Don't Take Food for Granted

We all agree we need food to live. Drought in Africa and hurricanes in Haiti endanger lives. When the sunny, warm weather of June replaced May's surplus rainfall, Wisconsin't "Fabulous Farm Babe," Pam Jahnke, had good news for her radio audience: corn planting was 91% complete; soybean planting, 73% complete; and oats planting, 96% complete. Potato, pasture, alfalfa, and hay conditions also were coming along well.

     Besides the right amount of sun and rain, food crops require pollination and freedom from damaging pests and disease. The trouble is the neonicotinoid pesticide and glyphosate herbicide that crops, such as corn, soybeans, and alfalfa, have been genetically modified to survive cause bee pollinators and the milkweed wildflowers butterfly pollinators eat to die. Research indicates almonds, strawberries, peaches, avocados, and up to 140 crops depend on pollination. The cross-purpose of treating crops to resist pests and disease by killing the bee and butterfly pollinators many crops need to survive requires a major research solution.

     Monsanto, the seed and chemical company criticized for playing a role in every study that claims genetically modified crops are safe, donated a $10 million biotech lab facility to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in January, 2017. The installation's 28,000 square foot space accommodates 20 greenhouses and controlled environments in shade houses and light rooms that enable the university to do research on a scale with major companies. Although there has been no mention of studying the impact on bees of treating Monsanto's corn and soybean seeds with neonicotinoids or of creating plants that do not attract the insects that can destroy them, these would be excellent projects for what has been named the university's new Wisconsin Crop Innovation Center.

     Meanwhile, small scale farmers are in a position to plant crop seeds, untreated by neonicotinoid insecticide; to grow bee- and butterfly-friendly flowers (colorful zinnias, cosmos, and lavender), milkweed, and herbs; to leave woody debris and leaf litter undisturbed for bee breeding areas; and to avoid applying pesticides and herbicides to blooming flowers, weeds, and possible bee nesting areas.

      Finally, research suggests gardeners who want to discourage mosquitoes from ruining their outdoor activities should plant marigolds, citronella, lavender, basil, and catnip (mint).

World's Food Supply Needs Bees & Bees Need Help

One study found 40% of bee and butterfly pollinators are in decline around the world. As if bees didn't have enough problems with the neonicotinoid type of insecticide that has been causing their colonies to collapse since 2006, now they have to deal with the effects of climate change. When spring-like warming occurs too early, flowers can bloom before bees are ready to make their rounds. Crops of at least 140 nuts, fruits, and vegetables can suffer from a lack of pollination.

     In the US, clocks are about to be moved an hour ahead this weekend to signal the beginning of daylight saving time and the time to get seeds for planting flowers and food crops on commercial farms and in backyards, rain gardens at the curb, and community plots. The Sierra Club has been sending members packets of what the organization calls a "Bee Feed Flower Mix." These packets contain seeds for bee-tasty nectar and pollen from forget-me-nots, poppies, asters, blue flax, white sweet alyssum, lavender, fleabane daisies, and purple coneflowers. What is important is the seeds in these packets are Untreated.

     Untreated seeds are important because treated seeds, such as corn and soybean seeds, are coated with neonicotinoid insecticide to kill pests as soon as the seeds sprout. Frequent exposure to neuro-toxic pesticides that spread through a plant's leaves, pollen, and even nectar damage a bee's nervous and immune systems. While insects destroy plants, so too are strawberries, avocados, peaches, almonds, and other crops lost due to a lack of pollination by bees.

     Presented with a decade of evidence about simultaneous bee colony collapse and neonicotinoid use, the European Union suspended the use of neonicotinoid in 2013. In the US, the Department of Agriculture continues to study the problem, and the Saving America's Pollinators Act of 2015 failed to get out of a House of Representatives subcommittee.

     US consumers and farmers began to take matters into their own hands. There have been consumer campaigns against stores that sell neonicotinoid-treated plants. Gardeners started to grow bee-friendly flowers and to leave woody debris, leaf litter, and bare soil where bees can breed. You can find more on this subject in the earlier post, "Be Kind to Bees."

