Part I: Farming Change Agent Larry Jacobs Shares Vision on Sustainable and Organic Ag

Larry Jacobs, founder of the Del Cabo Cooperative.

Larry Jacobs, a visionary from California, pioneered a new form of agriculture three decades ago that demonstrated to skeptics food could be cultivated profitably without the use of farming chemicals and pesticides. He went on to found the Del Cabo Cooperative in Mexico, which continues to assist indigenous farmers in growing and selling their produce at a price that creates a sustainable livelihood for their families.

In part one of a two-part interview with Seedstock.com, Larry Jacobs, NRDC’s 2013 Growing Green Award winner, explains why he chose in 1980 to make the switch to organic farming. This occurred at a time when U.S. farmers who experimented with organic farming methods were not even on the radar screen, and were often considered residents of “Kookville,” Jacobs says. Read More

To Power Hydroponic Operations on the Cheap, Ag Startup Seeks to Turn Wind into Water

Scarcity of clean water poses an enormous threat to food security around the world. Both in the developing world, including China and India, and even here in the United States, farmers increasingly face the arduous challenge of obtaining sufficient clean water to grow crops. Faced with this daunting challenge, the team behind the GreenTop platform developed an innovative system that uses wind power to capture atmospheric water moisture, which in turn is used to grow fruits and vegetables hydroponically. By creating an affordable, scalable technology that relies solely on renewable energy, the GreenTop platform enables farmers to boost food production, particularly in developing countries where the climate is arid, arable land scarce and access to clean water limited. Read More

Research Finds Ag and Food Production Contribute Up to 29 Percent of Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions

News Release – COPENHAGEN - Feeding the world releases up to 17,000 megatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, according to a new analysis released today by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). But while the emissions “footprint” of food production needs to be reduced, a companion policy brief by CCAFS lays out how climate change will require a complete recalibration of where specific crops are grown and livestock are raised. Read More

Aquaponics for Japan: Challenging the Hegemony of an Anachronistic Agricultural Bureaucracy

The following guest post was written by Aragon St-Charles, who founded Japan Aquaponics in June of 2011 after the great earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Through this social enterprise, St-Charles aims to introduce and promote aquaponics in Japan to increase food security and insure against disruptions to the food system.

Aragon St-Charles, Founder of Japan Aquaponics

Agriculture in Japan offers a tantalizing glimpse into the past, into an era of millions of small home farms of less than a few acres providing for family sustenance and hopefully a little extra to take to market. Given the high tech reputation of Japan this may seem to be at odds with our perception of the country, and yet with the average farmer and his wife (both heartwarmingly sharing the back-breaking work) being nearly 70 years old and farming less than 5 acres of land, the dichotomy is very real. Read More

Rio +20: Brazilian Farmers Propose the Creation of a Global Index of Sustainable Development

News Release – RIO DE JANEIRO, June 18, 2012 – Creating an index of sustainable development, enabling the opening of markets to countries that adopt correct environmental practices, and an international fund for the financing and dissemination of technology to contribute to agricultural development and livestock with respect to the environment are two of the proposals of the agricultural sector for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development – Rio +20. “Brazil, which produces inexpensive, high quality food while using only up to 27.7% of its territory, has the moral authority at Rio +20 to argue for new proposals which would ensure sustainable growth of the world output,” says the president of the Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil (CNA), Senator Katia Abreu. Read More

Streamlined Trade of Organic Products between United States and European Union Begins

News Release – WASHINGTON, Jun. 4, 2012 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced today that organic products certified in the United States or European Union may now be sold as organic in either market, as trade opened up on Friday, June 1, under a new U.S.-EU equivalency partnership. Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan signed formal letters creating the partnership in February, along with Dacian Cioloş, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, and Ambassador Isi Siddiqui, U.S. Trade Representative Chief Agricultural Negotiator. Read More

Data Portal Aims to Help Unlock Food Production Bottlenecks

News Release – Rome - A new online data portal developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) aims to help unlock the planet’s potential to feed a rapidly growing population.

The Global Agro-ecological Zones (GAEZ) Portal developed by FAO and IIASA is a planning tool designed to help to identify areas for   increased global food production while maintaining natural resources base and facing the challenge of climate change. According to FAO estimates, world food production needs to increase 60 percent by 2050 to feed a world population expected to surpass 9 billion people. Read More

Bold Food Security Initiative Needed from G8

News Release – Washington, DC – On the eve of the G8 Summit, international agency Oxfam called on world leaders heading to Camp David to make predictable, measureable funding and policy commitments that will help 50 million people lift themselves out of poverty through sustainable, small-scale agriculture by 2015. Read More

Aquaponics Co. Hopes to Increase Food Security and Achieve Profit Via International Strategy

With world population expected to exceed 9 billion people by 2050, there are concerns about whether there will be enough fresh food to feed them all. Some say aquaponics is the solution.

The method combines aquaculture (fish farming) with hydroponics (growing vegetables in water and nutrients, without soil) to produce pesticide-free food while using substantially less water compared to conventional farming methods. That creates the potential for maximizing food production in developing countries that have less water and healthy soil to work with, according to the leaders of Dallas-based Premier Organic Farms Corporation which plans to do just that through its subsidiary ECO Fresh Solutions. Read More

Slow Food USA Joins Forces with Slow Food International to Build 1000 Gardens in Africa

News Release – Slow Food USA, a national non-profit dedicated to creating a world where the food we eat is good for us, good for farmers and workers, and good for the planet, announced that it is joining forces with Slow Food International to build a thousand gardens in Africa.  A Thousand Gardens in Africa is part of a global initiative to bring the Slow Food network together to ensure African food security, as well as to raise awareness of native plant varieties and medicinal herbs.  The community and school plots are located across the continent, particularly in places that have become dependent on foreign aid and imported commodities. Read More

World Scientists Define United Approach to Tackling Food Insecurity

News Release - (LONDON - 28 March 2012) – Nearly one billion people in the world are undernourished, while millions suffer from chronic disease due to excess food consumption. Global demand is growing for agricultural products and food prices are rising, yet roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. Climate change threatens more frequent drought, flooding and pest outbreaks, and the world loses 12 million hectares of agricultural land each year to land degradation. Land clearing and inefficient practices make agriculture the largest source of greenhouse gas pollution on the planet. Read More

Global Partnership Brings Together Powerful Coalition to Protect World’s Oceans

News Release - SINGAPORE, February 24, 2012 – A powerful coalition of governments, international organizations, civil society groups and private interests are joining together under the banner of a Global Partnership for Oceans to confront widely documented problems of over-fishing, marine degradation, and habitat loss.

In a keynote speech to be delivered today at The Economist’s World Oceans Summit here,World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said the Partnership would bring science, advocacy, the private sector, and international public institutions together to advance mutually agreed goals for healthy and productive oceans. Read More

Sustainable Agriculture Tech Co. Uses Shrimp Heads and Microbiological Components to Increase Yields