food security News

Reports show that BASF, Bayer and Syngenta take advantage of permissive legislation to reap huge profits from highly hazardous pesticides banned in Europe.

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is pushing ahead with a plan to grow crops on a Puerto Rico-sized area of peatlands, despite criticism from experts and a history of similar…

When Hans Peter Lankes, a top official at the International Finance Corporation, visited Madagascar in February, he made it a point to tour the IFC-backed BoViMa facility near the southern…

Agribusiness entities that deforested vast swaths of the Cerrado biome in Brazil to grow corn are now suffering a drop in production because of climate changes brought about by their own actions.

In northeast India, a 2018 report released by the Indian Government revealed that an area of 8500 square kilometers is still being used to practice shifting cultivation (SC) - an…

KURUNEGALA, Sri Lanka -- With the COVID-19 pandemic contained following a strict two-month lockdown, Sri Lanka relaxed restrictions in late May 2020. But now, several farming communities are facing a…

Native Brazilian bees provide several environmental services – pollination of flora and agricultural crops being the most important one. But new studies show that pesticides may affect them more intensely.

Late rainfall, intense drought, dry riverbeds, more forest fires, less food available — indigenous communities across the Amazon suffer social transformations due to climate change.

JAKARTA — Nyoman Suryadiputra says he still vividly remembers the time he traveled deep into the heart of the lush tropical peat forests of Indonesian Borneo in 1996 to document…

COLOMBO — On April 22, Sri Lanka eased its nationwide lockdown that was imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. That sparked a buying rush for essential goods, primarily food.…

I am writing this from Bukit Lawang (North Sumatra, Indonesia) a prominent ecotourism town on the fringes of the Gunung Leuser National Park. The town is devoid of tourists amid…

ALBAY, Philippines — Ramon Oliva, a rice farmer from the Philippine province of Camarines Sur, has been tasked to look after the main dam at Mount Isarog in the town…

The Brazilian savanna has always been a dry place, but the massive conversion of native vegetation to soy is making it far dryer, as is deepening, climate change-driven, drought.

LIMURU, Kenya — In the lush, rolling highlands of Limuru in central Kenya lies a farm like few others. From the outside, it could be growing anything in its rows…

The amount that the Brazilian government fails to collect because of tax exemptions on pesticides is nearly four times as much as the Ministry of the Environment’s total budget this year. In addition, multinational giants in the pesticide sector also receive millions in public funding for research.

Urban horticulture has vast untapped potential, a new study has found. Researchers with the Institute for Sustainable Food at the University of Sheffield in the UK used their hometown as…

BENGUET, Philippines — Every day, at least 1,500 metric tons of semi-temperate vegetables are trucked down from Benguet, a mountainous province in the northern Philippines, to depots called bagsakan in…

Fish populations in coral reefs off Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique are being harvested at unsustainable rates, new research has found. In the study published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress…

Purse seine fishing nets may be set for tuna, but they trap whatever fish swim into them, including manta and devil rays. As the net tightens, rays will panic and…

Fish stocks around the world are doing better, in general, where science guides their management, according to a recent study. Publishing their findings Jan. 13 online in the journal Proceedings…

Fish are an indispensable source of food and protein for communities in many African countries. But the growth in industrial-scale fishing fleets around the continent has put that resource and…

MASAKA, Uganda — “The harvest season was good when the forests were not yet cut down, but now they don’t have any food,” says John Mulindwa, 58, sitting behind a…

Every year, billions of fish — almost one-fifth of the world’s annual wild catch — are dried, pressed and ground into oil and meal. The majority of this material is…

SANTIAGO, Chile — At its last global conference, held in April in Santiago, Chile, the World Organisation for Animal Health (known as OIE) focused on aquatic animals. The reason? Experts…

From the devaluation of the peso and changing weather patterns to meeting the growing demand for soybeans over corn and wheat, farmers across Argentina have had to contend with new…

As Indonesia’s forests go up in smoke, the world may be losing a lot more than we currently understand.

PAREMAS, Indonesia — Harniati keeps her youngest daughter close as the pair walk along the footpath from this village to the southeast coast of Lombok Island. For years, the people…

GEORGETOWN, Guyana — “Growing up in the country, I never knew about coffee and Milo. I grew up on lime leaf tea, pear leaf tea, fever grass, sweet broom, all…

The world is in a slow-moving, persistent water crisis. Rapidly rising water usage, increasingly uncertain rainfall, and widespread water pollution push more of our world into water stress and intensify…

Beekeepers fear an even greater die-off from 2020 onward, as Bolsonaro government approves a swath of pesticides, including those known to be toxic to bees.