sustainable agriculture News
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Hundreds of Organizations Ask Congress to
Today, more than 500 organizations, businesses and individuals signed a letter asking congressional leaders not to further cut funding to the Conservation Title of the Farm Bill. Noting that conservation programs already have been significantly cut in recent years and will bear more than their fair share of deficit reduction in the Farm Bill as currently drafted, the letter asks Congress to "hold ...
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Report highlights conflict in agricultural research
Efforts to increase food production are clashing with efforts to reduce agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions says a group of international scientists. Agricultural research to improve food security often depends on technology to increase yields and crop intensification -- resulting in greenhouse gas emissions that damage the environment and help increase climate change, an independent ...
By SciDev.Net
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Celebrating 50 years of environmental action in Saskatchewan
The Saskatchewan Environmental Society (SES) has been the organization working on environmental issues in the province for the past 50 years. SES began life in 1970 as a totally volunteer-run, local Saskatoon organization – this at a time when there was no such thing as a provincial Ministry of Environment; no Environment Canada. Our initial focus was protection of the Saskatoon riverbank ...
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FAO’s State of the World’s Forests Calls for Positive Interactions Between Agriculture and Forestry
It is not necessary to cut down forests to produce more food. Promoting more positive interactions between agriculture and forestry can stop deforestation, build sustainable agricultural systems and improve food security. This is the key message of 'The State of the World's Forests' (SOFO), the flagship publication of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), presented at the opening ...
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IOC Mission To Slovenia
The IOC’s Olive Growing, Olive Oil and Environment Unit travelled to Slovenia from 14 to 17 February at the request of the European Union and following an invitation of the country’s Institute for Oliveculture (IZO), headed by Maja Podgornik. The visit was centred around the organisation of a workshop on fertilisation and cryptogamic diseases of the olive tree. The IOC delegation also ...
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UN-backed forum to study climate forecasting and sustainable farming
More than 80 scientists, farmers, and agriculture experts from around the globe gathered at a United Nations-backed conference in Queensland, Australia, this week to work on long-term sustainability of agriculture through improvements in worldwide distribution of weather and climate projections. The two-day conference in Toowoomba, Queensland, will “identify the needs for improving current ...
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FAO and China mark 40 years of cooperation in hunger fight
FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva lauded the People's Republic of China (PRC) for halving the proportion of its undernourished population at a ceremony today celebrating the 40 years of collaboration with the UN's lead agency on food security and sustainable agriculture. He also thanked China - one of the countries that founded FAO - for sharing its successes and expertise to ...
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Fertiliser trees prove a hit in southern Africa
Hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers in southern Africa are adopting fast-growing trees and shrubs to fertilise their fields naturally, for improved yields and incomes, according to a study. Scientists at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), a non-profit research organisation in Kenya, analysed two decades-worth of efforts to bring 'fertiliser trees' to African farms and announced ...
By SciDev.Net
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FAO urges farmers to join “Greener” revolution
Some 100 delegates from 36 countries meeting at FAO last week called on farmers to join the ongoing “Greener” revolution represented by a form of farming known as Conservation Agriculture. This farming system, CA for short, aims to help feed the world more sustainably by building up soil ecosystems and reducing unnecessary soil disturbance wherever possible. According to one study, some 20 ...
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Transformations required in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and water management to halt biodiversity loss
Although international efforts to halt biodiversity loss are producing results in some areas, they have not yet been able to improve the current state of biodiversity worldwide. Agriculture, forestry, fishing and water management are the main causes of biodiversity loss, but they also could play a key role in the solution. In an underlying study for the fourth Global Biodiversity Outlook, which ...
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FAO to partner CBD on biodiversity
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) will work together on programmes that address climate change, food security and biodiversity loss. Two memoranda of understanding (MoU) signed last week (11 Oct) on the sidelines of the 11th Conference of Parties (COP 11) of the CBD in Hyderabad, India, aim to promote partnerships covering research, ...
By SciDev.Net
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Ranking Member Stabenow Applauds Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance
U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, today applauded the work of the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance formed by the American Farm Bureau Federation, Environmental Defense Fund, FMI – The Food Industry Association, National Alliance of Forest Owners, National Association of State Departments of ...
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Switch to organic farming may boost yields and incomes
Switching to organic and resource-conserving methods of farming can improve smallholder crop yields, food security and income, a review study has found. But a more-extensive evidence base founded on rigorous and consistent research methods is needed before the findings can be generalised to other situations, according to the study published in the current issue of the International Journal of ...
By SciDev.Net
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Leaders at Senate Ag Hearing Urge Passage of the Bipartisan Growing Climate Solutions Act
Today, the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry hosted a hearing on the bipartisan Growing Climate Solutions Act, where prominent agricultural leaders urged passage of the bipartisan Growing Climate Solutions Act. U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Ranking Member of the Committee, and Mike Braun (R-IN), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Conservation, Forestry, and ...
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Hershey Announces Action Plans to Protect and Restore Forests in Cocoa Growing Region
The Hershey Company (NYSE: HSY) is taking action to protect forests and restore forest cover in the cocoa growing regions in West Africa. The company today released action plans that are part of the company’s commitments as a founding member of the Cocoa & Forest Initiative (CFI). In February 2018, Hershey publicly committed to no new deforestation in its cocoa supply chain, ...
By Siemens AG
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Rural development programmes 2007-2014 approved by the EC
Country profile GERMANY Size: 357,000 km² Population: 82.31 millions inhabitants (density: 231 inhabitants/ km²) GDP per capita: € 23,702 (year 2003; source: national strategy plan for rural development) Rural areas cover 80% of the German territory and about 40% of the population live in these areas. The German situation is characterized by important regional discrepancies such ...
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Cranfield launches European project to promote the use of trees in farming
The first meeting of ‘AGFORWARD’, an exciting EU funded research programme on agroforestry, was held at Cranfield University this week. The 4-year 6 million Euro project will be working with farmers and land owners in 15 countries across Europe to identify how agroforestry practices – farming with trees – can create profitable, productive, and environmentally ...
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Feeding a growing population that relies on ecosystem services (Part II of II)
The future of farming, food supply, and protection of natural resources are utterly interdependent. While all economic sectors depend to some degree on ecosystem services, agriculture has the most intimate relationship with nature. Agriculture depends on healthy ecosystems for services such as pollination for nearly 75% of the world’s crop species, freshwater, erosion control, and climate ...
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‘We can feed the world and do it safely,’ says ag industry group
If our agriculture industry is going to feed the world’s population, we should care enough to do it safely, humanely and sustainably. That is the message of the Agricultural Safety Council of America (ASHCA), a not-for-profit coalition of agribusinesses, producer organizations and safety professionals that is planning and promoting actions to make agriculture much safer and healthier. ...
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G8: Bush Proposes Talks on Voluntary Global Goal for Greenhouse Gases
WASHINGTON, DC (ENS) - President George W. Bush today said the United States wants to establish a new framework on greenhouse gas emissions for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Outlining his plans for the G8 Summit next week in Germany, the President said the United States will propose a series of meetings with nations that produce the most emissions, including India and China. 'By the ...
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