Nitrogen consumption increases in Sub-Saharan Africa
Nitrogen use is increasing in sub-Saharan Africa relative to phosphate and potash, which would indicate progress in the "green revolution". This is the result o... Lire la suite...
Comprendre les enjeux de l'agriculture
How to increase levels of organic matter in soil – a permanent challenge
In both conventional and organic farming, a high level of organic matter in the soil is one of the keys to achieving both environmental and financial performanc... Lire la suite...
North Africa, the world’s largest importer of wheat in 2020/2021
By 2020/2021, North Africa could be the world's largest importer of wheat. This situation, unprecedented in the last three years, is linked in particular to the... Lire la suite...
Fear of coronavirus benefits robotic agriculture
The company Plenty Inc. specializing in fully robotized vertical indoor agriculture had a difficult start. The coronavirus crisis saved it. The fear of contamin... Lire la suite...
West Africa won’t run out of fertilizers
Members of the West African Fertilizer Association (Wafa) built up stocks in anticipation of supply chain disruptions due to Covid-19, and faster than in previo... Lire la suite...
Big weather data boosts agricultural productivity
Climate change, aggravated by the disruption of supply chains and export restrictions, is driving up food prices and increasing the risk of food insecurity in 2... Lire la suite...
International agricultural trade
Responding to the needs of both buyers and sellers, international trade in agricultural products is age-old. Some distribution networks and routes are short-liv... Lire la suite...
Worrying increase in cotton stocks
According to the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), world cotton stocks in 2019/2020 could reach a level not seen in five years. This is the result... Lire la suite...
GEF Funds Agricultural Resilience Projects in Africa
The Council of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) has just allocated $176 million in funding for initiatives to adapt agriculture to climate change. In total... Lire la suite...
Coronavirus could kill the meat industry
By crowding animals in confined and unsanitary conditions for slaughter - mixing blood, viscera and excrement - slaughterhouses create an environment that is co... Lire la suite...
FAO food index down 3.4% in April
According to the FAO, food products, which have been in decline for the past three months, fell by a further 3.4% in April. The decline is 10% compared to Janua... Lire la suite...
Agroecology at the heart of the bioeconomy
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The bioeconomy, at its most fundamental level, aims to generate value from photosynthesis. It seeks to transform biomass into a resource for ev... Lire la suite...
The rubber victim of the Coronavirus
Natural rubber is one of the major victims of the Covid-19 pandemic because of the fall in world automobile production, which is its main user for the manufactu... Lire la suite...
Record funding for European agri-tech in 2019
European agrifood tech start-ups have raised $3.4 billion - for 419 financing operations - an increase of 70% compared to 2019. The year 2020 will be less rosy,... Lire la suite...
500 million for countries affected by the locust invasion
The World Bank has approved $500 million in response to the consequences of the locust invasion in Africa and the Middle East. This financial assistance include... Lire la suite...
The world is drowning in wheat stocks…
The stockpiling of bread and flour by worried consumers during this coronavirus crisis may have led people to believe that the world was running out of wheat. E... Lire la suite...
Threats to the banana
Bananas are the symbol of globalisation. Trade in this fruit began 130 years ago. It generates an annual turnover of $25 billion. 20 million tons of bananas wer... Lire la suite...
Regenerative agriculture is profitable
Farms which sequester carbon perform better financially
Regenerative and ecological agriculture is based on two convictions:
That a massive transition t... Lire la suite...
The globalisation of agricultural trade in question
"Belgians are invited to eat more chips, in Britain farmers have poured millions of pints of milk into the ground instead of turning it into butter. In Iran, mi... Lire la suite...
Coronavirus Crisis Worsens World Hunger
The United Nations Nutrition Report 2020 warns of a likely doubling of hungry people as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. Their number would increase from 130 mi... Lire la suite...
Egypt still the world’s largest exporter of oranges
In 2019, Egypt consolidated for the second consecutive year its position as the world's leading exporter of oranges. According to data collected by Agribusiness... Lire la suite...
Composting of hogs in the United States
The outbreak of the covide-19 epidemic in U.S. slaughterhouses resulted in the destruction of 7 million hogs during this quarter. That's nearly 500 million kilo... Lire la suite...
GENOTYPING CHIPS FOR WHEAT
We are not yet able to decode the full genomes for thousands of varieties of wheat. However, genotyping chips can provide a “genetic identity card” for these va... Lire la suite...
25 measures to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions
McKinsey & Company identified in a new report - Agriculture and Climate Change: Reducing emissions through improved farming practices- 25 measures to reduc... Lire la suite...
Slight decline in world wheat production
The International Grains Council (IGC) has lowered its estimate of world wheat production in 2020/2021. The world harvest would be reduced by 4 million tonnes t... Lire la suite...