     Some farms also began to meet the bee health challenge. Besides planting vegetables, an organic farm couple in Minnesota planted flowering dogwood and elderberry hedgerows to attract bees, butterflies, and other insects that pollinate their crops. General Mills, a company that uses honey, fruit, and vegetable ingredients requiring pollination, is working with the Xerces Society and the Department of Agriculture to preserve pollinator habitat on 100,000 acres of US farmland. A plan to grow flowers and shrubs in narrow strips around crop fields is designed to restore seven million acres of land for pollinators in the next five years. But for farmers who usually grow single crops, a shift to diversify with flowers that attract pollinators is not easy. It requires analysis of farm land, how wet and dry it is, for example, and which plants will not attract the insects that could destroy their farm's crops.

     The battle to save bees, and the world's food supply, continues.
   

Are You Someone Who Says, "I don't cook?"

When I was helping out at a church luncheon yesterday, I was surprised to hear a woman say she had relatives coming for the weekend and she didn't cook. Unlike her, I look forward to having a house full of visitors who will gather around the table for meals and talk, which, I understand, is described in Spanish by the word, "sobremesa."

     With the joy of cooking fresh in my mind, I saw an internet item about the Common Threads program in Chicago and New York City that teaches low-income kids, in grades three to eight, to shop and prepare healthy, nutritious meals, when parents are busy and money is tight. In one aspect of the program, students learn about the history of a particular country's food, nutrition, and ingredients. It's a hands-on program that teaches cooking techniques and how to follow a recipe.

     Common Threads introduces students to new foods, like granola, whole wheat bread, cage-free chicken eggs, pesto, and various cheeses. Kids learn to make and love whole wheat pancakes, as well as salads and smoothies. There also is a gardening program, where kids might grow carrots and kale.

     Instead of expecting families to make radical new food choices all at once, Common Threads invites families to make gradual changes by adding just one or two new items to each shopping list. Families who grow their own food could try planting just one or two new crops.

     For more information about Common Threads and to sign up for a monthly newsletter, go to commonthreads.org/programs.

Teens Find Drought and Zika Remedies

Entering contests and writing to potential mentors not only can help individual students jump start their own careers but these proactive efforts also can help humanity. Dr. Hongjun Song, the mentor who received a letter from the student involved in Zika virus research, observed: "Unencumbered by previous experience, high school students aren't afraid of failure and are freer to try things than graduate students or postdocs."

Help for drought-starved crops

Kiara Nirghin, the 16-year-old South African girl who won the grand prize in Google's Science Fair (googlesciencefair.com), reasoned that a superabsorbent polymer (SAP) used in diapers could help soil retain more water when drought threatens crops. To avoid the pricey, less eco-friendly acrylic acid chemicals used in current SAPs, Ms. Nirghin tried creating a SAP by applying UV light and heat to avocado and orange peels. When sprinkled on fields, her polymer, which holds 300 times its weight in liquid, provides water for crops that would otherwise die from drought.
(Kiara Nirghin is among the world's 30 most influential teens TIME magazine lists at time.com/teens2016.)

Help for studying the Zika virus

At the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering and Applied Science, engineers developed a $2 genetic test to detect the Zika virus immediately by using color-changing dye in a device about the size of a soda can. The process requires no electricity or extensive technical training.
     Chris Hadiono, whose parents are U.S. immigrants from Indonesia, was a high school intern at Dr. Hongjun Song's neurology lab at John Hopkins University, when he developed a bioreactor device used to determine how the Zika virus causes the abnormal brain development which results in the small heads of newborn babies, i.e. microcephly, and many more problems.
     Using 3D printing instructions from a YouTube tutorial, Hadiono created a machine with gears that keep 12 "mini-brains" floating and growing in wells, each filled with about one teaspoon of nutrient rich liquid, by constantly stirring the liquid in all the wells at the same time.
     Before Hadiono's contribution, the neural tissue of human brains, "mini-brains," already could be produced by turning human skin cells (3D printers also can create human tissue and bone) into stem cells which could be turned into the neural stem cells that became human neural brain tissue resembling the human cerebral cortex affected by the Zika virus. And a magnetic bar could continuously stir a rich nutrient broth-like medium, or liquid, that enabled "mini-brains" to float and grow in all directions. The problem was the big device required too much costly medium and could only be used once to accommodate a few experiments at a time. With Hadiono's bioreactor device, at a much lower cost, researchers can see how the Zika virus infects and kills neural stem cells in 12 different parts of a human's cerebral cortex at the same time..  With the work of another teen, maybe prevention and a cure for microcephly will not be far behind.

