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February 8, 2010
· Urban farmers fighting to sow green biz
· Feds nab former tomato company CEO
· Jury orders Bayer to pay growers $1.5M
· Judge eases curbs on California water
· Farmers say science will feed the world
Urban farmers fighting to sow green biz
(AP via Yahoo! News) LOS ANGELES – Tara Kolla fancied herself a green thumb-turned-green businesswoman when she planted an organic flower plot in her yard and sold poppies, sweet peas and zinnias at the local farmers market. For her neighbors, it was an eyesore.
Where Kolla saw her efforts as
creating a lush sanctuary, her neighbors witnessed dusty pots, steaming compost,
flies and a funky aroma on their tiny cul-de-sac in
Kolla and other urban farmers are fighting back by challenging city halls across the country to rewrite ordinances that govern residential gardens. They believe feeding their fellow urbanites homegrown tomatoes, fresh eggs and sweet corn will change the world one backyard at a time.
In
"The city has not been treating it as an illegal use or a nuisance because it has been a good thing," Underwood said.
She is hopeful that urban agriculture and the city's nearly 1,000 community gardens will create good jobs in a city that desperately needs them and put vacant lots to use in blighted neighborhoods.
Kolla, meanwhile, found a loophole
allowing her to grow vegetables while lobbying for the right to set up a city
farm at her home just four miles from the urban jungle of downtown
The challenge for cities is to balance the potential to grow green businesses with the concerns of neighbors who don't want a thriving, for-profit enterprise next door, never mind the noise and smells that come from compost and small livestock.
Urban agriculture crosses jurisdictional lines, said Alfonso
Morales, a professor of planning at the
"There's such enthusiasm that people push the laws and upset their neighbors," he said. "The fact is you can't do anything you want on your property."
While most urban farms operate under the radar of city officials and many neighborhoods welcome productive plots and even backyard chickens, other city growers run into trouble with neighbors who won't be placated with gifts of salad greens or fresh eggs.
In middle class areas, concerns about property values and aesthetic differences lead to conflicts.
Kolla alienated neighbors on her
quiet cul-de-sac of Spanish bungalows and neat green lawns in the city's
"They're trying to grow it into something bigger than what should be in a small neighborhood," said Frank San Juan, who lives across the street from Kolla. "When she started having these gardening workshops without telling anybody, there was no parking. You couldn't enjoy your weekends."
Just a half century ago,
Kolla could get a conditional use permit, but she has a stubborn streak and it costs $15,000 just to apply. She and others are trying to reverse the zoning laws with a proposal called "The Food and Flowers Freedom Act."
Growers from across
"Most people would pay to have a view of her backyard," said founding member Erik Knutzen, who keeps chickens and grows food in his yard. "I can understand someone not wanting 50 roosters or an autobody shop next door, but our proposal is about bringing common sense back to our lives."
In July, City Council President Eric Garcetti introduced a motion to clarify city policies on urban farms and allow cultivation and sale of flowers, fruits, nuts or vegetables.
While the city farmers wait patiently for the proposal to work its way through the planning commission, Kolla started a weekly vegetable box subscription service so as not to miss too many of Southern California's long growing seasons.
She feels the distinction between vegetables and fruit is arbitrary and unscientific.
"Broccoli is a flower, and a tomato is a fruit. And
some of my flowers are edible," Kolla said.
"It's more legal for people to grow marijuana in
Feds nab former tomato company CEO
(Monterey County
Herald) – FBI agents in
A month ago, a federal judge had signed an arrest warrant that accused Salyer, 54, former owner and CEO of the SK Foods group, of 20 counts of mail and wire fraud for allegedly paying bribes to corporate food buyers and substituting low-quality products to fill orders for processed tomato and other vegetable products.
Salyer's arrest Thursday afternoon
at
Salyer was scheduled to make his
first court appearance today before a
Federal authorities said they believed Salyer,
54, of
"Mr. Salyer apparently intended to become a fugitive from justice.
We are pleased that he will now have his day in court,"
said U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner in
Salyer left the country in October shortly after several former SK employees and others entered guilty pleas in the food-industry probe, according to court documents.
Apparently planning to leave the country for good, Salyer had asked a former assistant to sell off his
belongings and transfer millions of dollars from former SK Foods entities to
bank accounts in the Caribbean and
Federal officials said Salyer
talked with a former employee about relocating to
"They didn't think he was planning to stay for
long," said Justice Department spokeswoman Lauren Horwood
of the agents who arrested Salyer in
A former assistant to Salyer told
the FBI that she tried to help Salyer last fall
obtain a residence in
A federal judge signed the criminal complaint against Salyer on Jan. 5, and it was unsealed Thursday after his arrest.
