In the short term, the greatest dangers threatening the people of Gujarat state are dirty water and poor sanitation. In some areas water sources have become saline and undrinkable, and many wells collapsed or filled with debris when the earthquake and subsequent tremors struck. The thousands of corpses still to be recovered could pose a threat of spreading epidemics of typhoid or cholera, but for the 25,000 or more people living in emergency camps, dysentery from dirty water supplies and poor sanitation is the more immediate problem. With an estimated 80,000 people injured and 350,000 left with nothing, the relief agencies have the difficult job of prioritising both the types of help most needed, and the areas that should be targeted. Grafting tomato plants to eggplant roots can extend fruit production into Taiwan's hot wet season and offer the plants greater resistance to disease.
Prospects are good for both grafters and growers.
Grafted seedlings sell for more than six times the price of normal ones, and produce better, more expensive varieties into the off-season when prices are higher. Beekeepers on the Caribbean island of Tobago have been forced to tighten up their operations to cope with the devastating threat of Varroa mites, first observed on the island last August. They have since been trained to recognise and manage the pests, using both chemical strips and natural products such as grapefruit skins, bay leaves and nutmeg. So far controlling the mites using non-chemical means has worked well, but the coming dry months will pose a greater challenge, as bee numbers will be naturally lower, and the destructive potential of the mites correspondingly greater. The CFU also predicted that the annual harvest from June is likely to reach 1.28 million tons, well below the annual consumption of 1.8 million tons.