SRI can reduce water requirements, increase land productivity, and buffer against the impacts of climate change while reducing reliance on artificial inputs, like pesticides and artificial fertilizer.
Crops and Commodities
New Endowment To Help Sustain Organic Grain Research
Clif Bar & Company and the King Arthur Flour Company just announced a US$1.5 million endowment to sustain organic grains research at Washington State University’s Bread Lab.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Unlocking the Potential of Agriculture and Nutrition in West Africa
Focusing on the well-being and improved lives of West African farmers, Ndidi Nwuneli talks about passion and seeking change in her local state and throughout West Africa.
Baking Bread with Cassava Creates Resilience
Research organizations are working with local farmers and bakers to incorporate cassava flour into bread, with significant positive impacts for whole regions.
Changing Women’s Lives in Ivory Coast
In West Africa where the percentage of women in poverty is growing, new technologies and crop varieties developed by the region’s leading researchers bring new opportunities for women and youths in terms of food and livelihood security.
Biodiversity for Resilience Against Natural Disasters
As climate shocks increase in frequency and intensity, agricultural biodiversity—the variety of species of plants, animals, and microorganisms used for agriculture and food production—is an increasingly important part of resilience building.
To Save Family Farms, We Must Oppose Monsanto-Bayer Merger
The pending Monstanto-Bayer merger will increasingly limit farmers choices while increasing the price of required agricultural inputs. Congressional candidate Austin Frerick is out to right this wrong, restore competition within the market, and save family farms.
Counting the Beans: New Tool Measures the True Cost of Food
With WFP’s Counting the Beans tool, users can compare the relative price of the same plate of food in a diverse range of countries around the world.
Mondelēz International’s Cocoa Life Program Promises Farmers a Sweeter Deal
The world’s largest chocolate company sets the standard for corporate sustainability in food, targeting 100-percent sustainably-sourced cocoa.
How Tucson’s Edible Biodiversity is Increasing Food Security
A new study by the University of Arizona Center for Regional Food Studies reveals that Tucson, Arizona, in one of the top U.S. cities and an international leader in conserving and providing access to food biodiversity.
Keep Your Eyes on the Price: WTO Remains Blind to Agricultural Dumping
Farm leaders from around the world were greatly disappointed in the outcome, or lack thereof, at the biennial World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires. If the WTO is to fulfill its mandate to support development and reduce unfair trade, it has to keep its eyes on the prize of fair prices and address illegal dumping.
Tapping into Ancient Strains to Bring Heat-Tolerant Wheat to Senegal
A group of scientists won the 2017 Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security for applying advanced breeding techniques to strains of primitive and modern wheat to develop a set of durum wheat varieties that can not only withstand constant 35 to 40 degree Celsius (95 to 104 degree Fahrenheit) heat, but also grow remarkably fast, in only 92 days.
Webinar: The Human Face of Trade and Food Security
The report examines the evolution of agricultural markets, global trade, and value chains and how smallholder farmers interact with the food system. Webinar will include a panel discussion of the report.
India’s Public Stockholding: “Much more than a welfare program”
India’s food security and stockholding program uses precisely the same policies that the U.S. used in its early farm policy coming out of the Great Depression. Exactly the same: price supports, food reserves, administered markets, subsidies. The U.S. government used them because they work. India and other countries should be allowed to use them, too. Because they work.
WTO and Food Security: Biting the Hand that Feeds the Poor
India’s National Food Security Act (NFSA), is one of the most ambitious food security initiatives in the world, planning to buy food grains from small-scale farmers to distribute to some 840 million poor Indians, two-thirds of the country’s people.
Food Fight: the Battle Over Sri Lankan Food Production
Once known as ‘the granary of the East’, Sri Lanka’s food production has suffered over recent decades, with civil war, natural disaster, and failed policy all contributing to a fall in domestic food production and a rise in imports. In 2016, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena published an ambitious three-year agricultural plan to build a ‘toxin-free nation.’ The plan reimagines the country’s agricultural future based on the principles of agroecology: an approach which prioritizes sustainable and people-centered practices over corporate profit.
Bananageddon Film Examines How to Save America’s Favorite Fruit
America’s favorite fresh fruit, bananas, face extinction as we know them. New documentary examines how a shift in agriculture can save bananas and the workers who produce them.
15 Gleaning Initiatives Fighting Food Waste
With 133 billion pounds of food ending up in landfills, gleaning organizations across the country are working with farmers to help fight food waste and food insecurity.
Vote With Your Turkey: How Your Holiday Purchase Can Save Lives
Americans eat approximately 40 million turkeys on Thanksgiving and another 22 million for Christmas. Consumers have an opportunity this holiday season to help move turkey producers away from misusing life-saving medicines.
The Tea Industry: A Model for a Sustainable Future
First discovered 5,000 years ago in China, tea is the most consumed beverage in the world, besides water, and more than half of Americans drink tea on a daily basis. Consumers are increasingly demanding fair trade, organic practices, and sustainable farming.
