The rice terraces of central Luzon’s Cordillera mountain range in the Philippines climb up the steep valley-sides like bleachers designed for an audience of giants. This remarkable human-made landscape was inscribed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage monuments in 1995. The neat ranks of flat-topped pond-fields have also been called ‘a stairway to the…
Stairways to the sky: sustainability & rice in the Philippines
PUBLISHED TODAY – NEW BOOK ON RICE BIOFORTIFICATION BY SALLY BROOKS
The latest in the STEPS Centre’s Pathways to Sustainability book series is published today – Rice Biofortification: Lessons for Global Science and Development by Sally Brooks. Biofortification, the enrichment of staple food crops with essential micronutrients such as iron, zinc and vitamin A – has been heralded as a uniquely sustainable solution to the problem…
AAAS DAY 2: IMPROVING WATER MANAGEMENT IN AGRICULTURE
BY JOHN THOMPSON, STEPS Centre memberAAAS Day 2: Friday 16 Feb 2007 Another interesting session looked at the challenge of producing more food with less water by improving water use efficiencies in a variety of ways. While the focus of most of the presentations was US irrigation systems and technologies, the issues they raised are…
PRO-POOR RICE FARMING METHOD FACES HOSTILITY
A new system of rice farming that is “good for poverty, good for the environment and costs less” is facing “antagonism, indifference and hostility” from the mainstream agricultural and scientific industry. Farmers in Asia are experiencing 50-100% increase in yields from the new system that costs less and can better withstand the environmental challenges of…