" I heard it through the AgLine"

January 13, 2011

 

 

·       Honeybee collapse linked to seed insecticide

·       Australia reinventing its tomato industry

·       Detroit start-ups strike gold with compost

·       Qatar’s next superproject – A farm sector

 

 

Honeybee collapse linked to seed insecticide

 

(PHYSORG.com) – Honeybee populations have been in serious decline for years, and Purdue University scientists may have identified one of the factors that cause bee deaths around agricultural fields.

 

Analyses of bees found dead in and around hives from several apiaries over two years in Indiana showed the presence of neonicotinoid insecticides, which are commonly used to coat corn and soybean seeds before planting. The research showed that those insecticides were present at high concentrations in waste talc that is exhausted from farm machinery during planting.

 

The insecticides clothianidin and thiamethoxam were also consistently found at low levels in soil - up to two years after treated seed was planted - on nearby dandelion flowers and in corn pollen gathered by the bees, according to the findings released in the journal PLoS One this month.

 

"We know that these insecticides are highly toxic to bees; we found them in each sample of dead and dying bees," said Christian Krupke, associate professor of entomology and a co-author of the findings.

 

The United States is losing about one-third of its honeybee hives each year, according to Greg Hunt, a Purdue professor of behavioral genetics, honeybee specialist and co-author of the findings. Hunt said no one factor is to blame, though scientists believe that others such as mites and insecticides are all working against the bees, which are important for pollinating food crops and wild plants.

 

"It's like death by a thousand cuts for these bees," Hunt said.

 

Krupke and Hunt received reports that bee deaths in 2010 and 2011 were occurring at planting time in hives near agricultural fields. Toxicological screenings performed by Brian Eitzer, a co-author of the study from the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, for an array of pesticides showed that the neonicotinoids used to treat corn and soybean seed were present in each sample of affected bees. Krupke said other bees at those hives exhibited tremors, uncoordinated movement and convulsions, all signs of insecticide poisoning.

 

Seeds of most annual crops are coated in neonicotinoid insecticides for protection after planting. All corn seed and about half of all soybean seed is treated. The coatings are sticky, and in order to keep seeds flowing freely in the vacuum systems used in planters, they are mixed with talc. Excess talc used in the process is released during planting and routine planter cleaning procedures.

 

"Given the rates of corn planting and talc usage, we are blowing large amounts of contaminated talc into the environment. The dust is quite light and appears to be quite mobile," Krupke said.

 

Krupke said the corn pollen that bees were bringing back to hives later in the year tested positive for neonicotinoids at levels roughly below 100 parts per billion.

 

"That's enough to kill bees if sufficient amounts are consumed, but it is not acutely toxic," he said.

 

On the other hand, the exhausted talc showed extremely high levels of the insecticides - up to about 700,000 times the lethal contact dose for a bee.

 

"Whatever was on the seed was being exhausted into the environment," Krupke said. "This material is so concentrated that even small amounts landing on flowering plants around a field can kill foragers or be transported to the hive in contaminated pollen. This might be why we found these insecticides in pollen that the bees had collected and brought back to their hives."

 

Krupke suggested that efforts could be made to limit or eliminate talc emissions during planting.

 

"That's the first target for corrective action," he said. "It stands out as being an enormous source of potential environmental contamination, not just for honeybees, but for any insects living in or near these fields. The fact that these compounds can persist for months or years means that plants growing in these soils can take up these compounds in leaf tissue or pollen."

 

Although corn and soybean production does not require insect pollinators, that is not the case for most plants that provide food. Krupke said protecting bees benefits agriculture since most fruit, nut and vegetable crop plants depend upon honeybees for pollination. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the value of honeybees to commercial agriculture at $15 billion to $20 billion annually.

 

Hunt said he would continue to study the sublethal effects of neonicotinoids. He said for bees that do not die from the insecticide there could be other effects, such as loss of homing ability or less resistance to disease or mites.

 

"I think we need to stop and try to understand the risks associated with these insecticides," Hunt said.

 

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Australia reinventing its tomato industry

 

(Australia Food News) – While the bad news for tomato-growers on Friday January 6, 2012 was that all Heinz tomato-sauce and ketchup ceased production in Australia, the big picture is that several massive investments in glasshouse tomatoes are creating opportunities for a new world-leading tomato industry in Australia.

