Switzerland - Snowing on March 6th - Spring?

In Zurich, cafes started laying out their chairs, umbrellas and benches.. only to get slammed by snow..

The sun is out , but it's snowing!

.. last week was great and we all thought that spring is here ..
But today, morning it's pelting snow ...

The forest outside my Window is filling up with snow and the morning joggers are walking back home.

The swing and slide outside the office window is gathering snow, like the 1" you can see on the ledge in the middle picture.

forecast is that by noon it will turn to cold rain ... and the town will be wet and slippery again ..

In and Around Zurich hbf

As you exit the Zurich main rail station ( also known as hbf) you will see the Limmat ( river ) on the left.

The Old City ( Altstadt) is about a mile away and full of shops, bars and generally a good place to hang out.

The picture on the left is from one of many bridges that criss cross the Limmat. I took it, riding the #11 Tram.The 2 clock towers in the background are also within walking distance from the hbf.

I'm told, in the summer you can swim in the Limmat, to be reviewed... right now it's snowing outside..even for March 6th .. that's a surprize!

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Travel In Zurich & Switzerland

When in Switzerland - choose Public Transport !
It's cheaper and faster to travel to Zurich from Schaffhausen, where I live, than it is to drive!

The parking for a 4 hours is about 15 CHF ( Swiss Franc) and a day ticket that allows you to travel on the bus, train and tram system is about the same. This is a 24 hour ticket so you can make as many trips as you want. You don't even need to stamp it!
The picture above is from inside a Tram , just outside the Zurich hbf ( Main Rail Station ) it is very clean ( Both the tram and the station ) and the electronic TV you see in the Tram, signals the stops as they arrive.
The last tram I took was in Calcutta.. another stroy altogether !!

California Farmers vs. Fish

Drought is not the only factor limiting water availability to farmers in California’s Central Valley. In 2008, California determined to flush more cold river water through the Delta to protect the threatened delta smelt. The fish’s health is an indicator of the overall health of the river.

California is running low on its long-term water supplies. While it is the current leader in high value fruit, vegetable and nut production, a prolonged shortage will open up opportunities for other jurisdictions. Last year, during the second year of the drought, more than 100,000 acres of the 4.7 million in the valley were left unplanted, and experts predict that number could soar to nearly 850,000 acres this year.
All of which could mean shorter supplies and higher prices in produce aisles — California is the nation’s biggest producer of tomatoes, almonds, avocados, grapes, artichokes, onions, lettuce, olives and dozens of other crops — and increased desperation for people like Agustin Martinez, a 20-year veteran of the fields who generally makes $8 an hour picking fruit and pruning.

These extremely difficult decisions are likely to become increasingly common as rainfall patterns shift and glaciers melt as a result of global warming. Most climate models predict that rainfall will become increasingly erratic, with rain coming in big storms separated by longer dry stretches.


The state has put the 2008 drought losses at more than $300 million, and economists predict that this year’s losses could swell past $2 billion, with as many as 80,000 jobs lost.

The effort to save fish habitat has effectively put a stop to any additional water
storage projects that would alleviate the pressure on farmers.


In Mendota, the self-described cantaloupe center of the world, a walk through town reveals young men in cowboy hats loitering, awaiting the vans that take workers to the fields. None arrive.

Indian Sugar and the poor Monsoon

After India's driest June in 83 years, four of 28 provinces have declared drought, and many farmers don't have enough water to grow a full crop. More than half of Uttar Pradesh state, the most populous state and a key area for farming rice and sugar cane, is suffering from drought. Rainfall between June 1 and July 22 was 19% below normal, with the northern and northwestern regions worst hit.

60% of India's farmland is rain-fed, with the rest relying on irrigation. If rainfall remains sporadic through September, winter-crop yields, such as wheat, could also be hurt, analysts said.

One of the most water intensive crop is sugarcane, and the drought in Uttar Pradesh has had a global impact on Sugar prices. Prices have more than doubled from 10 cents a pound to more than 20 cents a pound now.


Brazil, the largest sugar producer in the world, will benefit, as India moves to import upto a third of its needs. Only 2 years ago , India was an exporter of sugar.

As the demand for water in India is increasing from 634 BCM (billion cubic metres) in 2000 to 813 BCM in 2010, 1443 in 2020, dependence on the monsoon will be increasing manifold in the years to come.

Under the circumstances, carefully designed investment strategy on low-cost but effective watershed management, restoration and management of natural water bodies with the help of peoples’ participation would go a long way in mitigating the impact of monsoon.

