Credit: Neil Palmer / International Center for Tropical Agriculture
Land use and land-use change are thought to be responsible for about 23% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. But nailing down this number with certainty has been hampered by a lack of data in many key regions of the tropics where forests are being replaced by agriculture and where other activities are degrading forests.
A large part of our uncertainty is related to what is happening in soils as a result of forest conversion to agriculture. Soils store about twice as much carbon as the atmosphere and they are responsible for regulating concentrations of two other important greenhouse gases - nitrous oxide, which is a greenhouse gas about 265 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and methane, which is the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide.
Credit: Georgina Smith / International Center for Tropical Agriculture
People in industrialized regions like the United States of America or Europe are generally urged to eat less meat and animal-source foods as part of a healthier and lower-emissions diet. But such recommendations are not universal solutions in low- or middle-income countries, where livestock are critical to incomes and diets, argue scientists in recently published research in
Environmental Research Letters. Conclusions drawn in widely publicized reports argue that a main solution to the climate and human health crisis globally is to eat no or little meat but they are biased towards industrialized, Western systems, said Birthe Paul, the lead author and environmental scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).
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IMAGE: Pictured is neglected sunflower (Helianthus neglectus Heiser), a wild relative of the cultivated sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.), native to New Mexico and Texas. view more
Credit: Katarzyna Stepien
Wild cranberries have a sanctuary in West Virginia and wild peppers have a protected area on Arizona s border with Mexico. But many hundreds of other crop wild relatives native to the United States - including those related to apples, hops, grapes, pumpkins and sunflowers, to mention but a few - do not have designated conservation areas or, even when warranted, protected status.
The plight of America s crop wild relatives is an overlooked subtheme in the era of human-driven biodiversity loss. A new study in
The dark side of technology in the food industry
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Could decreased production of soybean inadvertently lead to more deforestation?
Scientists from the Alliance of Bioversity International believe that technology could be having unintended consequences on the planet, as we struggle to make our food system more sustainable before the effects of climate change become irreversible.
Protein derived from organic waste to feed livestock could decrease demand for soybean meal, which could lead to less deforestation caused by soy farming. However, scientists say a decreased production of soybean, which is also used to produce oil for food products, could increase demand for palm oil. This could clear more forests for oil palm plantations.
Novel and effective technique to control Banana Xanthomonas wilt is suitable for Rwandan agroecology
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14 December 2020
Banana is a major commodity in Rwanda, used as both a cash and (staple) food crop; it covers 23% of Rwanda’s land and is grown by 90% of households. Rwanda is one of the largest banana producers in the East Africa Region and ranks second in banana consumption globally with an annual per capita consumption of approximately 144 kg.
For the last 10 plus years, the yield and production of this important crop in Rwanda have been severely affected by the Xanthomonas wilt of banana (BXW) disease, affecting yield and production for Rwandan farmers.