It may look like Hell, but it actually is just turkey manure on fire. The fire is contained within the combustion chamber of a Bio-Fuel tube boiler recently installed on the crop and turkey farm owned by Mack Curtis of Snyder County, Pennsylvania. Curtis hosted a field day for the Snyder County Conservation District yesterday, and yours truly was there. My report on the visit, appears in the Lancaster Farming issue due in your mailbox Saturday.
Climate change could see winners in some parts of the world, losers in others according to a report today in The Economist. A farmer in Northern Bangladesh told the magazine's reporters that he is no longer able to follow the seasonal planting patterns of his forefathers, because he doesn't see seasons anymore. Moderate, temperate seasons are shorter and less predictable, and the rains, when they come, are often violent and destructive. International Food Policy Research Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, has released a report saying that in parts of the developing world some crop yields in 2050 could be only half of their 2000 levels. Irrigation may not help: climate change will hit irrigated systems harder than rain-fed ones. And the hope that gainers from climate change will outweigh losers looks vain: the damage from higher temperatures and erratic rainfall will be too big.
The IFPRI report focuses on agriculture in the developing world, and says that China and Mexico, for example, may fare better than other regions. South Asia, one of the world's most densely populated areas, could be hit hardest of all. The institute's research and predictions relied heavily upon two climate change models, one run by America’s National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the other by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
You can find The Economist story here:
Uh, Fluffy. Did you ever hear of "Pressing your luck?" http://video.yahoo.com/watch/2957486/8486392
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