Exotic Farming

If Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, and Bashar al-Assad suddenly planted vegetable gardens in the front yards of their residences, that would be exotic farming. When she was the US First Lady, Mrs. Obama did encourage young people to eat nutritional vegetables by planting a vegetable garden in the White House's backyard, and she invited students from Wisconsin and other States to help harvest the crops.

     Looking around the world you can find other examples of exotic farming. Until late in 2018, Pakistan kept eight buffaloes to provide milk for its prime minister. To grow alfalfa for nearly one million cows, Almarai, the largest dairy producer in oil-rich, water-poor Saudi Arabia, paid $31.8 million for 1,790 acres of land in California. Unfortunately, growing alfalfa there diverted water from the Colorado River that was needed by drought prone California.  Transporting heavy, bulky animal feed thousands of miles also required burning fossil fuel that emits the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

     Other examples of exotic farming offer better options. A London warehouse has become an aquaponic vertical farm that grows salad greens and herbs and produces fish. On the roof of a former factory in The Hague, Urban Farmers, a Swiss aquaponics system does the same. Berlin's Infarm modular, indoor hydroponic systems grow herbs, radishes, and greens right in Metro Cash & Carry supermarkets.

     Look up aquaponics and hydroponics on the internet. These exotic new urban agricultural projects can be near consumers in shops, restaurants, schools, and hospitals. They can provide job opportunities for those trained to find balconies and roof tops with micro climates that have sun and little wind, to decide what crops to plant, to monitor quality, and to find customers.

   

All I Want for Christmas Is Seeds

Who knew elves occasionally take a break from making toys to store seeds in Santa's warehouse. Although many put Syria on their naughty lists, in October, 2015 the Svalbard global seed vault half way between the north pole and Norway responded to an urgent request from the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (Icarda) and sent the 128 crates of wheat, barley lentil, chickpea, fava bean, pea, and legume seeds Syria needed.

     After seeds for another 70,000 crops were added to the Global Seed Vault in 2018, Svalbard now stores 1,059,646 seeds. 

     Svalbard, known as the "Noah's Ark of seeds," is just one of the storehouses for the diversity of seeds needed to grow fruits, vegetables, and grains; the collections of plants, like apples and grapes, that are not cultivated from seeds; and even the genetic material essential to maintain the bees that pollinate many crops.

     Individual farmers also are essential in the process of ensuring a lasting food supply. On one of his "Parts Unknown" TV programs, David Bourdain found restaurant owners in the US South have been searching for the seeds that grew foods popular before the US Civil War. They located seeds that had come down through the families of former slaves, when war wiped out the seeds held by plantation owners. When kids start collecting and drying seeds for diverse crops, they also will be getting involved in the vital task of protecting the world's food supply.

 Why is the world's food supply in danger? There are many reasons:

• Wars destroy farms. Research stations in Lebanon and Morocco are working to produce seeds and saplings to resupply Syria's farmers.
• Globalization of agriculture has concentrated seed production in companies that abandon many plant varieties in order to produce uniform, high-yield varieties. (See the earlier post, "World (Food) Expo. Hybrid Crops & New Farming Practices.")
• Pests and diseases can wipe out crops. (See the earlier post, "The Bees and the Birds.")
• Global warming has reduced the area suitable for farming. (See the earlier post, "Coffee Prices Going Up; Allowances Going Down?")
• Farmers have moved to urban areas to find work.
• Without a market, farmers have stopped growing foods that have gone out of favor when diets shifted to wheat, rice, potatoes, maize, soybeans, and palm oil.
• Deforestation has removed forests where plants thrive and evolve.

Kids used to get oranges and apples in their Christmas stockings. To be sure these fruits continue to exist, the world is counting on Santa to bring these goodies along with toys and candy.

An Army Moves on Its Stomach

Napoleon was right. Whether its the army of ISIS, the French Foreign Legion, or the US Marine Corps, food fuels military operations. I remember reading about an incident in the US Civil War, when General Lee's army arrived at a supply depot, found it completely empty, and knew the South's cause was doomed. Hunger (and thirst) saps energy and morale.

