The farmers behind your coffee: what challenges do they face?
1 October 2015 is the very first International Coffee Day. Today, Iā€™ll be swapping my usual cup of tea for coffee and encouraging colleagues to do the same. Many of us canā€™t start the morning without a coffee. But as youā€™re drinking your first cup, spare a thought for where this important commodity crop comes…
New sustainable development goals for 2030
This past weekend world leaders gathered at a United Nations Global Summit in New York to make the world a better place to live by 2030. They signed the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and ratified 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). The new goals will become applicable from January 2016 and are expected to influence…
New report reveals the true cost of land degradation
Why we need to value our ecosystem services A recent report The Value of Land: Prosperous lands and positive rewards through sustainable land management published 15th September by the Economics of Land Degradation Initiative (ELD) estimates the value of ecosystem services lost worldwide due to land degradation at a staggering US $6.3 trillion to $10.6 trillion…
Migrants fleeing conflict: a trial run for mass-migration due to climate change
Faced with an humanitarian crisis taking place on their shores, EU governments debate how to redistribute Syrian migrants fleeing conflict. In 2009, international health and travel medicine specialists at ECTMIH (Italy) identified mass migration as a key public health issue that Europe needed to prepare for because of climate change. What lessons can we learn from handling the current migrant crisis to prepare for the future warming of the planet?
Enhancing youth engagement in agricultural careers
The 12th August marked this yearā€™s International Youth Day with a theme of Youth Civic Engagement. The aim of the day was to promote civic engagement and participation of youth in politics and public life, so that young people can be empowered and make a full contribution to society, development and peace.
Taking stock of challenges for global open data in agriculture and nutrition
As the open data revolution in agriculture and nutrition gathers pace, discussions are emerging about some of the ethical issues involved in equitable sharing and use of dataĀ¹, particularly as increasing amounts of data are now generated by or for farmers, although the discussion and implications extend much more widely across the agriculture and nutrition…
Plantwise Breakfast Meeting at PBCRC Science Exchange
Join Trevor Nicholls and Michael Thompson from CABI for a breakfast presentation on the Plantwise programme at this yearā€™s SX. Plantwise aims to support Millennium Development Goals No.1 (Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger) and No.7 (Ensure environmental sustainability), and their successors in the post-2015 UN development agenda, which are anticipated to be even more…
Calling tomorrowā€™s leaders: Apply today to earn a sustainable agriculture degree from CABI
CABI is on the lookout for students to join a crop management degree programme aimed at tackling food insecurity around the world and helping to feed the growing global population. Scholarship opportunities are available to qualified individuals who work with the Plantwise programme activities in their countries. With the population estimated to reach…
Sharing open data in agriculture and nutrition to help make decisions
GODAN, in collaboration with the Open Data Institute, yesterday launched a discussion paper: How can we improve agriculture, food and nutrition with open data? at the 3rd International Open Data Conference in Ottawa (IODC). The paper highlights how open data is already making a difference in the agriculture and nutrition sectors. CABI is a partner…
New report highlights link between forests, farms and food security
With the global population estimated to reach 9 billion by 2050, there has been much debate around the issues of nutrition and food security. Amid these concerns, a report published on May 6 by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), calls for greater consideration of the use of forests as a food source as…