More than a billion farmers and their families around the world are on the front line of climate change. Their lives and livelihoods are directly affected by its impact, and they are also vital to implementing many of the solutions we need to help delay and deflect it.
Members of the Farming First coalition believe that:
Agriculture
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has just launched an interactive world map highlighting some of the many success stories in agricultural development from around the world. It is part of a wider upcoming launch of their newest publication, Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development, which will be released on 12 November.
The interactive
Farming First is participating in Blog Action Day 2009, which brings the world’s bloggers together to discuss a common issue from their own perspectives. More than 6800 blogs in 135 countries will be addressing this year’s topic of climate change.
For our part, we’re looking at an interesting article appearing in The Economist this week discusses
March and April are the driest months in Bangladesh. During this time, up to 880,000 hectares of land is left fallow because of the intrusion of saltwater into the soil.
Bangladesh is benefiting from new research into how to make this land productive during the dry season. Using simple drip irrigation technology on raised planting beds,
Potato blight is a disease caused by a fungus which targets potatoes both in the field and in storage. It can destroy an entire crop of potatoes within one or two weeks, and it can survive year after year in the tubers of infected potatoes, which release millions of new spores when the next rainy
In the lead-up to its High-Level Expert Forum in Rome this October, the FAO has issued a cautiously optimistic progress report on the state of the African agricultural sector, as reported in a recent article by Voice of America.
The FAO has calculated that agriculture has grown by 3.5% in 2008, largely due to better policies
