MOST MPs have witnessed the harrowing aftermath and family grief that can ensue when a smouldering cigarette causes a major fire in someone鈥檚 home. This magazine recently made a persuasive case for 鈥渇ire-safe鈥� cigarettes that contain fire-resistant additives (21/28 December 2002, p 6).
When I put the idea to Melanie Johnson, the consumer minister at the Department of Trade and Industry, she said her department had considered the idea but was not convinced. It concluded that the allegedly fire-safe cigarettes might not extinguish immediately after being discarded, and only reduce the number of fires caused by cigarettes rather than eliminate them.
However, the tobacco policy team at the Department of Health takes a different view. Safety regulations introduced in 1988 to reduce the rising number of deaths and injuries following fires in upholstered furniture are reckoned to have saved 1000 lives and more than 6000 injuries.
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Johnson went on to say that the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 aim to ensure that domestic upholstery supplied in Britain is resistant to both cigarette and match fires. Items of furniture must now carry permanent labels stating that they satisfy these regulations. The manufacturer or importer is responsible for keeping records to prove compliance with the regulations, said the minister.
My judgement is that the 快猫短视频 article is right to say that more could be done to promote the cause of fire-safe cigarettes. The best solution, of course, would be for fewer people to smoke.
THIS magazine recently joined the global outcry that unless something drastic is done, bananas could disappear forever in 10 years (快猫短视频, 18 January, p 26). The fruit is under attack from an array of fungal diseases led by the deadly black Sigatoka.
When I asked ministers at the Department for International Development what they were doing to halt this, junior minister Sally Keeble replied that international action on this popular food crop is coordinated by the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain (INIBAP) in Montpellier, France. This is a programme of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) in Rome, which is itself one of the centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, based in Washington DC.
Britain, she added, is a member of the group, and her department is active in it and supports the IPGRI and the INIBAP in their work to improve banana research and development. The aim is to improve banana production and to develop national and regional management strategies for the crop.
The department also supports a multi-donor programme in Uganda, the world鈥檚 second largest producer, to revive banana production there. The goal is to reverse that country鈥檚 declining banana yields, to promote the use of new and improved cultivars, and to use healthy material on pest-free and disease-free land. Clean planting material of traditional East African cooking varieties and new hybrids bred especially for their resistance to diseases have been given to 100 local farmers. Their success is leading other smallholders to ask for such starting material. Keeble added that her department also supports research at the John Innes Centre in Norfolk and at the University of Leeds into the use of biotechnology to tackle banana diseases and pests.
Speaking with ministers, I am left in no doubt that when it comes to crops, Westminster places the importance of the banana鈥檚 future as second only to that of rice.
