All posts tagged: farming

The Boys co-stars Jack Quaid and Claudia Doumit marry in tiny Australian farming town with Kevin Costner and Tom Hanks among guests

The Boys co-stars Jack Quaid and Claudia Doumit marry in tiny Australian farming town with Kevin Costner and Tom Hanks among guests

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more The Boys stars Jack Quaid and Claudia Doumit have reportedly married in an intimate, star-studded ceremony in a small Australian farming town. Quaid, 33, and Doumit, 34, were first linked back in June 2022 after meeting on the set of Amazon Prime Video’s satirical superhero television series. Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported the news Monday that the couple had married at Mona Farm — a five-star hotel and 124-acre estate located in Braidwood, New South Wales. The town is home to fewer than 1,800 residents. “Braidwood itself has been one of NSW’s best-kept secrets,” Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council Mayor Kenrick Winchester told the publication. “It is a great little town, only an hour to the beach and an hour to an international airport. Outside …

Integrating consumer perspectives into organic farming

Integrating consumer perspectives into organic farming

Published by skeptic

Mariano Votta and Bianca Ferraiolo of Cittadinanzattiva – Active Citizenship Network explore how an EU workshop in Rome explores how consumer insights can shape the future of organic farming. On 29 and 30 April, Cittadinanzattiva – Active Citizenship Network (ACN) will host in Rome, Italy, an EU workshop titled “Responding to consumers’ needs in organic farming: a qualitative assessment“. Policy context and targets Organised within the framework of the Organic Farming Innovations Network Europe (OH-FINE) project, the event will bring together consortium members, independent experts, representatives of national civil and consumer associations from several European countries, as well as leaders of the EU umbrella consumer association European Consumer Union (ECU), to discuss the practical integration of end-user needs into the organic supply chain. The European Union’s Green Deal and “Farm to Fork” strategy have set an ambitious target: 25% of EU agricultural land under organic farming by 2030. To reach this, the current growth rate must double. However, the transition is not merely a technical hurdle for farmers; it is a social and economic evolution …

John Deere Is Paying Farmers Million for Allegedly Monopolizing Repair

John Deere Is Paying Farmers $99 Million for Allegedly Monopolizing Repair

Published by skeptic

On Monday, farming equipment manufacturer John Deere announced it would pay $99 million in a settlement to a class action lawsuit brought on by its customers. The suit accused the company of restricting access to tools and repairs of its tractors and other farming equipment, effectively leveraging a monopoly on the repair market for its products. The money, if accepted by the farmer-aligned plaintiffs, will go into a fund, then eventually be distributed to Deere equipment owners who can prove they paid for dealership repairs sometime since 2018. In the settlement, John Deere also says it will make repair tools and services more widely available. For the next 10 years, at least. John Deere has kept tight control over how its customers can fix or tinker with its equipment by disallowing access via software restrictions or requiring machines to be brought to approved shops for repair. That has left thousands of farmers to deal with delayed harvests and millions of dollars in lost profits while waiting for an approved fix. The difficulty in repairing John …

Are manure digesters a real solution to dairy farm emissions?

Are manure digesters a real solution to dairy farm emissions?

Published by skeptic

Digesters on dairy farms produce biogas from cow manure Rudmer Zwerver/Shutterstock When fuel ran out during the second world war, some farmers in Germany and France made their own fuel by covering cisterns of manure and capturing the methane that was generated. Now, governments are pushing an upgraded version of that technology, called an anaerobic digester, as a way to reduce dairy farms’ greenhouse gas emissions. But some researchers say spending on digesters could have unintended consequences for the climate and human health. “Is this money more effective in climate reduction than other strategies like building solar panels?” says Rebecca Larson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “That’s something that should be examined… but in terms of livestock it’s one of the highest performing mitigation measures that we have.” Agriculture accounts for about one-third of human-caused emissions. In the US, about a third of this is from cows belching, but another 14 per cent is from manure. Industrial dairy farms have to continuously scrape and flush colossal amounts of manure out of vast barns full of …

Farming and food leaders unite to drive growth in British agriculture

Farming and food leaders unite to drive growth in British agriculture

Published by skeptic

Ministers and industry leaders met for the first Farming & Food Board this week to drive profitability and put farm productivity at the heart of government. The inaugural meeting of the Farming & Food Board marks a major moment and a clear shift in how British agriculture is led and supported. Chaired by Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds with Farming Minister Dame Angela Eagle as Deputy Chair, the Board brings government and industry together to drive a more productive, profitable, and resilient food system. Ensuring UK farming is productive and profitable Building on Baroness Batters’ Farm Profitability Review, the Board will put farming and food productivity and profitability at the centre of decision-making, champion homegrown produce and strengthen the nation’s supply chain. Representatives from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, Agricultural Industries Confederation, British Retail Consortium, Food & Drink Federation, Institute of Grocery Distribution, National Farmers’ Union, and UK Hospitality met for the first time to shape the Board’s mission, ways of working and Sector Growth Plans. “The first Farming and Food Partnership Board meeting marks …

