Water is perhaps the most essential part of any agricultural setup – whether it’s rearing cattle or producing crops, it’s what makes the wheels go round and keeps both individual businesses as well as the agricultural industry as a whole going.
It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that agriculture accounts for 70% of fresh
Today is World Environment Day, a date established in 1970 to raise awareness of pressing ecological issues. Every year, the United Nations Environmental Protection agency chooses a theme to promote on this date; in 2013 the theme is food waste. One third of the food produced globally is wasted and, with it, we waste a great deal of energy and water as well, since
The rapidly expanding world population, expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, together with dwindling resources, make technology innovation to improve agricultural output not just a fascinating and profitable arena, but a real need for humanity’s survival. Israeli companies are developing new technologies in diverse fields, from breeding new
One of the biggest challenges in the water arena is lowering the cost of wastewater purification, which is a heavy consumer of energy. Israeli start-ups Diffusaire and Mapal have developed technologies which bring dramatic cost-savings to wastewater treatment facilities.
Valcent Products will build a super efficient 6,000 square-foot greenhouse in downtown Vancouver.
Valcent has revolutionized vertical farming with their hydroponic VertiCrop growing system. VertiCrop is a series of four-meter-high stacks of growing trays assembled on motorized conveyors. The conveyors
The type of agriculture practiced in a given region depends heavily on the climate and weather that region receives. So naturally, with climate change, agriculture will be forced to change. Certain crops will have to be discarded for alternative crops which may grow better in the new climate. In other cases, agriculture
Perhaps the largest impact of global climate change will be on agriculture, and there is no crop more sensitive to changes in climate than wine grapes. As temperatures rise and average precipitation levels change, the signature wine-making regions such as those in France and California will be forced to adapt. There have been studies conducted analyzing
Farmers and horticulturists are being advised to act now in order to survive the years of drought ahead.
A recent report commissioned by the Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE) shows that higher temperatures and lower annual rainfall in summer is likely to reduce river flow
Last week I took part in an American tradition: visiting the Wisconsin State Fair. The Wisconsin State Fair and state fairs throughout the country are a cherished summertime experience for rural America – a place where old friends and old traditions go hand-in-hand with the latest innovations. In a solar powered building, I sampled my first cheese curds. I visited Senator Herb
Empty rhetoric. That’s the verdict on the recently established New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from Geoff Bertram and Simon Terry in their searching book The Carbon Challenge: New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme. It is something of a cautionary tale for others contemplating such schemes.
(Reuters) – The messages are tense, angry, cajoling.
Written between 2008 and January 2010 and sent between lobbyists, scientists and high-ranking European civil servants, they hint at the intense emotions in the debate over one of Europe’s most contentious environmental issues: the use of biofuels, long touted as an alternative to carbon-emitting petroleum.
But it’s not how the emails are written that’s important. It’s what’s in them — and
The United States Department of Agriculture was tasked with tracking Farmers Markets beginning in 1994. The directory was updated every two years through 2008. In 2009, the process changed to a yearly rite. Here’s the breakdown:
With subsidy support for corn ethanol under attack, algae and cellulosic look to secure federal support. The result: a subsidy battle in the Capital that could dictate the direction of the U.S. biofuel industry over the next decade.
Has the transition to advanced biofuels turned the corner?
Probably not yet, but sustainable alternatives are beginning to get their day in the sun in Washington D.C. The result: a subsidy brawl is taking shape that will likely dictate the direction of U.S. biofuels development over the next 5-10 years.
There are a few moving elements, but here are the recent highlights:
In Africa and elsewhere, burgeoning population growth threatens to overwhelm already over-stretched food supply systems. But the next agricultural revolution needs to get local — and must start to see rising populations as potentially part of the solution.
I bring good news from Machakos, a rural district of Kenya, a couple of hours drive from Nairobi. Seventy years ago, British colonial scientists dismissed the treeless eroding hillsides of Machakos as “an appalling example” of environmental degradation that they blamed on the “multiplication” of the “natives.” The Akamba had exceeded the carrying capacity of their land and were “rapidly drifting to a state of hopeless and miserable poverty and their land to a parched desert of rocks, stones and sand.”
Since independence in 1963, the Akamba’s population has more than doubled. Meanwhile, farm output has risen tenfold. Yet there are also more trees, and soil erosion is much reduced. The Akamba still use simple farming techniques on their small family plots. But today they are producing so much food that when I visited, they were selling vegetables and milk in Nairobi, mangoes and oranges to the Middle East, avocados to France, and green beans to Britain.
What made the difference? People.