Snails Save Bulgarian Farmers from Recession

Few industries have been spared during the global recession, with many still bracing for things to get worse before they get better. But farmers in Bulgaria have found a product that is seemingly recession-proof: snails. The cost to raise them is low and demand is so high, farmers can’t keep up with orders.

From MSNBC:

Businesses may shut by the day across Europe, and Bulgarian agriculture has been declining for 20 years, but snails — a delicacy particularly popular in France and Italy — have become a dynamic niche for the European Union’s poorest country.

September is harvest season and demand is outstripping supply for “escargots”, as the French call them (”ohlyuvi” in Bulgarian). The country has seized the chance to reinforce a position exporting luxury foods that are rarely consumed at home.

About 800 to 900 tons of snails and snail products — six times more than in 2008 — will be exported from Bulgaria this year to please the palates of aficionados, mostly in France.

300 new snail farms are set to open in Bulgaria next year as orders come in from all over Europe. People are really hungry for some snails.

Hey, sometimes tradition trumps smart spending, and people want little luxuries these days. Though why disgusting little slimy creatures are a luxury, I’ll never know.

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Flickr user AussieGall

Belgian Farmers go on Milk-Dumping Binge to Protest Low Prices

In Europe, you can get a liter of milk for 20 (Euro) cents. That doesn’t even begin to cover dairy farmers’ expenses – and to make a point, they’ve dumped millions of liters of the cow secretions into a field. The mass dumping was just the latest move in a protest that has also included blocking deliveries and holding back supplies.

From Reuters:

They blame both the European Commission and local governments and about 7,000 liters of milk was dumped in front of German agriculture ministry buildings in Bonn on Saturday.

Leaders of the protests say they want the European Union to freeze planned increases in production quotas and on Wednesday they demanded the creation of a pan-European institution to regulate the demand and supply of milk.

“It is really sad that we have to throw away the milk,” Romuald Schaber, president of the European Milk Board, said at a demonstration in Belgium where protesting farmers watched hundreds of tractors spew milk over fields.

“Our demands were not heard by the politicians.”

That field is seriously going to stink like hell for a while – and imagine all the hormones seeping into the soil. What a waste. Ironically, over in Britain, there’s a milk shortage, with British farmers saying they simply can’t meet the demand for milk. Dairies and supermarkets in Britain have to import millions of liters a day from abroad, but apparently that’s not enough to help out the angry European dairy farmers.

Link [Reuters] + [Times Online]
Photo credit: BBC

Exposure to Pesticides Linked to Parkinson’s Disease

If you live near a farm sprayed with a combination of pesticides, you may be at greater risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. New research has found that, when mixed, two common pesticides called maneb and paraquat have ill health effects that may explain the increased rates of Parkinson’s among farmers and rural residents.

From The Daily Green:

The scientists found that people who live within 500 meters of a field sprayed with the pesticides maneb and paraquat in combination, but not individually, had a 75 percent higher risk of Parkinson’s disease relative to controls. Being exposed to the mixture at a younger age resulted in an even higher risk. Individuals potentially exposed to these pesticides when they were 60 years old or younger were 5 times more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

These results are predicted by studies which showed that exposing rodents to maneb and paraquat together resulted in reduced motor activity, nerve cell loss and decreased levels the neurotransmitter dopamine in certain areas of the brain as observed in Parkinson’s patients. Animal studies also predicted Costello’s finding that effects of these pesticides would be more important when exposure occurred at a younger age. (See trade names and other information about maneb and paraquat. Maneb is sold as Manzate among other brand names. Paraquat is sold to consumers as Ortho Weed Killer among other brand names; its use is banned in several Scandinavian countries.)

If you’ve ever known someone with Parkinson’s disease, you know how devastating it can be. Studies like this really make you wonder about all of the chemicals we’re surrounded by on a daily basis. As the study points out, current safety evaluations are performed on chemicals individually, not when they’re combined – but we’re exposed to a combination of all kinds of different chemicals. Who knows what other modern health ills can be attributed to such chemical cocktails.

Link [The Daily Green]

Britain Attempts to Give Cauliflower an Eco-Friendly Makeover

Cauliflower: it’s bland, has a less-than-appetizing appearance and doesn’t pack quite the same nutritional punch as its cousin broccoli. But, British farmers hope to help bring this vegetable into vogue in the UK by branding it as a homegrown, eco-friendly alternative to imported veggies. Vegetable production has fallen by almost a third in Britain over the last decade as consumers have turned to more ‘fashionable’ vegetables.

