Agriculture & Nutrition

Farmer-led irrigation in Africa: Driving a new Green Revolution?
A new open access review paper is just out in the Journal of Peasant Studies on farmer-led irrigation in Africa. The paper offers a fantastically useful overview of the debate about what form of irrigation is most likely to support increases in smallholder production and livelihoods in Africa. ...

Listen: Food Insecurity-a cause and consequence of conflict
In a world where conflict affects so many communities, it is important to recognize the connection between food insecurity and social unrest. Kimberly Flowers, Director of the Global Food Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), was brought to Rome by U.S. Miss...
Dial ‘N’ for Nutrition? A Landscape Analysis of What We Know About m-Nutrition, m-Agriculture and m-Development
Mobile phone technology has the potential to initiate behavior change and facilitate the long-term maintenance of new behaviors. This paper reviews the existing m-agri and m-health interventions. The purpose of this review is to assist would-be implementers and evaluators to understand the landscape...

A new global research agenda for food
Lawrence Haddad, Corinna Hawkes and colleagues propose ten ways to shift the focus from feeding people to nourishing them. http://www.nature.com/news/a-new-global-research-agenda-for-food-1.21052...

The beating pulse of food security in Africa
MASVINGO, Zimbabwe - Elizabeth Mpofu is a fighter. She is one of a select group of farmers who equate food security with the war against hunger and shun poor agricultural practices which destroy the environment and impoverish farmers, especially women. Mpofu grows ma...

Climate change threatens world coffee supply, report says
A report examining the many ways climate change threatens coffee and coffee farmers has alarmed people who are...

Wheat, one of the world’s most important crops, is being threatened by climate change
A new study published Monday in Nature Climate Change reiterates concerns that wheat — the most significant single crop in terms of human consumption — might be in big trouble. After comparing multiple studie...

Behind the Monsanto deal, doubts about the GMO revolution
Farmers are reconsidering the use of biotech seeds as it becomes harder to justify their high prices amid the measly returns of the current farm economy....

Indigenous people demand shared benefits from forest conservation
“Why don’t the authorities put themselves in our shoes?” asked Cándido Mezúa, an indigenous man from Panama, with respect to native peoples’ participation in conservation policies and the sharing of benefits from the protection of forests....

Can we feed 10 billion people on organic farming alone?
In a time of increasing population growth, climate change and environmental degradation, we need agricultural systems that come with a more balanced portfolio of sustainability benefits. Organic farming is one of the healthiest and strongest sectors in agriculture today and will continue to grow and...