Sustainable agriculture

8 results

Small-scale family farming, an age-old model and sustainable solution for the Global South

Family farming, an age-old way of working the land, also embodies a tangible future for sustainable farming in the Global South. It a crucial and promising sector, in light of the number of farmers involved, production volumes, surface areas cultivated, well-established growing practices and...
Paysage rural sahélien avec arbres et cultures à leurs pieds.

The Great Green Wall, for the benefit of environments and rural societies in the Sahelo-Saharan zone

The Great Green Wall is an unprecedented project designed to mitigate the effects of climate change and combat land degradation and poverty in the Sahelo-Saharan zone. The project represents much more than a simple reforestation initiative on the edge of the desert. It mobilizes scientists...

Water management, a sustainable development issue

As the source of all life, water is essential to our health, well-being and dignity as well as to the functioning of our ecosystems and societies. Access to water is therefore synonymous with development. However, around the world, water is being overexploited, wasted, and contaminated at...

Biodiversity: between fragility and sustainability

All the indicators agree: erosion of biodiversity has now reached a level not seen in hundreds of thousands of years. Human activity is to blame, and its impact is not just being felt by such emblematic species and ecosystems as the polar bear or Great Barrier Reef. The major health, social and...

Safou fruit reveals dynamic urban genetic diversity

Disturbances linked to human activity - overexploitation, deforestation, climate change etc. - are all threats to the genetic diversity of plants. However, city dwellers with cultivated gardens can play a key role in protecting species. A multidisciplinary study combining genetics and ethnoecology...

Development: the place of gender

At school, in their family relationships, in hospital or in court, women in the Global South face inequalities on a daily basis. Despite the significant progress observed in the areas of education, healthcare and legislation, they are fewer in number than boys in universities and salaried employment...

Uganda may hold the key to the future of robusta coffee!

Hit by climate change, coffee production is seriously under threat. To combat this risk, international teams, including the IRD team led by Valérie Poncet, went in search of wild coffee plants such as robusta in the forests of Uganda. They thus identified previously unknown and drought-resistant...
a whitish caterpillar in an open corn stalk held by a hand

The fall armyworm in Africa: a new insect pest in corn crops

In Kenya, the survey of pest insects in corn crops has revealed that a recently-arrived pest, Spodoptera frugiperda, has not replaced existing pests. The various species of pests are co-inhabiting in fields and calling into question the pest control strategies currently in use to preserve the yields...