City officials are evaluating whether to spend nearly $500,000 next year to test a machine that is supposed to turn the sludge into heat, liquid fertilizer and a hydrogen-based fuel. The machine takes sewage sludge and pumps it into a hollow carbon electrode and separates water, carbon, metals and other solids under intense heat that's similar to a welding arc, the company said. As part of the trial run now under consideration, the city would only convert a few vehicles to accept the fuel...

The new sales firm will oversee marketing of agrochemicals in Eastern and Central Europe, with a focus on Sumitomo Chemical's mainline herbicides and insecticides for farmers growing rapeseed and sunflowers. Overseas sales accounted for more than half of Sumitomo Chemical's agrochemicals business in the fiscal year ended March. But by setting up a base to tap the markets in the growing economies of Eastern and Central Europe, the company intends to boost the ratio to 60 per cent in fiscal 2011.

At the same time, it's becoming more costly for young people to go into farming, and many of them see that they can make a better living by leaving the rural areas. farmers produce more food than any other country in the world and are tops in corn, soybeans, milk and cattle, according to a United Nations agriculture census. Within the next decade those older farmers will be looking for someone to take over their operations and selling millions of acres of land. Many stay on because they...

Staudt is one of a growing number of landscapers who have embraced organic lawn care as an alternative to pesticides and other chemicals. He says seminars that once attracted a mere handful are now well-attended as a growing number of landscapers are becoming interested in "green" alternatives to pesticides. Bruce Butterfield, research director for the National Gardening Association, said a 2004 survey showed that 5 percent of American households with a yard or garden exclusively used...

Lu s Eduardo Minchala Guaman, legume breeder for Ecuador s National Institute of Agricultural and Livestock Research (INIAP), looks out over rolling Andean mountainsides in the cold air and blistering equatorial sunlight at some 2,600 meters above sea level. Perhaps the best indicator is this: you never used to see trucks regularly driving out of the valley loaded with produce for the market; now you do. Mexico June 29, 2007 What started with better crop varieties from CIMMYT and other...