For villagers in Mwandama, Malawi, visiting a health worker used to mean a daunting 40-kilometre round trip on foot. So the medical centre that was built in the area as part of the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) last year has improved their quality of life — and their health. Research published this week suggests that the MVP has significantly reduced infant mortality at sites across Africa.

A UN analysis sets out global water-management concerns ahead of Earth Summit.

Alarmed at signs that the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals is blunting these key weapons against human disease, governments are taking action.

Leading scientists say that agriculture is a ‘poor relation’ in global-warming negotiations.

Discharges from pharmaceutical factories contaminate rivers on three continents.

European companies are not providing robust information to regulators or alternatives to animal experiments.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110713/full/475150a.html

Biofuels could help poor nations modernize, but scaling up aid supported projects to commercial operations is far from easy.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7352_supp/full/474S018a.html

World leaders will gather at the United Nations in New York next week to discuss progress on two goals said to be complementary: saving species and lifting people out of poverty.

Study shows that stripping mountains for coal has a much greater impact than urban growth.

Feeding the world is going to require the scientific and financial muscle of agricultural biotechnology companies. Natasha Gilbert asks whether they're up to the task.