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HomeFood & Water Manufactured foodscape By Kurt Cobb, originally published by Resource Insights April 13, 2008 For many in North America food has become essentially a manufactured item, carefully packaged in colorful plastic and cardboard wrappers. The packages list the ingredients in small type as if they were elements from the periodic table rearranged by some present-day equivalent of the Star Trek replicator. Few consumers realize the remarkable chemistry that does, in fact, take place in the farm field and in the ocean that transforms carbon from the air into the myriad compounds we recognize as food. And, except in those rare North American households where it remains an economic necessity, cooking itself has become something of the domain of wannabe gourmets with Martha Stewart fetishes. The food manufacturing process has created effortless meals that often require nothing more than a little boiling or heating in the microwave to make them palatable. The cost is in nutrition and overall health, costs which often don’t show up for decades when they are detected in the physician’s office or on the operating table–usually without any recognition of the link. But even the immediate economic costs of food seem virtually hidden from the public which in the United States pays less than 10 percent of its income for food both inside and outside the home. Only recently have rises in food prices began to appear on the radar of the average food buyer in America; still, don’t look for any food riots soon. Not so with the rest of the world. According to The New York Times Indonesians spend half their income on food, Vietnamese spend 65 percent and Nigerians spend 73 percent. A doubling of grain prices in the last three years is not something that can easily be shrugged off by families living in these and so many other countries. Unrest related to food prices has already been seen in Haiti, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal. There are the usual suspects: demand for meat in places with huge and growing middle class populations such as India and China, drought in Australia (one of the four remaining major grain exporters in the world), and demand for biofuels made from food crops. But it is the pricey manufactured foodscape invented by wealthy countries that has helped to create what is fast becoming a food crisis in the rest of the world. It is the industrial mentality itself which regards food as if it were just another input into the industrial system. One obvious result is that we treat food and fuel now as if they were simply interchangeable. Another is that we have streamlined agricultural and food processes by employing the same just-in-time manufacturing principles used to make steel or plastics. The result has been a reduction of world cereal stocks that are expected to fall to 25-year lows this year. As of the end of 2007 we have a 75-day supply of grain and that is expected to fall to around 69 days by the end of this year. Michael Boskin, chairman of the first President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, is reputed to have said, “It doesn’t make any difference whether a country makes potato chips or computer chips.” At the time he was pilloried for having suggested such a thing when it was accepted wisdom that a high-tech economy was the desired goal. But Boskin may actually have been wrong for reasons of basic food security. A country held hostage to the food exports of another may find itself without needed food just at the time when supplies are shortest. Witness the the banning of rice exports from Vietnam, Thailand, the Phillipines, Egypt and now India as rice prices have rocketed to new highs. In Argentina the government has attempted to keep domestic soybean and sunflower seed prices down by enacting huge new export tariffs that would effectively curtail exports of the crops. Farmers reacted by bringing the country to a halt. Cereals are obviously not interchangeable with computer chips. Some 80 percent of all our calories come directly and indirectly (primarily in the form of meat and dairy products) from grain. People prefer to eat first and compute later, but only if there is time and money left over. No government or people seems to believe that strictly market forces ought to govern the price of staples. And, no one is actually willing to say in public that if you can outbid me for basic foodstuffs, then I have no right to complain even if it means my family and I starve. It has been a truism from the beginning of civilization that cities require stocks of grain, surpluses that can last a year or even two to sustain them through drought or war. In the last two decades, the champions of the globalized trade system have turned that truism on its head and foolishly convinced governments and their leaders that food production and storage can be largely left to the marketplace. All that is changing rather quickly. Governments are now temporizing as they try to address brewing revolts in the streets. At the World Bank there is talk of trying to raise yields over the long term. But that hardly matters to governments with hungry populations on their hands now. And the long-term yield raisers are assuming a growing supply of petrochemicals which are integral to our current farm productivity. Such a plan is called into question even by the most optimistic forecasts for oil supplies. What then of the manufactured foodscape that has become such an important feature of North American life? It will likely succumb to the realities of food and the limits of the biosphere. There will be less manufacturing and more home preparation as the manufactured foodscape becomes too expensive to maintain. The limits we face in arable lands, in fossil fuels, and in the ability of the atmosphere to absorb greenhouse gasses will compel more people to grow and harvest some of the food they eat. These limits will compel us to eat less meat for no other reason than it will become prohibitively wasteful to feed valuable grain to livestock instead of eating it. We will be forced to listen to the landscape once again and follow its dictates on how to raise food. And, we will be obliged to abandon much of the giant industrial food system that provides a freakish cartoon-like foodscape made up of “fun” foods, fast foods and frozen meals designed to cater to our most childish cornucopian fantasies. Tags: Culture & Behavior, Food, Transportation Kurt Cobb Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist whose novel Prelude provides a startling reinterpretation of contemporary events and a window onto our energy future. He writes a widely followed blog on energy and the environment called Resource Insights and is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor. Related Posts Light posting from 20 April to 5th May Just 16,000 Catenary Trucks Would Use All of California’s Electricity with only 2400 to 8300 Miles of Overhead Wires Unpave Low Traffic Roads to Save Energy and Money How the greatest technology ever developed backfired on us The World as Will Door to Door – A selective look at our “system of systems” Awakening to a Path Beyond the Hero’s Journey A Hard-Nosed Optimism Is it Time to Change the Story? Let’s Start Writing the Future. We Need to Electrify As Much Transportation As We Can Recent Articles By Author “Reform” won’t solve our biggest problems By Kurt Cobb, originally published by Resource Insights Split personalities: We like some science, but not all of it Living world: Should natural entities be treated as legal persons? Communications breakdown: Can we even talk about our environmental and energy problems? Saudi Arabia and the war on shale oil that never ended

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» Winter Services and Supplies Biotech benefits ag, environment, consumers Carol Ryan DumasCapital Press Published: March 1, 2014 7:40PM Last changed: March 3, 2014 10:08AM The public readily accepts biotechnology in science and medicine, but when it comes to agriculture it's a different story. Biotechnology has brought numerous benefits to farmers and consumers, and thousands of studies support the safety of food from GMO crops. But many people don't understand the technology. BURLEY, Idaho — Technology is accepted in every aspect of people’s lives, and biotechnology has been widely used and accepted in science and medicine for years.But when it comes to biotechnology in agriculture, the public — due to its growing disconnect from agriculture — is frightened that food is being altered, said Nancy Vosnidue, Monsanto’s scientific communications manager, during the 2014 Idaho Hay and Forage conference in Burley on Friday, Feb. 28.But food from genetically modified crops is exactly the same as food from conventional crops, she said.Biotechnology isn’t new to agriculture. It has been researched for 30 years, and genetically modified crops have been grown commercially for 18 years, with zero food-safety issues, she said.“Everything we eat today (is) the product of some sort of mutation,” she said.Resin for cheese making and yeast to make bread and beer are produced using biotechnology, which is simply putting one organism into another, she said.Biotechnology is the same tool used to create insulin for diabetics. Human DNA sequence is inserted into a particular strain of E. coli bacteria to produce the synthetic insulin, she said.Crop biotechnology is an extension of plant breeding, which has been taking place in some fashion for centuries. In the 1700s, farmers and scientists were cross breeding plants for new traits. In the 1940s, researchers used mutagenesis through chemicals and radiation to alter the makeup of seeds. In the 1990s, the first GMO crops were introduced to the marketplace, she said.Biotechnology is just a faster, more precise process of plant breeding and is one of the only ways the world is going to produce more food, feed and fiber for a growing middle class and a growing population, she said.Genetic modification is a well thought-out process, thoroughly researched and tested. It’s safe and healthy and provides a reliable food supply. It takes about 13 years, $125 million and extensive studies by USDA, the Environmental Protection Agency and academia to bring a GMO seed to market, she said.Consumers aren’t asking how biotechnology works; they’re asking if it is safe, she said.Thousands of academic studies on food from GMO crops support the safety of those foods, which is the most regulated and tested thing in society, she said.Today, GMO crops are grown on about 4 billion acres worldwide since 1996 and are approved for planting or importing in 63 countries. Biotechnology has improved yields and, in some cases, nutrition, she said.Increase in yields for GMO corn, cotton and soybeans has been phenomenal. Between 1996 and 2011, corn production increased 195 million metric tons, soybeans increased 110 million metric tons, and cotton lint increased 15.9 million metric tons in the U.S. alone, she said.Maintaining those yields with non-GMO seed would require almost 40 million additional acres, the amount of total farmland planted to major crops in Illinois and Indiana combined, she said.With more people to feed and less arable land per capita, biotechnology is crucial to agriculture. Climate change, bringing pests and weeds to new areas and water shortages and excesses, will also add to the need for farmland to become more productive.At the same time, environmental concerns are growing, and biotechnology reduces the use of herbicides and pesticides and agriculture’s carbon footprint, she said.At the end of the day, Monsanto and other biotech ag companies are enabling agriculture with safe, affordable, sustainable production of food, she said.

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Perry Pear Joins Ark of Taste Five varieties of Australian perry pear found to be at risk of loss to horticulture have been added to the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity’s international Ark of Taste. The perry — inedible, small, astringent fruit — has been used for centuries in the English western counties of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire to make a fermented alcoholic beverage similar to cider. Varieties were brought to Australia during the Victorian gold rushes in the 1850s and 1860s. The announcement of the fruits’ inclusion in the Ark was made by Slow Food International secretary-general Paolo Di Croce in conjunction with Australian Ark Commission chair Cherry Ripe at an Ark of Taste dinner today at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) near Hobart, Tasmania, on the occasion of the national meeting of Slow Food in Australia. The perry varieties listed include the Yellow Huffcap, Moorcroft, Gin, Red Longdon and Green Horse. The Australian Ark of Taste was established in July 2003. It aims to protect and preserve quality, small-scale production of culturally significant foods that are threatened with extinction, including critically endangered breeds of animals and heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables. The Ark works to recognise and preserve listed foods’ heritage and taste and to promote and encourage agricultural and horticultural biodiversity. In its first seven years, four products were listed in the Australian Ark, some of which were included the MONA dinner menu, including Tasmanian Leatherwood honey, bull-boar sausages unique to Victoria, Kangaroo Island Ligurian bee honey from South Australia, and the Bunya, an indigenous nut native to Queensland. Since 2010, two further products have been added to the Australian Ark, both rare breeds of domestic animals of European origin: in June 2011 the Wessex Saddleback pig, extinct in its native England, and in April 2012 the Dairy Shorthorn, which is ‘critically endangered’. The pear listing today brings the number of listings on the Australian Ark to 11. Australian Ark Commission chair Cherry Ripe hopes that many more will come to fulfil the goal of 10,000 international Ark listings by 2017. For more information, please visit the Slow Food Australia website For more information on the Ark of Taste, visit the website and follow the project on Facebook. |

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The Treasure of Cruz Alta Honduras - 05 Mar 13 - Andrea Amato About a century ago, just seven families lived in Tecauxinas, a tiny village on the slopes of the Montaña de Camapara. The mountain, which stands at an altitude of close on 1,900 meters at the point where Honduras borders with Guatemala and El Salvador, is covered with forests of pine, holm oak and other tall trees, as well as fruit trees and medicinal herbs. In the old days, when the village was little more than a cluster of houses, its inhabitants were seasonal workers of the indigenous Lenca ethnic group, who spent a few months there every year, then moved on to pick coffee near the border. Now everything has changed and Tecauxinas (some people say it meant “sugarcane” in the old local language, others say it means “land of the wise”) has changed its name to the more Christian Cruz Alta. The village has grown in size and is now immersed in lush forest. Here the berries of the coffee plant, bright red and violet in color, sprout and are ready to be harvested in December. Fertile seeds What happened? Tired of working in other people’s fields, the villagers, the grandparents and great-grandparents of the Presidium producers, stole arabigo (now known as Typica) and Bourbon seeds and took them to Tecauxinas to grow in the shade of fruit and timber trees. Partly helped by the chequeque, a small bird that still feeds on the berries of old coffee varieties and spreads their seeds on the ground, the locals extended the area of cultivation. In Cruz Alta, we met José Elías Pérez Sánchez, a proud coffee grower and member of Cocatecal (Cooperativa Cafetalera Tecauxinas Limitada), a cooperative founded in 2005, which currently boasts 33 members. In early 2011, these producers set up the Camapara Mountain Coffee Presidium, coordinated by José Elías. Based on the fruitful experience Slow Food has enjoyed at Huehuetenango, in Guatemala, since 2002, the Presidium currently produces around 10,000 kilos of coffee a year. The need for a narrative As we sip infused coffee from terracotta cups, José Elías tells us the story of his generation’s resurgence in Cruz Alta. “The cooperative came into being when, worn out by difficulties, we realized that we couldn’t manage on our own any more. We were making huge sacrifices and selling the fresh coffee beans to the coyotes, the local middlemen. We were practically giving away the coffee and they were selling it at premium prices in the city. But then we realized how valuable our coffee and our labor are.” Once the cooperative had been established, it began organizing training and assistance programs for coffee growers and collaborating with local and national agencies such as the Instituto Hondureño del Café, the Honduran Coffee Institute. Since 2007 the producers have marketed their harvest together and now, working with Slow Food, they understand that the market, already glutted with nondescript coffee, demands a specific origin, very high quality and a narrative for the product and the place it comes from. The Presidium producers are now going down this road and taking their coffee, hence their future, into their own hands. “When Slow Food came along, we were about to replace local varieties with hybrids,” confides José Elías, “but now we’ve realized that would have been a wrong decision and now we want to go back to planting Bourbón.” All this will happen with the help of Slow Food which, in 2012, co-funded the creation of a nursery where the Presidium producers can cultivate seedlings of the traditional coffee varieties and, when they grow to the right size, plant them. In about three years, the coffee growers can expect an abundant harvest. Together with technical know-how and a proud and lucid vision of the market, it will be a fundamental asset for Cruz Alta and its inhabitants. We have finished our coffee. The harvest is just two months away and it is time for José Elías to return to the cafetal. But before leaving, he adds, “You know, we used to keep only the worst coffee for us and our families, the poorest quality. Now we keep the best coffee for home”. The sun is rising over ancient Tecauxinas. To find out more The Slow Food Presidia are a project organized by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity. www.slowfoodfoundation.org The Coffee Network Since 2002, Slow Food has been helping groups of small-scale coffee producers to improve their product and find an aware market that prizes quality and is willing to pay a fair price. These efforts have led to the setting up of five coffee Presidia (Huehuetenango in Guatemala, Camapara Mountain in Honduras, Sierra Cafetalera in the Dominican Republic, Harenna Forest in Ethiopia and ancient Robusta coffee varieties in the Luweero district of Uganda) and the formation of a group of over 20 communities inside the Terra Madre network. Article first published in the Slow Food Almanac

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Taking Time Out to Reflect on a Sustainable Future Marike de Peña Chair of Fairtrade International and director and co-founder of Banelino banana cooperative in Dominican Republic Almost all of the Sustainable Development Goals' 169 action points are somehow related to food and farming - so the SDGs can only be delivered if smallholder farmers and workers play a central role in planning and implementation. Photo: Santos More of ACPROBOQUEA cooperative in Peru, ©TransFair e.V. There can be few better things in life than enjoying a good, strong coffee in a sunny Italian pavement cafe. Italians will tell you they make the best coffee in the world - and who am I to argue with that - especially as small producers in the south are putting all their effort to produce this high quality product? None of your skinny lattes or mocha macchiatos here - no self-respecting Italian would contemplate anything other than a cappuccino for breakfast and a caffé (aka espresso) at any other time. Anything else is, well - just not coffee. There's something about Italy that makes me want to slow down. I'm determined to make the most of my few days in Milan, where people take their food and drink seriously. Not really surprising - just over the provincial border in Piedmont is the heart of the slow food movement. Slow food - which values taste, variety, locality and sustainability, is the very antithesis of the bland convenience foods, globalised homogeneity and multi-national industrial-scale agribusiness which dominates the diets of so many, especially in the developed world. Even Milan's excessive world of haute couture is embracing a more sustainable approach, with some recent collections including recycled materials and organic cotton. I'm in Milan for Expo 2015. It's been running since May and an estimated 20 million visitors have come from all over the world. With the theme "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life", it's a great place to reflect on how fair trade can play a significant role in achieving the newly-launched Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It's also a brilliant opportunity to try different cuisines from all over the world - there are more than 70 restaurants serving up everything from zebra steaks (I think I'll pass on that, thanks) to sushi ice cream. I'm in severe danger of forgetting that I'm actually here to work! It's less than a month since the SDGs - an ambitious set of 17 overarching global goals to combat poverty and achieve sustainable development - were rolled out. World leaders from the Pope to President Obama lined up at the UN in New York to give their support - and Fairtrade was also there to ensure the voices of the world's 1.3 billion small scale farmers and agricultural workers were not forgotten. But now the really hard work begins - putting the SDGs into action. We've got 15 years to hit some pretty ambitious targets, so there's no time to lose - which is why I'm here at the Milano Expo for the launch of Fairtrade's blueprint for implementing the SDGs. After all, it's what we do. Think about it: the overarching SDG, Goal 1 (to end poverty in all its forms everywhere) is central to Fairtrade's mission. All of our work stems from this overarching goal, as we seek to ensure that trade drives sustainable livelihoods for poor smallholders, producers and workers. As we pointed out in our speech to the UN earlier this year, there's barely a single one of the 169 different action points that isn't somehow related to food and farming. That means that the SDGs will only be delivered successfully if these smallholder farmers and workers play a central role in planning and implementation. Of course, Fairtrade can't implement the SDGs by itself. We're one player - albeit a significant one - in a global movement for change, and it will take a seismic shift in attitudes and behaviour from governments, businesses and consumers to bring about the kind of sustainable growth we need. But we've got 25 years of experience behind us and Fairtrade is the world's most recognised ethical brand, so it's a pretty good start. 1.5 million Fairtrade farmers, producers and workers are already being empowered by our work on sustainable agriculture (Goal 2), gender equality and empowering women (Goal 5), sustainable economic growth (Goal 8), sustainable consumption and production (Goal 12), combatting climate change (Goal 13), democracy, justice and accountability (Goal 16) and global partnerships and governance (Goal 17). Last month I wrote that the UN headquarters in New York was a long way from my home in the Dominican Republic and the home of many small farmers and workers in the south- not just in physical distance but in the striking inequalities in poverty, job and life prospects. Sitting here in Milan, the gap between the so-called developed and developing worlds, between the rich and the poor, seems as wide as ever. But I'm optimistic that the SDGs give us a real chance to narrow that gap. I'd better get going. I've got to find my way through the huge Expo site - more than 1.7 million square meters housing exhibitions from 140 countries - to the Slow Food pavilion where the Fairtrade event is being held. I've been told to look out for performers dressed in banana suits who will be providing street entertainment - those Fairtrade bananas get everywhere! On the other hand - there's always time for another coffee. The report 'Sustainable Development Goals and Fairtrade: the Case for Partnership' launches today in Milan. Sustainable Development Goals Sdgs Fairtrade Fairtrade International Expo 2015

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From something small to something big Jay Naidoo I STAND in a fertile field, stretching towards the mountains that frame the distant horizon. We are in a circle of peasant farmers, who have tilled the land for generations. Former President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique has invited us to see what can be done to help small farmers. I am with Manoj Kumar and David Hogg from the Naandi Foundation in India. They focus on how to work at scale with small-scale farmers. I listen carefully to what they say: “Our starting point is the farmers themselves. They have to own what we can do together. That means that they have to be organised from the ground up. A top-down approach will always fail. We set up village committees and aggregate this into a co-operative, starting with 1 000 farmers. Then we work with them to transfer the skills of organic farming, develop the technology to make organic fertilisers from local materials, to increase productivity and to meet household food security and raise incomes by accessing even the global markets. We work with farmers who have less than two hectares. Individually, they have no bargaining power, but if they are organised from the ground up, they are a powerful commercial operation. “Today, there are over 15 000 members working an area close to 25 000 hectares. Ownership is critical. Each farmer works their piece of land. They understand from the first day that their income is based on how hard they work, and what effort they put into the land. They are not wage labourers. They are taught to be self-reliant entrepreneurs. Government initially provided the land, the seed and water to the farmers. Now, in three years, these co-operatives are self-reliant.” They know what they are talking about. They work with the poorest in the tribal areas of India. The coffee that is sold on global markets from the co-operative project is sold at five times the price they got previously and at greater yields. The Naandi Foundation has increased the biodiversity of the operation and planted millions of mango and coffee saplings and taught the peasants how to grow organic vegetables to meet their household food-security needs. This is the core of local sustainable development. An organising model, an open-source skills transfer based on local sustainability. And the peasant farmers feel a sense of ownership. As the chairperson of the Co-operative Board proudly said to me: “I am part of society. My children are now more educated than I could ever have imagined. They have gone to university. My work and the support of the Naandi Foundation has empowered me.” The multiplier effect is visible. Young girls, historically marginalised, are in school and supported by the Naandi Foundation, and health indicators have improved dramatically. The debilitating scourge of alcoholism is being tackled. Women’s incomes and empowerment have improved dramatically. Their model reminds me of the union organising we did with workers in the sugar mills. It was painstaking work across the country, building leadership and confidence at every stage. There was local ownership. That’s the foundation of the labour movement that became the Cosatu giant. I think we now need a movement of small-scale farmers, with women at the centre. I take them to KZN, and they meet senior officials and political office bearers. Everyone we meet is committed to doing things at a scale that impacts on eradicating poverty and creating livelihoods. But the KZN government recognises that agricultural output has declined, and that the province has become a net food importer. David Hogg remarks after seeing farmers in rural areas: “Jay, why are people so poor here? I cannot understand. You have everything here to grow all the food you need and to become a global exporter.” I reminisce on my childhood. We never saw malnutrition and kwashiorkor. We lived off the land. Market gardens lined the banks of the Umgeni River. Every home had a garden. The Durban markets flourished, as small-scale farmers sold their vegetables. Much of this prime land is now used as shopping malls, industrial parks and housing developments I look at the impact that HIV/Aids has had. I see communities without men, and where there are many child-headed households. I see the contract with the first-world tourist-driven belt of affluence that lines the coast. One does not have to travel very far inland to see the grinding poverty of rural communities. While our social-grant system extends to 15 million South Africans, it will never be enough to eradicate poverty. It is not the solution. As the former Minister of the Reconstruction and Development Programme in the Mandela Cabinet, I am absolutely clear about this. We need people to have livelihoods that give them the human dignity of labour. And this is not subsistence farming. I have seen the Naandi model produce proud farmers who are entrepreneurial and have the skills of any commercial farmer. We have to co-create that sense of ownership of our future again. We need our government to support our small scale farmers with access to land, seed, water and power. But we need to change the culture of entitlement and dependency we have created in our society. Land reform is back on the front burner. We know that apartheid broke the link between our people and the land, but let us honestly evaluate why so much of the land that has been already redistributed lies fallow and unused. We need to align the inputs from government, focus on scaling up the skills and entrepreneurialism of farmers, and strengthen their access and bargaining power to the market. We need corporates in our country to mainstream this effort and plough some of their corporate social-responsibility budgets into such ventures. That is a vision we should all support, built painstakingly from the ground up. It certainly is the foundation on which we can deliver the better life we promised our people in 1994. • Jay Naidoo was the founding general secretary of Cosatu, and minister of Reconstruction and Development in the Mandela Cabinet. He is currently chairperson of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. He has returned full-time to his voluntary work and social activism, and writes a blog at www.jaynaidoo.org

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News Calendars Opinion Sports Sections Ads Jobs Local Classified CU Extras Customer Service Local Business / Local Business « Northwest Bank to... Hemann Tae Kwon Do continues...» Handicapping markets Marketing pro offers top tips February 19, 2012 By DARCY DOUGHERTY MAULSBY, For The Messenger , Save | GLIDDEN - Gaining an edge in today's high-stakes ag industry requires timely information, a global perspective and a willingness to play the basis, said a long-time Chicago Board of Trade professional, who spoke in Glidden recently. "These are not the markets of old, and volatility has been extreme since 2006," said Kevin Van Trump, who was invited by Iowa Savings Bank to share his top marketing tips with approximately 100 local farmers and other guests during an agricultural marketing seminar on Feb. 1. "When the basis is ripping higher and prices are good, you don't want your bins completely full." Van Trump, who was a professional trader on the Chicago Board of Trade for more than 20 years before establishing his marketing firm Farm Direction, is conservatively bullish on ag commodities in 2012. Article Photos -Messenger photo by Darcy Dougherty MaulsbyKevin Van trump, a professional commodities trader and founder of Farm Direction, offered his tips to help farmers improve their marketing know-how, during a Feb. 1 seminar, hosted by Iowa Savings Bank in Glidden. He urged farmers to pay close attention to the energy markets going into spring, however. "I believe the markets are under-valuing the risk in the Middle East, so I'm encouraging farmers to purchase diesel now. "As the United States pulls out of the Middle East, Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia are all positioning for power, and none of them get along. If the Strait of Hormuz is closed, crude oil could shoot up to $250 a barrel in a matter of days. "It's wise to keep some on-farm fuel in storage to get you through planting." $8 or higher corn? On the grain side, the weather remains one of the biggest wildcards. Weather records show that some of the warmest winters have also produced some of the warmest summers, said Van Trump, who noted this could have a huge effect on trend line yields in 2012. "If we get trend line yields of 162 bushels per acre or more, we may see $4 corn. With 155-bushel-per-acre average corn yields, we could see $5.50 corn. "If we have 150-bushel average corn yields across the board, however, that could put corn at $8 a bushel or more. That's how critical 10 bushels will be." It's also important to keep an eye on global demand for corn, said Van Trump. While Japan has traditionally been one of the biggest markets for U.S. corn, the Asian nation has been looking for alternative sources from Europe and Argentina in recent weeks. Japan is also struggling with tremendous debt issues, Van Trump said. "Japan could become the next Greece in the next few years. If this happens, we could take a hit in the corn market." In the soybean sector, China remains the key player to watch in the global market. Van Trump noted that the Chinese have reduced their soybean acres and plan to grow more wheat and corn, since they believe these crops fit better with the nation's climate and soil types. This begs the question of where China will buy its soybeans, said Van Trump, who noted that the quality of Brazil's soybeans is traditionally better than the quality of U.S. soybeans. "We have the advantage of being able to ship beans to China faster than Brazil can," he said. "We don't know whether China will wait for higher-quality South American beans, or whether they'll go to the U.S. to get beans faster." South America will also impact the U.S. ethanol markets, Van Trump said. Nations like Argentina are looking for ways to reduce their dependence on foreign oil and have announced plans to retain much more of their domestic corn crop for ethanol production. "As you see more ethanol production in South America, this should be a big bonus for us, in terms of more U.S. corn exports." The U.S. ethanol industry is in good shape, despite losing the blender's credit, Van Trump added. "U.S. ethanol exports are gaining steam, and I think the issues in the Middle East will be good for U.S. ethanol in the long term." Looking ahead While times are good in ag right now, infrastructure remains an Achilles heel for U.S. agriculture, Van Trump cautioned. "Billions of dollars are being invested in infrastructure in South America, which is setting itself up to feed the world. "They're also talking about 100-row corn planters to get the job done, so I think we need to be prepared for these big changes that may be coming." While no one can predict the future, Van Trump is urging farmers to make the most of the opportunities the market is presenting right now. "Trying to pick the tops and bottoms of the market is a bad move. With the profits we're seeing today, grab the money you can, sock it away and don't get leveraged to the hilt." You can contact Darcy Dougherty Maulsby by e-mail at yettergirl@yahoo.com. Save | Subscribe to Messenger News I am looking for:

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“Our overall program is similar to last year, as far as the products are concerned, but our acreage has increased just about across the board on everything that we grow, so we are building on the winter program,” said Mike Aiton, marketing manager for Prime Time Sales LLC, which is headquartered in Coachella, CA. Bell peppers continue to be the company’s biggest commodity, he said. “We have both field grown and protected structure or hothouse-grown peppers all winter long.” Red bells are the biggest-volume item in the category for the company, followed by green bells, then yellow, then orange. Mike Aiton“We have production in both mainland Mexico and also in Baja, so we cross product into Nogales [AZ] and into San Diego,” he said. In mainland Mexico, Prime Time grows peppers in Sinaloa and has a greenhouse operation in Jalisco. By early December, “we will be have been harvesting the red, yellow and orange blocky bells from hothouses for a month and also green bell peppers. We will just be starting our red pepper production,” he said. Throughout December, volume will ramp up “with more volume every week,” and by January there will be “promotional volumes pretty much across the board.” The company “planted a little bit more on everything” this year. As of mid-November, Prime Time was harvesting hothouse peppers in both Baja and Jalisco, “starting in a modest way,” he said. “The market is high, and demand is good, and supplies are very tight in advance of the [Thanksgiving] holiday. Our field grown production still hasn’t quite kicked in.” Prime Time has bell pepper fields in the Coachella Valley as well that were just about ready to harvest. Those were set to start “actually tomorrow” [Nov. 15], Mr. Aiton said. “The size is quite small here. Because of the heat, the peppers just didn’t grow much, so I think people are going to be seeing smaller sized peppers from now through Christmastime before we start getting into the new crop and bigger sizes” from different areas. This winter, Prime Time has also “ramped up production on the mini-sweet peppers,” Mr. Aiton said. “Those are red, yellow and orange.” They are main field grown, with “a little bit in shadehouse. But w have just about doubled our production in Mexico from a year ago, so we are very bullish on that program.” The season on the minis is “exactly the same” as for regular bell peppers, he said. They should be in production in Mexico by early December. “Right now, the crop looks very good,” he said. “We have a brand new packinghouse in Culiacan” for which “this will be the second year,” he said. “It is a considerable investment on our part in Mexico. It really is exactly the same packinghouse as we have in Coachella, so the procedures and the guidelines and even the personnel are the same in Mexico as we have in California. I think that is one of the advantages that we offer — the consistency in quality and the standards are the same wherever you buy our peppers.” Prime Time also has “a pretty good selection of tomatoes that we grow in Baja,” he said. “We have round tomatoes plus grape tomatoes and Romas. We have increasing volume on those tomatoes crossing in San Diego, and we will have those, as well, all winter long.” The harvest had already started, “so we are in that game right now.” Videos

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Tackling tough decisions When the economy got rough, Barnes Nursery got smart and made the hard decisions that pulled it through. Kristen Hampshire Subscribe “We couldn’t stop the bleeding fast enough,” says Barnes Nursery Vice President Jarret Barnes of 2008, during the economic fallout when home building just stopped happening in northern Ohio, and particularly along Lake Erie where vacation homes are popular. The problem for Barnes was the investment it literally had in the ground: 300 acres of plant material that required costly maintenance but could not be specified or sold. “You couldn’t give a tree a way at that time,” Barnes says. The family business continued to care for its acres, supporting a legacy of plantsmen and their grandfather’s love of trees. It would be heartbreaking to raze the land. But how long could Barnes Nursery continue paying to care for hundreds of acres of nursery stock that no one would buy? There were no large-scale design-build projects on the books at the time either. “In the last three years we had to make a decision. We had to pull the trigger and say, enough is enough, let’s see if we can weather the storm with no maintenance [for the nursery stock] and what is left, we’ll use and sell, and what’s not we’ll push out of the ground and move on to another product,” Barnes says. Today, Barnes maintains 75 acres of trees — the rest is beans, and eventually some corn will be planted in the sharecropped space. Rather than draining the budget to care for acres of land and trees unsold, others are footing some of the bill to use the rich sandy loam, a revered characteristic of Huron, which has strong agricultural roots. But transitioning the land from nursery stock to farm crops was no overnight gig. “It wasn’t cheap to get out of,” says Julie Barnes Foster, head of Barnes Garden Centers, noting how the fields had to be cleared. “And it wasn’t an easy decision for the family. It took a long time to pull the trigger, and then to see it turn from trees into beans.” But the business is stronger now because of that choice. In 2008, its revenues were nearly cut in half, Barnes says. The company reduced its office staff by 30 percent, including people who had been with the company through years of good times. “We just couldn’t afford to keep everyone,” Foster says. The staff is about 100 strong today, and the company is still diversified with divisions in maintenance, lawn care and design/build and landscape materials, including organics and composting, which is a specialty of Barnes’ mother, Sharon, who was somewhat of a pioneer in the industry. She has been focused on composting since the early 1980s and heavily involved in the U.S. Composting Council The business is recovering and positioned for growth, with eyes on design/build and projects along with the potential that a public interest in compost brings. “The interest has definitely spiked,” Foster says. It takes more than a name to show off what your business does. Read More By the people, for the people A Yard & A Half’s open book policies helped tutor employees for the next stage in business as a co-op. Read More Design with deep roots Barnes Nursery transitioned out of its wholesale nursery and is growing its retail design/build presence, while continuing its organics initiative. Read More

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Voigt Named By Colorado Published online: Aug 16, 2002 >Chris Voigt, who has served as field operations director for the United States Potato Board, was named Executive Director of the Colorado Potato Administrative Committee this week. Voigt, an Oregon native who traversed the nation on Board activities and programs over the past seven years, will take over from the late Wayne Thompson. Thompson died of cancer early this summer. Voigt will oversee operations for growers from the Monte Vista, CO, office in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. “We’re just real happy to have him,” an office spokesperson said.

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Search Site Current News Stories Three more FSMA rules set new standards for fruits and veggies Is carbonated air a repellant of Asian carp? Prepare livestock, farm for winter temperatures Experts advise preparing equipment for the winter New ag minister from Canada is in favor of COOL retaliation Fed: Farm finances are tighter west of the Mississippi Panel speculates on ‘real cost’ of producing meat and crops Search News COOL remains contentious even within cattle industry By KEVIN WALKERMichigan CorrespondentWASHINGTON, D.C. — Different cattle producer groups continue to spar over mandatory country of origin labeling (MCOOL).MCOOL has nothing to do with food safety, but is strictly a marketing tool, said Colin Woodall, vice president of government affairs at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Assoc. (NCBA). The NCBA is opposed to MCOOL, but isn’t necessarily opposed to voluntary labeling efforts.The COOL issue at hand is only about how certain commodities are labeled in the United States, as well. It has nothing to do with exports. “Our concern is because of the impact it has on U.S. producers,” Woodall said. “It’s not just Mexican and Canadian producers that are affected, it’s U.S. producers, too.”He opined the consumer isn’t paying much attention to from where their beef is coming. The labels “aren’t providing any value. We’re not against labeling as a whole, we’re just against the government telling us how to do it.”MCOOL is a product of the 2008 farm bill and, to some extent, earlier legislation. MCOOL requires the mandatory labeling of meat packaged for retail sales. According to the NCBA, the beef industry has worked for years to develop livestock production practices that promote safety.Those, in addition to government regulations already in place, ensure the safety of beef sold in the United States, the group contends.The World Trade Organization (WTO) appellate court ruled although the United States has the right to a COOL program, the way in which the MCOOL program is currently configured creates an unfair trade balance in violation of international trade laws. It’s being contended that today, Canadian and Mexican beef producers are being paid less for their product because of MCOOL.According to the NCBA, Mexican and Canadian cattle producers are at a competitive disadvantage because of the U.S. program. In December 2012, the WTO announced the United States had until May 23, 2013, to change its COOL program for red meat or face retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Mexico.Pending lawsuitIn its literature, the NCBA states in some instances Mexican producers are being paid $60 less per head of cattle because of where that cattle originated. The USDA published a final rule on MCOOL on May 24 to help the United States come into compliance with WTO rules, but Woodall said it does no such thing – and the NCBA sued to try to stop implementation of the final rule.“We asked the court to shut down implementation of the new rule, because USDA is causing us to spend money on something that the WTO might reject,” he said. “We think the WTO will rule against it.”According to the group, the cost of complying with the new rule could be in excess of $100 million, in the form of increased tracking of animals and increased costs of physically printing and attaching labels.The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, includes the NCBA, American Meat Institute and several other groups as plaintiffs. They are asking the court to rule against the defendant, USDA, mainly because of the cost to the industry – but also on constitutional as well as a number of technical grounds.Other groups insist consumers do want to know where their beef was born and raised. Leo McDonnell, director emeritus of the United States Cattlemen’s Assoc. (USCA), for example, said of the lawsuit, “Consumers very much want to know where their food comes from. Basically every poll shows a strong preference on the part of consumers for knowing the source of their beef.”He also said it’s interesting that the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) finds “a lot of value in promoting U.S. beef, as opposed to North American beef. We’re not sure the USMEF differentiates between U.S. and North American beef, however.”About the COOL issue as it relates to the WTO, McDonnell said neither Canada nor Mexico have tried to appeal the latest COOL rules.“Instead, they tried to stop the rule in its tracks with a lawsuit,” he said. “It raises a few red flags. I think it raises concerns on their part that it is compliant. I don’t understand why Canada and Mexico wouldn’t want to identify their product. It’s good for everybody.“We’ve been accused of wanting to block trade, but we’ve never wanted to block trade. COOL was never meant to put up a barrier to trade.” The group is in the midst of a fundraising tour throughout the month of August to defend U.S. COOL. More information about it is available at www.uscooldefensefund.org

