On World Food Day—October 16, 2002—the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) issued its annual assessment of world food insecurity in its annual report entitled “The State of Food Insecurity in the World.” Food security and food insecurity have different meanings for different people, times, and places. However, in the context of this report, food insecurity is not about...

Rice is the most widely consumed staple food for both developed as well as developing world, more so for Asia. According to the data of FAOSTAT (2012), rice has the third-highest worldwide production after sugarcane and maize, among all agricultural crops [1]. Developing countries account for 95% of the total rice production, with China and India contributing for nearly half of the world output...

The magnitude of the challenge to stabilize greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere and limit average temperature increases makes it imperative that the contributions of all sectors with significant mitigation potential be tapped to the fullest extent possible. Agriculture is recognized as a sector with such potential and farmers, ranchers, herders and other land users around the ...

Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing global food animal production industries and, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), now accounts for nearly half of global food fish supply. This proportion is anticipated to grow in the coming decades as global capture fisheries continue to stagnate and global demand for seafood continues to rise. As the significance ...

BACKGROUND: Seed can play a critical role in increasing agricultural productivity: it determines the upper limit of crop yields and the productivity of all other agricultural inputs to the farming system. In the mid-1970s, governments and donors recognized the critical role of seed in agricultural transformation and began to provide substantial support for seed system development. Since then, F...

Introduction The international biodiesel production increased steadily and exponentially from 2000 to 2007 (WBGU, 2008). More than half of this increase can be attributed to biodiesel production in the European Union (EU). The production of biodiesel in Europe depends mostly on canola oil (e.g. Ho, 2006). As a result, Europe naturally had an increase in the demand for canola oil. In fact, the i...

The crop chosen for this study is chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) as the fourth most important legume in Australian agriculture (FAOSTAT 2004). One of the major obstacles in growing this crop is its poor competitive ability with weeds, which leads to significant reductions in yield. The best method to control weeds in crops such as chickpea is through the use of integrated weed management (IWM). ...

India is the second-most populous country and the second-most important producer of rice of the world. Most Indian rice production depends on monsoon timing and dynamics. In 2002, the lowest monsoon precipitation of the last 130+ years was observed. It coincided with the worst rice production anomaly recorded by FAOSTAT from 1961 to 2014. In that year, freshwater limitation was blamed as respon...