#crop failure

[thestudentfarmer]

November 2, 2024

October came and went like a lightening bolt, my apologies it's been a bit since I posted, things have gotten a bit crazy this way with some personal things. With luck now the October shuffles just about done and the November tubslide will be a bit gentler.

Onto some urban homesteading and otherwise~

I'm going to have to restart my fall seeds. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a situation which killed off my seed table and started plants entirely. For the most part, it's sorted, but I'll have to begin my fall and winter crops from scratch and hope there's time for em to grow. Otherwise I'll need to figure some other crops instead. Probably more chicken food or flowers/peas instead.

Thankfully, the already established in ground crops were okay for the most part. Some a bit stressed or stunted from lack of consistent watering.

Sweet potato has already started flowering now, i really didn't get any greenery from it so far (mayby a pound), so I'm just gonna let it keep going for now. When it msotly dies back I'll dig them out.

The sunchoke has now begun flowering, it's rather different than the last flowering I thought it did. Mayby a regular sunflower got mixed in? I did plant them around the time the regular sunflowers started sprouting.

I'm pretty excited to try the Tubers out, if there's enough for a decent harvest. Otherwise I'm taking them and spreading to another bit of the garden for fill in and propogation.

I can confirm, we do have a rooster. His name is Heihei. He's not gone through full second molt, but we've seen his curly feather, now hear his crowing and have caught him doing what roosters do lol.

Looks like I may get to try out hatching after all :)

No new layers so far, but hoping soon :)

Spotted this feather, which i believe belongs to one of the local woodpeckers. (I didn't take it, not allowed where I live)

Also have started spotting hummingbirds more locally and regularly. The parrots have returned again, though they aren't currently visiting us (no sunflowers yet ) and I think we've had a few female cardinals visit the lambs quarter plant I'm letting go to seed. Haven't noticed much in new bug species.

I got to learn how to change tires on a dolly this month. It was quite a bit easier than expected, cost less than $30 and gave new life to a good tool.

Thats it for now, ive got some chores to do and hopefully some time to get garden set up a bit :) new photos and updates coming ASAP!

🌱🍊Happy Urban homesteading🍊🌱

[rjzimmerman]

Historic famine looms as drought grips East Africa

Four failed rainy seasons and supply chain disruptions threaten millions with food insecurity.

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

According to the United Nations, the worst famine of the twenty-first century is unfolding in the Horn of Africa. For months, a climate-change-fueled drought of historic proportions and supply chain disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine have combined to cause severe food shortages in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya.

Famine experts expect the situation to deteriorate through the fall and winter. A recent report from the Food Security and Nutrition Working Group of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a trade block representing East African countries, found that more than 25 million people across the region could be experiencing dire food insecurity by early 2023.

“The drought this year was both the most extensive on record and the most intense on record,” Chris Funk, the director of the Climate Hazards Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told Grist. He said a combination of climate change and La Niña weather patterns have produced five consecutive dry seasons, which has all but destroyed the domestic food supply in Somalia and its neighboring countries.

According to the latest estimates from UNICEF, more than 7 million people in Somalia alone are already experiencing severe food shortages — around half the country’s population. That includes more than 1.5 million children under the age of five. In addition, 4.5 million Somalis are currently facing severe water shortages. More than 700 children have died in malnutrition treatment centers across the country, though experts caution that the figure is likely an undercount.

[petula-xx]

The Shitty Summer

I have just had my worst Summer home vegie growing season ever.

A wet, cool Spring that dragged into Summer and an early Autumn cool down has left me with loads of plants that either never set fruit, aborted fruit or started die back before maturity. I’ve had failures with pumpkins, watermelon, rock melons, cucumbers, capsicum, onions and scarlet runner beans. Tomatoes have had a reduced yield too.

Lots of resources have gone into crops that have literally produced nothing this Summer thanks to a late start and early finish to Summer growing conditions.

I’m currently ripping out the wasted Summer veg plants and stuffing them into the compost bin, out of my sight.

I’ve never been so happy to welcome the Autumn growing season in my life.

[indizombie]

Drought is a complex phenomenon. You can have an agricultural drought, for instance, even where there is no meteorological drought. That is, you can have adequate rainfall and still have crop failure. Or you can have hydrological drought, with marked depletion of rivers, streams, springs and fall in groundwater levels. The reasons for these are well known but seldom addressed. It is so much nicer to just put the whole thing down to nature's vagaries. It also works this way because so many forces, at different levels, are either integrated, or get co-opted, into the drought industry... The next year the same problems will crop up all over again because the real issues were never touched.

