When you think of China, do you think of potatoes? Maybe not, but in the Loess Plateau region of northwestern China, potato is the main food crop.

The solution to a 75-year-old materials mystery might one day allow farmers in developing nations to produce their own fertilizer on demand, using sunlight and nitrogen from the air.

Studies by Brazilian researchers could have applications in crude oil pumping and missions to Mars, among others.

A new global field size data set collected as part of a crowdsourcing citizen science project by IIASA researchers has shown that the proportion of smallholder farms may be much larger than previously thought, contributing much more to global food production.

Droughts or heat waves have consequences that spread beyond farmers anxiously watching their fields; these fluctuations in crop yields can send shockwaves through local and global food supplies and prices.

Western Lake Erie’s annual summer algal blooms are triggered, at least in part, by cyanobacteria cells that survive the winter in lake-bottom sediments, then emerge in the spring to “seed” the next year’s bloom, according to a research team led by University of Michigan scientists.

The lucrative truffle industry is set to disappear within a generation due to climate change, according to new research by a University of Stirling academic.

Water which has been contaminated with mercury and other toxic heavy metals is a major cause of environmental damage and health problems worldwide. 

A new scientific article shows that 25 European waterbird species can change their wintering areas depending on winter weather. 

Today many regions rely on ever more sophisticated irrigation systems, using pumps and water sensors to grow crops on otherwise unworkable land as efficiently as possible. But not every part of the world benefits from modern irrigation and lack of freshwater is often the major limiting factor in crop production. Now a study reveals that global irrigation levels could sustainably increase by nearly 50%, boosting crop yields and feeding an additional 2.8 billion people.