Farmers in India cut their carbon footprint with trees and solar power

Good News Notes: “In 2007, 22-year-old P. Ramesh’s groundnut farm was losing money. As was the norm in most of India (and still is), Ramesh was using a cocktail of pesticides and fertilizers across his 2.4 hectares in the Anantapur district of southern India. In this desert-like area, which gets less than 600 millimeters of…

How Israel used innovation to beat its water crisis

Good News Notes: “How did Israel, a country that is more than half desert, frequently hit with drought, and historically cursed by chronic water shortages, become a nation that now produces 20 percent more water than it needs? Water demand from Israel’s rapidly growing population outpaced the supply and natural replenishment of potable water so…

Ed Sheeran Plans to Rewild the UK, Starting With His Yard

Good News Notes: “Ed Sheeran has plans for the environment: he aspires to rewild as much of the UK as possible.  The English musician told BBC Radio London late last month: “I’m trying to buy as much land as possible and plant as many trees as possible. I am trying to rewild as much of…

Meet the man using dogs and drones to save wildlife in Costa Rica

Good News Notes: “Captain Pete Bethune and his crew are with three armed rangers from MINAE, the Ministry of Environment and Energy in Costa Rica. They are in a 4.7-metre inflatable zodiac boat racing towards a yacht which is illegally fishing near Cano Island, a biological marine reserve. Using a $4 million (€3,400,00) drone, Bethune…

Automate The Farm With Acorn

Good News Notes: “Farming has been undergoing quite a revolution in the past few years. Since World War 2, most industrial farming has relied on synthetic fertilizer, large machinery, and huge farms with single crops. Now there is a growing number of successful farmers bucking that trend with small farms growing many crops and using…

NASA is learning how to farm on Mars and the moon

Good News Notes: “Whether from continent to continent or coast to coast, people have always made their big moves together with plants. Traveling away from Earth would be no different. Our success on other worlds will rest, in part, on the supple stems of plants. “Plants are things that we take with us as explorers,”…

Central Texas brothers develop app to assist people with gardening at home

Good News Notes: “Two Central Texas brothers are at it again, cross-breeding farming and technology. They’ve grown from helping folks farm at home in a box to cultivating a new app to assist you with gardening. Brothers Luke and Nathan Heath are launching their app called “Smart Garden Assistant” later this month  on Earth Day, April 22….

S. Koreans Turn to Urban Farming to Overcome ‘Corona Blues’

Good News Notes: “The number of South Koreans who seek consolation by cultivating small vegetable gardens or growing companion plants on rooftops or balconies is on the rise. In a nutshell, they are ‘farming’ using small outdoor spaces like balconies inside apartments. In the midst of an increase in the amount of time spent at…