From The Telegraph:

The Brassica Growers Association point out that cauliflower grows all year round in Britain and is therefore a constant source of locally-produced, low carbon food.

The organisation are hoping to take advantage of recent campaigns led by celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver to get people eating less processed food and more fresh fruit and vegetables. Cauliflower is not only good in traditional dishes like cauliflower cheese but works well in more modern food like stir fries and curries.

Phillip Effingham, chairman of the BGA, said it was time to reinstate cauliflower to its rightful place in British cuisine.

He said: “Britain seems to have fallen out of love with the cauliflower over the last 10 years and sales have been declining steadily. We want to encourage people to rediscover this hugely versatile and healthy vegetable and help stop its decline.”

Poor, overlooked cauliflower. Will this campaign work? Maybe, if it’s marketed to consumers as a way to save money during the global recession. It probably won’t become the star of Britain’s best culinary dishes (do they even have any of those?) but perhaps the allure of eating local and fresh will give it a bit of a boost.

Link [The Telegraph]
Photo credit: Slash Food

Agribusiness Threatens World’s Tropical Forests

The Rainforest Action Network is challenging one of the fastest growing threats to the world’s tropical forests: the rapid expansion of industrial agriculture. Fueled in part by the growing demand for biofuels, U.S. agribusiness giants ADM, Bunge and Cargill are establishing soy and palm oil operations in some of the planet’s most biodiverse forests.

Soy has become a major contributor to deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest and its surrounding wooded savanna, the Cerrado, while palm oil plantations are expanding at a rate of 2.5 million acres per year into the tropical forests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea.

RAN is calling on agribusinesses to protect these vital ecosystems by stopping industrial agriculture in these areas.

How can you help the world’s tropical forests? Join RAN’s Protect-an-Acre Program.

Galactic Green Cred: The Environmentalism of Star Wars

Not to make sweeping generalizations, but it’s probably safe to say that if you’re reading this blog you’re more than just a little familiar with Star Wars (and by Star Wars we mean the first three Lucas made). Maybe you can quote the movies at will. Maybe you still have your Return of the Jedi bedsheets. Maybe you read the fan fiction (hell, maybe you write the fan fiction). But, if you, like us, are nerdy little fanboys at heart, well, buckle up, because you’re about to love George Lucas’ space opera even more. It turns out that there’s actually a fair bit o’ green to be found in Star Wars.

1. Clean Energy For The Droids?

We see C-3PO and R2-D2 shut down occasionally, but we never do see them do anything to power themselves. Solar? Really big batteries that last through the film? The Mr. Fusion from Back To The Future? We don’t know. But we don’t see them suck in anything remotely resembling a fossil fuel, nor do we see them plug in. [Read more]

Opportunists See Dollar Signs as Food Prices Spur Rainforest Destruction

What do you know, chaos and suffering is causing some folks in the position of power to take advantage of the situation. Will wonders never cease?

As people are starting to get worried about the future of our food sources, farmers in Brazil are getting excited about the prospect of making money by cutting down trees in the rainforest, burning the land and making way for pasture and crops.

Envirolink has it:

“At the very edge of the agricultural frontier, it’s very dynamic and that’s why you get statistics for deforestation that swing wildly from one year to the next,” said Roberto Cavalcanti of Conservation International.

“A small shift in food prices can have a big impact on whether it’s economical or not to move into the forest.”

The governor of Mato Grosso, one of Brazil’s biggest farming states, last week advocated more deforestation as a solution to the sharp rises in staples such as rice that are threatening to push millions of people into hunger.

“There is no way to produce more food without occupying more land and taking down more trees,” Blairo Maggi, also Brazil’s largest soybean producer and widely known as the “King of Soy”, told the Folha news agency.

This seems like a really stupid move… at the first sign of a food crisis, we start moving in on the rainforests, which we’ve been trying to protect for decades? Isn’t there a better way, people? I’m no expert, but in the times of climate change and worries over the future of the entire planet, cutting down trees in the rainforest appears to be a very bad idea.

Link [Envirolink]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons