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January 7, 2011
· US plan to open roads to Mexican trucks
· Welcome to “Law and Order,” farm edition
· Pioneer set to offer drought-resistant corn
· Thanks Feds: Grower faces costly river fix
· Opinion: Sack Ag Secretary Vilsack!
US plan to open roads to Mexican trucks
(Reuters
via Yahoo! News)
The Transportation Department's compromise seeks to revive efforts to fulfill a key provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which is highly unpopular with labor but supported by many businesses as a cost advantage.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called the plan by
his agency a starting point to renew negotiations with
The Transportation Department said the plan, which would eventually need congressional and Mexican government approval, would prioritize safety and that a formal proposal is due to be announced in coming months.
The countries would negotiate the number of carriers allowed
to participate in a first phase. Applicants would be vetted by
Prospects for an agreement are uncertain. The plan has failed to move ahead over the past decade regardless of which party controlled the White House or Congress.
But the Obama administration felt more comfortable issuing a proposal with the program's fiercest critics, labor friendly Democrats in the House of Representatives, voted out of office in November or sidelined to the minority. Republicans took over the chamber on Wednesday.
"In general this is very good news," said
Currently, big rigs from
BUSINESS SEES BENEFITS
Allowing cross-border trucking could increase competition, add capacity in the domestic market, and offer other benefits to business.
"We could see a more open Mexican border actually drive more ... freight activity in general, which would benefit the entire trucking industry," said Todd Fowler of KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Among the potential beneficiaries are farmers and livestock
producers affected by the billions of dollars in tariffs on agricultural and
other goods shipped to
"The pork industry has been eagerly awaiting
this moment, which should further facilitate pork trade to
Labor and consumer groups and their allies in Congress for years blocked the trucking initiative from progressing beyond small pilot programs. They were concerned about safety and potential job losses.
James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters union, called the new move disappointing and another opportunity to open the border "to unsafe trucks." He stressed the move was ill-timed considering the tough economy.
"Why would DOT propose to threaten
But Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
applauded the move. "If we're going to double exports (globally) within
five years, we must hold on to export markets, such as
Welcome to “Law and Order,” farm edition
(latimes.com)
This latest call is one of the strangest so far. Thieves have taken 54 brass valves from the irrigation system on Ryan Hopper's orange farm. They've also stolen scrap metal from his tool shed and siphoned hundreds of gallons of fuel from a diesel tank on his field.
The crime infuriates Hopper, costing him time and money just before the orange harvest. But it's just one more of the mysteries Whaley tackles on a daily basis.
"It's never-ending," said Whaley, 26, who is himself a farmer. He's also a detective in the Tulare County Sheriff's Department agricultural crimes unit, tasked with catching the people who steal crops, tractors, chemicals and other farm equipment, and then turning the suspects over to the district attorney's office.
Think of him as the law in "Law & Order," farm edition.
Four years of a soft economy have led to a rise in
agricultural crime throughout the country. In
American farmers and ranchers have been fending off thieves
since the heyday of cattle rustling in the 19th century, but the duty of
battling rural crime waves now falls to law enforcement.
These crimes can deal a blow to
"Farmers aren't like most businesses: Their property, produce and everything is out there in the open. They don't have a way to secure it in four walls," said Jody Cox, a detective sergeant in the Tulare County Sheriff's Department agricultural crimes unit.
****
Whaley starts his day heading to Hopper's farm, where neat rows of leafy orange trees stretch out toward the flat blue horizon. He drives his white Ford pickup through a small cluster of one-story houses, past orange and nut trees, and pulls off the narrow road. A squad car is parked near a corrugated iron shed, where a deputy is interviewing the victim.
"I went to irrigate today and no water was coming out," an agitated Hopper says. "I was just trying to get some work done."
Hopper says he hasn't had a problem with crime on his 130 acres since 2007, when thieves stole the filter system from his irrigation line. Now he's hearing more about crops and equipment disappearing from neighboring farms.
After walking the irrigation line with Hopper, Whaley takes out a fingerprint kit to use on a broken toilet the thieves hauled out of the shed, then discarded in the yard. He dons black gloves and sprinkles powder over the toilet as a cool breeze rustles the orchard.
He shakes his head. No prints.
It's looking to be slim pickings on the evidence front, but then Whaley hears a shout from Hopper. The farmer has found a footprint in the mud near a diesel tank that the thieves siphoned dry.
Whaley walks quickly through rows of orange trees and kneels next to the footprint. He can make out the name Camel, a brand of work boot. It's not much, but it's something.
"The crooks are getting more sophisticated," says Whaley, who suspects that thieves sometimes change their tires to avoid being linked to the tracks they leave behind.
