Articles by David Roberts

Huh?

Insects dislike the smell of garlic as much as human beings do, according to a Bangladeshi scientist who has used it to develop an environment-friendly alternative to pesticide.

Um, what human beings are we talking about here?

Turning air into water

If I posted about every cool widget that popped up on Treehugger I'd end up doing nothing else, but this particular widget for some reason caught my fancy.

It makes clean water! Out of air!

In five years this thing will be the size of a coffee mug. The Future: Live It!

African life spans, II

A couple days back I posted on an amazing graph of the drop-off of life spans in Africa. Bona fide Africa expert Ethan Zuckerman has a long post up, clarifying and expanding on the graph. It turns out that the graph is perhaps a tad misleading, as it chooses precisely those countries where AIDS has hit the hardest. Of course Ethan doesn't mean to minimize what is an epic tragedy, but he does provide a more balanced picture of what's happening on the continent. Give it a read.

Small farmers and organic

Via WC, a study by the International Fund for Agricultural Development concludes that organic farming offers farmers in developing countries higher earnings and a better standard of living. The higher earnings come from organic product being worth more (duh), and the better standard of living comes from the higher earnings and the not being poisoned with herbicides and pesticides.

I was looking around in there for some reason why the conclusions wouldn't transfer straightforwardly to small farmers in developed countries. The answer seems to lie mainly in transition costs -- since developing world farmers don't really use expensive technologies and chemicals anyway, it's a pretty easy jump to organic (the main impediment being certification and other paperwork).

But still. I'd like to see some sort of similar study done in the U.S. How long would it take for a small U.S. farmer (we still have a few right?) to make back the money he/she spends transitioning to organic? Presumably the data's out there somewhere, but as a rushed, overworked blogger, I think I'll just conclude by asking readers if they know where to find it. (It's called a bleg.)