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February 4, 2011
· High-tech advances for sustainable farming
· Mexico losing its taste for native corn
· American farmers get growing in Mexico
· Dow Agro upbeat over sales and profits
· ANTS a model for tractor of the future
High-tech advances for sustainable farming
(TheScientist.com) – The debate over genetically engineered crops rages on, but other technologies offer new hope for sustainable farming.
In November 2010 a federal judge in
Monsanto, a multinational agricultural biotechnology
company, genetically engineered the sugar beets to be resistant to the
company’s weed killer Roundup. Known as Roundup Ready beets,
the variety accounts for some 95 percent of the sugar beet crop grown in the
And sugar beets are just one example. The debate over GE crops continues to rage: while environmentalists worry about the crops’ effects on surrounding ecosystems, proponents of genetic engineering argue that GE crops, which can increase yields while minimizing toxic pesticide use, are needed to produce enough food for the 9 billion people predicted to inhabit the Earth by the mid-21st century.
“What gets lost in this debate in the US, where we have so much to eat, is that sustainability is important to feed the poor and malnourished and provide food at a cost that they can afford,” says Pamela Ronald, professor of plant pathology at the University of California, Davis. GE crops may provide part of the solution, she adds. “Genetically engineered seeds are just seeds. You can use them in any part of the world and in [almost] any system.”
Most European countries, on the other hand, have opted for precaution, insisting that GE crops must be proved completely safe for human consumption and the environment before farmers integrate them into their methods. They and others opposed to the use of GE crops cite the risk, for example, that engineered genes will be spread by wind and potentially contaminate organic fields, which ban genetic manipulation, and that crops engineered to be pest-resistant may inadvertently affect harmless insect populations. Furthermore, “the randomness inherent in our current technology for inserting novel DNA into a plant genome,” says Charles Benbrook, chief scientist at The Organic Center, a Colorado-based research organization that studies the benefits of organic farming, “[may lead to] a host of uncertainties that arise in how the modified plant is going to behave.”
But GE crops aren’t the only answer to the world’s growing food shortage. Researchers are currently working to develop alternative technologies that may offer benefits similar to those of genetic engineering but avoid much of the attendant controversy. Marker-assisted breeding, for example, chooses plants based on the presence of specific genes instead of phenotypic traits, accelerating artificial selection for beneficial traits without the introduction of transgenes. Similarly, the nascent technology of RNA interference (RNAi) has the potential to pinpoint specific pest targets and avoid killing insects that pose no threat to the crops.
“I do not see genetic engineering as some sort of magic
bullet,” says Eric Rey, CEO of Arcadia Biosciences in
Making use of markersUnlike conventional breeding, which selects and breeds plants based on a phenotypic traits, marker-assisted selection (MAS) uses genetic markers known to be linked to traits of interest to identify superior plants for breeding. Using a technique called positional cloning, researchers narrow down the genome until the desired gene is located, and then design molecular markers to recognize allelic variation between individuals. MAS can help breeders avoid the trial and error involved with choosing individuals based on traits that are difficult to measure, like pest or drought resistance, and go straight to their genetic source, significantly speeding up the selection process.
“By reducing the number of generations and making it possible to more [rapidly] identify plants with superior gene and allelic combinations, marker-assisted selection reduces the time it takes to develop and release a stable, higher-yielding commercial cultivar or variety that is more tolerant to environmental stresses or resistant to pests and pathogens,” says Michael Gore, a geneticist at the US Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center in Arizona, which uses marker-assisted breeding to develop more productive crops such as cotton. And because the final products are fundamentally the same as conventional crops, nontransgenic plants bred using MAS technology are not subjected to additional regulatory hurdles, Gore added. Indeed, MAS-bred crops, such as corn and soybeans, are currently on the market.
Arcadia Biosciences also works with marker-assisted breeding
in combination with a proprietary technology called TILLING. After creating a
genetically diverse population of plants using chemical mutagenesis, the
TILLING approach uses high-throughput sequencing techniques that “very rapidly
find genetic variations in individual plants that might be valuable,” says Rey.
With this technology,
MAS also improves another technique traditionally employed in agriculture called backcrossing. The purpose of backcrossing is to move a trait, like pesticide resistance, from a native or genetically engineered cultivar into the genome of a commercial variety while retaining most of the commercial line’s genome. Using markers helps accelerate this process, says Gore, because researchers are again able to select specific genes of interest without using phenotypes. According to Charles Pick of DNA LandMarks Inc., a genomics company that works exclusively with MAS, most conventional corn backcrossing schemes need four to six generations before the line is ready to be released commercially. Using markers, a breeder can achieve the same end product in just two generations, trimming 1 to 2 years off the development time, Pick says.