Coronavirus has not slowed down coffee consumption
In 2019/2020, the world coffee market is expected to record a slight surplus of 1.95 million bags compared to a deficit of 474,000 bags previously forecast by t... Lire la suite...
Outburst of agricultural nationalism
We know that soaring bread prices or food shortages cause revolutions. If the Covid-19 crisis has (still) caused only a few supply disruptions - without serious... Lire la suite...
Our planet is getting greener
A team of American, Norwegian and Chinese researchers has shown that CO2 emissions have contributed to an upsurge in vegetation growth since 1981. But is this n... Lire la suite...
One man’s happiness…
While many of their employees are victims of Covid-19, many slaughterhouses are closing their doors and the meat shelves of supermarkets remain desperately empt... Lire la suite...
Worse than the coronavirus, the drought…
For the time being, the planet is not in danger of suffering from food shortages and agriculture from production crises. However, the protectionist measures tak... Lire la suite...
A global food shortage is unlikely
"There is no reason to have a food price crisis like the one we had in 2007. (The world) has enough food available, it's just a logistical problem," said Maximo... Lire la suite...
Billions rain down on agriculture
In response to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on agriculture and food, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will spend $15.5 billion in the initial ph... Lire la suite...
In-ovo sexing
Across the world, wherever eggs are produced on an industrial scale, only the females are used. Males are destroyed, by gassing or grinding, at birth. France an... Lire la suite...
Masks: cows too
Agriculture is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after fossil fuels. Half of its environmental footprint is due to gas emissions from livestock far... Lire la suite...
Towards a worsening of the food crisis
The COVID-19 crisis will double the number of people suffering from a food crisis to 265 million, according to an estimate by the United Nations Food Programme ... Lire la suite...
Russia is putting a damper on the wheat market
Russia has announced a suspension of exports of wheat, barley, maize and rye until 1 July to protect its domestic market from shortages due to the coronavirus c... Lire la suite...
Food production systems in West African towns and cities
There is no better place to get a sense of the bustling life of West African towns and cities than their major food markets. Nobody who has shopped in one of th... Lire la suite...
Massive destruction of food in the United States
In Wisconsin and Ohio, farmers dump thousands of litres of fresh milk into lagoons and manure pits. A farmer in Idaho dug huge ditches to bury a million pounds ... Lire la suite...
Locusts threaten African agriculture
Global locust damage could cost $8.5 billion, according to the World Bank, if swift action is not taken to control the invasion. Currently, locust swarms have a... Lire la suite...
Lockdowns threatens crop pollination
Containment and quarantine measures and border closures, by restricting the movement of bees, are likely to have an impact on global agricultural production. In... Lire la suite...
Food vulnerability in the Gulf States
The coronavirus crisis reveals one of the Gulf States' greatest vulnerabilities: they import 90% of their food while global food chains are disrupted. The begin... Lire la suite...
UN Development Programme to measure tech with impact in agrifood
Having received nearly 500 entries from startups and academic R&D teams across the globe, applicants to the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) ... Lire la suite...
Biotech seeds and farmers’ seeds in Africa: the diversification route
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In December 2019, Kenya decided to authorise the commercialisation of transgenic cotton within the country. “This should help farmers... Lire la suite...
10.6 million acres of illegal farms in Ukraine
Ukraine is one of the world’s top grain producers. The Eastern European country earned the nickname “Europe’s breadbasket.” Just how extensive Ukraine’s farmlan... Lire la suite...
UN organizations fear a risk of food shortages in most vulnerable countries
The coronavirus pandemic poses a real risk of food shortages on the world market, according to the FAO, WHO and WTO. The UN organisations fear a wave of stock r... Lire la suite...
World coffee consumption, a victim of coronavirus
Global coffee consumption is likely to fall considerably as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. This was estimated by the International Coffee Organization (I... Lire la suite...
Blockchain in agri-food – somewhere between hope and doubt
Will blockchain be a breakthrough technology for the future or simply a source of false hopes? Revealed to the general public through cryptocurrencies, it is no... Lire la suite...
The index of certain agricultural products plummets over 9% in a month
According to Rabobank, the coronavirus pandemic and the fall in oil prices have led to a 9% decrease in the prices of agricultural products in 30 days. Sugar ha... Lire la suite...
Panic buying may drive world food inflation
Lockdowns and panic food buying due to the coronavirus pandemic could ignite world food inflation even though there are ample supplies of staple grains and oils... Lire la suite...
Toward Food Nationalism ?
Some governments are moving to secure domestic food supplies during the conoravirus pandemic. Kazakhstan, one of the world’s biggest shippers of wheat flour, ba... Lire la suite...