Reflections on the ‘Brave New World’ of Farming

Reflections on the ‘Brave New World’ of Farming

Published by Jenni Sidey

Farmers across the West are socioeconomically not in a good place right now. Many are leaving the profession, which used to be a vocation, due to big payoffs by the EU and other such wealthy bloated Net-Zero globalists encouraging them to sell the land. There is also the allure of AI and Hi-Tech machinery, which I’ll come to later. I used to work as an agricultural correspondent and editor of a farming magazine some 20 years ago and things were financially bad back then for farmers throughout the West but things are now a lot worse. The war on farming in the past was less obvious, but it goes back a long time to late-1950s/early ’60s, when new expensive machinery led to bigger intense farming and less farm employees, amongst other labour-led factors. With AI technologies, some farms are already hosting robotic ‘workers’ toiling away on the land, from dusk to dawn. These tend to the livestock’s needs, but there are also plans to have them watch over crops, while other agri-robots hoe weeds and …

Qatar turns to desert farming to boost food security – Focus

Qatar turns to desert farming to boost food security – Focus

Published by Sam Flores

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. Accept Manage my choices One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Try again FOCUS © FRANCE 24 Issued on: 14/03/2026 – 10:00 05:58 min From the show Reading time 1 min Since the 2017 embargo, one of Qatar’s greatest nightmares has been that a war or geopolitical crisis would isolate Doha from the rest of the world. In late February, renewed tensions following the Israeli-American offensive against Iran brought these concerns to the fore once again. Over the past nine years, Qatar has built up strategic reserves, but has mostly invested heavily in boosting local food production. This has been a major challenge, given the country’s harsh climate. Yet today, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and even mushrooms are being cultivated in the desert. For some, eating Qatari produce has even become a national duty. Amira Souilem and Chloé Domat report. Source link

Human populations evolved in similar ways after we began farming

Human populations evolved in similar ways after we began farming

Published by skeptic

The advent of farming led to new evolutionary pressures on humans CHRISTIAN JEGOU/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY A study combining the growing number of ancient genomes from living people has given us our best picture yet of how humans have evolved over the past 10,000 years or so. It shows that people in different parts of the world evolved in similar – and sometimes even identical – ways after we adopted farming. “Some of the same traits and the same genes are under selection in different populations,” says Laura Colbran at the University of Pennsylvania. Evolution occurs when a genetic variant becomes more common in a population – usually, but not always, because it provides an advantage. By comparing human genomes, then, we can find signs of recent human evolution. The genomes of long-dead people are especially helpful, says Colbran. “Ancient DNA lets us look at genetic history live, as it were, whereas a lot of other methods tend to try and infer that.” Studies of recent evolution have focused on Europe because that’s where researchers have …

Efforts Grow to Ban Octopus Farming

Efforts Grow to Ban Octopus Farming

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech The case for a prohibition on octopus farming is simple enough: we probably shouldn’t raise animals capable of using tools — let alone ones which might possess consciousness — in tubs of their own waste to sell at a profit, for the purposes of eating. Mexico’s Ecologist Green Party, which holds seven seats in the Senate and one state governorship, proposed a bill this week that would effectively ban factory farming of these fascinating creatures nationwide. If it goes forward, it would reform the country’s General Law of Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture and force the Western hemisphere’s only known octopus farm to cease operations. That farm, located in Sisal, Yucatan, is run in partnership with the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), supposedly in order to study the physiology of the Mexican four-eyed octopus, which is native to local waters. According to an investigation by the Aquatic Life Institute, however, the UNAM lab also operates in tandem with a …

How the Iran war could create a ‘fertiliser shock’ – an often ignored global risk to food prices and farming

How the Iran war could create a ‘fertiliser shock’ – an often ignored global risk to food prices and farming

Published by skeptic

Tehran is moving to restrict – or effectively close – the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, as part of the latest escalation in the war involving Iran. Markets have reacted to the global impact of closing this incredibly busy shipping channel, focusing on the risk to oil and gas flows, the prospect of higher crude prices and the inflationary pressures that would follow. That concern is justified. But it captures only part of the story. A sustained disruption of traffic through Hormuz would not simply constitute an energy crisis. It would also represent a fertiliser shock (where prices go up dramatically and supply goes down) – and, by extension, a direct risk to global food security. Modern agriculture runs not only on sunlight and soil, but on natural gas. When German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch developed their nitrogen fixation method in the early 20th century, they did more than just manufacture ammonia at scale. They launched a global chemical revolution that remains a cornerstone of modern civilization and agriculture. Through this process, methane …