*****
Whaley's department is getting more sophisticated too. In
2002, eight counties in the
Detectives have set up stings to buy stolen crops and farm equipment, and have had stakeouts outside the homes of suspected thieves. ACTION is even trying to get the Department of Homeland Security to chip in funds, contending that stolen pesticides and fertilizers could be used to make bombs.
These are farm cops with city gear: surveillance cameras, GPS tracking devices and night-vision goggles. But they look at home on the range too.
On his belt, which is held up by a giant silver buckle, Whaley keeps a gun, radio and a shiny six-pointed sheriff's badge.
In a case this summer, Whaley tied a string of petty thefts and burglaries to one suspect. When he pulled over the suspect's car and searched it, he found a gun that had been stolen that very day in another crime. The suspect, who was on parole, was arrested that night.
Whaley grew up in the tule fog of
the Central Valley, where his father was the
His family still raises walnuts, plums and beef cattle on 50
acres in Woodlake. As Whaley loops around
In his four years in law enforcement Whaley has seen a wide array of crime. In the last two months the Tulare County Sheriff's Department has recovered 10 tons of walnuts, bags of avocados, three cows, a golf cart, a forklift, two tractors, batteries, fuel tanks and a Kawasaki mule.
"Anything that's harvested is being stolen," Whaley said. "Anything and everything."
****
The economy is making the job more challenging, as budget
cuts leave the Sheriff's Department shorthanded. With an unemployment rate of
nearly 17%,
"There are a ton of people out of work," said Cox, the squad detective sergeant. "There are those that may have been scraping by previously, but now they're doing whatever they have to do to support themselves."
Whaley says some of the thieves would steal in good times or bad. He suspects some are drug addicts trying to get enough cash to support their habit. Others, down on their luck and out of work, filch crops and sell them at the side of the road to make a few extra bucks.
"You can bet on a moonlit night someone's going to be out in the walnuts," said farmer Butch Gist, standing among flourishing pistachio trees on his farm, which has been in operation for 125 years.
Gist, who also grows walnuts, hires a private security firm for the peak of walnut season, because once the crop is stolen it's difficult for detectives to get it back. Crops, unlike equipment or cattle, can't be branded.
Whaley's unit caught a break recently, when a farmworker called in to report two men and a woman stealing avocados off the trees of a local orchard.
The thieves fled when squad cars arrived, but they left their car behind. Whaley towed the car and, after getting a search warrant, found a cellphone inside. He ran some of the phone numbers found on the phone and was able to track down a suspect. Under questioning, the suspect gave up her co-conspirators. The case is winding its way through the legal system.
The Sheriff's Department has also started a program to make farm gear easier to track by putting special identification numbers on tractors and other equipment.
*****
Later in the day, Whaley leans on a rusty RV, looking for an ID number on a welding machine sitting haphazardly on a remote corner of a dairy farm. A drifter has hauled the RV onto a farmer's land and piled it with junk, including copper wire, orchard ladders and welding machines that Whaley suspects may be stolen.
He writes down serial numbers and takes photos of the equipment, poking through canisters of empty bull semen straws, old hubcaps and boxes filled with shoes, magazines and clothing. His day thus far has been a game of cat and mouse, visiting crime scenes after thefts have occurred. It will take a bit of sleuthing to catch the mice.
That fact leads him to the last and most dreaded activity of
the day. As rush-hour traffic starts to clog the streets of
He has spent the day talking to farmers and gathering evidence. Now it's time to work on something that plagues all cops, whether they're walking through crops or city blocks: reams and reams of paperwork.
Pioneer set to offer drought-resistant corn
(DesMoinesRegister.com) Washington, D.C. – This spring Pioneer Hi-Bred will offer some farmers a new variety of corn that's more resistant to drought.
The seeds, called Optimum AQUAmax, are supposed to increase yields by 5 percent when water is short. The new product was developed through conventional breeding - without genetic engineering - so it won't need government approval.
Pioneer, a Johnston-based unit of DuPont, is in a race with other seed giants to get corn varieties to the market that could grow in drier areas or need less irrigation.
Monsanto Co. is seeking government approval to commercialize
a genetically engineered variety of drought-tolerant corn that the company has
said could increase yields by 6 to 10 percent. Monsanto's product, like
Pioneer's, is targeted for farmers in the western
Experts say drought-tolerant crop varieties can help mitigate the impact of climate change and meet the rising demand for food that is projected as the global population grows.
But the drought-resistant corn varieties are unlikely to have a significant impact on production for several more years, said Rich Nelson, a commodities analyst with Allendale Inc.
