In their efforts to improve the food security and livelihoods of farmers around the world, potato breeders at the International Potato Center (CIP) strive to develop marketable, resilient varieties with resistance to viruses and late blight that can be grown in an array of environments. An excellent example of the potential of such a potato is CIP variety No. 392797.22, a high-yielding clone that can be found in fields all over China and is grown in several other countries.

An app that allows farmers to identify pests and diseases using their mobile phones and provides remedial measures is the latest addition to using modern digital tools to benefit smallholder farmers. A key feature of the mobile app ‘Plantix’ is automated disease diagnosis. Farmers can upload a photo of their infected crop and the app will provide a diagnosis.

The latest technologies developed at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) attracted a big crowd at a Southeast Asian agri-business show held on 8-10 September in Bangkok. Hundreds of people who attended the SIMA ASEAN 2016, including farmers from Nakhon Ratchasima Farmers Group, also visited the IRRI booth. 

A new study from the University of Southampton reports that plants are adapting to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). The researchers led by Professor Gail Taylor used a unique resource – naturally high CO2 springs where plants have been subjected to more CO2 over many hundreds of years and multiple plant generations.

Staple food prices rose in August even as grain prices fell and the outlook for global cereal production improved. The FAO Food Price Index, released today, averaged 165.6 points in August, up 1.9 percent from July and almost 7 percent from a year earlier. The monthly jump was mostly driven by cheese and palm oil quotations, while those for wheat, maize and rice all fell.

The technical sub-committee of India's Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) has said that biotech mustard (Dhara Mustard Hybrid 11 or DMH-11) does not "raise any public health or safety concerns for human beings or animals." The sub-committee evaluated the safety of the crop and released the Assessment of Food and Environmental Safety (AFES) report published in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEF&CC) website for public comment from September 5 to October 5, 2016.

Scientists at the Boyce Thompson Institute's (BTI) Van Eck lab, led by Professor Joyce Van Eck and former postdoctoral scientist Sarika Gupta have developed a better method for transforming a tomato by adding the plant hormone auxin to the medium that supports cell growth. By doing this, the plant's growth speeds up, ultimately accelerating the pace of research.

Farmers and aspiring young farmers attended the one-day event called AgriKool Expo, which was entirely organized and managed by youth to highlight the wealth of career opportunities available to young women and men in Uganda's agriculture industry. The event, which was held on August 30, 2016 in Gulu district at Police Primary School ground was supported by USAID's Feed the Future Uganda Youth Leadership for Agriculture.

The Philippine Rice Information System (PRISM) project is conducting a series of workshops on basic geographic information systems (GIS) for its regional partners. Funded by the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA), the activity trains field officers and local government units in visualizing rice area and yield, GPS-based field observations, and other data generated by PRISM for planning programs and interventions for the country’s rice sector.

The primary transmission route of Zika virus is via the Aedes mosquito. However, mounting evidence has shown that sexual transmission of Zika virus is possible and more common than previously assumed. This is of concern due to an association between Zika virus infection and adverse pregnancy and fetal outcomes, including microcephaly, neurological complications and Guillain-Barré syndrome.