Toxic microalgae, viruses and chemical contaminants are floating in our waters. These hazardous materials pose a high risk to the livelihood of the sea dwellers. Especially the aquaculture is affected by this rising problem.

The marine aquaculture sector has grown continuously over the past years, according to the FAO’s world review of fisheries and aquaculture.

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.

Plastic products made of PVC, Polystyrene and other prominent plastics are flooding the market. They are a growing threat to the environment, as they are found in the sea or dumped in land fills .

Atlantic Bluefin Tuna is a much sought after delicacy. Due to huge fishing pressure, tuna stocks have decreased dramatically . There are now signs of recovery, according to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas .

Low-cost sensors and wireless communication technologies have enabled moves towards smart homes and smart cars. Using similar technologies, scientists involved in an EU-funded project called ALL-SMART-PIGS are now developing technologies that turn pigs’ farms into smart farms .

Statistically, drinking water in Europe is the safest in the world. But according to the World Health Organisation every year more than 300.000 Europeans are falling ill due to contaminated tab water. ...

Each year, the European Union produces three billion tonnes of waste. This equates to six tonnes of solid waste for every EU citizen, according to Eurostat. A major challenge is findings ways to reduce and reuse a large amount of such waste .

Holstein cattle - the black-and-white dairy cows you might see in a child’s picture book - have been bred in northern Europe for hundreds of years.

Diamonds are sometimes considered as a girl’s best friend. Now, this expression is about to have a new meaning. Indeed, nanometric scale diamond particles could offer a new way to detect cancer far earlier than previously thought.

The term fertigation is used in agriculture to refer to the combination of irrigation and fertilisation, in one step.

Many diseases occurring in industrial countries, such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, stroke or certain cancers are linked to malnutrition. The trouble is that one in two people in Europe is overweight or obese .

Every day cities in Europe discard a useful nutrient-rich resource that could be used to grow crops. Ironically, we treat and process human wastes while we mine non-renewable phosphate and potassium and we consume fossil fuel to make nitrogen fertiliser.

Many people in Europe are critical of genetically modified (GM) food, due to safety concerns. A Eurobarometer survey, published in 2010, revealed that the European public tends to be worried on a “mediate level” about GM food , with people in Austria being particularly concerned.

Scientist Peter Freeman is managing a project that is probing the clock and metabolism of plants, called TiMet . Partners to the project include star biologists in the Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, all working to gain better insights into what make plants tick.

Making food and drink production for more than 500 million people more eco-friendly is a key policy in Europe. About 99% of all agro-food companies in the European Union are small and medium size enterprises (SME).

The amount of nitrogen that is excreted by livestock is directly proportional to the amount it is fed . This is according to Chris Reynolds a researcher in nutritional physiology of ruminants  at  the University of Reading , UK.

It is not obvious when examining a wrapped lettuce or a microwavable bowl of Chinese soup. But plastic food packaging is made of multiple layers designed to act as a barrier for oxygen or bacteria .

Shrimps and lobsters are among the most popular crustaceans. However, the shell waste produced by the seafood industry is a growing problem , with significant environmental and health hazards.

Increasingly, many of the plastic products we use every day are no longer based on petroleum raw material . Instead, they are made from biomass such as starch, sugar, corn and other sources that also happen to be food products.