The End of Plenty by Joel K Bourne

Subtitled The Race to Feed a Crowded World, The End of Plenty offers case studies from across the globe to highlight the issues facing agricultural scientists and farmers as they struggle to feed a growing population.

Joel K Bourne examines the contribution made to agriculture by innovations including the green revolution, genetically modified foods and organic growing. He outlines both the positive and the negative aspects of each of these, for example as well as outlining how the green revolution increased food production, he also highlights how that revolution damaged wildlfe through overuse of pesticides.

Bourne criss-crosses the world to bring the reader case studies from farms across the world, including visiting some of the thousand Chinese pig farms that produce 10,000 hogs each every year and investigating how Ukraine's agricultural sector has fared since the fall of Communism and the radioactive fallout of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Having lived in Malawi, I was particularly interested in his investigations into that country's agricultural performance. I was initially impressed to read of the excellent performance of many farms in Malawi, particularly those in the so-called Millenium Villages (villages where huge investment has been pumped in to help the area meet Millenium Development Goals). However further reading reveals that the overall performance in the country hasn't been so good with the Malawian governmental estimates of agricultural production not being borne out by research by independent agencies.

The book also investigates issues such as population growth and the increasing trend towards using farm land and farm crops to produce biofuels, both of which impact on our future ability to feed ourselves.

(For anyone who is nervous about the population question, it is very interesting to note that:

'if all the world's unwanted pregnancies were prevented - meaning all women on the planet had access to family planning services and free contraceptives and were able to have only the number of children they wanted - the average global fertility rate would drop below the replacement rate of 2.1 almost overnight. This would lead to a global population of .....3 billion fewer to feed than the current median UN projections in 2100.')

This is an excellent, accessible well researched book for anyone interested in the future of food.

The End of Plenty by Joel K Bourne published by Scribe. 

Disclaimer: I was sent a free copy of this book to review. 

All the colours of autumn

I took a beginners' birdwatching class round Edinburgh Botanic Gardens today, always a good place to see birds. We started at the pond, which is a perfect place to start as water birds tend to stay relatively still. We saw plenty of birds too, I think people were most impressed by the grey heron and the grey wagtail.

I sneaked back into the gardens after class to take some photos - firstly of the orange peel fungus, which is still very small but already quite impressive and certainly a beautiful colour

Then I found these gentians,with the wonderful patterns on the buds and on the outside of the open flowers

I also met this rather handsome cat!

Easter Craiglockart HIll

We had a lovely walk round Easter Craiglockart Hill today.

We also visited the nearby Craiglockart Pond 

where we met this young mute swan

October Butterflies and other delights of an Indian Summer

Another beautiful day today, our lovely early autumn is more than making up for our lack of good weather during the summer! I joined Crafty Green Boyfriend for his lunchtime walk round Corstorphine HIll today.

The trees are definitely taking on their autumn colours and looking beautiful against the brilliant blue sky

The rosebay willowherb (fireweed) has fully taken on autumn colours

We were delighted to see two butterflies, this peacock

and this red admiral

Also this Eristalis hoverfly

and this spider, whose web was glowing so nicely in the sunshine

We also had a great view of a sparrowhawk, but it was too much in a rush to stop to be photographed!

Autumnal upcycled earrings

The large beads in these earrings come from broken earrings I found in one of the bargain bags of broken jewellery I buy from local 2nd hand shops. I love these big beads and wanted to keep them as earrings, but one of the earrings was entirely broken and the missing beads weren't in the bag so I redesigned them entirely using small beads from a different set of broken earrings.

As one of the big beads is obviously more worn than the other (and because I like them so much!) I'm keeping these for myself!

Travelling Seeds by Rebecca Bielawski

 

Travelling Seeds is just one book from the Mummy Nature series of beautifully illustrated books that introduce children to nature.

This short book shows a child observing a pear on a tree, which then gets eaten by a cute brown-eyed cow who then wanders off leaving the seeds of the pear in its poo!

The story of how animals help to spread fruit seeds is told in rhyme to help the story become memorable with lots of questions thrown in to encourage the child to interact with the story.

It's a simple, delightfully engaging tale that introduces children to the idea of how animals can help spread fruit seeds.

Hopefully after reading this, children will be keen to look out for animals eating fruit in the wild!

Travelling Seeds by Rebecca Bielawski.  

Also see Rebecca's Amazon page.

Disclaimer: I received a free ebook to review.

Indian Summer at Musselburgh

This year our summer was very disappointing, but early autumn is giving us the best weather of the year! Today was wonderfully warm and sunny at Musselburgh. Even the plants seem a bit confused by the seasons, like these sow thistles which are starting to seed, looking lovely with the various flower heads at different stages from flower to seed

There are spiders' webs everywhere, plenty like this one, which caught my eye

Lots of birds around too, but the highlight of the day was a hummingbird hawk moth, only the 2nd I've ever seen! Unfortunately it didn't want to be photographed.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.