Month: October 2013
“Let us Choose What Works for our Farms,” Say Farmers about the Tools and Technologies Needed to Tackle Climate Change
Global: At last week’s World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa, a panel of five farmers from four continents discussed how they are responding to the challenges which global climate change will pose to their farms. (Read the Reuters Alertnet coverage of the event here; see the full event programme and video here.) The panel was […]
Read More
Achim Dobermann: Agribusinesses need to play a major role in the new sustainable development agenda
Global: Achim Dobermann is the Deputy Director General for Research at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Co-Chair of the Thematic Group on Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). In this post, he explores the role of agribusinesses in the new Sustainable Development Agenda and recommends a set of concrete steps […]
Read More
Sir Gordon Conway: 11 Innovations for African Smallholder Agriculture
Africa & Middle East: Our guest author, Sir Gordon Conway from Agriculture for Impact, discusses his new report, which calls for more multidisciplinary, collaborative research at a range of scales for African agriculture. The report is being launched today at the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa. In my latest report, “Innovation for Sustainable Intensification in Africa”, my […]
Read More
Sue Carlson: Rural Women – The Missing Development Demographic
Africa & Middle East: In celebration of the UN International Day of Rural Women today, our guest author, Sue Carlson of the World Farmers Organisation, looks at the status of rural women and their potential for reducing poverty and hunger around the world. Perhaps more than any other major demographic around the world, rural women have benefitted least from […]
Read More
Esin Mete: Fertilizing Crops to Improve Human Health
Global: Below is an excerpt from an article by Ms Esin Mete, President of the International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA), which discusses the potential of fertilizers biofortified with key micronutrients, such as zinc, iodine and selenium to improve crop yields and resilience, while also making these micronutrients more available to humans when we eat them. Read […]
Read More
2013 World Food Prize Panel Event: Five Farmers from Four Continents: “Impacts and Opportunities of Global Climate Change”
Global: On 16th October, 2013, Farming First co-hosted a farmer roundtable event at the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa. (Read our commentary from the event and interview with the farmers here.) The event featured five farmers from around the world (Africa, Europe, South Asia and South America), who shared their thoughts on the on-farm […]
Read More
UN has ‘extreme confidence’ that climate change is man-made
Global: A new report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated that it is 95% certain that climate change is man-made. Qin Dahe, co-chair of the working group, said: “Our assessment of the science finds that the atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, the global […]
Read More