Agriculture and natural resources

  • A boy watches a pump providing water to irrigate a rice field in Cambodia

    The Food, Water, Energy Nexus

    By Vinod Thomas on Thursday, 20 March 2014

    Striking rates of economic growth notwithstanding, 550 million people remain hungry in Asia and the Pacific, 65% of the population has no safe piped water, and more than 600 million people live without electricity. Overcoming these problems requires a combined approach in which food, water and energy are treated as a nexus, rather than as separate, standalone issues, which has too often been the case in the past.

  • No Impact Week ― the carbon ‘cleanse’ challenge

    By Anna Oposa on Monday, 24 February 2014

    Starting 22 February, Asian Development Bank (ADB) is holding its second No Impact Week challenge for individuals to cut their carbon footprint, following the success of the pilot event in January 2013.

  • Tackling food security challenges in Asia and the Pacific

    By Vinod Thomas on Friday, 03 January 2014

    The recent stability of food prices in Asia and the Pacific presents policymakers a window for addressing several crucial issues that, if ignored, risk reigniting the food price crisis of 2007–2012 and undermining the region’s rise out of poverty.

  • Planthoppers feeding on a rice stalk. Photo credit: IRRI

    From pets to pests: The case of the rice planthoppers

    By on Thursday, 22 August 2013

    In my childhood years, we considered planthoppers as pets. My brothers would catch, feed and train them for hopping races with other kids. Little did I know that these seemingly harmless insects can become crop destroying pests.

  • Women ride past burning garbage in Cambodia.

    Pursuing green growth in the Greater Mekong Subregion

    By on Friday, 19 July 2013

    Picture this: rapid urbanization and massive infrastructure development and people trapped in outdated polluting transportation, escalating environmental degradation and deforestation, rising potable water shortages and food security concerns, extreme climate change occurrences and growing disaster risks.

  • Can urban food security be part of the solution rather than the problem?

    By on Friday, 03 May 2013

    We all grew up around the stereotype that the farmers grow the food and the cities consume the food.  Can and should  city  residents also produce the food that they consume?

  • The effects of food prices on population health in developing countries

    By Cyn-Young Park on Thursday, 14 March 2013

    Global food prices remain high and volatile since the peak during the global food crisis of 2008, exacerbating hunger and malnutrition around the world. High and increasing food prices can be an immediate threat to household food security, undermining population health, retarding human development, and lowering labor productivity for the economy in the long term.

  • An Indonesian field extension worker compares rice yields using the system of rice intensification. Photo credit: Shuichi Sato

    Producing more with less through rice intensification method: Is it a revolution or an illusion?

    By Takashi Matsuo on Thursday, 28 February 2013

    I recently received two e-mails that piqued my interest anew about the expanding system of rice intensification (SRI) in India. One is a newspaper article about the “new green grassroots revolution” in Bihar, India’s poorest state, and the other is a set of charts showing the impacts of an ADB-financed irrigation project in Chhattisgarh. 

  • Feeding the millions in Southeast Asia: How thin is thin?

    By Lourdes Adriano on Monday, 18 February 2013

    This is not about how to start the Lunar New Year right with proper weight management. Well, not exactly, as this is about thin trade and why thin is not good especially during excessive upswings and downswings of prices for Asia’s main food staple—rice. 

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