     Countries, causes, and individuals that underestimate agriculture's value are in trouble. Mohsin Hamid describes the misdirected rural to urban rush in his book, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. The billion dollars worth of items Alibaba sold on Singles Day are no more able to feed a single person than King Midas' gold. It is a great misfortune that Pakistan, with 180 million people, has only 20% of its GDP devoted to agriculture and that in Nigeria, with 170 million people, agriculture produces only 23% of its $510 billion GDP.

     Considering food's importance for everyone, not just armies, agriculture merits the attention of every country's best and brightest. Indeed, modern agriculture is every bit as dependent on skilled techies as fields that now employ digital whiz kids. To help kids discover the challenge of moving food around the world, draw or find a picture of a farmer on the right side of a paper or board and a grocery store on the left side. Start writing down all that needs to happen in between.

     What does it take in Uganda, Africa, to go from the gift of a $500 heifer from Heifer International (heifer.org) that produces three gallons of milk a day to the sale, in a local market, of some of the milk the family does not use? Consider all the steps between the woman growing cocoa for the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana, Africa, and the retailers selling chocolate bars in Europe. Here are just some possibilities:

• Ask local farmers or Peace Corps volunteers to provide training for raising animals
• Grow feed crops
• Buy disease-resistant seed
• Cool milk
• Buy a truck
• Produce fertilizer from compost to increase crop yields
• Contract shipping space on a cargo ship
• Form a 4H chapter to interest the younger generation in farming
• Pass land use laws to protect small farms from encroachment by corporate plantations
• Lease an acre of land
• Provide police and security measures to protect farmers from gang violence and terrorists
• Build a warehouse to store cocoa beans rather than selling them all at once for a lower price than the revenue that could be earned by selling them over a period of a year
• Install irrigation and water pumps

Nowadays, the "Moo monitors" that dairy farmers attach to their cows' collars produce data about the health of their herds. Machines can pick almost every crop. GPS satellite technology enables farmers to monitor weather, judge the health of their crops, pin point the application of pesticide sprays and fertilizers, spot weeds, and measure yields as crops are being cut. Satellites even monitor the temperature and humidity of produce carried by sea in shipping containers in order to predict its condition for sale on arrival. Thanks to government funding and developers in companies like Planet Labs in San Francisco, which has developed small earth observation satellites that can fit in a shoebox, subsistence farmers will be able to utilize this up-to-date technology.

     Already, in countries with impassible roads that subject supplies and produce shipments to long delays, the widespread use of mobile phones enables farmers and fishermen to arrange trades, sales, and payment transfers.

     Since we all move on our stomachs, we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." The world is depending on kids to get involved in producing and distributing the food we all need to live.

                          Also, check out a few of the earlier posts on food and farming:

• Can Small Farms End Poverty?
• Nigeria's New Beginning
• World (Food) Expo, Hybrid Crops & New Farming Practices
• Back to the Land
• Dairy Cows on the Moove
• The Bees and the Birds
• Chocolate's Sweet Deals
• Coffee Prices Going Up, Allowances Going Down?

     

Coffee Prices Going Up; Allowances Going Down?

Children may be looking at a cut in their allowances, if the adults who provide them are big coffee drinkers.

     A quick lesson in economics teaches disposable income is the money people bring home from work after taxes are removed. For most people, a large portion of disposable income pays for such necessities as food, housing, transportation, and clothing. After paying for these necessities, what is left over is discretionary income that can be spent on things like a mango, doll, game system, or any other things children want.

     For those who need their morning cups of coffee, the anticipated increase in the world's price of coffee beans will reduce the amount of disposable income they have left over for discretionary spending. Is an allowance a necessity that has a claim on disposable income? If it is, it won't be affected by higher coffee prices. But a child's allowance may suffer, if the adult paying it considers an allowance in the same category as discretionary spending for a new toy. Increased coffee prices that reduce the amount of disposable income left over for discretionary income can cause a reduction in a child's allowance. If that happens, older children might decide to look for jobs that give them an income and the power to decide their own disposable and discretionary spending.

     Considering a wider economic context, kids might learn to ask why coffee, banana, soda, bus fare, and other prices go up and down. When a supply increases and demand stays the same, prices go down. But, when supplies decline and consumer demand increases, prices also increase. That explains a coffee price increase.

