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January 27, 2011
· Feds mandate more fruits, veggies for kids
· Mystery bug destroying Philippine rice crop
· Wine giant president on ‘Undercover Boss’
· Thorny tool may help clean soils, waterways
· Complications arise when hacking the planet
Feds mandate more fruits, veggies for kids
(CNN and industry reports) -- School meals will have to offer fruits and vegetables to students every day under standards issued by the United States Department of Agriculture this week.
The meal programs, which feed about 32 million students in public and private schools, will have to reduce sodium, saturated fat and trans fats. Schools must also offer more whole grains as well as fat-free or low-fat milk varieties.
These standards go into effect July 1 and will be phased in over a three-year period, according to the USDA.
The new nutrition standards are largely based on
recommendations by the
Under the new rules, school meals will have calorie minimums and maximums per meal based on the child's age. For kindergarteners to fifth-graders, meals must contain 550 to 650 calories, and for 9th- to 12th-graders, meals must have 450 to 600 calories.
Children will not be forced to take the vegetables and fruits onto their plates; the standards require that the various food groups be offered.
United Fresh Produce Association reacted enthusiastically to the new guidelines.
“We are very excited that fruits and vegetables will be the stars of healthier school meals. Children like fresh fruits and vegetables and they will be eating more next school year when this regulation takes effect,” said Dr. Lorelei DiSogra, United’s vice president of nutrition and health. “Increasing children’s consumption of fruits and vegetables will improve their health and reduce their risk of childhood obesity.”
“Our members are partnering with schools across the country to increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables in school meals,” said United President Tom Stenzel. "This is a great step towards providing our children with a foundation for healthy eating for the rest of their lives, and the fresh produce industry is proud to be involved.”
Health groups reacted to the rules mostly favorably, although a controversy erupted in November after Congress decided that two tablespoons of tomato sauce was good enough to categorize a slice of pizza as a vegetable.
Kevin Concannon, the USDA under secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, said he wasn't concerned with the tomato paste controversy at this point.
"I'm confident we have a core healthy set of proposed diets for children," he said. "We can, within that, accommodate those recommendations received from Congress."
Food and beverages sold in vending machines will also have to meet nutritional standards.
First lady Michelle Obama and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack unveiled the standards Wednesday.
"When we send our kids to school, we expect that they won't be eating the kind of fatty, salty, sugary foods that we try to keep them from eating at home," Obama said in a news release. "We want the food they get at school to be the same kind of food we would serve at our own kitchen tables."
The USDA offered a weekly sample lunch menu with before and after comparisons.
Before the new rules, a standard elementary school lunch menu might consist of cheese pizza, canned pineapple, tater tots and chocolate milk. A healthier meal under the new standards would have whole-wheat cheese pizza, baked sweet potato fries, raw grape tomatoes, low-fat ranch dip, applesauce and low-fat milk.
Some parts of the major revamp of school lunches have been rejected by students. The Los Angeles Times reported in December that students trashed the untouched healthier meals and started a booming underground market for junk food. Cafeteria workers in Chicago Public Schools reported that kids were not eating the healthy meals, according to the Chicago Tribune.
"If it's not delicious, kids aren't going to eat it," said Sam Kass, assistant White House chef. "I have lots of confidence in school chefs across the country who are working very hard to try to put delicious foods on the plates of kids."
He cited a Chefs Move to Schools Program, involving 35,000 school chefs who strive to innovate for better-tasting, healthy meals for kids.
The new standards are expected to cost $3.2 billion over the next five years, which was less than the initial estimated price, according to the USDA.
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 gave the federal government more authority to set standards for food sold in vending machines and elsewhere on school grounds.
"The new school meal standards are one of the most important advances in nutrition in decades," said Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "They're much needed, given high childhood obesity rates and the poor state of our children's diets."
The School Nutrition Association, which represents 55,000 school nutrition professionals, said, "Through healthier choices and nutrition education, school meal programs have made tremendous strides to promote better food choices for America's students. These national nutrition standards will help school nutrition professionals build on their successes."
Mystery bug destroying Philippine rice crop
(Malaya Business Insight) – A BUG that destroys half of rice fields pose potentially devastating consequences to the country’s staple food.
