nuclear-news

Cobalt 60 – “It is essentially a form of birth control,” IAEA head Yukiya Amano said.

Andy Garner, an IAEA programme coordinator, said he believed there was more demand to use nuclear applications for food production, though he acknowledged a potential “branding” issue.

If “you talk about irradiating food… I think you do think twice before you eat that apple……..”

SASA KAVIC AND FREDRIK DAHL

Last updated 13:33 03/10/2012

At the height of the tangerine season in Croatia’s Neretva river delta, two pickup trucks scour a maze of water channels carrying an odd-looking contraption: a mortar-like pipe spraying orchards with sterilised flies.

They have been bombarded with radioactive Cobalt-60 in an Israeli biotechnology plant to make them sterile in a bid to reduce the fly population and the damage they wreak on the crop.

The United Nations’ atomic agency said it showed how nuclear technology – more commonly associated with energy or atom bombs – is harnessed to help make an “important contribution” in solving the world’s food problems.

Scientists are developing and refining the Sterile Insect Technology (SIT) for different species – including the tsetse fly in Africa – at the Seibersdorf laboratory of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) outside Vienna.

“It is essentially a form of birth control,” IAEA head Yukiya Amano said.

“The result has been a drop of no less than 75 per cent in fruit fly damage” in Neretva, where nine out of 10 people are involved in the citrus fruit industry.

Twice a week, between April and November, shipments containing five million sterilised male flies reach the fertile valley in southern Croatia, the northernmost point in Europe where tangerines are successfully grown.

More here

http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7763523/Nuclear-solutions-to-food-shortages

October 3, 2012 - Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized