Colorado agrifintech SweetAg has raised $7.4 million led by Diagram Ventures, Builders VC and Cooperative Ventures to build core lending infrastructure that lets farmers document and renew loans online, with AI handling document checks and humans keeping the credit decisions.
LivestockThe project will develop multiplex tests that detect several swine viruses at once, set up a national proficiency programme so veterinary labs test to one standard, and build a secure national database of disease and virus activity, with the Canadian Pork Council as partner.
The Farm Service Agency is turning its Application Fast Track pilot for low-risk borrowers into a permanent programme, simplifying collateral reviews on direct loans, giving Preferred Lenders more authority to verify eligibility on guaranteed loans, and moving guaranteed-loan applications online.
Research in Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, set out in CABI Working Paper 38 by Dr Morris Akiri, finds commercial banks provide about 7% of formal farm credit; unrealistic interest rates, monthly repayments that ignore the harvest cycle and land-title collateral exclude women an
Bangladesh and India agreed that their next joint meeting on Sundarbans biodiversity and Royal Bengal tiger conservation will be held in Bangladesh.
Formalised in Kigali on 4 September as the Africa Food Systems Forum closed, the partnerships target three traps named in AGRA's Impact, Learning and Foresight Report, productivity, value and capability, through farmer-centred transformation, a strengthened Knowledge Hub and investable pathways fo
The Port State Measures Agreement now binds 86 parties representing 110 FAO Members, and generates more than 22,000 vessel inspections a year in almost 700 designated ports.
More than 500 people from 17 wards gathered for the Mbire Good Food and Seed Festival, where over twenty local crop varieties were displayed and exchanged and farmers voiced concern that fewer landraces leave them exposed to drought.
A seeder that places rice seed 1-2 mm deep and fertiliser 3-4 cm below it has been certified as a national technical advance in Vietnam after pilots in eight Mekong Delta provinces cut seed rates by up to 65 per cent.
Better forecasts do not automatically mean fewer losses, IWMI's Mohsin Hafeez told a CGIAR webinar on drought resilience, citing sensor-guided irrigation in Tanzania that cut water use by an average of 60% while lifting yields.
State Minister for Environment Sheikh Faridul Islam said all agencies must work together to turn tree planting into a sustainable social movement.
A two-week test of the Fendt e107 Vario against a diesel 207 Vario in Norway and the Netherlands found the electric tractor stronger, quieter and far more efficient, with two to two-and-a-half hours of heavy PTO work per charge its main limit.
Chaired by DAE deputy director Md Monju Alam Sarker at Khamarbari on 7 September, the District Agricultural Technical Extension Committee approved the Kharif-2 plan and agreed on crop and variety selection, assured seed supply and market monitoring for the coming Rabi season; 40 attended, including
Hilsa from Gujarat, Mumbai and Myanmar is allegedly being sold as Bangladeshi hilsa in West Bengal's markets, prompting raids by food safety officials.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman will formally launch the farmer card programme in Fulgazi, Feni, on 17 September, when about one lakh farmers will receive incentive money.
With the WMO forecasting an El Nino that could last into early next year, IRRI's Sharif Ahmed, SAU's Abu Noman Faruq Ahmmed, BARI's Jamal Uddin and Professor Jahangir Alam Khan say the late Aman, the winter crops and above all the irrigation-dependent Boro need preparation now; DAE chief Md Abdur Ra
The Valencia start-up plans 96 units a year at first and 1,000 in the longer term; the four-motor, battery-swapping Thor 3 is to be the first production-ready version.
The minority stake, part of Océalia's Cap 2030 plan, backs a camera-and-LIDAR robot that weeds maize, sunflower and rapeseed mechanically, with cost parity against €35-85-a-hectare chemical weeding as the target.
Central State University's Hongmei Li-Byarlay is selecting colonies whose workers chew and bite the most mites, building genetic stocks as miticides lose their power and summer losses rise; the work matters more since USDA moved to close its Maryland bee lab.
Fig, known as tin or dumur, is emerging as an exotic fruit with commercial potential in Bangladesh, growing in fields and rooftop tubs year-round.