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TopicsCapital Investment ChannelsMNET IMPO Advertisement Advertisement USDA Takes Action Against Potato Distributor Wed, 08/22/2012 - 1:07pm Comments by WASHINGTON (USDA) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has filed an administrative action under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA) against United Potato Distributors Inc., d/b/a United Distributors Inc. The company failed to make full payment promptly to 39 sellers in the total amount of $759,820.22 under the PACA. The company, operating from Los Angeles, Calif., purchased the produce during the period of November 2010 through January 2012. United Potato Distributors Inc., d/b/a United Distributors Inc. will have an opportunity to request a hearing. Should USDA find that the company committed repeated and flagrant violations, it would be barred from the produce industry for two years. Furthermore, its principals would not be employed by or affiliated with any PACA licensee for one year and then only with the posting of a USDA-approved surety bond. The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), PACA Division, regulates fair trading practices of produce companies operating subject to the PACA, which includes buyers, sellers, commission merchants, dealers, and brokers, within the fruit and vegetable industry. All oversight of actions related to the PACA are conducted by the AMS, an agency within the USDA. The PACA establishes a code of good business conduct for the produce industry. Under it, all interstate traders in fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables must be licensed by USDA. USDA is authorized to suspend or revoke a trader’s license for violating the act. In fiscal year 2011, USDA resolved approximately 2,000 claims filed under the PACA involving $31 million in their continued efforts to serve and protect the fruit and vegetable industry from unlawful trade practices. Facility Advertisement Advertisement View the discussion thread. Connect with Food Manufacturing Facebook Topics Capital Investment © Copyright 2016 Advantage Business Media Advertisement Which innovative new product has been a game-changer this year? Tell us & win! Learn More

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Governor hopes to restore Idaho ag research funding Published on December 6, 2012 3:01AM Last changed on January 3, 2013 7:30AM By SEAN ELLISCapital PressBOISE -- Gov. Butch Otter told Idaho Farm Bureau Federation members he would like to eventually restore the $5 million in agricultural research funding that was cut during the economic downturn.Faced with dwindling revenues, the state cut $5.69 million in funding to University of Idaho for ag research and extension the past several years. That amount doesn't include a one-time holdback of $7.3 million. Addressing dozens of farmers and ranchers from across the state Dec. 4 during IFBF's annual conference, Otter said it was a goal of his to restore that funding.At the governor's urging, the Idaho Legislature last year increased the university's $22.5 million ag research and extension budget by $300,000. But Otter wants the full amount restored."I feel obligated to try to get them whole because I see the great job they're doing," he said. Otter noted that major ag companies, such as Nunhems, which moved its world headquarters to Idaho, came to the state in large part because of the top-notch university research system that exists here."I don't want that bet to go unrewarded," he said, calling ag research an investment in Idaho's future.During the economic downturn, three UI research stations faced possible closure, including the 200-acre Parma Research and Extension Center in southwestern Idaho, which performs a wide variety of research. IFBF, county Farm Bureaus, and other private industry groups formed a coalition that raised funding for the stations that helped keep them open. Otter said those groups have done a great job of helping defer the cost of research and he singled out the partnerships that have allowed the Parma center to remain open. The center receives about $80,000 a year from the Treasure Valley Ag Coalition and UI and J.R. Simplot Co. have a five-year agreement that provides the station with $1.5 million in exchange for giving Simplot access to 50 acres for field crop research.Otter's comments were welcome news to Farm Bureau members, including Caldwell farmer Sid Freeman, whose question prompted the governor's remarks on ag research."There's too much riding on that Parma research center to close it," said Freeman. "You heard what he said: It's an investment for our future. It's a good business decision to get that (funding restored) as fully as possible."I understand he can't make any commitments, and we don't know how revenues are going to come in, but it's encouraging to know that's in the forefront of his mind," he said.

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Date created: 15/11/08 3:02 PM Last modified:15/11/08 3:02 PM Maintained by: John Quiggin Don't sell water down the river John Quiggin Australian Financial Review 22 May 2008 With more disappointing rainfall figures over the last month, the announcement by the South Australian government that Murray River irrigators face zero allocations from July this year comes as no surprise. Unfortunately, there is not much likelihood of winter rains relieving the situation. The long-term picture is equally gloomy. On ‘business as usual’ projections of the impacts of climate change, South-Eastern Australia is likely to get even hotter and drier over coming decades. Even modest declines in rainfall, when combined with higher evaporation due to increased temperatures, translate into large reductions in the inflows to river systems that make irrigation possible. A 10 per cent reduction in rainfall, combined with higher evaporation, could cut inflows in half or even two-thirds. My research group at the University of Queensland has been examining possible adaptation to climate change in the Basin for some time, and the results are sobering. Projections of current climate trends suggest that, even with extensive adaptation by farmers, irrigated agriculture will decline steadily over coming decades. With droughts becoming increasingly common, irrigation will cease to be viable in many regions. There is, however, some hope for the future. If global action to mitigate climate change succeeds in stabilising CO2 concentrations at 450 parts per million (ppm) and if systems for allocating water rights are adjusted optimally, our modelling suggests that irrigation systems will be able to adapt successfully. With a less stringent target of 550 ppm, we are taking a bet on how the uncertainty surrounding climate change is resolved. Adaptation is reasonably successful for the moderate declines in inflows derived from the median projections of climate models. However, there is a significant risk of hotter, drier outcomes that would lead to the failure of the system. If the global efforts to reduce carbon emissions are successful, and if we can reform our systems of water allocation, an economically and environmentally sustainable future is possible. But before we can reach this sustainable position, we need to manage the current crisis, and this needs urgent action. Water reform has traditionally been a slow-moving affair. Concerns about overallocation of water were already prevalent in the early 1980s, when I began work in this field. The first real response was from the Council of Australian Governments in 1994 which capped extractions of water for irrigation. Unfortunately, too much water had already been allocated, and even more had been promised. Resolving this problem was always going to be difficult, and progress under the Howard government was glacial. Even among those pushing for action, it has been assumed that reform must be gradual. An example is the idea of deferred purchase of water rights, aimed at providing farmers with help for adjustment while moving towards a more sustainable use of water. The idea is to make a payment to irrigators now, on the condition that water allocations will be returned, to meet needs for environmental flows or drinking water, in the future. An early version of this idea, put forward in 2004, envisaged a time frame of ten years (Watershed solution needed, AFR, 3/6/04). Four years later, it’s clear that a ten-year program is much too slow. A plan for a Future-Proof Basin, put forward by Mike Young of the University of Adelaide and Jim McColl of CSIRO calls for a three year program of adjustment payments, followed by the replace the current entitlement and allocation regime with a robust and sustainable alternative. The need for an accelerated pace of reform is obvious. More controversial is the suggestion that the current approach, based on the voluntary purchase of rights should be abandoned, and that changes in water allocations should be imposed across the board. This is a drastic measure. It may prove to be necessary, but compulsory resumption of property rights should be a last resort. Thanks to the inaction of the previous government, the voluntary approach based on purchases from willing sellers has not been given a chance to work. If the current tender process, in which $50 million dollars has been allocated to buy water rights on the market, proves successful, it could be expanded to include immediate payments for voluntary deferred purchases. If it fails, more radical approaches may be needed. Regardless of disagreements over details, Young and McColl have made a crucial contribution to the debate over water policy. On their central point, that urgent action is needed now, there can be no serious dispute. John Quiggin is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow in Economics and Political Science at the University of Queensland. Read more articles from John Quiggin's home page Go to John Quiggin's Weblog

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Too Much at Steak According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the world consumption of meat and dairy products is going to increase exponentially in the upcoming years. In the face of this demand, the current industrial model of food production is set to raise more and more animals, increase productivity and decrease the final price to consumers. Who’s paying the true cost of this industrialised system? Produced by ActionAid, Compassion in World Farming and Slow Food, the Too Much At Steak guide takes a closer look at meat, and what consumers can do to avoid this situation. EU citizens consume an average of 232 grams of meat each day, a total of 85 kilos per capita per year. For a healthy diet, the recommended amount is around 630 grams a week, meaning that each European is eating for 2.5 people. Such an excessive consumption has heavy costs not just for our health and for the environment, but also in terms of animal welfare and farmers’ livelihood. Animal farming throughout the world has become increasingly intensive to meet this demand, with significant consequences. With regards to the environment, it has caused serious soil and water pollution, land and water depletion and, ultimately, global warming. FAO estimates that livestock production is responsible for 18% of the greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. Animal welfare in its holistic sense - physical health and wellbeing, mental wellbeing and ability to express natural behaviours – is not a primary consideration of standard industrial farms, which have become factories for meat and milk production. ‘Factory farming’ prioritises maximum production above all else and animals are treated as commodities, often raised in intense confinement and subject to routine mutilations like tail docking and beak trimming. The pleasure that food can bring is being undermined by the harm, hunger, damage to human health and animal welfare concerns caused by the intensive production model. But, through our choices, consumers have the power to redirect the market and production. Too Much at Steak provides a few good practices that can be applied to everyday life, when shopping, at home or in restaurants. These small changes can contribute to improvements in farming and farmer’s livelihoods. By committing to eat less meat, eat good quality meat from animals with a high quality of life and to pay a fair price, reflective of the true cost of production and one that values the animal’s life, we can continue to eat meat. There’s simply “too much at stake” to continue down the path we’re on. Download the English guide: Too Much at Steak

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SD farm loses 600 hogs to smoke inhalation, Titan Machinery downsizes and Hoeven urges halt of livestock emissions regulations By: Agweek Wire reports, Agweek SD farm loses 600 hogs to smoke inhalation• SALEM, S.D. — A Hutterite colony lost about 600 hogs to smoke inhalation from a fire that started April 12 in a hog barn on the Golden View Hutterite Colony. McCook County (S.D.) emergency manager Brad Stiefvater says embers from a nearby burn pit likely were sucked into a vent and started the fire in the ceiling of the building. Salem and Spencer fire departments responded to the fire about 5:30 p.m. Stiefvater says firefighters had to cut open the roof to get at the fire, which burned some rafters and insulation. Not all the hogs in the 40-by-140-foot barn died, Stiefvater says. But more hogs could die later as some of the animals could develop infections or other complications from smoke inhalation. The fire departments were on scene for about three hours to manage hot spots in the insulation and rafters of the building’s ceiling. Stiefvater says the colony plans to repair the building. In the meantime, the surviving hogs have been moved to another building. “The building sustained damage, but the building damage certainly wouldn’t equal the loss of the hogs,” he says.Titan Machinery downsizes• WEST FARGO, N.D. — Titan Machinery has closed eight of its construction stores and is eliminating 128 positions, including seven at its headquarters in West Fargo, N.D. Slow construction recovery was identified as the reason for the company’s downsizing. CEO David Meyer says the realignment is necessary to ensure the future of the company. “In the fourth quarter, our parts and service business performed well, while our equipment sales and margins continued to experience challenges due to industry headwinds across our segments,” Meyer says. Stores being shuttered include locations in Rosemount, Minn., Bozeman and Helena, Mont., Cheyenne, Wyo., Clear Lake, Iowa, and Flagstaff, Ariz. The company also will reduce staff at other dealerships and seven support staff at its Shared Resources Center in West Fargo. The closing of the Rosemount store will result in the elimination of five positions. The Rosemount store’s operations will be absorbed by Titan’s Shakopee, Minn., construction store. Titan Machinery was established in 1980 in West Fargo. The company owns and operates a network of full-service agricultural and construction equipment stores in the U.S.Hoeven urges halt of emissions regulations• WASHINGTON — Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., has asked three federal agencies to halt regulations on livestock emissions. In a letter also signed by 15 other Republican senators, Hoeven pressed the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency not to impose policies that he says could cost cattle producers thousands of dollars. The letter is in response to President Barack Obama’s Climate Action Plan, which asks the agencies to develop a plan to reduce dairy sector methane greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020. The mandates could cost medium-sized dairy farms up to $22,000 and medium-sized cattle farms up to $27,000. An appropriations bill is preventing the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions associated with livestock production, but it expires Oct. 1. Officials at the agencies are expected to come up with a plan in the following weeks.USDA considers PED outbreak reports • CHICAGO — The U.S. is considering rules that would require outbreaks of a deadly pig virus to be reported to the government in an effort to improve tracking of the disease, which has already spread to 30 states, an industry group says. Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus has killed millions of baby pigs since it was first detected in the U.S. one year ago. PEDv has crimped hog supplies in the U.S. and sent prices to record highs. It remains unclear how the virus entered the country, and farmers have struggled to find ways to contain it. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has discussed the option of mandatory reporting with the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, says Tom Burkgren, executive director of the association. PEDv, which is nearly always fatal in piglets, has been difficult to track in part because veterinarians are not required to alert government officials of its presence. USDA is “currently evaluating additional options for addressing this virus,” a spokeswoman says. Mandatory reporting is already used for viruses such as African swine fever and foot-and-mouth disease. The USDA can quarantine animals with African swine fever and restrict the movement of infected animals. DOC to investigate Mexican sugar imports• The U.S. Department of Commerce announced would initiate an investigation to determine if the Mexican government has subsidized Mexico’s sugar production and whether that sugar is being dumped into the U.S. market. A group of U.S. sugar producers filed antidumping and countervailing duty petitions against Mexico’s sugar industry on March 28, and applauded the DOC’s decision. The Mexican sugar industry — 20 percent of which is owned and operated by the Mexican government — has rapidly increased exports to the U.S. in recent years, rising from 9 percent of the U.S. market in 2012 to nearly 18 percent in 2013. And, according to recently updated U.S. Department of Agriculture data, Mexico is accelerating its rate of exportation in 2014. As of March 31, Mexico had already sent to America 1.15 million tons of sugar, putting it on pace to ship 2.3 million tons for the year. That is compared with last year’s all-time record of 2.1 million tons. Unless the pace slows, imports of sugar from Mexico will be 500,000 tons more than U.S. government officials had expected this year. U.S. producers say the growth in Mexico’s exports to the U.S. is being fueled by substantial subsidies and by dumping margins of 45 percent or more. They also say Mexico is directly responsible for sinking U.S. sugar prices, which have fallen 50 percent since late 2011 and are back to the lows of the 1980s. Earlier this month, USDA announced an acreage decline of 4 percent for the U.S. sugar beet crop currently being planted. That marks the fourth consecutive year that U.S. sugar farmers have reduced plantings. The International Trade Commission is responsible for determining whether or not domestic producers are injured by dumped and subsidized imports. It is expected to make a preliminary determination in May. Briefly . . . • Ag speaker: Greg Peterson, known for his music videos that involve agriculture, will speak at 7 p.m. April 22 in Sheppard Arena on the North Dakota State University campus in Fargo. Peterson is the spokesman for Peterson Farm Brothers, a trio who makes parody music videos. He’ll speak in Fargo about “activist websites, celebrity opinions and Internet misinformation.” The event, open to the public, will be hosted by North Dakota Farm Bureau’s NDSU Collegiate group. Collegiate Farm Bureau consists of college students interested in agriculture, policy development and current events affecting North Dakota. There are collegiate groups at Dickinson State University and NDSU. Beautiful Lake Home Auction

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In this Aug. 6, 2009 photo, farmer Diosdado Mena works his oxen in a field in Los Palacios, Cuba. Cuba may rely more heavily than ever on oxen to save fuel normally used by heavily machinery. In a speech to lawmakers last weekend, Raul Castro extolled the value of oxen, saying a pilot program promoting urban farming and relying on the beasts of burden in the central province of Camaguey would be expanded to the rest country.(AP Photo/Franklin Reyes) / APReddit✉-CommentsSAN DIEGO, Cuba — In China it's the year of the ox – and it could be for Cuba, too. President Raul Castro is promoting the beasts of burden as a way for the economically strapped communist country to ramp up food production while conserving energy. He recently suggested expanding a pilot program that gives private farmers fallow government land to cultivate – but without the use of gas-guzzling machinery. "For this program we should forget about tractors and fuel, even if we had enough. The idea is to work basically with oxen," Castro told parliament Aug. 1. "An increasing number of growers have been doing exactly this with excellent results." Cuba's economy was devastated by three hurricanes last summer, and the global recession has left the government short on cash to cover debts. As a result, it has slashed spending and cut domestic production and foreign imports, causing shortages of such basics as cooking oil, ground beef and toilet paper. Though the island gets nearly 100,000 free barrels of oil a day from Venezuela, it also has begun a campaign to conserve crude. The agricultural ministry in late June proposed increasing the use of oxen to save fuel, as Cubans have seen a summer of factories closing and air conditioners at government offices and businesses shutting off to save oil. The ministry said it had more than 265,000 oxen "capable of matching, and in some cases overtaking, machines in labor load and planting." In the farming initiative that began last year, about 82,000 applicants have received more than 1.7 million acres so far – or 40 percent of the government's formerly idle land. The program seems to have slightly increased production of potatoes and tomatoes in season, but the government has provided no official figures. Shortages in Cuba are not new. And neither are oxen. Thousands of Cuban farmers have relied on the beasts in the half century since Fidel and Raul Castro and their rebels toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista. "The ox means so much to us. Without oxen, farming is not farming," said Omar Andalio, 37, as he carefully coaxed a pair of government-owned beasts through a sugarcane field last week. For reasons no one can remember, the plumper one is called "Caramel," even though he's white, and his caramel-hued field-mate is "Lightweight" – never mind that he's nearly 1,000 pounds. Andalio is one of 300 employees who grow cane, low-quality tobacco, sweet potatoes and bananas in San Diego, 95 miles (150 kilometers) west of Havana, with stunning views of limestone mountains in the distance. The cooperative has 24 oxen and eight tractors – with two of the machines clawing through terrain cooked by a recent drought. Each tractor can do the work of five teams of oxen, Andalio said. "Work with tractors hasn't stopped, but it will only go as far as the economy allows," he added. Juan Alvarez, a member of a state flower cooperative that supplies nearby funeral homes, tugged at two oxen with names translating to "Foreman" and "Spoiled Brat." A pair called "Evil Eye" and "Coal-Stoker" stood in the shade nearby, where a sea green-and-red highway billboard read: "Everything for the Revolution. Summer 2009." "We use tractors when there are tractors, but there almost never are," said Alvarez, 59. Zenaida Leon, acting head of the 10-employee flower cooperative, said the issue is not "oxen 'yes,' tractors 'no.'" "I am thankful for the revolution," the 52-year-old said. "But we don't get boots, tools, irrigation that works."

