Foreign volunteers replace workers who fled Israeli farms under fire
Hatsav, Israel Reuters Rather than stretch out under the Caribbean sun, Mark Landsman has been spending his vacation picking tomatoes in Israel, unpaid and in striking range of Palestinian rockets. The New Jersey man, among thousands of foreigners who have come to southern Israeli farms emptied of labourers by more than three months of war in the Gaza […]
Italian farmer battles frost, floods, heat and hail in epic year
Forli, Italy Reuters Farmer Andrea Ferrini is on the frontline of climate change in Italy and it is hurting. First his fruit and corn crops in northern Italy withered in a hard frost, then they were hit by torrential rains and record flooding, followed by an exceptional heatwave and finally hail storms. A farmer stands […]
Saving the farm: US heartland clergy train to prevent agriculture workers’ suicides
GIOVANNA DELL’ORTO, of Associated Press, reports on an initiative in which states such as Minnesota and South Dakota are offering suicide prevention training to clergy – a crucial, trusted presence in rural America…
Soils of war: The toxic legacy for Ukraine’s breadbasket
ROD NICKEL, of Reuters, reports on the damage being done to previously fertile farmland in Ukraine…
“The grass does not grow”: In Chile’s far south, the worst drought in 50 years
Punta Arenas, ChileReuters In Chile’s remote south, the country’s gateway to the Antarctic, the worst drought in half a century is hitting cattle ranchers and vegetable farmers, leaving the earth so dry in some areas that grass cannot grow for grazing. The Andean copper producing nation, currently battling deadly fires in the south-central region, is […]
Torrential floods in West Africa hurt food security
Dana, Cameroon Reuters Souloukna Mourga plodded through his flooded millet and cotton field in northern Cameroon and uprooted soggy stems that had a few bolls on them. All six hectares of mostly dead crops were under water. The 50-year-old father of 12 is one of an estimated four million people, many of them small subsistence […]
Floods, landslides kill dozens as monsoon rains lash northern, eastern India
Lucknow/Bhubaneshwar, India Reuters Floods and landslides triggered by intense monsoon rains killed at least 50 people in northern and eastern India over the last three days, officials said on Sunday. The rains overwhelmed hundreds of villages, sweeping away houses and leaving residents stranded as rescue crews have been racing to evacuate survivors. A general view […]
Ukraine’s besieged farmers fear war-time harvest “hell”
Mykolaiv, Ukraine Reuters As 10-metre high mounds of sunflower meal smoulder among the blackened ruins of one of Ukraine’s top agricultural terminals, farmers in this front-line region are scrambling to survive a harvest under Russian fire. They see Russia’s shelling of the Nika-Tera port facility in the southern city of Mykolaiv on 4th June as […]
Sudanese farmers warn of failing harvests as hunger rises
Gezira Scheme, SudanReuters On the fertile clay plains of Sudan’s Gezira Scheme, farmers would have normally started tilling the soil weeks ago before planting out rows of sorghum, or peanuts, sesame and other cash crops. Instead, in a country stalked by sharply rising hunger, swathes of the 8,800 square kilometre agricultural project lie untouched. A […]
Sri Lanka appeals for farmers to plant more rice as food shortage looms
Colombo, Sri LankaReuters Sri Lanka wants farmers to plant more rice as part of plans to avert a severe food shortage, a top official said on Tuesday, as experts warned of a 50 per cent drop in production that would worsen the impact of its already-severe financial crisis. Sri Lanka is in the throes of […]