Worldcrunch
ROSARNO — A shantytown of tents and shacks stretches out across an abandoned industrial district halfway between the towns of Rosarno and San Ferdinando, deep in the southern Italian region of Calabria. Some 2,500 farm workers from at least 16 different countries live in deplorable conditions surrounded by waste, with no access to running water […]
In Argentina, one of the world’s biggest citrus producers is recycling its farming waste as fuel and fertilizers.
A pig farm outside Buenos Aires is a carefully planned, self-sustaining and multidimensional business that shows how Argentina stays ahead in the competitive world of food production.
After a drop in oil prices left the Nigerian economy reeling, new government policies have boosted rice and other agricultural production. It’s a boost to stay home for Nigerians eyeing emigration to Europe.
As more men are migrating into cities in search of a living, women are left with all the weight of the farming and family. That is not a sustainable model.
Venezuela is one of a handful of petrol states that imagined they could live it up forever off crude oil cash. After oil prices sank, decades of neglecting agriculture has now left a nation literally starving.
-Analysis- In his half-century as leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro oversaw grand changes on the island. In the wake of his death, new changes may — or may not — be on their way under the helm of the late leader’s brother, President Raul Castro. Nowhere is the future more uncertain on the island nation […]
For decades the village of Cirompang in West Java has been self-sufficient when it comes to food. Residents rely on ancestral wisdom to grow and harvest rice.
Millions of Russians were given plots of land when the former USSR collapsed. Now, as land rises in value, small farmers are the targets of intimidation of powerful forces.
Last year, the price of vegetables surged 140% during the high holiday season, yet the Israeli government still opposes the import of cheap, high-quality produce from Gaza.
CHINON — Serge Desazars’ bodyguards are very hairy. Hip-Hop, a two-year-old Springer, jumps whenever a new visitor arrives. Serge lets out a smile, surreptitiously materializing on the unemotional farmer’s face. Hip-Hop is clearly too playful for this former international director for the clothing brands Petit Bateau, Céline and Holland & Holland. Desazars, who abandoned carpeted […]
SVALBARD — A cave 80 meters under a mountain looks like the entrance to a war bunker. Or a secret weapons factory. It could be the stuff of fiction: We almost expect Darth Vader to emerge from a wall. Or it could be the gate to an underworld that is populated with dwarfs and trolls […]
Rice is a staple food on the Indonesian island of Java. The country is one of the world’s biggest producers, and cultivating it means a lot of work for both men and women. But during the drying stage, there’s not much to do but wait.
For centuries, southeastern Grasse has been a flower growing hub for the fragrance industry. Though regular business from luxury titans has been a lifeline for local farmers, they’re finding it hard to survive in the globalized market.
A troubling tale of how the European Commision stalled the regulation of potentially cancer causing chemicals
Researchers say they would like to learn more about the full contribution these women make, and what the rise of women farmers means for the future of farming and ranching in the United States.
The secret of the French island of Réunion“s vanilla lies in its drying stage: the beans are laid out in the sun and intermittently put to rest in the shade.
With half of the world’s food tossed out, how can we be less wasteful? For starters, looking for smart new ways to earn money by decreasing waste.
With help from agencies and the government, locals from Monte de María in northern Colombia are breathing new life into the land stripped by abuse and violence.
BRAZZAVILLE — In the area around the Congolese capital of Brazzaville, it’s common practice to burn vegetation in fields before planting crops. But this slash-and-burn approach inflicts severe damage to the forests and the soil, not to mention to the health of women, who are the primary farmers in this area. “The placement of these […]
TOLIARA — The heat and the years have taken a heavy toll on Rebokane Mahatsanga’s frail, scaly-skinned body. Squatting, almost prone, among a few bad-looking ears of corn on his patch of land, he doesn’t quite know his age anymore. “I think I’ll be 100 soon,” he says, his eyes half-closed. People don’t really celebrate […]
From Alexandria to Aswan, urban gardening in Egypt is growing, especially on rooftops. The movement wants to be allowed to develop without the prying policies of a government that has other priorities.
