Lillian Wambui talks about her farm in front of a field of pigeon peas.

Low-tech, co-operative approaches support smallholder farmers

A simple plastic sheet may not look like much, but it can change lives and communities

Over 70 per cent of hungry people in the world today are smallholder farmers. Those producing food are, ironically, the most likely to go without. This summer I visited Kenya with Canadian Foodgrains Bank to explore what can be done to address hunger and support the smallholder farmers (farmers with less than 10 acres of

Residents wait to fill their containers with water in a field in Latur, India, April 17, 2016.

Trafficking risk rises as villagers flee India’s worst drought in decades

A flood of migrants from rural India are searching for water, food and jobs as they flee arid conditions

A mass migration of tens of thousands of people from rural India, sparked by the worst drought in decades, is fuelling concerns they may be trafficked or exploited. The migrants are searching for water, food, jobs and other basics of life, activists say. About 330 million people, almost a quarter of the country’s population, are


The world’s first clone of an adult animal, Dolly the sheep, bleats during a photocall at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland January 4, 2002.

Dolly sheep clones reach ripe old age

The study results are reassuring after Dolly’s early death

The heirs of Dolly the sheep are enjoying a healthy old age, proving cloned animals can live normal lives and offering reassurance to scientists hoping to use cloned cells in medicine. Dolly, cloning’s poster child, was born in Scotland in 1996. She died prematurely in 2003, aged six, after developing osteoarthritis and a lung infection,

Dairy farmer Markus Legge is coping with the European “dairy crisis” by lowering costs and increasing his margins through organic milk production.

German agriculture under the microscope

International Agriculture: Farmers are pursuing sustainability against a backdrop 
of increasing public scrutiny

Rommerskirchen, Germany – Here are our ‘plant protection’ products,” Willi Kremer Schilling told a delegation of foreign journalists as they entered the fortress-like warehouse at the Buir-Bilesheimer Agricultural Co-operative. “I never say ‘pesticides,” he said. “These are ‘medicines’ for plants.” Willi is one of the 1,150-member co-op’s farmer-directors and he proudly hosts tours of its new


Local residents fight to collect free drinking water from municipal corporation tanker on a hot summer day on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.

Murders, violence on the rise as parched central India battles for water

Water shortages are prompting people to move to other regions to find water and food

Imrat Namdev and her younger sister Pushpa Namdev were neighbours in Chhatarpur district, in the drought-hit Indian region of Bundelkhand. Both relied on the same well for water and, according to police, frequently quarrelled over how much the other was using. In May, during one fight over water, Pushpa, 42, beat Imrat, 48, with a

Supporters of the Stronger In Campaign react as results of the EU referendum 
are announced at the Royal Festival Hall, in London.

Brexit fallout extends to Prairie farms

Commodity markets are roiling and key trade deals are in jeopardy

Britain’s decision to leave the European Union threw key trade deals in jeopardy while sending shock waves through global financial and commodity markets last week. Most equities and commodities, including wheat, corn and soybeans, dropped sharply in trade the day after the June 23 referendum, while traditional safe-haven investments like gold and the U.S. dollar


Tall stacks of garlic at a market in Jinxiang county of eastern Shangdong.  

Red-hot garlic market lures Chinese investors

A handful of wealthy business people are driving a runaway market in this savoury delicacy

Yang Fei doubled his money last year buying and selling in the unofficial garlic capital of the world. He did pretty well the year before, too, and the year before that. One of a few dozen garlic agents in Jinxiang, in China’s eastern Shandong province, 34-year-old Yang is at the centre of a trade that

 Kiwifruit grower Mark Gardiner at his orchard near Hamilton, New Zealand.

Ripe kiwifruit comes at a premium

One bad kiwifruit can spoil the consumer when it comes to marketing New Zealand’s namesake fruit

Somehow, the name Chinese gooseberry didn’t quite fit the bill for a fruit grown in New Zealand. Was it a real gooseberry? Was it from China? Was it part of a communist plot to raise funds? Was it subject to berry tariffs or possibly a melon tax? These were the questions that plagued the furry


Each 50-gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 per cent, according to a WHO study.

Processed meat causes cancer; red meat suspected

Study says 34,000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are attributable to diets high in processed meat

Paris / Reuters | Eating processed meat can lead to bowel cancer in humans while red meat is a likely cause of the disease, World Health Organization (WHO) experts said on Monday in findings that could sharpen debate over the merits of a meat-based diet. The France-based International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of

The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) rescues children, who were the victims of child trafficking, from cocoa fields in Cote d’Ivoire in June.

The dark taste of chocolate

There are an estimated 1.5 million child labourers in Cote d’Ivoire

Arouna stands shirtless in a cocoa field in Côte d’Ivoire. The 12-year-old holds a hoe and his ribs are clearly visible under his skin. He says, “I have to get up very early each day to be the first in the field with my younger brother to start clearing (the land). I’m so tired.” Arouna