Tag Archives: Farming

Many hunter gatherers have a long history of egalitarianism. DevonJenkin Photography/Shutterstock Ruth Mace, UCL READER QUESTION: Many people assume the patriarchy has always been there, but surely this isn’t the case? How did it really originate? Matt, 48, London. The patriarchy, having been somewhat in retreat in parts of the world, is back in our faces . In Afghanistan, the …

What happens now? lenina11only John Hammond, University of Reading and Yiorgos Gadanakis, University of Reading We are currently witnessing the beginning of a global food crisis, driven by the knock-on effects of a pandemic and more recently the rise in fuel prices and the conflict in Ukraine. There were already clear logistical issues with moving grain and food around the …

ThomasLENNE/Shutterstock.com Helen Anne Curry, University of Cambridge Last summer I grew three varieties of corn in my tiny garden. I knew from the start that my harvest, if any, would be meagre. The plants would be hindered by poor soils, assertive pigeons and, worst of all, my pathetic knowledge of farming. Luckily it wasn’t so much the product I was …

Attasit Saentep/Shutterstock Guy Poppy, University of Southampton Firmly outside the EU, where regulations are considered tighter, the UK government plans to revise regulations on gene editing in agriculture in England, enabling field trials of crops which have had their DNA spliced to accentuate particular qualities, like resistance to disease or drought. This will be followed by a broader review of …

The definition of child labour on cocoa farms in West Africa is still in dispute Dr.Richard Asare/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA Marine Jouvin, Université de Bordeaux The evidence of child labour on cocoa farms in West Africa became public knowledge in the late 1990s. This followed press reports documenting the existence of hazardous child labour on cocoa farms. Pressure on the cocoa …

Jakob Fischer/Shutterstock.com Anna Davies, Trinity College Dublin; Agnese Cretella, Trinity College Dublin; Monika Rut, Trinity College Dublin; Stephen Mackenzie, Trinity College Dublin, and Vivien Franck, Trinity College Dublin Eating alone, once considered an oddity, has become commonplace for many across the Western world. Fast food chains are promoting eating on the go or “al desko”. Why waste time in your …

Zlikovec/Shutterstock Prithvi Simha, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences; Björn Vinnerås, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and Jenna Senecal, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences It’s likely that most of the food you’ll eat today was not farmed sustainably. The global system of food production is the largest human influence on the planet’s natural cycles of nitrogen and phosphorus. How much crops …

kung_tom/shutterstock David Rose, University of Reading and Charlotte-Anne Chivers, University of Gloucestershire Depending on who you listen to, artificial intelligence may either free us from monotonous labour and unleash huge productivity gains, or create a dystopia of mass unemployment and automated oppression. In the case of farming, some researchers, business people and politicians think the effects of AI and other …