agriculture

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3 Girls Won The Google Science Fair With A Bacteria-Based Plan To Solve The Food Crisis

Jessica Orwig | Business Insider | September 24, 2014

Three young girls won the Google science fair on Sept. 22 with their innovative way to feed the world: treat plants with bacteria to help farmers grow more food, faster — without genetic modification...

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5 Civic Projects Aim To Make Data Useful

J. Nathan Matias | PBS.org | July 22, 2013

How can we use data to improve our lives, our communities, and the world at large? At the recent Microsoft Design Expo, students from eight universities showcased design projects along the theme of “making data useful.” Read More »

Africa: 'Misguided' Nations Lock Up Valuable Geospatial Data

Staff Writer | allAfrica.com | January 15, 2014

Many governments, particularly those in low-income countries, are "shooting themselves in the foot" by failing to give research and development communities open access to their caches of geospatial data, experts have warned. Read More »

Agricultural Biotechnology 'Should Be Open Source'

T. V. Padma | SciDev.Net | September 13, 2012

Open source biotechnology, through which biotechnology inventions are made freely available for others to use and improve upon, could help developing countries overcome hurdles created by stringent intellectual property rights (IPRs), a study says. Read More »

Agriculture At A Crossroads: How Food Systems Affect Biodiversity

Kumi Naidoo | EcoWatch | May 23, 2014

On today’s United Nations biodiversity day, we are being asked to focus on small islands and their unique ecology and fragility in times of globally pervasive threats such as climate change. Read More »

Agroecology Should Be At The Core Of USDA’s Mission

M. Jahi Chappell | Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy | December 9, 2013

The comment period recently closed on the USDA’s Research, Education, and Economics (REE) Action Plan Draft, which responded to informal and formal consultations with internal and external advisors and stakeholders, and “lessons learned from implementation of Farm Bill provisions.” It refines the initial REE Action Plan, which was released in February of 2012. Read More »

Animal Antibiotics: FDA Rules Criticized As Weak As McDonald's

Ben Elgin and Andrew Martin | Bloomberg Businessweek | January 2, 2014

A delegation of public-health advocates filed into the suburban Chicago headquarters of McDonald’s (MCD) last January to deliver a tough message: A decade after the fast-food giant’s groundbreaking promise to reduce medically important antibiotics fed to the animals it buys, the policy had glaring loopholes and was having a questionable impact. Read More »

Antibiotic Resistance Could Be Transmitted Through The Air From Farms

Catharine Paddock | Medical News Today | January 30, 2015

A new study shows scientists are starting to understand how antibiotic resistance from open-air farms can travel through the air to spread to human populations...

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Antibiotic Resistance Warnings Remain Unheeded, Experts Say

Lynne Peeples | Huffington Post Green | October 9, 2014

...Just as incurable viruses gain new footholds around the world, a growing number of bacterial infections that were once easily treatable are now withstanding modern medicine's arsenal of antibiotics. Twenty-three thousand Americans die from antibiotic-resistant pathogens every year...

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Antibiotic Use In Chickens: Responsible For Hundreds Of Human Deaths?

Maryn McKenna | Wired | August 9, 2013

In the long back and forth between science and agriculture over the source of antibiotic resistance in humans — Due to antibiotic overuse on farms, or in human medicine? — one question has been stubbornly hard to answer. If antibiotic-resistant bacteria do arise on farms, do they leave the farm and circulate in the wider world? And if they do, how much damage do they do? Read More »

Antibiotic Use On The Farm: Are We Flying Blind?

Dan Charles | NPR | August 29, 2013

There's a heated debate over the use of antibiotics in farm animals. Critics say farmers overuse these drugs; farmers say they don't. Read More »

Antibiotics And The Meat We Eat

David A. Kessler | New York Times | March 27, 2013

SCIENTISTS at the Food and Drug Administration systematically monitor the meat and poultry sold in supermarkets around the country for the presence of disease-causing bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. These food products are bellwethers that tell us how bad the crisis of antibiotic resistance is getting. And they’re telling us it’s getting worse. Read More »

Berea College To Open Its Own Farm Store

Cheryl Truman | Kentucky.com | October 13, 2013

A new kind of Berea College business will open soon: the Berea College Farm Store, bursting with the bounty of the college's 400 acres of farmland. Read More »

Bill Gates Joins Administration In Promoting Open Agricultural Data

Josh Hicks | Washington Post | April 29, 2013

Bill Gates on Monday joined top administration officials in promoting open access to agricultural data as a way to increase global nutrition and food security. Read More »

Brazil Farmers Say GMO Corn No Longer Resistant To Bugs

Deirdre Fulton | CommonDreams | July 29, 2014

Farm lobby group calls on Monsanto and other biotech companies to reimburse for additional pesticide treatments Read More »