Agriculture & Nutrition
Venezuela Is Starving
Once Latin America’s richest country, Venezuela can no longer feed its people, hobbled by the nationalization of farms as well as price and currency controls....

School holidays leave 3 million children at risk of hunger, report says
Up to 3 million children risk going hungry during the school holidays, leaving them vulnerable to malnutrition and undermining their education and life chances, a cross-party group of MPs and peers has warned....

Fall armyworm spreads to East Africa
As millions of east African farmers seek to recover from a devastating drought, they face a new threat – the fall armyworm. The pest has been recently detected in Kenya and is suspected to have entered the country from Uganda. It is also known to be present in Burundi, Ethiopia and Rwanda. ...

Urban farming produces more than food: social networks are a key spinoff
Urban farmers not only develop the kinds of friendships they can draw on during tough times. But they also develop broader networks with other farmers, with NGOs, with government and with local markets that allow them to build a career....

Quinoa genome unveiled in search for hardy crop to feed world
Some strains can tolerate 38-degree days, salty soils and high altitudes, say researchers. The near-complete genome of quinoa was unveiled on Wednesday by scientists who say the grain cultivated centuries ago by Incas in the Andes could help feed a hungry world....
Video: Soybean Innovation Lab SMART Farm Improves Livelihoods of Smallholder Farmers in Africa
Watch how the Soybean Innovation Lab's SMART Farm is generating critical new data for increasing smallholder farmer yields....

Microbiome experts to speak at World Economic Forum
Three Cornell University faculty members are presenting ideas about tiny things to a gathering of influential thought leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland. Microbiomes, the combined genetic material of microorganisms in a particular environment, too small to be seen with th...

Open data aims to boost food security prospects
Rothamsted Research, a leading agricultural research institution, is attempting to make data from long-term experiments available to all. In partnership with a data consultancy, is it developing a method to make complex results accessible and useable. The instit...

The Vertical Farm: Growing crops in the city, without soil or natural light.
Today in the U.S., vertical farms of various designs and sizes exist in Seattle, Detroit, Houston, Brooklyn, Queens, and near Chicago, among other places....

Dispelling myths around the Arctic Circle’s famed ‘doomsday’ seed vault
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a hedge against potential disasters that could wipe out varieties of crop seeds, causing hunger. The vault today houses more than half a billion seeds representing 881,473 unique varieties of plants used to feed people. The seeds come from the existing seed banks ...