crop failure Articles
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World facing huge new challenge on food front: business-as-usual not a viable option
A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the entire world, driving food prices to record highs. Over the past half-century grain prices have spiked from time to time because of weather-related events, such as the 1972 Soviet crop failure that led to a doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices. The situation today is entirely different, however. The current doubling of grain prices is ...
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Are we creating our own Easter Island?
For centuries environmental destruction in human history has been littered with civilizations that failed because humans exploited natural resources. Examples of over consumption of natural resources can be found from around the world — from the Incas to the Middle East. Currently, the human population is about 6 billion and will rise to 9 billion in the year 2050. That’s a growth rate of 80 ...
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Long-term fertilizer experiment network in China: Crop yields and soil nutrient trends
Results are summarized for the first 15 yr of an eight-site, long-term experimental network in China designed to assess the sustainability of cropping systems in environments representing 70% of Chinese cropland. Systems were wheat–maize double cropping (two crops per year) at four sites, wheat–rice double cropping, rice-based triple cropping, and wheat or maize single cropping. Without ...
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So what is the role of commodity programs? Can they even be justified?
No matter what our area of daily activity, it is natural and even necessary that we myopically focus on the problems and issues of the day. But it is also important to step back once in a while to consider how the situations of today fit into a longer-term context. Along that line, we are in the midst of a series of columns that goes beyond the agricultural issues and policy motivations of ...
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Paying a premium for climate resilience
What is the best way to protect vulnerable rural communities from the damaging impacts of climate change? Insurance could be an answer, but it raises a number of difficult questions. To illustrate, the New York Times recently ran a story, “Report Says a Crop Subsidy Cap Could Save Millions.” The piece discusses a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that ...
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How IoT drives precision agriculture more efficiently
The struggle for water management predicts to increase due to population expansion, urbanization, and climate change, with a particular impact on agriculture. By 2050, the world's population will reach over 10 billion people. Whether urban or rural, this population will require food to fulfill its necessities. When combined with the increased consumption of calories and more complex foods that ...
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Top 3 common misconceptions about the agribusiness industry
Agribusiness, also called agribiz or agricorps, is the business of agricultural production. Agribusiness is responsible for many economic aspects of food production, including seed and fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, livestock feed, processing plants, and machinery used to harvest grain crops. Agribusiness can be considered a subset of the "business industry" that deals with food and ...
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How to make sure there is food for the future
Just as it may take a village to raise a child, it frequently takes a team to feed the village. With global population growing and expected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050, planning for more effective and efficient ways to produce the needed food is imperative. Some suggest that the planet's producers already have the means to supply the necessary food, and that ancillary issues managing waste ...
By BESTMIX
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Stud case study
A major vegetable grower in Lantokia, Fiji, using soilless culture systems began to trial Amnite A-100. His crops consisted principally of lettuce, tomatoes, capsicums, cucumbers, zucchinis and melons. Before the trials they had been plagued with root diseases, mosaic virus and insect attack, control of which required constant use of pesticides and ultraviolet lighting. The first trials ...
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Subsurface drip irrigation; the future of Irrigation is Underground
Placing water beneath the soil surface via buried lines is slowly becoming the "preferred choice" of many vineyard irrigators. The reasons are many, including the absence of surface evaporation, as well as reduced weed growth, herbicide washout, maintenance, injury, and vandalism found with using conventional water application systems. The advantages of subsurface drip add to reduced cost for ...
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Aviro D16 Drone: The way to respond to agricultural losses due to pests
Agriculture is the backbone of the critical industry, especially in Southeast Asia regions, and helps sustain food security worldwide. Notably, they produce prominent productions like rice and palm oil. Each region's most scenic coastline is subjected to the country's broadest range of geographical hazards. The sector currently faces some challenges, including a shortage of human ability, ...
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Could food shortages bring down civilization?
One of the toughest things for people to do is to anticipate sudden change. Typically we project the future by extrapolating from trends in the past. Much of the time this approach works well. But sometimes it fails spectacularly, and people are simply blindsided by events such as today’s economic crisis. For most of us, the idea that civilization itself could disintegrate probably seems ...
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