GABORONE, BOTSWANA. You wouldn’t know there’s a food crisis in Botswana, one of Africa’s wealthiest and most stable countries, because it’s a silent one. This is not the doom and gloom Africa that we often hear sensationalized in the media as a place of coups, famines and corruption. No, Botswana is a model African state […] … learn more→

The Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa make up only 5 percent of the world’s population, yet they take in more than 20 percent of the world’s grain exports. Imports to the region have jumped from 30 million tons of grain in 1990 to nearly 70 million tons in 2011. Now imported […] … learn more→

More than a quarter of all the meat produced worldwide is now eaten in China, and the country’s 1.35 billion people are hungry for more. In 1978, China’s meat consumption of 8 million tons was one third the U.S. consumption of 24 million tons. But by 1992, China had overtaken the United States as the […] … learn more→

The likely culprit in sharp worldwide declines in honeybee colonies since 2006 is imidacloprid, one of the most widely used pesticides, according to a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). The authors, led by Alex Lu, associate professor of environmental exposure biology in the Department of Environmental Health, write that the […] … learn more→

Oxford University researchers have helped create a new index designed to help empower women working in agriculture in developing countries. The \’Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index\’ (WEAI) is the first measure to directly capture women’s empowerment and inclusion in the agricultural sector. Empowering women in agriculture means helping them produce food, bring their produce to […] … learn more→

A study by a large international team of scientists says that relatively cheap, simple measures to cut two common pollutants could substantially reduce global warming and improve human health and agriculture in coming decades. Instead of focusing on carbon dioxide—the main culprit in climate change–they target specific ways to cut methane and soot from industrial […] … learn more→

The glacial pace of international efforts to curb climate change continued at the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa last week. Governments concluded that by 2015 they should agree on legally binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions that involve all major nations — including China, India and the United States. But they also agreed […] … learn more→

Is it possible to have an ice-skating rink in an old mine? Or perhaps a wine and cheese cellar in a mine shaft? Or even a swimming pool in a processing plant? It isn’t just possible – it can be environmentally, socially and economically friendly too. Restoring the environment In Australia, mining companies must rehabilitate […] … learn more→

So, we have to feed an extra 2.5 billion people by 2050. For those of us interested in the future of biodiversity on this planet, this poses an uncomfortable challenge. It is also the topic of a recent paper in Science by Ben Phalan and colleagues at Cambridge University. Clearly, we need to ramp up […] … learn more→