Agribusiness generale

Agriculture (175)
Apiculture (160)
Crop (336)
Crops (128)
Harvest (77)
Horticulture (49)
Land/field (10)
Orchard (14)
Plant pathology (8)
Ranching (9)
Soil (8)

Synopsis: Domenii: Agribusiness: Agribusiness generale:

The satellites it put into the space provide everything from high-resolution imagery to monitor the country's shrinking farmland, to cheaper wireless and internet coverage.

broadcasting and GPS mapping to weather forecasting for agriculture and climate monitoring. Since 2010, satellite capacity across the continent has tripled nearly, helping in part fuel Africa's"mobile revolution#.

They are the world number one non-grain crop, in 130 countries, and a hefty source of starch for billions around the world.

Olivier Dubois, senior natural resources officer at the United nations Food and agriculture organisation (FAO), says that using food for energy like sugar cane for biofuels must avoid depleting food stocks

the potato is the second most important food for families after maize. Smallholder farmers produced around 10 million tonnes of potatoes this year,

yet around 10-20%were lost in postharvest waste due to lack of access to markets, poor storage conditions,

and spray crops is regulated already and sanctioned in both North and South america. Another will be the fuel itself.

The futuristic visions of the 1950s and 60s imagined neighbourhood airports and helicopters in our back gardens-but space travel is more likely.

He sold his farmland and became an overnight millionaire.""There are no farms left here for us to remain farmers,

From health and agriculture, to business and electioneering, it is quietly playing an ever more central role in many of our lives."

The ability to use just the right amounts of water and fertiliser to produce a good harvest without wasting resources can improve crop yields and rural incomes.

Bluetooth is also being used to help those in agriculture in other ways. Kenyan mobile tech company Virtual city has developed Agrimanagr

if its farmland was utilised properly. Things are starting to change, however, thanks to ideas transforming farmerslives.

Africa is home to a quarter of the world arable land ripe and ready to become the world breadbasket.

who face enormous challenges when it comes to accessing things to improve harvests and incomes that developed world farmers perhaps take for granted:

The company is also offering to help farmers actually figure out what they need to improve their harvest.

Hedging harvests That ecosystem, at least in Kenya, is slowly starting to develop. Several innovations like Farm Shop are improving the lives and income of Africa struggling smallholder farmers,

and across the entire value chain of rural agriculture. For the past few years, social enterprise Kilimo Salama has been piloting a crop insurance scheme for smallholder farmers

Traditionally, farmers try to reduce their exposure to risks like crop failure (from bad rains or crop parasites) by minimising their investment in farming inputs.

As a consequence, farmers remain trapped in a cycle of low agricultural productivity and poverty. If the rains fail,

Farmer payouts are calculated automatically based on their crops, location, and number of seeds purchased. By coupling bank loans with Kilimo Salama insurance scheme, the organisation has enabled banks

ee enabling farmers to get a harvest. As of this year, Kilimo Salama has insured over 100,000 smallholder farmers across Kenya and Rwanda.

One SMS at a time Yet even if farmers have a great harvest that doesn mean it easy for them to sell their produce.

Calestous Juma, Harvard Professor and author of The New Harvest; Agricultural innovation in Africa claims that the greatest failure of Africa agricultural sector is the absence of investment in rural infrastructure. arkets cannot function

post information on their harvest for buyers to see and purchase, and band together with other farmers in their area to make bulk purchases of expensive but needed agricultural inputs like seeds,

It also allows them to join together to sell their harvests, making it easier for buyers to reach them.

and work near agricultural fields but is likely to raise prices on produce. The restrictions announced Wednesday target chloropicrin, a pesticide injected into the ground before planting crops such as strawberries, tomatoes and almond orchards.

In recent years, the chemical has caused hundreds of people to suffer from irritated eyes, coughing fits and headaches,

when they plant a new orchard or vineyard, but California's strawberry growers, who use it each season,

California produces 88 percent of the nation's strawberry crop, supporting a $2. 3 billion industry,

It will cost the state's strawberry growers an estimated $20 million to buy upgraded tarps to cover their crops

which includes recommendations on how to make the island agriculture fisheries transportation and energy systems more sustainable.

tenant-amenities such as rooftop gardens and pools; and other high-footprint features. ee worked hard to achieve both large-scale and high power conversion efficiency,

and human activities, such as leakage from natural gas systems and the raising of livestock. uman activities such as agriculture, fossil fuel combustion, wastewater management,

#Smart sensors that harvest power from sun heat or vibrations European researchers have developed advanced energy harvesting technology that allows wireless sensor networks to power themselves from the sun, heat or vibrations.

or in agriculture and water management, suggests Ignasi Vilajosana, CEO of Worldsensing, a project partner based in Spain. n the context of smart cities, for example,

Agricultural lands for olive orchards and other crops are being damaged. Unregulated quarrying has deteriorated coastal mountain ecosystems and soil quality.

