" I heard it through the AgLine"

February 2, 2010

 

 

·        GM tomato lasts up to 45 days, scientists say

·        New glyphosate resistance prompts warning

·        Obama budget proposes cutting farm subsidies

·        How do watermelons get so big so fast – Study

·        Peru: Growers switch from cocaine to chocolate

 

 

GM tomato lasts up to 45 days, scientists say

 

(The Scotsman) – TOMATOES genetically modified to stay fresh for 30 days longer have been developed by scientists.

 

The team found a way to keep tomatoes firm for 45 days, when usually they would start to go soft after 15. They said the breakthrough could apply to other fruit – including bananas, mangoes and papaya.

 

The scientists identified the chemicals that make tomatoes go soft. By suppressing two enzymes, known as A-Man and B-Hex, which accumulate at critical stages during ripening, the researchers were able to extend shelf-life by a month.

 

They believe the finding could provide a boost for farmers who can lose almost half their harvest because of softening that makes their fruit shrivel up and go rotten before they can get it to the shops.

 

Dr Asis Datta and colleagues at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research in New Delhi used genetic engineering to "silence" the enzymes in tomatoes and showed those lacking A-Man were about two-and-a-half times firmer than conventional counterparts. Tomatoes without B-Hex were twice as hard.

 

Both types of genetically modified tomatoes retained their texture and firmness for up to 45 days compared with conventional ones which started shrinking and softening after only 15.

 

The researchers whose findings are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said the GM plants grew normally and produced typical amounts of vegetation and fruit which matured at the usual rate.

 

Dr Datta said: "Overall the results demonstrate a substantial improvement in fruit shelf-life."

 

Previous efforts have been made to combat the problem by blocking proteins that damage fruit cells but these have met with "very limited success", he said.

 

He emphasised that there were no "ill effects". "In conclusion the engineering of plants provides a strategy for crop improvement that can be extended to other important fruit crops," he said.

 

India, the world's second largest producer of fruit and vegetables, loses about 40 per cent of produce due to softening.

 

The Scottish Government has a moratorium on planting GM crops in Scotland.

 

It argues this respects the consumers who demand locally-produced conventional and organic food.

 

In 2008, scientists developed purple tomatoes which they argued may be able to keep cancer at bay. They incorporated genes from the snapdragon flower, which is high in an antioxidant pigment called anthocyanin that is thought to have anti-cancer properties.

 

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New glyphosate resistance prompts warning

 

(Stock & Land) – A NEW form of glyphosate resistance has prompted a warning that the herbicide has "become as important for reliable global food production as penicillin is for battling disease".

 

A vigorous weed of cotton fields in the south-east United States, Palmer amaranth, has been found capable of resisting the effects of glyphosate through "gene amplification", the third type of resistance mechanism now discovered, and one that has rung alarm bells with researchers.

 

Winthrop Professor at the University of Western Australia, Stephen Powles, wrote in an introduction to the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) that massive adoption of transgenic glyphosate-resistant crops has meant "excessive reliance" on glyphosate for weed control.

 

"In evolutionary terms, widespread and persistent glyphosate use without diversity in weed control practices is a strong selection pressure for weeds able to survive glyphosate," Professor Powles wrote.

 

Plant genes that endow glyphosate resistance are very rare, but the huge volumes of the chemical sprayed on the world's crops is helping those genes come to the fore.

 

"Glyphosate resistance evolution is a major adverse development because glyphosate is a one in a 100-year discovery that is as important for reliable global food production as penicillin is for battling disease."

 

Glyphosate acts by inhibiting a plant enzyme, EPSPS.

 

Researchers had previously found two modes of glyphosate resistance: a mutation of EPSPS that is not affected by the chemical, or more usually, a single gene mutation that restricts movement of glyphosate in the plant, preventing it from reaching EPSPS in toxic levels.

 

A scientific team led by Dr Todd Gaines, formerly of Colorado State University but now working on the Western Australia Herbicide Resistance Initiative (WAHRI), has now found that Palmer amaranth can genetically multiply its output of EPSPS.

 

"It acts like a sponge to absorb the normal rate of glyphosate that we apply to these plants, and so they survive," Dr Gaines said.

 

"What's really interesting is the capacity of these plants to evolve extra gene copies. It would certainly be reasonable to expect other plants to exhibit this same behaviour."

