced her intention to introduce measures to improve the timeliness of Single Farm Payment inspections in 2012. These include remote sensing for some land eligibility inspections.and Rural Development Minister, Michelle O’Neill, has announced her intention to introduce measures to improve the timeliness of Single Farm Payment inspections
Sunday, June 17th, 2012
Farm Futures has partnered with the Ecology and Agriculture Spatial Analysis Laboratory (EASAL) at Kansas State University to bring these vegetative health index maps to you. Each map is composed from satellite data taken over a two-week period. The EASAL maps show current vegetative health for the past two weeks and compare vegetative health with
Tuesday, June 5th, 2012
Agriculture in India boasts it is the single largest economic activity in the country, employing about 40% of the population and feeding just over a billion people. By 2030 the Indian population will account for 18% of the total world population. In order to provide good quality grains and cereals to their home, farmers need
Friday, June 1st, 2012
The current global food system is unsustainable and does not allow for farmers to live lives of dignity, says Sameer Dossani, ActionAid International advocacy coordinator. He was speaking ahead of his organisation’s participation in the upcoming Rio+20 summit, otherwise known as the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which takes place from Jun. 20 to
