In The News

Newsweek: Half of World’s Olive Oil Threatened by Deadly Bacteria in Spain

Jessica Wapner July 10, 2017
Spain has more than 340 million olive trees, and the world’s largest olive oil producer is especially vulnerable to the deadly plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa. The first case on mainland Spain was confirmed earlier this month. X. fastidiosa is native to the Americas, and its first reported sighting in Europe was in Italy four years ago, killing approximately 1 million olive trees there. Many...

People’s Daily Online: Foreigners, KFC and “Authentic” Chinese Food

June 12, 2017
Chinese restaurants can be found around the globe, and the cuisine has inspired dishes like General Tsao’s chicken. “The U.S. alone has around 40,000 Chinese restaurants, even more than the sum of McDonald's outlets and KFCs,” notes People’s Daily Online. “Now, business in China has become a main source of profit for KFC, which has started selling soy bean milk, Chinese-style breakfast...

Wired: To Save Florida’s Oranges, Scientists Race to Weaponize a Virus

Megan Molteni April 19, 2017
A disease known as citrus greening, spread by the bacteria Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus and the psyllid as insect vector, has infected about 90 percent of Florida’s orange groves. Scientists try traditional breeding and genetic engineering methods as well as chemical and heat treatments to slow the disease's spread without luck. One citrus company “is developing something more like an...

AL Jazeera: Puntland Teetering on the Edge of Famine

Ashley Hamer March 27, 2017
In Puntland, a semiautonomous region of Somalia, a drought has ravaged grazing land. People who raise livestock for a living must move increasingly far distances – sometimes hundreds of kilometers – to find suitable land for their animals. Yet relocation is not enough as the drought spreads through the country. Six years ago, a famine in Somalia killed 260,000 people. “Now, nearly 6.2 million...

Sudan Tribune: Famine Declared in Parts of South Sudan

February 20, 2017
“War and a collapsing economy have left some 100,000 people starving in parts of South Sudan,” reports the government, United Nations agencies and the Sudan Tribune. “An additional one million people in the war-torn nation, the United Nations agencies projected, could be on the brink of famine.” As many as 5 million people in the north part of the country could be at risk by summer. The UN...

Reuters: Private University in North Korea Seeks Texas A&M Academic Help

Jon Herskovitz February 1, 2017
Universities and their innovations thrive with collaboration. “The leaders of the only private university in North Korea asked Texas A&M University, known for its agricultural economics and public health programs, for help on Monday in teaching subjects such as how to grow food in a land of chronic shortages,” reports Jon Herskovitz for Reuters. The Pyongyang University of Science and...

Factory Farming Blamed for Massive Bird Flu Outbreak: Experts

Kim Da-sol January 6, 2017
A highly pathogenic form of avian flu was detected in South Korea in November, and experts suggest that crowded conditions in industrial poultry farms have accelerated the spread of disease. “While the government has yet to offer clear reason for the worsening situation, casting the blame on migratory birds, experts pointed out that the battery cage-facilities at poultry farms and stockbreeding...