http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/ee/index.php en editor@TheRochesterDemocrat.com Copyright 2011 2011-09-13T12:13:11+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/nations_food_anti-terror_plans_costly_unwieldy/ {summary} Animal Health, Government





SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - One of the deepest fears sweeping a shattered nation following the Sept. 11 attacks was that terrorists might poison the country's food.

Hoping to ease people's anxieties about what they were eating, President George W. Bush vowed to draw a protective shield around the food supply and defend it from farm to fork.

An Associated Press analysis of the programs found that the government has spent at least $3.4 billion on food counter-terrorism in the last decade, but key programs have been bogged down in a huge, multi-headed bureaucracy. And with no single agency in charge, officials acknowledge it's impossible to measure whether orchards or feedlots are actually any safer.

On Tuesday, a Senate subcommittee will hold a hearing to examine a congressional watchdog's new report revealing federal setbacks in protecting cattle and crops since Sept. 11. Just days after the 10th anniversary of the attacks, lawmakers are demanding answers about potential food-related threats and reports that the government could have wasted money on languishing agriculture anti-terror programs.

"The truth is, nobody's in charge," said John Hoffman, a former senior adviser for bio-surveillance and food defense at the Department of Homeland Security, who will testify at the hearing. "Our surveillance doesn't work yet, our intelligence doesn't work yet and we're not doing so well at targeting what comes across the border."

Top U.S. food defense authorities insist that the initiatives have made the food supply safer and say extensive investments have prepared the country to respond to emergencies. No terrorist group has threatened the food supply in the past decade, and the largest food poisonings have not arisen from foreign attacks, but from salmonella-tainted eggs produced on Iowa farms that sickened almost 2,000 people.

Seeking to chart the government's advances, the AP interviewed dozens of current and former state and federal officials and analyzed spending and program records for major food defense initiatives, and found:

- The fragmented system leaves no single agency accountable, at times slowing progress and blurring the lines of responsibility. Federal auditors found one Agriculture Department surveillance program to test for chemical, biological, and radiological agents was not working properly five years after its inception in part because agencies couldn't agree on who was in control.

- Efforts to move an aging animal disease lab from an island near New York City have stalled after leading scientists found an accidental release of foot-and-mouth was likely to happen at the new facility in America's beef belt.

- Congress is questioning whether $31 million the Department of Homeland Security spent to create a state-of-the-art database to monitor the food supply has accomplished anything because agencies are not using it to share information.

- Despite the billions spent on food defense, many of the changes the government put into place are recommendations that the private sector isn't required to carry out. As a result, it's difficult to track successes and failures, and the system's accomplishments are largely hidden from public view.

"Everything that has been done to date on food defense in the private sector has all been voluntary," said LeeAnne Jackson, the Food and Drug Administration's health science policy advisor. "We can't go out and ask them what they have done, because they're not obliged to tell us, so we don't have a good metric to measure what's been done."

The food defense effort shifted into high gear in 2004 when Bush directed the government to create new systems to guard against terrorist attacks. Agencies got money to assess risks, contain foreign disease outbreaks and help farms and food processing plants develop protection programs.

The newly established Department of Homeland Security, which was charged with sharing information about federal food defense plans, also distributed grants among agencies, contractors and universities. During the past nine years, it spent $467 million on food-related research alone.

A $6 million counter-terrorism network headquartered in Iowa that helps veterinarians stop viruses from spreading between herds is considered one of the successes. Another is a program that gave California dairymen hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy high-tech locks for their milking barns.

The department also spent $550 million to run its Office of Health Affairs, which coordinates bio-surveillance across federal agencies. In fiscal year 2008, that office set out to build a new database where food, agriculture, disease and environmental agencies could view each other's surveillance information in real time.

But Jeff Runge, DHS's former chief medical officer, said the other agencies did not want to hand over their data, and turf battles delayed the government's progress in pinpointing a culprit as hundreds of people fell ill during a nationwide salmonella outbreak tied to peppers that summer.

"FDA was going on its own track, DHS was on its track, and no one was talking to each other," said David Acheson, who was then FDA's assistant commissioner and is now a food industry consultant.

In June, Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey introduced a bill that would eliminate the database. The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee also has questioned what Homeland Security has accomplished after spending $31 million running the program.

"It just didn't work," said Runge, who oversaw the database. "Now Al Qaeda is headed by a physician who has expressed interest in biological attacks, and I don't think we are putting enough brain cycles on this issue."

The department is working to integrate data across federal agencies, and is trying to enhance the database's effectiveness by reviewing the "challenges and opportunities of integrated bio-surveillance," a DHS official said.

FDA and USDA have handled much of the on-the-ground work with farmers, ranchers and manufacturing plants.

FDA has spent $1.3 billion on food defense programs since 2005, the most recent year available, said spokeswoman Patricia El-Hinnawy. The USDA said it has spent $1.64 billion on food defense since 2003.

One top priority was setting up an animal identification system to track infected livestock. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently proposed a new system that would work whether animals were infected by accident or by terrorists.

A separate project to integrate the nation's food testing laboratories has foundered, however, auditors found in February.

Five years after its creation, the Food Emergency Response Network has not set up a targeted surveillance program to test for chemical, biological, and radiological agents, and USDA and FDA still can't agree on who runs it, USDA's Office of Inspector General found.

Protecting the food supply remains a top priority, and USDA continues working to advance its efforts, said Sheryl Maddux, deputy director of its Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Coordination.

Some small farmers claim some of USDA's rules have become so unwieldy in the last decade they threaten business.

Under agency guidance issued since Sept. 11, USDA inspectors have strongly encouraged slaughterhouses and other facilities they regulate to write Food Defense Plans, and now nearly three-quarters have them.

Uli Bennewitz, who owns a small farm-brewery-butchery near the Outer Banks in Jarvisburg, N.C., and wins national foodie awards for his artisan sausages, says he had to hire one of his three employees just to deal with the on-site meat inspector. He says the federal involvement lacks common sense.

"When it comes to treating a Tyson chicken plant the same as a one-man brewery butchery, that's when these laws get completely out of control," Bennewitz said. "What is a small farm doing writing a Food Defense Plan? That is not going to save the nation from some terrible disease."

That's where upgrading the nation's primary animal disease laboratory comes in, federal officials say. The facility, which does crucial research on foot-and-mouth disease, is currently housed on a tiny island 100 miles east of New York City.

DHS spent $233 million running the lab in the past few years and plans to move the operations to Manhattan, Kan., by 2018.

But a National Research Council report issued last year cited safety concerns with the Kansas location, including a 70 percent chance that dangerous pathogens could be released close to urban populations and cattle yards over the project's 50-year life.

Many ranchers oppose the move because of the proximity to the beef belt, but DHS officials have said the lab will be safe, and say the report failed to consider safety measures that will be added during construction.

One food defense program has had particularly tangible results in the nation's No. 1 dairy state. California agriculture officials distributed about $400,000 in DHS grants to keep the milk supply safe, including new locks for milk houses.

"We're so remote out here, security isn't much of an issue, but we were happy to do an upgrade on the farm," said John Taylor, who got about $800 for a lock at his organic dairy in Marin County. "At this point there is no way to get in there unless you know the key sequence. Now I have that peace of mind."

]]> 2011-09-13T12:13:11+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/usda_farmers_can_plant_genetically_modified_beets/ {summary} Food and Animal Genetics




by Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio
February 4, 2011


Moorhead, Minn. — The U.S. Agriculture Department says farmers will be allowed to grow genetically modified sugar beets this year, while it finishes work on a full environmental impact statement on the beets' effect on other crops and the environment.

Farmers had been waiting for the USDA to finish its work and make a decision about deregulation of the beets. They feared a decision wouldn't come in time for spring planting.

The USDA Friday announced interim rules that will allow farmers to grow the herbicide-resistant sugar beets while the study is completed. Under those rules, farmers can grow the beets if they get permits and agree to inspections.

Farmers used the genetically modified seed for about five years, until a lawsuit put its use on hold. The concern is that the genetically modified beets could cross-pollinate and affect other crops.

Paige Tomaselli, an attorney for the Center for Food Safety, says the USDA decision is not supported by science.

"We think these measures will not protect farmers from contamination and the other side effects of Roundup Ready sugar beets. We will be filing a lawsuit immediately, addressing this partial deregulation," said Tomaselli.

Sugar beets are widely grown in northwest Minnesota, and much of the crop is sold to American Crystal Sugar, which is based in Moorhead.

The company's president, David Berg, predicts weeks of legal wrangling over the USDA decision.

"This is a first step which probably, or very likely, could lead to additional lawsuits anyway. It moves us closer to having Roundup Ready sugar beets in 2011, but it certainly is not the single act that's going to allow it to happen," Berg said.

Farmers are making plans to grow conventional sugar beets this year if the genetically modified version remains tied up in the legal process.


]]> 2011-02-06T10:56:31+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/wis._lab_death_of_200_cows_traced_to_bad_potatoes/ {summary} Animal Health




Madison, Wis. (AP) — A state lab says the 200 steers that died this month in Portage County were done in by tainted potatoes.

Peter Vanderloo, an associate director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, which is run on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says the cows tested positive for a toxin that's found in moldy sweet potatoes.

He said Friday the bad spuds were apparently mixed in with potato waste fed to the animals.

The cows died Jan. 14. Because of their symptoms, early indications suggested they died of pneumonia or another bovine virus. Vanderloo says tests found no evidence to support those theories.

Vanderloo says it's common practice to give animals food that can't be used for human consumption. He says there was no risk to human health.


]]> 2011-01-30T13:30:09+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/nw_minn._farmer_pleads_guilty_to_lying_to_usda/ {summary} Food Safety





St. Paul, Minn. (AP) — A farmer from northwestern Minnesota has pleaded guilty to lying to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a moldy beans scheme.

Thomas Chisholm of Gary was accused of putting moldy beans in a shipment of food destined for hungry families in Honduras, then lying to the USDA about the beans' condition.

Chisholm pleaded guilty to causing the issuance of false official certificates.

Chisholm got a contract in February 2007 to provide dark red kidney beans for export to Honduras for the Food for Work program.

Officials say Chisholm had a load of beans that passed inspection. He relabeled that load and resubmitted it for inspection a second time, then told workers to substitute moldy beans for those two lots. When the shipments were opened in Honduras, the beans were spoiled.


