Termite workshop photo special – exploring tree-damaging termites in the tropics
CABI scientists have held a successful three-day workshop exploring how to diagnose and manage termites associated with structures and trees in the tropics. The workshop, held at CABI’s South East Asia (SEA) office building at MARDI in Serdang, Malaysia, highlighted termites as ecologically important insects with significant roles to play as decomposers but also as…
The story of the rare book on plant diseases that returned ‘home’ to China after a 72 year absence
Photo: The 1942 text by Professor Wang Ming-Chih, returned to China after more than 70 years Lesley Ragab thought she knew CABI’s stock of more than 24,000 books and 2,000 journals like the back of her hand after serving as librarian at the organisation’s Egham, UK, office for over 20 years. That was until she stumbled…
How to Control Urban Pests: Q&A with Entomologist Dr. Partho Dhang
Quick and easy solutions for treating pests with conventional sprays can harm the environment and contaminate surrounding areas, making them unsafe and unfit for solving urban pest problems. We asked CABI author and entomologist, Dr Partho Dhang, for some practical advice on treating these common pests that will be helpful for those whose living spaces are…
Chocolate SDGs unwrapped
“The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.”1 Should we prioritise chocolate in this universal call to action? Threats to the cocoa industry including low productivity, marketing challenges, pests and disease,…
Family-centric cinema: a Q&A on changing the conversation for women in agriculture
Women need first-hand information and knowledge about new agricultural technologies to have a say on how family farms are run, according to Dannie Romney, Global Director, Development, Communication and Extension, CABI. Dannie is currently Project Executive for the Africa Soil Health Consortium (ASHC) and Gender and the Legume Alliance (GALA) projects working jointly in Ghana. …
Global health security, collaborating to stop epidemics
Global health security is defined as stopping the spread of infectious diseases and drug resistance across borders. Its a concept being put into action by the Global Health Security Agenda, a commitment by over 50 member countries, NGOs and international donors to assess and improve health systems to stop outbreaks, as happened with Ebola in West Africa, turning into epidemics. We review progress on malaria and on neglected tropical diseases as detailed in the 2017 annual report of UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases, entitled "Global Britain in the Fight against Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases".
Dr Rob Reeder goes ‘bananas’ about pests and diseases on the Urban Farm Podcast
Plant pathologist Dr Rob Reeder has this week spoken to Greg Peterson of the US-based Urban Farm Podcast about how the global supply of bananas (particularly the Cavendish variety) could be put at risk from a three-pronged attack of pests and diseases. In the podcast, Dr Reeder reveals the reasons why the fungus known as…
Building capacity for greater food security in Pakistan
As part of CABI’s mission to help farmers grow more and lose less, we have been funded by USAID – via the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) – to help Pakistan improve its sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) systems and therefore open up its fruit and vegetables to more high-end global markets that were previously untapped. Currently these products only contribute 13% of the country’s export but improvements to its SPS capabilities could see this number rise significantly.
Invasive Alien Plants
It was back in the early 1990s, on my first field trip to Assam in North-east India, with invasion ecologist Dr. Sean T. Murphy, when I first encountered mikania growing as an invasive weed. Until then, I had only seen this vine in its Central and South American native range, where locating a population of the plant could sometimes take all day.
CABI board member Paulus Vershuren explains how CABI is delivering on SDG17: Partnerships for the Goals
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjrI0hkWTZ4?feature=oembed] The world we live in today faces complex and interconnected challenges that individual organisations alone cannot easily resolve. When the scale of the challenge is global, organisations must find ways of strengthening their partnerships and coming together to find the best and most sustainable solutions. This is why partnerships are at the…