     In Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, because of climate change, temperatures are rising in the high altitude tropical regions that grow high-quality Arabica coffee beans. There, coffee bean output is threatened by the pests and plant disease that flourish because of long periods of drought and short periods of heavy rainfall. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia suggests survival for Arabica growers will require them to move 300 to 500 meters farther above sea level, an impossibility for Brazil's highly mechanized, commercial coffee plantations that supply 70% of the world's 1.6 billion cup daily coffee demand.

     Although growing coffee under a canopy of trees, such as shown in the photo of coffee growing in Mexico, would increase the predators that feast on insects that damage coffee beans, reduce the costs of chemical pesticides and fertilizer, and curtail polluting run-off, for all but a few specialty brands, the trend in the past 20 years has been away from shade-grown coffee. High-yield Robusta coffee, like that grown in Vietnam and Indonesia, can withstand higher temperatures, but its lower quality is used mainly for instant coffee. Wet processed coffee beans from the Indonesian island of Sumatra gives them a different taste that some coffee drinkers dislike but others enjoy, especially when, for example, McDonald's mixes them with beans from other sources.

     Whatever the coffee type, the same conflicts the palm oil and timber industries face regarding deforestation, questions of land ownership, competition among food crops, and water scarcity affect all types of coffee growers.

     While the future of coffee production is uncertain, increased demand is certain. Using Arabica grown in Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Tanzania, Starbucks, in partnership with Taste Holdings, is planning to open in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2016. Positioned as part of the fashionable, upscale urban scene in Shanghai and Beijing, coffee consumption in traditional tea-drinking China is growing faster than anywhere else in the world. Although China's four-cup-per-person-per-year is very low compared to the U.S. and Europe, Starbucks and Costa are responding to the potential for growth by planning to double and triple the number of their shops in China by 2020. Sumerian, a local company, also has entered China's coffee shop scene. Although China currently imports most of its coffee beans, domestic growers have increased their production from 60,000 to 120,000 tons in five years. Unfortunately, most Chinese coffee is grown in the sun in southern Puer, Yunnan, where more fertilizer and water are required and, at the moment, all but 30% of Yunnan's coffee is exported because it is a lower quality than what Chinese shops prefer to serve.

     With coffee consumption increasing, coffee bean growers have an incentive to solve production problems and meet high quality standards. Children who receive an allowance from coffee-drinking adults have an incentive to keep an eye on coffee prices.

Chocolate's Sweet Deals

In addition to giving boxes of chocolates as gifts this holiday season, consider giving stocks in cocoa processing plants. But keep an eye on the competition, since the growing demand for chocolate among billions of people in emerging markets, which is expected to increase cocoa processing by 15% in the next ten years, can raise prices on the supply of cocoa beans which has suffered from drought conditions, and it will put a squeeze on profits.

     As an example of increased competition, check out how Olam International, headquartered in Singapore, has just become a major competitor with Barry Callebaut AG and Cargill Inc. In addition to shelling out $176 million to a U.S. peanut processor, Olam, which recently purchased the cocoa unit of Archer-Daniels-Midland for $1.3 billion, now has eight cocoa processing plants, including one in the Ivory Coast. The U.S. recently acted to block imports of the UK's Cadbury chocolate which has a higher fat content and creamier taste than Hershey's chocolate. Hershey claimed Cadbury's product names and packaging infringed on their trademark rights and licensing agreements.

     Based on projections of a growing demand for chocolate in emerging markets, there is an opportunity for cocoa bean growers in developing countries, by themselves or in conjunction with major processors, to set up their own plants to satisfy local demand. Further, since chocolate can melt when transported in warm weather, local producers have a major incentive to supply emerging markets with locally-produced chocolate products.

     The Kuapa Kokoo Cocoa Cooperative in Ghana, Africa, is already a working model of how cocoa growers can benefit by developing a relationship with processors and distributors. Before selling to the cooperative, growers were at the mercy of a state cocoa buying company that did not always pay on time and sometimes cheated when weighing their cocoa beans. Now, the cooperative, working with Divine Chocolate and the fair trade company, SERRV, (serrv.org/divine), participates in the profits generated from the production and marketing of a wide variety of gourmet chocolate bars, chocolate mint thins, Kosher certified milk and dark chocolate coins, and a day-by-day, chocolate heart-filled Advent calendar.