And, only a small portion of solid waste is being recycled or composted. These trends are having effects across society and the economy

impacting health, energy agriculture, production, transportation and tourism. In 2011, an EU-funded project began an in depth analysis of these challenges with an eye toward developing long-term solutions.

but also in agriculture, cosmetics and beyond, says Polymode project co-ordinator, Professor Bruno Moerschbacher of the University of Münster in Germany.

This 460 hectare vineyard is located in a green and prosperous area of the country where agriculture is the main industry.

whether genetic techniques could be used to create new antibiotics from bacteria commonly found in garden soil.

#BIOBROOM#Breeding flies to fight broomrape parasite weeds Can flies be bred as gardeners weeding undesirable pests from the crop?

herbicide-free control of parasitic weeds in all vulnerable crops. Tóth is assistant professor at the Slovak University of Agriculture in the city of Nitra where he teaches in agricultural entomology,

weed control and integrated pest management. His project, backed by#166,563 of funding from the EU's Marie Curie Actions fellowship programme,

Broomrape has plagued European agriculture for years, although climate change has made it more aggressive recently, Tóth says."

and it is a real problem in tomatoes, tobacco and hemp crops. In some areas they have stopped growing tobacco and tomatoes."

it could offer an environmentally-friendly protection against a crop menace. Project details Participants: The netherlands (Coordinator), Slovakia FP7 Proj.

Food Agriculture and Fisheriesbiotechnology; Nanosciences nanotechnologiesmaterials and new productiontechnologies; Energy; and Environment (includingclimate change. Established in 2010 and due to continue until2014 the project is focused on developing ahighly integrated multipurpose refinery.

Theproject will provide an efficient bridge betweenthe agriculture and chemical industries byintegrating the entire biomass chain in asingle concept adaptable for use in a rangeof locations.

By contrast, the antibodies produced by PHARMA-PLANTA were derived from tobacco plants grown in greenhouses in Germany,

And it not just the occasional flower buyer who needs guidance on watering as even experienced farmers can misjudge how much to sprinkle on their crops,

Available as a smartphone app, it a breakthrough that could save harvests, as well as trillions of litres of water wasted in world farming every year.

Global agriculture wastes 60%,or 1 500 trillion litres, of the 2, 500 trillion litres of water it uses each year, according to the WWF.

the 2003 heat wave cost about#11 billion in lost crops. The waste is mainly down to inefficient irrigation systems.

Italy and Estonia, using crops like lettuce, courgettes, and berries. In The british trials, on Maris Piper potatoes, Waterbee used 56%less water than the local irrigation system in use.

Experts once believed filoviruses came into being some 10000 years ago coinciding with the rise of agriculture.

While the low-carb dieters got 41 percent of their calories from fat most were healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats like olive or canola oil.

##California is the top agricultural producing state in the nation grossing $38 billion in revenue from farm crops in 2010.

While pesticides are critical for the modern agriculture industry certain commonly used pesticides are neurotoxic and may pose threats to brain development during gestation potentially resulting in developmental delay or autism.

and affect our daily lives from pollinating our crops to vectoring diseasessays lead author Bernhard Misof with the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn Germany. e can only start to understand the enormous species richness

As more gardeners and farmers add ground charcoal or biochar to soil to both boost crop yields and counter global climate change the study offers the first detailed explanation for this mystery. nderstanding the controls on water movement through biochar-amended soils is critical

to explaining other frequently reported benefits of biochar such as nutrient retention carbon sequestration and reduced greenhouse gas emissionssays lead author Rebecca Barnes an assistant professor of environmental science at Colorado College who began the research as a postdoctoral research associate at Rice university.

Transcription factors known as genetic switches drive gene expression in plants based on external stresses such as light rain soil quality

and the transcriptional network work could allow scientists to breed plants that are better able to deal with stressful environments#crucial in a world where farmers attempt to feed an increasing population amid urban development of arable land

and flexible electronic devices to harvest solar energysays Luyao Lu a graduate student in chemistry and lead author of a paper in the journal Nature Photonics that describes the result.

