The world needs to recycle or reuse billions of tons of materials if it is to keep climate change in check, said a report by Circle Economy, an Amsterdam-based social enterprise. According to the report, only one tenth of the almost 93 billion tons of materials used annually–including minerals, metals, fossil fuels and biomass–are currently put back into the production cycle.

Five United States governors have opened the year 2019 with bold calls to action on climate change in their states. With the federal government moving in the opposite direction, state officials are taking a leadership role in advancing policies to combat climate change.

Members of the European Parliament are working on new plans to boost confidence in the European Union's approval procedures for pesticides. The aim is to make the whole process more transparent and accountable.

Deep changes are needed in our food systems to ensure healthy diets. This is the message delivered by FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva, who called for a transformation of production and consumption models to combat hunger, obesity and other forms of malnutrition.

The CGIAR Platform for Big Data, supported by the CGIAR Foundation and other non-profit organizations, is boosting innovation in agriculture across Africa, creating new skills in using big data in farming, developing communities, encouraging interaction and engaging the various stakeholders to produce new ideas and solve development problems. This enables more efficient management of resources like water and helps to take preventive action against the most common diseases.

South African pig and cattle farmers are bracing themselves for hard times after a drought and an outbreak of the highly contagious foot and mouth disease that has led to the suspension of meat exports, officials said today. Farmers have already planted around 95 percent of the country’s yellow maize, which is mainly used in animal feed, and between 70 to 80 percent of the white maize, which is used in human consumption.

Thanks to substantial investment funding allocated to forest conservation in Gishwati-Mukura National Park, former honey poachers have now become skilled beekeepers. While in the past they were forced to go honey hunting in the forest in order to survive, today they produce dozens of kilos of honey that is sold on the Rwandan market. This has led to the creation of a cooperative that has literally changed people's lives. 

To tackle climate change and improve health across the globe we must radically change our diet, according to a study published by the EAT-Lancet commission. We should reduce meat consumption by more than half, and eat more grains and fruit and vegetables. The diet also calls for limiting fish and egg consumption, as well as drastically reducing sugar, refined grains and some starches.

In developing countries like Brazil, around half the food produced goes to waste during transport and handling. To combat this, numerous initiatives are springing up throughout the country to educate people, particularly young Brazilians, on how to prevent waste and use food that is still edible but is discarded by markets and supermarkets. 

For decades, the small village had given little thought to the idea of processing its waste, until the failure of an incinerator forced it to rethink its strategy with the aim of becoming a zero-waste town by 2020.