crops

See the following -

Africa Innovations: 15 Ideas Helping To Transform A Continent

Mina Holland, Ian Tucker, et al. | The Guardian | August 25, 2012

A mobile phone database for dairy farmers and a strain of sweet potato that can help fight child blindness. These are just two of the imaginative new ideas that are tackling Africa's old problems Read More »

Analysis: Super Weeds Pose Growing Threat to U.S. Crops

Carey Gillam | Reuters | September 19, 2011

An estimated 11 million acres are infested with "super weeds"...The problem's gradual emergence has masked its growing menace. Now, however, it is becoming too big to ignore. The super weeds boost costs and cut crop yields for U.S. farmers starting their fall harvest this month. And their use of more herbicides to fight the weeds is sparking environmental concerns. Read More »

Did Scientists Just Solve The Bee Collapse Mystery?

Tom Philpott | Mother Jones | May 20, 2014

It's a hard-knock life, scouring the landscape for pollen to sustain a beehive. Alight upon the wrong field, and you might encounter fungicides, increasingly used on corn and soybean crops, and shown to harm honeybees at tiny levels. [...] Read More »

Scientists Discover What’s Killing The Bees And It’s Worse Than You Thought

Todd Woody | Quartz | July 25, 2013

As we’ve written before, the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America’s apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow. Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will be much more difficult than previously thought. Read More »

U.S. Declares The Largest Natural Disaster Area Ever Due To Drought

Dashiell Bennett | The Atlantic Wire | July 12, 2012

The blistering summer and ongoing drought conditions have the prompted the U.S. Agriculture Department to declare a federal disaster area in more than 1,000 counties covering 26 states. That's almost one-third of all the counties in the United States, making it the largest distaster declaration ever made by the USDA. Read More »

US Honeybee Population Suffers 'Unsustainable' Death Rate Over The Winter

Staff Writer | RT | May 16, 2014

Nearly one quarter of the US honeybee population died over the winter, according to an annual survey. Beekeepers report the losses remain higher than they consider sustainable, and the death rate could soon affect the country’s food supply. Read More »