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Seeds of discontent
Joanna Blythman, Guardian
Britain is losing its green fields, as the grass that once fattened cattle is replaced by oilseed rape. The bright yellow tide has upset lovers of traditional country views. But what about the effects we can’t see? What is this chemical-hungry crop doing to the environment – and our health?
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…In the 1970s, oilseed rape was barely known in Britain. Many people were suspicious of this alien seed which announces itself with its all-pervasive perfume, reminiscent of honey to some, cloyingly sweet and as sickly as regurgitated baby milk to others. Now it is our third largest arable crop. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says that in the past year alone production has gone up by an impressive 17%. Next year, it is tipped to top 2m tonnes. In terms of acreage, oilseed rape now accounts for 11% of the crops cultivated in the UK.
The economics of rapeseed cultivation have never looked more attractive to farmers because there is no problem finding a buyer. These days it is not just the old markets – cheap cooking oil, margarine, cattle feed, candles, soaps, plastics, polymers and lubricants. Oilseed rape has hit the big time as a biofuel. Currently, most of the UK’s production is snapped up by Germany for bio-diesel.
And the latest silky-smooth ambassador for the crop is “extra virgin rapeseed oil”, currently being touted as Britain’s answer to extra virgin olive oil.
…whether we intend to slosh it on our salads, wash in it, or drive with it, all those canary yellow fields producing oilseed rape may set alarm bells ringing because of the way this crop is grown. Unlike artisan olive or nut oils, which have a time-honoured place in world agriculture, oilseed rape is a newcomer to our tables. It has been cultivated for thousands of years, but as a lamp oil. It took the highest level of plant breeding after the second world war to make what was a toxic substance fit for human consumption. Greedy for nutrients and notoriously dependent on nitrogen-rich fertilisers, oilseed rape is among the worst arable crops for leaching nitrates into waterways and polluting aquifers. It is one of the crops that led to the setting up of nitrate sensitive areas and nitrate vulnerable zones across the EU.
Oilseed rape is also plagued by a long list of pests and diseases – everything from cabbage stem flea beetle and peach potato aphid to black leg fungus and white stem rot – all of which require chemicals to keep them under control.
(19 Apr 2007)
Save Our Oceans, Eat Like a Pig
Let’s stop wasting tasty fish on animal feed.
Jennifer Jacquet, The Tyee
Thirty-six per cent of all marine fish caught are used to feed animals, according to a new study on forage fish from the Sea Around Us project at the UBC Fisheries Centre. “Forage fish” were so named because they often wind up as meals for other fish, marine mammals, or birds. Today we catch 30 million tonnes of these small, wild fish and grind them up into fish meal and oil to feed chicken, fish, and pigs.
Dr. Daniel Pauly, co-author of the report with Drs. Jackie Alder and Reg Watson, has come to disagree with the label “forage fish,” which he views as synonymous with waste. “We should never have followed the fish meal industry on the slippery slope of naming edible fish ‘forage fish’ in the first place,” says Pauly. “These fish could provide humans with large quantities of protein but we waste them by using them as raw material for fish meal.”
A half-century ago, less than ten per cent of fish caught were used to make into fish meal. Pigs and chickens were fed mostly grains and fish farming was a cottage industry. Today, with fisheries in much dire straits and a heightened awareness about global malnutrition, why are we turning more than one-third of our marine fish into powdered pig feed?
(17 Apr 2007)
Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious ‘colony collapse’ of bees
It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world’s harvests fail.
They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world – the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon – which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe – was beginning to hit Britain as well.
The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees’ navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive’s inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.
The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.
CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London’s biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned. ..
(15 Apr 2007)
