The world must diversify its food production and consumption, or face damaging supply disruptions that could lead to suffering and social unrest, scientists warned on Monday.
A new global study found the health and environmental benefits of transforming the way we farm would outweigh heavily the cost of doing so, with …
Teff, an ancient grain from Ethiopia and Eritrea, has been growing in popularity across the world in recent years. Huge demand meant prices skyrocketed and the Ethiopian government eventually slapped a ban on exports which it kept in place for six years. The aim was to enable Ethiopians, who rely on it as a staple …
The plants, animals, and micro-organisms that are the bedrock of food production are in decline, according to a UN study.
If these critical species are lost, the report says, it “places the future of our food system under severe threat”.
The study says that land-use changes, pollution, and climate change are all …
The Crop Trust is on a mission to improve biodiversity and protect farmers against climate change through their Crop Wild Relatives project.
Crop Trust joined with The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) in June on a five-day hunt for wild relatives of potatoes in Brazil. Having found two wild potato relatives …
The solution to achieving food security for the country is based on access to seeds.
This is especially because the quality of seeds determines the quantity of food harvested.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (Fao), about 75 percent of biodiversity has been lost in the last century, globally.
The loss has …
By Elwyn Grainger-Jones, Executive Director, CGIAR System Organization
Going into debt with nature is a dangerous thing. When our stocks of water, land and clean air are spent – we don’t have a second planet to borrow from. But that’s exactly the way that Earth is heading. 1 August 2018 marks …
We need to transform agriculture for good!
Like human societies, agriculture is at a crossroads. We can either enforce and protect monocultures or facilitate and celebrate diversity. It is not a question of whether the Green Revolution has successfully fed most of us (it has), but whether this model can nourish …
REPORT
Summary: Alongside dramatic increases in crop production over the last 50 years, global food systems have become more dependent on a few major `staple’ crops – just three cereals now provide about 60% of plant-based human energy intake.
There is compelling evidence that diverse diets that include fruits, vegetables, nuts and …
Human diet depends mainly on crops and a large number of species have been independently domesticated from wild relatives across the globe. In terms of quantity of the production however, a small number of crops currently dominate the world share, such as maize, wheat and rice. Accordingly the research efforts …
Researchers at BGI and other centers are in the process of sequencing — and resequencing — the genomes of 101 plants for the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC), an international effort to improve nutrition in Africa through genome-assisted breeding resources and training.
Howard-Yana Shapiro, chief agricultural officer at Mars Incorporated, who …