A long drought followed by a strong freeze in 2020 damaged the coffee harvest in Brazil, the world’s biggest producer and exporter of the crop. To take on the challenges brought on by the changing climate, coffee farmers in the Cerrado have joined a climate-smart agriculture program.
Confining conservation efforts to only 30% of Earth's land may render a fifth of mammals and a third of birds at high risk of extinction by 2030, according to a…
KARUNGARU, Kenya — Karungaru village in eastern Kenya’s Tharaka Nithi county is dry — so dry that even the resilient acacia trees have shed their leaves to cope. But amid…
SINGAPORE — On a vast plateau atop Jingmai Mountain in Yunnan, China, nearly a mile above sea level, grows a forest of ancient tea trees. During summer, silvery cobwebs line…
PITU SUNGGU, Indonesia — Arief Sore holds up a clutch of desiccated rice stalks a short distance from the unusual arable field he tills in Pangkep district on Indonesia's Sulawesi…
Like many rural families in Central America, Martín García and his sons devoted part of every growing season to slashing and burning a new strip of their land, knowing that…
When farmer Mônica de Souza Ribeiro moved into her landless settlement in the state of Goiás in central Brazil in the late 1990s, she was overwhelmed by the sheer amount…
NAIROBI — Munene Njoka, a young farmer from central Kenya, is furious. The reason for his rage is a bundle of decaying maize stacked in a corner of his home.…
Consider the bee. It’s small, and while over a lifetime it can pollinate up to 5,000 flowers, that’s only enough to produce a single teaspoon of honey. But bees don’t…
About a quarter of the world’s land is degraded. A new farming system intercrops agave and mesquite, then ferments it into cheap fodder, promising restored semiarid croplands and a peasant farming revival.
New agri-technologies and traditional farming practices done right could combine to offer significant benefits and hope for the global environment and health.
MINDANAO, Philippines — Maggots are considered gross since they thrive best in stinky, decaying organic matter such as animal waste and plants. The mere sight of them in a household…
Experts see sustainable small-scale cultivation of endemic fruits, nuts and vegetables by traditional communities as a way to value and save Cerrado ecosystems, while also supporting some of the biome’s best defenders.
This week, scientists from James Cook University in Australia announced the discovery of a previously unknown detached coral reef in the Great Barrier Reef. It was the first new reef…
South Korea has been held up as a model by other nations around the world for its current handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the country also leads the way…
Caura National Park is under pressure from gold miners, but Afro-Venezuelan and indigenous groups have teamed with NGOs and companies to do sustainable agroforestry and safeguard forests.
PITEKELE, Sri Lanka — Visitors to the Sinharaja Man and Biosphere Reserve, Sri Lanka’s largest remaining primary rainforest, could easily miss the fact that adjoining the forest’s entrance is the old…
The Global Landscape Forum met in Bonn this week and advocated for altering farming practices planet-wide to boost food security, profitability and soil carbon sequestration.
WEST BENGAL, India — For the tough, weather-beaten farmers in the rural heartland of West Bengal, agroforestry is an age-old tradition that even finds mention in their folklore. In the…
lthough it is administratively part of Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan, the village of Mungku Baru is far from the city in both distance and development. Cell phone signal is scarce,…
Alex Diment is participating in the 2014 IUCN World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia. He presented a talk based on this blog below about how the consumer in New York…
Organic vegetables for sale in Argentina. Photo by: René Piamonte. The global farmland area certified organic has expanded more than threefold to 37 million hectares since 1999, according to new…
Tomato on the vine. Photo by: David Besa. Organic tomatoes are sweeter (more sugar) and more nutritious (more vitamin C and anti-oxidants) than tomatoes grown with pesticides and chemical fertilizers,…
Organic farm in Montana. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. With the worst effects of climate change, we are seeing how pollution hurts both human health and the environment but there is…
Red mangroves of Uttar Kannada. Photo by: Viraj Singh. In the Uttar Kannada district of the Western Ghats, the livelihood of the average individual depends largely on the well being…
View from Varandha Pass in the Western Ghats. A massive expert panel report on the conservation of the Western Ghats has caused a political stir in India. The report, headed…
Corn growing in Colombia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In general, industrial agriculture beats organic farming in yields, according to a comprehensive new study in Nature. The study adds new…
An interview with Arbio Left bank: Arbio's concession area. Photo by: Arbio. Arbio was begun by Michel Saini and Tatiana Espinosa Q. in the Peruvian Amazon region of Madre de…
Fertilizer trees—which fix nitrogen in the soil—have improved crops yields in five African countries, according to a new study in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. In some cases yields…
Soy fields meet Amazon rainforest in Brazil. A new study argues that the destruction of rainforests for agriculture must stop. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. At the end of this…