New York (AFP) March 14, 2023 Heavy rain and snow wreaked havoc across the northeastern United States Tuesday, disrupting flights and causing power outages, as extreme weather gripped both American coasts. The “double whammy,” as the National Weather Service (NWS) called it, is the latest in an unusual series of weather fronts to have rocked the country simultaneously. It is hard to establish a direct … Continue reading ‘Double whammy’ of extreme weather grips both US coasts

Tel Aviv, Israel, (SPX) Mar 10, 2023 Agmatix, a start-up AgTech business specializing in turning agronomic big data into powerful models and insights, has announced a partnership with NASA Harvest – NASA’s global Food Security and Agriculture Consortium – to support crop production in a sustainable way at the field level and mitigate the impact of climate change. A combination of ground sampling and remote … Continue reading Agmatix partners with NASA Harvest to support sustainable agricultural

Palm Springs CA (SPX) Mar 10, 2023 Pollen Systems is an Esri Business Partner. At Esri’s Partner and Developer Conferences, Esri Startup Partner Pollen Systems demonstrated PrecisionView Mobile, built on the new ArcGIS Maps SDK for Swift. Pollen Systems can arrange drone or satellite aerial data capture anywhere in the world to fuel their PrecisionView Platform. Built entirely on, and powered by, Esri’s ArcGIS system, … Continue reading Esri and Pollen Systems provides agriculture analytics to farms

Storrs CT (SPX) Mar 14, 2023 UConn researcher Wei Ren sees the interconnections between the systems in nature and how each component impacts the others. In Connecticut, rich in forests and farmland, Ren sees the potential that could position the state at the forefront of a climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approach using an emerging sustainable practice called biochar. Though it sounds like a nu-metal band name, … Continue reading Biochar offers new promise for climate-smart agriculture

Al-Haffah, Syria (AFP) March 13, 2023 Zuhair Hassoun examines worrying cracks in a Crusader-era castle in Syria, a UNESCO World Heritage site that survived centuries of conflict only to be badly damaged by last month’s deadly earthquake. Hassoun, the custodian of the Fortress of Saladin, an architectural treasure with Byzantine roots in the 10th century rebuilt by Frankish Crusaders in the 12th century, walked carefully … Continue reading Syrian castle among quake-hit ancient sites at risk

Manaus, Brazil (AFP) March 13, 2023 A landslide triggered by torrential rain killed at least eight people in a poor hillside neighborhood in northern Brazil’s city of Manaus, authorities said Monday, in the country’s latest weather disaster. The landslide buried at least 11 houses in the Jorge Teixeira neighborhood on the west side of Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon region, city hall said. … Continue reading Brazil landslide kills eight

Wawonii, Indonesia (AFP) March 13, 2023 Three women with machetes stood guard at their farm hilltop on Indonesia’s Wawonii Island, directing their blades towards the nickel miners working in the forest clearing below. “I pointed the machete at their faces. I told them: ‘If you scratch this land, heads will fly, we will defend this land to the death’,” said 42-year-old villager Royani, recounting a … Continue reading Indonesian farmers fight for their land in nickel mining boom

Bathmen, Netherlands (AFP) March 13, 2023 At “Piggy’s Palace”, his farm in the Dutch countryside, Erik Stegink watches his pigs cavort in the mud and fight over chunks of broccoli, lines of worry etched on his face. Stegink says he doesn’t know whether he’ll be able to carry on earning his livelihood, as he awaits government measures aimed at limiting emissions from farming by cutting … Continue reading Dutch farmer party hopes to reap election gains

Dakar (AFP) March 9, 2023 Discarded containers and bags are an eyesore in many towns, while beaches are covered by debris – Senegal’s notorious problem of plastic pollution is not going away. Fly-tipping is a scourge and landfills like the sprawling Mbeubeuss site near the capital Dakar are overstretched, with several thousand tonnes of detritus dumped daily, polluting the ground and water. For young Senegalesehttp://dlvr.it/SkmLpB Continue reading Senegalese recyclers seek solutions in fight against plastic

Ouagadougou (AFP) March 11, 2023 A human rights group has accused government forces of “massacring” at least 21 civilians in a raid on a village in northern Burkina Faso. Children were among those killed when more than 100 hooded attackers in military fatigues descended on Toessin-Foulbe earlier this week, shooting and torturing victims, the NGO said. All but two of the dead belonged to the … Continue reading Rights group accuses Burkina forces of ‘massacring’ 21 civilians