]]> 2011-01-11T23:16:50+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/usda_reduces_corn_harvest_forecast_for_iowa_us/ {summary} Farm Economy




DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture has reduced its forecast for the corn harvest in Iowa and across the country.

The Des Moines Register reports that the USDA on Tuesday cut the projected Iowa harvest from 169 bushels per acre last month to 167 bushels per acre. Last year, Iowa farmers averaged 182 bushels per acre.

Iowa's total corn production is estimated at 2.2 billion bushels. Last year, it was 2.4 billion bushels.

Nationally, the USDA reduced the crop forecast by 1 percent to 12.5 billion bushels.

The nation's carryover of surplus corn is 827 million bushels. That's the lowest level since 1995.

Iowa's soybean production is expected to climb to 512 million bushels this year.]]> 2010-11-10T03:48:51+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/vertical_farm_envisions_tall_future_for_farming/ {summary} Farm Economy





DETROIT (AP) - A new book by an urban agriculture visionary aims to change the way people think about farming, offering a look into a future where city skyscrapers - not rural fields - produce the world's food.

In "The Vertical Farm," Dickson Despommier challenges the notion that plants should be grown in soil, advocating for developing and investing in big projects using hydroponic greenhouses and other indoor growing technology in cities.

The goal is to provide safe, fresh food around the globe in a way Despommier says is impossible with modern farming. He acknowledges that getting to that future might be expensive, but he considers it a challenge akin to the space race.

"There is nothing stopping us from doing that any more than there was nothing stopping us from going to the moon," the 70-year-old Despommier said in a recent interview about the book, his third, released this month by Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press.

Despommier (pronounced 'DAY-palm-YAY) developed his ideas as a professor of public health in environmental health sciences at Columbia University. He and his students spent the past decade studying ways to incorporate agriculture into urban areas and developing plans for high-rise farms.

Despommier, who retired in January, has been a leading voice promoting the possibility that urban agriculture could be more than community plots on vacant lots in cities like New York and Detroit. His ideas tend to be grander in scale - and more enmeshed in new technology - than those of others in the field.

He envisions growing crops in indoor areas more concentrated than farm fields, and herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers wouldn't be used. Towers could be built just for growing, or empty buildings could be converted.

In its ultimate form, Despommier envisions a system for farming that would use energy from burning human waste, for example, and biofuels from the vertical farm itself to help power extremely energy efficient grow lights. Fish and poultry could be raised in the buildings, along with fruits and vegetables.

Some of those steps are taking place already on a smaller, lower-tech scale. In Milwaukee, for example, former pro basketball player and urban farmer Will Allen has created a self-sustaining system of fish and vegetable farming.

And companies such as Cornwall, England-based Valcent Products Ltd. make systems to grow indoors in warehouses or other buildings. Valcent's CEO Chris Bradford credits Despommier for pushing the boundaries of what might be possible.

"The concept grasps people's imagination and they start thinking about whether urban farming is a practical solution," said Bradford, who expects his company's VertiCrop system to begin being used in the U.S. in early 2011.

Despommier acknowledges that the vision presented in the book is far off. Or as environmental justice activist Majora Carter writes in the book's foreword: "If the skyscraper farm is like a 747 jetliner, we are now at the stage of the Wright Brothers."

But, Despommier notes, that's still a point from which to start.

The book includes an overview of how the farming developed, as well as laying out ideas for what vertical farms could become. Despommier advocates investing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money in research at urban agricultural centers around the country where prototypes could be built and ideas hashed out.

"What could be more worth spending money on, in my view, than to try to get everybody safe food and water?" Despommier asked.

---

Online:

Vertical Farm Project: http://www.verticalfarm.com


]]> 2010-10-28T11:37:46+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/good_neighbor_corn_fights_borers_at_home_nearby/ {summary} Food and Animal Genetics





MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - This corn turns out to be a very good neighbor.

Corn that's been genetically engineered to resist attacking borers produces a "halo effect" that provides huge benefits to other corn planted nearby, a new study finds. Since the borers that attack the genetically modified crops die, there are fewer of them to go after the non-modified version.

Given that the corn borer has cost U.S. farmers $1 billion a year, the economic benefits are dramatic, according to the report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The genetically modified plants, called Bt corn, have had an economic benefit of $6.9 billion during the past 14 years in the five Upper Midwest corn-producing states studied, concluded the researchers. They were led by William Hutchison, head of the entomology department at the University of Minnesota, and Paul Mitchell, an agricultural economist at the University of Wisconsin.

They said they were surprised to find that non-Bt corn acres actually reaped 62 percent of the benefit, or $4.3 billion. That's because of the pest-control effect and because non-Bt seed is cheaper.

"We knew there was a benefit but we didn't realize it was going to be that high," Hutchison said in an interview.

An accompanying commentary in Science by entomologist Bruce E. Tabashnik of the University of Arizona calls the study groundbreaking, partly because it's the first to do an economic analysis on the effect based on large-scale, long-term data.

Bt corn gets its name because it's engineered to produce a toxin with a gene from the common soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. The toxin kills the European corn borer caterpillar but is considered harmless to people and livestock, so Bt corn has become highly popular since it hit the market in 1996. It's now planted on about 63 percent of all U.S. corn acres.

Caterpillars of the corn borer moth tunnel into corn stalks and chew on the leaves, cutting yields. Insecticides aren't very effective against them, Hutchison said. But when the insects munch on Bt corn, they stop eating within minutes and die within a day or two, he said.

To guard against corn borers developing resistance to the toxin, federal regulations require that farmers plant a certain amount of non-Bt corn in "refuges." Requirements vary, but 20 percent of the corn acres has been typical for a Midwest farm.

The adult corn borer moths lay their eggs randomly on Bt and non-Bt corn. Caterpillars that hatch on the Bt corn die long before they can become moths, spread and reproduce. So if there are enough host plants, the study found, corn borer numbers across the broader area drop and damage even to non-Bt corn falls off substantially.

Requiring refuges makes it likely that any corn borer moths that develop immunity to the toxin and survive will mate with nonresistant moths and won't pass down the advantage to their offspring. In contrast, Hutchison noted, resistance has evolved in some countries that plant Bt cotton without refuge requirements.

"It shows that resistance management is even more important than we thought," Mitchell said.

Hutchison said the study shows the value of maintaining refuge requirements despite reluctance from some farmers who would rather plant only Bt corn. He said they would still benefit even if they planted fewer acres in Bt corn, perhaps a 50-50 or 60-40 split.

The corn study covered Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska.

Whether they're designed to resist insects or survive herbicides like Roundup, genetically engineered crops have become common. More than four-fifths of U.S. soybean, corn and cotton acres were planted with genetically engineered varieties last year.

Genetically modified crops have come under criticism from people who doubt their safety and fear the consequences if the genes find their way into the wild or other species, potentially putting the natural world and the food supply at risk in ways that can be difficult to predict.

But Hutchison said the best current science shows no negative environmental impact from Bt corn.

Two entomologists who weren't involved in the study said the findings are important.

"It shows there's an economic payoff for farmers that grow non-Bt corn as well as farmers who grow Bt corn. That's a very interesting finding," said Yves Carriere of the University of Arizona.

David Onstad of the University of Illinois said a strength of the study is that the large team of researchers involved included not just entomologists but people from other disciplines such as economics.

---

Online:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

University of Minnesota Bt corn and corn border backgrounder: http


]]> 2010-10-08T01:30:58+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/peterson_cautions_against_gop_running_farm_bill/ {summary} Farm Legislation





Jerry Hagstrom
DTN Political Correspondent
The Progressive Farmer
September 30, 2010


WASHINGTON (DTN) -- A dozen of the 28 Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee are in toss-up races, raising the possibility that electoral results in farm districts could deliver the House to Republican control and make the process of writing the next farm bill very different.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., who is considered the principal author of the very popular 2008 farm bill, said in an interview last week that he is optimistic he will keep his chairmanship next year and be the guiding force for the next farm bill.

"The fact that they're in toss-up races ...


]]> 2010-09-30T23:31:18+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/world_food_supply_severely_challenged/ {summary}


Paul Munnis


As we look at the world around us we see a bad weather period underway manifested by flood, drought, tornados, high heat and high humidity.

These in turn are leading to a huge impact on the food chain and fires burning up the landscape including the ripening cereal grain crop fields in Russia.

We are told by hydrologists that the weather patterns that we are now seeing are the same as those of 132 years ago when climate induced circumstances lead to heavy rains, drought, fires, floods, and acute storms in a pattern similar to what we are now seeing.

This is not climate change, it is not man made conditions, it is a cyclic event, according to scientists.

In places like China, India, Russia, Pakistan, and throughout much of the world where large numbers of people live the world food system has collapsed thus rationing, starvation, hording, and food inflation are inevitable.

The majority of U.S. crops are fed to animals that we slaughter and eat. Instead this crop season the feed might have to go to feed people and not animals thus impacting the meat supply here in the U.S.

A "perfect storm" of circumstances is coming together that is leading many agriculture experts to predict that we will soon be experiencing a worldwide food crisis of unprecedented magnitude.

Will 2010 be the year that the world runs out of food?

Record setting droughts, exploding populations and crippling crop failures all over the world are combining to set the stage for a potentially devastating food crisis in the coming year.

Even in such technologically advanced times, the reality is that the food supply is not immune to droughts and plagues.

• All time record breaking heat and drought continues to plague the state of Texas. In fact, extreme drought conditions can be found in many agricultural areas throughout the United States this summer.
  
• If the drought conditions were not bad enough, a disease known as "late blight" is absolutely devastating tomato and potato plants in the eastern half of the United States. The prices for those two staple foods could shoot through the roof, hitting already hurting American consumers really hard.
  
• In addition, farmers all over the United States are reporting very disappointing harvests. For example, the very weak wheat harvest this year is seriously disappointing farmers across the state of Illinois.
  

But it is not just the U.S. that is experiencing serious agricultural problems. In fact, the news from the rest of the world is even more troubling.

• Agricultural scientists fear that Ug99, a devastating wheat fungus also known as stem rust, could wipe out over 80 percent of the world's wheat crop as it spreads out from Africa.
  
• Harvests all across the globe are frighteningly low. Just check out the following troubling reports from the Market Skeptics blog.....
  

