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Holland’s Three Most Important Exports

According to police in the Netherlands, the three most popular export products are:

  1. Cucumbers
  2. Tomatoes
  3. Marijuana

Dutch marijuana is reportedly flooding international markets, and displacing products from other countries such as Morocco, Lebanon and Pakistan.

For decades now the sale, use and possession of small amounts of marijuana has been allowed in the Netherlands, and in recent years the growing of marijuana has also been increasingly allowed. For personal consumption, the growing of five plants per adult living in the same household is currently permitted. There has also been a degree of laxness when it came to enforcing the law in larger growing operations.

The situation has now changed, and the police are currently closing down about 15 growing operations per day.

It’s Different

The marijuana that’s being produced in the Netherlands now is different from anything that’s ever existed before. I know we’ve all heard this before, the warnings that marijuana is getting stronger and becoming less safe, but it’s really important to understand this time is different.

For a number of years now, a lot of attention has been paid to breeding new cannabis plant varieties in the Netherlands. A lot of money has gone into it, and big name plant science laboratories have become involved. The approach has been the same as with other food crops, trying to develop marketable varieties.

Most of the new super varieties are F1 hybrids, and they are patented!

The emphasis has been on strength, because to have a patented product that is the strongest means you will control the market. After all, if you are a marijuana consumer (or wholesaler or distributor) offered a choice between a stronger or weaker product, the natural thing to do is choose the stronger one.

The Problems

Besides the underlying commercial greed that goes into this sort of plant research, the most immediate problem with current varieties seems to be the balance between two chemicals THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (Cannabidiol).

The strength of marijuana is normally measured by it’s THC content, and this appears to be the focus of the research on the new varieties. Unfortunately, this appears to be at the expense of the CBD content, which is lower in the new varieties.

The THC is what makes you ‘high’. The CBD on the other hand makes you more relaxed, reduces paranoia, and most users report a higher CBD content makes the high more pleasant.

The true importance of a good balance between THC and CBD is only recently coming to light.

The local media has been full of stories recently of dramatic increases in the levels of mental illness and psychosis associated with the use of these new super varieties. Police have associated an increase in crime as well.

Discussions have been taking place in both the Netherlands and the UK as to if the laws need to be changed in order to protect users from these new plant varieties. As is usual with this type of situation, a clear link is not being made with the new commercial varieties, but rather with marijuana in general.

It seems very unlikely that any government is prepared to only ban the commercial varieties of a particular product, while continuing to allow the non-commercial variant. It seems unlikely any government will take the necessary steps to provide the necessary quality control in this situation.

If you are a consumer, you should be looking for other sources besides Holland!

Perhaps if you are a consumer of Dutch cucumbers or tomatoes you should also be looking for other sources, but I think this is a topic for another post…

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Why Bother?

Regular readers will know I am a fan of Michael Pollan, and he has just published a new article in the New York Times Magazine.

Pollan has really done a lot to educate all of us about the truth of where our food comes from, how it’s made and to promote locally sourced foods.

Honestly, in recent months I’ve had some issues with some of the things he’s said. On one hand he has advocated not eating any thing your great grand mother would not recognize as food, and on the other hand has offered advice on how to buy foods from the supermarket. In fact these two ideas seem very contradictory to me, because the vegetables and other supermarket foods are very different from what our ancestors ate.

With this recent article, my opinion of Pollan has dramatically improved again!

In this recent article he stresses the importance of living a lifestyle with a low carbon footprint, and argues having your own vegetable garden and growing at least some of your own food is an important part of that! He so rightly points out we have to go far beyond the low energy light bulbs Al Gore suggests, and make a complete break from the cheap energy, consumption oriented economy of today. Words cannot describe how happy I am to see him emphasize what we as consumers shouldn’t buy, rather than what we should buy.

Now I hope he goes back to what he said about not eating anything our great grandmothers wouldn’t recognize as food, connect this with home vegetable gardens, promote heirloom fruits and vegetables and preserving biodiversity through saving your own seeds!

