FARM NEWS - BIOTECHNOLOGY DAILY

Greenpeace 'occupies' Indonesia palm oil plant with rock band

Sep 25, 2018 (AFP)

The green group said 30 activists -- including several foreigners -- and Indonesian metal group Boomerang had been "occupying" the site on Sulawesi island to dr...

South African villagers tap into trend for 'superfood' baobab

Sep 24, 2018 (AFP)

About 1,000 women in the village of Muswodi Dipeni, in the northern province of Limpopo, earn a living by harvesting the furry, hard-shelled baobab fruit pods. ...

EU palm oil ban sows bitter seeds for Southeast Asian farmers

Sep 24, 2018 (AFP)

Half a world away, the European Parliament is moving to ban the use of palm oil in biofuels, while British grocer Iceland has announced it will stop using the c...

Earliest Mediterranean cheese production revealed by pottery over 7,000 years old

Sep 20, 2018 (SPX)

Access to milk and cheese has been linked to the spread of agriculture across Europe starting around 9,000 years ago. But evidence for cheese production in the ...

Indonesia halts new palm oil plantation development

Sep 20, 2018 (AFP)

The moratorium effectively halts any new land being made available for plantations in the world's top producer of the edible vegetable oil, a key ingredient in ...

Farmers fume as France stands firm on more Pyrenees bears

Sep 20, 2018 (AFP)

Around 40 brown bears currently roam the range between France and Spain after France began importing them from Slovenia in 1996 after the native population had ...

Multiple facets of biodiversity reduce variability of grassland biomass production

Sep 20, 2018 (SPX)

A team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), University of Gottingen, and Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate R...

Wild animals were routinely captured and traded in ancient Mesoamerica

Sep 18, 2018 (SPX)

Ancient Mesoamerican cultures used wild animals such as puma and jaguar for many purposes, including in symbolic displays of status and power, as subjects of ri...

Swiss NGO links pesticide to Indian farmer deaths

Sep 18, 2018 (AFP)

Syngenta, bought by ChemChina for $43 billion in 2017 in China's largest ever foreign takeover, has rejected the allegations by Public Eye. "There is absolutely...

Insects, plants living in agricultural regions are surprisingly resilient

Sep 18, 2018 (UPI)

Researchers at the University of Reading's Center for Ecology and Hydrology surveyed 30 million records of pollinator-plant interactions collected by citizen sc...

Chinese actress has high hopes for her Bordeaux vineyard

Sep 18, 2018 (AFP)

Zhao Wei, also known as Vicky Zhao, bought the Chateau Monlot in the Saint-Emilion region of southwest France in 2011, part of a wave of Chinese buyers snapping...

Czech Republic to restrict use of glyphosate weedkiller

Sep 17, 2018 (AFP)

Glyphosate was introduced in 1974 by US agro-giant Monsanto under the brand-name Roundup. Earlier this year, Monsanto was wholly acquired by German behemoth Bay...

High-yield farming costs the environment less than previously thought

Sep 17, 2018 (SPX)

There is mounting evidence that the best way to meet rising food demand while conserving biodiversity is to wring as much food as sustainably possible from the ...

Philippine farmers risk death to save crops from killer typhoon

Sep 17, 2018 (AFP)

Residents of the storm's ground zero, in Baggao on the eastern flank of Luzon island, knew they would be hit full-force, but losing their livelihoods was a disa...

Spanish farmers go nuts for almonds as global demand booms

Sep 16, 2018 (AFP)

Almonds, thanks to their well-advertised health benefits, are enjoying global demand as snacks or in derivative forms like almond milk and almond flour, used as...

Improving soil quality can slow global warming

Sep 14, 2018 (SPX)

The researchers found that well-established agricultural management practices such as planting cover crops, optimizing grazing and sowing legumes on rangelands,...

Farmers on the front lines of marine aquaculture

Sep 13, 2018 (SPX)

Researchers from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at UC Santa Barbara have published the first comprehensive analysis of how cl...

Nitrous oxide emissions from rice farms are a cause for concern for global climate

Sep 12, 2018 (SPX)

This raises the prospect that rice farming across the world could be responsible for up to twice the level of climate impact relative to what was previously est...

Humans may have first grown grains for beer, not bread

Sep 12, 2018 (UPI)

The discovery lends credence to those who argue beer, not bread, inspired the earliest grain growers. Scientists didn't find beer steins or stout recipes. Inste...

Blue-green algae promises to help boost food crop yields

Sep 10, 2018 (SPX)

Lead researcher Dr Ben Long from ANU said the discovery was a major leap forward in improving the way crops convert carbon dioxide, water and sunlight into ener...