 

Professor Powles noted that insects have been known to amplify genes that detoxify insecticides, but in this case Palmers amaranth is amplifying the target gene itself to produce something like 20 times the quantity of the enzyme that normal applications of glyphosate shut down.

 

"With this development, we have an even stronger basis to urge world agriculture to use glyphosate-resistant crop technology more wisely than has occurred until now," Professor Powles said in his PNAS commentary.

 

"Indeed, the precious herbicide glyphosate is at risk of being driven into redundancy because of overuse without diversity in weed control practices."

 

"It is not an exaggeration to state that the potential loss of glyphosate to signiÞcant areas of world cropping is a threat to global food production. To avert this situation requires that glyphosate be used more judiciously and with more diversity than is currently the case."

 

The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) reported that in 2008, "...herbicide tolerance deployed in soybean, maize, canola, cotton and alfalfa [lucerne] occupied 63 per cent or 79 million hectares of the global biotech area of 125 million hectares".

 

Dr Gaines said most of that inbuilt resistance was to glyphosate.

 

ISAAA also noted that by 2008, the world had planted a cumulative 800 million hectares, or two billion acres, of biotech crops.

 

Dr Gaines paper on gene amplification appeared with Professor Powles's commentary in the January 2010 edition of PNAS.

 

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Obama budget proposes cutting farm subsidies

 

(DesMoinesRegister.com) Washington, D.C. — The White House is proposing again to cut subsidies to many commercial-scale farms and also wants to slash payments to the crop insurance industry.

 

President Barack Obama’s proposed 2011 budget would save taxpayers $9.8 billion over the next decade by phasing out fixed annual payments received by grain and cotton farmers with sales of more than $500,000 a year. Congress quickly scuttled a similar proposal a year ago when farm groups complained that the cut could hit some mid-size farms as well as large operations.

 

Crop insurance companies would see a cut of $5.2 billion over 10 years. The administration had been circulating a plan to cut nearly that much over just five years to much protest from the 15 insurance companies, four of which are based in Iowa. An industry trade group offered to take a cut of just $100 million over five years.

 

The White House said the industry’s government earnings from the program amount to a “corporate subsidy” that has grown disproportionately large.

 

Crop insurance premiums are heavily subsidized by the federal government. Companies and agents are paid for overhead costs, and the companies also pocket most of the profit from the policies when premiums exceed losses. The program’s profitability has soared in recent years as premiums have soared along with the prices of the insured commodities.

 

The president’s budget also includes cuts in several other Agriculture Department programs. One that subsidized overseas marketing promotion of U.S. food would be reduced by $358 million over 10 years.

 

Also proposed for a cut is a program that subsidizes hunting leases on private land.

 

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How do watermelons get so big so fast – Study

 

(USDA-ARS) – Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists are studying how watermelons grow from tiny flowers to plus-size, market-ready produce in only five weeks. Their findings have resulted in the first reported large-scale study that identified and characterized key genes regulating watermelon growth and development.

 

The researchers included plant geneticist Amnon Levi and plant pathologist Pat Wechter at the ARS U.S. Vegetable Laboratory in Charleston, S.C. Plant geneticist Karen Harris at the ARS Crop Genetics and Breeding Research Unit in Tifton, Ga., plant geneticist Angela Davis at the ARS South Central Agricultural Research Laboratory in Lane, Okla., and molecular biologist Jim Giovannoni at the ARS Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health in Ithaca, N.Y., also contributed to the research.

 

Tissue was taken from watermelons at three distinct stages during growth and ripening. Then the team analyzed RNA from all the tissue samples and used the RNA to develop a library of genes called expressed sequence tags (ESTs), which are unique gene segments involved in different aspects of development and metabolism.

 

The researchers found that these genes were active in metabolism, cell growth, cell development, and transporting nutrients and other substances across cell walls. The genes also came into play in cell division, cellular communication, DNA copying, plant defense and stress response.

 

The scientists also found a large number of ESTs that appear to be modulated in the fruit during development and ripening. But they can't match them up with any other known plant ESTs, so they may be unique to watermelon.

 

This information could benefit plant breeders and watermelon producers alike. Since cultivated watermelons are not genetically diverse, they are more vulnerable to pathogens and environmental stresses. So finding sources of genetic resistance to watermelon diseases is essential to the continued success of U.S. production.

 

Results from this study were published in Biomed Central Genomics.

 

Read more about this research in the November/December 2009 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.

