sustainable-farming

Most high school biology students learn that plants use photosynthesis to turn light into energy. Associate Professor Berkley Walker said that’s only scratching the surface. Plants use that energy to capture carbon dioxide, or CO2, from the atmosphere and convert it into sugars. These sugars are the building blocks plants use to grow. From the … The post What if we could solve food sustainability…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has opened applications for $32.4 million in grant funding… The post Apply Now: USDA Offers $32.4M Through Local Agriculture Market Programme appeared first on Agritech Digest .

A recent United Nations report declares the world is facing a state of water bankruptcy that will force food and agriculture systems to adapt.   Across the globe, surface waters and glaciers are shrinking, wetlands have been liquidated, and groundwater has been depleted, the report states. As water insecurity grows, agricultural heartlands are running off a… The post The Path Forward from Global …

The objective of this study was to develop calibration equations for a rising plate metrer (RPM) to estimate herbage mass in irrigated ryegrass/white clover (RGWC) swards with varying proportions of plantain. A 32-ha area, divided into 0.3-ha paddocks, was randomly allocated to three treatments sown with increasing plantain seeding rates: (i) RGWC with no plantain, (ii) RGWC + 3 kg/ha and (iii) R…

Urban agriculture soils are commonly amended with compost to improve fertility, yet the functional responses of these systems to biochar additions across application rates remain poorly understood. We conducted a field experiment at Three Sisters Gardens (West Sacramento, CA, USA) to evaluate how biochar applied at 0, 10, 20, and 30 t ha−1 influenced soil physical, chemical, and biological indica…

Soil quality is a key determinant of plant growth and ecosystem functioning, yet conventional assessments often overlook it from the plant’s perspective. Here, we propose the Ease of Root Water Uptake Index (ERWUI), a dynamic index that quantifies the energy required by plants to extract water from the soil, based on soil water retention characteristics, rooting depth, and temporal changes. The i…

Sustainable intensification of horticultural systems requires effective weed management strategies that reduce reliance on synthetic herbicides while maintaining crop productivity. Agroecological practices, particularly the use of multispecies cover crops, are increasingly recognized as promising tools to reconcile weed suppression with environmental sustainability. This study assessed the effect…

Limited availability of high-quality organic resources, inconsistent nutrient content, and unestablished nutrient-release patterns hinder the effective utilization of organic materials for soil fertility management. To address this, the present study characterizes the total nutrient content of fourteen organic materials and analysed their NPK fertilizer value following standards established by th…

Soil acidity is a major constraint to agricultural productivity across sub-Saharan Africa, where highly weathered soils exhibit strong spatial heterogeneity in chemical reactivity. While soil pH identifies acidity status, it does not indicate how a soil will respond to corrective liming how strongly it resists pH change or how much amendment it ultimately requires. Soil buffering capacity fills t…

Water scarcity is a major challenge for agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions. This study evaluates the long-term effects of deficit irrigation (DI) and land management practices, including no-tillage (NT), crop genetics, crop types, and cover cropping (CC), on soil health and water infiltration. Field experiments were conducted from 2019 to 2024 at three sites in Utah, USA, to study the effe…

Ecobank Group and AGRA have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a cooperation framework for sustainable, climate-resilient agricultural growth across Africa The post Ecobank and AGRA Sign MoU to Scale Agricultural Finance Across Africa appeared first on iGrow News .

BackgroundQuantification of livestock-related greenhouse gas emissions is critical for understanding agriculture's role in climate change and for justifying appropriate mitigation measures. In this paper, a long-term assessment of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from the Moroccan livestock sector is presented for the period 2000–2023.MethodsEnteric fermentation, manure management,…

Accurate identification of agricultural export carbon emission drivers is essential for developing effective mitigation strategies under global climate change. This study proposes an integrated analytical framework combining the XGBoost machine learning model with SHAP interpretability analysis to capture nonlinear relationships and quantify factor contributions. Using panel data from Central Chi…

Adam Richards Architects has completed St. Raphael's Health & Wellbeing Center at Mayfield School, East Sussex. The purpose-built facility establishes a new typology for school healthcare in the UK, integrating medical treatment, counselling, and teaching within a single, sustainable building. Reflecting the practice's commitment to innovation and sustainable design, the project is the world's fi…

Built from 24 wrapped layers, the Netherlands reveals how an everyday material can become a surprising new model for fast, compact housing.

Iroquois Valley Farmland REIT is giving organic farmers a direct stake in the land they tend, turning long-term stewards into shareholders. The post Organic Farmland Investment: Turning Farmers into Owners appeared first on Food Tank .

Scientific Reports, Published online: 24 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41598-026-54453-9 A federated blockchain framework for secure and intelligent smart farming in sustainable industrial agriculture