Still not online here in Nairobi, but listening to the BBC World Service on the radio, I was struck by two (sort of linked) stories. One said that marijuana is now the biggest cash crop in the USA. The other was about coca in Bolivia and how the new president of that country, Evo Morales, is suggesting that cultivation of the crop should be expanded and new products developed based on the traditional uses of the plant. Then in the Daily Nation this morning there is an article about how miraa (or qat, Catha edulis) farming is taking a hit in northern Kenya after miraa flights to Somalia were banned by the new authorities there. Now livelihoods are threatened and there is apparently an upsurge in crime in miraa growing areas. Anybody out there want to draw some conclusions?
A user’s view of grassland biodiversity
Sniffing around on biofuels turned up this recent post — Polycultures — at a blog called Muck and Mystery. It gives a farmer’s view of how biodiversity helps him to produce more.
My focus for a couple of years has been on winter active species, those that don’t go dormant when it is cold and the days are short. At my latitude and altitude I can grow grasses year round if I have a good mix. It seldom freezes or snows. Right now my pastures still produce though most of my neighbors have brown swards of dormant grasses. They don’t produce as well as when the days are long, but the forage I produce in the dead of winter is valuable. It reduces the amount of stored forage needed to support my herd, or said another way, it raises my stocking rate. I produce more per acre over the year. With the same land area and inputs I get more production.
There’s no information about who Gary Jones is, or where he farms, but I like the tenor and content of this and a few other posts I read there. I’m adding him to my RSS reader.
Biofuel bonanza under the microscope
While I prepare to toss part two of my own humble contribution onto the biofuel bonfire, pop on over to Biopact for a long analysis of Grist magazine’s recent series on biofuels. Biopact does a decent job of expanding Grist’s debate beyond North America. The whole “debate” seems to be doing a better job of generating hot air than biofuels at the moment, but out of this, I hope, only good can eventually emerge. Biofuel from biomass is not a panacea, but if sensibly embraced the idea could bring multiple benefits.
Biomass and bio-energy
We alluded last week to a new paper showing that prairie grasses are a far better source of biomass for energy than anything else currently around. There’s obviously a lot to be said, but rather than clutter up the pages here (our goal is two longer articles a month) I decided to use my own blog to publish a slightly closer look at bio-energy and to link from here to there. So what are you waiting for, go on over and read it. I’ll add links to the other parts as I publish them there.
Biodiverse biofuels
Research at the University of Minnesota suggests that growing diverse mixtures of perennials on relatively poor land in a way that mimics natural grasslands is – surprise! – a better way of producing biofuels than intensive monocultures of maize or soybeans. This will run and run. I bet tinkering with the species composition and perhaps breeding some of the component species will be next, and lead to significant improvements in the system. While we wait for that though, here’s what Grist calls a two-week crash course on biofuels.