Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • The Farmer Trying to Save Italy's Ancient Olive Trees

    An imported strain of bacteria is threatening to destroy olive trees in Italy that produce about 12 percent of the world’s olive oil. An agronomist is working with other scientists to graft trees — taking a different kind of tree that could be resistant to the bacteria and inserting it into the trunk of an older tree. After years of trial and error, they’ve found some success. On one farm, 70 percent of the grafts used have survived. But conspiracy theories and financial difficulties have made it a challenge to have a coordinated response to the problem.

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  • Mongolia Tackles Cleaner Water

    A new wastewater treatment plant in Mongolia is cleaning up its water so it doesn’t cause environmental problems or poison livestock and herders. This is one of the first treatment plants built under the country’s national project to modernize its facilities. Tests of the byproduct have confirmed that the water is 93 percent clean and the smell is virtually gone. Building and operating these plants is expensive, but new ones have opened, and the government plans to finish the project by 2022.

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  • Trolley Times newsletter gives voice to protesting farmers in India

    India's protesting farmers objected to the news media's coverage of their protests, seeing it as too pro-government. Trolley Times became the grassroots response: a startup newsletter about the protests, often written by the protesters themselves, along with articles by academics and economists. To appeal to its older audience, who have rural traditions of sharing the news in their communities, the newsletter is printed and distributed at four protest sites in three languages. It also has a global audience online, which has offered the protesters and the newsletter support.

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  • Rivers of Milk, Islands of Prosperity

    A dairy cooperative in Ukraine has brought jobs to farmers in the region and allowed them to work together to sell their milk on the market. An international nonprofit helped the Andriyivka Prosperity cooperative get off the ground. While villagers were skeptical of joining at first, and there are still challenges with operating the cooperative, there are 129 members that sell their milk. “The cooperative has halted the extinction of the village, allowing young people to stay in their homelands and have jobs and a livelihood,” says one of the villagers.

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  • Corn Farmers Upend Tradition to Reduce Air Pollution

    After a drought left cattle farmers in Mexico without grass to feed its animals, a unique partnership with corn farmers allowed them to use their leftover stalks and leaves. Usually, the farmers burn these materials, known as stover, which contributes to air pollution. This partnership was facilitated by the government and allowed the corn farmers to sell their leftovers to the cattle farmers. As a result, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emissions dropped significantly, and a new market for these materials is emerging.

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  • The rice of the sea: how a tiny grain could change the way humanity eats

    A Spanish chef piloted a project to start a “marine garden” — cultivating eelgrass and obtaining grains it produces to be used in different recipes. The grain has healthy benefits, including 50 percent more protein than rice, and growing the seagrass can transform salt marshes into biodiverse ecosystems that can also capture carbon emissions. They are working to scale the project to understand the ideal conditions to grow the plants.

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  • Having Your Desalination and Eating It, Too

    A pilot experiment in the Canary Islands seeks to recycle brine waste from desalination plants to grow hydroponic tomatoes. The leftover brine can be harmful for seagrass along the coast, so researchers looked into ways to create a nutrient solution that could be used to raise tomatoes. Though the yield of the tomatoes using the brine solution was lower, they did have a sweeter taste.

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  • Community restores grasslands in Lamkani, making the village drought-resilient

    The village of Lamkani, in India, was lush but became barren after years of droughts. In 2000, Dhananjay Newadkar, initiated a multi-pronged approach that was supported by the community. It included watershed development, a ban on grazing and felling trees. However, the bans were not enforced. Instead, artists incorporated messages about conservation in their performances and educated the community. Finally, the grasslands were restored through rotational grazing. Now, the town is water-sufficient, even in droughts.

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  • Seaweed Diet for Cows Lowers How Much Methane They Produce: Study

    Researchers at University of California, Davis found that cows that were fed a small amount of seaweed in their diet drastically reduced the amount of methane they emitted, which could be a low-cost climate solution for farmers. They saw an 82 percent reduction in methane in beef cows and there was also no detectable difference in the taste of the beef. More research is needed to be done to see how these results apply in other settings.

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  • Helping animals cross the road and other obstacles

    As human infrastructure continues to threaten animal habitats, researchers are coming up with ways to use artificial structures as bridges for these creatures to get where they need to go. In Indonesia, irrigation pipes help farmers water their crops, but they’re also used by slow lorises to cross over the farmlands. In Brazil, a bridge crossing a major highway will be used by golden lion tamarins to avoid the busy traffic.

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