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Agweb HomeDrovers HomeNewsUgly Droughts Ugly Droughts By Jeanne Bernick How do recent droughts compare to 30 years ago? The drought that settled over more than half of the U.S. last summer was the most widespread in more than 50 years, and now a long dry winter has set up farmers for a nail-biting spring. Little in our lifetimes tops the 2012 drought disaster, which goes down as among the ten worst of the past century, according to a new report released by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). With records dating to 1895, NCDC’s State of the Climate shows only the extraordinary droughts of the 1930s and 1950s covered more land area than the 2012 drought. By a slight margin, last summer’s drought actually covered more land mass than the infamous 1936 drought. However, when areas classified as "moderate" drought are excluded, the historical rankings change, notes Elwynn Taylor, Iowa State University climatologist. Some droughts were extremely intense, but focused on specific regions rather than sprawling across large swaths of the country. For example, droughts in 1988, 2000 and 2002 included more than 35% of the U.S. in the "severe" to "extreme" drought categories on the Palmer Drought Severity Index. By comparison, severe to extreme drought covered 32.7% in June 2012. The drought of 30 years ago was no slouch. The 1983 Midwest drought was associated with very dry conditions, severe heat and substandard crop growth, which affected prices and caused hardship for farmers. Multiple disaster declarations went out in Indiana and neighboring states. Readings of 100° F and higher became prevalent in 1983 during these dry spells across the Midwest, Ohio Valley and Great Lakes regions. The heat waves killed 500 to 700 people. Heading into 2013. In an ironic end to a winter spent fretting about drought, late snows and heavy rains last month renewed the rising of Midwestern rivers. Current conditions show a change in deep soil moisture levels in the eastern U.S. Nevertheless, drought situations today will have more impact on food prices than 30 years ago, to the tune of about $3.4 billion during the next year or two, says Paul Walsh, a weather analyst for The Weather Company and The Weather Channel. "It has a huge impact, particularly on winter wheat and areas like Colorado," Walsh says. By March, Colorado had only seen 50% of its normal snowpack. "That affects agriculture dramatically because water from the snow pack services crops throughout the West." Apples-to-Apples Drought Comparison Difficult The Drought Monitor report debuted in 1999, and the period of detailed records began in January of 2000. One of the many inputs in the Drought Monitor report is the Palmer Drought Severity Index. This index, developed by meteorologist Wayne Palmer in the 1960s, uses mathematical equations incorporating precipitation and temperature data to estimate evaporation, runoff and soil moisture recharge. The National Climatic Data Center maintains a database of monthly Palmer drought indices dating to 1895. Because of this much longer period of record, the Palmer index can be used as more of an "apples to apples" comparison between recent weather conditions and those from past decades, at least on a meteorological basis. However, differences in land use and farming practices since the Dust Bowl make the comparison of real-world impacts more complicated. Erosion-control practices and drought-resistant crop hybrids are just two examples of ways in which modern agriculture attempts to mitigate the impacts of severe drought. 4 years of massive drought in the 30's. I heard the stories all my life from my father and aunts and uncles and it made them all too conservative. They never got over it.

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World Health Days Medindia » Health Press Releases A-Z Monsanto Company Donates Conventional Corn and Vegetable Seeds to Haitian Farmers to Help Address Food Security Needs Friday, May 14, 2010 Environmental Health J E 4 Haitian Ministry of Agriculture, Kuehne + Nagel, Monsanto, USAID and UPS work together to put more than 130 tons of seeds in the hands of farmers to increase food production and aid long-term earthquake recovery PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 13, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Haitian farmers, who otherwise may not have had sufficient seeds to plant this season in their earthquake-ravaged country, are receiving help from a unique public and private partnership to provide access to high-quality, conventional hybrid corn and vegetable seeds in time for this planting season. The Haitian Ministry of Agriculture approved a donation from U.S.-based Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) to Haitian farmers of $4 million worth of conventional hybrid corn and vegetable seeds to be made over the next 12 months in support of reconstruction efforts. The Ministry's involvement ensured the seed selected was appropriate for the growing conditions and farming practices in Haiti. The donated seeds include corn, cabbage, carrot, eggplant, melon, onion, tomato, spinach and watermelon. The first shipment of more than 60 tons of conventional hybrid corn and vegetable seeds arrived in Haiti via air- and seaport last week through donated shipping, logistic and distribution services provided by Kuehne + Nagel and UPS. "Kuehne + Nagel is pleased to lend its services to this important effort for the people of Haiti," said Tim Smith of Kuehne + Nagel Emergency and Relief Logistics. "We are providing no-cost freight forwarding, ocean transport and document preparation for Monsanto's corn seed." "As part of our ongoing efforts to support recovery efforts in Haiti, UPS is proud to donate our services to ship seed to Haiti as the country begins to move toward building a sustainable future," said Ken Sternad, President of The UPS Foundation. "We are dedicated to doing everything we can to get these and other life-saving supplies into the hands of Haiti's farmers and their families." The initial seed shipment will be distributed to Haitian farmers by the WINNER project, a five-year program to increase farmer productivity funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). WINNER will provide the in-country expertise, technical services and other inputs, such as fertilizer, needed by farmers to manage the crops. "Our goal is to reach 10,000 farmers this growing season with these seeds," said Jean Robert Estime, the director of the WINNER project. "The vegetables and grain these seeds will produce will help feed and provide economic opportunities for farmers, their families and the broader community. Agriculture is key to the long-term recovery." The seeds are being provided free of charge by Monsanto. The WINNER project will distribute the seeds through farmer association stores to be sold at a significantly reduced price. The farmer stores will use the revenue to reinvest in other inputs to support farmers in the future. The farmer associations alone will receive revenue from the sales. Haiti's prime planting season occurs from mid-March through the end of May, and accounts for 60 percent of the country's agricultural production. According to the World Bank, nearly 2.4 million Haitians are still food-insecure following the January earthquake, and farming and agriculture will be critical to a long-term, sustainable recovery. "As a company wholly-focused on agriculture, we understand the importance of supporting local farmers and the Ministry of Agriculture's efforts to help with reconstruction in their country," said Jerry Steiner, executive vice president, Monsanto Company. "With high quality seeds, agronomic support and training, Haitian farmers will be able to grow nutritious and diversified foods for their families, communities and their economy." A second shipment of 70 tons of hybrid, conventional corn seed, also donated by Monsanto, is en-route. Further donation and distribution of up to an additional 345 tons of conventional hybrid corn seed is anticipated over the next 12 months. The Monsanto Fund – the philanthropic arm of Monsanto – previously donated $50,000 to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund and has initiated a global program to match employee donations dollar-for-dollar. To date, Monsanto employees have contributed more than $100,000 to the program, raising a total of more than $200,000 for Haiti relief. About Kuehne + Nagel With approximately 55,000 employees at 900 locations in over 100 countries, the Kuehne + Nagel Group is one of the world's leading logistics companies. Its strong market position lies in the seafreight, airfreight, contract logistics and overland businesses, with a clear focus on providing IT-based supply chain management services. Since the January earthquake in Haiti, Kuehne + Nagel has been extensively involved in supporting aid organizations (United Nations, Red Cross, U.S. government and non-government organizations) in their efforts to assist the Haitian people. For more information, visit www.kuehne-nagel.com. About The UPS Foundation Founded in 1951 and based in Atlanta, Ga., The UPS Foundation's major initiatives include programs that support community safety, non-profit effectiveness, economic and global literacy, environmental sustainability and diversity. The UPS Foundation pursues these initiatives by identifying specific projects where its support can help produce a measurable social impact. In 2009, The UPS Foundation donated more than $43 million US to charitable organizations worldwide. Visit community.ups.com for more information about UPS's community involvement. To date, the UPS Foundation has donated more than $1 million to support Haiti relief efforts. About WINNER A five-year, multi-faceted program designed to comprehensively build Haiti's agricultural infrastructure, capacity, and productivity by providing concentrated and transformative support to Haitians in a large area north of Port-au-Prince. It is focused on building and strengthening Haiti's agricultural foundation, particularly in the areas of Cul-de-Sac, Cabaret, Mirebalais, Arcahaie and Gonaives and is backed by $126 million in funding from the U.S. Government over the next five years. Find out more at www.winner.ht. About Monsanto Company Monsanto Company is a leading global provider of technology-based solutions and agricultural products that improve farm productivity and food quality. Monsanto remains focused on enabling both small-holder and large-scale farmers to produce more from their land while conserving more of our world's natural resources such as water and energy. To learn more about our business and our commitments, please visit: www.monsanto.com. Follow our business on Twitter® at www.twitter.com/MonsantoCo, on the company blog, Beyond the Rows at www.monsantoblog.com, or subscribe to our News Release RSS Feed . Contact: Darren Wallis (314-694-5674) SOURCE Monsanto Company More Environmental Health Press Release Archive

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Capital Region orchards feel weather's impact on crops Ed Miller, owner of Goold Orchards takes a bit of an apple as he prepares for upcoming apple festival Tuesday, October 2, 2012 in Castleton. (J.S.Carras/The Record) Ed Miller, owner of Goold Orchards prepares for upcoming apple festival Tuesday, October 2, 2012 in Castleton. (J.S.Carras/The Record) CASTLETON -- Goold Orchards, like many Hudson Valley fruit orchards, will only see about 10 percent of their usual apple produce and sales this year due to the mild winter that urged apple tree growth too early and a spring frost killing much of the already blooming apples. The trees "woke up" about four weeks early, explained multiple local farmers in Rensselaer County. For those who enjoy visiting the orchards for their fresh produce and goods, Goold is hosting its 24th annual Apple Festival and Craft Show this weekend that is the second largest event in the county, explained Sue Goold Miller whose family has owned the 100-acre farm for 102 years. She said anywhere from 22,000 to 25,000 people could be expected at the festival, weather permitting. The Farm at Kristy's Barn in Schodack this weekend is offering pick your own pumpkins, raspberries, and apples for Empire and Cortland apples. They are also expecting to see about 10 percent of their normal crop, said Ken Johnson, farm manager. He explained that the apples that bloomed early were the ones that died off from the frost. Apples comprise about 20 percent of the 330-acre farm's total business. About 110 acres has produce and eight of that is for apples. They also sell sweet corn, tomatoes, lettuce, and this was a good year for the peach crop, Johnson said. "We'll make it through this year and get to next year," he said confidently. "We were diversified enough to survive this disaster." The state of New York, the second largest producer of apples to Washington state, usually has about 29 million bushels of apples annually, according to the New York Apple Association. While firm numbers will not be known until likely early next year, the expected apple crop due to the frost is about 14 to 15 million bushels. Michigan, the third largest producer, was also "devastated" by the climate and will only be producing three million, said Molly Golden, director of marketing for the association. It has been hard to gauge the worst and least hit areas but she said Wayne County in the Rochester area was probably worst off and the Champlain Valley was least impacted since they are still expecting between 75 and 85 percent of their usual crop. "The Hudson Valley is a large producer for the state," she said. Variables like elevation, being near water, the variety of apple or even the positioning of the apples on the trees had an impact on the crop outcome. Johnson gave anecdotes of how trees near bodies of water might fare better since the water keeps the nearby areas warm. He said he also noticed in his own orchards that the apples 4 feet or higher on the tree would usually be fine while those below 4 feet were damaged. The last time something like this happened in New York was in 1945, said Ed Miller at Goold. "And this year was worse, by far," he said. A normal apple harvest would typically begin the first or second week of August and end around the first week of November. The expected season at Goold for apples will end later this month while Kristy's Barn said this would likely be the last weekend of pick your own apples. "This is a serious year for all of us," said Miller. "We're all in the same boat." She emphasized the importance of still frequenting the farms to support the local business. And, on the bright side, the wet summer resulted in an apple crop that is sweet tasting, said Golden. "We always have to look at the bright side in farming," said Johnson. The Farm at Kristy's Barn, a Schodack farm in its third generation, does not have an upcoming festival but they do have hayrides and a petting zoo, he said. The Goold Orchards festival this weekend, also featuring the Brookview Station Winery, will have a wine tent, live music including an accordion player from Troy, entertainment like cloggers and Irish dancers, food vendors, 100 craft vendors, pumpkin picking, a variety of fresh made foods and baked goods, a haunted house and a corn maze. The fee is $8 or kids under 12 are free. There is no parking fee for the festival that is Saturday and Sunday, rain or shine, from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.

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A 'short and sweet' season for strawberries Allison Nowicki, 1, of Tolland stops Saturday to enjoy a fresh strawberry as families take advantage of warm, sunny weather to pick their own at Scott's Yankee Farmer in East Lyme. Published June 16. 2013 12:01AM By Judy Benson Day Staff Writer Strawberry season in Connecticut never lasts long, but this year it may be even shorter than normal."The strawberries are taking a hit," said Teri Smith, co-owner with her husband Joe of Smith's Acres in East Lyme, which sells strawberries grown on its fields at its Niantic farm stand and at local farmers' markets. "Enjoy them while you can."In a year of perfect strawberry-growing weather conditions, she said, picking starts around Memorial Day and extends through July 4. In more typical years, the season is about three weeks. This year, picking started last weekend, a bit later than normal, and heavy rains over the last week are leaving many strawberries vulnerable to fungus.At Scott's Yankee Farmer in East Lyme, co-owner Karen Scott said the pick-your-own field off Chesterfield Road fared better than two other fields elsewhere where strawberries are grown for sale in the Boston Post Road farm stand. While many ripening berries have been lost to rot, there are still lots of good ones to be had, she said.The season this year, she said, will be "short and sweet."Hours at Scott's pick-your-own fields were extended this weekend after heavy rains this week kept many away. The pick-your-own field, which opened June 9, is normally open from 8 a.m. to noon on weekends, but is staying open until 2:30 p.m. to give its customers more time to take advantage of the weekend's good weather.On Saturday, the pick-your-own field was busy with strawberry fans of all ages, who all seemed to be finding plenty of perfect red berries to fill their baskets.Over the past few days, about 3 to 4½ inches of rain fell in southeastern Connecticut, drenching fields still drying out from the June 7 downpour.Rainfall totals from the June 7 deluge through Friday ranged from 7½ to 8½ inches at various locations in the region, according to The Weather Center at Western Connecticut State University. In the Connecticut River valley, flooding of farm fields damaged vegetable and tobacco crops, said Linda Piotrowicz, spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture."A lot of fields have to be replanted, but there is time to replant," she said.She added that the river had not yet crested as of Friday afternoon, so the full extend of the flooding and the damage isn't yet known.While some strawberry growers around the state are reporting damage, she said others weathered the heavy rains well, and are hoping for an influx of customers."They need lots of people to come and pick," she said. "They did a good job protecting what they have."Smith said other than the damage to strawberries, crops at her 35-acre farm came through the heavy rains relatively unscathed. The only effect, she said, is that fertilizer has to be reapplied to corn and tomato fields, because most of it washed off the fields before it could soak into the soil.Other than the losses in the 5 acres of strawberries at Scott's, corn and other vegetable crops at the farm are showing no ill effects from the rains."Everything else looks good," Scott said. "We needed the rain. Now we need some sun."At Maple Lane Farms in Preston, owner Allyn Brown said his blueberry, raspberry and black currant bushes were undamaged by the rain, and his Christmas trees "love the moisture.""Other than being behind in my work, it hasn't hurt us too much," he said. The five irrigation ponds at the farm are full."It's good to be going into the summer months with the ground saturated," he said.The farm plans to open for pick-your-own blueberries, raspberries and black currents by July 4 weekend, Brown said.“We're hoping the fields will all be dry by then," he said.Holmberg's Orchards in Ledyard is also planning on an early July opening for its pick-your-own blueberries, owner Rick Holmberg said. Tomatoes and new fruit trees planted this year are all growing well, he said. Holmberg's raises peaches, apples and nectarines."Other than getting mud on our shoes and having to work in the rain, we're in good shape," he said.j.benson@theday.com

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Sat May 3, 2014 Organic Farming Factions Spat Over Synthetic Substances Share Tweet E-mail Comments Print By Dan Charles The National Organic Standards Board voted to no longer allow farmers to use the antibiotic streptomycin on organic apple and pear trees. Here in the news biz, we rely on thumbnail descriptions, sparing you the details. We'll tell you, for instance, that organic farmers aren't allowed to use synthetic pesticides and factory-made fertilizer. In general, that's true. But there's also a long list of pesky exceptions to the rule. And this week, a battle erupted over those exceptions: the synthetic or factory-made substances that organic farmers are still allowed to use because the farmers say they couldn't survive without them. For instance, growers of organic apples and pears are allowed to use streptomycin, an antibiotic, to control a tree disease called fire blight. Egg producers are allowed to use limited amounts of a synthetically produced nutrient called methionine. Both of these substances were on the agenda at a meeting of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Standards Board this week in San Antonio, an event that turned into an ill-tempered confrontation between two wings of the organic industry — purists versus Big Organic. One protester had to be carried out of the room by police, while her comrades chanted, "Don't change sunset." What provoked this "cryptic chant," as Grist's Nathanael Johnson described it, was a dispute over how to handle that list of exceptions to the organic ban on synthetics. Those exceptions are supposed to "sunset." They are approved for a limited time period, no more than five years. And until now, it required a two-thirds majority of the NOSB to keep them on the list and extend their use in organic agriculture. Last fall, though, the USDA issued new rules. From now on, it will take a two-thirds majority to remove synthetics from the list of approved substances. This switch, making it easier for organic food companies to continue using synthetic substances, provoked outrage among organic purists like Mark Kastel, co-founder of the Cornucopia Institute. They fear that the organic label is being taken over by large companies that care more about profits than organic ideals and are willing to blur the line between organic and conventional agriculture. The critics accused the USDA of "capitulating to corporate interests." USDA, for its part, says that the change in voting procedures will bring more stability and consistency to its rule-making. Up to now, a minority of the NOSB could remove a substance from the list of approved substances, forcing farmers and companies into painful adjustments. In San Antonio, though, the purists prevailed, at least when it came to the most hotly debated substances: streptomycin and methionine. Both votes, however, were special cases. Streptomycin didn't face a simple sunset vote; the NOSB had created a hard expiration date for the antibiotic several years ago, so a two-thirds majority was required to extend its use. The vote was 8 to 7 in favor of continuing to use the antibiotic, well short of the necessary supermajority. As a result, streptomycin will be banned in organic orchards after October. A move to allow more flexible use of methionine also failed to get the required two-thirds majority. The decision angered many organic egg and poultry producers, who say their birds are suffering from inadequate nutrition because of methionine restrictions. "NOSB chooses procedural delay over #animalwelfare," tweeted the Organic Trade Association, which represents most major organic food companies.Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. View the discussion thread.