1) Bulgaria harvest will be around 20% lower than last season's output.

2) Argentine farmers will plant just 2.6 million hectares of winter wheat for the 2009/10 season, a stunning 2.1 million less than was planted in 2008/09 (down nearly 45%).

3) Part of the reason behind lower plantings is a two fingered salute to the government and their export restrictions.

4) Brazil, the world's third largest wheat importer, bought 51,000 MT of US wheat last week, more than it bought in the entire first six months of the year.

5) With the Brazilian real strengthening against the dollar, Brazilian millers that are being forced to look for supplies are finding US wheat fitting the bill quite nicely.

6) Canadian crop development lags with 60% of winter grains are behind normal development. Spring grains development is even further behind, with 75% of crops affected.

7) Ukraine will only produce 35 MMT of grain this season, 35 percent less than last year.

8 ) 3.3 million hectares of the Russia’s spring crops have been badly damaged by drought. Production this year is seen lower at around 55-60 MMT from 63.7 MMT in 2008.

9) Sugar hit it's highest in three years last week.

10) The lack of monsoon rains in northern India was the main driver of the rally in sugar. World demand is outstripping supply by over six million tonnes at the moment, and India is set to potentially become the world's largest importer this year.

11) Spanish wheat output is now projected 32% lower this year at 3.8 MMT.

12) Rain is damaging crops in the UK and across Europe.


When you add up all of the recent agricultural news stories it means one thing: a massive food crisis is on the way.

Harvests around the world are going to be much smaller at a time when world demand for food is at an all-time high.

In other words, there are going to be food shortages.

Very serious food shortages.

Are you all starting to get the point?

In just a few months, the world is going to have a lot less food than what it needs. When people around the world find that they can't feed their families, there will likely be food riots that will make the food riots of 2008 look like a walk in the park.

In the United States, there will not be shortages of food - at least at first. But what this will mean is that there will be dramatic price increases at the supermarket.
Are you ready?

Normal behavior is that when shortages exist it attracts speculators and they swarm to try to control the futures market in these commodities. To a large degree the actions taken by President Obama to rein in Wall Street seeks to control these speculators and prevent U.S. Banks from joining in using your deposit money. That will help a lot and so will normal market forces work at establishing new food prices. The problem is that many do not have the resources needed to cope with higher food prices and government cannot feed so many hungry people.

At least one response will be an attempt by some to freeze food crop exports from the USA to hungry nations.

]]> 2010-08-12T15:39:54+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/wheat_futures_pop_as_usda_cuts_forecast/ {summary} Farm Markets




CHICAGO (AP) - Wheat futures popped Thursday on the Chicago Board of Trade after the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its production forecast for the 2010-11 season because of the destroyed crops from severe drought in Russia and bad weather in northwestern Europe.

The USDA expects world wheat production of 680.30 million metric tons this season, down 2.3 percent from its July forecast of 661.07 million metric tons.

Wheat for December delivery jumped 14 cents to $7.39 a bushel.

Other grains traded mixed. December corn added 2.5 cents to $4.135 a bushel; December oats were flat at $2.82 a bushel; while soybeans for November delivery fell 3 cents to $10.125 a bushel.

Beef and pork futures mostly fell on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

October live cattle shed 0.25 cent to 95.10 cents a pound; October feeder cattle dropped 0.52 cent to $1.1270 a pound; October lean hogs jumped 0.95 cent to 74.60 cents a pound; and February pork bellies fell 2.6 cents to 105.40 cents a pound.


]]> 2010-08-12T15:37:41+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/usda_predicts_nebraskas_second-largest_corn_crop/ {summary} Farm Legislation
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - The USDA predicted Thursday that Nebraska farmers will harvest their second-largest corn crop ever this year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the state's corn crop is expected to yield 1.54 billion bushels. That would be 2 percent smaller than last year's record crop.

The corn yield is predicted to hit a record high of 180 bushels per acre, which is 2 bushels above last year's high.

"Above normal rainfall throughout much of the growing season has benefited dryland areas, resulting in excellent yield prospects," said Joseph Parsons, director of the USDA's Nebraska field office.

The USDA said Nebraska farmers planted 8.55 million acres of corn - 3 percent fewer acres than in 2009.

Nebraska's soybean crop is forecast to grow 9 percent over last year, to a record 284 million bushels. Soybean yield is expect to be 53 bushels per acre, which is the second-highest ever.

Farmers in the state planted 12 percent more acres of soybeans this year, so the crop is on 5.35 million acres in Nebraska.

The state's winter wheat crop is now expected to produce 68.4 million bushels. That's 2 percent less than last month's forecast and 11 percent below last year. Winter wheat yield is expected to be 45 bushels per acre.

The USDA is predicting a sorghum crop of 6.1 million bushels. That's 53 percent less than a year ago because fewer acres were planted.

About 2.1 million bushels of oats are expected to be harvested. That would be a 1 percent increase over 2009.

More acres of dry edible beans were planted, so production is expected to grow 48 percent in Nebraska.

Sugar beet production is down 13 percent from 2009.


Online:

USDA: http://www.nass.usda.gov


]]> 2010-08-12T15:34:06+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/renewable_fuels_are_regions_strength/ {summary} Green Energy

By Fritz Busch
New Ulm Journal
August 5, 2009


GILFILLAN -Renewable fuels, honed by new technology, are the strength of Southern Minnesota agriculture, according to the founder and president of an economics consulting and research firm.

Speaking at a Farmfest 2009 Feature Forum Wednesday, Tom Scott talked about the agriculture market.

"It's not a static environment. You can't rest of your laurels," he added. "There will be tremendous market change. The rest of the agriculture industry will fall in behind it."

New technology will drive down the cost curve and make producers more cost competitive," he said.

"Organic and sustainable agriculture will be consumer-driven...The future of agriculture is as exciting as it's ever been," said Scott.

Minnesota Farm Bureau President Kevin Paap said all agriculture must work together to weather the market crisis.

"We need to connect better with rural and urban consumers about what kind of food they want," said Paap.

Minnesota Farmers Union President Doug Peterson said a first-generation renewable fuel is needed to get to a second generation and develop greater efficiencies.

Peterson urged producers to fight to keep big corporations from owning seed and livestock genetics.

Minnesota Rural Policy Executive Director Brad Finstad said collaborative projects like the Hormel Institute's research with the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic on finding pharmaceutical uses for soybeans are things to look forward to.

Minnesota Future Farmers of America President Kirby Schmidt of Marshall asked about global commodity markets.

"There are a lot of hungry people in the world. Most of them don't live in the United States," said Finstad.

Minnesota Agriculture Commissioner Gene Hugoson said he recently visited Vietnam and said the country is becoming more market oriented.

"We'll compete with the European Union, Canada and Brazil, but if Africa ever stops having civil wars, there's another opportunity," Hugoson added.

Paap said American food producers need more international markets, since we grow more than the country needs.

Finstad brought attention to a recent edition of Rural Minnesota Journal, which is published by the Center for Rural Policy an Development.

The publication identifies China as the fastest-growing market in the 21st century. In 2004, its population was 1.3 billion with a $1.65 trillion gross domestic product.

The Minnesota-China Partnership creates new economic opportunities for both countries with annual trade missions, international business development programs, strengthening existing relationships with Chinese government and business leaders and promoting greater understanding of U.S.-Chinese relations.

Taiwan was described as an ideal market for small and medium-sized firms with a very friendly climate for international visitors and firms well-versed in the import process.

Taiwan partnerships were described as great opportunities to branch into Mainland China.

Cuba and Vietnam have emerging biofuels export opportunities, according to the book. Vietnam has the second-fastest growing economy in Asia, the publication stated.


Ed. NoteFarmfest showed some unusual shapes suitable for urban use and these may be seen by clicking HERE.



]]> 2009-08-06T12:53:40+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/notable_guests_at_farmfest/ {summary} Farm Economy, Farm Policy Congressional members, governor expected to attend



By Mark Fischenich
Mankato Free Press


GILFILLAN — It’s not an election year, but Farmfest will have an impressive line-up of politicians nonetheless for the three-day agricultural exposition starting Aug. 4.

There’s a likely Republican presidential candidate, the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and two other ag committee members from the House and Senate. Recruiting those key political figures is helped by the fact that they’re all from Minnesota, including House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, whose district includes the rural Morgan farm site which hosts Farmfest.

“It’s kind of handy when the chair of the Agriculture Committee represents the district where Farmfest is held,” said Kent Thiesse of Lake Crystal, who coordinates the policy forums at Farmfest each year.

The likely presidential candidate is Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a regular participant at the annual event since his first run for governor in 2002. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Tim Walz of Mankato are the ag committee members.

“Some really key people (for agriculture),” Thiesse said.

And because it’s an off-year politically, the forums will allow more time for southern Minnesotans to ask questions of the lawmakers, governor and other forum participants.

“There’s a lot of chance for audience interaction — probably more-so than the (campaign) forums,” Thiesse said.

The members of Congress will be the primary draw on the opening day forum on Aug. 4. Entitled “Beyond the New Farm Bill — Shaping the Future of Rural America”, the forum begins at 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 4.

And the ag committee members will be joined by Minnesota’s newest elected official — Sen. Al Franken. Earlier this summer, Farmfest organizers were wondering if Minnesota would have a second senator to invite as the protracted U.S. Senate race dragged on into July, Thiesse said. But Franken has committed to being there, assuming the Senate completes its summer work on schedule.

The afternoon forum on Aug. 4 is “Climate Change — Challenges and Opportunities for Agriculture.” The 1:15 p.m. forum features National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson, along with a meteorologist, a carbon-trading specialist and representatives of Agribank, the Farm Bureau and the Minnesota Corn Growers.

At 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 5, Tom Scott of Informa Economics will release results of a poll commissioned by the University of Minnesota addressing the status of agriculture in Minnesota and anticipated future trends. A panel discussion on the topic will include state Ag Commissioner Gene Hugoson, Rural Policy Center Director Brad Finstad, state Farm Bureau President Kevin Paap, and state Farmers Union President Doug Peterson.

The afternoon session at 1:15 on Aug. 5 is focused on the struggling livestock industry in the state and maintaining its status as a cornerstone of Minnesota’s economy.

The final forum, featuring Gov. Tim Pawlenty, is at 10:30 a.m. Aug. 6 and is entitled “Making Minnesota Strong for the Next Decade and Beyond.”

