Agriculture

If ever there were a case study in the absurdity of industrial policy, the federal mandates for cellulosic ethanol should be exhibit number one.

CHURCHVILLE, VA: Africa is the only continent where food production per capita is falling as its population continues to expand. Three-fourths of Africa’s food is produced on small farms that get radically lower crop yields than its experimental farms. Even if these little farms got adequate fertilizer and high-yield seeds, they still wouldn’t get the […]

by Einar Du Rietz

“Honey has always been considered an entirely pure product for the purposes of food labelling laws. But Europe’s highest court has now decreed that pollen is an ingredient of honey rather than an intrinsic, natural component.”

writes the Telegraph

watch?v=qeGtaSWzFRA for more honey.

It just so happens that I’m quite allergic. Not as severe as some younger friends, as the hassle tends to diminish with age, but still enough to remain careful. The so called allergy family (all allergies belong to groups, for example sea food, which I have no problems with) is nuts. Along with this comes mould – also penicillin in it’s original form – almonds and certain fruits and berries. And pets. The only thing really lethal is normally nuts. A younger friend never enters a Thai restaurant or leave her home without cortisone in her pocket. I’ve outgrown pet allergy, and can try different kinds of food, but I will never in my life test one singe nut again. It’s really not worth it.

Sometimes, however, I get the feeling that the worst threat, at least to my mental well-being, is not the sneezing during springtime, but busy body government. When chocolate bars simply had to list ingredients – and you also could find some safe brands – it was easy to pick something suitable. Since some years back, manufacturers are required to point out that virtually every product “may contain traces of nuts”. My younger friend naturally does not even look at candy, but for me, it would be nice to be able to make an informed choice. “May contain” means that the product is manufactured in an environment where other products, containing nuts, have been produced.

And now they are out to hit on the honey. The European Court that is, eager to put another burden on a struggling line of business.

by Einar Du Rietz Yesterday, I watched that widely acclaimed movie by Nora Ephron about Julia Childs and her later follower. Marvelous. And somehow, all about butter. I seldom use butter, as I prefere olive oil, but for certain dishes it’s the best option. All sorts of fish, for example. How interesting then that there is […]

by Einar Du Rietz That it was fairly good for preventing colds I knew, but now apparently garlic is the way to prevent global warming. Reports euractiv: “Reducing farm animals’ wind by adding garlic to feed could substantially reduce greenhouse emissions, according to research by West Wales’ scientists featured by Euronews. An organosulphur compound obtained […]

CHURCHVILLE, VA—The world’s farm pesticide death toll has been cut radically with biotech seeds that carry their own internal pesticide. A new study in India has found that biotech cotton has reduced pesticide spraying by 50 percent, and spraying of the most toxic poisons by 70 percent. The reduced spraying is helping avoid “several million […]

CHURCHVILLE, VA—The African Biofortified Sorghum project centered in South Africa, is striving to breed sorghum with extra lysine, vitamin A, iron, and zinc to help millions of African small farmers meet their families’ nutritional needs. The project is funded by the Bill Gates Foundation, collaborating with Du Pont and Pioneer Hi-Bred Seeds. Unfortunately, the project […]

This week’s headlines: Another huge, awful outbreak of food-borne bacteria. This time the worst in modern history; perhaps 2000 sickened, and more than 20 dead. At least 500 cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome. That means liver damage—and potential death from kidney failure. More than 1000 cases of severe diarrhea. Usually it is the very young and the elderly who are most at risk of serious consequences, but this outbreak targeted young adults, mostly women.

An outbreak of E-coli contamination in organic cucumbers has sickened 1,200 people and killed 14.  Scores of victims have lost all kidney function as a result of the infection with many forced to use dialysis. Green campaigners routinely attack fruits and vegetables grown and protected using efficient modern methods.  No evidence exists that “organic” foods […]

Extended droughts were far worse in the Little Ice Age that ended just 150 years ago, but big droughts are also likely in the world’s future if we are in a new warming cycle. This prospect pushes the un-exciting Black-Eyed Pea into an unlikely starring role.

Always trying to come up with new ways to stop the progress of safe, genetically modified foods, some environmentalists are now claiming that the pollen from such plants will “pollute” nearby organic fields. But according to expert Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute, traces of biotech pollen have practically no effect whatsoever on nearby crops, […]

The Wall Street Journal recently made a dreadful error in a news story. That’s “dreadful” as in causing consumers to dread the potential loss of the antibiotics we need to cure pneumonia, tuberculosis, and infected scratches.     On January 10, the WSJ online told its readers that America’s hog farmers were overusing antibiotics in their hogs’ […]

In the old days, we cooked hamburgers rare, juicy and flavorful. In recent years, because of E. coli 0157:H7, we’ve had to content ourselves with hamburgers that were gray and dry or run the risk of serious illness. E. coli 0157:H7 is the relatively new and vicious “Jack-in-the-Box” bacteria that killed four kids in Seattle in 1993. It was seen first by researchers in the 1980s. Since then, it has killed hundreds and sickened thousands more with bloody diarrhea, severe abdominal cramps, and even liver failure.

CHURCHVILLE, VA—A new study from the University of Illinois estimates that the world has more than 702 million hectares of marginal land suitable for growing biofuels. The researchers assessed land around the world based on its soil quality, slope, and regional climate. They added degraded or low-quality cropland but ruled out any good cropland, pasture, […]

by Einar Du Rietz  There are real environmental problems. Not necessarily those threats lazy journalists and politicians demand you to solve, but more often caused by the government. One of the most blatant examples is found in the oceans, in particular those areas controlled by the EU. Millions of Euro are wasted in the incomprehensible […]

CHURCHVLLE, VA—Paul Krugman is a big deal: Princeton professor, New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate (2008). Krugman wrote last week about the “food crisis, the second one to hit the world in the last three years.” His key statement: “what really stands out is the extent to which severe weather events have disrupted agricultural […]

CHURCHVILLE, VA—When our new knowledge of DNA permitted genetically modified crops, the environmental movement “flipped out.” Here was a new technology that promised to raise crop yields, protect our food supply from pests, and create a second Green Revolution for “over-populated” places such as Africa and India. The activists believed viscerally that more food would […]

by Einar Du Rietz In the never ending debate on what really triggered WWI, an interesting observation is that August 1914 was one of the warmest months in Europe, during the last century. With no AC, politicians simply went bananas. Naturally, the underlying factors were multiple; trigger happy, sometimes very old, politicians and officers, negligence to […]

CHURCHVILLE, VA—The cable network MSNBC is warning that the world food chain “has been stretched to the limit” by rising world demand and a series of crop failures in several countries. The TV network’s warning is premature. The U.S., in fact, could ease the current global food price spike with one administrative action—limiting the amount […]

Until recent decades, India was famous for its famines, not its computer industry. India’s dense population and erratic monsoon rainfall put it constantly at food risk—with a crop failure about every seven years. Two crop failures in a row often meant famine and sometimes there were three bad years in a row. During the Great […]