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Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Home News Topics Featured February 25, 2016 Purdue President Mitch Daniels calls on leaders to counter anti-GMO falsehoods ARLINGTON, Va. - Purdue University President Mitch Daniels on Thursday (Feb. 25) called on leaders in the public, private and nonprofit sectors to push back against the attackers of biotechnology in agricultural production. Daniels was a keynote speaker at the annual Agricultural Outlook Forum in Arlington. “The attack on GMO technology is the most blatant anti-science of the age, but it is far worse than that,” Daniels said. “Lives are at stake, and while scientists, regulators and business people are naturally reluctant to fight back, it’s morally irresponsible not to.” Daniels cited projections by the United Nations that the global population is expected to grow to more than 9 billion people in 2050, generating a 70 percent increase in the demand for food. He described GMOs as the best hope to ensure the world’s poor have access to an affordable and nutritious diet. “Thousand of studies and trillions of meals consumed prove the safety of biotechnologies,” he said. “We would never withhold medications with a safety record like that, and it’s just as wrong and just as anti-scientific to do so for food.” Daniels also praised Purdue and other land-grant universities for making the world’s food supply not only safer and more abundant, but far friendlier to the environment. Daniels cited work done by the university’s World Food Prize winners as well as the Purdue Improved Crop Storage program as examples of land-grant initiatives that are making a difference in the developing world. He also described a forthcoming study by Purdue agricultural economist Wally Tyner and colleagues that concluded if the United States banned GMO crops, consumers would pay at least $14 billion more in annual food costs and global agricultural greenhouse gases would increase by up to 17 percent. About the USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum USDA has hosted the Agricultural Outlook Forum since 1923. It's also USDA's largest annual meeting, attracting 1,600 attendees. It serves as a platform to facilitate conversation on key issues and topics within the agricultural community, including producers, processors, policymakers, government officials and NGOs, both foreign and domestic. The two-day meeting takes place Feb. 25 and 26. Source: Mitch Daniels, president@purdue.edu Research News Info for Staff Purdue Moves APSAC CSSAC Resources Human Resources Campus Disruptions © 2015-17 Purdue University | An equal access/equal opportunity university | Copyright Complaints | Maintained by Office of Strategic Communications Trouble with this page? Disability-related accessibility issue? Please contact News Service at purduenews@purdue.edu.

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Advertisement Home > Farm groups back America's Heartland Series Farm groups back America's Heartland Series Southwest Farm Press EMAIL Comments 0 The National Cotton Council has announced its support of a new weekly public television show that is celebrating the miracle of American agriculture and the farm and ranch families that help make it possible. “America's Heartland” began airing this fall after being distributed to more than 300 U.S. public television stations by America's Public Television, the single largest provider of programming to public television stations. The television series is being produced by KVIE, the public television affiliate in Sacramento, Calif., with the series' two flagship supporters — the Monsanto Co. and the American Farm Bureau Federation. Additional production and promotion assistance is being provided by the NCC, the American Soybean Association, National Corn Growers Association, United Soybean Board and U.S. Grains Council. “We are proud to collaborate with other U.S. agriculture groups to raise awareness of the significant contribution that agriculture makes to the quality of American living,” NCC Chairman Woods Eastland said. “America's Heartland will help viewers better understand the nation's farm and ranch families and the challenges and opportunities they face as they produce food and fiber for Americans and people in other countries.” Jim O'Donnell, KVIE's director of program marketing, said, “We project that the first season of the program will be available in markets totaling more than 60 percent of the nation's viewers — about 100 stations reaching more than 71 million households.” The magazine-style, half-hour program will profile the people, places and products of U.S. agriculture. It also will focus on Americans' love for the land, their fascination with food and the bedrock American values of family, hard work and independence that make the U.S. agricultural system the finest in the world. “American farmers play an important role in the stewardship of the land and foods we eat — it is important that they are recognized by non-farming communities for their hard work and devotion,” said Kerry Preete, vice president of U.S. crop production at Monsanto Co. “America's Heartland will provide metropolitan audiences an important opportunity to learn more about the story beyond the grocery store shelves and usher in a greater respect for farmers' and ranchers' contributions.” O'Donnell said each half-hour program is being shot entirely on location in digital widescreen format. The first season of the program will consist of 20 original programs, one or more of which will break from the established format to cover a single topic or theme. Print Please Log In or Register to post comments. Advertisement Related ArticlesFarm groups backing new America’s Heartland Series House/Senate bills could bring hemp farming back to rural America From the farm to the battlefield and back, soldiers have hope for farming’s future Cuts to agriculture in the 2012 farm bill: Is it back to square one? New campaign brings cottonseed oil, America's original vegetable oil, back into the spotlight Advertisement Connect With Us TwitterFacebookRSSPodcast Hot Topics

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Context and trends From Women in Development to Gender and Development Why a gender and development plan of action? Strategic objectives for the plan of action Home gardens Food processing and storage Food discrimination Agricultural support system Rural finance and marketing services Rural organizations Agricultural research and technology Agricultural education and extension The information gap Analytical framework Participation and empowerment Institutional arrangements Resources and references The FAO Gender and Development Plan of Action (2002-2007) reflects changes in perspective based on experience and new paradigms that emerged from international conferences in the 1990s and that generated a broad-based consensus on the approach to gender and development (Environment and Development, 1992; Human Rights, 1993; Population and Development, 1994; Social Development, 1995; Human Settlement, 1996). The Plan is FAO's framework for follow-up to relevant recommendations in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in 1995, Article 14 on rural women in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the outcome document of the Special Session of the General Assembly, entitled Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century, held in June 2000 (Beijing +5 Review). The Plan echoes and expands on the objectives of the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action, which was adopted in 1996 and which clearly reflects the importance of gender in all its seven commitments. It integrates the outcome of the High-Level Consultation on Rural Women and Information, convened by FAO in Rome in October 1999, including The Strategy for Action entitled Gender and Food Security - The Role of Information. Finally, it is the Organization's continuing response to the imperative to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women as effective ways to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable, as expressed in the United Nations Millennium Declaration The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. All rights reserved. Reproduction and dissemination of material in this information product for educational or other non-commercial purposes are authorized without any prior written permission from the copyright holders provided the source is fully acknowledged. Reproduction of material in this information product for resale or other commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission of the copyright holders. Applications for such permission should be addressed to the Chief, Publishing and Management Service, Information Division, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy or by e-mail to copyright@fao.org � FAO 2003

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From the Open-Publishing CalendarFrom the Open-Publishing NewswireIndybay FeatureRelated Categories: California | Central Valley | Environment & Forest Defense | Government & Elections Delta Pumping Restrictions: It's About Salmon by Dan Bacher Wednesday Feb 13th, 2013 8:53 AM "While the immediate reason water diversions are reduced in the delta is due to delta smelt being killed at the diversion pumps, the juvenile salmon are also out migrating through the delta now and are being killed by the pumps," said GGSA president Victor Gonella. Photo of Chinook salmon courtesy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Delta Pumping Restrictions: It's About Salmon by Dan Bacher The Golden Gate Salmon Association (GGSA), responding to a Brown administration announcement that water supplies from South Delta pumping facilities have been cut significantly to protect Delta smelt, reminded the public and government officials that pumping restrictions are just as much about salmon as they are about Delta smelt. As salmon go, so goes the water, the health of the Delta and salmon jobs up and down the state, according to GGSA (http://www.goldengatesalmonassociation.com). "While the immediate reason water diversions are reduced in the delta is due to delta smelt being killed at the diversion pumps, the juvenile salmon are also out migrating through the delta now and are being killed by the pumps," said GGSA president Victor Gonella. "We need natural delta flows to get our juvenile salmon safely to sea right now, especially since we're suffering from low rainfall. The federal government set up a careful system to balance the needs of our salmon and other wildlife against those who divert water from the delta. This system is working and must be respected," said Gonella. In recent years, corporate agribusiness "Astroturf" groups and their political allies, such as talk show host Sean Hannity, have falsely portrayed the battle to restore Central Valley salmon and the Delta as a conflict between "a minnow" and "farmers" and "fish versus jobs." In fact, Delta advocates point out that the conflict over Delta water is one between family farmers, sustainable fishermen and Indian Tribes working to restore salmon and other fish species to their historic abundance and corporate agribusiness interests seeking to divert more water to unsustainable, drainage impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and to Southern California developers. Currently, California’s salmon industry is valued at $1.4 billion in economic activity annually and about half that much in economic activity and jobs again in Oregon, according to Gonella. The Sacramento River fall Chinook salmon run is the driver of salmon fisheries along the West Coast. The industry employs tens of thousands of people from Santa Barbara to northern Oregon. "This is a huge economic bloc made up of commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen (fresh and salt water), fish processors, marinas, coastal communities, equipment manufacturers, the hotel and food industry, tribes, and the salmon fishing industry at large," said Gonella. The Golden Gate Salmon Association is a coalition of salmon advocates that includes commercial and recreational salmon fisherman, businesses, restaurants, tribes, environmentalists, elected officials, families and communities that rely on salmon. Their mission is to "protect and restore California’s largest salmon producing habitat comprised of the Central Valley river’s that feed the Bay-Delta ecosystem and the communities that rely on salmon as a long-term, sustainable, commercial, recreational and cultural resource." On February 8, further water restrictions were ordered as "incidental take" of adult Delta smelt by the facilities approached the number allowed by law. Between Nov. 1, 2012 and Jan. 31, 2013, the pumping curtailment reduced deliveries from the State Water Project (SWP) and Central Valley Project (CVP) to water districts in the Central Valley, Southern California, and San Francisco Bay Area by approximately 700,000 acre-feet. This is "enough to irrigate more than 200,000 acres of farmland or supply 1.4 million households for a year," according to Mark Cowin, Department of Water Resources Director. Even with restricted pumping, the number of Delta smelt salvaged at the federal and state water project pumps reached 232 by Feb. 6. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service then determined that pumping should be curtailed even more significantly. The California Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation are now conferring with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on measures to protect Delta smelt. The Delta smelt, listed as "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act, is an indicator species found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The health of the smelt population demonstrates the health of the Bay-Delta ecosystem - and protecting smelt is necessary to protecting Central Valley salmon, steelhead, Sacramento splittail, longfin smelt, striped bass, American shad, white sturgeon, green sturgeon and other fish species that use the estuary as a spawning ground, nursery, forage grounds and migratory corridor. Cowin and Chuck Bonham, California Department of Fish and Wildlife Director, used Tuesday's press conference about the pumping restrictions to promote the construction of controversial new water intake structures along the Sacramento River, 35 miles north of the existing pumping plants in the south Delta. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) tunnel proposal includes three separate intakes on the river, with a combined diversion capacity of 9,000 cubic feet per second. Twin peripheral tunnels would carry water beneath the Delta to the existing CVP and SWP pumps in the south Delta. Cowin claimed the "flexibility" provided under the operation of the Bay peripheral tunnels would have prevented these cutbacks on water to corporate agribusiness and water agencies. "This winter provides a case study in why we must find a better way to balance needs in the Delta," said Cowin. "The current plumbing configuration in the Delta serves neither people nor fish and wildlife well. Climate change will only increase the stress and conflict. California needs a rational discussion of the options presented by the BDCP, because to do nothing invites disaster." Both Bonham and Cowin told reporters that "state of the art" fish screens would be installed on the proposed intakes to stop the loss of Central Valley, salmon and other fish species, although Delta and salmon advocates point out that the state and federal government and water contractors have failed to install state of the art fish screens on the existing pumping facilities in the South Delta, as was mandated by the CalFed program over a decade ago. A broad coalition of family farmers, recreational and commercial fishermen, conservationists, environmental justice advocates and elected officials opposes the proposal to build the peripheral tunnels under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) because it would hasten the extinction of Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt and other fish species. Restore the Delta (RTD) (http://www.restorethedelta.org) criticized the latest episode in the Brown administration’s campaign to construct peripheral tunnels to take millions of acre-feet of water from the Delta, mainly to benefit "mega-growers" on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. The coalition pointed out the hypocrisy of the Brown administration saying it aims to "restore" the Delta when it has presided over record water exports out of the estuary. "Time and time again, the best available Delta science has shown that Delta Smelt and other threatened fish species are on the brink of collapse due to too much water being taken out of the Delta," said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of RTD. "In the face of the threatened extinction of fish species, the Brown Administration has presided over record-high water exports." The Brown administration presided over record water exports to corporate agribusiness and Southern California in 2011, resulting in the "salvage" of a record 9 million Sacramento splittail and over 2 million other fish including Central Valley salmon, steelhead, striped bass, largemouth bass, threadfin shad, white catfish and sturgeon. The state and federal pumping facilities exported 6,520,000 acre-feet in 2011 – 217,000 acre-feet more than the previous record of 6,303,000 acre-feet set in 2005.(http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/07/carnage-in-the-pumps) Six Delta fish populations – Delta smelt, longfin smelt, threadfin shad, American shad, striped bass and Sacramento splittail - continue to plunge, as revealed by the results of the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s fall midwater trawl survey. (http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/delta-122537-record-species.htm) "Where was their deep concern for the Delta smelt, salmon and other species during the past two years? The Peripheral Tunnel proponents are proposing a new diversion for one purpose: get the Peripheral Tunnels built ASAP," she emphasized. Add Your Comments Listed below are the latest comments about this post. These comments are submitted anonymously by website visitors. Sustainable PoweGlenn RogersSunday May 26th, 2013 3:15 PM The Need for Water Can be Solved by Solar Power.Unity JackWednesday Feb 13th, 2013 10:10 PM Old QuestionBeelineWednesday Feb 13th, 2013 6:29 PM © 2000–2017 San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center.

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Industry Vilsack says rural America needs a new mindset By University of Tennessee Extension U.S. Secretary of Agriculture garnered a lot of media attention on December 6 when he asked the attendees at the 2012 Farm Journal Forum, “Why is it that we don’t have a Farm Bill?” He went on to say, “It isn’t just the differences of policy. It’s the fact that the Rural America with a shrinking population is becoming less and less relevant to the politics of this country, and we had better recognize that, and we better begin to reverse it.” From the tone of his statement one might expect that he was going to go into a discussion of how city folks have written off the future of rural areas. Instead the point of his comment was that it is rural residents who have written off the future of rural areas by adopting a preservation mindset instead of a growth mindset. As he says, we need “a new mindset in Rural America.” We need to ask ourselves “Where are the new opportunities?” And in his speech, Vilsack identifies a set of priorities and opportunities that are a part of the growth mindset he is talking about. He told his audience that in response to climate change, the USDA needs to “focus on additional research and ways in which we can adapt and mitigate and develop strategies that in the long term will allow us to continue to have the greatest agriculture in the world.” As part of that, Vilsack talked about increased double-cropping. In turning to what he dubbed a new rural development approach, Vilsack spoke of “expanding broadband access to ensure that those who set up a business, who establish an opportunity in rural areas, have the capacity and the power to be able to reach not just a local market, not just a regional market, but a global market.” Another part of this new rural development approach is convincing “smaller communities…that they have to look at themselves as a part of an overall region… addressing economic development opportunities from a regional perspective as opposed to a community-by-community perspective.” In addition, “We need to continue to promote local and regional food systems…. a multi-billion-dollar opportunity which is continuing to grow and provides opportunities for very small producers [and] which will help repopulate some of these rural communities,” Vilsack said. Vilsack also tied rural development to the “need to invest significantly in conservation and link it more closely to outdoor recreation and bring those tourism opportunities back into the rural areas. If people are spending hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said. “we need to capture those resources, and we need to turn them around in the economy more frequently.” In discussing a biobased economy, Vilsack took a line from the old saw that in slaughtering a hog, butchers used everything but the squeal when he said, “we need to absolutely seize the opportunity that the biobased economy creates, the ability to literally take everything we grow, every aspect of every crop, every waste product that’s produced and turn it into an asset, into a commodity, into an ingredient.” He then provided examples of this as he told of turning plant materials into lighter weight car bodies, hog manure into asphalt, and molecules from corncobs into plastic bottles. “This is an amazing new future where virtually everything we need in an economy can be biology-based, plant-based, crop-based, and livestock-based; enormous new opportunities to build refineries that are not large, as we see in the oil industry, but are small because of [the] bulk of [this] biomass is basically dotting the landscape, creating economic opportunity, creating new markets, as well as job opportunities.” Vilsack challenged his audience saying, “we need to cement that new economy in Rural America, and we need to sell it to our young people if we’re going to reverse the population and poverty challenges that Rural America faces. And frankly, I think we need to recognize that unless we respond and react, the capacity of Rural America and its power and its reach will continue to decline.” Source: Daryll E. Ray and Harwood D. Schaffer, Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, University of Tennessee farm billvilsack About the Author: University of Tennessee Extension

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Thornless HoneylocustGleditsia triacanthos form inermis The thornless honeylocust has captured the hearts of arborists, community foresters and homeowners throughout America. And no wonder. This tree is easy to plant, grows fast, has reasonably strong branches, is aesthetically pleasing and is tough enough to withstand just about any urban setting. In nature it grows in both a thorned and thornless form, with thorns growing up to 12" long. Many regions in the South still refer to honelocusts as Confederate pintrees because those thorns were used to pin uniforms together during the Civil War. The thornless honeylocust can be expected to grow in Hardiness Zones 3–9. View Map This is a shade tree, featuring a spreading canopy capable of blocking sunlight. Mature Size The thornless honeylocust grows to a height of 30–70' and a spread of 30–70' at maturity. This tree grows at a fast rate, with height increases of more than 24" per year. Full sun is the ideal condition for this tree, meaning it should get at least 6 hours of direct, unfiltered sunlight each day. The thornless honeylocust tolerates a wide range of soils including acidic, alkaline, moist, dry and salty soils. It has moderate tolerance for both flooding and drought. Is very easy to plant and grow. Provides showy yellow color in the fall. Features pinnately or bipinnately compound leaves approximately 8" long with 8–14 leaflets. They are among the last leaves to emerge in the spring. Produces small, greenish-yellow blossoms arranged around spike-like stalks that are notably fragrant. Yields large, brown seed pods resembling twisted leather straps that are 7–8" long, sometimes reaching up to 18" in length. Develops a thin, airy crown that provides dappled shade while allowing grass to grow beneath. Tolerates wet and dry sites, salt, compacted soil, pollution and most other urban stresses. Grows in an oval or round shape. Can be used on hillsides to stabilize poor soil and control erosion. Thornless honeylocust seed pods and seeds are consumed by livestock and wildlife such as rabbits, deer, squirrels and northern bobwhite. The flowers provide a good source of food for bees. The thornless honeylocust is native from Pennsylvania to Nebraska and south to Texas. The first scientific observations of this species were made in 1700. The tree derives the name "Honey" from the sweet, honey-like substance found in its pods. The Cherokees in Tennessee made bows from the tree's durable and strong wood. It has also long been a favorite for fence posts.

