Organic agriculture is helping save bees from extinction

Conventional farming has become a reckless institution that pays no heed to soil nutrition, soil microbes, wildflowers and the natural habitat of pollinators. Under today's conventional farming systems, insects and herbs are expendable. Farming now works against nature instead of working with it. The health of the earth is sacrificed as conventional farming systems disconnect from the ecosystem they should be preserving. One of the most important components of agriculture – pollinators – is suffering more than ever before.

The Organic Center released a report titled The Role of Organic in Supporting Pollinator Health, which details the current threats to pollinators. The report reveals several organic farming practices that support the health of honeybees and other pollinators while encouraging an agricultural system that respects the balance of nature. These pollinator-friendly farming techniques can be used on both organic farms and conventional farms to save the bees and the butterflies from extinction.

"Our paper takes an in-depth look at the challenges faced by honey bees and other pollinators, and we look at organic as a model for supporting pollinator populations," said Dr. Jessica Shade, Director of Science Programs for The Organic Center. "We hope this report acts as a tool to educate policymakers, growers and consumers. Bee-friendly practices being used by organic farmers can be adopted by all producers to foster healthy pollinators."

Conventional pesticide-dependent farming systems are committing agricultural suicide

Pollination is how agriculture sustains itself; it's how it survives. When farming practices disregard the health of nature's pollinators, then farming starts defeating its own purpose, committing agricultural suicide over time. Honeybee populations have dropped by over a third since 2006. This is a significant concern, especially when three-quarters of all food crops rely on pollinators. The US produces $16 billion annually in pollinator crops like berries, apples, carrots, onions and other vegetables. If the honey bee population continues to dwindle, the most healthy grocery store foods could one day cease to exist. One day, all the diversity could be replaced by rolling fields of select corporation-owned genetically modified crops.

Organic farming practices respect the health of pollinators, sustain agriculture and environmental health

It's easy to see why pollinators are dying off. Their natural habitat of wildflowers and herbs is being replaced by sweeping fields of pesticide-saturated GMO crops. These pesticide chemicals are affecting the bees' nervous and immune systems, making them more susceptible to parasitic infections.

Dr. Jessica Shade of The Organic Center said, "Organic farming supports all of agriculture by maintaining and nourishing healthier pollinator communities, through practices such as crop rotations, hedgerow planting and the use of integrated pest management techniques. Our goal is to gain recognition for these important organic practices."

Industrial agriculture uses insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides liberally without investigating the scientific impact that these chemicals have on soil microbes, water quality, pollinator health or entire ecosystem shifts. For example, an insecticide class known as neonicotinoids is used as both a spray and as a seed coating. These pervasive applications transfer into the crops and end up in the plant's nectar, poisoning the bees. Instead of poisoning the plant, the bee and the soil microbes, farmers can use organic integrated pest management techniques that control pests while also considering the health of ecosystem in the process.

Organic farming techniques also exclude herbicides. Less herbicide means more wildflowers. These wild flowering plants provide a diverse habitat for pollinators to thrive. Organic farming improves these natural resources, protecting the bees' native habitat. The biodiversity provides sufficient pollen for the bees to build stronger and more robust hives.

"One of the simplest ways to conserve our pollinator populations in an agriculturally reliant world is through organic farming. Consumers can rest assured that every time they purchase an organic product, they are supporting pollinator health," said Shade.

© http://www.prnewswire.com

Farmers are drenching crops with glyphosate for faster harvesting

When you shop for produce and see that higher price placed on the organic varieties, chances are you think there probably isn't that much difference between the two. Surely conventional agriculture doesn't waste chemicals. They only use them when they need to – when insects or fungus attacks the corps, right? Wrong.

Conventional produce has been through a storm of chemical treatments. The use of chemicals is so insidious, it often begins with treating the dirt and the seeds before planting. Then chemical fertilizers are used in addition to insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides during cultivation. Some fruits have been tested to find 13-15 different pesticides remain after harvesting. Now a new practice is being employed – pre-harvest desiccation. Crops are drenched with an herbicide prior to harvest to hasten and even out ripening and to control weeds for the next crop.

Unfortunately this process results in huge pesticide residues in our food, even in certified non-GMO food. That's right, your food could be non-GMO Project verified and still have been drenched in glyphosate just prior to harvest. The foods that are approved for Roundup application and/or another pesticide just prior to harvest are as follows:
Wheat
Cotton (cottonseed oil)
Alfalfa
Oats
Sugar cane
Beans
Mustard
Oilseed rape
Rye/Triticale
Lentils
Peas
Flax
Sunflower
Pulses
Soy Bean
Sugar beet
Potatoes
Chick Peas
Feed barley
Canola
Corn
Unfortunately, Roundup is not the only chemical approved for use just prior to harvest. Other approved pre-harvest chemical desiccants include:
Reglone
Diquat
Glufosinate
Carfentrazone-Ethyl
Cyanamide
Paraquat
Diquat Dibromide
Carfentrazone
Cyclanilide
Diquat
Endothall
Paraquat
Thidiazuron
Tribufos
No one denies that these chemicals are toxic. The argument in favor of desiccation and other synthetic chemical treatments is that the dose of toxin is so low, it isn't harmful to apply it.