     For other ideas of how to make a profit in Africa, see the earlier blog posts, "Never Too Young to Invest in the Future" and "Discover Africa."

 

Back to the Land

The world needs food. Too many are starving, and too many are unemployed. As summer approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the perfect time for kids to discover the art of farming, not only to feed their families, but also to earn money. Whether at a roadside stand, farmers' market, or open bazaar, there is income to be made by selling vegetables, herbs, fruit, plants, flowers, and seeds. A youth group, for example, grows tomatoes and peppers in a community garden, cooks them, and packages salsa for sale. A bride who wanted her reception to be filled with sunflowers paid neighborhood youngsters to grow them.

     Farming can be simple or sophisticated. There are ready-made kits that include the proper seeds and soils children need for indoor gardens of basil, parsley, thyme, and other herbs that can be used in cooking. These kits come with directions for the amount of light and moisture plants need. Usually plants need 12 to 16 hours of light a day near a window, but strong, prolonged sunlight is harmful. It is a good idea to turn plants around once a week, since they will grow lopsided toward the light otherwise. The best water for plants is tap water that has been left out overnight to reach room temperature and to let some of its chemical content evaporate. Adding eggshells to the water left out overnight enriches the solution.

     It also is fun for children to try to grow a plant from plump apple, lemon, orange, or grapefruit seeds that have been washed and dried. Begin by covering the drainage hole in a 4-inch flowerpot with a thin layer of clean small stones and adding about 2 cups of potting soil up to an inch from the top of the pot. (It is possible to remove insects and disease from any outdoor soil by spreading it in a pan, heating it in an oven at 180 degrees for a half hour, and letting it cool.) Lay several seeds of the same fruit on the soil, cover with 1/4-inch of soil, carefully water with room temperature tap water and repeat when needed to keep soil moist, place in a sunny spot, and see if sprouts develop in 3 weeks or longer.

      At the end of the earlier post, "A Healthy Environment," there is a detailed description for growing an outdoor garden. According to the National Gardening Association, about 40 million households in the U.S. are growing herbs, vegetables, or fruits, because they want to save money and to raise healthy, organic produce. In an item in the AARP magazine (August/September, 2014), frugal living expert Erin Huffstetler claimed many fruits and nuts are very easy to grow and that there are varieties that suit almost any climate. In particular, she mentiond raspberry, blueberry, and strawberry plants, red seedless grapes, cherry bushes, and almond trees.

     In a backyard or community garden, planting a mixture of crops and flowers discourages the pests that like to feast on one particular plant, and using compost cuts down on the need for and cost of using synthetic fertilizer. Using compost, other natural fertilizers and pesticides, mulch, hand-weeding, crop rotation, and earthworms, it is possible to feed the soil, reduce pest infestations, and manage weeds without pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, or other chemicals. (At the end of the earlier blog post, "A Healthy Environment," How Does Your Garden Grow? describes the composting process.) African subsistence farmers even have increased yields by composting and reducing the need for pesticides by growing diverse crops.

      Iroquois Valley Farms in Illinois has come up with a way to help farmers, at any age, become organic farmers. Before leasing a conventional farm of at least 80 acres to a tenant, it takes three years for a diverse rotation of crops and earthworms to rebuild soil fertility naturally. After seven years, Iroquois Valley Farms offers the new organic farmer a purchase option.

     School projects often lend themselves to farming experiments. Water one part of a garden at night and one during the day to see which plants thrive best. Take a photo of each plot. Supposedly, since less water evaporates at night, that section should look better. Or weed one section and not another. Plants that share water and soil nutrients with weeds should be smaller. Over several years a student could document the effect of rotating crops by planting the same crop over and over every year in one section of a garden and, in other years, alternating that crop with different ones, even flowers, in a nearby section of the same garden. If there are trees on the southern and western sides of a building, see how much cooler the temperature is there compared to the temperature on the other sides of the building.

