Agriculture

Two new maps available for free download considerably improve estimates of land dedicated to agriculture, and provide the first global overview of field sizes.

Fairly and efficiently distributing food is a large and complicated problem and a team of engineers set out to make it work better.

It seems that with the beginning of agriculture around 10,000 years ago, group decision making changed

We need to make better use of land, light and logistics for an increasingly urban population. And we need to incorporate zero-waste and low-energy technologies into the task of food production.

A NASA instrument designed to study the oceans turns out to be useful for studying land, too. The Aquarius instrument reveals levels of moisture in soil around the globe.

Moss offers clues in the search for how molecular signals direct cell growth.

A new USDA program pays farmers to reseed fields with clover, alfalfa and other plants good for grazing that also feed bees. The initiative is an attempt to counteract colony collapse disorder.

The "untouched" rainforests of Southeast Asia may have been more manhandled than previously thought, with humans burning forests to make way for food-bearing plants soon after the last ice age ended.