By Ruxandra Guidi 19 February 2016 (mongabay.com) – Agriculture in Argentina has expanded at an accelerated rate in the past twenty years due to technological advances, the use of genetically modified crops, and, in particular, to the cultivation of soybean. The South American country is the first global exporter of soy, and the biggest provider […]
By Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Brad Brooks and Bill Trott 18 February 2016 SÃO PAULO (Reuters) – Water levels at the main reservoir in Brazil’s largest city of São Paulo have more than doubled since the El Niño climate phenomenon ended a two-year drought, although industrialists and activists warn fresh shortages may be just a […]
By Mandy Oaklander4 February 2016 (TIME) – The most infamous fact about organic food is that it’s expensive—about 47% more expensive, according to a recent analysis from Consumer Reports. But a new review study published in Nature Plants analyzed everything research currently knows about organic farming versus the conventional kind and found that organic offers […]
8 February 2016 (UN) – According to a new United Nations food security and nutrition assessment, the situation in Somalia is alarming and could get worse, especially in parts of Puntland and Somaliland, which have been hard hit by drought exacerbated by El Niño. “We are deeply concerned that the proportion of severely food insecure […]
By Damian Carrington 12 February 2016 (Guardian) – At least two-thirds of the global population, over 4 billion people, live with severe water scarcity for at least one month every year, according to a major new analysis. The revelation shows water shortages, one of the most dangerous challenges the world faces, is far worse previously […]
10 February 2016 (UN) – El Niño conditions have caused the lowest recorded rainfall between October and December across many regions of Southern Africa in at least 35 years, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has reported in its latest report. The agency found that short-term forecasts from January to March indicate the high […]
(Imazon) – SAD detected 99 square kilometers of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in November 2015. That represented a 49% reduction in relation to November 2014 when deforestation totaled 195 square kilometers. It was possible to monitor 80% of the forest area in the Brazilian Amazon, while in November 2014 monitoring covered a smaller area […]
By Andrew Mambondiyani; editing by Megan Rowling8 February 2016 MUTARE, Zimbabwe (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Shylet Mutsago, a 63-year-old who lives near the diamond fields of Marange, cannot hide her anger over how mining in this gem-rich part of eastern Zimbabwe has failed to improve the lives of local people. From a distance she watches […]
By Claire Salisbury1 February 2016 (mongabay.com) – The Amazon’s freshwater ecosystems are at risk because current policy and existing protected areas fail to protect the connectivity of the water cycle, scientists warn. The new study, published in Global Change Biology, examines the factors degrading the Amazon basin’s hydrological connectivity: the movement of water — and […]
By Peter Schwartzstein31 January 2016 (Quartz) – The Amhara Plateau is no one’s idea of a gloomy landscape. Rich fields blossom as far as the eye can see; bountiful rivers zigzag through the region’s rolling hills. It isn’t hard to see why local Orthodox Christians believe the Ark of the Covenant was floated down the […]
