From an article by Ochieng’ Ogodo on 27 August 2009
African farmers could triple yields by planting a type of acacia tree that sheds its nitrogen-rich leaves in time for the growing season alongside their crops.
“Besides organic fertiliser and livestock fodder for farmers, it also acts as a windbreak, provides wood for fuel and construction and cuts erosion by loosening the soil to absorb water during the rainy season. The tree becomes dormant and sheds its leaves during the early rainy season at the time when seeds need fertiliser and regrows them at the beginning of the dry season, so not competing with crops for light” he said at the 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry in Nairobi this week.
Planting the trees can nearly triple yields, he says. In Malawi, maize yields under the acacia canopy are 280 per cent higher than outside it.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The number of Mexican immigrants who came to the United States has fallen sharply, hitting a 10-year low in the 12 months ending in March, a report showed Wednesday.
Immigration from Mexico to the United States, especially illegal immigration, began to drop off in 2006 and continued its downward slide into this year, said a report by the Pew Hispanic Center, which looked at population surveys from both countries and US law enforcement data.
Between March 2008 to March 2009, the “estimated annual inflow of immigrants from Mexico was lower than at any point during the decade,” bottoming out at about 175,000 immigrants, the report said, citing data from the US Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey.
The statistics from ENOE showed that the immigrant flow from Mexico to the United States has fallen by around 20 percent a year since 2006, from more than a million people in the 12 months starting February 2006 to 814,000 for the same period in 2007-2008 and to 636,000 in 2008-2009.
In 2008, the number of Mexicans who were apprehended by the US Border Patrol as they tried to enter the United States illegally — 662,000 — was 40 percent down from the 1.1 million who were caught at the border in 2004.
Indeed, 2008 saw the lowest number of apprehensions of would-be illegal immigrants from Mexico by the US border guard in 25 years.
As for the possible reasons for the drop-off in Mexican immigration to the United States, researchers said it could be due to the weak US economy and tougher border enforcement measures.
However, a third of all foreign-born US residents and two-thirds of Hispanic immigrants to the United States come from Mexico, the report said. Nearly everyone who leaves Mexico heads for the United States, which is currently home to one in 10 people who were born in Mexico.
As a result of searching for material for the Amazon unit for Year 7, I came across something that bothered me a lot. As a result of an agreement between Peru and the US, the indigenous people were feeling exploited. Their rights had been removed by parliament and they rebelled. An unknown number were killed by the police. There were international protests and the US were sitting on their hands. What did the UK government have to say about this, I wanted to know. Enter email to my MP. No-one was more surprised than me when I was asked to meet him and discuss this. David Milliband will be asked a question or 2!
Watch this space – I will let you know what happens.
So if it bugs you, let them know. You never know what might happen next.
Global economic downturn drives slowing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
Annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell below 10,000 square kilometers for the first time since record-keeping began, reported Brazil’s Environment Minister Carlos Minc on Sunday.
Minc said preliminary data from the country’s satellite-based deforestation detection system (DETER) showed that Amazon forest loss between August 2008 and July 2009 would be below 10,000 square kilometers, the lowest level in more than 20 years. Official figures are due out in August or September.
Falling commodity prices and government action to crack down on illegal clearing are credited for the decline in deforestation.
Conversion to cattle pasture accounts for roughly 80 percent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Pasture is used for beef production as well as to speculate on rising land prices.
Nearly 20 percent of the Amazon has been cleared since the 1970s, but the Brazilian government has recently committed to significant reductions in deforestation under its climate change mitigation plan. The country aims to raise more than $20 billion in donations from industrialized countries to fund forest conservation.
IANJIN, China — China’s frenetic construction of coal-fired power plants has raised worries around the world about the effect on climate change. China now uses more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined, making it the world’s largest emitter of gases that are warming the planet.
But largely missing in the hand-wringing is this: China has emerged in the past two years as the world’s leading builder of more efficient, less polluting coal power plants, mastering the technology and driving down the cost.
While the United States is still debating whether to build a more efficient kind of coal-fired power plant that uses extremely hot steam, China has begun building such plants at a rate of one a month.
While construction has stalled on a new generation of low-pollution power plants that turn coal into a gas before burning it in the US , China has already approved equipment purchases for just such a power plant, to be assembled soon in a muddy field here in Tianjin.
Western countries continue to rely heavily on coal-fired power plants built decades ago with outdated, inefficient technology that burn a lot of coal and emit considerable amounts of carbon dioxide. China has begun requiring power companies to retire an older, more polluting power plant for each new one they build.
This is not to say that China has got it all right. There are still old inefficient power stations producing electricity and some of the better ones are not being used to their best effects. Only half the country’s coal-fired power plants have the emissions control equipment to remove sulphur compounds that cause acid rain, and China has not begun regulating some of the emissions that lead to heavy smog in big cities.
