Wednesday, 03 November 2010 Inert Ingredients Need Stewardship as Well
Phyto-toxicity introduced me to the dangers of emulsifiers and solvents early in my pesticide career. My colleagues and I encountered batches that curdled in alkaline water and others that produced small burn marks on tender...
Friday, 22 October 2010 Peasants take heart
The world of agriculture follows California. The nascent trend at the following link should give renewed hope to small farmers in poor and emerging countries: 'Fresh': The case for smaller-scale farms (30 September, SFGate)
Most...
Monday, 18 October 2010 New pesticide world order
Brussels must be thrilled. Some of the thinking behind the developments reported at the following link must relate to budgets and the like but for me it also has odours of supra-national dominance: 50 bodies to go as further...
Wednesday, 13 October 2010 Ominous!
They are like cockroaches: it is nearly impossible to get rid of them once you let your guard down. You would not think much of the slender leaf-miner unless you are a pesticide professional or a farmer (grower).
The leaf miner...
Monday, 11 October 2010 Who will bell the pesticide safety cat?
I thought I had made a pretty sound case for pesticide safety. I expounded the merits of safety gear, abstinence from tobacco when spraying, and what-have-you. The farm labour was not impressed, and the assembled land owners...
Saturday, 09 October 2010 An Issue with Growth
No amount of money can make up for the opprobrium that these kinds ofincidents cause: Companies pay penalties for misbranded herbicide-fertiliser (5 October, Lawn and Landscape).
There have been similar incidents with all major...
Thursday, 07 October 2010 Lighthouse for Floundering Pesticide Types
They are not in fashion any longer in this electronic age. However, the romantic appeal of towers with searchlights, guiding ships to safety, cannot be denied. I find a wealth of similar values and ideas for the generic pesticide...
Tuesday, 05 October 2010 Might Pests Have Taste Buds as Well?
I do not have any reliable information on whether communities of pests have their own newspapers and web logs, but if they do, then the piece below could well have been written by some of them: A Perk of Our Evolution – Pleasure...
Saturday, 02 October 2010 Music for Some Ears
Please read the comments as well as the article: EPA chief: We’re not ag’s enemies (11 September, Albany Herald). I was tempted to add some beef of my own, but decided against it as I am not a citizen of the USA.
It is wonderful...
Wednesday, 29 September 2010 For Africa and the World
Agriculture is beset with controversies and crises. One of the reasons could be that farmers do not participate in policy-making and regulation. Individuals who leave inherited farming vocations for politics may be accused of...
