New Agriculturist
Focus on
- Livestock and climate change
- The livestock sector is often condemned for its contribution to climate change but poor smallscale livestock keepers are more likely to be impacted by climate change than contribute significantly to global warming. In this edition, we look at a selection of approaches and initiatives which demonstrate the resilience of livestock keepers and their determination to survive.
- Pastoralists: coping with climate change
- Coping with extreme cold - livestock in the Andes
- Conserving water for livestock in Butana, Sudan
- A brewing storm for livestock disease?
- More milk, less methane
- Livestock insurance: reducing vulnerability
- Brachiaria - grass roots answer to nitrification
Points of view
- Evidence and impact in agricultural research and development
- With up to 300 million Africans facing chronic hunger, has agricultural research achieved significant impact in Africa? Experts at a recent conference in Burkina Faso offer their perspectives on how research can be better used to influence policy, increase productivity and cut poverty.
My perspective... a personal viewpoint
- Louis Amede
- Louis Amede, general coordinator of the Journalists of Central and West Africa for Agriculture, reflects on the role of the media in helping to restore agriculture to the top of the development agenda.
Country profile
- Kyrgyzstan
- Located in the heart of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan is one of the poorest in the region. Almost 65 per cent of the workforce is employed in agriculture, and with three-quarters of the country's poor living in rural areas the development of the agricultural sector is critical to reducing widespread poverty and ensuring food security.
News brief
- Farmers in Pakistan need urgent help
- Millions of Pakistanis are facing hunger and disease after the worst floods in the country's history have led to a rise in food prices and outbreaks of cholera and dysentery.
- Mobile phones to help Filipino farmers
- Rice farmers in the Philippines will soon be able to access tailored advice direct from their mobile phones on the amounts and timings of fertiliser applications for their specific fields.
Editorial
- Agriculture is more than just farming; it is about business, education, health, land rights and culture. Cutting across these vital aspects of a country's structure, agriculture should no longer be seen as one sector or confined to one government ministry but should be fully integrated into national and regional development processes. Challenging the direction of agricultural development is a major theme in this issue.
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In pictures
- Niger - land in crisis
- In Niger, drought, flooding, crop failure and unaffordable food prices have triggered severe food shortages for up to 7 million people. Emergency feeding of children and cash for work schemes are two strategies being adopted to help people survive.
Developments
- Thailand brings in wasps to save cassava industry
- In response to the appearance of the cassava mealybug in Thailand, where 5 million farmers grow the starch crop, the Thai Department of Agriculture are raising and releasing a quarter of a million South American wasps.
- Renewable energy for Malawi's mountain entrepreneurs
- Formed in 2009, solar energy clubs around Mount Mulanje in southern Malawi are promoting new ways of making a living to over 250 young people, who were formerly engaged in firewood and charcoal trading.
Book reviews
- The coming famine: The global food crisis and what we can do about it
- It is estimated that food production needs to increase 70 per cent by 2050, to meet demand; the current rate of increase is just 1 per cent per year. To avert the prospect of famine within a generation, Julian Cribb presents the case for food production, including agricultural research, to be given the highest priority.
- Agricultural value chain finance: Tools and lessons
- A review of approaches to provide finance within agricultural value chains, from around the developing world. Such approaches are essential if smallholder farmers are to meet the demands of a global food supply industry that is increasingly dominated by large-scale agribusiness.
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CD resource
We are pleased to announce that the latest version of New Agriculturist on CD is now available, containing over 1200 articles.
Top five articles
By number of hits:
- Renewable energy for Malawi's mountain entrepreneurs
- Livestock sector policies and programmes in developing countries: A menu for practitioners
- Fate of gene bank in hands of Russian President
- Promising African plants: A selection from the PROTA programme
- Brachiaria - grass roots answer to nitrification
The New Agriculturist is a WRENmedia production.