After relying until recently on older technology, “China has since become the major world market for advanced coal-fired power plants with high-specification emission control systems.”
Recent international reports have cut its forecast of the annual increase in Chinese emissions of global warming gases, to 3 percent from 3.2 percent, in response to technological gains.
But by continuing to rely heavily on coal, which supplies 80 percent of its electricity, China ensures that it will keep emitting a lot of carbon dioxide; even an efficient coal-fired power plant emits twice the carbon dioxide of a natural gas-fired plant. So the next step is who will be first to remove all CO2 from thermal energy production? Many countries, including the UK, say they are investigating it strongly. But China has just built a small, experimental facility near Beijing to remove carbon dioxide from power station emissions and use it to provide carbonation for beverages, and the government has a short list of possible locations for a large experiment to capture and store carbon dioxide.
But it does not stop there. China is making other efforts to reduce its global warming emissions. It has doubled its total wind energy capacity in each of the past four years, and is poised to pass the United States as soon as this year as the world’s largest market for wind power equipment. China is building considerably more nuclear power plants than the rest of the world combined, and these do not emit carbon dioxide after they are built.
The cause is NOT poor global harvest. It IS the global economic crisis which has lead to lower incomes and more unemployment and also stubbornly high food prices in many poorer countries. About 100 million more people are chronically hungry than last year.
The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).say that encouraging the poorer countries to invest in farming and so gain local food security is the only way to solve the problem.
FAO’s Director-General Jacques Diouf say that “Many of the world’s poor and hungry are smallholder farmers in developing countries. Yet they have the potential not only to meet their own needs but to boost food security and catalyse broader economic growth. For most developing countries there is little doubt that investing in smallholder agriculture is the most sustainable safety net, particularly during a time of global economic crisis,”
The full article is here. It also includes some useful stuff on migration:
Urban migrants are loosing their jobs so less money is being sent back to their families in the country
Many of them are going back home adding to the rural unemployed
Ardent Energy Group has formed a sub-branch in Adis Ababa, Ethiopia to grow jatropha and castor oil plant. A 50-year lease on the land includes permission to operate an oil crushing plant and biodiesel processing facility has been given on marginal land in Western Ethiopia
Jatropha and castor were selected as the first source of oil by AEG due to the resiliency of the plant, its ability to grow in marginal soil conditions and the extremely high-yield of oil to hectare as compared to other crops such as soybean. The ability of jatropha to thrive in harsh climates is also favorable, as the plant will not be competing with land that could otherwise be used for food production.
I saw this article here about how this innovate method of farming in uncompromising circumstances was leading to improved community facilities (aka Fair trade-type arrangement) as well as local people earning a better and more sustainable living using these autopots. It would seem that the Maldives are very sandy are were not much use for agriculture but are now into producing golden melons much loved by the tourists! And the system is sustainable, eco friendly etc. etc. So I went searching and found this picture.
What appears to be the way it works is that water + nutrients flow through the pipe to a valve on the lower right – the little box then fills and allows liquid through to the tray on the left. Once full, the valve closes and does not open again until all the liquid has been taken up by the plant in the big pot.
These are the types used in the Maldives. However, in many other areas big commercial systems using the same system in big banks in China and many other places in Malaysia (where it was first developed) and other Far Eastern Countries.
There have been plenty of promise that GM foods could help alleviate third world health problems. But precious little evidence that it had been achieved – until now.
Scientists have for the first time genetically modified white corn to increase the levels of several different vitamins — bringing closer the prospect of crops that can deliver full nutritional requirements.
The team increased the levels of beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A 170-fold; levels of vitamin C six-fold and also doubled the folic acid in the African staple.
As a result of searching for material for the Amazon unit for Year 7, I came across something that bothered me a lot. As a result of an agreement between Peru and the US, the indigenous people were feeling exploited. Their rights had been removed by parliament and they rebelled. An unknown number were killed by the police. There were international protests and the US were sitting on their hands. What did the UK government have to say about this, I wanted to know. Enter email to my MP. 
No-one was more surprised than me when I was asked to meet him and discuss this. David Milliband will be asked a question or 2!
IANJIN, China — China’s frenetic construction of coal-fired power plants has raised worries around the world about the effect on climate change. China now uses more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined, making it the world’s largest emitter of gases that are warming the planet.
Ethiopia to grow jatropha and castor oil plant. A 50-year lease on the land includes permission to operate an oil crushing plant and biodiesel processing facility has been given on marginal land in Western Ethiopia
. It would seem that the Maldives are very sandy are were not much use for agriculture but are now into producing golden melons much loved by the tourists! And the system is sustainable, eco friendly etc. etc. So I went searching and found this picture.