Why you should keep bees on a coffee farm

If science is taught in our schools there is a strong reason why our children are encouraged to pay a lot of attention to it. We want to have good engineers, architects, doctors, technicians, and agriculturists. 

We cannot separate science from farming and still expect to make great progress in food production to feed the growing population and to meet our other economic targets and expectations.

We all agree that tractors and combine harvesters are important machines in agriculture. The use of heavy machines in agriculture was among the factors that helped to end slavery. 

Big trucks, airplanes, and locomotives are used to transport agricultural items quickly to where they are meant to go. These machines were invented by scientists --- people who studied chemistry, physics, mathematics, and biology.

We also agree that when we fall sick and go to hospitals for help we are examined by health workers who often use machines and chemicals to establish what has gone wrong and to treat the health conditions we are afflicted with. 

Often chemicals in the form of pills, ointments, and liquids are prescribed for us to use to get cured. We have to remember that the pills, the ointments, and the liquids are chemical substances invented by scientists to fight germs, and whatever other organisms which make us sick.

Now what is so disturbing is that it is common these days to hear people warning farmers not to use agro-chemicals to fight crop diseases or to supplement soil nutrients.  They suffer from what could be referred to as chemo phobia.

You will always hear them talking about health risks associated with eating food on which pesticides have been applied as they were grown in the gardens. They always talk about the danger of using herbicides to control weeds. They have no faith at all in chemistry and biology.

They think it is really easy to practice commercial agriculture without visiting farmers’ shops to purchase inputs like agrochemicals – pesticides, herbicides, and acaricides etc.  

They have faith in scientific inventions such as computers, smart phones, cars, and airplanes.

They trust modern medicine, which includes chemicals obtained from pharmacies, but they do not think that it is safe to eat food produced with the use of pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilisers purchased from farmers’ shops because they are chemicals --- “dangerous and health risks.”

But we know that such manufactured products carry user guidelines.  

Mr Michael J Ssali is a veteran journalist, 
[email protected]