Increase in global grain production, but risks of regional shortages
According to the International Grains Council (IGC), the global production of grains could reach 2.22 billion tonnes, i.e. a slight rise of 2% compared with las... Lire la suite...
Coronavirus epidemic disrupting agricultural markets
The global spread of the coronavirus epidemic is significantly disrupting the functioning of agricultural markets. Operators fear a decrease in trade, while the... Lire la suite...
Tackling Animal Welfare during transport with micro climate sensors
The Canadian agtech startup Transport Genie is a precision monitoring company that is focused on monitoring microclimate conditions as animals are being transpo... Lire la suite...
A new variety of soja bean with up to 50% more protein
Benson Hill, the crop genetics startup based out of St Louis, Missouri, is working to improve the sustainability credentials of the leading source of plant-base... Lire la suite...
Efforts to combat locusts hampered by the fight against Covid-19
In East Africa the Coronavirus pandemic is holding up the fight against the swarms of locusts that have been devastating crops in several countries of the regio... Lire la suite...
African banana producers and Covid-19
Faced with the health crisis associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, African banana companies have taken action and are rigorously implementing all the health re... Lire la suite...
The palm oil sector in Côte d’Ivoire: a summary of the challenges of sustainable development
At the round table held on 27 February at the Paris International Agricultural Show, the Foundation for World Agriculture and Rurality (Fondation pour l’Agricul... Lire la suite...
A tight market for cocoa in 2019/2020
In 2019/2020, the world cocoa market could see an 85,000-tonne bean deficit. The announcement was made on Friday by the International Cocoa Organization (Icco).... Lire la suite...
The meat industry – not pulling its weight in the fight against climate change
The world food industry, from agriculture to the agri-food sector, is responsible for 25 to 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations Int... Lire la suite...
European researchers to focus efforts on eliminating chemical pesticides
Efforts to focus research on accelerating the agroecological transition have come in response to strong demand from public authorities, businesses and society, ... Lire la suite...
Precision biologics to protect animals
To date, preventing livestock epidemics has largely involved administering a “prophylactic” mix of vaccines, antibiotics or other antimicrobial chemicals. The e... Lire la suite...
Producing automotive parts from miscanthus
Hundreds of hectares of miscanthus - a perennial herbaceous grass native to Africa and South Asia - could be used to manufacture parts for the automotive indust... Lire la suite...
Almost $20 billion of investment in agri-foodtech in 2019
Agfunder, a global platform specialising in agri-foodtech, has just published its 2019 report. Salient points are as follow:
The sector raised a total of... Lire la suite...
Tensions on the sugar market
The International Sugar Organization (ISO) has forecast the greatest sugar deficit of the past 11 years for the 2019/2020 season. It expects the deficit to reac... Lire la suite...
Coronavirus is making an entrance onto agricultural markets
The coronavirus crisis is causing instability in agricultural markets. Following China’s highly pro-active policy to rebuild its pork herd, 40% of which was wip... Lire la suite...
Tell us about your microbiome, and we’ll tell you what illnesses you’ll get
The American startup Viome is attracting investors. It has collected $25 million in the space of a week and has $45 million in the bank (it hopes to increase th... Lire la suite...
The social and economic roots of the war in the Sahel
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At the start of this decade, France has been at war in the Sahel for seven years, and it is difficult to see a way out of the... Lire la suite...
$138m needed to fight the outbreak of locusts in East Africa
$138m is needed to fight an outbreak of locusts in East Africa, according to the FAO. This represents almost double last month’s call for $76m. The funding wou... Lire la suite...
Investment in agtech drops in 2019
Investment in new agricultural and food product technologies dropped by 5% in 2019, mainly driven by a decline in funding for delivery services. This year, tota... Lire la suite...
Quality controls using Artificial Intelligence
Quality controls for agricultural products are a nightmare throughout the entire commercial chain, from producer to consumer, through intermediaries, transporte... Lire la suite...
The emergence of ‘supernutrients’
In the San Francisco laboratory of bio-tech startup Brightseed, computers are analysing thousands of tiny plant samples to discover and extract ‘supernutrients’... Lire la suite...
Demeter 2020: Different perspectives on agriculture
The 2020 edition of Le Déméter, a yearly survey of agriculture, food products and development in France, Europe and throughout the world, has just been publishe... Lire la suite...
Organic: a mirage?
In an iconoclastic report presented to the French senate, senators Alain Houpert and Yannick Botrel stress the lack of transparency in pro-organic public polici... Lire la suite...
Food’s turn to be customised
American company Geno Palate sells a slightly unusual service: it enables customers to optimise their food based on their DNA test results. In practice, it enta... Lire la suite...
Drylands take up 41% of the earth’s surface
A study published on 14 February in the journal Science by an international consortium of researchers, including those of the French National Research Institute... Lire la suite...
EU: a trillion-euro Green Deal
The European Union is poised to spend one trillion euros over a decade on its Green Deal. The plan aims to accelerate sustainable development and combat climate... Lire la suite...
Investing in women: African experiences
Following on from the Willagri report "Empowering women in rural Africa", here is the story of two women-focused development projects in Cameroon and Burkina Fa... Lire la suite...
TerraSentia, the robot that can tell the future for plants
TerraSentia, one of the smallest agricultural robots on the market, is all the rage in the US. At 12.5 inches in width and about the same in height, this 30-pou... Lire la suite...
Global consumption of palm oil growing fast
Growth in consumption of palm oil is showing no sign of letting up. Following growth equivalent to two times that of production in 2018/2019, global consumption... Lire la suite...
Floating solar farms in the Netherlands
The Netherlands has installed floating solar panels on sandpit lakes and artificial lakes. The one at Bomhpofsplas, close to Zwolle, is set to be the largest in... Lire la suite...
Only four African countries are on course to achieve the Malabo objectives
The latest review for the Malabo Declaration, adopted five years ago, is reporting mixed results. According to the biannual Declaration review, published on 10 ... Lire la suite...
Paroles d’Experts – Les enjeux de l’agriculture face à l’autonomie alimentaire en Afrique
For the 2nd year in a row Willagri is a partner of #villagesemence at #SIA20. First panel with Pierre Jacquemot, Academic and diplomat and Michel Eddi, CEO of ... Lire la suite...
From agricultural performance on three levels to accounting which takes three dimensions into account
This article aims to show that, in the face of runaway deregulation and the pursuit of economic performance with little regard for nature or people, we must dep... Lire la suite...
The top 10 in Agfunder’s AgTech 500
AeroFarms – the vertical farming group based out on New Jersey, US
TIPA Corp – the Israeli compostable packaging startup
Bowery Farming – the vertical farming... Lire la suite...
Sterilised male grubs to replace pesticides
Chemical insecticides face criticism and some have been banned, including a growing number of neonicotinoids that cannot be used in the European Union. But if t... Lire la suite...
Three trends in the agricultural raw materials market
The fourth edition of Paris Grain Day welcomed 250 international grain sector players and experts. Their discussions of the drivers of the agricultural raw mate... Lire la suite...
Agro-ecology and alternative consumption in East Africa
Slow Food, an international NGO whose aims include preserving local food cultures, recently launched a conservation farming academy in East Africa as part of a ... Lire la suite...
Towards ecologically intensive agriculture in Africa
According to UNDP figures, 31 out of 36 countries with a low HDI (Human Development Index) are in sub-Saharan Africa. The region is home to more than half the w... Lire la suite...
The environment will be the main beneficiary of the new UK agriculture policy
The British government recently put before parliament a draft agriculture bill the main thrusts of which were explained by Theresa Villiers, secretary of state ... Lire la suite...
A spray-on edible coating to replace plastic packaging
The two largest German retail chains, Edeka and Rewe, are testing a spray-on protective film for fruit and vegetables. It is edible and keeps fragile fresh frui... Lire la suite...
Australian bushfires prompt a 50% rise in mutton and lamb prices
The Australian bushfires have burned millions of hectares of land and devastated an arable and livestock sector that has been struggling with drought for years.... Lire la suite...
Historic dip in palm oil prices
On 28 January, palm oil prices recorded a historic drop of 10%, the highest daily fall in 11 years, noted the Agritel agricultural strategies firm. In recent mo... Lire la suite...
Willagri partner of #VillageSemence during SIA 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIhQZJl4FA4... Lire la suite...
Major agricultural production areas hold sway in the markets
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Despite appearances, the agriculture and mining industries have several things in common, not least the race to scale up and up. This is o... Lire la suite...
A bumper year for plant protein
Alternative protein start-ups have had a very successful 2019. The industry had its first IPO, its first unicorns and a series of new products which have emerge... Lire la suite...
Cooperative plants for improved crop yield
Agriculture is now facing a major challenge: ensuring sufficient food production for a growing population whilst protecting the environment. To limit the expans... Lire la suite...
Russia plans to cap cereal exports
The Russian Ministry of Agriculture plans to limit wheat exports to 20 million tonnes in 2020. The Russian authorities fear that current availability is not eno... Lire la suite...
Climate change jeopardises Australian farmers’ income
While Australia has been experiencing a significant drought for several months leading to enormous fires, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Eco... Lire la suite...
The farming industry’s agroecological transition will rely on biotechnology
Decoding the genomes of around ten cultivated plant species is a varietal selection method. It will expedite the development of new varieties which are crucial ... Lire la suite...