While it’s not an election year, Thiesse expects Farmfest attendees to run into some campaigning by several of the numerous politicians who are running — or considering runs — to replace Pawlenty as governor.

Farmfest is held at the Gilfillan Estate on Highway 67 between Morgan and Redwood Falls.

]]> 2009-07-20T14:16:47+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/farm_fest_forum_events/ {summary} Farm Economy, Farm Policy


Join us each day in the Forum Tent for educational topics that will help you strengthen your operation. The Farmfest® Forums are coordinated by Kent Thiesse and supported by the Linder Farm Network.

Forum schedules will be updated closer to the show dates. Check back frequently for updated information.

August 4, 2009
9:00 AM Weather Patterns and Market Trends... Finding the Balance

• Bryce Anderson, DTN Senior Agriculture Meteorologist
• Darin Newsome, DTN Senior Marketing Analyst

9:30 AM Music by "The Great Pretenders"
Sponsored by United FCS

10:30 AM Beyond the New Farm Bill... Shaping the Future of Rural America

Panel Members:

• Senator Amy Klobuchar, Member of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee (Invited)
• Senator Al Franken (Invited)
• Congressman Collin Peterson, Chair of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee
• Congressman Tim Walz, Member of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee

12:00 PM Linder Farm Network Noontime Ag Jamboree
With Lynn Ketelsen of Linder Farm Network
Entertainment by "The Great Pretenders"
Sponsored by United FCS

1:15 PM Climate Change... Challenges and Opportunities for Agriculture

Panel Members:

• Roger Johnson, National Farmers Union President
• David Ladd, Manager of Government Services, AgriBank
• Bryce Anderson, DTN Senior Agriculture Meteorologist
• Charles Souhle, Country Hedging Carbon Credit Trading Analyst
• Staci Bohlen, National Issues Specialist, Minnesota Farm Bureau
• Doug Albin, Clarkfield, MN, President of the MN Corn Growers Assn.

3:00 PM FarmersOnly.Com Event Live "On-Stage"

August 5, 2009

8:00 AM Minnesota Farm Bureau Pancake Breakfast
Entertainment by "The Great Pretenders"
Sponsored by United FCS

9:30 AM Music by "The Great Pretenders"
Sponsored by United FCS


10:30 AM The Minnesota Ag Industry... Where Are We At and Where Are We Going?

Keynote Address: Tom Scott, Informa Economics President

Response Panel Members:

• Gene Hugoson, Minnesota Commissioner of Agriculture
• Brad Finstad , Director of MN Rural Policy Center
• Kevin Paap, Minnesota Farm Bureau President
• Doug Peterson, Minnesota Farmers Union President

12:00 PM Linder Farm Network Noontime Ag Jamboree
With Lynn Ketelsen of Linder Farm Network
Entertainment by "The Great Pretenders"
Sponsored by United FCS


1:15 PM Keeping the Livestock Industry as a Cornerstone of Minnesota’s Economy

Panel Members:

• Mark Greenwood, Vice President of Agri-Business Capital, AgStar
• Steve Meyer, Livestock Economist for Paragon Economics
• Randy Spronk, Edgerton, MN, National Pork Producers Assn. Board
• Ed Welch, CEO, AMPI, New Ulm, MN
• National Cattleman’s Assn. Representative(Invited)
• Bruce Schmoll, MN Soybean Growers Assn. Secretary

2:45 PM Music by "The Great Pretenders"
Sponsored by United FCS


3:00 PM 2nd Annual Farmfest Auctioneering Championship


Hosted by Lynn Ketelsen, Farm Director, Linder Farm Network
Featuring music by “The Great Pretenders”

August 6, 2009
9:00 AM Grain Marketing Decisions in Volatile Times

• Al Kluis, Marketing Analyst, Kluis Commodities

9:30 AM Music by "The Great Pretenders"
Sponsored by United FCS


10:30 AM Making Minnesota Strong for the Next Decade and Beyond

Keynote Address: Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (Invited)

Panel Members: • Carol Molnau, Minnesota Lieutenant Governor

• Colleen Landkamer, Incoming USDA Rural Development State Director (Invited)
• Linda Hennen, Incoming State Farm Service Agency Director
• Bev Durgan, Dean and Director of the University of Minnesota Extension Service
• Jim Mulder, Executive Director, Association of Minnesota Counties

1:30 PM “Farm Family of the Year” Recognition Program
Sponsored by the University of Minnesota,
Farmfest, and the Minnesota Farm Network


*** Program will include several Special Guests ***


* Schedule subject to change.
]]> 2009-07-20T14:09:26+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/eight_reasons_why_farmers_should_support_cap_and_trade_legislation/ {summary} Farm Economy

Posted by: J. Drake Hamilton in Renewable Energy Standard, legislation, global warming, federal issues, energy efficiency, energy conservation, economic development, clean energy, carbon regulation, agriculture on Jun 11, 2009

Source: Fresh Energy


Many members of Congress represent districts where farming is a critical part of the economy. That's why our elected leaders need to talk about how passing climate and energy legislation will benefit producers in their regions.

I quote at length below from an assessment written by Jake Caldwell and Alexandra Kougentakis of the Center for American Progress.

"Agriculture, energy, and global warming are inextricably linked, which is why America's farmers must be a part of the solution to global warming. Today the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture conducts a hearing on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, H.R. 2454. A close review of the legislation reveals that it provides a significant opportunity for U.S. farmers to increase their income while safeguarding their livelihoods and the nation's food and energy supplies.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack called reductions of carbon dioxide a "new income source [that could] change the old ways of supporting farms." He has urged farmers to seize the economic opportunities from reducing greenhouse gas pollution and "not to be fearful of this future." H.R. 2454 recognizes and rewards the benefits farmers can provide to the United States and the world in ending our dependence on fossil fuels and confronting climate change.

H.R. 2454 offers an opportunity for farmers to diversify their sources of income and cut costs by increasing energy efficiency. With modest improvements, ACESA can designate a more explicit role for agriculture in the carbon offset market without jeopardizing the gains for farmers already included in the overall legislation. ACESA rewards good practices and provides the tools to ensure that American farmers can benefit from solutions to global warming.

Here are eight reasons why farmers should support this bill:

1. Farms and forests can reduce global warming pollution.

U.S. agricultural and forest lands sequester 246 million metric tons of carbon annually, absorbing 13 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. With the appropriate incentives these lands could ultimately absorb 50 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. H.R. 2454 promotes U.S. agricultural lands as a carbon sink by encouraging low tillage practices, tree and perennial planting, erosion prevention, rotational grazing, agricultural carbon offsets, and a market for carbon sequestration.

2. Farmers can grow dollars by selling carbon offsets.

H.R. 2454 establishes a carbon offsets market that would allow farmers to create and sell carbon offsets to polluting entities in lieu of reductions by polluters. This would reduce the cost of emissions reductions for polluters. Farmers would be paid for their longstanding carbon sequestration and land stewardship efforts. By increasing carbon sequestration and reducing emissions from greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide on the farm, farmers can qualify for carbon offsets that would generate increased farm revenue. The Energy Information Administration has estimated the value of agricultural offsets to be close to $24 billion annually.

U.S. agriculture produces 413 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, while generating two-thirds of all nitrous oxide emissions and significant methane emissions. These two gases are more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. Overall, the agricultural sector is responsible for 6 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. agriculture must take the lead in reducing these on-farm greenhouse gas emissions. There are many opportunities for farmers to make reductions and reap profits.

The offsets program can be improved by involving the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Environmental Protection Agency's process to develop the offsets rules and market operation. USDA's expertise and presence in nearly every state should assist in the development of measurement methodologies to enable ACESA's Offsets Integrity Advisory Board to determine scientifically rigorous high-quality offsets.

3. Farmers can earn new income by leasing their land for wind turbines while continuing to farm.

The renewable electricity standard in H.R. 2454 requires utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by 2020 (see Title I, Sect. 101). Farmers can help utility companies meet this goal by installing wind turbines, solar panels, and other renewable energy technologies on their land and buildings. Leasing land for a single utility-scale wind turbine could provide a farmer with about $3,000 a year in income. The Department of Energy estimates that if 5 percent of the nation's energy comes from wind power by 2020, rural America could see $60 billion in capital investment. Farmers and rural landowners would derive $1.2 billion in new income, and 80,000 new jobs would be created over the next two decades.

4. Farms will produce the cleaner fuels of the future.

The current renewable fuels standard establishes ambitious targets and strives to produce advanced biofuels that deliver measurable lifecycle greenhouse gas reductions, minimize the use of food-based feed stocks, and adhere to certifiable environmental and land use safeguards. H.R. 2454 works with the RFS to promote advanced biofuels grown and produced in rural America.

The RFS has a production target of 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels by 2022. It provides appropriate flexibility to allow producers to meet the RFS mandate with significant contributions from third generation biofuels without dictating a specific type of biofuel product or technology. The approximately 15 billion gallons of existing and future conventional ethanol production capacity would be exempt from greenhouse gas reduction targets.

5. A safety net to protect rural families from higher energy prices.

H.R. 2454 provides for a monthly cash energy refund for rural consumers experiencing a loss in purchasing power due to energy costs. (Title IV, Section 432).

6. Energy efficiency measures would reduce farmers' electricity bills.

The energy efficiency standard in H.R. 2454 provides farmers with the opportunity to make significant energy efficiency upgrades. Farmers are eligible for federal tax credits for energy-efficient appliances to help them reduce energy use. Dairy farms, which use more energy than most farms due to the energy-intensive nature of milk production, could in particular benefit from the savings from using energy more efficiently. Installation of energy-efficient lighting, ventilation fans, and milking systems could save a farmer hundreds of dollars a year.

Energy expenditures represent 6 percent of total national farm production costs, costing farmers over $10 billion per year. Recent increases in oil prices and volatility will make energy costs even more of a burden for farmers.

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy estimates that the potential for energy and cost savings in agriculture is over 98 trillion British Thermal Units and $1 billion annually. The potential efficiency savings for agricultural producers is 5.8 percent compared to the 2002 consumption total of 1.7 quadrillion BTUs.