Toxicology is based on the following 500-year-old idea that is fundamentally flawed.
All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison from a remedy. –Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim Paracelsus
While it is true that even water can kill you if you drink an excessive amount, the idea that small doses of poison can't hurt you is illogical. In conventional agriculture, everything you eat includes poison. Why would you want to eat any poison with every meal, increasing your toxic load each day?

Recently, we are learning more and more about how toxic glyphosate truly is.

Unfortunately, the other chemical treatments are not any better. A drop of Reglone on your fingernail can cause your nail to shrivel up, fall off, and never grow back. Any exposure to the eyes can blind you, permanently. It doesn't take very much Reglone to kill you, and in higher amounts it can even be fatal from contact on the skin.

The more we realize how pervasive the chemical treatments are in conventional agriculture, the more we realize the value of voting with our dollars for organic food. Also, check out Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods and Scientists Against GMOs.

© organiclifestylemagazine.com

ARTICLES BLOGS LABS SCIENCE REFERENCE REPORTS VIDEOS RADIO INFOGRAPHICS MUSIC CARTOONS LIBRARY RSS STORE Search Powered by GoodGopher.com Robotics to take over agricultural harvesting... So what happens to all the illegal immigrants who currently do the work?

It isn't something that many people talk about or are even aware of, but the day of the robot is coming. And when it finally arrives, hundreds of millions of people will no longer be able to earn a living – at least not in the "old-fashioned way." That's because robots are coming to take them.

Robots may be pricey at first, but those costs will quickly be recouped as industries most conducive to them realize unheard of cost savings from not having to have a mostly human workforce.

Businesses and factories won't have to deal with sick days (when employees really aren't sick); drama (from life's little problems); theft; Obamacare-mandated health insurance; government labor rules and regulations; and outsized minimum wage requirements – to name just a few things.

For farmers – especially large operations that rely on illegal immigrant labor – no more hassles with federal and state governments.

Farming? Yes, even farming is at risk of becoming fully automated thanks to advances in robotics. As reported by Bloomberg News, Japan's next generation of farmers may actually be robots.

'Average age is 67'

Spurred by the reality that farmers the world over are aging, retirement for them looms ever larger, and fewer people are turning to the profession, Japanese engineers have turned to robots and driverless tractors to solve the problem.

As Bloomberg reported further:

The Group-of-Seven agriculture ministers meet in Japan's northern prefecture of Niigata this weekend for the first time in seven years to discuss how to meet increasing food demand as aging farmers retire without successors. With the average age of Japanese farmers now 67, Agriculture Minister Hiroshi Moriyama will outline his idea of replacing retiring growers with Japanese-developed autonomous tractors and backpack-carried robots.

The concept is also rooted in the reality that, without farmers, most of the world won't eat.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has even warned that, if the problem is allowed to continue, aging farmers will die or retire without replacements, threatening global food security and stability.

In developed countries the average age of a farmer is about 60, according to data gathered by the United Nations. Japan plans to spend tens of millions per year to speed development of autonomous farming equipment in helping to develop 20 kinds of robots, including one that separates over-ripe peaches during harvest time.

"There are no other options for farmers but to rely on technologies developed by companies if they want to raise productivity while they are graying," Makiko Tsugata, senior analyst at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo, said, as reported by Bloomberg. "The government should help them adopt new technologies."

Available arable land going unused

The meeting will also be attended by agriculture ministers and officials from other countries, including Germany, Italy and Canada. At the beginning of a bilateral meeting with Vilsack, Moriyama said that he would be serving Kobe beef, which Tokyo wants to promote internationally.

Already in water-locked Japan, available land for cultivation is going unused. In fact, Bloomberg reported, unused land has doubled over the past 20 years, reaching 420,000 hectares (about 1 million acres) in 2015, as farmers have retired and not been replaced by younger ones, Japanese data shows. Of the remaining farmers, about 65 percent of them are 65 years old or older.

As the dearth of younger farmers widens, there are growing concerns that Japan will have to rely more on food imports in the future. Already Japan gets about 60 percent of its food supplies from outside the country.

"Aging farmers are threatening the sustainability of agricultural communities in Japan as the population globally is expanding and raising the need to boost food production to meet demand," Moriyama said in his opening remarks to the seven-member meeting. "We, as the members of the Group of Seven nations, share common problems and want to discuss them together for a solution."

