Supported by the Amrita Bhoomi Agroecology Centre, young farmers are experimenting with natural farming methods, while saving money and lives in the process.
Scientists found a way to get more crops per acre and save the planet at the same time.
The evaluation report three years after Double Up Food Bucks started giving incentives to SNAP (formerly food stamp) recipients
photo: J. Novak Food Freedom recently reported that Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, peasant farmer leader of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the entry of Monsanto seeds into Haiti "a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on
A community effort in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains offers hope for this unique mammal.
Shoppers have realized that paying a few extra cents can make or break a domestic food producer.
I always thought the 'it makes them grow faster' reasoning for why they put antibiotics in animal feed was a myth and that the truth was more complex. Farmers found they could crowd animals
A 13-year-old inventor in Kenya has come up with a low-cost, eco-friendly way to protect his family's livestock that could also serve as a solution to a serious problem in his country -- managing human-wildlife conflict.
Mac McClelland at Modern Farmer ponders the term "humane slaughter" and visits Prather Ranch, a certified organic beef ranch, to see how it is done
A mini video series just released by the National Young Farmers Coalition illustrates the challenges and joys of starting one's own dairy farm.
A local regulation forces all food to go through a terminal controlled by big business, but a group of small producers found a way to bypass the rule.
It's a mutually beneficial arrangement. Lush gets luxurious fair-trade cocoa butter, while farmers earn income in a low-risk way, not threatened by violence.
Wendell Berry is a fount of wisdom and inspiration, so it was great to see that Bill Moyers spoke with the farmer, poet, eco-philosopher about the role of activism and spirit in creating positive change.
A recent surge of interest in local food networks is a boon to farmers, but shoppers need to maintain their support over the long term.
Vintage tractors have become one of the hottest items at farm auctions – it's a trend that should be spread far and wide.
Farmers around the world are letting their crops rot in the fields as the coronavirus outbreak disrupts supply and demand for flowers, fruit and milk.
Across America, dairy farmers have dumped countless gallons of fresh, entirely usable milk, because there is no one to buy it. The shelter-in-place orders given by governments around the country in response to the coronavirus pandemic have shuttered big customers such as restaurants and schools and kept people at home. About 50 percent of the milk produced in the United States goes to restaurants and other food service operations, according to the National Milk Producers Federation.
For many farmers, the Covid-19 pandemic has been brutal with large orders cancelled and revenue plunging. But some small-scale farmers have noticed a rise in direct sales. FRANCE 24's Catherine Norris-Trent reports.
With France now in its eighth and final week of full lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, FRANCE 24 brings you four reports on the consequences in Paris and around the country.
With potato farmers and processors struggling, Belgians are being urged to eat more fries to offset a slump in demand during the coronavirus pandemic.
Demand for milk has dropped with the closure of cafes and restaurants during the coronavirus crisis.
Some dairy farmers are throwing away thousands of litres amid supply chain disruption due to coronavirus.
Many small coffee producers fear they will go under, as Covid-19 has shut down their usual buyers.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of deliberately maintaining "silence" on issues like suicide by farmers and unemployment while campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls. Addressing a rally at Bhayander in Thane district of Maharashtra Monday night, Pawar said unemployment has gone up manifold since the NDA government came to power in 2014.
The former Union minister alleged that the Modi government lacked policies for ensuring industrial and agricultural growth. He was canvassing for Anand Paranjape who is the NCP candidate from Kalyan Lok Sabha constituency.
"Due to lack of any industrial policy, unemployment has gone up in Maharashtra which is the most industrialised state in the country. Modi government is deliberately not making any attempts to ensure the growth of industries and agriculture," the NCP chief said.
Claiming that as many as 11,990 farmers have killed themselves since the BJP government assumed office, Pawar said the prime minister avoids talking about this reality as well as other issues like farm distress, water scarcity and price rise at hustings. "Modi also keeps mum on the Rafale deal scam. Under Modi regime, institutions like RBI, CBI, supreme court etc. are being undermined," he alleged.
Last week, Pawar lambasted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he is "peeping into the homes of others" as he has no family of his own. Addressisng a poll rally at Partur here Monday, Pawar said Indian Air Force pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was released by Pakistan under pressure from the world community and the Modi government had no role in it.