 

Many were disappointed by the Heinz closure of its Gigarre operation, which had been foreshadowed by Heinz seven months earlier (as Australian Food News reported on May 27, 2011). Job loss concerns still exist for Coca Cola Amatil’s foreshadowed rationalization of its subsidiary SPC-Ardmona’s tomato-processing factory at Mooroopna (as reported by Australian Food News on August 3, 2011).  Nevertheless, the development of two independent, very large, glasshouse tomato business operations, in NSW and South Australia respectively, illustrates how new technologies are spawning a new agribusiness industry for Australia. Furthermore, it is likely that this reinvented modern tomato industry will create additional business opportunities for processing in future.

 

Blush Tomatoes’ story

 

The Costa Group, one of Australia’s  best-known families and one of the country’s largest distributors of fresh fruit and vegetables, has built, at a cost of $65 Million, Australia’s largest glasshouse tomato farm known as Blush Tomatoes. It is located at Guyra, near Armidale in northern NSW.

 

About 350 tonnes a week are currently being harvested from the 20 hectares of glasshouses (2 glasshouses each of ten hectares) at Guyra. About 12 million kilos of tomatoes are picked per year at the Guyra glasshouses from the 300,000 plants.

 

The glasshouses use many world-leading technologies and robotics. There are major plans underway for expansion of the business with many new varieties of tomatoes being developed and being accompanied by innovative branding and marketing.

 

d’VineRipe’s story

 

A similar story is taking place in South Australia.

 

In February 2011, d’VineRipe, a Joint Venture between one of Australia’s leading private conglomerates The Victor Smorgon Group (led by its CEO Peter Edwards) and the Sydney-based fresh food marketing company Perfection Fresh Australia (led by CEO Michael Simonetta), completed  Stage 2 of its high-tech tomato glasshouse operations built for $30 million, as part of a $65 million investment, at Two Wells about 40km north of Adelaide in South Australia.

 

Spanning 17 hectares, the world-class glasshouse has the capacity to produce up to 10,000 tonnes of truss and specialty tomatoes a year. Stage 1 opened in 2007.

 

Mr Simonetta said the glasshouse’s expanded capacity in Stage 2 better placed d’VineRipe to provide consistent year-round supply, minimise peaks and troughs and respond faster to shortfalls.

 

Dutch glasshouse construction company, van der Hoeven greenhousebuilders, designed and built both the d’VineRipe glasshouse stages. More than 100 new jobs were created within the glasshouse and packing facility. The glasshouse also uses leading-edge technologies from Italy and Israel.

 

The leading-edge technologies and operating systems at the glasshouse include a co-generation plant which runs on natural gas to control the glasshouse climate, water sourced from Adelaide’s waste water supply via the Bolivar Water Reuse Project, a closed watering system, and innovative packing lines. The feasibility of generating renewable energies such as biogas to compost its own waste and an on-site nursery to propagate seeds are on d’VineRipe’s future agenda.

 

In June 2011, Jon Jones, an experienced project manager with a background in the Australian and US automotive and mining industries, took on the key management leadership role of d’VineRipe.  Mr Jones has a Masters of Engineering from the University of Michigan,USA (2008) and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of South Australia (1994). He is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers of Australia (APESMA) and Protected Cropping Australia.

 

The business has a five-year vision that includes doubling the glasshouse facility and its production output and establishing a seedling nursery. Technology called Fusion to track work rates and evaluate efficiencies has already been introduced early in Mr Jones’ tenure.

 

 Cedenco Australia

 

In July 2010, Australian Food News reported the takeover of the Echuca-based business of tomato-processor Cedenco Australia by a Japanese group in Victoria. The closure of the Heinz Gigarre plant may create opportunities for expansion of this tomato-processing business.

 

 Other Tomato Processors

 

Despite the high Australian dollar and tough competition from imported tomato-paste based products, there are opportunities for more Australian-based processors or brand-managers looking to source Australian-grown tomato ingredients for packaged foods lines in Australia.

 

CCA would need to be  exploring the options for introducing new and alternative tomato processing lines as part of the SPC-Ardmona restructuring.

 

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Detroit start-ups strike gold with compost

 

(The Detroit News) – In the age of urban farming, organic compost made from manure is a valuable commodity.

 

That's why two Detroit start-ups say they have hit compost gold after striking deals with the Detroit Zoo and Detroit Police Department's Mounted Patrol to be their major suppliers. In two different parts of Detroit, two outfits are cultivating the big heaping piles of this product.

 

The nonprofit Detroit Agriculture Network counts nearly 900 urban gardens within the city limits. Often they rely on suburban stores for their compost — made when micro-organisms break down plant and animal materials, creating a rich dark soil that is suitable to farm or simply grow plants.

 

Detroit Dirt, founded by Pashon Murray and Greg Willerer, is trying to change that because the suburban outlets sell the material for as much as $30 for a truckload, Willerer said.

