The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change estimates that temperatures in Africa are set to rise significantly in coming years, with devastating results for farmers. Some regions could experience two droughts every five years, and see drastic reductions in maize yields over the next three decades.
Research demonstrates that climate-smart …
Call it a tale of science and derring-do. An international team of researchers has spent six years fanning across the globe, gathering thousands of samples of wild relatives of crops. Their goal: to preserve genetic diversity that could help key crops survive in the face of climate change. At times, …
The founding director of West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) at the University of Ghana, has called on African governments to open the doors for the cultivation and use of genetically modified crops to address the food and nutrition insecurity challenges on the continent.
Professor Eric Danquah said the challenges …
A genetically modified potato with improved tuber quality and resistance to the devastating disease late blight has progressed successfully through the latest stage of trials.
The field trials follow successful lab experiments to modify Maris Piper potatoes with late blight resistance genes from wild relatives of potato called Solanum americanum and Solanum venturii.
To improve …
Smart irrigation has been benefitted with the advent of Internet of Things (IoT), thus pushing the growth of smart irrigation controllers market at a global level, according to Persistence Market Researc.
In addition, apart from sprinkling management and management of watering schedules, several players are integrating various functionalities to make smart …
A new global assessment shows that human impacts have greatly reduced plant-fungus symbioses, which play a key role in sequestering carbon in soils. Restoring these ecosystems could be one strategy to slow climate change.
Human-induced transformations of Earth’s ecosystems have strongly affected distribution patterns of plant-fungus symbioses known as mycorrhiza. These …
Rejection of science is rampant, but scientists can do better at countering doubt and there are grounds for optimism every day, says Naomi Oreskes, author of Why Trust Science?
A historian of science at Harvard University, Naomi Oreskes is best known for exposing the tactics of science deniers. Her first book Merchants …
B4FA Fellow Michael Ssali reports:
Timothy Kisaakye, 34, is considering relocating from Kampala to his home village of Kasanje on the outskirts of Masaka Town to become a full-time farmer.
Big dream “I do not think I will get a job in Kampala that can pay me the amount of money that I …
Zambia’s vice-president has recently called to reduce maize dominance and increase crop and diet diversification in his country. The reality is that maize is and will remain a very important food crop for many eastern and southern African countries. Diet preferences and population growth mean that it is imperative to find solutions …
E. coli is on a diet. Researchers have created a strain of the lab workhorse bacterium — full name Escherichia coli — that grows by consuming carbon dioxide instead of sugars or other organic molecules.
The achievement is a milestone, say scientists, because it drastically alters the inner workings of one of biology’s most …