Recently, scientists found that more frequent flooding caused by storm and rainfall along with erratic temperature are responsible for the resurgence of phytophthora blight, a devastating disease that weakens pigeonpea stems irrespective of soil types and cropping patterns. With climate change, new invasive pests and changes in the farming landscape, strategic pulses like pigeonpea can dramatically fail.

Sustainable water management is at the heart of producing more food with less resources in an increasingly complex environment due to climate change. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) is working together in creating impacts at scale that is beneficial for the people and the planet.

An international team of experts led by the University of Exeter used chemical genetic inhibition of a protein in rice blast and successfully stopped it from spreading in a rice leaf. The results are published in Science.

Rice blast destroys up to 30 percent of the world's rice crop annually. The fungus has a powerful mechanism of infecting a rice plant.

Researchers from Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) and the USDA Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) found new clues about how the bacteria linked to citrus greening infect the only insect that carries them which could lead to finding the solution on how to block the spread of infection. The results are published in Infection and Immunity.

Plant growth and development depend on meristems, the plant reservoirs that contain stem cells. When prompted by peptide signals, stem cells in the meristem develop into any of the plant's organs. Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have identified a protein receptor on stem cells involved in plant development that can issue different instructions about how to grow depending on what peptide (protein fragment) activates it.

Fior et al. (1, 2) provide strong evidence for the benefits of studying the effects of drugs on the growth of human colon cancer explants in zebrafish to identify those drugs that will be effective in treating a specific patient’s tumor. Moreover, their work suggests that a similar approach using xeno-transplants of other diseased tissues in zebrafish may be used profitably to find personalized drugs to treat these diseases.

Before dawn the sprawling complex slowly starts to hum to life, and just as the first rays of sunlight appear on the horizon, the place is abuzz with vendors selling vegetables, meats, fruits; women and men buying for the family’s food for the day. The Nghia Tan market in Cau Giay district in Hanoi is a typical traditional market where food products – vegetables, fruits, pork, chicken, fish, seafood, beef – from the nearby provinces congregate and make a stop for retailing among Hanoi’s urban population.

Farming systems in Ethiopia are plagued by soil-related problems which lead to poor productivity, declining soil fertility and soil erosion. Other common farming-related challenges include low fertilizer use and reduced farmlands because of population pressure. Government efforts to address these problems by importing fertilizer, creating a soil fertility atlas, and setting up fertilizer blend plants, have not led to significant increases in crop production in rural areas.

The rise of isolationism and protectionism, visible in the US withdrawal from multilateral trade and climate agreements, the UK’s “Brexit” from the EU, and growing anti-immigration rhetoric in developed countries, threatens to slow progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals and improved food security and nutrition, according to the 2018 Global Food Policy Report released by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) today.

Water is essential for agricultural production and food security.  It is the lifeblood of ecosystems, including forests, lakes and wetlands, on which the food and nutritional security of present and future generations depends on. Yet, our freshwater resources are dwindling at an alarming rate. Growing water scarcity is now one of the leading challenges for sustainable development.  This challenge will become more pressing as the world's population continues to swell, their living standards increase, diets change and the effects of climate change intensify.