Large-scale crop monocultures occupy about 80% of the 1.5bn ha devoted to agriculture around the world. Because of their low ecological diversity and genetic homogeneity, they are highly vulnerable to weed infestations, insect invasions and disease epidemics, and recently to climate change.
In 2018, the global demand for finished lubricants reached 40.5m t, with automotive oil products accounting for more than 50%.
Scientists in Canada have souped-up the conversion of CO2, water and energy into ethylene, a starter chemical for polyethylene. Today, the main feedstock for ethylene is fossil fuels. However, if powered by renewable energy, the new process could use waste CO2 and illuminate a path towards carbon-neutral plastics.
As 2019 draws to a close, one starts to look forward to 2020 although the outcome of the UK General Election, as C&I goes to press, does give some pause for thought. The past year has focused on Brexit, at least in the UK and EU, and, in the short to medium term, is likely to remain uppermost in everyone’s minds.
A UK Green Brexit is likely to lead to an upswelling of support for anti agrochemicals groups such as the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) which will likely result in the agchems industry being labelled as ‘bad, like the tobacco industry’.
European intransigence on the issue of genetic technologies is woefully out of step with most other countries in the world and is anti-environment and anti-wildlife.
The recent EU bans on neonicotinoids and other key agrochemicals have made life considerably tougher for UK cereal farmers, according to John Wallace, chair of the Morley Agricultural Foundation, speaking at the BCPC meeting in November 2019.
In the past 20 years, tightening EU regulations have halved the number of approved active agrochemical ingredients available to UK farmers. Twenty to 30 years ago, the UK produced 80% of its own food requirements, while today that figure has dropped to 60%, according to Guy Smith, deputy president of the National Farmers Union (NFU), above, speaking at the BCPC conference in Brighton in November 2019.
Like sunflowers turn to follow the sun, researchers have developed a material that can bend and move to face light beams. With further development, it could help improve the efficiency of light-harvesting materials like solar panels.
A smart needle probe could detect cancer in seconds using light. The probe uses Raman spectroscopy, which measures the light scattered by tissues from a low-powered laser and will be tested in suspected cases of cancer known as lymphoma.