Crop protection scientists are bothered and bewildered over the as yet unknown bug that affects the rice panicles, from the flowering to the milking stage, resulting in unfilled or discolored grains that eventually reduce quality and yield.
The extent of the damage is not known but the infestation causes rice grains to crack during milling due to mold infestation on the affected grains. If not dried soon after harvest, the grains also taste bitter.
About 50 percent and even up to 70 percent of the rice crop
was destroyed last year in 75 hectares in two barangays
in Ragay, Camarines Sur,
and 25 hectares in one barangay in Dimasalang, Masbate, Dr. Evangeline C. de la Trinidad, head
of
"Once a rice field is infested by the grain bug, it is damaged and will not recover," she said. The tiny bug stabs a rice grain with its stylet then sucks dry the milk-like substance inside. "If it is near harvest, the grain turns whitish and unfilled," De la Trinidad observed. "If the rice is not at the milk stage, the grain turns black or discolored."
"It is a small and fast moving insect," she said. "It can easily move in the water and can spread through irrigation canals. And it can slide down the rice plant easily."
"And it seems to affect all rice varieties, although this observation is still being validated," De la Trinidad said during a meeting last week of the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Regional Crop Protection Centers and the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI). "Affected farmers are alarmed."
"It’s not known whether other parts of the rice plant are affected," she said. "The rice looks healthy from afar, but at closer look, most grains are damaged and unfilled and are discolored. Some farmers have seen grain bugs inside the rice panicle, so maybe infestation have already started at this stage."
"Our concern is that it’s new and nobody knows what it is," said Dr. Jesus Binamira who heads the DA Integrated Pest Management program. "At the present level, the infestation is not alarming."
"We’re a bit concerned because it is something that is not normal," he added. "We don’t even know the scientific name."
Because not all farmers know of the bug, the infestation might be underreported at less than 300 hectares so far, he said in an interview.
"If infestation is more than 10 percent, then that is alarming," said Wilma Cuaterno, Chief of the BPI Crop Protection Division. "If it’s a rice pest we are always alarmed even how small the infestation, because rice is our staple. It might affect our rice self-sufficiency target."
"There is no cause for alarm, so far," she added. " We are concerned although we are not sure yet if this will become a big problem."
"What we know for certain is that it is a bug," said her colleague, senior agriculturist Remigio Tabil. "That’s because all bugs smell and has a triangle or scutellum on the back. We don’t know whether it is common here or it came from abroad."
Sightings
The first grain bug specimens were collected on June 14 in
the towns of
It has reportedly been sighted in Zamboanga
del Sur last January 6. Still to be confirmed are
sightings in Ligmanan, Camarines
"We really didn’t pay attention when it was first
sighted in
The specimens are now with a taxonomist at the International Rice Research Institute for scientific evaluation and identification, said Cuaterno.
It was temporarily identified by the
Crop protection scientists called the pest the rice seed bug, dirt-colored seed bug and rice grain bug. In a meeting last week, they agreed to call it a grain bug.
Binamira said there is a
similarity to the rice black bug which is not endemic but has spread mostly in
Mindanao although
The crop protection scientists said it’s the grain bug.
That is not a welcome verdict. The black bug infestation
became a political issue in
Like the biblical locusts, the black bugs fly in swarms especially during the full moon.
"They are so numerous during full moon and cling to clothes, disrupting social events like village dances," said de la Trinidad. "And the bugs smell."
Since then, a natural control has been developed. It uses fungus spores mixed with water then sprayed on rice plants. Interestingly, black bug infestation disappears when chemical pesticides are not applied extensively.
With the grain bug, crop protection scientists are now drawing up a protocol to study its biology before the rainy season in June.
"We have to fast track the biologic study in time for the coming planting season," Binamira said. "At the same time we have to look at how it spreads, did it come from somewhere, about its natural enemies and the ecological imbalance involved."
He said an imbalance is caused when, for example, too much pesticides use also kills natural predators, causing the grain bug to thrive and become a pest.
"You have to understand that with insects, not all are pests," he said. "We are investigating why the grain bug has become a pest when before it was not."
As example, he cited the coconut leaf beetle which attacks
coconuts. It is not a pest in
As for the rice grain bug, local governments have been alerted. "We really can’t recommend specific controls because we haven’t studied its biology yet," De la Trinidad said.
"The pest seems to transfer from one rice field to another as rice planting is not synchronous," she pointed out.
