Neil Palmer / International Center for Tropical Agriculture
Nature Food warns that heat stress in animals caused by rising temperatures and humidity will occur more frequently and for longer periods, impacting milk and meat productivity for dairy cattle, beef cattle, sheep, goat, pigs, and poultry across East Africa.
Analysis of historical data from 1981-2010 shows that livestock have already been progressively subjected to heat stress conditions. According to projections, this is set to worsen significantly, with severe implications for livestock unable to cope with the extra heat.
Authors warn that four to 19 percent of current meat and milk production occurs in areas where dangerous heat stress conditions are likely to increase in frequency from 2071-2100. If climate conditions persist at their current accelerated rate, elevated levels of heat stress could make much of East Africa unsuitable for exotic pig, poultry, and dairy cattle production unless direct and immediate acti
April 14, 2021
You are here: Home / World Economic Forum / This root vegetable could help alleviate hunger and end soil erosion. Here’s how
This root vegetable could help alleviate hunger and end soil erosion. Here’s how
(Credit: Unsplash)
This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum.
Author: Sean Fleming, Senior Writer, Formative Content
Cassava is a root crop that could potentially help alleviate world hunger, according to a new study.
Its ability to bring depleted soil back to life could enable farmers to grow other crops, such as soy.
The cassava is also know as ‘the Rambo root’. Image: REUTERS/Desmond Boylan
A gateway crop
“Evidence suggests (cassava) could potentially revive degraded land and make it productive anew, generating numerous positive socioeconomic and environmental impacts with proper crop management,” said Maria Eliza Villarino, the report’s lead author and a researcher at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), in the science publication, PhysOrg.
An estimated 40% of land in Colombia suffers from degradation, according to the alliance. It, therefore, “serves as a good testing ground for exploring the different possibilities that farming cassava could lead to”.