 

ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This research supports the USDA priority of promoting international food security.

 

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Peru: Growers switch from cocaine to chocolate

 

(Time Magazine) – The certificate was only one of several that emerged from the prestigious Salon du Chocolat in Paris, the annual summit of the world's master chocolatiers. But it may be enough to start a revolution in Peru. In October 2009, chocolate produced from the cacao beans of a small agricultural cooperative deep in one of the country's rain forests was named the most aromatic in the world by the Salon. "We used to be known for making cocaine paste, but now we are known for chocolate," says Elena Rios, 52, secretary of the Tocache Agroindustrial Cooperative. Rios herself gave up growing coca leaves 10 years ago, opting to take part in a program to replace her plants with cacao. "There were only 12 of us when we started, now we have hundreds. Our success is contagious. No one wants to grow coca in Tocache, everyone is thinking about chocolate." (Comment on this story)

 

Indeed, such is the local excitement that Peru's San Martin department, where Tocache is located, wants to put itself on the map as the chocolate capital of the world. Located in the lush tropics where the Andes mountain range gives way to the northern Amazon rain forest, San Martin has a wilder reputation from its recent past: for years it was a bastion for the rebels of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and the much more violent Maoist fighters of the Shining Path. Hand-in-hand with subversion came drug-trafficking, with the surrounding countryside perfect terrain for coca, from which cocaine is processed. (See pictures of what the world eats.)

 

While the two subversive groups have been defeated, San Martin still has some coca — around 800 acres (374 hectares) according to the latest U.N. survey on coca crops — but that is minuscule compared to what it used to cultivate. Coffee and cacao (chocolate) farms have taken hold instead. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) talks about a "San Martin model" as a success story for replacing coca with legal crops. Chocolate is leading the way.

 

"We are working to identify Peru with chocolate, the way Colombia is identified with coffee. We have the world's best beans," says Blanca Panizo, who works for the Alternative Development Program, a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-backed initiative promoting crops to replace coca. San Martin's top cacao producers hosted a tasting fair in Tarapoto, the department's largest city, in mid-January for a U.S. delegation including Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, who was in town for a day. Steinberg walked away with bags of rich, dark chocolate, telling growers that his two daughters loved chocolate.

 

More importantly, Steinberg told them the U.S. would remain on their side in the long process of replacing coca with legal crops. He said alternative development programs "must involve the communities, giving them ownership and the ability to shape programs. The strategy in San Martin has a lot of promise." (Read about how the Swiss invented a no-melt, low-cal chocolate.)

 

Peru is the world's second largest coca producer after Colombia, with nearly 139,000 acres (56,250 hectares) covered by the crop, according to the UNODC. While land dedicated to coca has declined noticeably in San Martin, it has increased nationwide throughout the last decade. Eradication brigades eliminated around 25,000 acres (10,117 hectares) last year. A similar amount is targeted for 2010.

 

Nevertheless, cacao exports were up more than 400% in the last decade and production this year will be around 35,000 metric tons, putting Peru close to the top 10 biggest producers. The U.S. program invested more than $110 million in alternative development plans in Peru in the last decade. The program involves nearly half of the 150,000 acres (60, 703 hectares) of cacao planted in the country. The goal is to expand not only in San Martin, but throughout the country's tropics. About 60% of Peru's territory is jungle.

 

If the plan works, there will be chocolate for all tastes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is working with a local research center in San Martin, the Institute for Tropical Crops (ITC), to identify new varieties of cacao beans. The institute is studying 342 specimens collected from 12 watersheds. "We are working on categorizing the DNA of cacao," says ITC Director Enrique Arevalo. The work will eventually lead to the creation of a Peru-specific chocolate that could be marketed the way countries sell wine. Hiderico Bocangel, general manager of San Martin's Oro Verde cooperative, says Peru is already creating a niche in the chocolate world. "We have the perfect conditions here to produce exceptional chocolate," he says.

 

There is, of course, stiff competition. Neighboring Ecuador already has a jump on Peru, pushing for its "national" or arriba bean to be granted geographic indication — or certified origin — just like French Champagne. There are five chocolatiers in Ecuador marketing chocolate based on origin and organic production. They have USDA organic certificates and can be found in supermarket chains in the United States. Peruvian chocolate producers have not gotten that far. "Our job is to get the word out," says Bocangel. "This visit [by the Steinberg delegation] is important for us to do that."

 

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