Agriculture - General

Bees or lack thereof in the US and in Europe are in the news right now. Europe has just put a 2-year ban on various pesticides that appear to be killing bees. In the US, there seems to be only talk. I have seen no information on whether the US problem is spreading to the south. Thus, a longer version of the question would include "or, will it in the future?"

back-to-the-landers interested in making their own cheeses, and other dairy products;

http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php?topic=6868.0

Another NicaLiving member got me interested in cheese. Many are simple to make. Others, not so much!

There are a lot of demonstration videos on YouTube for non-commercial cheese, yogurt and butter making.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZZAUqFqAnY

I am going back to the states in mid may for my wedding and i want to bring back a bunch of cigars for it. I dont know much about cigars so any recommendations on Where to go and What type of nica cigars to get would be greatly appreciated. I will probably buy about 40 decent cigars and 10 nicer ones for the groomsmen, my dad, brothers, father of the bride, etc. I usually make my trips into Rivas or Managua for bulk shopping once a month so any info on where to go in those cities would be great. or is the duty free shop in the airport a good place/prices?

With the recent legislaiton in Colorado and Washington to legalize pot and hemp, Kentucky's interest in industrial hemp, and Guatemala's interest in decriminalizing we have brought up both pot tourism and industrial hemp production for Nicaragua here.

Good --if not great news:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-08/kenya-s-coffee-prices-climb-at-...

A friend of mine on therealnicaragua site, Cookshow (Kevin) commented that it would be much productive for manual labourers in Nicaragua to use scythes rather than machetes.

My response was as follows.

Learning how to use a scythe properly is not easy. It is a complicated skill and the learning curve is rather steep. Also, you will end up using muscle groups in your body that are rarely used by most manual labourers and you will be sore for the first couple of months.

why i hate monsanto..g.f. is in from the farm..its bean season..on dec.20th..they start planting beans..most farmers dont have money for seed..and pesticides and stuff..so they have to borrow it..if they go to the savings and loan..its only 3%/month..if they go to one of the loan companys..its 10% a month..these small farmers down here are getting killed..now monsanto..wants to screw up corn..in mexico..and the rest of the world..yeah..monsanto..the small guy down here is getting killed

There is an interesting article, basically about agriculture, in Sovereign Man. While it ultimately leads to the promotion of farm land in Chile (where the site owner is doing development) he makes some very valid points.

He starts off explaining that the new world population is growing by 200,000 people per day, talks about lower productivity and how current economic games actually make this problem worse.

and some great pictures.

http://www.greggmillett.com/Sangarro/Title_Page.htm

There is a recent report on the expected impact of climate change on the principal consumption crops in Central America. The Buffett Foundation and Catholic Relief Services funded a CIAT & CIMMYT study (International Center for Tropical Agriculture & International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, respectively). The primary focus is what damaged will be incurred to corn and bean crops in CA-4, (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua) with shifting patterned rainfall and slightly warmer temperatures. The study uses a first-round year 2020 projection date, and second round 2050.

We are moving into phase II of our 6 manzana farming empire, which is going to include some pigs and milk cows. To carry out the experiment though, we need to lay our hands on rice or wheat bran, maybe some copra (of the coconut), and effective or efficient microorganisms. Does anyone know of any northern or central Nicaraguan rice mills? And what about a distributor for the liquid EM? It must be in country somewhere but we've had no luck locating any from Nueva Segovia.

In http://www.nicaliving.com/node/20394 I brought up the problem of having seeds confiscated. It looks like this has happened to three other people. While that thread has turned into mostly a political discussion, there is still an issue here. Anyone interested in figuring out what to do to solve it?

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(Phys.org) -- The poorest societies may be more able to adapt to the threat that climate change poses to food supplies than their slightly richer peers. A new study involving experts in the School of Geography at The University of Nottingham found that the very poor and the relatively wealthy countries are less vulnerable — it was the group in the middle that was most at risk. This unexpected result was found at several different scales and by different members of the research team. They’ve called on policy-makers and NGOs to take their findings into account.

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Have been reading a lot on this forum and there are several that owns/runs an agri business here. Have seen cigars, strawberries etc but never read about any in the rubber business.

In Thailand it is very popular with the expats that are in the agri business (and also fish farming). Is it any in Nica doing rubber?

We are going to be doing small-scale hydroponics experiments with berries and would like to get our hands on some small quantities of commercial hydroponic liquid nutrient concentrates or powders (we plan to compare results against a tea brewed from worm casings). Any ideas about where we could find this in Nicaragua?

If not, I will have to have it sent to me from up north. Should I expect the usual enormous bullshit from Customs and the post office, or am I worrying over nothing?