Specialized silencingTaking advantage of a natural cellular pathway called RNA interference (RNAi), researchers have developed a way to selectively silence or downregulate specific genes. While this technology is commonly used in basic biology labs to study gene functions, researchers have recently begun to apply it to agriculture, developing crops that have many of the same benefits of GE crops, but are even more selective when targeting pests or traits like disease resistance.
RNAi was first directly observed by researchers studying petunias in the early 1990s. After inserting additional copies of a cloned petunia gene related to pigmentation in an attempt to produce flowers with darker colors, researchers unexpectedly produced lighter, or even completely white, flowers, suggesting that the gene for pigmentation had been knocked down. In 1998 researchers finally nailed down RNAi’s mechanism—short, single-stranded RNA molecules bind to specific sections of messenger RNA (mRNA) transcripts, inhibiting translation. Though still in its early days, RNAi has already proven to be a promising method for regulating the expression of specific genes in crops without causing off-target effects.
Researchers at Bayer CropScience, for example, have shown that downregulating the genes that control the production of poly (ADP ribose) polymerase (PARP), an enzyme activated under stress to protect DNA, produced plants that were more tolerant to drought, heat, and high levels of ozone. When PARP genes are downregulated, the plant redirects the energy that it would use for the PARP pathway to physiological processes like photosynthesis and growth despite the harsh environmental conditions. The researchers have yet to find any negative effects of downregulating PARP on the DNA of the plant, possibly due to the fact that the PARP gene isn’t completely silenced, which may still allow the plant to perform necessary DNA repair. After preliminary trials with model plants such as Arabidopsis, the researchers are applying the concept to crops like corn and canola.
Researchers at the
With technologies such as these striving to bring new and improved crops to market, it is clear that change is in the wind. “First we had primitive domestication, then we had directed breeding, then hybridization, then mutagenesis, and now we have genetic engineering,” says Ronald. Beyond a doubt, she adds, agriculture is going to continue evolving.
Mexico
(McClatchy.com) GUELATAO, Mexico — Yank the husks off ears of corn grown in the mountains of southern Mexico, and you may find kernels that are red, yellow, white, blue, black or even variegated.
It's only one measure of the diversity of the 60 or so
native varieties of corn in
Plant specialists describe the native varieties of corn in
But experts say
Farmers are punished at the marketplace for selling native corn, and some types are dwindling from use. Perhaps more significantly, genetically modified corn is drifting southward and mingling with native varieties, potentially bringing unexpected aberrations and even possible extinction.
At stake may be more than just curious and exotic types of corn, grown in small fields alongside beans and then ground into tortillas after harvest.
"With climate change," said Aldo Gonzalez, an
indigenous Zapotec engineer with long, flowing black
hair who's at the forefront of protecting native varieties, "new diseases
could occur, and the only place in the world where we can look for existing
varieties that might be resistant is in
"These varieties of corn might at some point save humanity."
Corn is not only a crucial crop in
In the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Mayans, gods create humans out of cornmeal, allowing the "people of corn" to flourish.
Through the centuries, varieties of corn adapted to
different soils, altitudes, temperature conditions and water availability, and
Gonzalez said the seed stock handed down in his village in this corner of the
Sierra Juarez range in central
"In the sierra here, there are varieties of corn that grow as high as 3,000 meters," Gonzalez said, or nearly 10,000 feet. "There are varieties that can be planted in swampy land or that you can plant in semidesert areas. They may not be very productive but they have allowed people to survive."
Native varieties of corn have fed humans for millennia in
"The elders understand the importance of various types of corn because they had their fields in different places under different conditions," said Lilia Perez Santiago, an agricultural engineer who works for a state forestry bureau.
Perez was among the activists behind a petition in 2000 to
the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation, a panel created
under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The petition claimed that
genetically modified corn, altered to be pest resistant or herbicide tolerant,
had drifted to southern
Four years later, the panel recommended to
In late 2009, the government permitted a subsidiary of a
The head of Monsanto
Madero said modified corn was in use in 20 countries around
the world and would help
Several scientists have joined a Mexican grass-roots campaign, known as Sin Maiz No Hay Pais, or There Is No Country Without Corn, to oppose the import or harvest of genetically changed corn.