"We will see better yields. We will see more resistance to drought, less market impact," Nelson said. Corn crops already appear to have become hardier because of genetic modifications that have made plants more resistant to insect damage, he said.
Drought tolerance is a complex trait to breed into plants and requires changing multiple genes, said Jeff Schussler, senior research manager for Pioneer's work on corn stress.
"We don't believe there is any single silver bullet," he said. "Herbicide tolerance, insect control, those tend to be simple single-gene traits that can be addressed with a single gene."
Pioneer also is working on a biotech variety, but it is not expected to be ready until the middle to end of the decade. It is too early to estimate how much the biotech product could further increase yields, Schussler said.
Optimum AQUAmax seed will be sold
in limited quantities in four states this year:
Monsanto is releasing an update of its research and development plans today. Monsanto spokeswoman Kelli Powers said that farmers who plant its drought-tolerant variety "can expect improvements in plant growth and development during drought stress that minimize yield loss."
Pioneer tested its drought-tolerant varieties at research sites in Woodland, Calif.; Garden City and Manhattan, Kan.; LaSalle, Colo.; Plainview, Texas; Kinston, N.C.; and Chile.
Thanks Feds: Grower faces costly river fix
(The
Fresno Bee) – A 26-ton trencher earlier this month ripped up a stretch of
land on Jim Nickel's tomato fields as part of a $250,000 fix for a seepage
problem he blames on the federal restoration of the
Federal officials a few months ago agreed to pick up the tab
for removing excess water beneath Nickel's fields east of
Nickel decided to push ahead with the project to prepare for the next growing season. He said he couldn't take the chance that his tomatoes would be stunted again by seepage. He estimates he lost $300,000 of production this past summer.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the river restoration program, is investigating ways to repay Nickel without doing the studies, but it might not be possible.
"We have to follow the National Environmental Protection Act," said bureau spokeswoman Margaret Gidding.
Seepage for farms near the river has been the biggest problem so far in the restoration program, which began last year. Another farmer in August filed a federal claim for damage.
The farmers have been warning federal officials for several years about the possible seepage damage near stretches of river that have been dry for years. The river dried up and salmon runs died after Friant Dam was built in the late 1940s.
Officials reconnected the San Joaquin to the
Nickel says water seeped from the river into the groundwater beneath his field, raising the water table into the root zone of his crops.
Federal officials said they are still studying Nickel's claim about river seepage causing the problem but have not decided whether the river was to blame. Their findings are expected next month.
It's not clear how much acreage is affected by seepage.
Nickel's drainage project is along about two miles of the river. There is about a 45-mile stretch from Sack Dam to Bear Creek that is susceptible to the problem, farmers say.
This month, a crew has buried perforated plastic pipe to drain excess water. Pumps have been installed to move the water out of the pipeline.
Nickel said he had no choice but to move forward with the project. He feared the bureau studies wouldn't be complete by the time he plants his next crop in the next few months.
"I hope they pay me," he said. "I think they should have done more studies on this part of the river before the restoration started." Bureau officials said they have been monitoring the underground water around the river as the flow has been restored. They have cut back when there are problems, they said.
The rejuvenated river runs 30 or 40 yards from Nickel's tomato fields. The flow is kept in a channel between tall levees. Nickel said that he hasn't had much problem with a rising underground water table until now.
He hired Ike McElvany of Los Banos to install the 15-inch perforated plastic pipe to capture the excess water. Underground water levels dropped several feet after McElvany's crews finished the first phase.
Nickel must cope with other problems created by the seepage and the fix.
The trencher shredded his drip-irrigation system. It will probably take about two months to rebuild the drip system, Nickel said.
Opinion: Sack Ag Secretary Vilsack!
(Forbes.com) – Something is very wrong at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The secretary, Tom Vilsack, is letting hypothetical claims by organic farmers--who produce less than 1% of the nation's farming output--cripple an important and environmentally beneficial technology, the genetic engineering of crop plants.
In December Vilsack announced that the USDA is considering geographic restrictions, as well as minimum separation distances from other crops, on the cultivation of genetically engineered alfalfa. This not only represents a reversal of previous policies; it also signals an abandonment of any claim to a scientific underpinning of regulation. Worse, it is a threat to an entire critical sector of American agriculture. Vilsack wants to let the organic tail wag the biotech dog.
A bit of background is necessary to understand the context of Vilsack's actions.
Genetically engineered crop varieties must be approved by USDA for marketing. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 requires federal government agencies to consider the effects that any "major actions" may have on the "human environment." If an agency concludes that its action will have no significant impact, it issues a relatively brief Environmental Assessment that explains the basis for that decision. But if significant effects are likely, the agency must prepare a comprehensive and voluminous Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which details every conceivable effect, runs to hundreds of pages and requires thousands of bureaucrat-hours to prepare.
