Farmers who grow vegetatively propagated crops (VPC) face certain limitations in access to seed. Some of these constraints are related to policy, institutions and markets...
The first cases of COVID-19 were reported in November 2019 in the Chinese province of Hubei. Since 23 January 2020, the city of Wuhan has been locked down. Quite soon afterwards, other areas of China adopted very strict measures to contain the spreading of COVID-19. Now, China claims effective control over the spread of COVID-19. However, the impacts, both on China (about two months of disruption/strong negative influence on production) and on the world (China’s current proportion of World GDP stands at 16.3%, compared to only 4.2% at the time of the SARS outbreak in 2003) are quite big and not yet fully estimated. In the past weeks, COVID-19 has spread to 164 countries. On 11 March 2020, WHO declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a “pandemic”. European Union countries, and especially Italy, Spain and France have taken very strict measures in the effort to contain the spread of the virus, mirroring the ones adopted earlier in China. Other countries are also now beginning to adopt containment measures.
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DEVCO is supporting the proof-of-concept phase of a new food security and food safety programme: PlantwisePlus. Led by the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI) and involving numerous partners...
Climate models for the project area predicted an increase in annual average temperatures. Rainfall was expected to be less reliable with a longer and hotter dry season from June...
Climate change, coupled with unsustainable practices of land clearing for agriculture and charcoal burning, have taken a toll on the once thick forests. Tons of fertile topsoil have...