FAO: Farmers need fertilizers to fight famine

FAO: Farmers need fertilizers to fight famine

(12/13/2007)

A leader of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says he doesn't believe that organic agriculture can substitute for conventional farming systems in ensuring the world's food security. "We should use organic agriculture and promote it," says Jacque Diouf, FAO director general. "It produces wholesome, nutritious food and represents a growing source of income for developed and developing countries. But you cannot feed 6 billion people today and 9 billion in 2050 without judicious use of chemical fertilizers." He was commenting on recent press and media reports suggesting that FAO endorses organic agriculture as the solution to world hunger. Organic farming typically bars the use of synthetic chemical inputs. Nearly 31 million hectares, or roughly 76 million acres or 2 percent of the world's farmland, was farmed organically in 2005, generating sales of about $24 billion in sales in the European Union, United States, Canada and Asia in 2006. In May, FAO hosted an international conference on organic agriculture. One of the papers presented for discussion—not an FAO document—argued that organic agriculture could produce enough food for the current world population. But according to the FAO, data and models on productivity of organic compared with conventional farming show that the potential of organic agriculture isn't large enough to feed the world. Judicious use of chemical inputs, especially fertilizers, could help significantly boost food production in Sub-Saharan Africa, where farmers use less than one-tenth of the fertilizer applied by their Asian counterparts, Diouf says. Much of African soil suffers from constraints, such as acidity and lowered fertility and needs soil amendments and nutrients. In its annual World Development Report, the World Bank noted this year, that "low fertilizer use is one of the major constraints on increasing agricultural productivity in Sub-Sahara Africa."

Misconceptions of traditional Agriculture

During the last few weeks I have been seeing that in some mainstream TV shows they have been depicting a negative and wrong picture of what traditional agriculture is.

I believe it was the show before House called Bones. Its pretty sad that a program that tries to claims some scientific background to it got it so wrong.

I have been working in agriculture since 1987 and believe that todays modern food production technology has been a major factor to the growth of our race as a whole.

I know and believe I have seen it in my travels the ugly side of todays systems. But if we are to succeed I am strong believer in the concept of SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE.

"Sustainable agriculture refers to the ability of a farm to produce food indefinitely, without causing irreversible damage to ecosystem health."

Follow these emails for more information:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Sustainable_development
• http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/

Join into a healthy discussion about what you believe should be the future of agriculture... Post a comment...

THE OLIVE TREE

As legend says ...... the OLIVE TREE was a gift of the goddess Athena to the Greek.

Legends says that Athena and Poseidon were competing for the affection of the people of Athens, during the contest Poseidon created the horse and explained to the gods that the horse would aid mankind in there labors. Then Athena struck the ground with her spear and the Olive tree sprout, she said that this tree would create food for mankind and oil to light their candles ....

Last week I had the opportunity to spend a week in Greece visiting different agricultural regions. The last two days I spend them in Crete and it was a great trip. One thing that really struck me was the Olive tree. In the past I had visited some Olive plantations in Chile, California and Spain but seeing miles and miles of Olive trees in a barren desert was amazing.

And also any kind of salad or meal we had was made with Olive oil it was just an amazing experience. The Olive tree with just a little bit of care can life for thousands of years. As a matter of fact in the island of Crete a tree has been dated to be around 2100 years old.

Seen this magnificent tree grow cultivated and wild was just amazing.

Tell me what you think about the Olive trees some of my friends who read this blog are from the Mediterranean.. let us know what you do with the Olive tree ....

Legumes and Allergies

A good friend of mid brought to my attention one of the not so great effects of legumes. Approximately one percent of the world populations suffer from allergies to legumes. In some cases the reactions can be severe.

Excerpt from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology

“Food allergic reactions occur when the body's immune system responds abnormally to a food protein or proteins. The body overreacts, flooding the system with histamines and other chemicals to fight off what is perceived as a threat or invader.”

Legume Crops

Common Name	Latin Name
Adzuki bean	Vigna angularis
Barrel medic or Medicago	Medicago truncatula
Bitter vetch	Vicia ervilia
Chickling vetch	Lathyrus cicera
Chickpea	Cicer arietinum
Common bean	Phaseolus vulgaris
Common vetch	Vicia sativa
Cowpea	Vigna unguiculata
Faba bean	Vicia faba
Grass pea	Lathyrus sativus
Groundnut	Arachis hypogaea
Hairy vetch	Vicia villosa
Hungarian vetch	Vicia pannonica
Hyacinth bean	Lablab purpureus
Lentil	Lens culinaris
Lima bean	Phaseolus lunatus
Lotus japonicus
Mung bean	Vigna radiata
Narbon bean	Vicia narbonensis
Narrow-leafed lupin	Lupinus angustifolius
Pea	Pisum sativum
Pigeon pea	Cajanus cajan
Runner bean	Phaseolus coccineus
Soyabean	Glycine max
Tarwi	Lupinus mutabilis
White lupin	Lupinus albus
Yellow lupin	Lupinus luteus

You will be able to click on the legume name and it will take you to web page dedicated to such crop. You can find all kinds of information on the history, agronomy and uses of the legume.

The magic of Legumes

THE LEGUME FAMILY A WONDER OF NATURE
Where would humans be with out Legumes. Probably no where.

Thanks to their unique ability to use nitrogen from the air to synthesize proteins they quickly became a very important supply for humans and mammals of protein were meat was scares.

How do these plants do it ...

They do it by establishing a symbiosis ( if you watched spider man 3 .. you saw a symbiotic creature... :) ) between a soil bacteria and their roots. The bacterias are called nitrogen fixing rhizobia and the legume builds a nodule it its roots were the bacteria can live....

In the nodule the bacteria gets exposed to air. And as you might know our atmosphere contains 75% Nitrogen.

Without getting into biochemical terms what the bacteria does is grab the nitrogen give it to the root of the LEGUME and the legume gives it some carbohydrates or sugars to grow ..... and they both are happy ...


If you wan to learn more let me know :)

Carrots in Northern Florida

A video I took last week at a carrot farm in northern Georgia. You can see the smoke from the forest fires in the background.

First Post

HI welcome to my blog. For many years I have been wanting to start my own blog and finally I have the guts to do so.

My blog is going to be about one me and my passions. As you can see by the title of my BLOG my main passion is AGRICULTURE.

SO As the title says feel free to ask anything you wish about AGRICULTURE and I will give you an answer, if I do not know it I will find the right person who will answer it for you.

SO TRY TO STUMP ME :)