Michelle Miller, popularly known as the Farm Babe, is an Iowa-based farmer, public speaker, and writer. She debunked myths about GMOs from the point of view of a real farmer of GM corn and soybeans. Farm Babe stresses that 90 to 95 percent of certain crop farmers choose to plant GMOs, and they must have a good reason for that decision.

Countries are making significant steps in tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR), but  serious gaps remain and require  urgent action, according to a report released today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
 

Young African scientists have been challenged to invest in honing skills that enable them to effectively communicate to non-technical audiences. This would help policy and decision makers appreciate and prioritize research as a sustainable tool in the fight against food insecurity and malnutrition in the continent. This emerged during a science communication workshop for bioscience research fellows and interns held on July 10, 2018 in Nairobi, Kenya.

Family farmers in rural Bosnia and Herzegovina and Egypt have increased their incomes, production and skills by taking part in a project funded by an IFAD grant and implemented by Oxfam Italia. In the central European country, the project focused on enabling small farmers and processors to upgrade traditional local products so they could be sold for a better price, appeal to visiting tourists and be exported to markets in Europe.

Just about six percent of rural households in Kenya, aspire for their children to become farmers. This is highlighted through a recent study that interviewed 624 rural households from Embu and Kitui in eastern Kenya. The study found however, that 65% households hoped to increase their farm incomes. Closely linked to a recently published theoretical paper on the importance of aspirations, this publication focuses on household aspirations to understand its link to the potential for technology adoption.

In Colombia, cassava is a staple crop planted to more than 200,000 hectares. The Caribbean region of Colombia has the highest area of cultivation in the country (100,000 hectares) but accounts for only 37.8% of the total national production (According to National Administrative Department of Statistics). Production levels there have remained stagnant while other areas of Colombia have improved.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) officially renewed this week their scientific cooperation in agriculture and rural development, in a signing ceremony held at the Ministry’s national headquarters in Hanoi.

IRRI, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is equipping the next generation of African agricultural technicians and extension agents with technical strategies and techniques in developing sustainable rice value food chains. A two-week training workshop gathered 27 participants from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote D’ Ivoire, Guinea Conakry,  Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda.

One of the major technological developments that makes rice straw disposal more efficient is the rice straw baler. This machine can pick up and collect loose straw in the field, and reduce it into compact bales that can be easily handled and transported to areas where it can be used further. Using this machine reduces labor requirement by 90% compared with manually collecting the rice straw spread out in the field. 
 

John Innes Centre (JIC) researchers discovered how rice plants have evolved custom-built defense solutions against different variants of the rice blast pathogen. The results of the study are published in Nature Plants.