"I have my wife, daughter, son-in-law and nephews. What Modi has?...no one," he said, attacking the PM over his remarks on feud in the Pawar family. "That is why Modi is peeping into the homes of others. How will he (Modi) know how to run a family, he has no one?" the former Union minister said.
The Maratha strongman said Modi stooped low by making comments about his family, but he cannot behave in the same way. At an election rally in Wardha early this month, Modi had said a family war is going on in the NCP. The PM had also claimed that Pawar's nephew Ajit Pawar is slowing capturing the 1999-founded party. Pawar said if Modi had a 56-inch chest, as he has claimed, then why his government has failed to ensure the release of Kulbhushan Jadhav, a former Navy officer, from Pakistani jail.
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In order to ensure that farmers continue to get all necessary inputs for farming amid the coronavirus lockdown, the Indian Railways has carried 25,588 tonnes of manure to Moradabad through 12 goods trains. "To ensure that no farmer faces any issue here, we have transported all the essential items for agriculture including urea via goods trains. These goods will be delivered to farmers with the help of the traders," Manohar, an Indian Railways official, told ANI. The official further stated that they are also ensuring that labourers who are unloading the manure from the trains are following social distancing norms.
"Labourers who have been asked to unload the items have been made aware of social distancing. All the workers have been issued lockdown passes so that they do not face any problem while commuting," he added. Also, Indian Railways recently has also identified 63 routes for Parcel Special Trains since the start of the lockdown for transportation of perishable commodities including fruits, vegetables, milk and dairy products and seeds for agriculture purposes.
The Parcel Specials have been planned to connect all the major cities of the country, viz Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru. In addition, proper connectivity has also been ensured to Guwahati, to ensure supplies in the North-Eastern region of the country. Other important cities connected via these trains are Bhopal, Allahabad, Dehradun, Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Ranchi, Gorakhpur, Thiruvananthapuram, Salem, Warangal, Vijayawada, Vishakhapatnam, Rourkela, Bilaspur, Bhusawal, Tatanagar, Jaipur, Jhansi, Agra, Nasik, Nagpur, Akola, Jalgaon, Surat, Pune, Raipur, Patna, Asansol, Kanpur, Jaipur, Bikaner, Ajmer, Gwalior, Mathura, Nellore, Jabalpur, etc.
Trains are being run even on those routes where demand is less, so that no part of the country remains unconnected. Trains have been given en-route stoppages at all feasible locations, so that maximum possible clearance of parcels may be done.
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After enduring extended trade disputes and worker shortages, US hog farmers were poised to finally hit it big this year with expectations of climbing prices amid soaring domestic and foreign demand. Instead, restaurant closures due to the coronavirus have contributed to an estimated USD 5 billion in losses for the industry, and almost overnight millions of hogs stacking up on farms now have little value. Some farmers have resorted to killing piglets because plunging sales mean there is no room to hold additional animals in increasingly cramped conditions. "One producer described it to me the other day as a snowball rolling downhill, and every additional disruption that we have just kind of adds to that and how fast and how big it's going to be when it finally hits," said Mike Paustian, who farms 2,400 acres of corn and soybeans and sells 28,000 pigs a year near the small eastern Iowa community of Walcott.
COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has created problems for all meat producers, but pork farmers have been hit especially hard. They entered this spring in shaky financial condition because tariffs had drastically reduced sales to China and Mexico. Many operations have struggled to get enough workers, in part due to federal immigration policies. Then demand plunged because the virus forced the closure of restaurants, hotels and other businesses that buy about 25 per cent of pork, including nearly three-quarters of bacon produced in the US. The biggest problem could be getting worse as additional giant slaughterhouses that can process more than 20,000 hogs a day have had to close at least temporarily as the virus spreads among workers. The industry slaughters from 10 million to 12 million pigs a month. Whereas poultry producers can slow production by not hatching baby chicks and ranchers can keep cattle on pastures longer, pork farmers don't have good options. Hogs are raised inside barns with limited space, and it takes time to stop the birthing cycle for pigs.
