foodsystems
By Falahi MubarokYogi Eka Sahputra PULAU SERIBU, Indonesia — Mustaghfirin unmoors his boat every day in the Thousand Islands archipelago, two hours’ sailing from the Jakarta coast, and sets off into a sea filled with garbage. “This plastic waste is extremely annoying,” Mustaghfirin told Mongabay Indonesia in April. “The motor we use to propel the boat is small, so it often gets jammed.” In 1950, global production of plastic amounted to around 2 million metric tons per year. By 2019, the world produced more than 450 million metric tons, according to production figures compiled by Our World in D...
Mongabay
By Abu Siddique Bangladesh plans to phase out diesel-powered irrigation pumps for solar ones to cut carbon emissions, but the country’s farmers have expressed concern about the availability of power during bad weather and the uncertainty of costs. The initiative is touted as ensuring the South Asian country will generate an additional 480 gigawatt-hours of clean energy annually, and is part of the government’s commitments to cut emissions under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Diesel-run irrigation pumps account for about 1.6% of Bangladesh’s total greenhouse gas emissions; the government has...
Mongabay
By Marlowe Starling In 2015, smelly mats of a brown macroalgae called sargassum piled as high as 1.2 meter (4 feet) on the beaches of Barbados, recalls Joshua Forte. It was the fourth year in what has become an annual nightmare, with an estimated 18,100 kilograms (20 tons) of seaweed inundating Caribbean shorelines each year and wrecking the region’s tourism-centered economies. The onslaught of seaweed reeked of rotten eggs, but Forte smelled something else: opportunity. A year earlier, Forte founded an organic fertilizer company called Red Diamond Compost. He was already selling a soil additi...
Mongabay
By Annelise Giseburt TOKYO — The train to the farm rose from Tokyo’s labyrinthine subway network, revealing a hodgepodge of gray and tan buildings stretched on either side. The world’s largest metropolitan area, better known for crushing rush hours and gleaming lights, seemed an unlikely place for anyone to be growing organic vegetables. But only a few minutes’ walk from the station, past apartment buildings and convenience stores, the Hasune Farm was buzzing with life (especially its beehives). The owners and volunteers moved between a produce stand-slash-workspace and rows of late-winter pro...
Mongabay
By Anton L. Delgado The threatened fish of the Mekong River are inching closer extinction, according to a new report that cites piling pressures on the waterway. Though the situation is serious, conservationists say it’s not too late to turn the tide for the river’s freshwater species. The nearly 5,000-kilometer (3,000-mile) Mekong supports millions of people across six countries, from its headwaters in China to its delta in Vietnam. The river, a key vein in mainland Southeast Asia, faces a rising tide of threats, from unsustainable fishing and invasive species, to hydropower dams and sand min...
Mongabay
By Mahadi Al Hasnat Imagine a mother in a rural village drawing water from a well with her pitcher. This seemingly ordinary water holds her family’s future — for drinking, cooking and bathing. But beneath the surface lurks a hidden threat: contamination by arsenic, salinity and heavy metals, silently poisoning the lifeline for millions in Bangladesh. Despite 98% of people having water access, only 59% enjoy safe drinking water that meets quality standards. This leaves 68.3 million people vulnerable to illnesses and developmental issues. Moreover, just 15% of the population has piped water, wit...
Mongabay
By Claire Asher More effective management of nitrogen fertilizers could reduce emissions of a harmful air pollutant from the cultivation of three staple crops by up to 38%, according to a study published in the journal Nature and conducted by an international team of scientists led by Yi Zheng from China’s Southern University of Science and Technology. A model using a type of artificial intelligence known as machine learning helped researchers untangle the complex relationship between environment, climate and agricultural practices to generate the most detailed map to date of global ammonia em...
Mongabay
By Ruth Kamnitzer In 2016, an infestation of fall armyworms hit a vast swath of Africa, alarming farmers and governments. Eight years on, experts say that crop losses from the agricultural pest are less severe than initially feared. A key lesson learned is that an agroecological approach to pest control — and not the indiscriminate use of pesticides — is the best option for limiting damage, according to a recent guide by the Center for Tropical Forest Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF). A type of moth, the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) came from the Americas and feeds on a w...
Mongabay
By Moh. Tamimi JEMBER, Indonesia — In good weather, Saturi’s coffee field here on a hillside on the east of Indonesia’s Java Island will produce around 2.5 metric tons of coffee beans over the course of a season. This year, he expects to get less than a ton. “The weather has meant there have been a lot of fires,” Saturi told Mongabay Indonesia at his home in Jember district in December. Saturi’s story reflects the plight of farmers more broadly in the world’s fourth-largest coffee-producing nation, where the weather has lurched from extreme rainfall caused by a La Niña climate pattern that las...
Mongabay
By Abdulkareem MojeedPriscilla Misiekaba-KiaVitor Alexandre Araujo Prado dos Anjos In the past year, international agencies worldwide have continued to sound an alarm over surges in food insecurity that are plunging millions of people into extreme hunger, malnutrition and threats to their overall health. The U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP) calls it “a hunger crisis of unprecedented proportions.” This worrying trend has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, climate shocks and conflicts including the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East. According to the ...
Mongabay
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