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The 75th Agricultural Fair, the SIMA ended yesterday in Paris. The first SIMA has already taken place 1922nd. From the beginning, the role of the SIMA was to show new developments in agricultural technology and today the SIMA be called one of the world's most important exhibitions in this sector. In the past 90 years the technological development in agriculture has contributed to an increase in successful harvests. Without these developments we would today face problems in the supply of food for large sections of the worlds population. One of the biggest challenges the agricultural industry is facing today is that its technological capacities will be brought into line with urgent need for sustainability as only this will guarantee us tomorrow secure harvests. All this lamenting from Biotech Lobbies in the United States about the subsidies by European Union for its agriculture is at best a silly fairy tale and being revealed by the following facts: While in Europe, sales of agricultural machinery is declining for years, and even in the U.S. the need for new technologies did not increase, the demand for agricultural technologies in Asia, South-Asia, Africa, the Middle East & North Africa and South America are still strongly on the rise. [1] A while ago I wrote here that seeds belong to everybody. It is a natural thousands years old heritage. Biotech companies like Monsanto, Bayer Crop Science, KWS AG and Syngenta knows about agricultural sustainability as much as Ronald McDonald from fine dinning but both have in common that their products are potential health hazards when they are ending up in the shelves of our super market chains as pre-prepaired food. During the past 50 years, agricultural land per person is on strong decline and is reaching levels of up to 30% during this time, -in both, developing as well as in developed agricultural regions of the globe. The future of agriculture is facing many new challenges. Already by the middle of this century, the world population will be around 9 billion. Therefore, new forms of production are necessary in order to meet the rising demand. The important thing is that the cultivation of organic products for ethanol production is at the rearmost. In addition, agriculture has to take its share in environmental services: eg Water management, reducing pollution by chemical products, C02 bonding, conservation of biodiversity and the need to protect forests is to ensure there is a fair share in the future role of farmers to archive this long-term food security. A good tool to convince farmers are the subsidies made by European Union. Investments in agricultural water technologies are becoming increasingly important. For this special topic lectures were given on how machinery for irrigation in agricultural production can enhance reuse of treated water. Especially in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, the use of water should be reconsidered from scratch so that future conflicts over water resources do not develop into wars. In most other regions, the water-use seems to be relatively stable since the late 20th Century. Another trend is visible in biotechnologies. The use of the crops e.g. grown for ethanol production show today that they turn against these sustainability. If we count here then add yet genetically engineered seeds, or even the use of hybrids whose seeds can not be used and the rows of death of types of polluter like bees is clear that it is time to get back again to certain traditional forms of agriculture. A large contribution to the SIMA popularity are surely the exhibitions of agricultural products and livestock. When I see the proud breeder of sheep, cows, pigs and goats is growing again, the hope is that enough common sense still exists. [1] http://www.google.fr/publicdata/explore Comments are closed.
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