7. Scientific review would help identify future threats.

The evidence of harms from global warming are mounting at an alarming rate. To ensure that farmers and agriculture can identify and respond to climate changes, the bill establishes an interagency National Climate Change Adaptation Council that would assess the impacts of climate change on agriculture and other sectors. A fund is also established to provide money for state and local adaptation projects, including on farms. (See Title IV, Sect. 462).

8. The American Clean Energy and Security Act protects farmers from stormy forecasts.

Inaction on global warming represents ongoing adherence to today's status quo of volatile energy prices, extreme weather events, and increasing dependence on disaster assistance. Agriculture is particularly vulnerable to the increased water shortages, widespread drought and floods, and lower crop yields that would result from global warming. H.R. 2454 makes the reductions in greenhouse gas pollution scientists urge to prevent the worst impacts of global warming."


]]> 2009-06-12T11:34:58+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/report_hot_dry_weather_helps_minn_farmers_plant/ {summary} Farm Economy



St. Paul, Minn. (AP) — The hot, dry weather last week let farmers stay in the fields to nearly complete planting the Minnesota corn crop, but topsoil moisture is drying up.

That's from the weekly crop weather report put out Tuesday by the Minnesota field office the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The report says high winds last week eroded soils and damaged newly emerged crops in some areas. Farmers need rain for the crops to keep growing, especially soybeans recently planted in dry ground.

Topsoil moisture supplies rated 11 percent very short, 27 percent short, 53 percent adequate and 9 percent surplus across the state. There were more than six days suitable for field work.

Corn planting is 96 percent complete. Seventy-one percent of the corn acres have emerged compared with, 30 percent last year and a five-year average of 63 percent.


]]> 2009-05-27T11:25:35+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/cow_genome_to_transform_farming/ {summary} Animal Genetics



By Victoria Gill
Science reporter,
BBC News
April 23, 2009


The genome of a female Hereford cow has been sequenced, which could be a starting point for major improvements in the agricultural industry.

Analysing this blueprint of DNA code for the chemical building blocks of the animal is revealing the unique role that many of the genes play.

The information is likely to have a major impact on livestock breeding.

The study, published in the journal Science, was a six-year effort by more than 300 scientists in 25 countries.

Cattle now join an elite group of animals to have had their genome sequenced - a group that includes humans, other primates and rodents.

"We chose to study the cow genome because these animals are of such immense importance to humans," explained Richard Gibbs from Baylor College of Medicine's Human Genome Sequencing Center, a leading contributor to the project.

By comparing the results to other sequenced genomes, including that of humans, the researchers discovered how cows could help inform research into human health and disease.

"We found that cows are much more similar to us than rodents are," said Professor Gibbs.

"This is because rodents are evolving much faster. And it tells us aspects of human biology that we could actually study in cows."

Unique breed

Of the 22,000 genes in the cow genome, 14,000 are common to all mammalian species.

"These 14,000 are the common engine room of mammals," said Ross Tellam, a scientist from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia and one of the authors of the Science paper.

"The remaining genes are unique to each species."

The double-stranded DNA molecule - wound in a helix - is held together by four chemical components called bases

Adenine (A) bonds with thymine (T); cytosine(C) bonds with guanine (G)

Groupings of these "letters" form the "code of life"; a code that is very nearly universal to all Earth's organisms
Written in the DNA are genes which cells use as starting templates to make proteins; these sophisticated molecules build and maintain our bodies

And many of the genetic features that make cattle unique are what make them so important to us.

"If we can see precisely what genes cause the differences between each animal, there is an opportunity to enhance selective breeding," he explained.

"We can use natural methods - simply selecting the best animals - to produce livestock that make more meat or more milk."

This comparison between individual animals has already begun in a related study published in the same issue of Science.

An associated scientific team has produced a map charting the key DNA differences, also known as haplotypes, between varieties of cattle.

They compared the Hereford genome sequence with those of six other breeds.

Using this bovine "HapMap", researchers can track the differences between the breeds that affect the quality of meat and milk yields.

"[This map] will transform how dairy and beef cattle are bred," said Richard Gibbs.



"Genetic tools are already being developed and proving useful to the dairy industry, and we predict they will be applied to improve the beef industry.

"We hope the information will also be used to come up with innovative ways to reduce the environmental impact of cattle, such as greenhouse gases released by herds."

Microbe attack

The study has also identified new genes involved in the cows' immunity.

These are linked to the animals' digestive system.

Cattle are ruminants, which means they have a four-chambered stomach that contains a multitude of resident bacteria, allowing them to digest plant material, such as grass, that is very tough to break down.

"We think these genes evolved in response to how vulnerable cattle are to microbial attack," said Dr Tellam.

"Because of all the microbes that live in their rumen, and because the animals live in such large herds, they are very vulnerable to disease."

]]> 2009-04-24T00:00:52+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/the_growing_lust_for_agricultural_lands/ {summary} World Hunger



by: Marie-Béatrice Baudet and Laetitia Clavreul
Le Monde - France
Published at Truthout.com on Tuesday 14 April 2009


Not a day goes by without new acreage being signed over. "For Sale" ads for agricultural property are now featured in the international financial press. And there's no dearth of clients. "At the end of 2008," Jean-Yves Carfantan, author of "Choc alimentaire mondial, ce qui nous attend demain" ["Global Food Shock: What's in Store for Us Tomorrow"] (Albin Michel, 2009), observes, "five countries stood out for the extent of their foreign arable land acquisitions: China, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. Together, they control over 7.6 million cultivable hectares outside their national territory, or the equivalent of 5.6 times the utilizable agricultural surface of Belgium." The phenomenon of land grabs is certainly not new, as it goes back to the first colonizations. However, in the opinion of many observers, economists and NGOs, it is now accelerating.

The explosion of agricultural commodity prices in 2007 and 2008, following the example of the same phenomenon in the 1970's, made many investors decide to turn to land. The fall in prices has not made them run away. As GRAIN - an international NGO which seeks to promote agricultural biodiversity - notes in a report published in October 2008 and entitled, "Seized: The 2008 landgrab for food and financial security," given the present financial debacle, all kinds of actors from the financial and agribusiness sectors - pension funds, hedge funds, etc. - have abandoned derivative markets and consider that agricultural land has become a new strategic asset."

They are not alone. Many countries have made the same analysis, not to find sources of surplus value, but for reasons of food security. "The objective is clearly to parry the consequences of stagnation in their domestic production, induced by unrestrained urbanization and the reduction of water resources," Mr. Carfantan explains. Arable land is becoming ever more rare in the Middle East, for example. So, the petro-monarchies have been investing the last three years in the creation of extraterritorial annexes. Qatar controls lands in Indonesia; Bahrain in the Philippines; Kuwait in Burma, etc.

"Agricultural Outsourcing"

It's not at all surprising that the Chinese government should, for its part, make a policy of agricultural land acquisition abroad one of its priorities: the country represents 40 percent of the global active agricultural population, but possesses only nine percent of Earth's arable land, Mr. Carfantan remarks. As for Japan and South Korea, they already import 60 percent of their food from abroad.

The canvassing of Southern countries' political officials is intensifying. At the end of 2008, Moammar Kaddafi, Libya's head of state, came to the Ukraine to propose an exchange of oil and gas for (local) fertile land. The business is about to be concluded. Thursday, April 16, a Jordanian delegation will go to Sudan to strengthen its agricultural presence there somewhat - a presence initiated already ten years ago. But the movement also concerns Europe. According to the weekly, La France agricole [Agricultural France], 15 percent of the total surface of Romania - or over 15 million hectares - is in the hands of owners from other European countries.

This strategy of "agricultural outsourcing" is not without consequences. What about local populations directly threatened by this commoditization of the land they live from? Today, the planet contains 2.8 billion farmers (out of a population of 6.7 billion people) and three-quarters of those who are hungry live in the countryside. Land registries are often nonexistent. How are and how will those who till and live from the land be indemnified if they have no property titles?

"Producers' organizations are alerting us more all the time about the question of land concentration and about conflicts between small peasants and agribusiness that cultivates for export," explains Benjamin Peyrot des Gachons, from the NGO, Peuples solidaires, which has chosen to organize an international forum on land access (in Montreuil, April 18 and 19) to celebrate the World Day for Peasant Struggle April 17. Farmers from India, Ecuador, Brazil, Burkina Faso and the Philippines will come to bear witness.

The NGO militates for the development of usage rights - with land remaining in the government's hands - not for property rights, which the World Bank favors. Although the attribution of property titles may allow the coexistence of family agriculture and the presence of foreign investors to occur, Peuples solidaires "deems that peasants will not have the means to acquire land." And even if land is attributed to them, "they will rapidly be forced to sell it, should they get in trouble." According to the NGO, property rights will consequently benefit big operators, whether foreign or not.

Another problem provoked by this race for arable land: cohabitation between investing countries and the local population. "Look at what happened in Madagascar after the announcement of the rental of 1.3 million hectares to the South Korean Daewoo Group," resumes Mr. Carfantan. "It was an explosion. I believe tensions will be inevitable wherever this occurs, making foreign agricultural enclaves veritable besieged fortresses." Unless, he argues, harvest sharing and technology transfers are organized so that all may bank on the long term.

A Million Chinese Peasants in Africa by 2010

In 2006, Beijing signed agricultural cooperation agreements with several African countries that allowed the installation of 14 experimental farms in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Tanzania. "We believe that between now and 2010, a million Chinese peasants could be installed on these lands," explains economist and agricultural consultant to Brazil, Jean-Yves Carfantan. Candidates for expatriation are found among the peasants affected by the present crisis.

The Official Objective: to help the receiving countries increase their production, thanks to Chinese technologies: "The hybrid rice varieties created by Beijing allow improvements in yield of 60 percent compared to the global average," Mr. Carfantan notes. However, also according to him, it's clear that a good part of the harvests will be exported to China, in order to guarantee that market's long-term supplies.

--------

This article is the first of a series on the rush for arable land, which has led Le Monde to investigate in Mali, the Maldives, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan.

Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.

]]> 2009-04-20T03:43:00+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/i_robot_and_gardener_mit_droids_tend_plants/ {summary} Farm Technology




CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - These gardeners would have green thumbs - if they had thumbs.

A class of undergraduates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has created a set of robots that can water, harvest and pollinate cherry tomato plants.

The small, $3,000 robots, which move through the garden on a base similar to a Roomba vacuum, are networked to the plants. When the plants indicate they need water, the robots can sprinkle them from a water pump. When the plants have a ripe tomato, the machines use their arms to pluck the fruit.

