First of all, to honor the birthday of the Bard, whomever he may be, a little foodish real estate advice from Falstaff (Henry IV, Part I) : "...you may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel."
And now, today's serious depressing news portion--not war, no, but pestilence. African and Asian wheat crops are being laid low by blight.
According to The Guardian, "Scientists say millions of people face starvation following an outbreak of a deadly new strain of crop disease ...Experts believe the disease - Puccinia graminis ( or Ug99)- will spread to Egypt, Turkey, the Middle East and finally India and Pakistan, which would lead to the destruction of the principal source of food for more than a billion people. Some observers warn that the disease could reach Egypt, which is heavily dependent on wheat, before the end of this year.
'This thing has immense potential for social and human destruction,' the international agriculture expert and Nobel prize-winner Norman Borlaug warned this month.
Black stem rust has blighted wheat production in many parts of the world for thousands of years. So pernicious were its effects that the Romans prayed to a stem rust god called Robigus."
We have spent time with the amazingly energetic Norman Borlaug, 93 year-old father of the Green Revolution, and the man who created the World Food Prize. He undoubtedly sees the irony in one aspect of this blight situation. As reported in a more thorough exploration of the subject in the New Scientist, " ...Ug99 will find agriculture has changed to its liking in the decades stem rust has been away. "Forty years ago most wheat wasn't irrigated and heavily fertilised," says Borlaug. Now, thanks to the Green Revolution he helped bring about, it is. That means modern wheat fields are a damper, denser thicket of stems, where dew can linger till noon - just right for fungus."
(As hideous as this situation is, I could not help but zero in on the Roman god thing. Apparently the Robigalia was celebrated on April 25, rapidly upcoming. And Robigus was often celebrated along with Flora, goddess of blossoms, in a kind of horticultural/agricultural Ying Yang event.)
At least the Italians know how to eat--and take the time to do it!
Posted by: Foodie | April 25, 2007 at 12:39 PM
Apropos the 25th of April. It’s a national holiday in Italy but hardly anyone knew why. They settled on the capitulation of the Germans- but again- were not sure 1st or 2nd WW. Oy vey.
Posted by: Rose | April 25, 2007 at 09:57 AM
Biofuels remind me of high tech windmills, and solar panels--and solar panels remind me of the time when newly-elected Ronald Reagan removed from the White House roof the solar panels installed by Jimmy Carter.
Idiot. That and other things--like removal of tax breaks for use of alternative energy, removal of support for fledgling alternative companies set this country back 25 years.
Posted by: Foodie | April 24, 2007 at 08:25 PM
Speaking of crops... Today, we saw field after field of rapeseed, more than I've ever seen in the countryside before. Then I saw a headline in a newspaper, saying how more fields were being planted with rape, not for canola oil but for biofuels. In fact, beer drinkers are facing higher beer prices, since barley is being turned over to rape!
What does this have to do with the bard, except that barley and beer both start with B? They definitely did not grow rape when he was around!
Posted by: KathyF | April 24, 2007 at 03:02 PM