The US Department of agriculture s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the UC Davis School of veterinary medicine s Center for Food Animal health provided funding r

The device harvests energy in any location where these temperature changes naturally occur powering sensors that can check for water leaks

or bad crop yieldssmolke says. e ll have more sustainable cost-effective and secure production methods for these important drugs. h

which could lead to better canola oil and possibly to less bitter broccoli. Published in the journal Science the findings will help scientists understand how plant genomes evolve in the context of domestication.

Broccoli cauliflower Brussels sprouts Chinese cabbage turnip collared greens mustard canola oil all these are different incarnations of the same plant genus Brassica. hole-genome sequencing efforts like this one allow us to address two fundamental

#Clear material on windows harvests solar energy Michigan State university rightoriginal Studyposted by Tom Oswald-Michigan State on August 20 2014a new type of ransparent solar concentrator

#Rice genome could answer the 9 billion-people question Researchers have sequenced the complete genome of African rice a hardy crop that could help feed the world s growing population. ice feeds

and agriculturalists can search for ways to cross Asian and African species to develop new varieties of rice with the high-yield traits of Asian rice

and pesticides. ardy high-yield crops will become increasingly vital for human survival as the world faces the environmental effects of climate change and an ever-growing global population.

and traits that make harvesting the crop easier. Additionally the sequenced genome helps resolve questions about

#Why are Newfoundland s honey bees parasite free? Penn State rightoriginal Studyposted by Sara Lajeunesse-Penn State on July 3 2014some honey bee colonies in Newfoundland Canada are free of invasive parasites found elsewhere in the world.

Scientists say the discovery offers a unique opportunity to investigate honey bee health. nvasive parasitesâ##such as Nosema ceranae a fungus

and Varroa destructor a miteâ##have incurred heavy economic penalties on the honey bee industry via colony losses

and reduced productivity of surviving colonies and both parasites threaten global food security because of reduced pollination services to agriculturesays Nancy Ostiguy associate professor of entomology at Penn State. he extent to which these detriments are attributable

to specific parasite species is difficult to assess however because of the occurrence of multiple parasites within honey bees.

because few areas in the world have western honey bee colonies that are free of invasive parasites. stiguy

and her colleagues found a geographical area in Newfoundland in which a number of important invasive honey bee parasites including Varroa destructor

The researchers used molecular techniques to test for the presence of viruses and Nosema ceranae in honey bee colonies managed by beekeepers.

and parasites of honey bees along with various stressors such as pesticide exposure with the goal of providing information to help keep honey bees healthy. ur ability to find European honey bee populations free of invasive

and pathogens of honey bees. n addition to Ostiguy researchers from Acadia University Forestry and Agrifoods Agency Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Agriculture and Agrifood Canada Dalhousie University and University

The Agriculture and Agrifoods Research and development Program the Forestry and Agrifoods Agency the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador the Natural sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the US Department of agriculture supported the study.

which states that the voltage of a rechargeable battery is dependent on temperature. o harvest thermal energy we subject a battery to a four-step process:

and human activities, such as leakage from natural gas systems and the raising of livestock. uman activities such as agriculture, fossil fuel combustion, wastewater management,

As it moves along a carbon-nanotube track it continuously harvests energy from strands of RNA molecules vital to a variety of roles in living cells

#RNA readout tool could lead to tougher crops Scientists have developed a method that enables more-accurate prediction of how RNA molecules fold within living cells.

or develop with biotechnological methods crops that are more resistant to those stresses. Such crops which could perform better under more-marginal conditions could help feed the world s growing population. he project involved determining the structures of the varieties of RNA molecules in a plant named Arabidopsis thaliana.

This plant is used worldwide as a model species for scientific research. Arabidopsis thaliana commonly known as mouse-ear cress is an ideal organism for RNA studies the researchers say

#onest pheromones may explain decline in queen bees Queen bees are always truthful with worker bees when it comes to communicating their reproductive status and quality.

And scientists say this may help explain why honey bee populations are declining. e usually think of animals chemical signals (called pheromones) as communication systems that convey only very simple sorts of informationsays Christina Grozinger professor of entomology

and director of the Center for Pollinator Research at Penn State. owever this study demonstrates that queen honey bees are conveying a lot of nuanced information through their pheromones. n addition until now no one knew

In other words whether or not they have mated with a lot of males. hy do worker bees care if their queen is mated well?

if worker bees are able to detect poorly mated queens and take steps to remove them that could be an explanation for the rapid rates of queen loss

and turnover that beekeepers have been reporting. n the journal PLOS ONE researchers from Penn State North carolina

Finally the researchers presented the gland extracts to worker bees and observed the extent to which they were attracted to different extracts.