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Home | Press Release | Press Releases January 2014 Home Shifts Towards Sustainable Agriculture Needed to Meet Demands of 9 Billion by 2050 Tue, Jan 21, 2014 UNEP Executive Director Addresses Global Forum for Food and Agriculture, Meets with Key Ministers | Français | 中文 The world's agricultural production must shift to more sustainable patterns - including greater respect for ecosystems services and less waste - in order to feed the world's rapidly increasing population by 2050, said UNEP Executive Director and UN Under-Secretary-General Achim Steiner as he addressed the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture last weekThe Forum, which was held during International Green Week in Berlin, gave hundreds of representatives from the worlds of politics, business, science and civil society chance to share ideas on agricultural policy within the context of food security. The Forum's 2014 theme was "Empowering Agriculture: Fostering Resilience - Securing Food and Nutrition"In the context of the meeting, Mr. Steiner met with a number of key Environment and Agricultural Ministers, including Germany's newly appointed Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, Dr. Barbara HendricksThey discussed issues related to climate protection, investments for sustainable management and preparations for the first meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly of the UNEP (UNEA), which will take place in Nairobi in June 2014Speaking at the Forum during a Working Meeting organized by UNEP, he stressed that, by 2050, the Earth will likely need to feed some 9 billion people with the same amount of land, water and natural resources it has nowHe added that, in order for increases in agricultural production to be sustainable, humanity must reduce its massive loss and wastage of food, as outlined in a soon-to-be-launched UNEP study entitled: Food Wasted, Food Lost : Improving Food Security by Restoring Ecosystems and Reducing Food Loss. "According to the report, as much as 1.4 billion hectares of land are used to produce the total amount of food that is lost and wasted, estimated by FAO at a staggering 1.3 billion tonnes a year", said Mr. Steiner. "This translates to more than 100 times the area of tropical rainforest that is being cleared every year (13 million hectares) of which 80 per cent is used for agricultural expansion", he addedFood loss occurs mostly at the production stages harvesting, processing and distribution while food waste typically takes place at the retailer and consumer end of the food-supply chainIn industrialized regions, almost half of the total food squandered, around 300 million tonnes annually, occurs because producers, retailers and consumers discard food that is still fit for consumptionThat amounts to more than the total net food production of Sub-Saharan Africa, and would be sufficient to feed the estimated 870 million hungry in today's worldAt the same time, said Mr. Steiner, up to 25 per cent of the world's food production - an amount that could feed up to 2.4 billion people annually - might be lost by 2050 due to climate change, land degradation, cropland losses, water scarcity and infestations"In order to ensure that food production is increased to meet the demands of the additional 2.6 billion people expected to inhabit the planet by 2050, it is important that food producing ecosystems are protected and degraded ecosystems are restored", said Mr. SteinerAgricultural production - which is dependent on services provided by healthy natural ecosystems, from pollination and water purification to climate change adaptation - remains the single most important sector in providing the basic necessities for human existence and livelihoods todayIt is therefore critical to consider the values of ecosystems and biodiversity to the agricultural sector, as well as to human health, livelihoods and wellbeingA new study by the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) and the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC), to be launched this year, finds that without healthy ecosystems, agricultural systems may suffer if not collapse entirely. "A profound change of the global food and agriculture system is needed if we are to nourish today's 925 million hungry and the additional 2 billion people expected by 2050", said Mr. Steiner"Recognizing that agriculture, water, land, forests , food production and consumption are all connected, the answer to providing food security while maintaining ecosystems lies in pursuing a holistic approach that incorporates climate-smart agriculture and a landscape approach", he added"A landscape approach means managing the land, water, and forest resources necessary to meet an area's food security needs and promoting inclusive green growth as one integrated system." For more information, please contact UNEP News Desk at unepnewsdesk@unep.org UNEAAt UN Environment Assembly Convening in NairobiGovernments Agree to 25 Landmark Resolutions to Drive Sustainability Agenda and Paris Climate AgreementEnvironment "cannot be an afterthought", says Kenya's President at opening of high-level environment assembly in NairobiBacked by Stars, Unprecedented UN Campaign Seeks to Mobilize Millions to End Illegal Trade in WildlifeTop 12 Ways World Can End Hunger, Stem Environmental Damage from Food SystemsCoral reefs face bleak future - but "lifeboats" may help them survive Most PopularOn World Rhino Day, Julius Yego Locks Horns with Illegal Trade in Wildlife Canada to host World Environment Day in 2017 Footballing Icon Neymar Jr. Targets Deadly Threats to Wildlife Polish business and scientists team up against air pollution, climate change, harmful lifestyles © UNEP | Privacy | Terms and Conditions | Contacts | Site Locator | Support UNEP | UNEP Intranet

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Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa > Development Impact Sub-Saharan Africa Strategy Industries Agribusiness Financial Markets Infrastructure Health & Education Manufacturing & Services Advisory Services Access to Finance Investment Climate Sustainable Business Advisory Public-Private Partnerships Conflict Affected States in Africa Our Partners News Press Releases Media Contacts Development Impact Show other Regions East Asia & the Pacific Europe, Middle East & North Africa (EMENA) IFC in Africa With offices all over Africa, we are where you are. Contact an IFC office in Sub-Saharan Africa. Follow us: Development Impact Six years after the global financial crisis erupted the world economy is at last on a more solid footing. However, growth remains subdued and uneven. According to the World Bank 2014 Africa’s Pulse report, global GDP growth is projected to strengthen from 2.4 percent in 2013 to 3 percent in 2014, 3.3 percent in 2015, and 3.4 percent in 2016. Africa will play a key role in global growth. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to some of the fastest-growing economies in the world. The World Bank’s Africa’s Pulse reports that the region’s economy grew at 4.5 percent per year on average between 1995 and 2013. Its medium-term prospects are positive, with GDP growth projected to rise from 4.7 percent in 2013 to 5.2 percent in 2014, strengthening further to 5.4 percent in both 2015 and 2016. Economic activity during 2013 was driven by strong domestic demand and increased investment in the region. Net foreign direct investment grew by 16 percent to $43 billion during the year. Despite this robust performance, economic growth between countries is uneven. Much of Sub-Saharan Africa remains constrained by lack of infrastructure, poor business climate, lack of access to finance, the effects of climate change, and ongoing conflict. To overcome these obstacles, IFC delivers a package of advisory and investment solutions in developing countries. We introduce our clients to new sources of capital and better ways of doing business sustainably. IFC’s rapid expansion in Africa and role in financing across so many countries and sectors provides a unique platform for our advisory services to have a major impact on Africa’s development. Linking our advisory services to our overall business strategy ensures that IFC can achieve more with our development partners and the ultimate beneficiaries of our projects. In particular, IFC provides advice and training to various public and private clients; supports projects to improve the investment climate, strengthen infrastructure, and encourage entrepreneurship; and devotes resources to improve corporate governance and gender equality. Of the 30 countries in which we work in Sub- Saharan Africa, 12 were fragile and affected by conflict as of December 31, 2013. IFC’s engagements in fragile and conflict-affected situations are of critical importance, as it aims to provide opportunities for the poor to escape poverty. If current trends continue, it is estimated that more than 80 percent of the world’s poorest will be living in fragile and conflict-affected countries by 2025. Fragility and conflict have a devastating effect on development – a civil conflict can cost a developing country about 30 years of GDP growth. In 2014, nearly one in every three dollars IFC’s Advisory Services spends in Africa will be in fragile and conflict-affected countries. 2013 Impact at a Glance As of December 31, 2013, IFC Advisory Services had achieved the following results in Sub-Saharan Africa for projects active in 2013. Supporting the creation of jobs is an important aspect of our work in Sub-Saharan Africa. IFC will report on its impact in this area when the results are finalized. $17 Billion Financing Facilitation We facilitated loans worth about $17 billion to households and micro, small, and medium enterprises through financial institutions and improved financial infrastructure. $100 Million Saved in the Private Sector We helped save the private sector more than $100 million by simplifying regulatory compliance requirements. 210 Laws, Regulations Enacted We helped African governments enact about 210 laws and regulations and amendments to improve the investment climate and access to finance. 130,000 People Trained We trained about 130,000 people in areas such as business management, loan application processes and better farming practices. 70 Reforms Supported We supported more than 70 reforms in such areas as starting a business, licensing, construction permits, and alternative dispute resolution. 14,750 Entities Advised We advised nearly 14,750 companies and public entities on ways to improve their services and implement new products. To read the full 2014 Development Impact Report, click here. IFC is moving to a unified results measurement system which has three mutually reinforcing components namely the IFC Development Goals (IDGs) (which are forward-looking goals); a monitoring and tracking system to measure development results; and a system to evaluate the outcomes and impact of our activities. To learn more about the IFC Development Goals click here.

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Steve Wiswell (left), Tom Willard (center) and Andy Turcotte take a breather while setting up their entry from Endicott House in the Bayside Expo Flower Show.Photo / Donna CoveneyFull Screen Endicott team blossoms at spring show despite winter casualties Victimized by a tough winter, the MIT Endicott House horticulture team lost most of its bulbs and perennials and had to improvise ground cover for the team's entry in the annual New England Spring Garden Show. Nonetheless, the exhibit in Hall B of the Bayside Exposition Center won a bronze medal and was popular with the spectators during the show's first weekend. The show runs daily from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. through Sunday, March 23. "We'll just have to work harder next year," said Steve Wiswell, horticulturist at Endicott House, a Dedham estate that MIT runs as a conference center. The team won two awards and a silver medal last year and six awards and a gold medal in 2001. This year's Endicott House exhibit includes more than 300 specimens of 25 varieties of plants and flowers in a 14-by-40-foot plot. The exhibit is divided into two sections by a Chinese moon gate, with plants on one side from North America and specimens from the rest of the world on the other. The North American section features a Bristlecone Pine from the Rocky Mountains, one of the oldest existing plants on Earth, and May Apple and Bear Berry trees. A Korean Spice Bush, whose sweet fragrance permeates the surrounding area, along with a Dawn Redwood and Pink Discovery Azaleas, with origins in the orient, brighten up the international area. Besides Wiswell, Andy Turcotte, head of Endicott House grounds department, Tom Willard of grounds, and Dave Loud of conference services worked on the exhibit. A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on March 19, 2003. Topics: Special events and guest speakers, Staff

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Pay deal may be too late for Mulgrave cane growers Charlie McKillop Crushing looks set to continue into December at Mulgrave Central Mill after a difficult season A protracted pay dispute between the Mulgrave Central Mill, in Far North Queensland, and its workers may finally be over but cane growers fear the worst is yet to come amid predictions of a late finish to the crushing season.Yesterday, employees voted to accept a 11.4 per cent pay increase over three years after torpedoing a series of earlier offers from the milling company, MSF Sugar.It's one less concern for growers who have been watching anxiously as the cane harvesting season looks likely to extend beyond the optimal 22-week season.Canegrowers Cairns region chairman, Jeff Day, says the extension is the worst possible news for growers who had high hopes for this year's large crop."We can't see being finished anything before the end of November, start of December so it's very late for us and it's going to knock our productivity around for next year.""The time that we've lost is really going to hurt us," he said."We've exceeded our planned lost time for wet weather, we've also had the industrial action and we've also got a crop of cane out there that's probably better than what we've had in the past couple of years."We are not happy with how the mill has performed, it hasn't been as reliable as we're used to and that's been the one that's really worrying us."Mr Day says the longer the harvest season drags on, the more it will hurt cane growers because of a shorter growing season for the next crop."We've got contractors who continually are not getting their daily quotas, that's one side of it, and then there's our productivity on the other side of it as a cane grower," he said."It's common knowledge, there's even been research done on it, that after a certain time in October you start to lose tonnage for next year and that is what we're into now."Mr Day says while he's not blaming the strike action, which cost a total of 97 crushing hours, growers are relieved a new enterprise agreement has been accepted."Right now we are worried about just getting to the end of the season and getting it all off."Workers had been without an agreement since May and the matter was sent to the Fair Work Commission after previous pay offers were voted down three times.Australian Workers Union organiser, Peter Gunsberger, admits negotiations have been protracted, but he's defended the campaign which delivered 1.5 per cent more than the original pay offer."The members exercised their legal right to take protected action."I think there's been skirmishes at the mill, this is not the only mill, of course, there's been skirmishes at mills over many, many years. "I think in the big scheme of things it's just a drop in the overall passage of what goes on in life in a sugar factory," he said. Jeff Day says lost time at Mulgrave Central will hurt growers as the cane harvest drags on The AWU's Peter Gunsberger says workers will now get a pay increase of 11.4 per cent over three years

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Wolf Recovery at Crossroads in the Southwest By Susan Montoya Bryan on MNN.com Reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves into the American Southwest has caused major problems for some ranchers. A decade has passed since the federal government began returning endangered Mexican wolves to their historic range in the Southwest. It hasn't worked out — for the wolves, for ranchers, for conservationists or for federal biologists. And that has resulted in frustration and resentment by many involved in the reintroduction program along the Arizona-New Mexico border, a landscape of sprawling pine and spruce forests, cold-water lakes and clear streams. "I believe in being a good steward of the land and preserving it for generations to come, but this is ridiculous," said Ed Wehrheim, who heads the county commission in Catron County, in the heart of wolf country. "I've had ranchers' wives come to me just bawling because everything they and their parents have worked for is going down the drain." Four ranches have gone out of business since the wolf reintroduction began and another four are expected to do the same before next summer, Wehrheim said. The region has been hit by drought and cattle prices aren't what they used to be, but Wehrheim said pressure from environmentalists and hundreds of livestock kills by Mexican gray wolves over the past decade have only made things worse. Environmentalists argue that grazing practices are part of the problem and the wolf reintroduction program has failed because of mismanagement by the federal government. In the middle stands Bud Fazio, coordinator of the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program. The program is at a crossroads, and Fazio said he hopes to bring everyone back to the table to find a way to move forward, quell concerns of critical environmentalists and gain the confidence of wary ranchers. "One thing about wolves is they bring out extreme emotions and feelings and attitudes, so it is an extra challenge," he said. "There is some middle ground. There is some balance, but my sense is that so far we haven't found that in the Southwest and we need to." A subspecies of the gray wolf, the Mexican wolf was exterminated in the wild by the 1930s. The government began reintroducing wolves in 1998 along the Arizona-New Mexico line, in a territory of more than 4 million acres interspersed with forests, private land and towns. There are about 50 wolves in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico, but that's half of what biologists had hoped to have by now. Federal, state and other officials involved in wolf recovery are scheduled to meet next week in Albuquerque for the first of many "frank discussions" about the future of the program, Fazio said. Part of the reason for the talks is a recent settlement with environmentalists that called for an end to a three-strikes rule that allowed wildlife managers to trap or shoot wolves that had killed at least three head of livestock within a year. The settlement also made clear that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has control over the program, rather than a committee formed in 2003 to bring other agencies into the recovery effort. The original rule that established the reintroduction program still allows managers to remove problem wolves, but Fazio said officials will now consider many factors — such as the wolf's genetic value to the program and its reproductive success — before making decisions on keeping an animal in the wild. "Everything remains on the table in terms of an option for managing wolves and that does include removal of live animals or lethal removal," Fazio said. "What is different is that a whole suite of things, broader than before, will be taken into account." Wehrheim and the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association maintain the settlement changes nothing because the wolf program had already started to leave wolves with more than three strikes in the wild. They pointed to the Middle Fork pack, which was blamed for 10 livestock kills in two months. The pack includes four pups and two adults, both of which are missing their front left paws. Federal biologists say the pack is now hunting elk and relying less on strategically placed food caches. Ranchers say that leaving the maimed wolves in the wild encourages them to go after easy prey such as calves. "It's a problem of the program, not a problem of the wolf," Catron County Manager Bill Aymar said. The Center for Biological Diversity also has been critical of the program, but the group believes the wolves should be left in the wild and critical habitat declared for the species to recover. Wehrheim told New Mexico legislators in Santa Fe this week that ranchers in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona can't afford to live with the wolves if the program remains unchanged and the federal government's plan for compensating livestock losses goes unfunded. "It's very, very serious for Catron County and all of the wolf recovery area," he said. "We don't see any ranching existing with the wolf. We don't see any hunting existing with the wolf. We're talking tens of millions of dollars of loss." He gave the example of a third-generation ranch that harvested about 200 calves annually before going out of business earlier this year. The operation was capable of bringing in more than $1 million in tax and other revenues to the county. Tod Stevenson, director of the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, testified that his agency and the state want to make sure Catron County and its ranchers can survive on the landscape. "That's the best way that we can continue to manage wildlife, is to have them as partners out there on the ground," he said. "It's critical that we come up with a balance to achieve that." Please Help Our Efforts

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AgriLife scientists working on new lablab variety Texas The value of lablab, an annual tropical legume, as potential quality forage has long been known, but that doesn't mean it can't be made a lot better, said a Texas A&M AgriLife Research plant breeder. Gerald Smith, Ph.D., AgriLife Research plant breeder at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Overton, is currently working with hundreds of crosses looking for superior qualities. "We need a new forage crop in Texas that fits our seasons and works for us in the summer," Smith said. "We have a lot of summer annual grasses, but we need a forage legume that works in the summer like those grasses." Lablab fits that need very well, he said. It's a great crop for cattle; they readily graze it and get good weight gains on it, and it's drought tolerant. It's also a great plant for wildlife browsing, particular white-tailed deer, Smith said. And as an added benefit, lablab, being a legume, fixes nitrogen from the air, which offsets high fertilizer prices. And unlike many other legumes, such as cool-season clovers, lablab seed can be produced in Texas. "Lablab is deep-rooted and drought and heat tolerant, but does require soil moisture to germinate and establish," Smith said. "This does narrow the utility of this plant to eastern and central Texas where annual rainfall is at least 30 inches per year." Because of all these benefits, Smith has been working with lablab lines for the last 10 years. Rio Verde lablab, which he also developed the Overton center, was released by AgriLife Research in 2006. Planted in May, Rio Verde will start flowering in late August and continue producing forage until the first frost. The crude protein of its leaves is 25 percent or higher, and 12 percent in the stems. As good as Rio Verde is, there is a need for an earlier flowering and more disease-resistant variety, which Smith is continually working on, he said. From the hundreds of second generation crosses he currently has in Overton center greenhouses, Smith is looking for types that not only have improved disease resistance and drought tolerance, but also demonstrate other traits such as small seed size, early flowering and seedling vigor. All these traits will make a better fit into Texas forage-production systems. To this end, he has crossed existing anthracnose-resistant lines with small-seed, deep-rooting types that are closely related to "wild" lablab lines. "The parents that we crossed are quite different," he said. "What we are doing now is selecting for flowering times that will fit Texas." Next, he'll take the most promising progeny to field tests in 2013 and further select for desired traits. If all goes well with field tests, Smith expects new cultivars to be ready to start the release stage in three years. The approval and subsequent release of seed to seed-production companies usually takes an additional two years.

