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The agriculture sector in Africa is experiencing a shift from being seen as a philanthropic or social sector to one that is a business. This statement was made by the President of the East Africa Farmers Federation, Philip Kiroro at the Panel Session at the World Economic Forum on Africa. At the G8 summit, that […]

One of the most difficult terrains on which people have ever attempted to produce food is in the mountains. There are many reasons why mountains are considered a ‘disadvantaged’ area with regard to agriculture, which boils down its several environmental conditions. The first is the weather and soil conditions that shorten growing seasons. The second […]

Why and how are rainfall patterns changing? As a result of global warming, the world’s climate is changing and its effect is being felt the world over. And one of the most important parameters of climate is rainfall. Just as there is a direct relationship between climate and agriculture, so is there one between rainfall […]

At the base of all our food is the seed, and without it, the world would go hungry. The mapping of plant species has thrown up a whopping (approximately) 40,000 known plant species on earth – and it does demand a diverse variety of seeds to satisfy nutritional and environmental needs. Seeds hold the power […]

ICT and Mobile Apps drive Global Agriculture The entry of mobile and cloud-based apps We’ve come to a time in civilization when raw materials and resources are becoming ever more scarce. When we take into consideration the pollution, increased emissions, soil degradation, and water depletion, we know the sustainability challenges that loom in the horizon […]

In the United States, the obvious fallout of globalization has been that fifteen percent of its food supply is imported- including nearly half of its fresh fruit and 20 percent of fresh vegetables. Not only has the entire food supply chain become more hi-tech and complex, there is addition of more foods into the market […]

Membati, a 35 year old tribal farmer from Madhya Pradesh, India, has reason to cheer. This year the harvest from her two-acre plot is 17 quintals, where as for the last many years it had stagnated at around 4-5 quintals. Such an output became possible after she adopted the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) that […]

S.R. Srinivasamurthy, a farmer from the Narsipur Taluk of Karnataka, embarked on a tour of the country in a bid to collect different species of rice in order to build a seed bank. His exploratory journey seeking such rare rice varieties took him all the way to V aranasi in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and […]

It was a whopping 12,000 years ago that farming communities cultivated the first cereal grains in the Fertile Crescent area of southwest Asia! Cereals were the first ever crops to be cultivated by people, and it is the most important source of the world’s total food. When we say ‘cereals’, it refers to rice, wheat, […]