Salk scientists found gene variants that help plants thrive in low-iron environments, which could help improve farmers' yields and provide richer dietary sources of iron for humans and animals. The study is published in Nature Communications. Salk's associate professor Wolfgang Busch and other researchers from Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology used Arabidopsis seeds from strains in Sweden, which are exposed to soils with varying iron concentrations.

"I believe in green energy, green agriculture, and a green economy. We can waste no more time, let us fight together for our planet, " said French ambassador to Uganda, Ms. Stephanie Rivoal, while speaking on behalf of the European Union at the World Environment Day celebrations in Ibanda district on June 5, 2017.

A new CCAFS paper discusses five methods to analyze the multiple dimensions in which climate change, agriculture and food and nutritional security are related. One of the constant threats to food and nutritional security (FNS) is climate change. Exploring how this vulnerability manifests itself has been of interest to science, which has mainly focused on the interaction between these two events through agricultural production.

FAO 1 June 2017, Oslo -The Agreement on Port State Measures (PSMA) to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing, an international treaty aimed at stopping rogue fishing practices, gives the world "all the instruments necessary to achieve our goal," FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said here.

Climate change, which causes extreme weather and temperature, is projected to cause a 23 percent decline in the global output of major crops including corn, wheat, rice, and soybean in the 2050s, according to a study. Mekbib Haile, a researcher at the Center of Development Research at the University of Bonn, Germany, and colleagues analyzed the price and production of the major crops from 1961 to 2013.

Japan has the potential to adopt biotech crops in the future with the increasing importation of biotech maize, soybean, canola, and cotton, which in 2016 was recorded at 20.9 million metric tons. About 90% of these crops were genetically modified (GM). The country leads globally in biotech crop approvals, however, no biotech crop was ever planted.

Two new proteins, RICE1 and RICE2, were discovered by a team of researchers led by biochemist Dr. Xiuren Zhang from Texas A&M AgriLife Research. The proteins could help study better ways to regulate plant structure and the ability to resist crop stresses such as drought.

A global team of 19 scientists from 9 institutes led by India-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) have re-sequenced the genome of 292 pigeonpea varieties (Cajanus cajan) from 23 countries and discovered new traits including resistance to diseases that affect the crop and its insensitivity to photoperiod.

FAO Director-General addresses European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.FAO 30 May 2017, Brussels - To achieve sustainable development we must transform current agriculture and food systems, including by supporting smallholders and family farmers, reducing pesticide and chemical use, and improving land conservation practices, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said today addressing European lawmakers.

Young scientists often have the same long-term goal: use one’s smarts and drive to gain insights into a problem of interest. Typically, these scientists draw upon a long-standing and time-tested scientific process: formulate a hypothesis, design experiments to test this hypothesis, collect data, interpret the data, revisit