At the Việt Nam Agriculture Outlook conference held by the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD), in collaboration with the National Assembly Office, experts said that adopting agricultural technology to improve product quality would enable the agricultural sector to confront external shocks like the impacts of climate change or exchange rate policies.

The two agencies launched a new e-learning course designed for use by agricultural policymakers, programme designers and implementers, researchers and statisticians, to ensure that child labour prevention measures are included in agricultural and rural development programmes, in particular those targeting poor smallholders. The course covers all sectors: crops, livestock, forestry, and fisheries and aquaculture.

Together with researchers from Nanjing Agricultural University in China, Dr. Tony Miller from the John Innes Centre (JIC) has developed rice crops with an improved ability to manage their own pH levels, enabling them to take up significantly more nitrogen, iron, and phosphorous from soil and increase yield by up to 54 percent.

Washington State University (WSU) biologist Michael Knoblauch has found what he calls a very strong support for an 86 year-old hypothesis about how nutrients move through plants. According to Knoblauch, 90 percent of the food we consume at one time went through a plant's phloem, where they are produced by photosynthesis, to roots and fruits. But scientists know so little about how this works.

A team of international researchers, including scientists from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) decoded the genome of the ancestor of peanut, the diploid A-genome (Arachis duranensis). This breakthrough opens the doors towards developing allergen-free, aflatoxin-free, and nutrition-rich varieties.

Rice blast disease remains the most destructive disease of cultivated rice worldwide. Considering that rice is the staple food for more than half of the human population, the disease is a significant threat to food security for many nations. It is, therefore, imperative to devise novel and stable control strategies for the disease, which requires the understanding of the pathogen, rice blast fungus, and its interaction with rice or other host plants.

FAO 5 June 2016, Rome - A groundbreaking international accord aimed at stamping out illegal fishing went into effect today and is now legally binding for the 29 countries and a regional organization that have adhered to it.

Monsanto is working on anti-aging technology for flowers using a genetic technology it can feed to plants through vase water. The St. Louis biotech company, known for its transgenic corn and soybeans, and for being the target of anti-GMO campaigners, disclosed in a patent application that it’s testing a new way of stopping roses, carnations, and petunias from wilting.

A team of researchers from the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis led by Lixin Wang (figure) has identified critical information about the environmental variables and agronomic factors that determine the vulnerability of maize and wheat production to drought.

Potato farmers from the South Western region of Uganda have asked their local leaders to support the passage of the National Biosafety Bill. The farmers also pledged to petition their Members of Parliament (MPs) to urgently re-table and discuss the National Biotechnology and Bisoafety Bill 2012.