Because federal courts now interpret the term "human environment" to include effects that are purely economic, social, historical or aesthetic, it is easy for regulators to miss some tangential or unimportant effect or fail to fully document its reasoning on every conceivable impact. Thus, inconsequential paperwork oversights can trip them up, and litigants can seize on these oversights and stop a project in its tracks.
In 2005 the USDA approved alfalfa and sugar beet varieties genetically engineered to be resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, or Roundup. USDA scientists evaluated data from hundreds of government-monitored field trials over a period of eight years, along with numerous other studies on the real-world effects of other Roundup-resistant crops, and concluded that commercial use would have no significant environmental impact. They duly prepared Environmental Assessments for each and approved the varieties.
From a scientific perspective, all of this was unnecessary in the first place. The scientific community has long condemned the redundant, dilatory case-by-case regulatory reviews, which are not required for less predictable conventional crops. Nevertheless, a coalition of environmental activists and organic farmers filed lawsuits to rescind the approvals and stop the sale of genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beet seeds, claiming that the Environmental Assessments were legally insufficient. Significantly, the plaintiffs did not allege any actual environmental harm, merely insufficient documentation by less than competent USDA bureaucrats.
The lawsuits have been a years-long nightmare for plant
breeders, the seed industry and, especially, farmers. Thousands of farmers
across the country had planted more than a quarter million acres of Roundup
Ready alfalfa by 2007, when a federal judge in
USDA finished its draft EIS a year ago but hasn't jumped through all the procedural hoops necessary to re-approve the crop. Which brings us to Vilsack's recent actions.
According to USDA's environmental review, the alfalfa on which Vilsack wants to impose restrictions was judged substantially equivalent to other varieties without any concerns for regulators, farmers or consumers. But instead of proceeding immediately to permit the alfalfa on the market, the Secretary has invited a veritable Who's Who of anti-biotechnology activists to suggest ways the product might be approved "with conditions."
Pollen is disseminated by the wind, and organic farmers and activists have argued that plants on an organic farm cross-pollinated by a neighbor's genetically engineered crops would no longer be organic and therefore would be denied the higher price such foods command in the marketplace. Therefore, organic producers have demanded mandatory minimum planting distances and even a government-administered fund that would compensate organic farmers who were financially harmed.
For a number of reasons, these claims and demands are specious. First, they ignore the way that "organic" is defined--by Vilsack's own department. The USDA's rules for organic production, which bar the use of genetically engineered crops, are based on process, not outcomes. In other words, as long as organic growers adhere to permissible practices and do not intentionally plant genetically engineered seeds, unintentional cross-pollination by genetically engineered plants (or for that matter, the drift of a prohibited pesticide onto their crops) does not cause those crops to lose their organic status.
Second, genetically engineered crops have proved to be superior to organic in numerous ways that benefit humans and the natural environment. Because yields are higher and they require lower inputs, they conserve water and farmland and are more sustainable. They lessen the need for chemical pesticides and make possible more environment-friendly agronomic practices such as no-till farming, which causes less soil erosion and runoff and releases less CO2 to the atmosphere. And genetically engineered grains are less susceptible to infestation by fungi and have lower levels of dangerous fungal toxins than organic grains. Farmers have found them overall to be reliable and cost-effective.
These are just some of the reasons that plant genetic engineering has been the most rapidly adopted agriculture technology in history, expanding worldwide from 4.2 million acres in 1996 to 331 million acres in 2009.
Although Secretary Vilsack deserves the sack, he is not solely culpable. He may have been set up by Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, who boasts a long and unsavory history of pro-organic, anti-biotechnology advocacy and actions. While a staffer on the Senate Agriculture Committee during the 1980s, for example, she was instrumental in obstructing the approval of bioengineered veterinary drugs and also in preventing the inclusion of genetically engineered crops under the "organic" rubric. Her record of anti-biotechnology activism constitutes an obvious conflict of interest that should have required her recusal from agbiotech-related deliberations and meetings at USDA. Vilsack's last action before departing should be to unceremoniously fire Merrigan.
As in all newly elected administrations, President Barack Obama and his minions have made commitments to regulate according to the dictates of science and to act in the public interest. They have failed spectacularly, instead consistently adopting unscientific, anti-technology, anti-business, economy-slowing, job-killing policies. This latest example is one of the most egregious.
Henry I. Miller, a
physician and molecular biologist, is a fellow at
End Transmission