"We have a nationwide survey that shows genetic
contamination in
She said lab analysis showed that some native varieties already carried altered genes.
"There is no possibility of coexistence without contamination," Alvarez-Buylla said. "One gene can make a large difference. Do we want to run the risk?"
Black-market brokers already sell genetically modified seed
corn to farmers in the north of
"The bags of corn are not secure. During transport, some bags break open and fall out. So there are many possible ways of contamination," Perez said.
The vast majority of farmers of native varieties select seeds each year to save for the next harvest, thus making what Alvarez-Buylla described as "active, dynamic genetic elements" prone to aberrations from genetic drift of altered corn.
Scientists don't know which varieties could prove useful for climate change.
"We don't really know if there is a variety with the most promise. Promise for what?" Alvarez-Buylla said, adding that future climate conditions are unknowable.
While the government maintains seed banks for native corn, Alvarez-Buylla said, "This is not a diversity that can be preserved in a laboratory."
Some farmers already are abandoning certain native varieties, unable to make a living harvesting their small plots.
"They get a price penalty for not growing uniform,
large volumes of corn that the tortilla manufacturers want," said Timothy
A. Wise, a rural policy expert at the Global Development and Environment
Institute at
Economic realities that make it increasingly unviable for farmers to grow native varieties may be as big a peril as genetic contamination, Wise said.
"If that traditional knowledge isn't passed from generation to generation and those farmers stop farming, then that seed variety is lost for economic reasons," he said.
In
"In urban areas," Gonzalez said, "they don't know about the varieties. All they know is that the dining room table must have tortillas on it."
American farmers get growing in Mexico
(PRI.org)
– American farmers have long depended on immigrant labor. But some farmers say
a steady supply of legal immigrants has become too unreliable. So they're
moving to where many of the workers come from:
Steve Scaroni has been growing
lettuce in
Going to work with Scaroni is like spending a day with a super-caffeinated Wall Street trader: He yells, he bargains, he complains, he compliments. His office is his truck. He uses two cellphones, a hand radio, a walkie talkie, and an iPad for his e-mails. He's on one or two, even three devices at any given time, almost all the time, as he sells his lettuce and broccoli.
I spent two full days with Scaroni,
from morning until night, to get a full sense of his operation. It's massive.
There's a good chance the lettuce you eat for lunch or dinner was touched by Scaroni's workers in the
"Between 50 and 75 trucks a week goes out of here to
the
It's a long way to haul lettuce, but there are clear
advantages to working in
Scaroni said he pays above the
going wage. And he insists that he didn't move to
"I'm doing all this, I'm sleeping in a foreign country
a lot of times away from my family because of the lack of a coherent
immigration policy in the United States," said Scaroni.
"I brought all this equipment to the
That's the key word: Legal. Scaroni has a point.
"You might say around half of all farm workers are
probably undocumented most of them are Mexicans, and others are Salvadorans,
and Hondurans, quite a few Guatemalans," said agricultural economist Rick
Mines. He designed the survey that the Department of Labor uses to estimate how
many farm workers in the
American farmers are required to check the paperwork of everyone they hire. The open secret is that many field workers use phony documents. Most large agribusiness operations hire workers through a contractor, or a middleman, so the farm is insulated from the hiring process. This look-the-other-way policy works for most big farmers. American farmers also aren't allowed to investigate the validity of a document.
But American farms that rely on illegal workers risk being temporarily shut down by raids or administrative enforcement. For Steve Scaroni, the hassles were enough to drive him south of the border.
For many farmers, though,
The numbers are murky as to just how many American farmers
are shifting work to
Steve Scaroni said he's speaking out because he's fed up with the system. He supports an immigration bill called "AgJOBS."
The legislation was a compromise between growers and labor after some 15 years of negotiations. AgJOBS would give farm workers more rights and provide a path to legal status. The bill would also make it easier for American farmers to bring in temporary immigrant workers.
Many Republicans in Congress are lining up against it calling it an amnesty for lawbreakers. This puts Scaroni at a boil.
"Now I'm a conservative, [but] I don't consider myself
a Republican anymore because I think the Republican party
is as big a part of the problem as the Democrats are, and especially on this
immigration thing," said Scaroni. "All they
[Republicans in Congress] do is block everything that
tries to get passed. They never come up with a solution. So yes, I hold the
Republican party responsible for why I had to move to
There is an alternative to moving to
"There is no indication that if someone is laid off from a job in Los Angeles, in San Francisco, that they would pack up their family and move to the Central Valley to pick grapes. There's never been an example or tradition of that occurring," said Wong.