     Experiments with cross-breeding are not new to farmers who have wanted to deter pests, increase yields, and produce crops that tolerate drought, floods, and soil contamination by salt water.The fast growing, high yield rice strain credited with preventing famine in India was the result of cross-breeding a dwarf strain of rice from Taiwan and a taller variety from Indonesia. What is new is the ability to identify the DNA marker or markers in seedlings with desirable genes and to use marker-assisted breeding to produce high yield and other specialized crops. It should be noted, however, that U.S. Department of Agriculture standards do not permit organic farms to use genetically modified hybrid seeds.

     Companies, such as Monsanto and DuPont, have profitable seed patents on genetically modified seeds that grow corn, soybeans, and cotton. Before the U.S. pressured Sudan to expel Osama bin Laden in order to purge the country of involvement in al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks, he used to invite visitors to the laboratory where he was developing high quality seeds appropriate for Africa. According to Lawrence Wright's book, The Looming Tower, bin Laden claimed the Dutch had a monopoly on the best banana pods, and he thought Muslims should devote similar diligence to the process of genetically engineering plants.

     Whether children live in the city or the suburbs, they can develop an appreciation for how farmers around the world produce the food they eat. An earlier post, "The Bees and the Birds," tells how the pollination process for producing fruits and nuts relies on bees. Why do radio stations like WGN have farm reports telling how much soybeans are selling for? Farmers who know corn is going for $6 a bushel figure the cost of growing a bushel of corn to see if they can make a profit. (An earlier post, "Dairy Cows on the Moove," discusses the costs and income of cows.) Children cannot see the sensors embedded in some fields that monitor when water is needed or the drip irrigation methods other fields use to prevent water loss to wind, runoff, and evaporation. But on a drive in rural areas, they may see the long arms of machines irrigating a dry field. At petting zoos, kids can get up close to goats, and at state and county fairs, they can see prize winning animals and produce. In fall, they might visit a farm for a hay ride or walk through a corn maze.

     Away from video games and trash littered highways, in the country, children and adults come face to face with their interrelationship with the natural environment.

The Bees and the Birds

The children catching and releasing fireflies this summer may know they are running after beetles rather than flies or gloworms, and they may be training to protect the world from disease-carrying insects or from dangerous insecticides. While some kids panic at the sight of bees, spiders, and cockroaches, others watch caterpillars walk up their arms and might become the inspectors who keep dangerous insects out of countries or observe, as Rachel Carson did, how deadly an insect repellent like DDT can be.

     Angela Banner, the UK author of the Ant and Bee little board book series, viewed insects as friends. Since the early 1960s, her books have taught children to read, count, and tell time; and to identify animals, colors, and shapes. In the book, Around the World With Ant and Bee, her insects are globe trotters.

     Of course, while some insects are friendly, others carry disease and cause crop damage around the world. As climate change and globalization spread tropical diseases that have become resistant to insecticides, British researchers now have developed genetically modified male mosquitoes that can kill the mosquito larvae of the unmodified females they mate with. To eliminate fungus-causing Dutch Elm disease, it has been necessary to cut down scores of elm trees infected by beetles. And history is filled with stories of the devastation caused by germ-carrying insects. In the Old Testament, the Book of Exodus tells of plagues of mosquitoes, gadflies, and locusts. When children hear about the Black death; the mosquitoes that spread malaria and yellow fever; typhus; the bubonic plague; the tsetse fly that carries sleeping sickness; and lyme disease from ticks, they may want to destroy every ant hill they see. It then may be time to watch The Ant Bully or ANTZ to gain insight into the life of an ant or A Bug's Life" in order to empathize with an ant colony's trouble with grasshoppers. The Beetle Book by Steve Jenkins does what it can to gain respect for beetles.

     Kids can learn to respect the bees, moths, and butterflies that pollinate fruit trees and vegetable and nut plants by carrying the pollen that fertilizes the cells that produce plant seeds. Hives of 25,000 bees were valued at $83,000, when they were stolen in France in 2014. Consequently, it has been a serious problem ever since honey bees suddenly began to suffer colony-collapse disorder in 2006. Time magazine (June 1, 2015) reports that beekeepers lost almost half of their colonies between April 2014 and April 2015.