In the U.S. – and California, especially, which grows the bulk of food for our country – seasonal farming jobs are just about the only income for millions of illegal alien laborers. A robotic revolution in farming, especially, may be all the "immigration reform" we'll need to solve that problem.

©HuffingtonPost.com

Growing Nigeria's Commodities Exchang

The AFEX Nigeria Commodities Exchange, created to provide a national trading platform and develop a supply chain network for select commodities, recently hosted a risk management and commodities trading seminar in Abuja. CNBC Africa's Wole Famurewa spoke to Ayodeji Balogun, Country Manager AFEX Commodities Exchange and discussed a range of issued relating to the growth of the exchange in Nigeria.
Speak to the value of your relationship with INTL FCStone. What does this partnership do in terms of taking Afex to the next level?

There different facets to it. Firstly, Afex as the forerunner of the commodities exchange space in Africa has actually been pushing the idea and explaining what the exchange is, the benefits it will bring and how the government can participate in the evolution and development of the market. For us, it is also important that the public gets to hear from a neutral partner what it is and what the opportunity is and that is where we see INTL FCStone playing in the foremost international, trading on the leading markets and then, they can say, this is what it. So it's not only the Afex narrative but you hear from experts so that the market has a common understanding of the potentials.

What are the major challenges facing the commodities exchange today and more specifically, what would you say are the key impediments to driving the export of Nigerian products?

Some think-tanks of the industry will put it that there are four Ps you need to put in place when you are setting up a commodities exchange. So you need a product and have a definition of what your product will be, you have to have a purpose, in our case, one of our purposes is inclusiveness, so we want to have the entire markets both from the high level sophisticated financial banking institutions all the way to the small local farmer with one or two bags of maize included in the entire market. You have to have the participants which are the players on the market and then you have a policy framework for the market. If you look at all these, our strategy means that we have to have a very robust approach to cater for the different tiers of the market but we have found very innovative ways to manage that and I think we are doing very well. On the policy part, the warehouse receipt bill for instance is very crucial to the development of the capital market and we've seen this play out in many African and the Middle Eastern and Asian Countries. We have had Warehouse receipt bills that have been created and actually worked against the market developments, so there is a need for a very inclusive and very robust approach to the development and I am very happy that the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the ministry of Agriculture, trade and investment and other financial market players are approaching this so that we have a broader view, create a bill that is inclusive and unlock the opportunities we could have with the commodities exchange.

Our approach in Africa is to create a market that includes the small local farmers which means we are not providing an exchange for the financial market alone. That means that we have to look for ways to educate the market in a way that they understand what the phenomenon is broadly, but also how we've tried to hatch it out into the realities of the sub- Saharan Africa and the Nigerian Agricultural sector.

Provide an update of the activities of the Afex commodities exchange, how much trading is happening now?

It's been a phenomenal success. Market acceptance and repeat patronage has been outstanding. We have done this year three times the volume of what we did last year. Our plan is to actually grow about ten folds. So we moved about 15/18 thousand metric tons last year and we should be about 150 thousand metric tons by the end of this year and that includes normal stable crops which we focused on from the beginning, but this year, we are also rolling out export crops so we looking at top export commodities with high liquidity and we will be listing them for territorial, we are already working on the research for the market development work for those as well. Then we will also be rolling out our trading platform by early Q3 for the markets in preparation for the harvest in Q4 so by Q4 this year, you will be able to buy and sell throughout the electronic platform.

But to what extent will Nigeria's financial community be integrated in what you are planning or are we going to have specialized institutions that will be carrying out this straight?

One of the key elements of the entire capital market master plan is to create the interactability of the capital market so that players in the capital market, be it a stock broking firm or other players in the market will be able to trade across multiple platform as you know, there is FMDQ, OTC Market, Equities, NASD OTC market as well. So with the commodities also being available, I think that is one of the things that will place Nigeria ahead of other African countries when it comes to interfacing with both the international commodities and financial investment public. So I think the answer is that, there will be cross collaboration. It won't be farmers or the financial market alone.

As you know, the Nigerian government has taken its decision to ban the export of certain commodities, in your view, why should the government rethink that policy.

The country is more important now than ever to manage its balance of trade. We need to promote the Naira as an international currency. At the minimum, we need to foster the growth of it being within the ECOWAS sub- region. Now, we see a lot of opportunities of three tier regional trade in terms of commodities being traded even within the sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria has by far the largest production in Sub-Saharan Africa of the major staple crops. If you look at the West African trade corridor, Nigeria produced over 60% of the cereals and oils seeds for the entire markets so all other 15 countries combined have a lesser output than Nigeria alone. So we see this as a buffer, the strategic grain reserve and a number of others are trying to create a buffer stock within Nigeria for the Sahelian countries. So if we have these trade barriers or non-tariff barriers to trade and they unlock this opportunities and we don't know how much we are losing, typically, this also happens within the informal sector. Products move within Nigeria and outside to Niger and Chad, up to South Sudan, so these things can be brought to the formal economy.

