As climate change intensifies, it is imperative for policymakers to address the escalating loss and damage it inflicts on vulnerable communities in developing countries. In India's Maharashtra state, these impacts are forcing rural families into life-altering decisions and migrations to work in sugarcane fields, where exploitative practices by contractors, including …
Germany’s government is considering special aid for livestock farmers to help them overcome a sharp rise in animal feed prices after this summer’s drought, German agriculture minister Julia Kloeckner said on Wednesday. “In many regions we are suffering from a massive shortage of animal feed,” Kloeckner said at a press …
German farmers intensified calls for around 1 billion euros ($1.17 billion) in special aid on Tuesday after crop damage from a drought and heatwave, but Berlin said it would wait for an August harvest report before making a decision. The president of German farming association DBV, Joachim Rukwied, said drought …
From ground level, Australia’s drought looks like a featureless, brown dustbowl, but from the air it transforms into an artistry of color and texture as the land cracks under a blazing sun. Circular dry plow tracks resemble the concentric circles in Aboriginal dot paintings that tell of an ancient mythology, …
The study has brought out clearly that farmers perceive that climate is changing in terms of onset and withdrawal of monsoon, changes in the distribution of rainfall and rising temperatures. Such a perception of farmers on one hand indicates what the adaptation interventions should aim at and on the other …
This report provides a comprehensive summary of disaster events, losses and fatalities due to disasters in 2017. In general, the data reported suggests an emerging trend in natural disaster events demonstrating lower mortality but higher cost. In 2017, 335 natural disasters affected over 95.6 million people, killing an additional 9,697 …
This study argues that the focus on insurance by developed countries is too narrow and comes at the expense of a serious consideration of other options. Insurance is only one tool in a much larger toolbox. The emphasis on insurance is also self-serving and diverts the focus from the failure …
The carbon and water cycles play an important role in ecosystem functioning and are linked to each other through different physical and biological processes. The hydroclimatic disturbances such as droughts affect both hydrological as well as the ecological processes. Increasing hydroclimatic disturbances under climate change will adversely affect the ecohydrological …
Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are predicted to be sensitive to the increased temperature and altered precipitation associated with climate change. We assessed the effects of these factors on soil carbon dioxide (CO2) balance in biocrusted soils using a sequence of manipulations over a 9-year period. We warmed biocrusted soils by …
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The South African Weather Service said on Tuesday the likelihood of an El Nino weather pattern was increasing as the country moved toward spring, which normally starts in September, but it was too early to determine the potential impact. The last El Nino was linked to a …
A drought and heat wave in Europe this summer could cause a shortage of potatoes big enough for industrial production of French fries, a German industry group warned on Tuesday. Potato crop yields might be cut by at least 25 percent, the group said. Large size potatoes needed by food …
El Salvador on Tuesday began taking emergency measures in a drought that has plagued the country for a month and cost tens of thousands of farmers their corn crops, the civil protection agency said. The east of the Central American country has gone 33 days without rain and temperatures have …
HAMBURG (Reuters) - The market is still uncertain about the size of Germany’s drought-damaged wheat crop as harvesting spreads northwards to areas which have suffered most from the dry weather, traders and analysts said on Monday. Germany is the European Union’s second largest grain producer after France. Its crops wilted …
Harsh drought conditions in parts of the American West are pushing wild horses to the brink and spurring extreme measures to protect them. For what they say is the first time, volunteer groups in Arizona and Colorado are hauling thousands of gallons of water and truckloads of food to remote …
CROOKS CORNER: Africa's ancient baobab, with its distinctive swollen trunk and known as the ``tree of life,'' is under a new and mysterious threat, with some of the largest and oldest dying abruptly in recent years. Nine of the 13 oldest baobabs, aged between 1,000 and 2,500 years, have died …
Africa's ancient baobab, with its distinctive swollen trunk and known as the "tree of life," is under a new and mysterious threat, with some of the largest and oldest dying abruptly in recent years. Nine of the 13 oldest baobabs, aged between 1,000 and 2,500 years, have died over the …
HAMBURG (Reuters) - Droughts, frosts and other unfavorable conditions are expected to cause late damage to the European Union’s rapeseed harvest, cutting output in leading producers Germany, France and Poland, experts said on Thursday. The market was now expecting the overall EU 2018 crop to bring in around or less …
The estimate for Argentina’s drought-hit corn crop may be cut further from the 32 million tonnes currently expected to be harvested this season, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange and the country’s main farmers group said on Thursday. FILE PHOTO: Farmer Bernardo Romano stands in a corn field in a drought-affected …
Bigger and more "explosive" wildfires are raging across the U.S. West, with the area burned in Colorado already four times the size of last year's total, as rising temperatures, drought and a buildup of forest fuels supercharge blazes. So far this year, 3.3 million acres have burned in U.S. forests, …
Good news for the drought-stricken Western Cape came in the form of a dramatic increase in the province's dam levels. According to the Department of Water Affairs, dam levels increased from 45% to 51.7% in seven days, thanks to recent torrential rains in large parts of the province. And that's …
Climate change – and the shortages of water and food that come from it – is becoming increasingly linked to conflict, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council on Wednesday, warning that countries most vulnerable to drought and crop failure are also most vulnerable to conflict and fragility. …