P Sainath, 'Everybody Loves a Good Drought'

[earthlaughsinflowers]

August 23, 2020

I am so distraught because my garden has become overrun with disease after we had a rough month of rainstorms. I haven’t encountered this tye of problem before so I’m not sure exactly what it is. I think the zucchini and squash have mildew/fungal disease and the tomatoes, beand and bell peppers have some kind of blight? Its so bad, all thier leafs are yellow and spotted and they are no longer producing. I’m super upset at the possibility of it being soil borne illnesses that will stay in my container soil over winter and ruin my growing next year as well. I really can’t afford to replace all the soil next year. I’ve been slowly accumulating more soil every year I’ve the container garden and reusing it by just amending it in the springtime. If all the soil in ruined now, I will be back to square one with the entire garden and don’t even know how I will be able to dispose of all the current soil since it has taken lots of work over the course of 5 years to just get all this soil up on the rooftop deck to begin with. This year has been very bad and the garden was like my only sollice, now its adding to my worry and depression. Very sad. 😿💔

[doomsayersunited]

B.C. heat wave 'cooks' fruit crops on the branch in sweltering Okanagan and Fraser valleys | CBC News

Temperatures hovered above 40 C during last week's heat wave in the Okanagan and Fraser valleys.

Turns out heat waves kill food crops too.

[rjzimmerman]

Two new studies looking at corn and vegetables warn of a rising risk of food shocks and malnutrition with unchecked global warming.

Excerpt:

Climate change will increase the risk of simultaneous crop failures across the world's biggest corn-growing regions and lead to less of the nutritionally critical vegetables that health experts say people aren't getting enough of already, scientists warn.

Two new studies published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences look at different aspects of the global food supply but arrive at similarly worrisome conclusions that reiterate the prospects of food shocks and malnutrition with unchecked global warming. While developing tropical countries would likely be hardest hit, the destabilizing financial effects could reach all corners of the globe, the authors say.

One paper analyzed corn—or maize—the world's most produced and traded crop, to project how climate change will affect it across the major producing regions. Much of the world's corn goes into feeding livestock and making biofuels, and swings in production can ripple through global markets, leading to price spikes and food shortages, particularly for the 800 million people living in extreme poverty.  

The researchers found significant differences in corn yield depending on how high global temperatures rise.

An increase of 4 degrees Celsius—close to where the current greenhouse gas emissions trajectory would take us by the end of this century—could cut U.S. corn production by nearly half. If global warming is instead held to 2°C (the goal of the Paris climate agreement is to stay below that level) the projected loss in U.S. production would be closer to 18 percent, the researchers found.

The second study published Monday looked at how environmental changes brought on by climate change could impact the production and quality of vegetables and legumes—foods that government nutrition guidelines and nutritionists urge people to eat more of.

Researchers led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine looked at 174 studies, across 40 countries, published since 1975. The authors say it is the first attempt to systematically examine how climate-induced environmental changes could impact yields of vegetables and legumes around the world.

While previous research has shown that increased levels of carbon dioxide could boost some vegetable and legume yields, the new study finds that any benefits will be offset by the negative effects of increased ozone, less water availability and increased salinity.

Nutritionally important vegetables and legumes can be particularly sensitive to temperature increases and more vulnerable to heat stress than staple or cereal crops. The researchers found that without efforts to reduce emissions, a lack of water and increased ozone would cut yields of vegetables by about 35 percent in the second half of this century.

[indizombie]

The Centre for Science and Environment did detailed surveys in Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and interacted with farmers, governments and insurance companies. They found several problems with the way Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana is being implemented. First, it found that an assessment of crop failure is either insufficiently done or not done at all. Surveyors are not properly trained, do not use advanced technology and are often found to be corrupt. Despite lowering premium payment rates, kharif season 2016 witnessed a 12.6% country-wide actuarial rate. The rate in Gujarat was 20.5%, in Rajasthan 19.9%, and in Maharashtra 18.9%. During kharif 2016, insurance companies made massive profits totalling Rs 10,000 crore. Additionally, the scheme only covers farmers who have availed of loans. The proportion of farmers who hadn’t taken loans and still used the insurance scheme was less than 5%. Tenant and sharecropper farmers are also not covered.

Bani Bedi, 'Modi’s Flagship Crop Insurance Scheme Wavering as Farmers Continue to Suffer', The Wire