Tag: Agriculture
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TRY SOME SORGHUM IN YOUR COUSCOUS
The villagers of Atti-Apedokoe in Togo love their couscous. For generations, they’ve made it with maize (corn). But maize isn’t terribly resilient to all the challenges that Mother Nature is throwing at our farming systems these days. So scientists at the Institut Togolais de Recherche Agronomique and the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture – ICBA […]
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TWO STANS AND ALFALFA
The glaciers of the Tien Shan mountain range in Central Asia are receding quickly. And that’s causing a lot of concern amongst the farmers of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The glacial meltwaters which allowed them to irrigate their crops are no longer abundant. And without adequate water, yields plummet. I joined a group of scientists brought […]
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A DAY IN THE RICE PADDIES OF CAO PHONG
Timing is so important in photography. And I seem to get it wrong so often. I stayed an extra day in Vietnam so I could see rice being harvested in terraced paddies. But it soon appeared that my timing was wrong. Turns out most of the rice in northern Vietnam had already been harvested. Nothing […]
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NORTH OF GOYDER’S LINE
Back in 1865 a surveyor known as George Goyder got on his horse and traversed 3200 kms across South Australia. When he got home he drew a line across the state. He figured to the south of his line farmers could get enough rainfall to allow them to grow crops. To the north, he felt […]
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ASKING THE WOMEN
A few decades ago, crop breeders would develop new varieties which they thought farmers wanted and then expect farmers to plant those improved seeds. That didn’t work so well because farmers and breeders don’t always think alike. Nowadays good breeders get farmers involved early on in the process of developing new varieties and ask their […]
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A MOROCCAN ROADTRIP
MOROCCO ROADTRIP DAY 1. WELCOME TO MY WORLD It was a coincidence and a stroke of luck that my work travels in Morocco converged with the travels of Padma, Jenni and Russ. So they were able to meet my work colleagues and we were able to spend a night in Marrakech before the three of […]
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A TALE OF TWO MARYS
Once upon a time a man married two Marys, which is something you can do in Kenya. The man passed away but his two wives, the Marys, lived on and prospered while growing finger millet. Finger millet is a traditional crop of Eastern Africa and once grew abundantly in the Western Kenya near the town […]
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BACK AT ICARDA
It’s taken me 25 years, but I’ve finally returned to the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, the organisation I once worked for. This time it wasn’t in Syria but the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon … but Syria was just a few kilometres away beyond the mountains in this photo. The location […]
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MARUTI THE PIGEONPEA SAVIOUR
In the early 1980s, the Indian state of Karnataka was suffering. Its principle commercial crop, pigeonpea, was being devastated by wilt. Researchers discovered some pigeonpea seeds in the genebank of the International Crops Research Center for Semi-Arid Tropics which were resistant to wilt. The seeds were directly released from the genebank to pigeonpea specialists in […]
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