The team found that worker bees preferred pheromone extracts of queens that were inseminated with semen rather than saline.

or saline were preferred by worker bees. hese results suggest that queens are signaling detailed and honest information about their mating state and reproductive quality to workers

and workers are capable of adjusting their behavior accordinglyniã o says. hen workers replace failing queens it is particularly damaging to beekeepers

and therefore reduces honey production and even pollination efficiency. he team also found that the mandibular gland

Crop growers wine grape and other fruit growers food processors and even concrete makers all benefit from water sensors for accurate steady and numerous moisture readings.

and soil for accurate measurements in agricultural fields. For example sophisticated vintners use precise irrigation to put regulated water stress on grapevines to create just the right grape composition for a premium cabernet or a chardonnay wine.

While growers can use the sensors to monitor water in soils for their crops civil engineers can embed the chips in concrete to determine optimal moisture levels as the concrete cures. ne of our goals is to try

and develop something that is not only a great improvement but also much cheaper for growers and others to usesays Alan Lakso professor of horticulture at Cornell University.

#Gene keeps wheat from sprouting on the stalk A new way to keep high humidity from damaging wheat crops could save farmers millions of dollars

This phenomenon pre-harvest sprouting or PHS has such important economic repercussions for farmers around the world that scientists have been working on finding a solution to the problem for decades.

They are so thinâ##thousands of CNTS could fit side by side in a human hairâ##that it takes very little energy to switch them off according to Wong a co-author of the paper. hink of it as stepping on a garden hosewong explains. he thinner the hose the easier it is to shut off the flow. n theory this combination

Researchers say the discovery could one day lead to bigger harvests of biomass for renewable energy.

and thus better harvest bioenergy. ong and Daniel Cosgrove professor and chair in biology at Penn State are the lead authors.

#Use microbes, not pesticides, to boost crop yields Iowa State university Original Studyposted by Fred Love-Iowa State on September 9 2013.

and around crops could pay huge dividends for farmers in the near future thanks to advances in genetic sequencing.

A 21-member team organized by the American Academy of Microbiology established a set of recommendations on how advances in microbiology can be harnessed to improve agriculture.

and pesticides says team member Gwyn Beattie a professor of plant pathology and bacteriology at Iowa State university.

The sheer complexity involved in making sense of the virtually countless microbes that interact with crops made such an ambitious goal seem outlandish in the past.

When crops are optimized with the right genetics and colonized by the right microbes both organisms can flourish.

but it turned up in an earlier survey of genes involved in leaf senesce says Su-Sheng Gan professor of horticulture at Cornell University.

In the current transport and storage-based food system senescence after harvest whittles away at fruit and vegetable quality.

Gan envisions applications that will produce leafy greens that stay fresh floral bouquets that last longer and crops that keep their nutrients with an extended shelf life and less postharvest loss.

Manipulating this pathway also holds promise for bigger harvests and healthier plants. Much of the progress plant breeders have made in improving plant yields is actually due to delaying leaf senescence Gan says.

and seeds so senescence limits the yield of many crops. His lab group is already working with other genes in the salicylic acid pathway including a master regulator gene with promising results.

When they switched the gene off using molecular tools soybean yields were increased by up to 44 percent t

and indeed promoted by agriculture#says Hanotte. A research group in China independently discovered and reported the same findings with local Chinese and North american breeds.

#Gene protects beer crop from nasty fungus Original Studyposted by Ron Hohenhaus-Queensland on August 5 2013 Finding the gene that gives barley resistance to leaf rust could benefit people who rely on the crop

Leaf rust is a fungal disease that could destroy almost a third of the nation s barley crop,

This will result in much lower chemical use reduced crop losses and a more reliable grain supply.

Hickey says the crop disease could also leave Australian beer drinkers thirsty because the country's primary use of barley was to make beer as well as stock feed.

#To beat stem rust, wheat crops get new gene University of California Davis rightoriginal Studyposted by Pat Bailey-UC Davis on July 30 2013uc DAVIS (US)# Scientists

have found a gene in wild wheat that could make commercial wheat varieties resistant to a new strain of stem rust.

