Agriculture37
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New Course Offered on Global Food Systems
The Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development will offer a course in Global Food Systems (SDEV W3200) in Fall 2012, taught by Dr. Cheryl Palm. Concerns about food shortages, land use, climate change and biodiversity have created an urgent need for interdisciplinary researchers, practitioners and policy-makers focused on agriculture. Developing sound solutions that improve agricultural production…
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Why Soil Matters
Soil is the source of all life. Yet “we know more about soils of Mars than about soils of Africa,” says Pedro Sanchez, director of the Earth Institute’s Tropical Agriculture and the Rural Environment Program. To remedy this situation, the Earth Institute is taking part in an ambitious undertaking to map the world’s soils.
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Composter Puts College Food Waste in Its Place
Columbia has welcomed a composting machine to campus, a first at a New York City university. Accepting food scraps, such as banana peels, coffee grounds and egg shells, the composter will provide a way to recycle the urban campus’s food waste while also serving as an educational tool.
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Growing Food, Protecting the Land in Africa
The new Africa Monitoring System aims to help land managers and policy makers identify and tackle tradeoffs between intensified food production on the African continent and the vital services provided by healthy ecosystems.
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More Food Insecurity Expected in Horn of Africa
The current rainy season in the Horn of Africa is off to a poor start, and fear of famine once again looms large for the region.
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Photo Essay: India, Water, Culture
Take a photographic journey from the crowded streets of Delhi, through the parched state of Rajasthan, and into the farmlands of north Gujarat to get a closer look at some of the many ways water affects the lives of millions of Indians every day.
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Water, Water Everywhere, But Nary a Drop to Drink
It is a unique challenge of our generation that many in the developing world have cellular phones and TVs, but lack reliable access to water. Odd, perhaps, given that water is marketed as essential for life, a human right, and heart rending pictures of women and children walking miles to fetch water are routinely flashed…
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Student ‘Aquanauts’ to Tackle Water Issues
“We would like to take on international problems, problems of development, problems in the United States, but have them done with academic content and interest. Instead of people being sent to random places, we would take engineering companies that have an interest in a particular region in solving a problem, and they would bring the…
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Millennium Villages Shed Light on Water Security
Water is essential to human well-being and economic development. Today, however, water stress caused by inadequate farming practices, demographic pressure and pollution is creating unprecedented problems. Nowhere is this more visible than in the rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa. As the world celebrates World Water Day on the 22nd of March to draw attention to…
By studying thousands of buildings and analyzing their electricity use, Columbia Climate School Dean Alexis Abramson has been able to uncover ways to significantly cut energy consumption and emissions. Watch the Video: “Engineering a Cooler Future Through Smarter Buildings“