 

"We want to be able to say that it's pure, no weeds in it," said Willerer, who runs a community farm called Brother Nature Produce in Detroit. "We don't give people compost — our premium stuff — that is going to create weeds."

 

The other start-up is a nonprofit called People for Palmer Park's Garden Club, whose piles of booty are housed at the former handball courts in Palmer Park, next to the stables for Detroit's mounted police unit.

 

Detroit Dirt started about a year ago and already has been a supplier to urban farmers as well as schools and city parks.

 

The supply of Detroit Dirt is located in southwest Detroit on a dead-end street, overlooking a freeway and next to train tracks. The land is donated by the Canadian Pacific Railroad in a deal struck with the help of the nonprofit Southwest Solutions, Willerer said.

 

In a space roughly the size of a soccer field, there stands at least a dozen mounds of compost, each of them more than six feet in height and as wide as a Chevrolet Volt. One of the sources of these mounds are plant eaters at the Detroit Zoo — such as the rhinoceros, giraffes and deer.

 

"We can take manure from them and use it, compost it, and grow food. We are returning something back to our same customer and client," Murray said.

 

The deal helps the zoo, too.

 

"We are very happy to be a supplier," said Melinda Ostrander, facilities superintendent at the zoo. "Previously this, uh, material, was just considered waste, and it was piling up at our facility. It's great for it to be a resource."

 

Detroit Dirt is finding use for what was once considered waste at many local businesses, including area restaurants.

 

"Everything (supplied) is within a 10-mile radius of us. A big part of what we are doing is exchanging resources within the community," Murray said.

 

One of Detroit Dirt's latest suppliers is General Motors Co. and the organic waste from its Renaissance Center headquarters.

 

By contrast, People for Palmer Park's Garden Club — managed by Dan Scarsella, a co-owner of Motor City Brewing Works in Detroit's Midtown — is mining horse compost piles.

 

The goal now is to use the proceeds from the compost to help fix the landscaping of Palmer Park. The garden club eventually hopes to supply all city parks to help alleviate city budget cuts, Scarsella said.

 

"We keep getting asked if we want to sell it, though, it's really in demand," he said.

 

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Qatar’s next superproject – A farm sector

 

DUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar's energy resources have given it one of the world's highest per capita incomes, a futuristic urban skyline and enough clout to host the 2022 soccer World Cup. But its wealth may not be enough for the arid state to achieve an even more ambitious goal: becoming largely self-sufficient in food.

 

Like other oil-rich, water-poor Gulf states, Qatar has been investing in large areas of farmland overseas to ensure access to food supplies. The agricultural arm of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, Hassad Food, has bought land in Sudan and Australia, and has announced plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on agricultural projects in countries including Kenya, Brazil, Argentina, Turkey and Ukraine.

 

But in contrast to the other Gulf states, Qatar also aims to produce most of its food domestically, by spending massively to boost crop yields and convert semi-desert into agricultural land.

 

Qatar's Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani issued a decree this year to organize the Qatar National Food Security Program (QNFSP), tackling "one of the most pressing challenges that Qatar is facing."

 

"Today, there are 1,400 farms in Qatar and they will increase to 3,000 farms with the new plan," said Fahad Bin Mohammed al-Attiya, the QNFSP's chairman.

 

"We anticipate that domestic food production, if new technologies are applied and the efficiency system enforced, can easily reach 60 percent of our market needs. We anticipate that domestic demand can be met by 60 to 70 percent."

 

Qatar, like the five other wealthy Gulf states, imports up to 90 percent of its food requirements. It has a population of about 1.7 million people, an estimated 20 percent of them Qatari citizens and most of the remainder foreign workers.

 

Attiya said implementation of the food security program would start in January 2014, after a period of preparation. "The implementation period is 10 years. By 2024 we should have a fully operating system."

 

It is a seductive vision, and Qatar's vast wealth as the world's top liquefied natural gas exporter will allow it to mobilise the best technology and equipment. But many economists and agricultural experts say Qatar's plans do not make economic sense -- and that there is little need for them, given the small size of the population.

 

"They don't have that much land they can put into production; much of it is desert. And Qatar has a very small population," said Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

 

"They import almost the entire cereals that they need for domestic consumption, something like 200,000 tonnes a year, which they cannot really produce. What they produce domestically is minimal. I don't really see much prospect."

 

Abbassian suggested the country might be better off focusing its investment on agricultural land in more temperate climates.

 

"Given the size of the country and the amount of imports which is rather modest, I would be surprised if it's really such a need to resort to such an investment, which is far more capital- and labour-intensive," he said. "Why would they do that rather than purchasing land globally?"

