Last day today at UKAware - Ideas for greener living.

Great show! I have been there this morning and here are my favourites…

• I’m a gadget person and the Firewinder caught my eye. It’s a British invention and powered by wind. I think this product has a lot of potential, not only in its current use but also some other applications. If I have a beach resort in the Far East, this is a nice feature.
• One of the more busier stalls I believe is Morsbags. For a fee, you get to create your own bag…you even do the sewing.

• If you have been opting for paperless bills, you’re helping the environment. You may notice you end up will a lot of usernames and passwords, as paperless means you access them online…separately. A novel idea on this show is NoMorePost.com – the online postal system. All your utilities, phone, credit card and bank statements all in one basket. They are still at early stages, but if you join them – it will help them convince more companies to link to their system.
• I finally got my own Onya bag and personally met the Brother of the Australian inventor of this great bag.
• The USBCell is worth mentioning here too. Another clever idea.

Several years ago, you wouldn’t notice any organic section in supermarkets. We recently have a lifestyle change and consumers are now choosing organic products among other things. Now, organic produce are everywhere from fruits and vegetables to processed foods. You can even visit organic farms and stay in organic accommodations. 

I grew up in an island in the Far East and have hands-on experience in vegetable gardening. At that time, pesticides are always a necessity. It was too impossible to grow vegetables in organic way. The hot and humid weather is always a good breeding ground for almost all species of pests from the juicy aphids to the crawly caterpillars who likes your pak choi patch. If you attempt to grow organically and your neighbours spray their pesticides, you will get an influx of surviving pests immediately migrating to your garden. 

Vegetables seemed to grow very quick if you have the right fertilisers. In school competitions, I was in a fertiliser computation contest in the late 1980s, quantifying the right amount of NPK (Nitrogen Phosphorous Potassium) required in your soil. Looking back, it was a strange thing but that was an era not too long ago where we were encouraged high yield for crops. Food is priority in third world countries and not how these foods are produced that is good for the environment and the life that evolves around it.

Organic goes back a long way in the 1500s when it doesn’t mean what it means today. Only in the 1940s that organic was attested to mean ‘free from pesticides and fertilisers.’ Our old farming ways are organic, when fertilisers have not reached the shores of the islands. Crop rotation is evident in rice fields, planting Nitrogen-rich green mung beans on dry season and rice during rainy days. 

It’s not at all easy growing organic and it’s not easy too being organic. But it seems that the world is moving in the right direction and certainly the West. As organic demand grows, we will need more certified organic farms. These farms will expand to supply us even more. Organic farming practice will become popular again and time will tell it will reach the shores of the islands.