Russian mines make Ukrainian fields unfarmable

 

Ukrainian farmers cannot cultivate their land. The Russians have buried so many mines that it is too dangerous to use heavy equipment for sowing. Many fear for their livelihood.

Farming of the future - From "green genetic engineering" to vertical farms

 

Currently, enough food is produced worldwide to feed everyone alive. But what if, by the end of this century, more than 10 billion people inhabit the earth? Agriculture as we know it today is highly efficient. It feeds more people than at any time in history. But there is a catch: Food may fill our supermarkets, but it is pushing our planet to its limits.

Insectageddon

Insects are vital to pollinate crops feeding the world, but have pesticides wrought irreparable damage on the ecosystem?

Where are all the insects going? To anyone suffering from the overenthusiastic attention of a cloud of mosquitoes or lamenting the effects of leaf-munching creepy crawlies in their back garden, it might seem like a ridiculous question, but it is one that many scientists have been asking for some time now.

Since the 1970s, according to one report from UK ecologists, half of all insects in Europe may have been lost as a result of intensive farming, the heavy use of pesticides and climate change.

Another 2019 study, in the journal Biological Conservation, warned that globally at least 40 percent of the remaining 1 million known species of insects are believed to be facing extinction.

Australia's Vegan Fight

101 East follows Australia's animal rights activists as they go head-to-head with the country's farmers.

It is 5.30am in Melbourne, Australia. Animal rights activists wait anxiously in the dark, before their leader Kristin Leigh gives the signal that it is time to go.

She directs them to the heart of the city, where they halt traffic for hours.

It is one of a string of protests in the activists' fight to stop farmers from raising animals for human consumption.

Their tactics, such as trespassing on farms and stealing livestock, are controversial.

"I don't think anyone has the right to break onto anyone's property," says Brian Ahmed, who has had activists trespass on his caged-egg farm outside Melbourne.

The Last Villagers of Avsar

An insight into a rural community in western Turkey which is losing its livelihood, population and hope for the future.

Avsar is a small village in south-western Turkey which, like many rural communities around the world, is gradually losing its livelihood, its population and much of its hope for the future.

It has depended on cotton farming for decades, but times have changed. Turkey's agriculture used to be the biggest contributor to the country's economy and in the 1920s, farm labourers formed three-quarters of the workforce, but now they are under a quarter.

Industrialisation and urbanisation occurred later in Turkey than in Western Europe but had a major impact on farming communities starting in the 1950s.