A team of scientists at the University of California, Riverside have successfully developed a genetic map of the cowpea. This development will enable further research into new and more resilient varieties of this staple crop, which is grown throughout many regions of the developing world.
Mapping the cowpea is notoriously time-consuming and difficult. But now production
Two veteran Wall Street Journal reporters, Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman, have teamed up to write a book addressing one of the most pressing questions of the 21st-century: global hunger.
The authors ask why hunger persists when the technology and tools already exist to feed the world:
Since the time of the Green Revolution, the world has
The UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) has recently launched its new report, entitled “Eliminating World Poverty: Building our Common Future.”
Two implicit dimensions are rreflected in this report’s title. Firstly, the world already has many good solutions for reducing world hunger, but they simply need to be scaled up and funded in order to work
One of the lead stories in this week’s Economist discusses how water is used and managed around the world.
Many development experts are flagging the potential for a global water crisis if better management of our the earth’s water resources is not given more attention. This includes wider application of existing knowledge as well as further
Sometimes simple solutions looking at the issue of timing and planting cycles can provide effective solutions.
For example, in India, mustard seeds were planted in September and harvested in late December/January.
But often, up to 30% of the harvest was often lost to frost.
In response, breeders worked on a seed with a shorter duration period, which enabled
Biotech crops, such as more nitrogen efficient crops, can help preserve water resources by increasing nutrient efficiency and limiting run-offs.
Most plants use less than half of the nitrogen applied to them through fertilizers. Increasing the nitrogen efficiency in a plant allows farmers to use less fertilizer, which in turns reduces the risk of leaching.
Furthermore, unused