Even though robots have made few inroads into agriculture, these robots' creators hope their technology eventually could be used by farmers to reduce the natural resources and the difficult labor needed to tend crops.

Last spring, Daniela Rus, a professor who runs the Distributed Robotics Lab at MIT, began a two-part course. In the first semester, the students learned the basics of creating and using robots.

By the fall, the students were ready to have robots tackle a real-world problem. Rus and Nikolaus Correll, a postdoctoral assistant in Rus' lab, challenged the students to create a "distributed robotic garden" by the end of the semester.

The 12 students broke into groups, each tasked with solving a different problem, such as creating the mechanical arm needed to harvest the tomatoes or perfecting the network that let the plants and robots share information.

By the end of the fall term, the "garden" inside Rus' lab was green and growing.

Now there are four cherry tomato plants nestled into a plywood base covered in fake grass. Next to each pot is a gray docking station for the robots.

Each plant and robot is connected to a computer network. The plants, through sensors in their soil, can tell the network when they need water or fertilizer, while the robots use a camera to inventory the plants' fruit. The robots also are programmed with a rudimentary growth model of the cherry tomato plants, which tells them roughly when a tomato will be ripe enough to be picked.

But the students quickly encountered challenges, both robotic and biologic.

Huan Liu, a 21-year-old computer science major, said designing the robot to pick the delicate tomatoes was made more difficult because the fruit would grow in unreachable places, such as behind stems or above where the robot's arm could reach.

"The tomatoes, they come out of nowhere, or just in weird places," Liu said.

Robots have made factory assembly lines more efficient and are being developed for in-home purposes, such as serving as health care aides. Yet there hasn't been much use for robotics in agriculture, partly because of the challenge of getting machines to work in unpredictable environments.

There have been attempts to get robots to replace humans at farm tasks, from thinning apple trees to picking asparagus, but none of the machines "have sufficient capacity to compete with human beings," said Tony Grift, an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois.

Even when technology has proven to be useful in agriculture, such as on tractors equipped with satellite imagery of fields, it often is prohibitively expensive.

Rus and Correll hope to conquer those kinds of challenges and get robots to work in farms.

"Agriculture contributes a lot of damage to the land, the soil, the water and the environment," Rus said. "So if we can figure out a way of using robots and automation to deliver nutrients to plants - pesticides, fertilizers, water when it's needed - instead of sort of mass spreading them, then we hope we would have an impact on the environment."]]> 2009-04-11T21:26:45+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/cattle_respond_to_magnetic_fields_from_power_lines/ {summary} Animal Health




WASHINGTON (AP) - High-voltage power lines mess with animal magnetism. Researchers, who reported last year that most cows and deer tend to orient themselves in a north-south alignment, have now found that power lines can disorient the animals.

When the power lines run east-west, that's the way grazing cattle tend to line up, researchers led by Hynek Burda and Sabine Begall of the faculty of biology at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They also found that cows and deer grazing under northeast-southwest or northwest-southeast power lines faced in random directions.

The research team studied cows and deer using satellite and aerial images.

In their report last August, Burda and colleagues suggested the north-south orientation was in response to the Earth's magnetic field.

The new study adds weight to the animals responding to magnetic effects, since power lines also produce a magnetic field. And the effect was most noticeable close to the power lines, declining as the magnetic field of the electric lines was reduced by distance.

Wind and weather can also affect which ways cows choose to face, but without such factors about two-thirds of them tended to align north-south when away from power lines.

The Earth's magnetic field is thought to be a factor in how birds navigate, and other animals also are believed to respond to it.

In addition to Burda and Begall, the research team included Julia Neef of the University of Duisburg-Essen, Jaroslav Cerveny of the Czech University of Life Sciences and Pavel Nemec of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.

The research was supported by the Czech Science Foundation and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of the Czech Republic.

---

On the Net:

PNAS: http://www.pnas.org


]]> 2009-03-16T21:51:42+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/new_for_cows_a_vaccine_for_e_coli/ {summary} Animal Health



by Steve Karnowski,
Associated Press
March 12, 2009


St. Paul, Minn. — (AP) - A Minnesota company has won federal approval to become the first in the U.S. to market an E. coli vaccine for cattle, a new weapon against a foodborne disease that can cause serious illness and even death in people.

Epitopix LLC was given a conditional license from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to sell its vaccine.

Nayyera Haq, a USDA spokeswoman, called it "an important step toward improving food safety in this country," and a major beef group agreed.

"It really is a major milestone for our industry," Michelle Rossman, director of beef safety research for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said Thursday.

Most E. coli bacteria are harmless but one kind, known as O157, sickens an estimated 70,000 people in the U.S. every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most recover in a few days, but some get serious complications such as kidney failure. Contaminated beef is a common source and has led to several big recalls in recent years.

James Sandstrom, general manger of Epitopix, said the vaccine works by preventing E. coli O157 in cows' intestines from absorbing iron.

The company's technology takes the proteins that the bacteria use to absorb iron from the host animal, and injects them back into cattle to generate an immune response against those proteins. The bacteria can't live without the iron.

With fewer bacteria in the intestines, the risk is reduced that they will contaminate the carcass at slaughter.

Sandstrom said the vaccine will enter commercial use this month, but it will be several months before it's widely available. He said some major packers and producers will be the first to use it, but declined to name them, saying they don't want their names associated with E. coli even for research.

It's not clear yet how widely the industry will embrace the vaccine.

"That's the $64 million question," Sandstrom said.

E. coli O157 doesn't make cattle sick, so producers who already face slim profit margins may need incentives. Sandstrom said privately owned Epitopix hasn't set a price for the vaccine yet, but is hoping incentives will come from packers and retailers who would profit from safer beef.

A Canadian company that makes an E. coli vaccine for cattle sells it there for $7 U.S. ($9 Canadian) per cow.

Two of the nation's largest meat processors, Cargill Meat Solutions and Tyson Foods, didn't immediately respond to calls Thursday for comment.

Rossman said the support is likely to be there. She said the industry has already spent millions of dollars on technologies to fight E. coli in packing houses, and is anxious for strategies that work before slaughter. Her group helped fund research at West Texas A&M University that led the USDA to grant the conditional license.

Similar work was also done at Kansas State University.

Guy Loneragan, who led the research at West Texas A&M, said he did his study at a commercial feedlot to see how the vaccine worked in "real world" conditions.

Among the cattle that got it, he said, there was an 85 percent reduction in animals shedding O157. Among those that still did, there were 98 percent fewer cells of it in their feces. He said that logically should mean fewer E. coli illnesses in people.

The conditional license allows Epitopix to market the vaccine immediately, but the company must continue conducting potency and efficacy studies to get full licensure.

Another E. coli vaccine for cattle, developed by Bioniche Life Sciences Inc. of Canada, received full approval there last October and Bioniche is seeking USDA approval to sell it here.

Haq declined to say how close that might be, but Rick Culbert, president of Bioniche's food safety division, said the main thing left is lining up manufacturing facilities in the U.S., as the USDA requires. A Colorado company, GeneThera Inc., is also working on a vaccine, but it's further away from approval.


]]> 2009-03-12T22:41:08+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/obama_plan_could_cost_minnesota_farms_millions_by_mark_steil_minnesota_publ/ {summary} Farm Policy



by Mark Steil,
Minnesota Public Radio
February 27, 2009


Audio player:

Thousands of Minnesota farmers will see a major portion of their income disappear if Congress passes President Obama's farm proposal. Hundreds of millions of dollars could be at stake in the state. But congressional farm leaders, including Minnesota's Collin Peterson, are lining up against the plan.


St. Paul, Minn. — The Obama budget calls for ending direct subsidy payments to any farmer who sells more than $500,000 in grain and livestock a year. The size of those payments is based on the number of acres and what crop they're producing.

Southwest Minnesota farmer Fred Dauer likes the president's plan.

"If you gross over $500,000 you don't need to get any help from the federal government," Dauer said, who farms about 700 acres.

He receives some payments from the federal government, but many of his crops, sweet corn, peas and alfalfa, do not qualify for the subsidy program.

"I try to raise enough gross revenue that I can justify being out here on my own," Dauer said. "And these big boys -- they just farm the federal government."
A soybean farm with $500,000 in sales is only going to end up netting about $36,000.
- Tara Smith, American Farm Bureau Federation

Dauer said large operations use the subsidy money to buy up land and squeeze their smaller neighbors out of business.

Whether that's true, there's a lot of money at stake for Minnesota.

According to the U.S. Census of Agriculture released earlier this month, there are about 6,700 farms in Minnesota that sell more $500,000 of grain, livestock and other products each year.

They represent less than one-tenth of all the farms in the state. But they generate almost two-thirds of the agricultural sales in Minnesota, some $8 billion.

Minnesota Congressman and House Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson has indicated he's leaning against the Obama plan. Peterson told the Washington Times newspaper, "we just finished the farm bill last year and I don't think we'll open it up."

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., told the newspaper it is "premature to make any sweeping changes" to the farm bill.

Most major agricultural organizations also oppose the president's farm budget. Tara Smith with the American Farm Bureau Federation said the subsidies are needed to help farmers pay the increasing costs of planting a crop.

"A soybean farm with $500,000 in sales is only going to end up netting about $36,000," Smith said. "Farmers see a lot of money go through their fingers in a given year."

$36,000 is well below the U.S. median household income for 2007.

In his budget plan, President Obama said large farmers can replace the subsidy payments in part with what he calls "environmental services."

That includes renewable energy production like wind turbines. Farmers could also generate income by sequestering carbon on the land.

The president said he wants to maintain a strong safety net for farm families and beginning farmers. His plan will likely gain support from groups who favor small farms and more rigorous conservation practices on agricultural land.

However, it looks like the plan will face opposition from the representatives and senators who decide farm legislation in congress.


]]> 2009-02-27T13:32:15+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/milk_prices_slashed_in_half_for_minnesota_farmers/ {summary} Farm Economy




February 7, 2009

New London, Minn. (AP) — Milk prices paid to farmers have fallen by half since last fall. And that means some Minnesota farmers will struggle to break even this year.

Last fall, milk prices peaked at $20 a hundredweight.

There are several reasons for the quick price drop, including overproduction and under-consumption - both domestically and internationally.