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Cypress Mulch/Wood Chips

Sorry, this post is probably mostly of interest to people in the US or Canada.

Mother Jones magazine sent me an email telling me about an article in their latest issue on Louisiana’s Mulch Madness. The National Wildlife Federation also covered this last year in an article.

It seems cypress trees make good mulch, but these are old growth trees that are being harvested in unsustainable ways, and in some cases illegally. These trees are also critical for the protection and natural habitats of the Gulf coast wetlands.

If you buy mulch or wood chips, make sure it doesn’t come from cypress trees!

Honestly, this is just one more excellent example of why your garden shouldn’t have any inputs. You don’t need to buy anything except a few tools, a little potting soil if you start plants indoors and some lime if your soil is acidic. Otherwise, most gardens are fine with only your own waste recycled as compost. Only add other things if you are absolutely sure they are necessary! Anytime you add extra fertilizer, mulch, manure, chemicals or anything else, you risk damaging your health, natural balances in your garden or the environment as a whole.

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Some Thoughts on Emissions Trading Schemes

Kate of Hills and Plains Seedsavers recently made a post on this, and asked what I thought.

I must admit, I’m a little bit cautious and sceptical on these kinds of things. Last year Europe launched it’s emission trading scheme, and it was little more than a circus. Local governments were allowed to issue as many credits as they wanted, flooding the trading scheme, and all that happened was the politicians threw up their arms and promised it wouldn’t happen again. Yeah, right!

We’ve all just seen the big push into unsustainable biofuels take off all over the world. In Europe at least this is in part intended to let the auto manufacturers off the hook by reducing the fossil fuel portion of their CO2 emissions. Since biofuels generate more greenhouse gases than they save, this too is hardly credible.

There has been a lot of discussion here if airlines would have to participate in the trading scheme, and after a lot of public pressure it seems they will. Still to be determined is will it cover travel outside of Europe or foreign airlines, and will they be allowed ‘extra credits’ in order to accomodate their huge growth in recent years and foreign competition. It hardly seems like there will be any serious progress made here either.

I was reading through the 89 page Australian scheme discussion paper Kate linked to, and on page 35 I came across the following:

EU: Australia should explore the possibility of trading with the EU ETS. EU views on excluding forestry and agriculture from ETS may be a problem in the early stages especially given the potential arrangements with Australia’s regional neighbours.

The EU intends to exclude agriculture from it’s emissions trading scheme?! I don’t have enough information on how serious it would be to exclude forestry, but I almost don’t think a trading scheme would be worthwhile if it excluded agriculture. Agriculture is one of the largest, if not the single largest source of greenhouse gases in all of Europe!

Politically speaking, agriculture in Europe is like a rock. It’s immune to public and international pressure, makes most of it’s own decisions in secret, and if it intends to exclude itself from the ETS, it will get it’s way in the end. All the kings horses and all the kings men won’t change this reality.

In the US presidential campaign, all of the serious contenders have stated they will support an emissions trading scheme with the intention of reducing greenhouse gases to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. This seems pretty clear, but by 2050 several presidential administrations will have come and gone. If all the cuts in greenhouse gases are scheduled to be made in 2049, this won’t be very credible or helpful to the environment now! The proof will be in the implementation.

I think in general most nations of the world realize it’s a political reality that they have to participate in an ETS, and Australia is no exception. This 89 page discussion paper that’s been issued is full of potential loopholes, and in the end the effectiveness of any ETS will be in the fine print, and which industries obtain a full or partial exemption. I really have my doubts.

When certified organic foods began appearing in supermarkets, I frequently ran into very excited people asking me if I didn’t think it was great? If I offered even the slightest indication of a lack of enthusiasm, I was usually met with something along the lines of ‘You mean you’re against organic foods!’, and this is what I feel like here. I am not against emission reductions and I am not against ETSs, I just have my doubts on how effective they will be in the end.