Beekeeping in the city? Surprisingly, bees in Paris, and other big cities, produce two to three times more honey than their country brethren. Higher average temperatures in the city lead to an earlier flowering, which entices the worker bees to emerge earlier. City bees also produce honey with better flavour because they have access to [...]
Archive for the ‘biodiversity’ Category
Bees thrive in Paris – more biodiversity, fewer pesticides
Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, food on September 5, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Organic is more than a label
Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, food on August 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Living in Paris most of the year, the only guarantee I have that a product has not been treated with pesticides is the AB (Agriculture Biologique) label, which itself is due to be watered down in 2010. But here in the rural southwest, many producers have chosen not to apply for the AB label and [...]
Tuna, eco-tent living and 13 moons – summertime links
Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, food on July 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
France backs international ban on bluefin tuna, from Sam Fromartz at Chews Wise. Sarkozy’s decision was announced at the Grenelle de La Mer last week. Bluefin tuna fishing in France is esssentially concentrated around the Ile d’Yeu, off the Brittany coast. WWF welcomed the decision and the U.K. followed suit with a similar commitment.
Nice eco-tourism [...]
High stakes for food security at Tunis meeting
Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, climate change, food on June 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I just returned from Tunis where the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources is holding its 3rd Governing Body session. Getting funding for the Treaty and stimulating the free and unimpeded (by seed companies) flow worldwide of crop genetic resources among plant breeders and scientists is an uphill battle, which all those present at [...]
France launches Grenelle on Oceans
Posted in Grenelle, biodiversity, climate change, food, water on March 6, 2009 | 1 Comment »
France’s Environment Minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, announced last month the launch of a “Grenelle de la Mer”, modelled on the Grenelle on the Environment and focused exclusively on problems related to fishing and the oceans. The idea is to bring together experts, stakeholders and representatives of the government and business to hammer out a long-term strategic [...]
French food safety agency rules that GM corn is safe
Posted in Grenelle, agriculture, biodiversity, food, policy on February 12, 2009 | 3 Comments »
The French food safety agency, AFSSA, has ruled that MON 810 corn – transgenic corn manfactured by Monsanto – does not constitute a health risk. The ruling, dated Jan 23 but kept secret until an exclusive in today’s Le Figaro, is a political time bomb for the government, already snowed under with strike action from [...]
What’s left of the Grenelle?
Posted in Grenelle, biodiversity, climate change, health, policy, renewable energy, transport on December 18, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Eighteen months after the Grenelle de l’Environnement, it’s worth taking a look at what’s left of the promises made by President Sarkozy and Jean-Louis Borloo in October 2007. At the time, the meeting was welcomed as innovative and participatory because it brought NGOs into the decision-making process.
Since then those same NGOs have been criticized for [...]
“Our children will accuse us” – a powerful documentary
Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, food, health on November 11, 2008 | 2 Comments »
A powerful documentary, which has been showing this week in a handful of cinemas in Paris, entitled “Our children will accuse us” makes the case for organic agriculture in terms of an urgent call to action. Unless we act now to change our industrial models of agricultural production which rely on petro-chemical fertilizers and insecticides, [...]
France to create bee research institute and “Bee Czar”
Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, climate change, food on October 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Last week, France’s Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier unveiled a plan to create a scientific institute to conduct bee research aimed at stemming colony collapse disorder, as well as the appointment of a “Bee Czar”. Every year, 30-35 percent of the bee colonies do not survive the winter and the suspects include predators, pesticides and climate [...]
New hope for seed biodiversity in France
Posted in agriculture, biodiversity, policy on July 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
2008 did not get off to a good start for seed biodiversity in France. In February, Kokopelli was fined in two court cases for the crime of selling traditional and ancient seed varieties which were not listed on an “official”, government-approved list. Kokopelli is a non-profit French group set up in 1999 to safeguard endangered seed [...]