BANYULS-SUR-MER — Up on these hillsides, vineyards descend steeply, almost falling into the blue waves of the Mediterranean. The soil is hard, and plowing is done by hand. But local winegrowers in Banyuls-sur-Mer and the neighboring towns of Port-Vendres, Collioure and Cerbère, just north of the border with Spain, wouldn’t have it any other way. […]
NAUBISE — In the village of Naubise, about 90-minute drive from the capital Kathmandu, farmer Nirbhaya Sapkota is experimenting with crop rotation, mixed cropping and even intercropping — anything to maintain soil fertility and moisture. Sapkota, 45, and others this area are contending first-hand with the effects of climate change, which is particularly hard-hitting in Nepal because of its high poverty rates and low adaptive capacity. The major earthquake that struck in April has complicated matters even more. But in this community, at least, Sapkota and other smallholder farmers refuse to go down without a fight. With the help of […]
NEW YORK — On a recent Sunday afternoon, David Bromwich paces his friend’s kitchen in Brooklyn barefoot, waiting for some tea to steep. As the alarm on his phone goes off, he’s already pouring. “It has a slight asparagus taste,” he says, slurping the hot green tea from a spoon. “There are so many chemicals in tea,” he explains, sticking a thermometer in another cup of water. “It’s the processing that unlocks all the different compounds.” Bromwich, a 36-year-old product manager at Thomson Reuters, has always loved tea, tasting every one he could as a kid and later mail-ordering the […]
Long after the days of Pablo Escobar and cocaine cartels, Colombia has regained the crown as world’s No. 1 producer of coca. It gives further urgency that FARC-government peace talks succeed.
This article is part of sponsored series from the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity EL BRECHOUA — A small but significant revolution is underway amidst the golden wheat-covered hills of the Moroccan municipality of El Brechoua, 60 kilometers from the capital of Rabat. The fields of wheat extending as far as the eye can see […]
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — The Colombian Health Ministry wants to tax sugary drinks. The Supreme Court is ordering parliament to regulate labeling on food products so consumers know which ones contain genetically modified ingredients. A nationwide debate has begun on the poor quality of school meals, as the regional head of the World Food Programme tells […]
Christmas decorations? Firelighters? I have no idea why anyone would want to dry that many pine cones …
Despite huge amounts of food still being wasted every day in the world, initiatives in various countries demonstrate growing public awareness about this modern-day abomination.
As vegetable wholesalers around Buenos Aires ignore government calls to moderate prices, angry shoppers may resort to their last weapon.
The bacterium Xylella has arrived in Italy, infecting thousands of olive trees in a stretch of the southeastern peninsula. Europe is powerless, with the region’s entire economy at risk.
CAIRO — Interested in planting summer vegetables such as pepper, zucchini or molokhia? Now is just about the right time of year to plant, says Hany El Khodary, head of urban farming company Green Zone Egypt. Even city dwellers with no outdoor space apart from a small balcony can grow small gardens or recycle some […]
-Analysis- MUNICH — Slaughterhouses and farms are becoming increasingly larger in size. Tracing the origins of an animal has become next to impossible as our sources of meat are increasingly transported across Europe, and the world. This not only affects the animals but inevitably us as well. The schnitzel on your plate was once a […]
For Argentina, and other Latin American countries, this is a golden opportunity.
Studies show that pesticides sprayed on crops are poisonous and that we are ingesting these toxins with our food. Perfect examples are the corn and soybeans Colombia imports from Argentina.
A Bogota-based NGO is helping some 30 farmers to sell organic produce directly to consumers. An oasis of clean food in the face of rising agrobusiness dominance.
MAMBURAO — In partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), those who fish the waters here in the town of Mamburao are using traditional handlines rather than large trawler nets in the deep waters off Mindoro Strait, in a bid to position the area as a Philippine hub of sustainable tuna fishing. With traditional handlines, or kawil, they catch only the mature and high-quality tuna. “We go out there into the Mindoro Strait, about 300 fishermen in several boats,” says the Tuna Fisheries Association’s Roberto Cueto. “When we’re not catching much, we stay there for days.” But Cueto, who started […]
Spaghetti produced from the wheat of local farms is served in the restaurants of Ethiopia, which discovered pasta during Italian colonial rule but only now are developing an entire economy around it.
YOTVATA — There are mud huts to block out the heat, solar micro panels for cooking, bio-gas production from waste, and wet mattresses to grow vegetables and flowers in the desert. This is the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Yotvata, the most torrid and depopulated area in Israel’s Negev desert, where a community of […]