Agriculture and natural resources

  • Impact evaluations crucial for effective public policy

    By Vinod Thomas on Monday, 01 September 2014

    Asian countries are increasingly turning to investing in dedicated development programs rather than relying entirely on economic growth to deliver better social outcomes. Evaluations of their actual impact have not always accompanied such decision making, but where they have, it has made a key difference.

  • Beating Malaria, Again

    By Patricia Moser on Tuesday, 26 August 2014

    Malaria can be beaten. Proof of this can be found in the fact that across the Asia Pacific region, millions of people who would have died from the disease are living healthy, productive lives. Still, malaria remains a serious threat to lives and livelihoods. Endemic in 22 countries across Asia, it is contracted by an estimated 32 million people annually and kills 47,000 of them.

  • To invest, or not to invest? That is the problem in Myanmar

    By Kiyoshi Taniguchi on Thursday, 31 July 2014

    Myanmar opened a new chapter in its history in November 2010 when it adopted its open-economy policy. Since then, an impressive array of reforms have been implemented. However, Myanmar’s sustainable and inclusive growth depends on it maintaining this momentum during its transition —particularly inflows of foreign direct investment.

  • From Farm to Fork—Combating Asia’s Hidden Hunger

    By Bindu N. Lohani on Thursday, 24 July 2014

    Feeding the world is becoming an increasingly complex task. Providing all our daily bread—or rice—requires grappling with intense competition for natural resources, producing more from less land and dealing with changing dietary habits. But meeting food needs is not just about quantity. Quality is also important. Along with daily minimum calorie requirements, people also need vital micronutrients from their meals.  High levels of micronutrient deficiencies, a phenomenon we call “hidden hunger” remains pervasive, particularly in South Asia and Southeast Asia.

  • The Golden Rice Conundrum

    By Floyd Whaley on Tuesday, 22 July 2014

    Is changing 9,000 years of eating habits the solution to vitamin A deficiency in poor communities in Asia?

  • Youth creativity and leadership on tap to solve Asia’s water problems

    By Ponce Ernest Samaniego on Tuesday, 01 July 2014

    With some 60% of the global youth population living in Asia and the Pacific, young people have consistently and increasingly shown they are capable of addressing urgent development problems through their innovative ideas.

  • Green cities: changing the culture of waste

    By on Tuesday, 08 April 2014

    Asia’s drive to urbanize is taking an increasing toll on the environment with growing mountains of solid waste as city dwellers consume and discard resources at an ever increasing rate.   If “green” cities are to be the answer to these environmental stresses then they will need to develop much more effective programs to reduce, reuse, recycle and recover waste.

  • 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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