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Key to Brazil’s deforestation may be in its cows, pastures
At an experimental government farm in the western Amazon’s Rondonia state, researchers analyze grass seeds under microscopes, shake soil samples in test tubes, and measure the milk production of a new...
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Climate change: Cattle, the ignored predator
Because of its effect on the environment, cattle must be given the same priority in global agendas as nuclear weapons, wars and, in particular, climate change, says Brazilian activist João Meirelles...
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Boosting livestock density could cut biofuel impact
Brazil has plans to increase its production of biofuels over the next ten years. But, although Brazilian sugarcane is currently one of the best raw materials for producing biofuels with low...
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Climate change – Brazil: The threat posed by livestock
The livestock industry has less economic clout than the oil industry, but ranchers say it has better arguments to defend itself from accusations regarding its share of responsibility for global...
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Brazilian interest in Africa: Agriculture’s final frontier?
In this weekly column, Roger Thurow, former foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, describes the interest of Embrapa, the Brazilian agricultural research corporation that engineered a...
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Feeding the world without levelling the forest
Romosinuano cattle grazing in South America (picture credit: ILRI/Edwin Perez) A July 2010 article in the leading science journal Nature highlights the gains Brazil is making in its agricultural...
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The miracle of the cerrado
Brazil has revolutionized its own farms. Can it do the same for others? IN A remote corner of Bahia state, in north-eastern Brazil, a vast new farm is springing out of the dry bush. Thirty years ago...
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The great global food crunch: Was scarce food the tinderbox for Middle East...
Ancient Egyptian cow relief (photo credit: ILRI/Elsworth). The Washington Post’s op-ed columnist Robert J. Samuelson argued yesterday that the turmoil in the Middle East is related to a global food...
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China’s insatiable appetite for Brazil’s soybeans is making the latter...
Planting soy in the state of Paraná, Brazil (photograph via Flickr by Dami Izolan). Daniel Kfouri reports in the New York Times that Brazil’s ‘$7 billion agreement signed last month—to produce six...
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Rio+20 ‘ducked’ political realities: Time for South to show ‘political muscle...
Happy dragon in Fengdu, China (photo on Flickr by Major Clanger). SciDevNet’s David Dickson argues in an opinion piece last week that the outcomes of the June Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable...
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African agriculture: Basket case or bread basket?
(Illustration on Flickr by Vintaga Posters.) Is Africa an agricultural basket case, or a potential bread basket? Michael Moran, in the GlobalPost, argues the case for the latter. ‘. . . Food security...
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Recent drought-induced livestock losses in East Africa mask deeper problem of...
Cattle grazing on Brachiaria grass at the ILRI campus in Nairobi, Kenya (photo credit: ILRI/Collins Mutai). The following excerpts are taken from an opinion piece published by An Notenbaert, a former...
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Celebrate World Antibiotic Awareness Week by updating yourself on why health...
This week is World Antibiotic Awareness Week. Get yourself updated with this useful short overview on the rising global problem of antimicrobial resistance by reading this ‘Factbox’ from Thomson...
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