Wong adds that most Americans don't want to pick fruits and vegetables because it's hard, seasonal work that only pays around $8 an hour.
Steve Scaroni argues that he can't
pay much more than that in the
"We live in an international environment now,"
said Scaroni "They produce broccoli in
That may be true, but farm worker advocates argue that
American growers paid low wages in the
As another year closes without immigration reform, American farmers remain in a bind. But the biggest losers appear to be the workers in the fields, doing back-breaking work for low wages, with little protection.
Dow Agro upbeat over sales and profits
(IBJ.com) – Indianapolis-based Dow AgroSciences on Thursday reported record fourth-quarter revenue of $1.3 billion, up 19 percent from the prior-year period.
Quarterly earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization also edged up from $69 million to $72 million.
Dow Agro’s selling, general and administrative expenses increased 3 percent during the quarter because of new product launches and commercial activities related to recent seed acquisitions. Companywide, such costs declined 6 percent.
The
Its Midland, Mich.-based parent company, meanwhile, reported sharply higher fourth-quarter profit and strong sales across the globe.
Profit was $426 million, or 37 cents per share, compared to $87 million a year ago. Excluding special items, the company earned 47 cents a share.
Revenue rose 10 percent to $13.8 billion, topping analyst expectations for $12.5 billion. Sales were helped by a 12-percent increase in volume and a 10-percent rise in prices.
Dow saw double-digit sales increases in all geographic
areas, with
Revenue from emerging nations is still booming for Dow, with
growth especially strong in
Dow expects more growth around the world, with the biggest
gains coming from emerging markets. But with inflation concerns in
faster-growing economies, high unemployment in the
For all of 2010, the company earned $1.97 billion, or $1.72 per share, compared with net income of $336 million, or 32 cents per share in 2009.
ANTS a model for tractor of the future
(Wired.com) – The tractor of the future will look like an ant. Or a Mars rover. Or maybe something out of Halo. Whatever it is, it’s nice to see automakers aren’t the only ones who go nuts designing wild concepts that may never see production.
To mark its 60th anniversary, the designers at Valtra came up with a concept vehicle that would make even the guys at Peugeot and Citroen look twice. The machine is called ANTS, an acronym based on actual models in the Finnish company’s lineup.
As wild as this concept might look, Valtra says the technology underpinning it will be essential if we are to feed the 9 billion people expected to inhabit the planet in 2050. We’ll need farm equipment that uses less energy, offers greater versatility and provides maximum efficiency.
Enter the ANTS.
“ANTS will rise to these future challenges, but respect Valtra traditions. It is dynamic, friendly, customizable, intelligent, agile, and light in comparison to its power,” the company said.
Yes, the company described its tractor as “friendly.”
The tractor is modular, with two components: the “soldier,” with 100 kilowatts (134 horsepower) and the “worker,” with 200 kw (268 horsepower). The two components can be used individually or together — a configuration dubbed the “queen,” with articulated steering and maximum power of 400 kW (536 horsepower).
The “worker” will be autonomous, able to carry out its tasks unattended. The “soldier” is fitted with a cab and electric — instead of hydraulic — actuators and controls. For those instances where the power of a hydraulic system is needed, ANTS will used a water-based system.
The operator sits in cab that rotates and can be placed almost anywhere on the module to meet specific needs. Because most tractor-related injuries occur as the operator climbs in and out of the cab, Valtra designed ANTS with a cab that can be lowered for easier access. Plus, it looks really, really cool.
This is the future, baby, so most functions are voice-activated. Everything is presented in a heads-up display on the windshield. Of course ANTS runs on electricity drawn from either a battery or a fuel cell. A hybrid — powered by biofuel, of course – is another possibility.
Hub-mounted motors provide power directly to the wheels, which ride on fully independent suspension arms. That allows the ANTS to roll over the most varied terrain while ensuring optimal traction, stability and comfort.
“It will also be easier to gain access to low and tight places with the machine, thanks to its ability to ‘curtsy’,” the company said. Cooler — and more outlandish — still, the wheels actually expand to almost twice their normal width to increase traction when necessary.
Hey — it’s a concept. It doesn’t have to actually work.
Valtra’s built a 1:5 scale model of the concept and will be showing it off at agriculture and machinery shows throughout the year.
Click here to check out some very cool graphics
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