News & Events
The heads of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Health Organization, and World Trade Organization held high-level consultations with UNICEF, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Global Lead Coordinator for the COVID-19 Vaccine Country Readiness and Delivery and the CEOs of leading vaccine manufacturers on 1 March 2022 aimed at ensuring the rapid delivery of vaccines to where they are needed the most and putting those vaccines into arms.
Thousands of migrants go missing or die each year along migration routes. In 2018, United Nations Member States committed to “save lives and establish coordinated international efforts on missing migrants” by adopting the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). Four years and more than 15,000 documented deaths later, efforts to provide a meaningful response to this ongoing human tragedy cannot be put off any further.
Soil salinity inhibits seed germination and reduces seedling survival rate, resulting in significant yield reductions in crops. Here, we identified a polyamine oxidase, OsPAO3, conferring salt tolerance at the germination stage in rice (Oryza sativa L.), through map-based cloning approach. OsPAO3 is up-regulated under salt stress at the germination stage and highly expressed in various organs. Overexpression of OsPAO3 increased activity of polyamine oxidases, enhancing the polyamine content in seed coleoptiles
This International Women’s Day, we sat down with Steven Jonckheere, IFAD’s Senior Technical Specialist on Gender and Social Inclusion, for a conversation on why women’s land rights matter – and what IFAD is doing about it. Women make up nearly half the world’s agricultural labour force, yet they own less than 15 per cent of agricultural land. This has huge consequences for their income stability, food security, their other rights within their communities – and even their ability to adapt to climate change.
Rural women in developing countries are already feeling the effects of climate change in their daily life. They’re seeing weather patterns change, and once-dependable crops are no longer thriving. They’re having their livelihoods wiped out by extreme weather events – and with less access to resources than men, they have a harder time bouncing back. They’re at greater risk of gender-based violence due to climate disasters.
Salt stress is one of the most severe adverse environments in rice production; increasing salinization is seriously endangering rice production around the world. In this study, a rice backcross inbred line (BIL) population derived from the cross of 9311 and wild rice Oryza longistaminata was employed to identify the favorable genetic loci of O. longistaminata for salt tolerance. A total of 27 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) related to salt tolerance were identified in 140 rice BILs
Despite well-intentioned policies and economic growth over the last decade, major inequalities persist within many low- and middle-income countries. Approximately 3 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet, and poor and disadvantaged people face heightened risks from food and nutrition insecurity and inadequate access to clean water and sanitation. Rising poverty, rapid urbanization, and political conflicts continue to exacerbate systemic inequities in access to food, water,
The increased empowerment of rural women in Bangladesh over the past 10 years has been no accident. A decade ago, not even one in four rural women could be said to be “empowered” across five key metrics, a figure that surprised even those working on the ground with the country’s poorest. By 2015, this had risen to more than two in five, or 41 per cent, with continued gains in recent years.
Understanding the genetic basis of yield forming factors in small grain cereals is of extreme importance, especially in the wake of stagnation of further yield gains in these crops. One such yield forming factor in these cereals is the number of grain-bearing florets produced per spikelet. Wild-type barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) spikelets are determinate structures, and the spikelet axis (rachilla) degenerates after producing single floret. In contrast, the rachilla of wheat (Triticum ssp.) spikelets, which are indeterminate, elongates to produce up to 12 florets
The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu arrived in Maldives today on an official two-day visit to reaffirm support for and cooperation with Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in driving agrifood systems transformation and inclusive growth. This is Qu’s first visit to the Maldives since taking office. Upon his arrival, the Director-General met with the Minister of Fisheries, Marine Resources and Agriculture, Hussain Rasheed Hassan, in the capital Malé.
On February 11, the world celebrated the annual International Day of Women and Girls in Science. It is implemented by UNESCO, celebrated to promote women and girls in science. The celebration is also an opportunity to promote full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls. As part of the global celebration, CropLife Asia (CLA) featured ISAAA Inc. Executive Director Dr. Rhodora Romero-Aldemita in their Asia's Farm to Fork 5 Good Questions Podcast hosted by Duke Hipp, CLA's Director for Public Affairs and Strategic Partnerships.
Wild relatives, landraces and old cultivars of barley represent a reservoir of untapped and potentially important genes for crop improvement, and the recent sequencing technologies provide the opportunity to mine the existing genetic diversity and to identify new genes/alleles for the traits of interest. In the present study, we use frost tolerance and vernalization requirement as case studies to demonstrate the power of allele mining carried out on exome sequencing data generated from > 400 barley accessions.