Tuesday, 17 August 2010 Full Circle
The Irish potato famine gave a huge fillip to a nascent pesticide industry: blight continues to be a significant business segment to this day. We can say from the following link that our world has turned a full circle: Crop...
Sunday, 15 August 2010 Yes, but how?
Many of us would like to copy the United States, Australia, and Brazil. As, according to this article, does Russia: Russia to become global leader in grain exports business (1 July, The Telegraph) I have had the privilege of...
Friday, 13 August 2010 Pesticide Safety Ready for Take-Off?
Not many pesticide professionals take hydroponics or urban farming seriously. Take a read here to set your imagination ticking. Are vertical farms the future of urban food? (28 July, Green Futures).
Vertical farming is a...
Friday, 13 August 2010 No Capitalist Solution
Agricultural prices have always been exploitive. The stock market system has grown substantially by profiting from pork bellies. Livestock farmers have not done as well. Countries with socialist origins have done better by their...
Monday, 02 August 2010 Tip of a Skeleton Iceberg
Off-label pesticide abuse is the bane of our industry. Stewards focus on pesticide safety, but ignore malfeasance by their field colleagues in the process. This link reports on a serious lapse: Monsanto stung with highest ever...
Friday, 30 July 2010 World Cup Revenge
Weevils are so much easier to manage than microbes. You can see the critters, and they multiply at relatively slow rates. They do not over-winter inside fruits, and could never stand even the mildest of winters in Northern...
Wednesday, 28 July 2010 I am disappointed
The green bluster seems to be all hot air. Why else would we persist with such outmoded measures of agri-input development? World fertiliser demand set to grow (5 July, Farmers' Weekly Interactive)
It is silly to plan for...
Monday, 26 July 2010 Not Altruistic
We do no favours for repressed rural women when we recognise their invaluable collective place in sustainable agricultural productivity. Everyone stands to gain when the world is inspired by the leads at this endearing link: FAO...
Saturday, 24 July 2010 Recurrent
Why is it that sporadic pests other than locusts have such appealing names? We seem to celebrate their swarming nature, rather than fear their destructive potentials. These were my first reactions on opening this article: Oak...
Thursday, 22 July 2010 No time for rustiness
I recall a day when I woke up in Saurashtra (Western India, just belowPakistan), and found miles, yes miles of peanuts (groundnuts) lost to rustovernight. The crop involved here is wheat, but I tremble nevertheless: Wheat rust...
