Posts tagged "agriculture"

TomTato – The plant that is half tomato and half potato

 A British company, Thomson and Morgan, made the news last month when they announced a new botanical creation, the “Tomtato”, a Frakenstein plant that produces both tomatoes and potatoes.  The company affirms that it is not a product of genetic Engineering as one might think at first hand but the result of a natural grafting...

Sustainable agriculture in China

The economic growth that China has experienced during the past 40 years has in more recent years raised public’s attention on resource conservation and environmental protection, food security as well as employment and income generation. The concept of sustainable development has been formulated in an international context and has been recognized by most countries around the...

The Water footprint

We are all aware of the importance of water in everyday life. We see water as an unlimited resource and most of all it is free. Or is it?  The majority of us use water for washing, cooking and drinking and general household use but we are not aware that this is only a small...

Land Grabbing in developing countries

 The lack of secure access to natural resources (land and water) by the rural population is one of the main causes of poverty in developing countries. The dispossession and marginalization of the rural poor has drawn media attention in recent years as the phenomenon of land grabbing  reached  unprecedented levels in the past decade and causing...

Food security in China

The medical  journal Lancet published an extensive article on  food security in China. Rapid industrialization and social transformation is affecting food supply as well as food safety. And the picture that emerges from this is that in spite of progress made since 2006 to reach acceptable standards of food security the situation is still unclear....

Fao and Ocse : ”Environment and low production may cause an agricultural price bubble”

The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2013-2022 reveals that the agricultural economy is growing too slowly and that it is not in line with global population growth. This may cause increase in prices in developed economies and food shortages in poorer countries.  In the next decade global agricultural production is expected to grow by 1,5% a year...

Hybrid seeds v GMO’s

Hybrid seeds, GMO (genetically-modified)seeds. most people have the idea that they are the same thing  and the terms are often used interchangeably. Both GMO’s and Hybrid varieties refer to varieties that are developed artificially by cross breeding, however there are some significant differences. Hybrid varieties are developed from same species. Hybridisation consists in cross breeding...

Managing the water ciris

Water management has in recent years become one the main topics of debates in what concerns global sustainability. Water is a necessary resource for our well being, our very survival well as for the preservation of ecosystems.  With the globalization of the economy the use of water has increased drastically during the past ten years due...

Integrated pest management systems

 During the past decade the European union has invested much efforts towards an integrated and sustainable agricultural policy. New policies have been defined with the objective of finding improved nutritional safety for both consumers and for the environment. One of the consequences we have seen in agriculture is radical change in pest management practices. Agriculture...

Economy and biodiversity

One of the greatest miss-understandings that we come to accept is that capitalism and biodiversity cannot co-exist, that economy growth cannot happen without giving up our biodiversity.  Biodiversity is the variety of all living organisms (plant animals and microorganisms) and their relationship with the ecosystems. The term applies for all the variety of genes (DNA),...