(First) Voyage to India

It's been a whirlwind tour of two states (Bihar and Madyhar Pradesh) in India and Delhi in between. There is so much, which the road movie I've stitched together does not get across:  The street noise (lot's of honking, like in Cairo really), how people move, the dare-devil driving in traffic, traffic, traffic and of course, the food, most of which I thoroughly enjoyed (the yoghurty stuff reminded me of Turkey-Iran, it's a vegetarian haven, the spiciness seems unique ...). I joined CIMMYT management in a tour of two of three research stations, which will become part of the Borlaug Institute of South Asia, a joint venture with the Government of India. India is the world's second largest producer of wheat. I do hope you enjoy the travelogue video (I apologize about the low resolution, but could not upload a higher quality version).

Agricultural Myths

T'is not an title easily translated. Joseph Reichholf wrote "The Dance around the Golden Calf" - more like "The Brouhaha ..." in 2006, subtitled "Europe's eco-colonialism". Unfortunately, an english translation has not yet been published, though of course other authors have dealt with the same subject-matter. Reading this book has changed my 'regard' of countryside panoramas, such as my favoured Gers, in the SW of France. As a whole, we eat a lot of meat in Europe (and increasingly, elsewhere too). We cannot feed all that intensive-agriculture livestock with homegrown foodstuffs, so we import it. That's where burning tropical forest for soybean field comes in, and GMO agriculture. So, as I for instance support a Greenpeace campaign to protect the Amazon rainforests, I null and void that effort by eating excellent Charolais fed with imported grains. Okey, I can try an make sure that the meat I eat is 'locally fed', organically of course - but that's as a drop in the ocean. Just go visit Danish bigfarms.

Reichholf is most enlightening on the realities behind the myth of agriculture beneficial to maintaining the countryside, e.g. our 'nature'. I too succumb to this myth (see Gers, etc.). In fact, intensive livestock farming floods our ground water and river systems with silage, which makes our highly advanced waste water treatment efforts more or less redundant. Agricultural waste products (from silage to tractor noise) are not subject to environmental legislation.

A powerful read, regrettably for now only in German.