 

HOSTILE

 

Qatar's environment is hostile to agriculture, characterised by extreme heat, water scarcity and high soil salinity. Average precipitation in depth is just 74 millimetres (2.9 inches) per year, compared to the United Kingdom's 1,220 mm, FAO data shows. Only about 1 percent of Qatar's total land area of 11,590 square kilometres (4,475 square miles) is arable, according to the FAO.

 

Also, many experts do not see a strong need for Qatar to increase its food security. Although it is located in a volatile region of the world, its huge foreign currency reserves and comparatively small population mean it could probably arrange adequate new sources of food imports fairly easily in an emergency.

 

"When designing their food security strategies, countries with relatively low agricultural potential such as Qatar may be better advised to look beyond fostering domestic agricultural production," said Clemens Breisinger, research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.

 

"Given Qatar's low levels of food insecurity risk and low agricultural potential, it is important to carefully assess the opportunity costs of the investments planned under the QNFSP and to potentially consider alternative options for a food-secure Qatar, and a more food-secure world," he said.

 

In 2008, Saudi Arabia abandoned a push to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat, concluding that it was simply too expensive and wasteful in using domestic water resources. The country now plans to be 100 percent reliant on imports of wheat by 2016.

 

Mahendra Shah, food security advisor to the U.N. and director of international planning at Aquiess Rainaid, a company which develops rainfall technology to fight drought, said the drive to produce wheat domestically using underground water had caused environmental damage in Saudi Arabia.

 

"The underground water reservoirs are saline and severely depleted. This is an example of an ecological disaster that will take decades to recharge and clean up the aquifers."

 

But Qatar has shrugged off the example of its larger neighbour, showing the same ambition and faith in its financial power that led it to make other controversial but ultimately successful investments, including its World Cup bid, its creation of international television broadcaster Al Jazeera, and its backing of the rebel side during last year's Libyan revolution.

 

CROPS

 

Qatar's farming methods include open-field agriculture, greenhouse production, and hydroponics, a soil-less culture technology which uses less water and land and can yield up to 10 times the crop grown in an open field.

 

"The basket of products has to be diverse," the QNFSP's Attiya said. "The products will be mainly fruits and vegetables, and we're looking at cereals as well, fodder, livestock and fisheries."

 

One of the prototype farms, the Al Sulaiteen Agricultural and Industrial Complex (SAIC), is located in the desert a short drive from Qatar's capital Doha.

 

"We are producers of vegetables, seasonal flowering plants and outdoor plants. We have one of the largest landscape projects in Qatar, with 40 hectares (99 acres) of land," said Mahmoud Refaat Shamardal, SAIC's agriculture sector manager.

 

SAIC, which started vegetable production in 2001, is growing tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants and other vegetables through a combination of greenhouses, hydroponic systems and regular farming. It supplies supermarkets and hotels.

 

"We use artificial soil to produce the vegetables. With this system we can save around 50 percent of water, and water is a very important factor here in Qatar," said Shamardal.

 

Qatar now produces around 23 percent of its requirement of vegetables. They are grown by 56 percent of the country's farmers and take up 11 percent of its cultivated farm area, according to the QNFSP.

 

The country's aquifers are already severely depleted, Attiya said. But the QNFSP plans to obtain agricultural water from seawater desalination using solar parks, and only keep aquifers as strategic water reserves.

 

"Once we have achieved solar desalination, we will ask the farmers to stop using the aquifers," he said.

 

While Qatar's technology is impressive, however, experts say it will be difficult to apply the techniques to a full range of crops, especially cereals.

 

"Certain commodities like fish, eggs and poultry can be produced locally with an increased level of self-sufficiency," said food security advisor Shah.

 

"Aquaculture can be used for fish, controlled environment production for poultry and eggs, but when it comes to cereals, the scale of the water required -- this has to be carefully thought through."

 

Attiya said total costs for the QNFSP had not yet been calculated. While Qatar does not lack money, it is hoped that private sector involvement will make the program efficient and responsive to consumer demand.

 

"The funds will come both from the private sector and the public sector. All the regulatory functions, the research and education, policy, legislation and regulation, that will be entirely funded by the state," said Attiya.

 

"The rest, in terms of the development of the power plant, desalination plant, and all the financing of all the different upgrades of the farms, that will happen by the private sector."

 

Attracting enough private businessmen may be difficult, however, especially if they are restricted in where they can sell their produce under the terms of the QNFSP.

 

"It is very important to note that the food security plan in Qatar is subject to zero export policy," Attiya said.

 

"If anything is produced in Qatar, that production cannot be exported for reason of protecting our natural resources. Because of the water involved in producing food, a country like Qatar that is very dry cannot export water through food."

 

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