About 50% of the world's food production relies on ammonia fertilizer, an important source of nitrogen that is essential for plant growth. In some fields, it is not uncommon to see 90 kg (200 pounds) of ammonia per acre for each growing season.

Arguably the most important (if least well known) industrial advancement of the 20th century, the Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis process essentially conquered food scarcity by creating the means to mass produce fertilizer-fertilizer then used to fortify food harvests around the world.

Mad honey is produced by bees who feed on specific species of rhododendron plants, which grow in mountainous regions like those surrounding the Black Sea. People have used mad honey for centuries for recreational, medicinal, and military purposes. Low doses cause euphoria and lightheadedness, while high doses cause hallucinations and, in rare cases, death.

Rami Levy, one of Israel's largest supermarket chains, has been cooperating with two Israeli agri-tech start-ups to erect large containers to grow fruit and vegetables, which will be sold in the chain's stores.

Years of drought, erratic weather and other stresses are taking their toll on the peppers that are central to the state's economy and identity. HATCH, N.M. - In all her eight decades of farming in southeastern New Mexico, June Rutherford has never seen a chile season this bad.

The world's most widely used insecticide has been linked to the dramatic decline in songbirds in North America. A first ever study of birds in the wild found that a migrating songbird that ate the equivalent of one or two seeds treated with a neonicotinoid insecticide suffered immediate weight loss, forcing it to delay its journey.