Wednesday, October 16th, 2013
Global food systems will struggle to adapt to climate change unless urgent action is taken to increase seed diversity, warn advocacy and environmental groups. In a new report released on World Food Day, the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA), Gaia Foundation and African Biodiversity Network (ABN) highlight that the loss of 75% of the world’s agricultural
Sunday, October 13th, 2013
Crop growers, wine grape and other fruit growers, food processors and even concrete makers all benefit from water sensors for accurate, steady and numerous moisture readings. But current sensors are large, may cost thousands of dollars and often must be read manually.
Sunday, October 13th, 2013
Oregon State University will design miniature wireless sensors to attach to bumblebees that will provide real-time data on their intriguing behavior.
Saturday, October 12th, 2013
Thirty-eight U.S. national parks are experiencing “accidental fertilization” at or above a critical threshold for ecological damage, according to a study published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics and led by Harvard University researchers. Unless significant controls on ammonia emissions are introduced at a national level, they say, little improvement is likely between now
Thursday, October 10th, 2013
Scientists have been using remote sensing since March 1, 1984, when NASA launched Landsat 5 to record land surface conditions on earth. It circled the earth for more than 25 years, recording data and sending home information about natural disasters, climate variations, land-use practices, urbanization and other changes. Landsat 8 is orbiting now. Any farmer
Wednesday, October 9th, 2013
Raj Khosla, PhD, and other agronomists have demonstrated internationally that working closely with farmers can improve crop yields. The principles are the same no matter the location: use the right input, at the right time, at the right place, and in the right amount. How those principles are applied varies from field to field, country
Monday, October 7th, 2013
Satellites see defined lines of nomadic pastoralism in one of the world’s poorest countries. Landlocked in western Africa, Niger is one of the world’s poorest nations. With less than 4% of the country’s land arable and prone to drought, food security is a major concern for the population of over 17 million.
Monday, September 30th, 2013
RapidEye announced today that its North American agricultural imaging campaign has been completed successfully. The campaign, which ran monthly from May 15, 2013 through September 14, 2013, generated more than 16 million km² of cloud-free imagery over 3 million km² spanning twenty-eight US states and three Canadian provinces.
Monday, September 16th, 2013
Kenyan farmers and agriculture officials need to prepare for a possible geographic shift in maize production as climate change threatens to make some areas of the country much less productive for cultivation while simultaneously making others more maize-friendly, according to a new report prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Association
Thursday, September 12th, 2013
Arsenic toxicity of humans due to consumption of arsenic-contaminated rice is an international health crisis. Arsenic is often supplied through water from shallow wells used for irrigation of rice. Reduced soil conditions present in flooded rice fields enable the arsenic to be converted to a form that is easily taken-up by the plants.
