In March 2008, the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) launched a project to leverage communication technology, in particular mobile telephony, to disseminate expert agricultural knowledge to small-scale farmers in rural India. The newly created business, IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited (IKSL), is a joint venture between one of India’s largest retailer of agri-inputs (IFFCO) and
A creative project by the BBC World Service is tracking how food prices have been changing since the autumn of last year.
BBC journalists in 8 world cities — Brussels, Washington DC, Skopje, Moscow, Buenos Aries, Jakarta, Delhi, and Nairobi — have identified 5 staple foods for the area where they are based. On a
The Guardian newspaper has released the results of a poll asking climate specialists at a scientific conference in Copenhagen in March to predict climate changes throughout the 21st century.
Only 18 of the 182 experts thought that the climate would rise by less than 2C this century while the remaining 164 respondents forecasted higher changes and
Around 90% of the agricultural water in use in Asia is used for rice production.
It takes about 5,000 litres to produce 1 kg of rice. Practices such as seeding pre-germinated rice have saved about 15-20% water compared with the traditional transplanting method.
The IITA recently announced that cowpea farmers in sub-Saharan Africa have seen their profits increase by 55% due to new advances in cowpea varietals. This new research has helped improve the returns per hectare which farmers enjoyed when paired with proper crop management.
The cowpea is an important source of protein for farmers in sub-Saharan Africa,
