- Combatting stem rust: Uganda pest should give us food for thought | Editorial
With 800 million chronically undernourished, anything that reduces the food supply has potential for tragedyA lethal stem rust has spread to southern Africa's wheat crop. The fungus, identified in Uganda in 1999 and called Ug99, is a new contender in the long hot war between plant breeders and plant pests. Stem rust is an old enemy, but until Ug99 turned up, plant breeders had thought they were in the ascendant. The spread of yet another destructive element – along with drought, flood, locusts, windstorm and rising fuel costs – in the challenges that face the African farmer is a reminder of several things.One is that in a world in which 800 million people are chronically undernourished and more than 2 billion live on $2 a day, anything that reduces the food supply has potential for tragedy. A second is that agricultural science is a battle that can never be won outright. Any evolutionary biologist would have predicted the arrival of a new pathogen – and any evolutionary biologist would also predict that somewhere in the plant world there must already be genes resistant to the latest devastating pest. These genes must be identified, then spliced or bred into appropriate varieties and distributed to the blighted areas. All of which takes time, money, manpower and relentless scholarship.But the stem rust is a reminder of two more unforgiving facts of life. One is that as human population levels continue to rise, the farmland available to feed each individual on the planet continues to fall. Sooner or later, there could be a crisis of the kind predicted by Thomas Malthus more than 200 years ago. The reason there has been no Malthusian crisis so far is that as the population doubled, agricultural science tripled crop yields. Ominously, although yields are still increasing, t 800。慢性的食料供給を減らし、何かを栄養と南部アフリカの小麦の収穫に拡がっているtragedyA致。。錆の可能性があります
- Starbucks brews up Yunnan flavor
Starbucks Coffee Company plans to set up its first coffee bean farm in southwestern China’s Yunnan Province, according to a memorandum of understanding signed by the coffee giant, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Science and the municipal government of Pu’er on Friday in Kunming.
Starbucks said that the decision aims to introduce high-quality coffee and increase the income of coffee farmers in Yunnan.
Executives of Starbucks, including its CEO Howard Schultz and Wang Jinlong, senio ... Starbucks Coffee Companyのは昆明の金曜日に市政府のプーアル雲南省アカデミーの農業科学、巨大なコーヒーによって署名された覚書計画に設定されてBeanのファームコーヒー、その最初に応じて、州雲南省の中国南西部
- Starbucks brews up Yunnan flavor (2)
Fan Hongyuan, deputy director of Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Science, said that 3,000 seedlings of the four kinds of Arabica coffee Starbucks introduced to the province are in good condition in his institution.
Yan Yalin, deputy mayor of Pu’er, said the Yunnan provincial government will invest 3 billion yuan ($452 million) in coffee farming and would like to see a multi-direction, deepened strategic cooperation with the coffee giant. When asked how the partnership differs with a ... ファン。源は、農業科。雲南アカデミーの副局長は、教育機関、彼に紹介したスターバックスのアラビカ種コーヒーの種類の4つの苗が3000言ったの条件に優れている地域
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