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Pulled raisin vineyards led 2016 decline in California grape acreage Apr 20, 2017 GMOs, fertilizer spark good rural-urban discussion Apr 18, 2017 Napa County farm, wine grape values jump 33 percent Apr 19, 2017 Arizona tree nut plantings on the fast track Apr 18, 2017 Management Squeezing sustainable energy from compressed air The CAES group is developing cost-competitive energy-storage systems based on compressing air and storing it in man-made containers or below ground in natural reservoirs. Ed Stiles, University of Arizona | Jan 12, 2011 Solar collectors and wind generators hold so much promise for clean energy, but they have a major flaw – they produce no power when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow. "If all we had to do was to generate power when the sun is shining, we would actually be in good shape right now," said Ben Sternberg, a researcher in the University of Arizona's Compressed Air Energy Storage, or CAES, program. "The crucial issue now is finding economical ways to store energy for large-scale use, either home-by-home over the entire country, or utility scale." Batteries have traditionally been used to store energy, but they're expensive, have a limited number of charge-discharge cycles, and pose resource and disposal problems. The CAES group is developing cost-competitive energy-storage systems based on compressing air and storing it in man-made containers or below ground in natural reservoirs. When solar panels shut down and wind generators stop spinning, the compressed air is heated slightly and released to drive turbines that generate electricity. The compressed air also can be released directly to drive mechanical systems without being converted to electricity. Although CAES researchers are putting a high-tech spin on compressed air storage and its modern materials, sophisticated remote sensing gear, and computer analysis, it's a simple, well-tested and mature technology. Urban systems were built in European cities as early as 1870, and by the 1890s were storing and delivering power to factories and homes. The UA's CAES research team is working on three projects that range from systems that might power a single air conditioner or refrigerator to building-wide systems, as well as massive storage sites that could store utility-scale energy. Small-scale storage system In this system, a low-speed motor uses some or all of the power from a solar panel or wind generator to pump air into a tank similar to those used for propane or oxygen. The energy is later used to power an appliance, such as a refrigerator. Several of these units could be linked together to power a home. "We hope to develop a single-appliance system that could be built for less than $1,000," said Dominique Villela, a doctoral student in materials science and engineering. "We've had visitors from Alaska, whose villages depend on energy generated from propane. This is very expensive. Systems like ours could save them a lot of money by using solar or wind power for refrigerators or lights, for instance." These systems could also save lives and taxpayer dollars in combat zones by producing energy on site. A recent segment on NPR's Science Friday program featured military efforts to conserve energy and switch to renewable energy fuels. Program guests noted that a gallon of gas that cost $2.35 in the U.S. could cost between $200 and $400 by the time it reaches outposts in Afghanistan. They also noted that more than 1,000 Americans have been killed moving fuel since that war began. Villela said the group's research is now focusing on reliability issues, scaling the system to provide more energy storage, and adapting the system to less expensive materials and components. Building-size systems UA civil engineers are designing hollow structural members that could be used to store compressed air in load-bearing components, such as foundation piles or the frames of buildings and houses. "The key to our system is that the loads on structural components coming from compressed air are small compared to building loads, such as the weight of the building and wind loads," said George Frantziskonis, a professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics. "This makes CAES storage in buildings economically and aesthetically feasible." The larger the building, the more economical the CAES system and the greater the energy cost savings both in the short and long term, Frantziskonis said. Underground storage reservoirs Researchers in the UA's Laboratory for Advanced Subsurface Imaging, or LASI, are developing high-resolution underground imaging systems that can be used to find salt deposits, porous rocks and other natural underground storage reservoirs. These sites could be used to hold large amounts of compressed air to drive utility-scale turbines. While salt deposits have traditionally been associated with CAES technology, "you don't need a large cavern," said Sternberg, a professor of mining and geological engineering and director of the LASI program. "Rocks that have lots of pores also can provide energy storage. A third option is alluvium in basins, such as those found throughout the Southwest." All of these possibilities require mapping the Earth's subsurface in high resolution with ground-penetrating electromagnetic waves. "That's where our work comes in because accurate imaging is needed to determine if there are discontinuities in these underground storage areas that will allow too much air to escape," he said. Sternberg said porosity within the Earth, either from caverns or lots of interconnected pore space, has tremendous potential for low-cost storage that would make renewables cost competitive with fossil fuels. Recent breakthroughs in the LASI program could help drive exploration and development of these resources. "We're getting data that's an order of magnitude more sensitive than conventional measurements," Sternberg said. "It's a combination of a new approach to collecting data, a new type of antenna array and a very different way of analyzing the data." Sternberg is anxious to rapidly expand this technology to utility-size exploration. "Right now, so much of our energy is coming from volatile areas of the world, and we've got to overcome that," he said. "Energy security is our biggest risk. That's why this is so pressing. We cannot afford to drag this out and sit on the new developments in energy independence that are being created here in the LASI and CAES programs, as well as in other programs at universities across the country." Science Foundation of Arizona and the Arizona Research Institute for Solar Energy, or AzRISE, are funding UA's CAES projects. The small-scale project also is being funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and has received help from several local businesses. RelatedFieldNET by Lindsay adds irrigation management toolApr 26, 2017Key tools to maximize pistachio production in ‘trickier’ saline soilApr 19, 2017Reduce canker damage in almond with proven management tipsApr 19, 2017Monsanto launches ‘National Agronomy Week’ April 3-7Apr 03, 2017 Load More

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89-year-old's farm is first to be permanently preserved in Silver Spring Township 128-acre Farm Enters Cumberland County Agricultural Conservation Easement Program View the Slideshow >> (Gallery by Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com) Tricia Kline | Special to PennLive on April 06, 2013 at 7:43 PM, updated April 07, 2013 at 11:53 AM CARLISLE — Mary Deitch might have grown up in a farming community in Cumberland County, but at the time she met her future farming husband, Harry, 65 years ago, many of her hours were spent working in a Mechanicsburg clothing factory.Harry and Mary married in 1947, and the next year, on Easter Monday, they moved onto a 128-acre farm on Kost Road.“It was a big change,” remembers Mary Deitch, now 89.“We started with three horses and a John Deere tractor,” she said.She kept her job at the factory until they were able to obtain dairy cattle and machinery with which to run their farm. And once they did, Mary took on a farmer’s life alongside her husband, driving the tractor over the fields countless times, sowing and cutting the wheat into sheaves, working the ground, planting corn and raking straw and hay.When Harry passed away in 1966, she hired a man to take over the chief operations.Eventually, she sold her cows to an Amish man in Lancaster, and held a public sale for all of the equipment. She continues to hang onto the precious, level and fertile farmland, now renting the land to other farmers, but she has become increasingly aware of farmland all around her being lost to developers.“It was only a few months after [Harry] passed away, they were after me … but I just wouldn’t sell it,” she said.A struggling economy has taken its toll on farmers, and many farm owners are looking at the money they can make by selling their land to developers. “They can get more money by selling it than if they keep on farming,” Deitch said.But Deitch is clear - to her, it’s not about the money.“I just look at it this way - I don’t like to see the good farms being destroyed,” she said. “When they’re gone, you can’t bring them back.”She knows her husband would have supported her.“That’s the way I feel, and that’s the way I know he’d have felt,” she said.That’s why she has worked the past 10 years, delays coming through physical ailments and meeting stringent requirements, to enter her farm into Cumberland County’s Agricultural Conservation Easement Purchase Program, which uses county funds to purchase easements on prime agricultural land from willing landowners, setting aside the property as permanently preserved farmland and forever safe from development.Deitch said she had hoped in her lifetime she would see it saved from the fate of what she calls “concrete and macadam”.On March 11, Deitch's farm was the first in Silver Spring Township to receive that official designation. Township and county officials plan to hold a celebration at the farm on April 6.Mary hopes that other farm owners will be inspired by her actions to save their own land, even as she sees land right next to hers succumbing to development.Supervisors in October approved a preliminary land development plan by Key Development Group to combine two lots totaling 38 acres on which to build a 500,000-square-foot manufacturing facility. The approval had been delayed a month before, and in 2010 the development company was denied a request to rezone the land in order to build three warehouses totaling more than 2 million square feet.Deitch senses the timing is crucial, saying she had done what she can to hold off developers, but, “I don’t know how long it will last.”Silver Spring Township is comprised of approximately 20,000 acres of land, with farmland representing just under 5,000 acres.While most of the township is zoned residential, it is also diverse, consisting of farmland, shopping centers and numerous housing developments.“We want to keep that balance — at least try to,” said Vince DiFilippo, Silver Spring Township supervisor and member of the Cumberland County Agricultural Preservation Board.But agricultural land must remain a priority, he believes, as it helps municipalities with water recharging, storm water issues, and keeps wells pumped up without developing the whole township, he said.Farmland helps keep a municipality’s costs down in the long term, he said, while costing the township nothing.“There are no streets to update, no roads to maintain,” he said.No tiling, repairing sidewalks or replacing lights. “It’s pretty much cash-free for us,” he said.Farmland also helps the school districts, he said.The cost to educate a student in the Cumberland Valley School District is just under $10,000, and each home in the district averages about one-half of a student, he said. As township land is taken over by housing developments, that means more people and more students to provide for. “Compare that to the revenue out of taxes, and you’d have a shortfall,” DiFilippo said. That shortage goes on forever, and creates more of an expense for a school as the hallways get more crowded.In comparison, if the land is purchased instead as an easement and left open, the cost is about $4,000 to $6,000 an acre, paying for itself in two to three years, DiFilippo said.Applications — 100 percent voluntary — for the farmland preservation program, which receives funding from county, state and federal levels, are accepted throughout the year, with Dec. 31 as the deadline to be included in the following year. Applications are ranked according to criteria including soil quality, development potential, the size of the farm, and what types of conservation practices are being used.Deitch’s farm, according to county Farmland Preservation Program Administrator Rebecca Wiser, ranked No. 3 out of 54 farms in the county in 2012.Five farms in the county were preserved last year, with Mary’s the first to go to settlement, she said.The program has been in existence since the first farm was preserved in 1992. Since then, many farms in Mechanicsburg and west have been included in the program. In the most recent years, the participating farms have been further west into Carlisle and beyond. Penn Township has the most preserved farms. Mary Deitch's farm preserved in Silver Spring Twp. Mary Deitch's 128-acre farm in Silver Spring Township has been entered into Cumberland County'€™s Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. Now permanently preserved in Cumberland County are 15,439 acres — approximately 10 percent of the county’s farmland.Once designated as part of the program, the county purchases the land from the owner and owns its development rights, allowing the property owner to continue using the land for agriculture, but they will never be allowed to develop it for anything other than a farm, Wiser said.Deitch was paid $3,675 an acre for the easement rights — much, much lower than she could have received if she sold it to a developer, Wiser said.Many farm owners in Silver Spring Township have taken the first step in permanent preservation by joining the Agricultural Security Area program, through which the municipality designates the land as an agricultural district. There are currently 2,100 acres under the Agricultural Security Area program, according to Silver Spring Township Manager Theresa Eberly.Cumberland County as a whole is seeing a more focused effort in land preservation. Commissioners recently approved $50,000 of Marcellus shale money be set aside for the purpose of purchasing easements on farm land in 2013.DiFilippo realizes they won’t be able to preserve all of the farmland in the township.However, “contrary to popular belief that most want to sell their land and use the money for retirement,” he said, “there are a lot of farmers who simply love their land and do not want to develop.”That is something that township officials are hoping they will see more of.A group of 11 concerned residents, representing a number of demographics in the township, formed this month what chairman Michael Woods terms “a full-swing political action committee” called Preserve Silver Spring. The logo for a new local political action committee, Preserve Silver Spring. The primary purpose of the group, said Woods, an agricultural science instructor and FFA adviser at Cumberland Valley High School, is to educate township residents and others “about the importance of proper land management and conservation of our agricultural lands and open spaces available to us.”“A lot of people aren’t aware that the township has the most fertile land in the county,” he added.The committee wants to hang on to it, as they realize how quickly developments can take over, such as in neighboring Hampden Township, where only three farms remain standing.The group is aiming to have a referendum placed on the November ballot that would allow residents to decide if they would be willing to allot a portion of their taxes for the township to begin its own farmland and open space preservation program.“It’s really scary with the vast number of people, especially young individuals, who truly don’t have a concept of where our food, fiber and natural resources come from,” Woods said, adding that with the world population expected to grow by 2 billion by 2050, if prime and fertile land continues to be developed, there won’t be enough to feed, clothe or house future generations.DiFilippo said similar programs have become very popular in other municipalities in southeastern Pennsylvania, with funding being generated through earned income tax, property tax, or a combination of the two. The money is set aside for farmland preservation or natural and environmental areas, or additional parks and recreation. Comments

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Public Release: 29-Aug-2008 Key discovered to cold tolerance in corn Longer growing season, growth in colder regions possible American Society of Plant Biologists Demand for corn -- the world's number one feed grain and a staple food for many -- is outstripping supply, resulting in large price increases that are forecast to continue over the next several years. If corn's intolerance of low temperatures could be overcome, then the length of the growing season, and yield, could be increased at present sites of cultivation and its range extended into colder regions. Drs. Dafu Wang, Archie Portis, Steve Moose, and Steve Long in the Department of Crop Sciences and the Institute of Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois may have made a breakthrough on this front, as reported in the September issue of the journal Plant Physiology. Plants can be divided into two groups based on their strategy for harvesting light energy: C4 and C3. The C4 groups include many of the most agriculturally productive plants known, such as corn, sorghum, and sugar cane. All other major crops, including wheat and rice, are C3. C4 plants differ from C3 by the addition of four extra chemical steps, making these plants more efficient in converting sunlight energy into plant matter. Until recently, the higher productivity achieved by C4 species was thought to be possible only in warm environments. So while wheat, a C3 plant, may be grown into northern Sweden and Alberta, the C4 grain corn cannot. Even within the Corn Belt and despite record yields, corn cannot be planted much before early May and as such is unable to utilize the high sunlight of spring. Recently a wild C4 grass related to corn, Miscanthus x giganteus, has been found to be exceptionally productive in cold climates. The Illinois researchers set about trying to discover the basis of this difference, focusing on the four extra chemical reactions that separate C4 from C3 plants. Each of these reactions is catalyzed by a protein or enzyme. The enzyme for one of these steps, Pyruvate Phosphate Dikinase, or PPDK for short, is made up of two parts. At low temperature these parts have been observed to fall apart, differing from the other three C4 specific enzymes. The researchers examined the DNA sequence of the gene coding for this enzyme in both plants, but could find no difference, nor could they see any difference in the behavior of the enzyme in the test tube. However, they noticed that when leaves of corn were placed in the cold, PPDK slowly disappeared in parallel with the decline in the ability of the leaf to take up carbon dioxide in photosynthesis. When Miscanthus leaves were placed in the cold, they made more PPDK and as they did so, the leaf became able to maintain photosynthesis in the cold conditions. Why? The researchers cloned the gene for PPDK from both corn and Miscanthus into a bacterium, enabling the isolation of large quantities of this enzyme. The researchers discovered that as the enzyme was concentrated, it became resistant to the cold, thus the difference between the two plants was not the structure of the protein components but rather the amount of protein present. The findings suggest that modifying corn to synthesize more PPDK during cold weather could allow corn, like Miscanthus, to be cultivated in colder climates and be productive for more months of the year in its current locations. The same approach might even be used with sugar cane, which may be crossed with Miscanthus, making improvement of cold-tolerance by breeding a possibility. Contact for Press: Steve Long Cell +1-217-766-6570 or +1-217-398-6639; e-mail slong@uiuc.edu Steve Moose +1-217-244-6308; e-mail smoose@uiuc.edu This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Steve Long slong@uiuc.edu @ASPB http://www.aspb.org More on this News Release Plant Physiology

