Getting Real about Food in the World : Food Security and Small Farmers

342nd Meeting : Tuesday, January 17th 2012 : A talk and presentation by Professor Lindsay Falvey

At an AIST (Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology) seminar last November, Andre Drenth (University of Queensland) gave a talk entitled ‘The Impact of Globalisation and Plant Diseases on Food Security’. This was a fascinating history of agriculture, input technologies, trade, biosecurity, pathogens, and the importance of crop protection.

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An African Xmas Tree in Chiang Mai

While Europeans may miss their traditional green and red holly over Christmas in Chiang Mai people from the Horn of Africa can find one of their most precious exports growing in abundance  in the wooded hills south of the road to Pai at Sop Poeng in Mae Daeng District just a few kilometres East of  the Mok Fah Waterfall.

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In November we suggested as a way to help the people of the flooded Chaophraya plain whose gardens had died, people in the north could grow trees and send south to plant.

Staff of the Forest Department have warmed to this idea and arrangements have been made for the Nakhorn Sawan Forest Nursery – คุณ สุจิตรา หัวหน้าสวนรุกขชาตินครสวรรค์ โทร.089-4370059 – to receive plants donated by Chiang Mai forest nurseries.

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Chiang Mai residents may recall the hype in 2010 about the so-called “Chiang Mai Iam”, pronounced Ye-em meaning best which some would prefer to call “Chiang Mai Yeah” – Yeah meaning really bad. Associated with Chiang Mai Yeah was “Keow Suay Hom” supposedly about greening and perfuming the city.

One year on and we see the results – accelerated destruction of trees and totally asphalt surrounds of the two new municipal buildings – City Hall & the Bus Station.

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My neighbor tells me of a flood years ago on the Chaopraya plain where all the trees, which were mainly fruit trees died except for big American Rain Trees.

I asked her about Don Takien (Hopea odorata), the famous spirit tree which one lined all our rivers and used for making war canoes. “Oh they are all long gone” she said.

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Sorry for the late notice.

Friday 21st October 2011 @ JJ Market meeting hall – (located near Tesco Lotus Kam Tien) @ 2 p.m

a planning meeting for Thai Environment Day 5th December 2011.  &

 

Ricky Ward from Australia

will give a lecture on

Plants for erosion control

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After four days travelling in Laos, including two along the MeKhong upstream from LuangPaBang to Chiang Khong ,and seeing NO good farm land management, numerous landslides taking croplands down into the red streams and swidden farming the whole way along the MeKhong except for occasional forest patches, this very pertinent email arrived. The sender is bird-watcher Khun Iain, formerly a tree planter with Gum Hak Doi Suthep, now living in the Shetland Islands.

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Bush planting in September in Chiang Mai is usually not recommended.  For best growth and survival in the dry seasons plant early once the rains have come and brought moisture to soften the soil. However this year as well as some very early May planting – impossible in 2010 when even in the first week of June the ground was rock hard – we have tried a small planting of mainly understorey plants.

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Just back from Nan & Phrae yesterday and witnessing Eucalypus die back over several provinces. Somewhat less severe it appears in the degraded hills coming into Lampang from Phrae.

What might the cause be? No sign of insect attack on this exotic unpalatable species. It is said there is only one species of native bird that will consider nesting in a Eucy so not say parrots tearing off leaves and flowers as seen in Australia. No sign of widespread ring barking and hardly likely there is a campaign to poison the trees.

Well what is different this year that may be the culprit. If my mother were still alive she would surely blame the weather. This year has seen the longest wet season in my 12 years in Thailand, with good rains in May, excellent for planting native trees. One might expect the Eucalyptus camaldulensis, also known as the River Red Gum to be prospering. Yes they love to grow near rivers and around swamps and flooding spreads their seed but the Red Gum is also drought tolerant and like Teak needs a period when the ground is dry.

Australia, the land of the Eucalyptus, has seen widespread death from causes as diverse as insect attack and soil compaction by cattle, but the most insidious has been the root fungus Phytophthora cinnamoni which is spread by water in the ground. Can we have advice from a tree pathologist in Thailand?

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