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EDUCATION-URUGUAY: Gardens of Knowledge
11 03 2010 MONTEVIDEO, Mar 10 (IPS) - "Nature is wise, and if we take the time to observe it, we can learn so much" is the underlying philosophy of a number of innovative programmes being carried out in Uruguayan schools that are using gardens as a teaching resource, explained Edith Moraes, director of the national Primary Education Board.
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MALAWI: Patrilineal Inheritance Prevents Women’s Access to Land
10 03 2010 LILONGWE, Mar 9 (IPS) - Mercy Gondwe, 51, from Rumphi in northern Malawi, was married for 34 years. When her husband died in 2008, she assumed she would inherit the land they had been cultivating together since they got married. But this was not the case.
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TANZANIA: Weather Changes Turn Farming into Gamble with Nature
10 03 2010 DAR-ES-SALAAM, Mar 10 (IPS) - Changes in weather patterns have turned agriculture into a gamble with nature for Tanzanian farmers. Prolonged droughts and floods have made the lives of small-scale farmers, who don’t have access to irrigation, extremely difficult.
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MEXICO: Scientists Reinvent the Corn Tortilla
08 03 2010 MEXICO CITY, Mar 7 (Tierramérica) - The process of making corn tortillas - the filling, age-old traditional food throughout much of Mexico and Central America - pollutes huge volumes of water and consumes a great deal of energy.
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MALAWI: Climate Change Is Changing Farming Methods
07 03 2010 LILONGWE, Mar 5 (IPS) - As they slept soundly on the night of Feb. 28, a family of four was killed when their house collapsed over their heads in Malawi’s southern district of Chikhwawa.
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HEALTH: Potato Drags GM Food Into Europe
06 03 2010 BRUSSELS, Mar 5 (IPS) - Genetically modified (GM) foods appear to be back on the European Union's political menu - thanks to a potato.
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DR CONGO: Will Poultry Project Live up to Expectations?
04 03 2010 KINSHASA, Mar 3 (IPS) - For some seven million Congolese living in Kinshasa the only meat and poultry they could buy to eat since the 1980s was frozen imports from Western countries, distributed locally by a few local businessmen.
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U.S.: Hispanic Farmers Seek Redress for Years of Bias
24 02 2010 ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico, Feb 23 (IPS) - When the Barack Obama administration urged Congress to settle a protracted anti-discrimination lawsuit for 1.25 billion dollars on behalf of African American farmers last week, Lupe Garcia of Las Cruces, New Mexico was paying close attention.
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BULGARIA: Govt Forced Down on Genetically Modifed Crops
22 02 2010 BUCHAREST, Feb 21 (IPS) - Campaigning by environmental groups and the general public has weakened the determination of the Bulgarian government to allow the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops in this country.
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HAITI: Food Crisis Looms
19 02 2010 ROME, Feb 18 (IPS) - Haiti's misery after last month's earthquake will be compounded by a food catastrophe if the international community continues to ignore the country's agricultural needs, the United Nations has warned.
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DEVELOPMENT: Free Hungry Mouths of Red Tape
19 02 2010 ROME, Feb 18 (IPS) - Developing countries must tone down the booming voice bureaucrats have in policies and target corruption if commitments to defeat hunger are to be turned into action, leaders and experts at a United Nations meeting said Wednesday.
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ENERGY-ARGENTINA: Agrofuels Rev Their Engines
18 02 2010 BUENOS AIRES, Feb 17 (Tierramérica) - In a measure that was delayed by supply problems, this year Argentina is beginning to require that gasoline be mixed with ethanol and diesel fuel with biodiesel, at a proportion of five percent, to possibly reach 20 percent by 2015.
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COTE D'IVOIRE: Policy Changes Revive Poultry Industry
17 02 2010 ABATTA, Côte d'Ivoire, Feb 16 (IPS) - Ivorian poultry producers are enjoying strong growth thanks to the imposition of a tax on imports of poultry products from the European Union and South America.
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Q&A: The Two Faces of Agriculture
16 02 2010 BERLIN, Feb 14 (Tierramérica) - The challenge of the 21st century is to transform agriculture into a good administrator of biodiversity and reverse its destructive capacity, without restricting its mission to feed a growing world population, said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme.
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ENERGY: Planting New Seeds for the Take-Off
16 02 2010 CAIRO, Feb 15 (IPS) - A salty, crunchy salad herb known to gourmands as samphire could revolutionise agriculture in the Middle East by providing food, fodder and fuel without using a single drop of freshwater.
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/CORRECTED REPEAT*/ICELAND: Questions Hang Over EU Membership
16 02 2010 REYKJAVIK, Feb 15 (IPS) - Views within Iceland towards membership of the European Union (EU) are mixed. Though Iceland has officially decided to apply for EU membership this does not mean that it will join, even if invited to do so.
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ICELAND: Questions Hang Over EU Membership
15 02 2010 HELSINKI, Feb 15 (IPS) - Views within Iceland towards membership of the European Union (EU) are mixed. Though Iceland has officially decided to apply for EU membership this does not mean that it will join, even if invited to do so.
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URUGUAY: Pulling Small Dairy Farmers Out of Poverty
11 02 2010 DURAZNO, Uruguay, Feb 10 (IPS) - "The problem is when you're too small, just too small," says Claudia Pérez, a small-scale dairy farmer in Uruguay, glancing to her left, where her pasture ends just 50 metres from her modest rural home.
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BIODIVERSITY: India Bans Farming of GM Aubergine
10 02 2010 NEW DELHI, Feb 9 (IPS) - After India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh announced Tuesday a ban on the cultivation of Bt brinjal, the country’s first genetically modified (GM) food crop, food security experts and activists said this major farming country has been saved from a biodiversity disaster.
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DEVELOPMENT: Crisis Could Open Doors for Change, Says UNCTAD
09 02 2010 UNITED NATIONS, Feb 8 (IPS) - As the financial crisis continued to threaten world economies last year, the White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel famously declared: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."
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PERU: Women Combine Invention, Tradition to Improve Rural Diets
08 02 2010 PAUCARÁ, Peru, Feb 7 (IPS) - Although Huancavelica is the poorest region of Peru, it has more than just poverty, malnutrition and unmet needs. There are also women using their creativity, efforts and traditional indigenous knowledge to improve the diets of their families and communities.
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KENYA: Insuring Pastoralists Against Increasing Risks
05 02 2010 NAIROBI, Feb 4 (IPS) - The droughts in the Turkana region were less severe when she was growing up, says Laura Letapalel, and pastoralists could still find some grass and water for their animals. Now, she laments, the droughts are longer and there is nothing to eat.
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WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Reconciling Social and Environmental Needs
01 02 2010 SALVADOR, Brazil, Jan 31 (IPS) - One of the greatest challenges facing the world today is to attend to the urgent social needs of the planet’s population, and particularly the one billion people living "on the brink of survival", while dealing with the equally urgent demands of the environment.
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CUBA: Zeolite, Mineral of a Thousand Uses
31 01 2010 HAVANA, Jan 30 (Tierramérica) - Cuba, which has major reserves of zeolite, aims to boost exploitation of the mineral, whose properties and uses in products and technologies contribute to protecting the environment.
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BIODIVERSITY: EU Farmers Face Genetic Contamination of Seeds
30 01 2010 BERLIN, Jan 29 (IPS) - Biodiversity, already decaying fast as a result of climate change and intensive farming, is under further threat by genetic modification (GM) of seeds, says a leading German ecological activist.
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