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Advertisement Home > Cotton equipment could work for switchgrass Cotton equipment could work for switchgrass | Southeast Farm Press EMAIL Comments 0 Quick, how much new equipment will you need to get started as a producer of switchgrass, which is being touted as a potential cellulosic feedstock in the production of ethanol? The answer — maybe not that much if you’re a cotton producer. A study of two switchgrass harvest and transport methods, conducted by University of Arkansas Economists Michael Popp and Robert Hogan, looked at the economics of using hay baling and module building equipment for switchgrass harvest. The study was presented at the Farm Foundation’s Biofuels, Food and Fiber Tradeoffs conference in St. Louis. “What we tried to do was figure out a way for producers to get into the switchgrass market without having to make an enormous investment,” Hogan said. “In fact, they already have an enormous investment in equipment.” The economists developed enterprise budgets for the two methods of harvesting and transporting switchgrass. The budgets were simulated over 12 years of production. Costs for establishing and maintaining a stand of switchgrass would be about $220 per acre the first year, $143 per acre the second year and $189 per acre for years three through 12. Marginal land would be targeted for use. Hogan and Popp assumed that producers would not necessarily shoot for the maximum yield because of the high cost of fertilizer. “So we would fertilize our grass with about 75 units of nitrogen, plus whatever potash and phosphorus soil tests required.” The switchgrass would be harvested once a year, but there would be no harvest the first year — when the stand is being established. The second year, yield was estimated at 3 tons of dry matter to the acre. For years three through 12, yield was estimated at 5 tons per acre. The stand of switchgrass would last 12 years. In the hay baling model, the crop would be harvested with a 12-foot disk mower, wind-rowed, baled and wrapped in plastic. “We’ll shoot for harvesting at about 16 percent moisture content at a rate of about 20 bales per hour. When we establish our stand of switchgrass, we’ll make gravel pads on the side of the field where we will store the bales after harvest. The bales will weigh approximately 1,000 pounds each. It will take one person to do the entire operation. “In the cotton module model, we’ll run a forage harvester through the switchgrass, blow it in cotton boll buggies, dump it in a module builder, compress it and place a tarp over it. When it’s ready to go to the plant, we already have module trucks that can pick the modules up and haul them.” On the module model, the switchgrass would be harvested at a rate of 15 dry tons per hour, at a moisture content of 15 percent. “One downside is that the module operation requires five operators. You need one person on the harvester, one person each on two boll buggies, one person on the module builder and another person tarping it down.” Costs, estimated from previous research, puts hauling costs for the round bales at about $3.60 per mile, for distances less than 50 miles. It will cost $1.15 per bale for unloading 26 bales per load. Costs on module handling varied, according to informal surveys conducted by Hogan. “The module hauling trucks in Texas charged $17.43 a module, plus $1.22 per mile. Arkansas charged about $50 per module and $2 per mile.” Prorated costs for the round bale system were about $39 per ton, according to the study. Delivered to the plant, the cost is about $52 per ton. With modules, the breakeven to the producer is about $46 per ton. Delivered to the plant, the cost is $62 per ton. “The module cost is somewhat sensitive to the cost of the module tarps, which cost between $100 and $125 each and have a life expectancy of about three years.” He noted that an advantage to the module system is that switchgrass is already chopped by the time it gets to the ethanol plant, while round bales are not. “So you will have to add that cost, although we don’t know what that cost would be.” Biorefinery capacity was set at 50 million gallons annually at a conversion rate of 90 gallons per dry ton of switchgrass. With 350 operating days, this requires approximately 1,587 dry tons of biorefinery processing per day. In other words, the plant would need to process 128 truckloads of round bales or 196 modules per day. Both systems require approximately 132,000 crop acres in switchgrass in a 1,174 square mile area surrounding the plant. Experts at the conference believe that cellulosic ethanol will start making a significant contribution to the biofuel effort in 2012. It could lead to massive changes in land use, mostly for pastureland. e-mail: erobinson@farmpress.com Print Please Log In or Register to post comments. Advertisement Related ArticlesGeorgia AgrAbility helping farmers get back to work UGA, IBM work with Georgia farmers to conserve water Jody Childs’ corn was a ‘nightmare’ to get hauled but he worked it out Virus could influence switchgrass yield Wearable computers could make steep inroads into farming Advertisement Connect With Us TwitterFacebookRSSPodcast Hot Topics

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European Agriculture: Its Time for a Revolution The hope for a form of European agriculture that is more attentive to the environment, both for taxpayers and for those who produce in a sustainable way, has recently suffered a setback. Last week Brussels took a definitive step backwards in the procedures that will give us the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2014, the instrument with which the future of our food will be decided. It is not easy to explain to the common man what is happening, but it is fundamental to try. For the last 50 years the CAP has taken over almost half of the European budget, our money. Its reform is the chance to change a paradigm, towards a form of agriculture that is less oriented towards productivism and more respectful of territories, natural resources, farmers and citizens. To date, harmful agricultural practices that destroy the fertility of the land, the environment, the landscape, the intergenerational transmission and biodiversity have been favored, which is profoundly unfair toward the poorest third world countries. And thus Europeans have found themselves, many unconsciously, supporting harmful production methods for which they are paying twice: once for subsidies and again to repair the damages of these destructive agricultural practices. In short, the old CAP has been a disaster. On January 23 and 24, the European Parliament’s Agricultural Committee (COMAGRI), voted on the amendments to the proposal for the CAP reform which was presented more than a year ago. They decided to block, impoverish or cancel the majority of measures which were put in place to improve the sustainability of our food production system. Now its up to the various governments which, in February, will decide the new budget dedicated to the CAP. More importantly, the European Parliament in March will still be able to correct the path that we have taken thus far, but they must act. For example, there is the possibility of introducing so-called “greening” measures, those dedicated to the environment. The largest part of the CAP’s budget has almost always been determined by a company’s surface area. Over time this has led to the rewarding of the largest companies that generally are not the most attentive to sustainability. Greening, on the other hand, would be revolutionary in its own small way: it would force even the largest companies to enact sustainable practices. Rather, with the amendments that were voted on last week they have made greening “flexible”, taking it apart piece by piece and thus creating so many loopholes as to render it useless. They have transformed greening into greenwashing: a mere cleaning up of the façade. With the new standards 82% of European companies would be exempted from these obligatory eco-friendly practices, and many other critical points as well. For example, companies would have the possibility of being paid twice for a single type of environmental measure, and the obligation to reserve seven percent of the company’s surface area for ecological purposes would be reduced to a mere three percent. In the end there are too many negative elements that outweigh the few good things that have been kept, like incentives for young people who decide to enter the agricultural business, the introduction of a cap of € 300,000 on subsidies for the largest land holders and a better definition of “active agriculture”, which helps to avoid the financing of places like airports and golf courses. From March 11 to 14 the European Parliament will have the historic opportunity to reverse course and therefore we must put pressure on our deputies so that they don’t make the mistake of supporting that old paradigm that awards those who produce in the worst way and that is certainly not in our collective interests. It is not right to dedicate public resources to the benefit of the few. A European mobilization has begun, which Slow Food is a part of, named “Go M.A.D.”. Through this tool we can contact our members of parliament and explain to them how important the assembly in March will be. Citizens can become protagonists in this debate and it will be of the utmost importance for us all to participate. At stake is the future of our food, the places where we live and our very well being. Slow Food President Article first published in La Repubblica on January 29, 2013. Photo: Alberto Peroli

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Riceland tops billion dollar mark for 5th straight year The 92nd Annual Riceland Foods Membership Meeting was held at the Grand Prairie Center. Riceland Foods reported at its annual meeting in Stuttgart Thursday that sales and revenue topped the billion-dollar mark for the fifth consecutive year.The 92nd Annual Riceland Foods Membership Meeting was held at the Grand Prairie Center. Danny Kennedy, president and chief executive officer of the farmer-owned cooperative, said sales during 2011-12 were $1.16 billion, and distributions to farmers were $675 million. Member equity stands at $254 million, up $7 million from a year ago.Riceland’s seasonal pool for long grain rice returned a gross payment that averaged $7.12 per bushel, including freight, storage and interest. The long grain pool provided a $1.09 per bushel premium over USDA’s national average price for long grain rice. Riceland’s medium grain rice seasonal pool returned a gross payment that averaged $6.82 per bushel, Kennedy said.The cooperative’s soybean seasonal pool earned farmers $12.84 per bushel. With USDA’s national average price for soybeans at $12.45 per bushel, the Riceland soybean pool paid a premium of 39 cents per bushel.Kennedy addressed the future of the rice industry and the long-term outlook for U.S. rice. He said that in many cases, rice is being viewed based on the recent performance of corn and soybeans. He said the question is, will it continue?The answer begins, he said, when one considers the population growth. Today’s world population of 6.8 billion people is expected to grow to 9.1 billion by the year 2050. About half of the earth’s population consumes rice as a primary component of their diet. “Do the math,” he advised. “World rice consumption will continue to increase in order to feed the expanding population.”Kennedy said farm and trade policy was a key factor in driving U.S. rice market success. Farm policy and trade policy must go hand-in-hand. Other rice exporting countries continue to support prices of rice and other crops for their farmers at levels much higher than the U.S., he said. “It is important to work on trade initiatives that not only promote free trade, but also fair trade,” he said.The decline in the number of farm and rural voters, an increase in the number of people in Congress without rural backgrounds, and more people competing for fewer budget dollars have combined to make good farm policy difficult to achieve.The farm community must strongly support members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees who understand the needs of Southern agriculture and encourage supportive Members to build alliances with other Members of Congress.Riceland’s 2012 InitiativesKennedy said Riceland introduced several initiatives during the past year that benefit farmers. One of the initiatives was the designation of four Commodity Marketing Specialists who would be available to work with farmers to explain the marketing opportunities available through the cooperative.Fred Black, Riceland’s commodity marketing specialist for Southeast Arkansas, said, “There is a new generation of young farmers, and the co-op is committed to grow with them. He said he understands the importance of service to Riceland’s farmer-members because he is one.“Each farming operation is unique from the crop mix that is grown, the varieties that are planted, the equipment used and everyday farming practices which are employed on the farm,” Black said. He said that while the cooperative’s seasonal pool continues to be the most popular marketing option for Riceland members, that not all farmers know Riceland also offers self-pricing opportunities such as booking contracts, hedge-to-arrive contracts and members cash purchases.With the increasing popularity of on-farm storage, Riceland is exploring new technologies that are available to help monitor the drying and storage of rice in farm storage bins. A program called “Bin Ready” is under development that will offer Riceland members the peace of mind that the condition of the grain in their farm bins is being monitored.Another initiative for the year has been the development of the new website — www.Riceland.coop. The site provides Riceland members with one place to go for Riceland account information, markets, news and weather, Black said. “You can also view the truck line at any of our receiving locations with the website’s web cams.“Two things make Riceland unique: our membership is open to all and we offer our members a reliable market for their crops,” he said. “Riceland brings the world market to our farmers’ individual operations.”Market OutlookCarl Brothers, Riceland senior vice president for marketing and risk management, said world rice stocks to use ratio continues in the narrow range and that a disruption in the production of any major exporting country could “result in fireworks in the market.”He said that the disappointing quality of the 2010 crop created by excessive heat, and the increases in corn and soybean prices have kept U.S. rice acreage at 12-year lows. The smaller acreages and disappointing milling yields have supported long grain rice prices in the U.S.Brothers said that prices also have been supported due to reduced export competition from South America and the Thailand rough rice scheme where the government has paid farmers high prices for rice and removed rice from the market.While the U.S. rice industry has worked to open the Chinese market to U.S. rice, China’s phyto sanitary protocol is onerous. On the other hand, the Colombia free trade agreement has provided for the successful development of a Colombia Tariff Rate Quota (TRQ) program that is resulting in new sales of U.S. rice to the Central American nation.

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Israel Is On It Tiny Dynamo Book Search for: Donate Fighting Hospital Infections Anti-bacterial Fabric Arabs in Israeli Hospitals Children with Heart Disease Doctors Treating Terrorists One Doctor’s Account Managing Water Supply Desalinated Water Untold News Awards for Israeli Innovation Drip Irrigation Systems / Irrigation in the Desert / Latest News Drip Irrigation: Growing Crops in the Desert From Tiny Dynamo: How One of the World's Smallest Countries Produces Some of the Most Important Inventions, by Marcella Rosen Drip Irrigation, an Israeli invention, allows dry land to produce crops to feed a hungry world. In the words of my generation, let’s get real. There are now more than 7 billion people coating the surface of Planet Earth, and that number’s going to go up a lot more before it goes down. The rankings of what people consider to be life’s necessities will vary depending on whether they live in Greenwich or Ghana, but the one thing that’s at the top of everyone’s list is water. Earth is 2/3 water, but only 10% of that is the fresh water we need for drinking, running machinery, growing rice and beans, and shaving and brewing beer and making blue jeans. Analysts from the UN to the Council On Foreign Relations are painting a fairly grim picture of our ability to keep up with the demand for water in the years to come. The situation is dire – already more than a billion people in Africa and Asia don’t have access to clean drinking water – and the challenge is huge…but it’s not insurmountable. I suppose that any steps individuals can take to cut down on our use of water would help – shorter showers, less car washing, fewer ice cubes in our mojitos. But when it comes to making a real dent in humans’ use of fresh water, if you’re not talking farming, you might as well not be talking. Here’s how we humans divvy up the planet’s fresh water: Think of ten glasses of water lined up on a kitchen counter. They represent the world’s supply of fresh water. You drink one glass: that’s the portion people put to domestic use. Then a factory owner comes in to the kitchen and grabs two glasses: that’s the slice industry uses to do its thing, to cool engines and make paper and fabric and so on. Then a farmer comes in, grabs the remaining seven glasses, takes them back to his farm and pours them on his crops. That’s right. Seventy percent of the available fresh water on our planet goes to agriculture. And the vast majority of that water is used not only unproductively, but in ways that do more harm than good. This is the challenge that the legendary Israeli firm Netafim has been confronting since the 1960s – that challenge of bringing agricultural irrigation in line with a drying planet. “Let’s be clear,” says Naty Barak, a director at Netafim, “most agriculture in the world is not irrigated at all. That’s really poor resource management. The bulk of the irrigation that is done is incredibly inefficient.” Irrigation breaks down into three main categories: flood irrigation, sprinkler irrigation and the method that Netafim pioneered, drip irrigation. Flood irrigation (essentially pouring water on crops) accounts for almost 80% of the irrigation that’s done on farms, and according to Mr. Barak, it’s harmful to soil (the water pushes the soil all over the place) and water sources, produces diminished yields, and is wildly wasteful. The sprinkler family of irrigation devices – used for about 15% of farm irrigation – is a bit better than flood irrigation in terms of efficiency, but that’s not saying much. Bringing up the rear in terms of usage is drip irrigation, which is the method of choice for about 5% of farms. But it is the unquestionable state of the art in terms of efficiency and its ability to squeeze the most productivity out of every drop of water. Estimates of the water savings drip irrigation provides vary, largely because watering conditions vary, but they come down between twenty and fifty percent over sprinklers, the next most efficient method. In other words, when it’s really working right, drip irrigation can effectively double your water supply. Drip irrigation might not sound like your idea of scintillating cocktail party chitchat, but the story of its discovery is a piece of Israeli lore. Israel isn’t the #1 driest country on earth, but neither is it Seattle. So Israel has more than a bit of history with irrigation. And from the beginning, it was always a matter of moving water around and then turning on the spigot. In the 1930s, a water engineer by the name of Simcha Blass was visiting a friend in the desert when he noticed a line of trees with one member that was noticeable taller and more robust looking than the others. He did a little digging, literally, and noticed that a household water line running along the tree line had spring a small leak in the area of that one tree and as feeding it with a steady drip drip drip of water. The wet spot on the surface didn’t seem like much, but down below was a large onion-shaped area of juicy soil. The idea of drip irrigation was born. Mr. Blass partnered with Kibbutz Hatzerim in the Negev desert to develop entire drip irrigation systems. He tinkered with variations on the idea, but when plastics became widely available in the 1960s, he finally had the ability to put drops of water precisely where he wanted, when he wanted; Mr. Blass and the kibbutz founded Netafim. Since then, Netafim has sold its systems in more than 100 countries worldwide. And, according to Mr. Barak, the more we ask of our planet’s limited water supply, the more Netafim’s systems will benefit the world. “Water has been declared to be a basic human right,” he says, “but we squander it with wasteful irrigation. Drip irrigation provides the ability to make water work harder and more productively than its ever done in the past.” Mr. Barak makes the point that if 15% of farms using conventional irrigation switched to drip irrigation, the supply of water available for domestic use would double. That statistic alone should make the world take notice. But Netafim’s drip irrigation systems do a lot more than just move water around the farm. “We’re not just talking about a hose with a hole,” says Mr. Barak. “The system is very sophisticated, because you need to make sure that the plants that are far from the valve get the same amount as the plants that are close to the valve. You have to be able to maintain consistency in a system that runs uphill, that runs downhill…Inconsistency equals waste, and the goal is to eliminate waste.” Mr. Barak adds that the very idea of water has changed since the company started. “In the 1960s, we were using plain drinking water. Today we use recycled water, waste water, brackish water…and we’re adding nutrients mixed in with the water, so that, in a way, what we’re really doing isn’t irrigation, it’s ‘fertigation.’” Dirt, nutrients, waste – all of this business going on in the water is what makes controlling it so tricky. And this is where the ingenuity of Netafim comes in – in the valves that control the actual drops of water. The valves are spaced precisely along the irrigation lines, and they must work in concert with one another. “These valves are what make the system work,” says Mr. Barak. “They are anti-clogging, self-cleaning, very sophisticated little mechanisms. They make it possible to get greater crop yields, greater crop control, while using significantly less water than we did just a few decades ago. How much less? In 1965 a typical drip irrigation system could use anywhere from two to four liters of water per hour, which was a vast improvement from the prevailing flood irrigation system. But now, a typical Netafim system will use half a liter per hour…and Netafim is still trying to get that number down. The main reason, Mr. Barak explains, is simple. “In the next 100 years we are going to have to produce more crops than we ever have, with far less environmental damage than we’re doing now.” Some are well on the way to achieving that goal. About 75 percent of Israeli farming is done with drip irrigation, with practically no flood irrigation at all. Drip irrigation accounts for about half of irrigation in California; South Africa is also a big user. But other areas of the world have yet to make the shift – and food is only one of the reasons why it’s important for them to do so. Because when you really dig in to the nuances of drip irrigation, you start to see how widespread its ramifications are. For example, by using water more efficiently, drip irrigation means you use less fertilizer. Fertilizer production is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Likewise, the growing market for biofuels will benefit from drip irrigation through the reduced cost of raising fuel crops. which will in turn aid in the spread of biofuels, which will reduce the production of greenhouse gasses, which will, in the long run, reduce the pressure on the world’s water supplies. There’s also a quality of life issue at stake here – and I’m not talking about watering lawns. There are places where the challenge is not managing water, but simply getting it. Netafim is in some of these places, and the changes they have made are remarkable. Mr. Barak tells of one Kenyan village where the women spent the bulk of their day carrying water from a small lake to the fields. With a drip irrigation system in place, not only are they realizing far higher crop yields, but the women are now freed up to spend their time far more productively than they were before…getting an education, for instance. It’s an open question whether we can push our existing water supplies to provide us with the food – let alone the ice cubes – to which we’ve become accustomed. But Netafim has already demonstrated an ability to take a productive technology and keep pushing it well beyond its initial boundaries. There’s no reason to think they can’t do the same for the world’s existing water supply. © 2017 Untold News

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