"We are in crisis and need immediate government intervention to sustain a farm sector essential to the nation's food supply," said Howard Roth, a pig farmer from Wauzeka, Wisconsin, and president of the National Pork Producers Council, an industry trade group. The group has asked the federal government to buy USD 1 billion worth of pork in cold storage that had been destined for restaurants and instead give it to food banks, which have been besieged by people who have lost their jobs as much of the economy has shut down. On Friday, the US Department of Agriculture announced it would spend USD 3 billion to buy fresh produce, dairy and meat that will be sent to food banks. Roth said the purchase will hopefully help move a backed up supply of pork and help raises hog prices. The USDA also said it planned USD 1.6 billion in direct payments to pork farmers with limits of USD 250,000 per individual. Roth said the aid was appreciated but wasn't enough to meet their problems. Farmers have also received emergency waivers from the government to increase the number of pigs they can keep in barns beyond normally allowed limits. Still, farmers without extra space are faced with the prospect of killing baby pigs they can't afford to feed.
"Sadly it's true that euthanising is a question that's going to come up on farms," Roth said. Paustian, the eastern Iowa farmer, said the most frustrating part has been the uncertainty of scheduling deliveries of hogs to meat producers that fall through. Even as the majority of slaughterhouses have continued to operate, most plants are large and their closure is a severe hardship for hog farmers who operate in the region, he said. Because a plant has closed about 40 miles away in Columbus Junction, Iowa, Paustian said farmers in his area are sending hogs to other plants in the state and Indiana. "Producers are on pins and needles every day right now, and nobody knows if they're going to get loads out. They get loads scheduled then they get canceled. It's kind of a roller coaster of emotion for producers right now," Paustian said.
Producers he knows have been able to sell about half of the pigs they'd normally send to market. It's enough to get by for a few weeks, but it's not sustainable, Paustian said. For many pork producers, the coronavirus pandemic may be the final straw, said Nick Giordano, a vice president at the National Pork Producers Council. "We are hearing from lots of producers. They're hanging on for dear life," Giordano said. Besides seeking the purchases for food banks and direct payments to producers, the group wants to make agricultural businesses eligible for a federal economic injury disaster loan program.
While not denying the industry's problems, some people who raise pigs independently say the coronavirus has revealed that the the industry is too reliant on a few large international corporations that oversee everything ' from raising hogs to processing plants and even marketing and sales. Chris Petersen, a northern Iowa farmer, raises Berkshire pigs 'the old fashioned way' ' in individual A-frame houses instead of large confinement buildings. He laments the loss of the independent farmers who marketed pigs to nearby buying stations that delivered the animals to smaller packing plants much closer to the farms. "It's a very fragile system because everything has to work just right," Petersen said.
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Colombo, December 10, 2013. At the request of the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC), the Central Environmental Authority (CEA), in collaboration with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), organized a stakeholder meeting to discuss improvements that can be made to the management of municipal waste in the City of Colombo. The meeting was held at the […]
Experts meet in Patna to discuss new initiative that could “future‐proof” one million smallholders.
International Water Management Institute (IWMI) launched a mobile app, called AgRISE, in support of a new national agricultural insurance scheme.
Researchers at Africa Water Week call for efforts to “decolonize” and improve water permit systems, so more farmers are encouraged to invest in much-needed irrigation.
The Pyawt Ywar pump irrigation scheme, on which the project focused, was established in 2004 by Myanmar’s Irrigation and Water Utilisation Management Department. Designed to increase agricultural production and achieve food
In an opinion piece in The Independent, IWMI Director General Claudia Sadoff says "Achieving greater gender equality will help to strengthen the resilience of our food systems, revitalize rural economies and enhance rural livelihoods."
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Farmer-led irrigation offers one of sub-Saharan Africa’s brightest prospects for defeating chronic hunger and making good on the promise of a more sustainable and resilient future.
In an opinion piece in The Independent, IWMI Director General Claudia Sadoff says "Achieving greater gender equality will help to strengthen the resilience of our food systems, revitalize rural economies and enhance rural livelihoods."
It has been said many times that there is very little irrigation development in Africa, that there is little water storage per head of population, that this adds up to high vulnerability to droughts.
55-year-old Mumbai doctor who has liver cancer, and a 36-year-old Kolhapur farmer putting up with end-stage liver failure have successful liver transplants
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Melness Crofting Estate on northern coast of Sutherland, in Scotland, was selected to be the country's first rocket launch site. But crofters worry for rare eagles and the peat ecosystem.