Monthly Archives: December 2013

I am very excited to hear 2016 has been declared ‘Year of the Pulses’. Here is the press release from the International Pulse Trade and Industries Confederation (IPTIC): Issued by International Pulse Trade and Industries Confederation, Head Office DUBAI, UAE December 20, 2013 Pulses – the healthiest grain foods in the world – have captured […]

There is an excellent article in the Economist that hones in on the irony of the way in which people invoke science in today’s policy setting. The need to use modern scientific information to understand climate change and take action to adapt to its impacts, particularly in agriculture, and to mitigate it is obvious. In […]

The average annual rate of global agricultural growth slowed in the 1970s and 1980s but then accelerated in the 1990s and 2000s. In the decades prior to 1990, most output growth came about from intensification of input use (i.e., using more labor, capital, and material inputs per acre of agricultural land). Bringing new land into […]

It was a thrill to listen to Chris Hadfield at GrowCanada. The astronaut is a global hero who has traveled to space three times. He cited an astronaut mantra “There is no problem so big that you can’t make it worse.” Careful preparation to run scenarios and do realistic simulations is the foundation of addressing […]

It was my pleasure to be at the Grain Growers of Canada meeting this morning when the Climate Change and Emissions Management (CCEMC) Corporation announced it is providing $252,500 to support the second phase of a project led by the Canadian Fertilizer Institute (CFI) called Farming 4R Land. The project will help Alberta farmers improve […]

Last week in New York the first Open Working Groups began to discuss the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) when they expire in 2015. In an effort to inform the SDGs, Farming First has launched a creative infographic that skips forward in time to 2030, when the SDGs […]