Salyer's arrest, while apparently making plans to leave the country for good, represents the culmination of an investigation that came to light in April 2008 when federal agents searched SK Foods' corporate headquarters in Ryan Ranch and Salyer's Pebble Beach home.
That marked the start of a swift nosedive for Salyer's SK Foods empire, which included a fresh produce company and subsidiaries in Australia and New Zealand along with SK Foods LLC, one of the country's largest tomato processors.
In December 2008, former SK Foods sales broker Randall Rahal pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges for bribing corporate food buyers with "hundreds of thousands of dollars" on Salyer's orders, prosecutors say. The tomato and other vegetable products were used for soups, salsa, ketchup, sauces and other products.
The government says that the bribery and other corrupt
practices drove up the price of the finished products for
In February 2009, another SK Foods employee pleaded guilty, admitting that she allowed substandard processed tomato products to be shipped and sold despite being unsalable in domestic markets because of high mold counts.
Other company officials and food buyers for major companies, including Frito-Lay, Safeway and Kraft Foods, followed suit, entering into plea deals and agreeing to work with investigators from the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department's antitrust division.
In May 2009, lenders forced Salyer's
fresh produce company, Salyer American Fresh Foods,
into receivership, closing the once high-flying company and forcing more than
1,000 employees out of their jobs. At the same time, Salyer's
tomato-processing company filed for bankruptcy protection, and it was sold in
June 2009 to a
Throughout the mounting troubles, Salyer maintained that he had done nothing wrong and that his company was cooperating with the government investigation.
His
A lengthy affidavit filed in court by a Sacramento-based FBI agent reveals that the government started its investigation of SK Foods and Salyer in August 2005 -- almost three years before the agents seized hundreds of thousands of documents in a search of SK Foods' offices.
That's when a private investigator for another maker of tomato products brought concerns to the FBI about possible embezzlement by an employee, who by then was working as an SK Foods vice president.
Jury orders Bayer to pay growers $1.5M
(AP
via Yahoo! News) –
Friday's verdict was the second against Bayer CropScience for losses sustained by farmers when an experimental variety of rice that the company was testing infiltrated crops.
A jury awarded about $2 million to two
About 6,000 rice producers have filed claims against Bayer
since the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in August 2006 that trace
amounts of the genetically modified Liberty Link rice were found in
Bayer and
Though the USDA said at the time of the crop contamination
that the rice variety posed no health or environmental risk,
Downing said Bayer's negligence was directly responsible for the loss of the European market.
"This was all, we believe, very preventable by Bayer, if they had just exercised the kind of care they should have exercised in handling the (Liberty Link) rice," Downing said after the verdict.
Downing was disappointed that the jury did not award punitive damages, and said he would continue to seek them in future cases.
In a statement responding to the verdict, Bayer said it was pleased with the jury's decision not to award punitive damages, but otherwise was disappointed in the ruling. The company said a USDA investigation was not able to determine how the altered strain entered the rice supply.
"Bayer CropScience maintains that it acted responsibly and appropriately at all times" in the handling of its biotech rice, the statement said.
Cases scheduled for trial will be different both in claimed damage amounts and underlying facts, according to Bruce Mackintosh, general counsel for Bayer CropScience LP.
"We are presently preparing for those trials and intend to defend ourselves vigorously," Mackintosh said.
Joe and Jim Penn of Portia in
The jury awarded damages under a formula involving the number of acres each farmer planted and the impact of the contamination.
Gary Sebree, chairman of the Arkansas Rice Producers Association, said the state's rice producers are still feeling the effects of the contamination 3 1/2 years later.
"We still don't have (the European) market,
and I don't know if we'll ever have it like we had before," he said.
"It definitely has affected every rice farmer in
Judge eases curbs on California
(Los Angeles Times) – A federal judge has temporarily lifted pumping curbs designed to protect salmon migration in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, an action that allows the diversion of more winter storm flows to farms and cities in the south.
Friday's ruling is the latest in a tortuous legal fight over
Endangered Species Act protections that limit pumping from the troubled delta
east of
The decision was a victory, however brief, for
Ironically, the ruling was issued by U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger, whose earlier decisions forced the federal government to strengthen protections for the delta's collapsing fisheries.
Wanger issued a 14-day restraining order, lifting curbs designed to keep migrating Chinook salmon away from the giant pumps that suck water from the south delta.
He concluded that the additional pumping would not seriously harm the young winter-run salmon moving through the delta to the sea, whereas reduced diversions were significantly hurting agricultural and urban water supplies.
"It is undisputed that every acre-foot of pumping that is foregone during this time of year is an acre-foot that does not reach the San Luis Reservoir where it can be stored for future delivery to users during times of peak demand later in the water year," Wanger wrote.
But his decision sent mixed signals about the ultimate outcome of the case. He found that plaintiffs "have not yet established a likelihood of success" on their claims against the Endangered Species Act.
