Agriculture

The National Research Council's Science and Technology for Sustainability Program hosted two workshops in 2011 addressing the sustainability challenges associated with food security for all. The first workshop, Measuring Food Insecurity and Assessing the Sustainability of Global Food Systems, explored ...

The control of illicit-drug trafficking and drug use is a difficult and complex process that involves a variety of prevention, control, treatment, and law enforcement strategies. Eradication strategies for controlling illicit-drug crops are used to target the beginning of the ...

Since genetically engineered (GE) crops were introduced in 1996, their use in the United States has grown rapidly, accounting for 80-90 percent of soybean, corn, and cotton acreage in 2009. To date, crops with traits that provide resistance to some ...

In the last 20 years, there has been a remarkable emergence of innovations and technological advances that are generating promising changes and opportunities for sustainable agriculture, yet at the same time the agricultural sector worldwide faces numerous daunting challenges. Not ...

Citrus greening, a disease that reduces yield, compromises the flavor, color, and size of citrus fruit and eventually kills the citrus tree, is now present in all 34 Floridian citrus-producing counties. Caused by an insect-spread bacterial infection, the disease reduced ...

In 2007 and 2008, the world witnessed a dramatic increase in food prices. The global financial crisis that began in 2008 compounded the burden of high food prices, exacerbating the problems of hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. The tandem ...

Legal regulations and manufacturers' monitoring practices have not been enough to prevent contamination of the national food supply and protect consumers from serious harm. In addressing food safety risks, regulators could perhaps better ensure the quality and safety of food ...

Since the first commercial introduction of transgenic corn plants in 1995, biotechnology has provided enormous benefits to agricultural crop production. Research is underway to develop a much broader range of genetically engineered organisms (GEOs),  including fish, trees, microbes, and insects, ...

Life on Earth would be impossible without plants. Humans rely on plants for most clothing, furniture, food, as well as for many pharmaceuticals and other products. Plant genome sciences are essential to understanding how plants function and how to ...