Farming and Agriculture

Colonial powers once sought to wipe out cloves grown by locals on the eastern Indonesian island of Ternate to safeguard their monopoly over the prized crop. Today farmers say the gravest threat to their plants is climate change.... Read more

The intensification of existing farmland can sometimes be more harmful to local biodiversity than expanding the area covered by agricultural land, finds a new study led by University College London (UCL) researchers.... Read more

Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists have developed a new approach to countering citrus greening and potato zebra chip diseases, two economically devastating agricultural diseases in the U.S.... Read more

Looking around, you might not realize it, but corn is everywhere. In one form or another, it's in the cereals in your cupboard, the cosmetics and medicines in your bathroom, the kibble in your pet's food bowl, and the gas tank of your car.... Read more

Tomatoes are rich in essential metabolites, but their amino acid content, particularly branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), has changed significantly through domestication. BCAAs such as isoleucine, leucine, and valine are vital for plant development and stress responses, yet their transport mechanisms in tomatoes remain poorly understood.... Read more

A team of crop geneticists from Huazhong Agricultural University's National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement and Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, both in China, has identified a gene variant that allows rice plants to continue producing grains at a high rate even during warmer-than-usual nighttime temperatures.... Read more

South Asia, home to some of the vulnerable agricultural regions, is already experiencing the harsh impacts of climate change. Rising temperatures and erratic rainfall are particularly affecting the rain-fed farming systems in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh, where over half of the population relies on agriculture for their livelihoods.... Read more

A new opinion piece published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that commercial satellite image archives should be opened to enhance research on the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Access to very-high-resolution (VHR) satellite imagery is crucial for monitoring smallholder farms, particularly in low- and... Read more

Monash University scientists are urging caution around recent claims of breakthroughs in green nitrate fertilizer production, warning there is more work to do before the concept is market-ready.... Read more

Scientists have discovered, for the first time, how root cells respond to their complex soil environment, revealing that roots actively "sense" their microenvironment and mount precise, cell-specific molecular responses. The findings could help the development of crops that are resistant to climate stress.... Read more

Thousands of hectares of Chernobyl-affected farmland, long deemed too dangerous for cultivation in northern Ukraine can safely return to production, according to new research.... Read more

When piglets don't get enough milk in the first weeks of life, the chances of them thriving dramatically decline. In the U.S. pork production system, piglets with limited access to their mothers' milk are typically "cross-fostered" with other sows. But in the EU, a different solution is gaining ground. In... Read more

In an article published in Molecular Plant on April 8, researchers led by Prof. Wang Bing and Prof. Li Jiayang from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have proposed an innovative concept of "ideal plant architecture for sugarcane" and discussed the... Read more

Western diets make up most of South Africa's food systems. This displaces indigenous crops and edible forest plants.... Read more

Enhancing wheat plants' sugar signaling ability could deliver increased yields of up to 12%, according to researchers from Rothamsted, Oxford University and the Rosalind Franklin Institute, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology. That is an order of magnitude greater than the annual yield increases currently being achieved through breeding.... Read more