European subsidies were also increased, which decreased the demand for American milk products.

Steve Combs and his wife Amy own a 100-head Holstein dairy herd west of New London.

Steve Combs says he expects to be working at a loss for much of the year.


]]> 2009-02-08T00:04:13+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/farm_bill_101_a_quick_and_easy_guide_to_understanding_the_farm_bill/ {summary} Farm Legislation

The Farm Bill is a law renewed every five years that governs our federal farm, food, and conservation policy. It is very broad legislation, affecting the availability of food stamps for low-income families; the research agenda for public agricultural research; investments in food safety; economic development in rural areas; efforts to conserve our soil, rivers, and forests; and government support to the people who grow and harvest our food.

Though titled a “Farm” Bill, it actually affects the lives of every American, whether they live in a rural community or big city.

This tutorial, written in 2007 to help understand legislative actions is still the best overall tutorial that I have seen for people who are interested in an orientation to the subject.

Farm Bill 101 (pages: 16)


]]> 2009-02-05T11:58:09+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/ag_census_shows_number_of_minn_farms_holds_stable/ {summary} Farm Economy


by Mark Steil,
Minnesota Public Radio
February 4, 2009

The traditional family farm is getting more scarce and large farms are producing more and more of our food. That's one of the findings of the 2007 Census of Agriculture, released today by the U.S. Agriculture Department. But the census also indicates there's still hope for smaller operations.


St. Paul, Minn. — The census is a snapshot of U.S. agriculture that comes out every five years. Minnesota Agriculture Commissioner Gene Hugoson said it's a measuring stick of the industry.

"Minnesota still remains a dominate force in agriculture on the national picture," said Hugoson. "We're ranking number seven among all the states and I think that's fairly significant."

Hugoson says Minnesota's farm income rose sharply during the years the census covered. He says the farm income figures are some of the most significant in the census. Average net income per farm roughly doubled between 2002 and 2007. But Hugoson says while income rose, the cost of farming went up almost as rapidly.

"Particularly in the areas of energy, I think there was something like about a 90 percent increase for fuel, fertilizer, those things that are derived from oil," said Hugoson.

Overall, the census said the number of farms in Minnesota actually increased slightly, to just under 81,000. Nearly all the growth occurred in the very smallest operations, hobby farms, and in the largest farms. The number of farms with annual sales of over a half-million dollars a year increased 77 percent in Minnesota over the last five years.

High costs for supplies, land and equipment continue to favor large operations. The bigger size allows them to produce more crops at a lower cost. Middle-sized operations, the traditional family farm, continued to shrink in number. The number of farms with annual sales between $50,000 and $99,000 fell by almost one-fifth in the last five years.

However, not all categories of family farms declined. At least one showed rapid growth. For the first time, the census of agriculture includes information on organic farms. According to the census, in 2007 there were 718 Minnesota farms producing organic crops. That's a 66 percent gain from the best previous estimate, a 2005 state report. Jim Riddle runs an organic farm outreach program for the University of Minnesota and he said organic food should be a growth area for years to come.

"It's still a supply and demand driven market and there's just a very strong demand for organic products," said Riddle.

Organic food sales have grown at an annual rate of 15 percent or better for the past decade in the U.S. The census of agriculture puts the value of Minnesota organic production in 2007 at about $40 million. Riddle said one thing that attracts farmers to organic production are the generally higher prices they're paid compared to conventional agriculture. Right now, he said organic corn brings over $9 a bushel compared to about $3.50 on the conventional market.

"The organic market has remained strong and stable," said Riddle. "And farmers want stability in demand and prices and that's something that the organic market has delivered."

Organic production is not the only thing changing in Minnesota agriculture; some minority groups have increased their presence as well. The number of ethnic Asian farmers almost quadrupled between 2002 and 2007, though it's still a relatively small number, about 148 farmers. The number of Latino farmers though fell sharply in the latest census.

The census numbers were released at a time of increasing uncertainty about the future of agriculture compared to the last few years. The expense of farming continues to rise, but the sale price of crops and livestock are falling. Those changing economic conditions will influence what the next census says about the state of agricultural.

]]> 2009-02-04T23:48:11+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/agriculture_obama_vs_mccain/ {summary} Farm Policy What's At Stake: Agriculture


by Jerry Hagstrom
(National Journal Magazine - 10/3/2008)
http://www.smallgrains.org/article.aspx?id=7618


The war in Iraq aside, there may be no other issue on which McCain and Obama differ so starkly as they do on agricultural policy. McCain has opposed farm bill after farm bill; following Bush's veto of the 2008 version of the five-year legislation, McCain said he also would have vetoed it. Obama supported the bill, which Congress passed over Bush's veto with more than 300 votes in the House and 82 votes in the Senate.

Obama says that proper implementation of the new farm bill would be a high priority for his administration, and that's where the biggest differences come into play. Most of the law went into effect on Wednesday at the beginning of fiscal 2009, but it's unclear whether the Bush administration will finish writing the regulations on several new programs or whether those regulations will satisfy Congress. The bill includes an optional new program called "average crop revenue election," or ACRE, that would make payments to farmers if the revenue from a crop declines. Congressional leaders and the Bush administration have been sparring over which years the government should use as the revenue basis for starting the program. The bill also included new aid to farmers who have experienced weather-related disasters; administration officials say they are not sure whether they will complete the regulations for that program by January 20.

Obama would probably implement the farm bill in a generous fashion, given his history as a Democratic senator from Illinois and his backing during the primaries and caucuses from former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and other senators from the Plains states.

McCain's top economics adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, has said that the Arizonan would target farm subsidies as a key part of reducing the federal deficit. High commodity prices in recent years, however, have already cut farm subsidy payments to less than half the $20 billion that was common in the late 1990s. If the high prices continue, the only way that McCain could save much money from agriculture spending would be to cut nutrition programs, which now account for 65 to 70 percent of the Agriculture Department's budget. That would be hard to pull off, particularly since the 2008 legislation took several steps to boost nutrition programs.

The first agriculture battle of the next administration will be over the reauthorization of the child nutrition programs, due next year. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has signaled that he wants school lunch and breakfast programs, as well as other USDA spending to emphasize healthy foods; that portends a battle in Congress over what foods are healthy. Harkin and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., may also try to restrict food advertising to children. Obama might be more sympathetic to Harkin and Durbin's arguments than would McCain.

In his statements to farm groups, McCain says he will support agriculture by opening up markets in foreign countries. Obama says he would promote trade, but he also expresses concern about current trade negotiations, which have not gone well. Leaders of farm groups fear that McCain's opposition to government assistance to ethanol programs might translate into a decline in corn and other commodity prices. On the other hand, they expect that a McCain administration would be friendlier to farmers on such issues as the regulation of "confined animal feeding operations," or CAFOs.

The big battle will come in 2012, when the next farm bill is due. One Republican lobbyist said that the congressional override of Bush's veto set a precedent and that farmers could comfortably vote for McCain with the knowledge that Congress could deliver the next bill over a veto. But Democrats say that 2012 is too far off to count on a repeat of that phenomenon.


]]> 2008-10-13T14:36:04+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/iowa_agriculture_secretary_discusses_a_trying_year/ {summary} Farm Economy




DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Like any farmer, Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey is eager to put the pains - and the rains - of 2008 behind him.

By any measure, Northey said, it has been a trying year for Iowa farmers - record rain fall, record flooding, fitful weather throughout. The irony is that 2008 was a year that started with great expectations: Inputs, the costs that go into farming, were higher than ever but prices for corn and soybeans lingered near record highs.

"When you go into a year like this one, you look at it and you think, 'This is one of those years when you're going to have a good enough year to help yourself through the next 10 years,' to some extent," Northey said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Most Iowa farmers still have a good chance of finishing with a good year, but the state's first-term agriculture secretary lamented that it still was, "one of those years." One where everything and everyone, led by Mother Nature, seemed to be conspire against farmers.

Northey said the final verdict has yet to be rendered for Iowa farmers. The weather has clearly wreaked havoc, particularly in northeastern and southern Iowa, he said, though the first frost has held off, giving farmers a needed reprieve.

"Of course you thought, with the year we've had, that of course we'd get an early frost," he said. "But so far that hasn't happened, and that's helping."

Northey said what he's seen this year has sharpened his focus as an agriculture secretary. There are only so many ways farmers can protect against a deluge, he said, but finding better flood protections would be one of his primary goals going forward.

"We've made great strides," he said. "But we need to do more."

On another front important to farmers, Northey said he has been pleased with the state's efforts to pursue renewable energy, including initiatives led by Democratic Gov. Chet Culver.

Last month, Northey spoke out publicly about his disappointment that his party had included a plank in the Republican platform calling for the end of the renewable fuel standard. Northey said any curtailment of the ethanol industry would have a drastic effect on Iowa and the rest of the Corn Belt.

"If we didn't have the market ethanol provided, we might be looking at some pretty bad times," he said. "It would look a lot like the '80s. They were piling corn in the streets and we were producing more than we needed."

Northey said he believes export markets have improved for farmers since the 1980s farm crisis, but they're no match for the demand from ethanol plants.

"It's such an important market," Northey said. "It'd be pretty hard to find a market on the fly for a billion bushels of corn. I'm pretty sure an export market could not fill that."

---

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - The overall value of Washington state's agricultural production last year increased 23 percent to a record $8.51 billion, up from $6.9 billion in 2006, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Four of the top five crops - apples, milk, wheat and potatoes - experienced record gains in 2007, as did a number of other foods.

Agriculture continues to be the cornerstone of Washington's economy, particularly when compared to recent downturns in other economic sectors, said Bob Gore, acting director of the state Department of Agriculture.

Apples again topped the list at $1.75 billion, compared with the previous high of $1.41 billion in 2006. Washington is the nation's top apple producer, growing about half the U.S. crop.

Milk, the second crop on the list, for the first time topped $1 billion after declining nearly 18 percent a year before. Rounding out the top five crops were: wheat at $975 million, surpassing the previous record of $756 million set in 1996; potatoes at $685 million, ahead of the previous high of $562 million in 2006; and cattle and calves at $581 million.


