Soil is a vital part of the natural environment. It supports the growth of plants, is a habitat for many different organisms and is at the heart of nearly all agricultural production. It also plays an integral role in countless other ecosystem services like water and climate regulation.
Climate change has a direct impact on Guatemalan small-scale farmers, leading to loss of crops, increased malnutrition and migration flows. Public institutions are critical to improving climate change adaptation strategies, but an agrarian-systems diagnosis carried out by SIC4Change in the Guatemalan dry corridor found some shortcomings with the approach taken by the rural extension services – and suggested some ways these could be corrected.
For International Day of Rural Women, Thrive contemplates how women farmers are coping with today’s agricultural challenges. Researchers are finding that the right interventions can benefit not only struggling farmers but also women specifically as well.
Using water productively for agriculture is key, especially in the arid parts of our world. A new study shows that combining water and land interventions is the best way forward.
On the occasion of World Habitat Day, UN Habitat is calling for ‘waste-wise cities’ that recycle and reuse waste to help realize international agendas, such as the Sustainable Development Goals. But how is that possible for cities in low-income countries that are still struggling to keep their streets and water ways clean? Accra, the capital city of Ghana, leads the way, with public authorities successfully turning city waste into safe and efficient fertilizer for farmers in and around the city.
How can we connect a growing urban class to the farmers who produce our food? A new online platform in Lao PDR aims to bridge this divide and restore the country’s rich natural heritage.
Severe flooding and drought caused by extreme weather patterns lead to about 10,000 deaths and US$40 billion in damage a year, with the number and extremity of the events is slated to increase in the future. The agricultural sector is particularly vulnerable.
What do we know about the role of women in agriculture, in different societies across the globe, that can help us design more effective programs for increasing gender equity?
Currently, much of the mainstream media coverage, particularly when it comes to environmental issues limits itself to focusing on political rhetoric and disaster reportage while underlying structural changes taking place due to climate change and other factors, largely go ignored.
How many of us want to address gender in our work, but when it comes down to the specifics, aren’t quite sure how? Join the discussion- help us develop a series of collaborative questions to investigate gender in agricultural water management projects.
For International Women’s Day 2018, we’re turning the spotlight on some female activists in the rural Far West of Nepal, whose achievements defy the norms of the patriarchal agrarian society they live in.
As the world marks World Wetlands Day this week, Colombo is gearing up to be recognized as one of the first official “Wetlands Cities” accredited by the Ramsar Convention. The vital benefits of urban wetlands – wet areas such as swamps, marsh and ponds – are on display in Colombo every day. They are, in fact, some of Colombo’s most precious infrastructure.
While some soils currently do not sequester carbon, it doesn’t mean they can’t in the future. All soils have the potential to sequester carbon if we can establish the right practices to do so within a given context.
This week marks the launch of the new CGIAR research portfolio. Izabella Koziell, Program Director, lays out the ambitions of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE).
As human activity pushes our planet past its natural boundaries, the window for reversing environmental damage is rapidly closing. However, by modifying some human activities, especially agriculture, it might be possible to undo some of the damage that we have already done.
