The UK-based bank Barclays has launched a £100 million fund ($163 million) to help farmers finance renewable energy projects on their land after a survey found growing interest among farm owners in installing such projects to offset energy costs and generate new income. (more…)

Farmers are increasingly taking advantage of the space they have to generate their own electricity, a new USDA report reveals.

The survey found that 8,569 operations produce renewable energy, according to the 2009 On-Farm Renewable Energy Production Survey released recently. The survey was carried out by the U.S. (more…)

A group of Colombian farmers has filed a lawsuit against the oil company BP, claiming that construction of a 450-mile pipeline in the mid-1990s has caused landslides, permanently damaging soil and crops and harming livestock.

In the suit filed in a London court, 95 farmers claim that BP Exploration Company ignored evidence that the pipeline would damage the land, and never informed the property owners, many of them illiterate, of the risks.

The pipeline, which delivers as much as 620,000 barrels of crude oil to an export terminal daily, crosses 192 rural villages. Farmers say that during construction, natural vegetation that protected their soil from the elements was removed, leading to significant erosion. (more…)

Iraqi officials have endorsed a plan to convert dates into biofuel, an innovative project they hope will boost a once-thriving agriculture economy burdened by years of drought, government sanctions and war.

A United Arab Emirates-based company will produce bioethanol from the dates that farmers can no longer use because they are rotting, said Faroun Ahmed Hussein, head of Iraq’s date palm board.

The nation produces about 350,000 tons of dates annually, but consumes only about 150,000 tons.

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