Another day, another volcano.
No, not in our area. But the headline made Drudge.
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CNN conspires with rich Americans to keep our local eggplant high protein.
Better to find slugs in half your eggplant and for farmers to lost their crops than to let the Philippines get away with a trial of GM eggplant.
Why: Scinews points out:
Bruce Chassy, associate director of the Biotechnology Center at the University of Illinois, United States, said he believes that anti-GM advocates may have poured their resources into the Philippines "because they fear the model the Philippines has set up may spread like a cancer and infect countries that now reject or are uncertain about GM crops.
"The Philippines has been a beacon of scientific enlightenment in a vast sea of darkness with regards to sound, science-based policies about agricultural biotechnology and GM crops. This poses an enormous threat to the movement against GM," he said.
we grow "organic rice" which we are looking to export. We sell it for three times that of the rice imported from elsewhere that is used to feed poor people here. The dirty little secret is that outsiders from the first world pressure our elites to be "organic" because it's easy to do....
The same type who are stopping GM foods are the ones opposing fertilizer and pesticides...
Information about eggplant borers and why prevention means multiple sprays of insecticide, or maybe buying an expensive "sticky net" to cover one's crops could help if you really insist on organic.
Indeed, there are arguments that it was NGO's that stopped the "Green revolution" from reaching Africa. Here's a typical left wing explanation hailing Africa's failure to embrace evil crops.
Africa is characterised by its cultural diversity, which makes up its wealth. By ignoring the first Green Revolution, Africans have demonstrated to the world that they have understood that this revolution would kill their cultural diversity and their agriculture.
Actually, Africa is not that diverse. The majority of people south of the Sahara, and outside of the Ethiopia/Somali tribes are Bantu tribes that are very similar to one another culturally. Like the Han in China, they introduced cattle and agriculture into the areas of hunter gatherers, and diplaced or intermarried with the non Bantu population...
And Africans, who embraced maize that originated in the Americas, to expand their crops, would probably welcome new crops to expand their income and diet.
And the reason they "ignored" the green revolution is that development was shoved into fancy programs in cities to show off, and agriculture was ignored.
The typical African farmer in our area was a woman with a hoe, since the men (who traditionally used cattle to plow) were forced by economic pressures to work in the cities or to emigrate to the mines in South Africa to support their families. With the population increase, the "slash and burn" and moving around methods no longer worked, and the fields were being ruined for lack of fertilizer and modern farming techniques.
Hopefully, Bill Gates is rich enough to counter the rich greens who want to keep people living the simple life eating organic food and suffering from malnutrition, B vitamin deficiency from eating only maize or chronic cyanide neuropathy from eating cassava.
if not, well, China is willing and eager to do the job in Africa.
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Another story that has implications for the US: China is holding 70 Filipinos for drug charges (mainly drug mules). They are threatening to execute three this week, and the VP is there beggin them not to, and to go after the bigshots instead.
Now, when the Chinese dissadent got the Nobel prize, the Chinese pressured the Philippines successfully to stay home. They used the bus massacre to pressure us. Now I suspect they will use these drug mules to pressure more concessions.
Watch the Spratlys...
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Finally, Butz remembers EDSA.
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Update: Small earthquake in Manila area this morning...didn't feel it here.
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