"We are puzzled why adjacent rice fields, provinces and even regions are not affected by the grain bug," said Cuaterno.
While the grain bug is present in Bicol, it is not in
neighboring
For the moment, the BPI is asking farmers to be vigilant and immediately report the presence of the grain bug to crop protection centers.
Wine giant president on ‘Undercover Boss’
(SFGate.com) – Kendall-Jackson doesn't want to be your grandmother's Chardonnay.
Instead of going the traditional route of promoting their wines, they've taken a millennial approach: the Internet, YouTube, social networking.
And now, reality TV.
On Jan. 29, the public will get up close and personal to the
Fifty-year-old Rick Tigner sheds
his three-piece suit for a Stetson and a pair of cowboy boots to pose as Jake,
a good-old-boy grocery store manager from
Really, Tigner is taking the pulse of his billion-dollar company - parent of such labels as Murphy Goode, La Crema, La Jota, Freemark Abbey and Australia's Yangarra - which has been left in flux after the death of its larger-than-life founder, Jess Jackson, a glut of layoffs and a freeze of the company's 401(k) plan due to the flagging economy. Just to make sure that none of the workers recognizes Tigner, the show's producers cut his hair short and dye it black, change his blue eyes to brown with contact lenses and give him a horseshoe mustache and braces.
Presumably so the television audience sees that he's a regular guy with regular problems, he tearfully talks during the hour-long episode about his parents' divorce when he was a young boy, how his father went to prison and eventually died of a drug overdose and how his wife, Wendy, lives with Parkinson's disease.
Tough decision
But the decision to bare his soul on the show didn't come easy, Tigner said.
Despite others who have come before him, including Ben Flajnik, a
"In the end, we decided it would be good for
"It's fantastic," said Honore
Comfort, executive director of Sonoma County Vintners. "It's a testament
to the commitment Jess Jackson had for
"Undercover Boss" fit into the company's recent unconventional advertising efforts, said Caroline Shaw, spokeswoman for Jackson Family Wines. Probably most notable was the 2009 Murphy-Goode online contest calling for public votes to help the company find a "lifestyle correspondent" via YouTube and Twitter. The competition garnered controversy, however, when public favorites were cut from the final running.
"We're trying to touch a larger audience," Shaw said, adding that most wine companies stick to the same standard advertising vehicles. "We think this steps outside the usual bands of communication. One of our core initiatives is to be innovative. This is an effort to get ahead on that."
But it's risky, said Kit Yarrow, a psychologist specializing
in consumer behavior and marketing strategies and professor at
"While it's an effective way of connecting with a certain kind of consumer - people under the age of 33 and those who gravitate toward reality television - because it's hip and cool, it could alienate an older crowd that perceives itself as more sophisticated," she said.
Youth appeal
Yarrow does think that Tigner's background will resonate with young viewers.
"For them, there is no such thing as over-sharing," she said. "And in fact they'll root for him as an underdog."
That was Kendall-Jackson's thinking as well.
"The consumers who know us and see the show will continue to take our brand and the ones who don't will get to know us," Shaw said.
Through the course of the show, Tigner finds out that there may be a disconnect between management and the rank and file. For example: During Jake's stint working in the Murphy Goode tasting room, he meets a single mother who is putting in 38 to 40 hours a week there, but is still only considered part-time and therefore not eligible for benefits.
On the show, Tigner is left to contemplate, "I do think about us being a family business," he says. "I think about her and her three kids. As the president of the company, how do I help?"
He learns that there are communication problems in the vineyards because most of the workers speak Spanish, while their managers converse mainly in English. And he discovers that some of the company's most dedicated workers are underappreciated.
Boss' dilemma
Then there's Rene, a Kendall-Jackson truck driver who talks like a truck driver and shows disrespect for the customers. Tigner is caught in the conundrum of whether to fire Rene on the spot and blow his cover or to let his bad attitude slide.
How does he resolve these problems?
For the answers, readers will have to watch the show, because CBS embargoed the conclusion.
Seeing the show
The "Undercover Boss" episode featuring Rick Tigner airs at 8 p.m. Jan. 29 on CBS.