     To find chemicals to replace the neonicotinoids that kill bees with alternative sprays that control crop damage from other insects has been a challenge. Since new research also suggests the glyphosate chemical in the Roundup herbicide that is an effective weed killer in corn and soy fields has the unfortunate side effect of killing the milkweed monarch butterflies feed on during their migrations to and from Mexico every year, the search for new ways to differentiate between the control of certain insects and weeds and the protection of other endangered insects goes on.

     With as much as almost a quarter of U.S. crops dependent on bee pollination, new hives have appeared in various locations, such as just off a path in the Obrich botanical garden in Madison, Wisconsin, and in the 84-acre campus arboretum at American University in Washington, D.C. In May, 2015 Washington issued a National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators that aims to restore seven million acres of the native flowers that nourish bees

      Normally, hives of honeybees that are native to Europe are rented to farmers when, for example, their apple and cherry crops are in full flower. To foster experimentation with different approaches, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has given a five-year research grant to the Integrated Crop Pollination Project that coordinates the work of government agencies, not-for-profit associations, and private firms. At Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Kelly Garbach lists a number of projects being tried. As disease reduces the European honeybee population, native U.S. bee species might be able to pollinate certain crops, either on their own or in combination with traditional honeybees. A Time magazine article, "The Plight of the Honeybee" (August 19, 2013), told how researchers are trying to produce "a more resilient honeybee" by cross-breeding species. One of the reasons native bees have been overlooked is because they are very small, only half the size of European honeybees. Another reason for bee research is changing climate conditions. If bees could live full time in one location, it would be less costly and more advantageous than trying to figure the best time for beekeepers to provide them. Dr. Garbach plans to identify innovators who can mentor others who want to adopt successful new pollination practices.

       In addition to bees, other insects also perform good works. Insects feed birds, and, of course, for thousands of years, silk cloth has been made from the threads that caterpillars use to make their cocoons. Some insects and birds also kill harmful bugs that feed on crops and live stock. Nonetheless, flies, fleas, ticks, lice, and mites can bother and infect animals. Beetles eat fruit trees and potatoes, and in their form as grubs, beetles eat the roots of corn, pasture grass, and strawberries. Children even may have seen clothes that have been damaged by moths and carpet beetles that eat wool.

    Youngsters interested in discovering which insects are helpful and which are harmful can grow up to be the entomologists that control insect pests. Edward O. Wilson, a global expert on ants, has written the book, Letters to a Young Scientist, that will interest and inspire future entomologists. On National Public Radio, Wilson said that he had a childhood love of "creepy-crawly things" and a passion and persistence to be a scientist who studied them. All children who have seen how fast ants appear on picnic tables can make sure they don't attract flies and other disease-carrying insects by leaving food uncovered in the house. Outside, they can make sure to throw food away only in closed garbage bins.

      Farmers know vast fields planted with the same crop attract swarms of the insects that like to feed on that crop. During the early 20th century, boll weevils destroyed millions of dollars worth of the U.S. cotton crop. In their own gardens, youngsters can learn the benefit of cutting down on the attraction of insects by planting a variety of vegetables and flowers. They also might look for, or hope in the future to help develop, plants engineered to be pest-resistant. (For other innovative ideas related to crops, go to the earlier blog posts, "Back to the Land" and "A Healthy Environment.")

     Artists Hubert Duprat and Kathy Kyle know just how good some insects can be. They give little moth-like caddisfly larvae, that protect themselves by constructing armor by "gluing" together gravel, sand, twigs, and other debris, gold flakes, opal, turquoise, rubies, and pearls to make beads that can be strung together into one-of-a-kind necklaces, earrings, key chains, and zipper pulls.

     As a bit more practical matter, children can be on the lookout for standing water that should be drained to keep mosquitoes from breeding. Although only a handful of the world's 80,000 species of mosquitoes bite and transmit diseases, such as malaria, dengue (black bone fever), and chikungunya, these diseases are life threatening. When kids recognize the importance of protecting themselves from mosquito bites by using insect repellent when they go outside and by installing screens to keep mosquitoes out of their homes, they can start thinking about raising money to protect African children with mosquito nets. On the Internet, the key words, "mosquito nets" lead to a number of organizations that need funds to do this job. UNICEF, for example, has an "Inspired Gift" program to provide the world's poorest children with mosquito nets. Kids and adults can find details about this program at my earlier blog post, "Hope for the Future."