Scientists in Northern Italy are experimenting with unusual and totally eco-friendly sound and odor devices to fight off insects from their cultivated fields .

Ecosystem services are free, but often hidden. They include pollination and killing of crop pests by beneficial insects. Now, QuESSA , an EU-funded research project, due to be completed in 2017, will try and increase the visibility of such services.

You may think that climate change is being caused by burning oil, coal and gas. But not so fast! The emission of methane from cattle is a surprisingly important factor .

Peanut, egg and soy are more common food known to trigger an allergic reaction, a problem affecting around 8% of children in the EU. Intuitively, you might not list apples as causing allergic reactions.

What has been the biggest challenge during the apple genome sequencing and mapping? The real problem in our case was that the variety, Golden Delicious, we had chosen is heterozygous.

Ana, 32, loves going to the movies, is keen on theatre and takes regular yoga lessons. However, during the Covid pandemic she quit the frenzy of Madrid to settle in a remote village in Extremadura , a large Spanish rural area, bordering Portugal.

Despite women playing a key role in the life of rural communities, studies show they leave their villages in greater numbers than men do. This leads to demographic imbalances and inhibits local economic and social development.

Over the last two centuries, the  world population has increased  from one billion to 7.7 billion today. As the population keeps rising, so does food demand.

For the first time in its history, the Global Seed Vault on the Svalbard Islands, Norway, has authorised a withdrawal. It was requested in 2015 by Syria, a country where the war is endangering the local agricultural seed collections.

Sensors and drones can be among the farmers' best friends, helping them to use less fertilizers and water, and to control the general condition of their crops.

African swine fever , or ASF, is a viral disease that kills almost every pig it infects and is likened to Ebola . It gained a foothold in Georgia in 2007, when contaminated pig meat landed from a ship from South-East Africa and was fed to local pigs.

Imagine living in an inner city and buying your vegetables and fruit just moments after they’ve been harvested. Imagine waking up to the rustic sound of a cock crowing.