Instead, Wanger ruled that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had not performed the necessary analysis of the pumping permit and its restrictions under another federal law, the National Environmental Policy Act.
"This is not a decision on the soundness of the [permit], the analysis included in it or the actions required by it," said Chris Yates, a NOAA Fisheries Service assistant regional administrator. "We continue to stand by those conclusions very strongly."
Maria Rea, director of the NOAA Fisheries Central Valley office, said the increased pumping would probably result in more salmon losses.
The San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority and Westlands Water District, the nation's biggest irrigation district, sought the injunction, along with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
"I think it has much broader implications," said
Dan Nelson, executive director of the San Luis authority, which represents
Most of last year's cuts in water deliveries were a result of the state drought, not the pumping curbs, according to government water managers.
But that has not stopped agriculture and
Commercial salmon fishermen, who have endured two closed seasons because of collapsing stocks, have shot back that without them, their entire way of life will disappear.
Farmers say science will feed the world
(Farmers Weekly Interactive) – In an unprecedented cross-continental collaboration the views have been gathered from farmers in every corner of the world's biggest agricultural economies.
Working with six leading international farming publications,
the poll, hosted on FWi, has drawn votes from
respondents ranging from extensive sheep ranchers in
From the rugged upland peaks of Scotland to the vast cereal plains of Canada and the US Mid-West, those tasked with the responsibility of producing the food for the world's burgeoning population - the farmers themselves - have finally had their say on how it should be done. And it's a resounding vote in favour of innovation with 37.1% opting for new technologies and genetic modification.
These percentages reflect splits in the opinions of farmers
in different nations - new technologies and GM did not receive quite such a
clear lead in the
The Canadian farmers also strongly advocated the removal of
trade barriers. Meanwhile, there was barely a single vote in favour of government intervention from
The result throws open the debate on GM - should we embrace it as a sustainable solution or beware the technology that may yet turn out to have hollow promises?
"Farmers want access to innovation," said Julian Little, communications and government affairs manager at Bayer CropScience.
"It's the same whether it's a farmer in
Greater access to GMs is crucial, he believed. "We need to rack up food production without putting our resources in jeopardy.
"We can't use the business-as-usual model. And allowing farmers access to innovation in some parts of the world and not others is not helpful."
And GM technology will become pivotal as the world grapples with climate change, he added.
"We'll see more volatility in world markets and that's the last thing farmers need. The tools to grow in marginal conditions, with access to the best plant protection products and technologies built into the seed to underpin a decent yield - these are the factors that will deliver reliable productivity and more stability as the climate turns more challenging."
Much of the world's existing food supply comes from areas on a climate-change knife-edge, Mr Little pointed out.
This means opportunities for areas, like northern
The Soil Association's Patrick Holden agreed that innovation held the key, but he believed entrepreneurial flair and keener husbandry skills would show the way forward, rather than a reliance on one technology.
"Feeding the world sustainably is the biggest challenge facing not just farming but the whole of humanity. All barriers must fall aside as we work together to seek solutions. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't debate the issues.
"With Roundup-ready maize, canola and soya grown the world over and GM alfalfa close to approval, a frightening proportion of global food production is now in a monoculture," Mr Holden said.
"In biodiversity terms it is an unfolding catastrophe. In terms of choice for the farmer, most are on a GM treadmill they cannot get off. And how vulnerable is the world's population now that it relies on so few species to provide its food?"
He advocated the only truly sustainable farming system as one that doesn't rely on nitrogen fertiliser or chemicals to maintain production. "We need a change of mindset to wean us off our dependency on cereal-based systems and monocultures and allow a greater role in our diets for vegetables and red meat.
"By all means we must welcome the best use of technology to ensure we can exceed current levels of production - hybrid seed and mechanisation are just two examples that have made a massive difference in the past. But it is so dangerous and delusionary to believe GM will solve the world's food problems."
Maybe the challenge of feeding the world won't be met by the
UN estimates of world population growth show head count in
Perhaps the extra demand will be met by building productivity on a local scale.
"Whenever farmers look to raise yields they often look first at the seed," Mr Little said. "We're involved in that process, whether it's in the developed or emerging economies.
"Technology and innovation are part and parcel of this and, for every £10 we make in sales, we invest £1 in finding a better product. But we also make sure we give the training and technical back-up so that farmers make the most of that technology."
Winner
Congratulations to Cynthia DuVal,
from
"I don't believe that any one of these strategies will have the impact that we need to have to feed the world," she said.
"The challenge is a failure in human thinking and the
recent tragedy in
"There are human behaviour issues that are being ignored in favour of logistics and technology."
Ms Duval is a director of a research centre in the Pacific
north-west of the
End Transmission