By transferring this gene to commercial wheat varieties wheat breeders will have a distinct advantage in controlling the epidemic the researchers say.

since 1999 threatening important wheat production areas of the world#says co-author Jorge Dubcovsky a wheat geneticist at University of California Davis and a Howard hughes medical institute investigator.#

About 90 percent of the wheat varieties grown worldwide are susceptible to Ug99. Previous resistance genes that had proven effective for fighting the disease for 50 years are ineffective against this new race.

Scientists are now looking for new sources of resistance to protect the global wheat crop which millions of people depend on for food.

They then inserted the gene into a wheat variety that is susceptible to the diseases engineering a resistance to Ug99.#

It is supported by the US Department of agriculture#s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Additional researchers from UC Davis Department of Plant sciences the USDA-ARS Cereal Disease Laboratory and Kansas State university also contributed to the study.

and wheat in hopes of creating new crops. That can be done if the different species are related closely

Among crop plants pollination means food.##Understanding this molecular back-and-forth at all the different levels and stages will be useful to either engineer the process

Bruce Tabashnik and Yves Carri##re in the entomology department at the University of Arizona s College of Agriculture and Life sciences together with visiting scholar Thierry Br##vault from the Center

One billion acres#When Bt crops were introduced first the main question was how quickly would pests adapt

##Now with 1 billion acres of these crops planted over the past 16 years and with the data accumulated over that period we have a better scientific understanding of how fast the insects evolve resistance and why.#

#Analyzing data from 77 studies of 13 pest species in eight countries on five continents the researchers found well-documented cases of field-evolved resistance to Bt crops in five major pests

Three of the five cases are in the United states where farmers have planted about half of the world s Bt crop acreage.

but in the best cases effectiveness of Bt crops has been sustained more than 15 years. According to the paper both the best and worst outcomes correspond with predictions from evolutionary principles.#

#The factors we found to favor sustained efficacy of Bt crops are in line with what we would expect based on evolutionary theory#says Carri##re explaining that conditions are most favorable

Pink bollwormplanting refuges near Bt crops reduces the chances that two resistant insects will mate with each other making it more likely they will breed with a susceptible mate yielding offspring that are killed by the Bt crop.

#Same pest same crop same Bt protein but very different outcomes.##He explained that in the Southwestern US scientists from the EPA academia industry

One of the paper s main conclusions is that evaluating two factors can help to gauge the risk of resistance before Bt crops are commercialized.#

or this pest will probably evolve resistance quickly to this Bt crop.##Prevent resistance? Although the new report is the most comprehensive evaluation of pest resistance to Bt crops so far Tabashnik emphasizes that it represents only the beginning of using systematic data analyses to enhance understanding and management of resistance.#

#These plants have been remarkably useful and in most cases resistance has evolved slower than expected#Tabashnik says.#

#I see these crops as an increasingly important part of the future of agriculture. The progress made provides motivation to collect more data

and to incorporate it in planning future crop deployments.##We ve also started exchanging ideas and information with scientists facing related challenges such as herbicide resistance in weeds and resistance to drugs in bacteria HIV and cancer.#

Graphene consists of a single atomic layer of carbon, arranged in a honeycomb lattice. ur first Science paper,

That why we still talk about agriculture as being different from industry. Chasing cows, making them wait

when and how much water to apply to their crops, so they don run their irrigation systems unnecessarily.

and AEO Sound applications are used for image and audio processing, with batch processing of crop rotation and color correction all possible.

#Ethiopia Agriculture ministry rolls out specialized phone service for farmers The Ethiopian government has rolled out a new phone service that farmers can call to get information on crops in their native languages.

The nation now has one of the largest"agricultural extension"systems in the world after major powers such as China and India.

The nation has some 60,000 agricultural extension officers. The 8028 phone service is a new component of that.

"The hotline administrator can'push'customized content (such as in cases of drought, pest and disease) to callers based on crop,

whether or not to plant crops, and when. Those who took the advice saved some $3. 8 million collectively i

Called wastage grocery shelves are invaded constantly by everything from fake corn flakes to counterfeit honey selling under false labels to adulterated wines

These include rooftop garden loral therapy, art classes making realistic representations of everyday objects, music therapy with bongos sounding ike a heartbeat.

#Explosives and Pesticides Can Be detected by Using Bee venom Scientists from MIT have discovered that by coating carbon nanotubes in bee venom,

and fellow chemical engineers coated one-atom-thick tubes of carbon with protein fragments found in bee venom,

This is certainly a novel approach for using the proteins found in bee venom. It seems there are a number of potential uses for the poison,

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