Drought Destroys Fifth of Argentine Corn Crop

Grain fields across Argentina’s Pampas region destroyed by drought

An estimated 20 percent of Argentina’s corn crop has been roasted by drought and parching southern hemisphere summer sun.

Disaster Calendar 2012 – January 6

[January 6, 2012]  Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016.  SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,531 Days Left to the ‘Worst Day’ in Human History

• Argentina.  Drought and blazing summer sun have destroyed about a fifth of Argentina’s corn crop.
  • Farmers have stopped late-season corn planting.
  • The lingering drought also threatens the country’s soy harvest.
  • Argentina’s corn harvest forecast is down by 5 million to 7 million metric tons and soybean harvest by 3 million tons, reports said.
  • December rainfall was down to an overall average of about 25mm, down sharply from 85-mm average in December 2010.
  • Argentina is world’s 2nd-largest corn exporter and 3rd largest soybean seller.
  • The country supplies about 20 percent of the world’s traded corn, and half the soymeal.
• Chile. About 60 wildfires have killed, injured or left up to a dozen firefighters missing.
  • Blazes fanned by high winds, have consumed hundreds of homes and destroyed at least 50,000 hectares of woodland and brush since December 26, 2011.
  • Some of the fires were reportedly started by arsonists, one by an Israeli tourist.
  • Chilean President Pinera has invoked anti-terror legislation, which allows for steeper punishments.
  • A blaze in Biobio region has destroyed about 190 hectares of apple trees, cherry orchards and vineyards, a report said.
  • “Up to 300 farmers have lost or suffered damage to their crops, apiaries, warehouses and equipment. It’s estimated the blazes have claimed 67 greenhouses, 640 head of livestock and 650 beehives.”
  • The Agriculture Minister has declared a state of emergency in Quillón, Ránquil, San Rosendo and Florida provinces.
  • An unusually hot and dry weather has prevailed in Chile in the past few months.
• Netherlands. About 1,000 villagers from four villages in the province of Groningen, the northeasternmost province of the Netherlands, are being evacuated after an inland dyke began leaking, and threatened to break amid torrential rains.
  • Local authorities are also moving thousands of cattle from farms in the flood-risk areas.
  • “Hundreds of acres of land would flood in a matter of hours, while the water level in the area would rise to at least 1.50 meters. This is why we started the evacuation,” a local official said at a news conference.

Global Disaster Links

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Back to the Primordial Future
• Mass Die-offs

• 2010 Disasters [Links to 2010 Disaster Calendar]
• Mega Disasters: 2011 SIX TIMES MORE DISASTROUS THAN 2010
• 2011 Disaster Calendar

How Flowering Bamboos Can Cause Famine, War

What has flowering of bamboo plants got to do with famine and war?

They Boost Rats Reproduction Rate, Causing  Infestation, Famine and War

About 130,000 people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in south-eastern Bangladesh, plagued by rat infestation, face serious food shortages. The rats are eating everything in their sight including crops, seeds and the stocks, a report by AlertNet said.

Every 50 years or so, flowers produced by the bamboo plants, if consumed by rats, dramatically increase their reproduction rate, says the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO).

Melocanna bambusoides fruit. “Once every 48 years in the remote Indian state of Mizoram, a strange phenomenon takes over the land, threatening famine and death. Hundreds of thousands of acres of bamboo begin to flower and fruit, sparking a plague of rats. Drawn by the nutrient-rich pear-sized fruit, millions of hungry rats feast — their numbers growing exponentially as they descend into a reproductive frenzy. They devour crops, bringing hardship and even famine upon Mizoram’s farmers. The locals call this biological anomaly the Mautam, and when it last struck in 1959, famine killed thousands and plunged the state into a 20-year guerilla insurgency.” Photo and caption: American Bamboo Org.

“Even in normal years, when harvests are good and bamboo available for collection, food insecurity is especially acute in remote areas of CHT,” said Abigail Masefield, ECHO’s food assistance coordinator for South Asia.

“Discussions with communities have confirmed a significant reduction in the 2009 harvest compared to the normal harvest, with only around 30 to 50 percent of normal production level reported by all the communities visited.”

The CHT, bordering India and Myanmar, are one of the most disadvantaged regions of Bangladesh, where more than 60 percent of the 1.3 million population are living below the poverty line, according to the U.N. Development Programme.

Thousands of landless Bengalis were settled in the 5,500-sq-miles (14,200 sq km) region under a government plan in the 1980s to ease population pressure in the plains, and also to defuse a 25-year tribal separatist insurgency which ended in 1997.

The affected populations have lost all of their crops including rice, bananas and chilli crops, as well as turmeric and ginger, which are the cash-earning crops, according to aid workers.

“To further compound matters, the bamboo dies after flowering and takes five years to regenerate, impacting the income of populations who make a meagre but important income by selling bamboo to a local paper mill.” The report said.

A rodent feeding on Melocanna bambusoides fruit. “But the rats aren’t the only part of the story puzzling scientists. Bamboo itself is an enigmatic plant. Many bamboo species reproduce only once in their lifetime, then die. What’s bizarre is how long they wait before reproducing —20, 50, even 100 or more years, depending on the species. Even stranger: Many species reproduce synchronously: Like clockwork, all plants in a given geographic region flower and seed at precisely the same moment, then die.” Photo and caption: American Bamboo Org.

Masefield said although the number of rats has recently declined,  wild pigs and forest monkeys destroy what little crops are left.

“This means that the traditional lean season—March/April to August—is set to be particularly acute and early during 2010.”

The rats can also carry potentially deadly diseases including bubonic plague, typhoid and typhus, causing major epidemics as the rodents exponentially increase in number.

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