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Global food crisis looms as climate change and population growth strip fertile land
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by Ian Sample, printed in the Guardian, August 31 2007
Climate change and an increasing population could trigger a global food crisis in the next half century as countries struggle for fertile land to grow crops and rear animals, scientists warned yesterday.
To keep up with the growth in human population, more food will have to be produced worldwide over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined, the experts said.
But in many countries a combination of poor farming practices and deforestation will be exacerbated by climate change to steadily degrade soil fertility, leaving vast areas unsuitable for crops or grazing.
Competition over sparse resources may lead to conflicts and environmental destruction, the scientists fear.
The warnings came as researchers from around the world convened at a UN-backed forum in Iceland on sustainable development to address the organisation's millennium development goals to halve hunger and extreme poverty by 2015.
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Scientists point to cause of bee colony collapse
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The sudden and mysterious disappearance of honeybees in the United States over the past year may be due to a virus, according to a new research paper by an international team of scientists.
The pathogen, called Israeli acute paralysis virus, was detected in almost all bee hives tested during a survey of hives afflicted by what has become known as colony collapse disorder. The pathogen is rarely found in healthy hives.
The discovery will likely help put to rest rampant speculation about the source of the strange collapse in U.S. bee populations.
Any threat to bee numbers could affect the global food supply. An estimated $2-billion worth of crops in Canada depend on honeybees for pollination, and about $15-billion in the United States, where the collapse has already led to difficulties in pollinating crops.
The researchers also found the virus on live bees imported into the United States from Australia, and in royal jelly samples from China. Royal jelly is the food bees produce for queens, but it is also sold as a health food for humans.
The discovery of the virus has raised speculation that the United States inadvertently allowed it into the country through the import of Australian bees. This was allowed in 2004, at the urging of the agricultural industry, to boost the number of hives available for pollinating high-value crops such as almonds. The import of the bees coincided with the first reports of unusual problems in bee colonies.
News source: The Globe and Mail
Photo credit: Frogmuseum2
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Building a simple compost sifter
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By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, August 16, 2007 in The Washington Post
If compost is the holy grail of organic gardening, what's holier than thou? Sifted compost.
What you want in a perfect mature compost is, of course, organic matter so fully broken down that the original ingredients -- whether straw, weeds, kitchen scraps or goat droppings -- are no longer recognizable. Finished compost looks like very rich, dark, fine soil. But even the best soil contains stones, twigs and the like. Sifted compost doesn't. It is the 400-thread-count soil amendment.
Grade-A sifted compost has many uses. Let's say you want to renovate the lawn in the fall. Using a shovel, you scatter sifted compost over the worst patches, rake it into the iffy grass growing there (if any) then sow seeds and water it thoroughly. The fine-textured compost provides an excellent seed bed. In fact, it is a good seed bed for anything, especially small, hard-to-germinate seeds such as carrot and onion. One trick is to dig a planting furrow, then fill it with sifted compost. You can even use it to start seeds in flats -- although compost must be completely mature and mellow for this purpose -- too much high-test nitrogen can burn tender seedlings. It is also a wonderful top-dressing for a vegetable garden, a luxury mulch that provides a good nutritional multivitamin while making your garden's soil look as dark and lustrous as a mink coat.
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A berry good activity for kids
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By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, November 1, 2007 in The Washington Post
An emerging tribe of hunter-gatherers colonized our farm this week. Look out the window and you'll see them creeping down the rows of crops, nibbling as they go, or reaching into low tree branches for apples. They are the grandchildren, and they know, with a primitive wisdom, how food should best be eaten. Send a grown-up out to pick raspberries for supper and he'll come back promptly with a quart. Send a young child forth with an empty yogurt container hanging from her neck by a string and she'll come back with a berry mustache, the container as empty as before.
Among this summer's best memories is the one of the 2-year-old twins, Heidi and Emily, gorging naked on tiny alpine strawberries during a warm July rain. Recently their 3-year-old cousin, Bode, joined them for the almost endless harvest of these ever-bearing fruits. The blueberries were finished for the year, but there were still a few raspberries left, and one day Bode walked in with a fistful of green pods filled with sweet, fat fall peas to savor, one by one. His grandfather lifted him up so he could reach the Swenson Red grapes dangling from the arbor. There were even some cherry tomatoes in the garden. Nobody of any age can resist the sight of red Sweet 100s or yellow Sungolds beckoning from the vines.
Everybody at our place is a perpetual grazer when easy-pick goodies are in season, but it's especially heartening to see the kids go at it. Foraging gives them hours of amusement (much more harmonious than those spent fighting over toys) and the idea that fruits and vegetables are not something they are told to eat, but delicious prizes they go out and win, all by themselves. Pretty soon, Preschool Nation will be out in fleece jackets, pulling our winter carrots, as sweet as candy, from the cold soil. One of them just came in with a fistful of kale, not yet ready to try it but, well, interested.
Even if you are not a parent or grandparent, there is no better way to welcome young neighbors or visitors than to send them out on a fruit-finding mission. And even if you are not yet a gardener, watching such a scene might turn you into one. What better introduction could children have to real food and its source in the good earth?
The snack aisle at the food store is not something you'd ever want to imitate, but it does provide a useful challenge. Make sure the rows in your garden are just as tempting, and no one will even mention candy.
Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Photo credit: Adam Clarke
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