Author of the Month Blog: Sustainable Water Management in Smallholder Farming, Sara Finley
This month, Sara Finley puts the spotlight on popular education tools for sustainable development. Her new book, Sustainable water management for smallholder farming: Theory and Practice is now available in the CABI bookstore. Can I speak to the manager? Fundamentally, water management is not really about managing water, it’s about managing people. Water in nature…
World Water Week 2016 kicks off in Stockholm
Today marks the third day of the 26th World Water Week (28 August – 2 September), an annual event which is hosted and organized by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). It is aimed at addressing global water issues as well as concerns related to international development. Each year, the event focuses on a different…
Open data revolution: Constraints and opportunities for increased agricultural productivity and food security in Africa
It is a well-known fact that small scale rural farmers are responsible for producing over 70 per cent of the food consumed in Africa. As a result, they have been the target of many agricultural development efforts for many decades. This is especially because building the capacity of small scale farmers to produce more…
Author of the Month Blog: The Handbook of Mites of Economic Plants, Dr Vincenzo Vacante
The control of mites that are harmful to economic plants can be achieved by physical, chemical, biological, cultural and Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Alternatively, host plants can be bred to be resistant to mites but, in my opinion, the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) lacks any ecological foundation and, therefore, can result in being…
Forestry and farming can deliver food security, says new report
A report published earlier this week by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) suggests that improving co-operation between the forestry and agricultural sectors could help to improve food security as well as reducing deforestation, highlighting the successful efforts of Chile, Costa Rica, Georgia, Ghana, Vietnam, Tunisia and the Gambia. According to the FAO,…
Improving crop yield: Looking to the sources and sinks
This week I had the pleasure of heading down to the south coast to attend the Society for Experimental Biology’s main meeting in Brighton. The flagship meeting attracts an international audience covering topics across the animal and plant sciences and also cell biology. For me, the main focus was to attend a plant biology…
Partnerships for impact: experience from the Good Seed Initiative
The future prosperity of sub-Saharan African farmers is closely linked to partnerships and joint businesses. Their investment will unleash agriculture’s potential. As government budgets for the sector decline, an increasing expectation is on the private sector and other partners to finance the gap. These partnerships advance mutual interests and mobilize strengths and resources in a…
Author of the Month Blog: Equine Thermography in Practice, Dr Maria Soroko
About the author My interest in equine thermography started during my Equine Science Masters degree studies at Aberystwyth University, Wales in 2008. The initial research in equine thermography was for my Masters dissertation on the application of thermography in diagnosing injuries of racehorses (fig. 1). The main objective of the investigations was to assess thermography…
Author of the Month Blog: Environmental Horticulture, Dr Ross Cameron
Dr Ross Cameron of the University of Sheffield outlines his latest book (Environmental Horticulture – Science and Management of Green Landscapes), co-authored with Prof. James Hitchmough and how writing the book can sometimes be easier than settling on a name that everyone approves of.
Malaria control, disasters and conflict
WHO European Region announced last week that Europe is now malaria free. This is great news to coincide with World Malaria Day this year. The challenge is to make sure Europe remains free of malaria into the future. Europe has been declared malaria free before, back in 1975. What happened to allow it to return?