farmers
Zika Insecticides And Honeybees
Honeybees, which play a critical role in agriculture by pollinating crops, are not native to the United States. Beekeepers manage most honeybee colonies and they move the bees around to support farmers.
Greenhouses Adapt To Climate Change
The Telangana region of India has struggled with extreme weather patterns attributed to climate change. Extended periods of drought, heatwaves, and unpredictable heavy rainfalls have led to crop failures, mounting debt, and a heavy human toll. More than 3,000 farmers committed suicide in Telangana during a three-year drought.
Saving Wheat
Rising temperatures, drought, pests and diseases are moving north into the U.S. heartland and are increasingly posing a threat to the wheat crop. An insect called the Hessian fly is reducing crop yields by 10% a year in the Midwest. Average temperatures in the Midwest have risen by 2 degrees since 2000, and periods of time between rainfalls is lengthening. Conditions in some areas of the Midwest are getting to be more like those in the Middle East.
Reviled Animals Can Be Beneficial
Predators and scavengers are widely persecuted by people because they are often harmful to property, livestock, and human beings. Nonetheless, research has shown that many of these animals play important roles in ecosystems and their removal can be quite harmful.
Are Big Cats In Big Trouble?
According to researchers with the National Geographic Society’s Big Cats Initiative, cheetahs are much closer to extinction than previously thought. The research team has released a study, which was recently published in the journal PeerJ, that updates the cheetah population numbers in southern Africa, the largest of its remaining habitat.
Raw Wastewater On Farms
Clean water supplies are dwindling around the world. As a result, the use of untreated wastewater on farms for crop irrigation is on the rise.
Saving Bees With Software
The worldwide decline in the population of bees and other pollinators has impelled farmers to do what they can to encourage and nurture bees on their land. Protecting bees is important because pollinators are essential for growing many foods including coffee, cacao, almonds and many other fruits and vegetables.
Livestock And Antibiotics
According to the FDA, approximately three-quarters of all antibiotics used in the U.S. are fed to livestock for non-therapeutic purposes. This routine administration of antibiotics promotes the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which can spread to animals and humans. And as antibiotic-resistant bacteria spreads, medicines used to treat human diseases can become less effective. Antibiotic resistant infections kill 90,000 Americans each year.
Wind Farms And Ordinary Farms
Farmers in many places have found additional sources of income by allowing wind turbines to be built on their land. One example is the Amazon Wind Farm, which is a massive project of over 100 turbines near Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The 494-foot tall turbine towers scattered over 34 square miles are rising up above farms that grow corn, wheat and soybeans. It is the first utility-scale wind farm in the Southeast.
A Water Superpower
In 2008, Israel was on the verge of catastrophe. A decade-long drought in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East was scorching the area. Israel’s largest source of fresh water, the Sea of Galilee, had dropped to within inches of the so-called black line at which point irreversible salt infiltration would flood the lake and ruin it forever.