gardening
A hardy plant grown using salt water is thriving in the UAE's desert farms and helping create "healthy" burgers, showing sustainable agriculture's potential in the toughest conditions. Salicornia, a succulent, is already being used as a salt replacement in burger patties -- a rare farming success in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, which imports nearly all of its food. "You have the salty flavour with less sodium, but you also have other benefits," said Tina Siegismund, head of marketing and innovation at UAE-based Global Food Industries, a frozen food manufacturer. The asparagus-like plant ...
Relaxnews
These days, sausages aren't just made from beef or pork, they can also be made with peas! The Swedish brand Peas of Heaven will even send you a kit to grow your own peas at home, in return for which you will receive a home-grown sausage. What's not to like? This grow-your-own-sausage initiative is as original as it is clever, securing some great publicity for plant-based alternatives to meat. In Sweden, the small family business Peas of Heaven is encouraging consumers to put their green thumbs to use to participate in the production of meat-free sausages. As well as being a great promotional c...
Relaxnews
They function as normal hives, but apiaries built at a kibbutz in Israel's Galilee are decked out with high-tech artificial intelligence systems set to ensure longevity for these vital pollinators. "There are two million bees here," said Shlomki Frankin as he walks into a 12-square-metre container in Kibbutz Beit Haemek in northern Israel. Dubbed "Beehome", the project is the brainchild of an Israeli startup and houses up to 24 hives, explained Frankin, clad in a hat and veil to protect himself from stings. The 41-year-old told AFP that the hives feature a multi-purpose robot that does everyth...
Relaxnews
In her breakout movie "Roman Holiday", Audrey Hepburn's ingenue princess flirts with Gregory Peck at La Bocca della Verita, placing the ominous Italian statue firmly on the tourist trail. Now fans of the late star will have another -- more elegant -- landmark to visit in her native Brussels, in a park opened in her honour on Wednesday, near the house where she was born in the Belgian capital. The petite Oscar-winner and 1960s icon was born Audrey Ruston on May 4, 1929, at 48 Rue Keyenveld, now a quiet pedestrianised backstreet tucked behind Brussels' main shopping artery. The daughter of a Dut...
Relaxnews
Driverless plows and autonomous tools to weed vegetable plots are the latest innovations ready to help farmers juggling labor shortages, climate change and environmental protection, while trying to feed a growing world population. Venerable American farm equipment manufacturer John Deere and French agricultural robot start-up Naio debuted their latest innovations at the Consumer Electronics Show, which began Wednesday in Las Vegas. Touted as a means to feed the world, John Deere combined its popular 8R tractor, a plow, GPS and 360-degree cameras to create a machine a farmer can control from a ...
Relaxnews
What if, this year, you wrapped your holiday gifts in paper that turns into flowers? That's the original idea of a French company that's selling seed-embedded paper and packaging. From newsprint to the art of furoshiki, there are now plenty of alternatives to shiny single-use gift wrap -- which may be pretty, but which is a disaster for the environment. Some companies go even further in their approach, like Papier Fleurs, founded by Franck Bansart, which offers a seed-embedded, zero-waste gift wrap and packaging. Imagine the scene: you unwrap a gift, and the person who gives it to you warns: "...
Relaxnews
With climate change on the agenda, is it time we embraced the blue banana? You may not know it, but this fruit can also come in a striking bubble-gum shade. And it's completely natural! This variety grows in Asia and Fiji, on humid and sunny land. It's even able to resist the cold, which certainly isn't the case with our usual yellow bananas. And, what's more, this blue variety has a surprisingly delicious vanilla-like taste. It's the most-hyped food of the moment! Its name: Blue Java. And it could well be a timely trend in light of COP26, where 80 countries have already committed to reducing ...
Relaxnews
A mass graveyard for Bangkok's flamboyantly coloured cabs left idle and decaying by coronavirus curbs is coming to life with mini vegetable gardens and frog ponds set up to help feed out-of-work drivers. In an open-air parking lot in the west of the Thai capital, green shoots fed by monsoon rains sprout from the roofs and bonnets of row upon row of pink and orange taxis. Tiny green-brown frogs squat croaking in the tropical heat on makeshift ponds fashioned out of old tyres, tucked in among the 200 or so abandoned cars. The site is owned by Ratchapruk Taxi Garage, which has seen most of its dr...
Relaxnews
From lettuces farmed on New York's skyline to thick corridors of trees occupying once desolate Colombian roadsides, green initiatives are running wild in cities around the world. At a time when coronavirus lockdowns have amplified the need for nature in urban areas, AFP has gathered images and footage of projects optimising precious city space. Replanting initiatives have sprouted up since the start of the 21st century as urban development goals have shifted and alarm about global warming has grown. And they've had an impact. In nine cities in the world, thanks to planting schemes on walls and...
Relaxnews
Farmers worldwide receive barely a quarter of what consumers spend at the grocery store, and even less for food consumed outside the home, researchers reported Monday. Beyond the question of whether farmers get their fair share, the multi-step processing from farm to table may not be compatible with sustainable development, according to a study in the journal Nature Food. "People do not recognise how much of what we pay for in our meals is not the physical food," Cornell University's Chris Barrett, senior author of the study, told AFP by email. "Most of the value addition in the global food ec...
Relaxnews
閲覧を続けるには、ノアドット株式会社が「プライバシーポリシー」に定める「アクセスデータ」を取得することを含む「nor.利用規約」に同意する必要があります。
「これは何?」という方はこちら