IPAD launches a programme to aid the productivity of farmers

After cyclone Niran hit New Caledonia with gusts of more than 250km per hour in March, one banana grower refused to accept that much of his three tons of unripe fruit would now be lost. He decided to make lemonade out of lemons - by making his damaged fruit into banana flour. It's an alternative to wheat for consumers looking for gluten-free options, and producers in New Caledonia now hope that this could be the beginning of a whole new local industry.

In France, working the soil is often a family business. In the western city of La Rochelle, we meet three generations of cereal farmers who have been working the fields since 1912. A little further north, in the Mayenne region, a whole family has converted to organic farming. For all of them, each working day is a chance to learn or pass on know-how.

Gaining Ground, a nonprofit organic farm in Concord, Massachusetts, grows vegetables and fruit with the help of several thousand community volunteers and donates all of this fresh food to area meal programs and food pantries.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine and occupation of much of its most fertile land, in the southern regions of Mykolaiv and Kherson, has been catastrophic for the country's agriculture. Back in April, our correspondent Gulliver Cragg met one of the many farmers whose land had fallen under Russian control.

Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) yesterday announced that it would pay €15 million to farmers in three Niger Delta communities as compensation for damages to their farms from pipeline leaks between 2004 and 2007.

Germany is restructuring its agriculture to make one-third of all farms organic by 2030. But as inflation rises, farmers are demanding more government support. They are set to flock to Berlin to make their voices heard.

Uganda on Tuesday commissioned the first of its four planned oil rigs and the start of drilling the first production well, a key milestone as the country races to meet its target of first oil output in 2025 after a long delay.

Relentless rains in South Africa have claimed at least a dozen victims with the bad weather forcing the government to declare a national state of disaster. It comes less than a year after the country’s deadliest floods. And, as the civilian death toll rises from rebel fighting in Eastern Congo, more people are seeking refuge in the North Kivu town of Goma.

Data by the International Monetary Fund shows that only 24 per cent of loans collected by farmers under the anchor borrowers’ programme of the Central Bank of Nigeria has been repaid.

Thousands of farmers and anti-establishment demonstrators protested in The Hague against government plans to cut nitrate emissions. At the same time, climate activists blocked a main road elsewhere in the city.

The outcome of a provincial election in the Netherlands could end Prime Minister Mark Rutte's environmental protection plans.

Due to its intensive agriculture, the Netherlands has the highest nitrogen emissions in Europe. As a result, Dutch forests and rivers are among the most polluted in the world. EU environmental standards dictate that the Dutch government must reduce the presence of this chemical element in the soil.