crop failure Articles | Agriculture XPRT

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 ...

Apr. 16, 2008

By Earth Policy Institute

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 ...

Sep. 1, 2007

By ABS Consulting

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 ...

Jan. 1, 2010

By Soil Science Society of America (SSSA)

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 ...

Jan. 7, 2014

By National Farmers Union (NFU)

The evolving rights to intellectual property protection in the agricultural biosciences

Pressures from the USA and Europe have resulted in the proliferation of stronger intellectual property protection worldwide, as a condition for continued access to world markets. The failure of crops other than soybeans, cotton, maize and canola in developed countries to benefit from the major innovations in genetic modification raises questions regarding the implications of increased ...

Mar. 6, 2006

By Inderscience Publishers

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 ...

Jun. 7, 2012

By World Resources Institute WRI

How green was my Vertical Farm?

By 2050, 80% of the earth’s population will live in cities and 3 billion more people will need to be fed. The simple fact is we are running out of available land to grow enough food to feed them. If we can’t grow our cities outward to find more arable land, the only solution is to grow them upwards. This may change the way we design cities forever.The problem is real and immediate. Even by most ...

Jul. 23, 2008

By GLOBE SERIES

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 ...

May 25, 2011

By Cleveland Biotech Ltd.

New reports reveal the human and financial costs of large-scale land acquisitions

The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), a coalition of groups working for the rights of rural people to access and use their local natural resources, recently released two reports on the state of large-scale land acquisitions and investments, also known as land grabs. The reports looked at the financial risk associated with international land investments and gave an overview of the setbacks ...

Mar. 1, 2013

By Worldwatch Institute

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 ...

Apr. 27, 2009

By Earth Policy Institute

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