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Weaver Ant: a natural ecological practice to protect cashew nut plantations

Did you know weaver ants are helpful for pest control? Weaver ants are considered farmers’ friends as they protect crops like cashews from pests. Introducing weaver ants is just one of many techniques used in Agroecological Crop Protection (ACP), which combines the principles of agroecology, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), Organic Agriculture, and regenerative agriculture. This natural solution reduces crop damages, improves yields and nut quality, ends the need to spray chemical pesticides, reduces production costs and increase’s farmers profit margins. Moreover, it maintains the health of farmers and the environment while also improve the resilience of farming systems. Watch this video to learn about weaver ant management techniques and the successful experiences of organic cashew farmers in Preah Vihear province.

Đa dạng sinh học

Hệ thống thực phẩm bền vững

Input reduction and recycling - vn

Chuyển đổi nông nghiệp sinh thái

Weaver ant, a natural ecological practice to protect cashew nut plantations

Weaver ants (Oecophylla smaragdina, Hymenoptera) have been used for more than 2,000 years for the suppression of insect pests in Asian mango and citrus orchards, thus constituting the oldest known example of biological control in agriculture. Yet, in the Mekong Delta, pockets of smallholder farmers are still conserving weaver ant populations and relying upon these beneficial insects to keep pests at bay, especially in cashew plantations. Weaver ants are found naturally in organic plantations but their benefits are often unknown, as far as the possibility of increasing their population as a way to manage insect pests.

Input reduction and recycling - vn

Chuyển đổi nông nghiệp sinh thái

Reducing Risks and Diversifying Income with Banana – Coffee – Legumes Multi-cropping

In Xiengkhouang, declining maize yields due to soil depletion combined with rising production costs are pushing smallholder farmers to shift to new crops. Many farmers are turning to banana cultivation. However, banana monoculture is not sustainable and therefore, a more resilient alternative is integrated farming, especially systems that combine bananas, fruit trees, and coffee.

Dinh dưỡng và chế độ ăn uống

Khí hậu

Hệ thống thực phẩm bền vững

Ủ phân hữu cơ từ chất thải chăn nuôi và phụ phẩm nông nghiệp

Hướng dẫn kỹ thuật: Ủ phân hữu cơ từ chất thải chăn nuôi và phụ phẩm nông nghiệp. Ủ phân bằng chế phẩm sinh học là quá trình phân hủy các chất thải động vật, thực vật thành chất hữu cơ dễ tiêu hóa hơn cho cây trồng chỉ sau vài tuần hay vài tháng. Ủ phân hữu cơ giúp giảm mùi hôi, tiêu diệt hạt cỏ dại và tiêu diệt một số mầm bệnh, trứng giun sán và vi khuẩn có hại.

Sinh khối

Input reduction and recycling - vn

Chuyển đổi nông nghiệp sinh thái

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Urban agriculture in a changing world: a thematic review of global trends, innovations, governance, and pathways to sustainability

Urban agriculture (UA) has emerged as a key strategy to address food insecurity, climate change, and urban sustainability. This review synthesizes global evidence on the historical evolution, regional variations, and multifunctional roles of UA. It examines technological innovations, governance frameworks, and socio-economic impacts, with attention to the Global South and India. By integrating case studies and policy models, the review highlights how UA contributes to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while recognizing its limitations in producing staples and animal protein at scale. A conceptual framework distinguishes formal vs. informal and low-tech vs. high-tech UA, underscoring diverse pathways of practice. The review concludes by identifying unresolved debates and proposing future research priorities, including longitudinal studies on climate resilience and cost–benefit analyses of smart farming in low-income contexts. UA is best understood as a complement to rural agriculture, offering both ecological services and social resilience within rapidly urbanizing landscapes.

What regulates decomposition in agroecosystems? Insights from reading the tea leaves

Litter decomposition is a critical Earth process, recycling nutrients and setting a portion of plant tissue on a path toward soil organic matter. Despite this importance, we still lack a good understanding of local factors that regulate decomposition, especially in agroecosystems where management plays an outsized role. Using a narrow range of climate and soils, we buried 1,308 pre-manufactured “litter bags” of differing residue quality (i.e., green and rooibos tea leaves) in 109 plots across several management practices to (1) explore the local controls on decomposition in agroecosystems and (2) test the robustness of the Tea Bag Index (TBI). We found that management practices intended to increase soil ecosystem services, that is, soil health, altered the decomposition of both teas. For example, adding nitrogen fertilizer and implementing perennial cropping decreased the extent of green tea decomposition (carbon-to-nitrogen ratio, or C:N = 12.8). No-tillage increased, but perennial cropping decreased, the rate of rooibos tea decomposition (C:N = 50.1). Cropped prairie accelerated green tea decomposition and increased the extent of red tea decomposition. A random forest regression model showed that soil temperature was the strongest predictor of green tea decomposition, but a soil health score also played a significant role in predicting the mass remaining. Soil texture and nutrient availability best predicted rooibos tea decomposition. Finer textured soils seemed to decelerate rooibos decomposition but increased the extent of decomposition. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the TBI metrics correlated somewhat well with empirically derived decomposition constants and were similarly sensitive to the effects of management. Still, the green tea stabilization factor had a substantial prediction bias. Our study increased our basic understanding of what regulates decomposition in agroecosystems. It also showed that the TBI can be a scientifically rigorous citizen science approach to monitoring changes in soil health.

Agroecology for climate-resilient and nourishing food systems : a scoping study of priorities for research and development actions in Southeast Asia

Given the rapid pace of development in Southeast Asia, there are great environmental and climate change concerns associated with the unsustainable intensification of agri-food systems. Agroecology offers a holistic pathway to achieving resilient, equitable and nourishing food systems by addressing the gap between food production, ecosystem sustainability and social equity. However, there are large knowledge gaps on which and how agroecological approaches can be adopted to achieve positive impacts in rapidly evolving contexts in Southeast Asia Governments and stakeholders need guidance on how agroecology can be integrated into programs, policies and initiatives, contributing to the food system transformation. In this context, the World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) conducted a scoping study to identify research gaps and development priorities for agroecological transition to climate-resilient and nourishing food systems in Southeast Asia.