Thorny tool may help clean soils, waterways
(USDA-ARS)
– A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist has discovered what may be
an effective tool for cleaning up soils and waterways in parts of
Ancient seas once covered the west side of the valley, and those seas left behind marine sediments, shale formations and deposits of selenium and other minerals in the soil. Crops grown there need to be irrigated, but the resulting runoff, when it contains high levels of selenium, can be toxic to fish, migratory birds, and other wildlife that drink from waterways and drainage ditches. Selenium runoff is subject to monitoring by regional water quality officials.
Soil scientist Gary Bañuelos with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) thinks he has found a promising way to rid the soil of selenium: planting prickly pear cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica). The plant takes up selenium from the soil and volatilizes it, reducing deposits that would otherwise enter drainage ditches and waterways.
ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency, and this research supports the USDA commitment to agricultural sustainability.
Bañuelos, who works at the
Prickly pear was thought to be sensitive to high salinity, and many of the plants grown in test plots were smaller and produced less fruit than those in control soil plots. But the results, published in Soil Use and Management, showed that prickly pear grew reasonably well in the poor quality soils with very little water.
The studies also showed that the plants took up selenium,
volatizing some of it and keeping some in their fruit and leaf-like stems
(cladodes), and that tolerance to salinity and boron depends on the genotype.
The cactus variety from
Complications arise when hacking the planet
(The New York Times) – As scientists, with some reluctance, begin to study the idea of “geoengineering” the planet to slow or halt global warming, they are finding that any such program would quite likely have a complex array of effects, not all of them to humanity’s benefit.
In a paper released last Sunday by the journal Nature
Climate Change, four
Fears have long been expressed, however, that while a strategy like this might slow the overall warming, it could wreak havoc on global food security by altering rainfall patterns and other aspects of climate. Particular concern centers on the effects that such a strategy might have on the Asian monsoon, the source of water for crops that feed billions of people. The monsoon is driven by heating over land from strong sunshine in the summertime.
The new work, led by Julia Pongrantz of the Carnegie Institution for Science, found the opposite of these longstanding fears: managing incoming sunlight would probably benefit crop yields over all. The reason is that the technique would limit some of the damaging climate changes that are expected to hurt yields, like excessive temperatures in the growing season, but would nonetheless allow plants to benefit from higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The latter are rising, of course, because of fossil-fuel burning and are the main reason for global warming in the first place, but extra carbon dioxide does act as a kind of plant fertilizer.
The sunlight-limiting strategy would indeed weaken the Asian monsoon, the paper found, but not enough to offset the other benefits of the approach.
Despite their findings, the researchers suggested that much more work would be needed to understand the likely effects of a sunlight management strategy on agriculture. And they pointed out that the true consequences of such a program would be hard to foresee, producing regional winners and losers even if overall food output did increase. “The safest option to reduce the climate risks to global food security may be to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases,” they wrote.
(Aside from the paper itself, a news release is available here, and short videos with some of the authors can be viewed here and here.)
In contrast to that work, another recent paper found potentially severe problems with using geoengineering to limit the effects of sea-level rise.
The ocean is rising as the planet warms and land ice melts, and scientists expect that rise to accelerate in the future — perhaps to the point of becoming a global crisis, given that many of the world’s major cities are in low-lying coastal regions. So a complex set of questions revolves around whether a geoengineering approach could slow the rise.
The new paper, published online on Jan. 8 by the journal
Nature Climate Change, was led by Peter J. Irvine at the
That is because air temperatures are believed to respond quickly to changes like reduced sunlight, whereas sea level — involving the slow melting of land ice and the gradual absorption of heat by the ocean, causing it to expand — responds much more slowly. In the language of the paper, “surface air temperatures react faster than sea levels to changes in earth’s radiative balance.”
That means that to halt sea-level rise quickly, a program of managing sunlight would have to be so aggressive that it would produce a rapid cooling of the planet’s air temperature — perhaps too fast for organisms and agriculture to adjust well. Conversely, a sunlight management program designed to produce a gentler reduction in the air temperature might fail to halt sea-level rise.
The scientists doubt that any optimal strategy could be
found that would benefit all of humanity. Instead, they foresee potential
conflicts between countries that care most about sea level (think of the
The bottom line of these studies is that even as they dive into research questions on geoengineering, scientists are perhaps inevitably coming to the conclusion that we would be better off limiting our emissions now rather than handing future generations a mess that may not be at all easy to clean up.
End Transmission