United Nations

A team of nine people from Huntington University traveled to serve local communities through sustainable agriculture projects to Momostenango, Guatemala.

A resolution was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly to declare 2026 as International Year of the Woman Farmer.

The total global volume of fish, shrimp, clams and other aquatic animals that are harvested by farming has topped the amount fished in the wild from the world’s waters for the first time ever, the United Nations reported.

The world wasted an estimated 19% of the food produced globally in 2022, or about 1.05 billion metric tons, according to a new United Nations report.

Its official name is the “United Nations 28th Conference of the Parties on Climate Change,” or COP28 for short. Given the news from the two-week gathering in the desert near Dubai, however, a better name might be “Shifting Sands, Shifting Blame.”

The old maxim, “the more things change, the more things stay the same,” might ring true for some facets of our lives, but it’s not true for climate change.

Skyrocketing sugar prices left Ishaq Abdulraheem with few choices. Increasing the cost of bread would mean declining sales, so the Nigerian baker decided to cut his production by half.

Victor Tsvyk harvested 4,800 tons of wheat this month, but after Russia exited a wartime deal that allowed Ukraine to ship grain to the world, he has no idea where his produce will go, or how his beloved farm will survive.

When asked to describe war, Union General William T. Sherman noted that “war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.” Later, Sherman did refine his dictum to the much shorter, impossible-to-forget: “War is hell.”

Food insecurity is on the rise. New data on global food security and nutrition indicate a significant increase in the number of people on this planet lacking access, at times, to enough food for an active and healthy life.

Stakeholders across the dairy value chain discussed challenges and opportunities during the recent 2023 Dairy Sustainability Alliance Spring Meeting.

A grassy lane rutted with tire tracks leads to Volodymyr Zaiets’ farm in southern Ukraine. He is careful, driving only within those shallow grooves — veering away might cost him his life in the field dotted with explosive mines.

The United Nations food agency is warning that a widespread locust infestation in several Afghan provinces is of “huge concern” and could possibly decimate a quarter of the wheat crop.

Prices on commodities and farmland were up sharply again during 2022, but some variables on the horizon could exert downward pressure, according to R.D. Schrader, president of Schrader Real Estate and Auction Company.

Agricultural advancements have provided the ability to meet the food demands of an ever-growing population, but challenges lie ahead.

Bringing a couple old newspaper articles with him to the podium to prove his point, Gov. Eric Holcomb told the Indiana Farm Bureau State Convention that Indiana’s story is the chronicle of agriculture in the state.

Journalism, like baseball, aging and bridesmaids, is often about the numbers. Sometimes big numbers are good, other times small numbers are better. Either way, numbers usually define our work, our families and our lives in more ways than we care to count.

A scientist friend recently noted that at today’s rate of consumption, the world is environmentally and economically sustainable for roughly 1 billion people. “That means with the world’s population of 8 billion,” he half-joked, “you’re a goner.”

Over the past month, well-respected brokerage firms, legendary money managers and market forecasters with excellent track records have been predicting the U.S. and global economies are poised to slip into a recession.

World School Milk Day was observed Sept. 28 to celebrate the importance of dairy in students’ diets. According to the National Dairy Council School Milk Report, milk has been a part of school meals for close to a century.

It amazes me how many people believe that sustainability is a new concept in agriculture. Those of you involved in production agriculture know sustainability is necessary to keep doing what you are doing.

An unexploded rocket sticks out of a field, and another is embedded in the ground of the farm compound. Workers found a cluster bomb while clearing weeds, and there’s a gaping hole in the roof of the shrapnel-scarred livestock barn.

Bill Gates says the global hunger crisis is so immense that food aid cannot fully address the problem. What’s also needed, Gates argues, are the kinds of innovations in farming technology that he has long funded to try to reverse the crisis documented in a new report.

Global hunger numbers rose to around 828 million people in 2021, according to the latest edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World from the United Nations. That’s 46 million more people from a year earlier and 150 million more from 2019.

Kip Tom, former ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, visited Purdue University during Ag Week. He discussed his career with Purdue President Mitch Daniels.

Plant-based burgers often promise protein comparable to their animal-based counterparts, but the way protein is expressed on current nutrition labels — a single generic value expressed in grams — can be misleading.

Checkoff foodservice partners continued to grow sales of U.S. dairy foods and more domestic dairy headed into the international marketplace. There also were increased efforts to connect with the valued Gen Z consumer and dairy’s sustainability journey reached new levels.

Barbara O’Brien, president and CEO of Dairy Management Inc. and the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, said agriculture has an “open door of opportunity” amid growing pressures and expectations to feed a growing population sustainably and responsibly during her opening comments at the Sustainable Agriculture Summit.

Indigo Ag, a company leveraging nature and technology to unlock economic and environmental progress in agriculture, announced a deepened commitment to advancing discovery in soil carbon science, enabled by the acquisition of Soil Metrics, an industry-leading technology for comprehensive soil carbon and greenhouse gas assessment in agricultural soils.

The Indiana Soybean Alliance gave a presentation at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Rural Regions Realizing the Net-Zero Opportunity Meeting. This meeting was adjacent to the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

When you hear about what is going on in Washington, you often hear about the battle between political parties or special interests. Sometimes it’s easy to pick a fight with another group. But what’s harder — and often more productive — is working with groups that don’t always agree with you to find common ground.

Farmers don’t like to brag. We value a hard day’s work, doing right by our neighbors, caring for our families and growing the food we all depend on. We all want to leave our land better than we found it, and we had hoped our actions would speak for themselves.