]]> 2008-10-07T09:56:50+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/farmers_embrace_genetically_modified_beets/ {summary} Farm Economy The sugar beet harvest is starting in the Red River Valley. It's the first harvest of genetically modified sugar beets. GMO crops often generated controversy over the past couple of decades. Some farmers refused to grow them and some consumers fought to keep them out of the food supply. Most farmers are apparently happy with the Roundup Ready beets, but there are some lingering concerns.


by Dan Gunderson,
Minnesota Public Radio
September 12, 2008


Moorhead, Minn. — American Crystal Sugar company director of agriculture Dan Bernhardson guides his SUV down a narrow gravel road, into a muddy sugar beet field east of Moorhead.

Kirk Watt is starting to prepare this field for harvest. He didn't plant the genetically modified Roundup Ready beets this year, but wishes he had.

"We had non-Roundup here and the guy over there has Roundup and I tell you, his look better," says Watt ruefully. "It's not so much now, but boy, in June it was just night and day difference."

This field has large areas where a thick crop of pigweed dwarfs the sugar beets. The weeds are more than a nuisance, they lower crop yield and cost the farmer thousands of dollars.

"I'm sure those spots that are thick with pigweed you'll probably have two, three, four ton less per acre," says Watt.

It's hard to control weeds in sugar beets. Traditionally, the chemicals that kill weeds would also kill the beets.

So farmers applied carefully timed, very low doses of herbicide several times a year to control the weeds without killing the beets. They used migrant farm labor to remove the weeds that escaped the herbicide.

This year, rain kept Kirk Watt out of the field when the weeds were small. By the time he could spray, the weeds were too big to be killed by the low dose of herbicide, and it was too costly to hire laborers to hoe the weeds. So the weeds rise about the beets in thick clumps.

But in his neighbors field of Roundup Ready beets, there's not a weed to be seen. That's because the beets are genetically modified to be immune to the broad spectrum weed killer Roundup. So farmers can easily kill weeds any time without worrying about damaging the beet plants.

American Crystal Sugar Director of Agriculture Dan Bernhardson, says just over half of the sugar beets planted this year were the Roundup Ready variety created by Monsanto. He says farmers who planted the modified sugar beets have a clear advantage in weed control.

"The other advantage we see is less cultivation of the field, less passes across the field. Also, the number of times you have to spray. Most conventional varieties have four applications of spray where roundup varieties we expect two applications. So, less trips across the field, less diesel fuel being burned," says Bernhardson.

So the farmer saves money on labor and fuel. But that doesn't mean the GMO beets are cheaper to grow.

Monsanto charges a technology fee for the seeds, about $60 per acre, which offsets much of the savings. Tests this year show the GMO beets overall don't produce higher yields than traditional varieties. That's expected to change as the GMO seed is improved over the next couple of years. Kirk Watt has weighed all the costs and variables and says he's almost certain to plant all GMO beets next year. "One of the variables is increased yield. They say it might be a two-ton increased yield. If that's that case it will definitely make it more profitable," says Watt. "Hopefully the tech fee doesn't keep increasing every year. Because once we have Roundup, that's all we have. We might be limited to that seed. That part concerns me a little bit."

Next year American Crystal expects about 90 percent of sugar beets to be the Roundup Ready variety.

That means seed companies will quickly stop producing traditional seed varieties. So within two or three years, Roundup Ready will be the only choice.

Red River Valley Sugar Beet Growers Association Executive Director Nick Sinner, says people are concerned about that because farmers don't want Monsanto, the creator of the Roundup brand, holding all the cards when it comes to buying seed. "We want to have a good working relationship with Monsanto because they hold the rights to that technology," says Sinner. "We also think competition is a great thing, so if there are other technologies that come along that will work for weed control and keeps everybody honest in the long run, that can be a good thing."

Farmers are also concerned about a pending lawsuit challenging the government's decision to allow the use of GMO sugar beets.

It's unclear how that case could affect next year's planting, since the seed for next year has already been produced.

But despite lingering questions, it appears the benefits of the herbicide-resistant sugar beet plants have farmers ready to embrace the change.

]]> 2008-09-12T08:45:00+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/hot_dry_weather_worries_michigan_vegetable_farmers_michigan/ {summary} Farm Markets


Michigan Ag Connection - 09/03/2008


Seven days were suitable for fieldwork during the week ending Sunday, according to the USDA, NASS, Michigan Field Office.

Through Labor Day, precipitation varied from 0.02 inches in the northwestern Lower Peninsula to 0.26 inches in the central Lower Peninsula. Average temperatures ranged from 3 degrees below normal in the east central Lower Peninsula to 1 degree above normal in the western and eastern Upper Peninsula and the northwestern Lower Peninsula. Abnormally dry conditions remained in most areas as very little rain fell in the past seven days.

A farmer in the west central noted, "In the last week we have had only a trace of rain and for the month of August we have had 0.95 inches of rain. Corn, soybeans, and hay are being hurt due to the dry weather." Crops were suffering from lack of moisture, but some normal ripening was taking place. "In many cases, when viewing the fields, it is difficult to determine if much of the change in the fields is due to 'true maturing' or 'premature maturing' being caused by the extremely extended dry period throughout the area," a grower in the south central reported.

The majority of the corn crop was in the dough stage and a good deal was in the dent stage. The crop continued to dry, causing some growers to chop their corn for silage. Soybeans have set pods and leaves were turning. Alfalfa harvest continued with a second cutting nearing completion and some growers getting a third cutting. There were reports of a short third cutting, as regrowth has been slow. Dry bean leaves were turning and some were shedding leaves. Harvest of early varieties was just beginning in some fields. Winter wheat growers continued to prepare their fields for planting. Sugarbeet growers were anticipating a very good crop and were looking forward to harvest. Harvest of oats was essentially finished.

The harvest of early season apples wound down, and picking of Galas will begin this week. Elliot and other late season blueberry varieties harvests continued. Anthracnose rot has been a problem. Concord grape vineyards that were damaged by frost still had a lot of green berries, but veraison was otherwise finished in the southwest. Spraying occurred for protection from downy mildew. Peach harvest continued; fruit size of late season varieties was reduced by the dryness. Bartlett pear harvest began, and plum picking continued. Fall raspberry harvest was underway.

High temperatures and lack of rainfall have kept vegetable producers worried about crop conditions and decreased production, especially in the southern and western parts of the State. Celery harvest continued on schedule in the southwest part of the State. Crop experts reported that celery quality was good but most growers were irrigating due to the very dry soil conditions.

Tomato harvest continued, with some producers reporting a disappointing crop.

Harvest continued this week for potatoes, onions, leeks, carrots, peppers, sweet corn and snap beans. Pumpkins and winter squash continued to develop in the fields, while harvest for fall cabbage and other cold crops began in some areas.

]]> 2008-09-03T13:05:03+00:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/a_minnesota_farmer_checks_his_fields/ {summary} Farm Economy

by Dan Gunderson,
Minnesota Public Radio
July 21, 2008



The most recent crop report shows most Minnesota crops are above average. Crop prices are high, but so are costs like fuel and fertilizer. We last talked with farmer Jeff Mortenson in February, when he was making plans for the growing season and was nervous about rising costs. He's still nervous about the increasing costs of farming, but anticipating a good harvest.

Kennedy, Minn. — Here in the northwestern corner of Minnesota, waist-high wheat and barley ripples in the wind, the soybeans and sugar beets are lush and green.

As Jeff Mortenson wades into a wheat field, he plucks one of the long stalks that are just starting to form kernels.

"Looks like a pretty good wheat crop coming," Mortenson said. "I mean look, nice long heads, seems to be no disease pressure. Knock on wood we don't get a hail storm. But the row crops are behind. Our beans are way behind last year."

The cooler-than-usual summer has been good for wheat, but soybeans and sugar beets need more hot summer days. Mortenson's soybeans are only half as tall as they were at this time last year.

Still, it's been one of those summers when rains come at just the right time.

"It's probably been a month ago just here I got an inch and 3/10 in 35 minutes. Just a mile south of here the road was dry. It just started right here, you know, and that's farming."

But despite the potential for above average harvest and record prices, Jeff Mortenson says he's not turning cartwheels on the front lawn.

Sitting on the front porch of the farmhouse that's been home to four generations of his family, Mortenson pulls out a calculator and lists of numbers.

He's been nervously adding up the increased cost of fertilizer and fuel.

In two years nitrogen fertilizer has tripled. An increase of $410 per ton. That's about $35 dollars extra for each acre of wheat.

"If we have roughly 2,000 acres of wheat an extra $35 in fertilizer, that's another $70,000 we didn't spend two years ago." Mortenson said. "It's frustrating, but there's not a darn thing you can do about it. You need fertilizer. So, that and the fuel. You never really used to think about the fuel price. But now when you fill up a tractor there's $521 for a few days."

And those costs keep going up. Mortenson says this spring he waited to fill his diesel tank, hoping fuel prices would drop. Instead, they went up. That decision cost him $10,000.

Jeff Mortenson is also wrestling with the other side of the farm equation; when to sell the crop.

He's already sold part of the wheat crop, and hopes he didn't sell when prices were too low.

That's what happened last year. Like most farmers he sold his wheat before prices shot up to $20 a bushel.

"When it hit $5.00 I sold a big chunk," he said. "When it hit $6.00 I sold the rest. But when Joe Public sees on the front page of the paper wheat hits $20.00 they think every farmer has got 100% of their bushels sitting on the farm and they're instant millionaires. That isn't the case."

Still, last year brought a healthy profit, and it looks like Mortenson's bottom line will be strong again this year.

He doesn't want to miss an opportunity to catch up after years of losses. Mortenson scans the news every day for clues to the markets.

Did it rain in Brazil? Is China buying more soybeans? Should he lock in a price now, or wait and hope it's higher at harvest?

In a volatile world market, those decisions can mean the difference between a good year and a great year.

Mortenson says he's not counting his bushels before they're in the bin.

"It looks like we could have a decent crop with our wheat this year and hopefully the beets and beans come around," he said. "But there's so much out of your control. You feel like you're going to jinx yourself. It sounds dumb, but that's the case. You don't want to start spouting off and say, 'Oh, this is great,' and then something will come and bite you."

The day after we walked through his fields one was destroyed by a hail storm.

He's still hoping for a better than average year, but harvest is still a month away. Until then, Jeff Mortenson will spend a lot of time punching numbers into his calculator and nervously watching the sky.

]]> 2008-07-21T11:51:00+00:00