Of the many elusive grails of agricultural biotechnology, the ability to confer nitrogen fixation into non-leguminous plants such as cereals ranks near the very top. Doing so is a huge challenge because legumes partner with bacteria called rhizobia in a symbiotic waltz that enables plants to draw sustenance from the air and transcend the need for environmentally harmful chemical fertilizers.

The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) bestowed the 2016 Borlaug CAST Communication Award to Dr. Kevin Folta, Chair of the Horticultural Sciences Department at the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Through the annual award, CAST recognizes science or agriculture experts who demonstrate an exemplary ability to communicate through various forms of media.

FAO and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) have joined forces to increase job and business opportunities for young people in rural areas of Benin, Cameroon, Malawi and Niger through a $4 million grant made available by the Africa Solidarity Trust Fund.

Ethiopia is about to complete one of the largest and most successful  seed distribution campaigns in the country's history, aimed at helping farmers to stay on their feet in the face of a blistering drought caused by El Niño, FAO said today. More than 32 000 tonnes of seed have been distributed to around 1.7 million food and nutrition insecure households across Ethiopia's six major regions by the Government,

Building strong alliances among legislators across the world is vital to making headway on hunger eradication, FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said on Monday, as he underscored the agency's continued support to fostering global exchanges between lawmakers. "Our objective is simple: to ensure that food and nutrition security is placed at the highest levels of the political and legislative agenda," Graziano da Silva said, speaking at a special event on the role of parliamentarians in the Zero Hunger Challenge held at FAO headquarters.

Women constitute half of Bangladesh’s 160 million human resources. About two-thirds (53 million) of them live in rural areas and eke out livelihoods from agriculture. More than half of the country’s agricultural labor force are women. They are involved in all agricultural activities, although most common activities are postharvest operations, homestead production, and livestock and poultry raising.

Depression is an illness that can happen to anybody. It causes mental anguish and affects people’s ability to carry out everyday tasks, with sometimes devastating consequences for relationships with family and friends. At worst, depression can lead to suicide. Fortunately, depression can be prevented and treated. Today, on World Mental Health Day, WHO is launching a 1-year campaign: Depression: let’s talk.

“If this ship sinks, there won’t be any chocolate in Europe” – To close the European Cocoa Forum held on 15 and 16 September 2016 in Dubrovnik, Croatia, the European Cocoa Association invited the leaders of the European chocolate industry to have dinner on a cruise. As we left the harbor, the ship was suddenly more exposed to the sea and some started to fear for the future of the chocolate supply.

Region-wise Program Improvement Plans for target crops – groundnut, chickpea, cowpea and common bean – were presented at a recent Tropical Legumes (TL) III Genetic Gains workshop. The workshop used the results of the Breeding Program Assessment Tool (BPAT) as a resource to help guide breeding programs in improving their targeting, speed, scale, efficiency,

José Graziano da Silva, Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), said that the agricultural sector must transform itself not only to achieve food and nutrition security for all, but also to help address global challenges such as climate change and antimicrobial resistance. Speaking at the biannual meeting of FAO's Committee on Agriculture on September 26, 2016 at the FAO Headquarters in Rome, the Director General noted how "agriculture is at the very heart" of a recent series of ground-breaking international agreements, including the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

International Plant Biotechnology Outreach of VIB, Ghent University and KU Leuven, in collaboration with Uganda's National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), conducted a 10-day banana research course for scientists and biotechnology regulators from East and West Africa. The program titled ‘Banana research in Africa: Modern breeding techniques, regulatory and biosafety issues' took place in Uganda's capital Kampala, and ran from September 19-30, 2016.

The United States Congress has ratified the historic International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture ("The Treaty") to strengthen American agriculture and enhance global food security. The Treaty was pending for nearly 15 years after it was first signed by President George W. Bush. Now ratified, it will ensure U.S. public and private sector plant breeders have secure access to global plant materials as they work to develop the next generation of plant varieties to meet the needs of a growing population.

An international team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and other research organizations have sequenced the complete genome of the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata. This pest attacks more than 260 fruit, vegetable and nut crops worldwide, causing billions of dollars annually in direct damage, export sanctions, lost markets, and other costs.

The Public Research and Regulation Initiative (PRRI) and EuropaBio organized a seminar entitled Unshackling Innovation: Will Europe block or enable GM crops? at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium on September 27, 2016 to discuss concerns on genetically modified (GM) crops. Europe helped invent agricultural biotechnology, but has done more than anyone else to thwart genetically modified crops. Will Europe's cold shoulder prevent urgent agricultural modernization in developing countries?

The lack of good-quality seed is one the major constraints in rice production in many developing countries. In many poor rice-growing countries, the farmers rely heavily on farmer-saved seed for their crop production rather than commercial seed produced by the private sector.
 

Wax, cutin, and sporopollenin are vital in the formation of the anther cuticle and the pollen exine. Their precursors are produced by secretory tapetal cells and transported to the anther and microspore surface. Zhenyi Chang of the Shenzhen Institute of Molecular Crop Design, together with researchers from various institutions in China characterized a rice male sterile mutant osabcg26, to study the mechanisms involved in the formation of anther cuticle and pollen exine in rice.

Dr. Akira Tanaka, the first physiologist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), passed away on 28 August in Japan. He arrived at IRRI on 1 April 1962 to head the fledgling institution’s Physiology Department. Japanese researchers, such as Tanaka, played a key role at IRRI as it set the stage for the start of the first Green Revolution

WHO is calling on belligerents in Syria to allow for the immediate and safe evacuation of the sick and wounded from all areas affected by the conflict, including eastern Aleppo. The Organization is also calling for a halt of attacks on health care workers and facilities.

More than 20 farmers from ‘Eua Island in Tonga recently graduated from a Farmer Field School –in the Pacific to teach young farmers how to grow and sell more food with certified training.  Spending an entire season together, with the field as their classroom, participants exchanged knowledge and expertise while being provided with the tools they needed to analyse and identify ways to improve their farming techniques. Each graduate earned a certificate in horticulture.

“There is a marked improvement in our health and stamina after we reverted to a millet diet from rice a few years back,” says Mallika of Kolli Hills in Tamil Nadu. “The demand for millets has steadily increased in the last three years,” says Jayakumar, a retailer of organic products. Minor millets — foxtail millet, little millet, kodo millet, proso millet and barnyard millet —as well as the major millets sorghum (great millet),