Diverting China's Water

In North China, lack of rainfall has exacerbated a long term problem in a very dry region. declining water tables and the increasing urban population is forcing agricultural intensity. In the last 12 months, more than 100 rainless days was a record in recent decades.

The Northern half of China has over 40% of the country's population, more than 50% of the arable land and much industry due to its coal reserves – yet less than 20% of the nation's water.

Most of the Water is in the South of China.

China said last month that it would spend 21.3bn yuan on the next phase of its ambitious water diversion project to help the arid north. The multibillion dollar scheme, which will take up to half a century to complete, will connect the Yangtze, Huaihe, Yellow and Haihe rivers. It will require the creation of east, middle and western channels and will eventually divert 44.8bn cubic metres of water annually. The first phase of the eastern programme will begin to deliver water by 2013.

The scheme was first conceived in the fifties, but that many people believed its time had come because the situation in the north was now so dire. This will not fill up the whole gap, conserving water is the most urgent priority that needs attention.

Meanwhile in Beijing
Beijing’s water supply will reach crisis point in 2010. Probe International, a Canadian environmental group, estimated in a report in June that with Beijing’s reservoirs down to one-tenth of their capacity, two-thirds of Beijing’s water supply was now being drawn from underground.
Beijing has been trying to reduce demand by increasing water tariffs, which are far too low to cover costs. Xinhua reported that the city government was considering a plan to charge residents two to five times more for water if they exceed a monthly quota. Boosting prices might also encourage recycling. Probe International said Beijing’s industries were now recycling 15% of their water consumption, compared with 85% in developed countries.

trading water and crop outsourcing

China secured the right to grow palm oil for biofuel on 2.8m hectares of Congo, which would be the world's largest palm-oil plantation. It is negotiating to grow biofuels on 2m hectares in Zambia, a country where Chinese farms are said to produce a quarter of the eggs sold in the capital, Lusaka. According to one estimate, 1m Chinese farm labourers will be working in Africa this year, a number one African leader called "catastrophic".

If any investor has a long view on world markets, it's Lord Jacob Rothschild. The 73-year-old scion of the world-famous European banking dynasty need only look to his own family history, which dates back some 200 years to the rise of patriarch Mayer Amschel Rothschild in Frankfurt. "We think right now is an excellent point of entry for taking a long-term position in agriculture," he recently said.

Rothschild did just that last year when he invested $36 million for a 24% stake in a venture called Agrifirma Brazil.

Agrifirma has already acquired some 100,000 acres in the Brazilian state of Bahia and holds an option on another 60,000. This summer it will produce its first crops of soybeans, cotton, and corn. Rothschild and Watson say they chose Brazil in part because there was a large quantity of scrubland, or cerrado, that could be irrigated and converted to farmland, enhancing the value greatly. They also liked the fact that its economy has been growing robustly. And perhaps most important, Brazil has 14% of the world's freshwater resources, the most of any country. "The world is fully in a water crisis, and we haven't realized it yet," says Watson. "When you're exporting agriculture, you're de facto exporting water."

If Water is becoming the "rate limiting Step", the the drought in Australia is forcing farmed to decide crop planting based on water efficiency. recently , the Australian govt. passed tradable rights laws which allow Australian farmers to have the right to use a certain amount of water free. They can sell that right (called a “usufructuary right”) to others. But if they want more water themselves, they must buy it from a neighbour. The result of this trading is a market that has done what markets do: allocate resources to more productive use. Australia has endured its worst drought in modern history in the past ten years. Water supplies in some farming areas have fallen by half. Yet farmers have responded to the new market signals by switching to less thirsty crops and kept the value of farm output stable. Water productivity has doubled. Australia’s system overcomes the usual objections because it confirms farmers’ rights to water and lets them have much of it for nothing.
Tradable-usage rights have another advantage: they can be used in rough and ready form in huge countries such as China and India that do not have meters to measure usage, or strong legal systems to enforce usage rights. Instead of sophisticated infrastructure, they depend on local trust and knowledge: farmers sell a share of their time at the village pump. A system like that works in parts of Pakistan’s Punjab.


As the adjoining graph shows, India, China have to find ways to combat the unsustainable water withdrawal rates and outsourcing crops and tradable water rights are one water to drive the productive use of water. exporting the entire crop production to Africa, as China is pioneering, is one way to conserve water.