Category Archives: agriculture

agriculture

Mass bee deaths tied to insecticide

McClatchy’s (Raleigh–Durham) News and Observer (Vollmer, “German Authorities Look into Allegation That RTP [Research Triangle Park] Maker’s Pesticide Harms Environment,” 26 Aug ’08) reports that
[a] German prosecutor is investigating Werner Wenning, Bayer’s chairman, and Friedrich Berschauer, the head of Bayer CropScience, after critics alleged that they knowingly polluted the environment. The investigation was triggered [...]

Sitting on a mushroom

He starts talking at 0:18.

(lined and unlined)

How to think about narcocracy

FT (Adam Thomson, “Drugs cartels targeting Mexico’s democracy, says intelligence chief,” 14 July ’08; BBC pickup here):
The head of Mexico’s intelligence service has warned that the country’s democratic institutions, including the national Congress, are under threat from powerful drugs cartels.
At some point, subverted governmental entities would make an announcement like this in order to undermine [...]

Great idea, Bob, let’s do a study

A math whiz says math is the first step to solving colony collapse disorder:

Using the data from the inspectors’ survey, we can assume that one-third of 150,000 colonies die off over the course of six months. Supposing that during the same time the number of infected but not yet collapsed colonies declines (as it would [...]

Sawdust futures

Rising sawdust prices contribute to rising cost of milk.

Bee theft

Beehive theft is on the rise:
Gulf News (Al Nisr Publishing/Al Nisr Media FZ: “Haagen-Dazs ice cream announced a $250,000 campaign to help fund research into pollination and colony collapse disorder [CCD] at two universities.”
Gadsden [AL] Times: “Kelton said the hives are so new he had not branded them with his mark, which is registered with [...]