Copyright The Guardian. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)., source News Service English

Farmers In Anambra Get Value Chain Development Training

Anambra State Ministry of Agriculture has begun the training of over 100 farmers from the three senatorial zones of the state on the benefits of Agricultural Value Chain Development in the area of rice production.
 
The two-day training in Awka, done in partnership with International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), exposed farmers to the strategic vision of strengthening the agricultural sector in order to achieve food security, increase production.
It will also help expand and improve rural economy for employment and income generation and most importantly, increase food exports while reducing food importation.
Pursuing Commercial Agriculture
The State Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Afam Mbanefo, said that the ideas generated in the training would help accelerate agricultural growth and its sustainability in line with the vision of the state government in pursuing commercial agriculture, especially in rice production.
The training would help accelerate the commercial production of rice to the point that the state would become the third producer of rice in Nigeria, Mr Mbanefo said.
According to him, the training will encourage farmers to produce more, knowing that there is a waiting market for their produce.
In the programme, the consultant trainer, Mr Aderemi Osijo, maintained that the active participation of government and off-takers, whose support in providing technical assistance and the market for the sale of the mass produced rice, would go a long way in ensuring that there would not be any missing link in the value chain.
Mr Osiji also emphasised the need for incentives in the Value chain development programme to make it attractive to people, especially youths to be part of the programme.
Farmers and off-takers expressed satisfaction at the training, maintaining that their expectations are high to see production gain momentum.
With government support and the off-takers market opportunities present, it is necessary that farmers swing into action and begin massive rice production for commercial purposes, as the value chain still revolves around benefits in terms of income generation, job creation and food sufficiency.
© Einnews Today

FG seeks cost-effective means of addressing malnutrition

Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, has stated that the Federal Government will seek new ways and means that will be cost-effective in addressing malnutrition in Nigeria.
The Minister made this disclosure, Thursday, 10 March, 2016 in Abuja during a Stakeholders’ Dialogue on the Reviewed National Policy on Food and Nutrition.
Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed (Mrs) stood in for the Minister at the occasion, which was held at Reiz Continental Hotel, Abuja.
Udoma said: “We are hoping, with the support of development partners, that this review will help us to find a new way and means in which malnutrition will be addressed in a very cost-effective manner in Nigeria.”
He also said that going forward, the policy will help the country to look at different ways food will be processed by Nigerian mothers so that they can give balanced diet to their children.
Accordingly, the Minister also disclosed that the Ministry is working with a quite large number of development partners to raise awareness as well as programmes that will cascade down to the grassroots level with a view to educating and encouraging mothers to farm basic foods like vegetables within their backyard to feed their children in a bid to fill the nutrition gaps.
Explaining further on the draft food policy, Udoma said that, the policy is a 10-year blueprint which is the output of the hard work of dedicated stakeholders and experts who worked in varying capacities to produce a qualitative work of international standard.
In his contribution, the World Bank Lead Specialist (Social Protection and Labour), Professor Foluso Okunmadewa, congratulated the government of Nigeria for pulling together the National Policy on Food and Nutrition and also described it as pleasurable and heart-warming to see that the issue is being prioritized with the new government, especially given the persistently high levels of stunning (37%) in Nigeria, and the increasing trend in wasting and underweight.
Professor Okunmadewa also stated that the cost benefit analysis show that the nutrition interventions are highly effective and can actually increase gross domestic product of a country, expressing that the World Bank appreciate that the issue of Food Security and Nutrition is on the front burner once again with the belief that this time it will be concluded and concretized.
 © PM News

Stakeholders Agree On Wheat Price Ahead Of Harvest Season

In an effort to step up wheat production in Nigeria, stakeholders in  the wheat value chain have discussed and agreed on the price farmers would get for their wheat as the harvesting of 2015/2016 wheat season comes to a close.
Speaking to newsmen shortly after a meeting convened by the Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI), under the instruction of the minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, in Abuja the executive director of LCRI, Dr. Gbenga Olabanji noted that a minimum price favourable to the farmers and millers was considered.
He stated that although the millers seemed to have yielded ground and expressed readiness to pay the minimum suggested by the farmers’ representatives, they nonetheless asked the farmers’ representatives to consider lowering the price a little to allow the millers reduce their losses.
He said, ‘’The millers argued that they presently import wheat at nearly half the price the farmers are asking for, while the farmers
made a point about their cost of production and the fact that some farmers are under temptation to sell off their wheat harvests in the open market where it presently commands a higher price. The risk, however, was that the market price would drop significantly when harvested wheat floods the market.’’
© Leadership News