Protecting forests on the front line of the climate-change battle
Trees help counter global warming by removing and storing greenhouse gases that cause it. But as droughts become more frequent...
Extra flavour and fraud prevention on the menu for Europe’s beer and wine industries
Europe’s valuable wine and beer industries are working to retain their competitive edge with an expanded range of aromas and...
Microalgae promise abundant healthy food and feed in any environment
Global food supply faces a range of threats including climate change, wars, pests and diseases. An organism too small for...
The land use of our fathers – prospering in a healthy environment
Our ancestors dealt with large-scale environmental challenges thousands of years ago. Understanding their traditional practices may inform modern Europeans racing...
Transformar dióxido de carbono em proteínas para alimentação animal inovadora
Ter uma grande ideia pode não ser suficiente para mudar o mundo - a inovação é um processo comercial, bem...
Making carbon dioxide into protein for innovative animal feed
It’s common knowledge that proteins, a key component of human nutrition, are also essential for making animal feeds. Less well...
Pesticidas biológicos para fornecer uma proteção natural às culturas ameaçadas
Algumas culturas europeias de importância vital, como as vinhas e as azeitonas, estão a ser devastadas por doenças. Os cientistas...
Five key questions to answer about resilient and sustainable food systems
Food systems are highly complex and interconnected. If our grocery stores and kitchens are to have a future with packed...
Farmers urgently need to diversify, but they cannot do it alone
Many solutions exist for ways to increase the diversity of plants grown on farms – from planting different varieties of...
What is the bioeconomy and how could it help fight climate change?
A circular bioeconomy – which turns renewable biological resources and waste streams into new products – is at the heart...
Pheromones, mulch and wildflowers – how to control pests without pesticides
Most crops require pesticides to grow profitably. But many pesticides are too efficient at killing insects, often indiscriminately. They aim...
Mediterranean wineries are in a climate hotspot. Climatologists are helping them adapt
From the possible demise of Merlot grapes in Bordeaux to loss of olive trees in north Africa, the impacts of...
To confront climate change, we need to understand the environmental footprint of global supply chains
In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic upended international trade. Countries shut their borders, breaking the webs of supply chains that crisscross the...
Q&A: Why shorter isn’t necessarily better when it comes to food supply chains
Fears over supermarket shortages during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic led many people to buy their food from local...
Q&A: Why shorter isn’t necessarily better when it comes to food supply chains
Fears over supermarket shortages during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic led many people to buy their food from local...
Why future homes could be made of living fungus
The installation, called Hy-Fi, was designed and created by The Living, an architectural design studio in New York. Each of the...
Trade and climate change increase pest threat to Europe’s forests
Pests are responsible for damaging 35 million hectares of forest around the world every year. In the Mediterranean region alone...
Dairy waste is being turned into bioplastics and plant food
The EU produced 172.2 million tonnes of raw milk in 2018 and demand for milk is expected to rise in the...
For world’s poorest, coronavirus loss of income threatens ability to eat
Already 135 million people are on the brink of starvation because of conflict, climate change, extreme poverty and economic crises....
Biodegradable glitter and pollution-eating microalgae: the new materials inspired by nature
Nature has spent millions of years evolving answers to problems. It has come up with ingenious solutions to build strong...
Eating local and plant-based diets: how to feed cities sustainably
How do you feed a city? It is one of the great questions of our time. After all, for a...
How crop and animal sensors are making farming smarter
The bounty of food we can find on supermarket shelves across Europe is the result of knowledge accumulated over thousands...
Insects could help increase Europe’s food self-sufficiency but will they catch on?
As the world population grows, it will be a challenge to meet everyone’s nutritional needs with traditional sources of protein....
How speech recognition techniques are helping to predict volcanoes’ behaviour
Dr Luciano Zuccarello grew up in the shadow of Mount Etna, an active volcano on the Italian island of Sicily....
Fixing the food system
Recommended for you Coronavirus and beyond: emerging disease outbreaks With the world in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic, in...
Grassland studies, radar-tracked bumblebees offer clues for protecting pollinators
Wild bees are major pollinators of crops in Europe such as peas, beans and oilseed rape. But as their numbers...
The robots weeding organic farms and patrolling for greenhouse pests
Robots that use artificial intelligence to recognise the health of fruit and vegetable crops and when they’re ready to harvest...
Coronavirus and beyond: emerging disease outbreaks
Recommended for you Fixing the food system By 2050, the world's population will be an estimated 9.7bn people, up from today’s...
How Stone Age humans unlocked the glucose in plants
Plants rich in starch helped early humans to thrive even at the height of the last Ice Age, researchers say....
The fight to save Europe’s olive trees from disease
In the late summer harvest of 2013, olive farmers in the Puglia region of southern Italy noticed that the leaves...
Why raising the alcohol content of Europe’s fuels could reduce carbon emissions
Labels that carry a single letter followed by a number are found on petrol pumps across Europe. Many motorists probably...
The business of space
Recommended for you Fixing the food system By 2050, the world's population will be an estimated 9.7bn people, up from today’s...
Plants can detect insect attacks by 'sniffing' each other's aromas
Plants have nowhere to run from their enemies - flying, crawling and jumping insects want to eat them alive. But...
The last mile
Recommended for you Fixing the food system By 2050, the world's population will be an estimated 9.7bn people, up from today’s...
Solving an ancient dairy mystery could help cure modern food ills
Dairy has been central to people’s existence since at least 6,500 years BC. But a mystery lies at its heart...
Trees and doodlebugs emit methane – the question is, how?
Because methane has more than 80 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over 20 years, the emissions from...
Scientists speed up the evolution of yeast to create tastier and healthier alcohol
‘All kinds of fermentation beverages start out with just some sugar solution,’ said Professor Ursula Bond, a molecular biologist at...
Land use puts huge pressure on Earth’s resources. Here’s what needs to change
We asked six experts in land use for their thoughts on priorities for the future. We need circular fertilisers -...
Public action and ‘fundamental social change’ needed to reverse biodiversity decline
A million species are under threat of extinction, according to a global landmark report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on...
A climate-friendly diet means rethinking the entire food system – researchers
The standard diet for much of the world – industrially produced calories and plenty of meat and dairy – is...
