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Making fields smaller is an effective way to produce greater biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, since farmed landscapes with smaller fields and more diverse crops harbour more species. This was the finding of an international team of scientists, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “Agricultural intensification and the destruction of […]

A transition towards sustainable land management and diets which help reduce emissions and pressure on land is required in order to feed the world in a changing climate. This is the message of the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was adopted by the 195 IPCC member states on August

Countries across the globe, which are home to a quarter of the world’s population, are currently at severe risk of running out of water. According to new data published by the global environmental think tank “World Resources Institute”, 17 countries worldwide are facing “extremely high” water stress, meaning that they are using nearly all the

July 29th marks Earth Overshoot Day this year – the day humanity has used up all the resources nature can sustainably supply in a year, according to data from the Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability organization. For the rest of the year, we will be living on resources borrowed from future generations. And the

The number of undernourished people in the world has increased to more than 820 million in 2018, or one in every nine people, warns a report released on Monday by five UN agencies. At the same time, overweight and obesity are growing in all world regions, particularly among school-age children and adults. According to “The

Productivity growth in agriculture is expected to stay ahead of food demand over the coming decade, but new uncertainties are emerging on top of the usual risks facing agriculture. This is the key message of the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2019-2028, which was released on Monday in Rome. The annual report by the Organisation for Economic

Agroecology has the potential to make agriculture and food systems more sustainable. This is the message of a new UN report launched by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in Rome on July 3rd. The report, which was compiled by the committee’s High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) in an

Climate change will have the greatest impact on those living in poverty, threatening democracy and human rights, a UN expert has warned. According to a report released by the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, the divide between rich and poor will continue to widen. “We risk a ‘climate apartheid’

Some 2.2 billion people around the world do not have access to safe drinking water and 4.2 billion people do not have safely managed sanitation services, the UN has warned. According to a report released on June 18th by UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO), there are vast inequalities in the accessibility, availability and

European patent laws prohibit patents on animals derived from conventional breeding. However, companies are increasingly trying to circumvent these prohibitions by filing patent applications for food products such as meat and milk derived from such animals, claiming them as “inventions”. New research by No Patents on Seeds! now shows that patents on animals and food