Growing community: How Colorado religious leaders are farming food — and a new variety of faithful

Brazil's small farmers can now directly supply the country's school meals programs. It's been a big boost for local farmers, and it's helping the schools too.

Fed up with living in the world's most polluted city, some residents are fighting back, on their rooftops and backyards. In 2010, India launched the Jawarharlal Nehru Solar Mission, a government program to deploy 20,000 megawatts of grid-connected solar power in the country, but much of this push for renewable energy has only been focused on rural areas, leading urban residents to take up local control of their energy supplies.

Women in the Philippines have been coming to this small clinic in a Manila slum for years to get affordable birth control, something frowned upon in this largely conservative Catholic country.

Human trafficking is a rampant problem throughout the world, but the signs can often be difficult to spot. A collaboration between Catholic churches and police officers to fight the issue together takes shape.

Over the last two years, six seedbanks have been established in five villages in Odisha, India, with 72 men and women conserving 50 varieties of fibre and food crops seeds. This is a much needed shot in the arm for these districts which are plagued with hunger, poverty and insecurity.

In India, many farmers, especially women farmers, have transitioned to organic farming. While it requires a serious set of skills and knowledge, organic farming increases yields and decreases costs by eliminating the need to buy pesticides. The move is both ecological and economical, and the Indian government is trying to spread the solution.

The System of Root Intensification (SRI) method resulted in dramatically high yields from one Indian village. The system centers on a "less is more" approach and results in higher yields—without the use of GMOs. The idea has faced barriers in spreading, as scientists are wary of it, even as villagers embrace the empirically successful approach.

Across the globe, there are nearly 60 million students studying in Catholic institutions. In the United States, however, those numbers have been falling in recent years, forcing schools to come up with new ways to collaborate.

The best way to lose weight is to join a small group. This article looks at the case study of Saddleback Church in southern California that mixed faith and peer support to help congregates lose weight, including the pastor. Surveys found that 72% of participants lost weight as a result of the program.

As India's government promotes organic exports, farmers in Punjab have non-economic reasons for avoiding pesticides: Their health.