Raissa's Blog - Best of Sports, Culture, and Entertainment

The global population of humans keep increasing every year, and the world can no longer count on traditional farming methods to sustain these growing numbers. Approximately 800 million people are already affected by hunger today, thus we already have a very hard time feeding our current population. What happens when the world's population grows to approximately 10 billion in 2050 as estimated by the United Nations?  Agriculture has to be approached in innovative and ecofriendly ways so as to increase productivity while protecting the environment. These approaches include: greenhouse farming, use of drones in agriculture, precision farming (smart farming), and drip irrigation. Greenhouse Farming Greenhouse farming is one of the oldest farming technologies but a rather young technology in the African continent. Greenhouses have been around for almost 100 years. A greenhouse is a framed structure covered with transparent or translucent material such as glass or plastic, in w...

A person's livelihood refers to their "means of securing the necessities of life". Livelihood is defined as a set of economic activities, involving self-employment, and or wage employment by using one’s endowments (both human and material) to generate adequate resources for meeting the requirements of the self and household on a sustainable basis with dignity (“Definition of Livelihood”) .  A fisherman's livelihood for example, depends on the availability and accessibility of fish. The concept of livelihood is used in the fields such as political ecology in research that focuses on sustainability and human rights. The term 'sustainable livelihood' was first used as a development concept in the early 1990s. Chambers and Conway (1991) defined a sustainable livelihood as follows: "A livelihood comprises people, their capabilities and their means of living, including food, income and assets. A livelihood is environmentally sustainable when it maintains...

For so many years now, the increased use of plastic in agriculture has led to an increase in crop production and quality. Plastics allow for vegetables and fruits to be grown all year round (this is very beneficial to the countries in the temperate and polar zones of the world). Plastics used in agriculture include: polyolefin, polyethylene (PE), Polypropylene (PP), Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate Copolymer (EVA), Poly-vinyl chloride (PVC), and the less commonly used Polycarbonate (PC), and poly-methyl-methacrylate (PMMA). Why is plastic so beneficial to agriculture then? Plastics are used in: ·       Ensilage : This is very useful during the winter season. Fodder is harvested while green and kept lush through partial fermentation in a silo. Plastic films are used in storing the silage (for their resistance). ·       Diverse applications : Plastics are also used in components for irrigation systems like spray cones (these tapes hold the a...