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February 10, 2011
· US corn reserves lowest in 15 years
· Viral infections spell disaster for bees
· Ant genome reveals survival secrets
· New strain of potato virus discovered
· Agriculture changing at the speed of light
US corn reserves lowest in 15 years
(AP via The New York Times) – Reserves of corn in the
The Department of Agriculture reported Wednesday that the ethanol industry’s projected orders this year rose 8.4 percent, to 13.01 billion bushels, after record-high production in December and January.
That means the
The report, which measures global supply and demand for grains, oilseeds and other crops, said its projections for wheat and soybean stocks remained unchanged at historical low levels for reserves.
Corn prices have already doubled in the last six months, rising from $3.50 a bushel to more than $7 a bushel.
The price of corn affects most food products in supermarkets. It is used to feed the cattle, hogs and chickens that fill the meat case, and is the main ingredient in Cap’n Crunch in the cereal aisle and Doritos in the snack aisle. Turned into corn syrup, it sweetens most soft drinks.
The decline in reserves caused corn futures to surge. Corn prices have already doubled in the last six months, rising from $3.50 a bushel to nearly $7 a bushel. Analysts expect the price increases to continue in coming months.
“I think we have a chance to test the all-time high” price of $7.65 a bushel,” a Telvent DTN analyst John Sanow said. The tight level of reserves leaves little margin for error if there are production problems this year, which could send prices higher quickly, he said.
Major food makers and some restaurants have already said they will be raising prices this year because they’re paying more for corn, wheat, sugar, coffee and chocolate, all of which are at historically high prices. Weather has affected many crops this year.
A severe drought in
Some food makers already began selectively raising prices within the past few quarters.
Those higher prices have begun filtering into stores. Supermarkets have resisted price increases for some time, hoping to hold onto their cost-conscious customers in the tough economy. But chains now say higher prices are coming.
The cereal maker Kellogg said last week it planned to raise prices by three to four percentage points. The Sara Lee Corporation said Tuesday that it would continue its price increases as it copes with higher commodity costs. The company said the price it pays for coffee beans alone is up 60 percent compared with last year.
And J.M. Smucker Company said Tuesday that it would raise prices again on Folgers and Dunkin Donuts coffee for the third time this year, by 10 percent on average. A large can of Folgers is already going for around $12 at many markets.
It’s not just playing out in the grocery store. McDonald’s
said last month that it may raise prices this year as its own food tab rises.
The company already raised prices in some markets, including the
Rising grain costs hit meat producers first. Tyson Foods, the nation’s biggest meat company, says it is aiming to cut $200 million in operational costs to offset higher corn and soybean costs. Tyson said chicken, beef and pork prices are expect to rise, if only slightly, this year as producers seek to cover costs.
Viral infections spell disaster for bees
(EarthTimes.org) – The decline in pollinator populations during the past two decades has caused major concern in the agricultural and scientific community. Pollinators of all types are vital to agriculture and are responsible for the production of crops worth US$225 billion worldwide. In the United States alone honey bees account for an added market crop exceeding US$15 million.
The recent dramatic losses of thousands of honey bee colonies has highlighted the ever-increasing risk of a future crisis in global food supply when we are solely dependent on honey bees for pollination.
Honey bees are very social insects living in compact, highly organised and productive colonies of up to 60,000 members, but this makes them vulnerable to more than 18 identified viruses.
Apart from honey bees there are about 4000 other species of
wild bees and wasps native to
Diana Cox-Foster, professor of entomology at Pennsylvania State University and co-author of the report, gives various reasons for the decline of pollinator populations, including ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses, which are emerging as a serious threat.
She explains how the RNA viruses are suspected as major contributors to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), where complete honeybee colonies die, with few or no bees left in the hives.
Recent detection of these viral species in bumble bees and other native pollinators suggests that the environmental spread of these viruses could be wider, with potentially a much more significant impact.
The researchers chose three
For the first time RNA viruses such as deformed wing virus, sacbrood virus and black queen cell virus were detected in pollen pellets that had been collected directly from forager bees.
Some virus-infected pollen pellets that were detected came from uninfected forager bees, which suggested to the researchers that it was probably the pollen itself that harboured the viruses. It was also discovered that when virus-contaminated foods were given to previously virus-free colonies, the viruses in the pollen and honey stored in the hive became infective, with the queen becoming infected and laying infected eggs.
These viruses were detected in eleven other species ranging from many solitary bees to bumble bees and wasps. In containment greenhouse experiments it was discovered that a viruses could move from infected honey bees to bumble bees and from infected bumble bees to honey bees within a week, demonstrating that a virus could be transmitted from one species to another.
The report provides new insights into viral infections in native pollinators, suggesting that viral diseases may be key factors affecting pollinator populations. The findings also raise biosecurity issues because pollen is currently being imported into many countries to feed honey bees used in agricultural pollination.
Ant genome reveals survival secrets
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The kitchen-invading Argentine ant has acute senses of smell and taste and possesses a built-in genetic shield against harmful substances, researchers who sequenced its genome said Monday.
Knowing more about how the brown pests operate may help eradicate the larger threats they pose to crops and native species, said the study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"The Argentine ant is a species of special concern because of its enormous ecological impact," said Neil Tsutsui, associate professor at UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science.
"When the Argentine ants invade, they devastate the native insect communities while promoting the population growth of agricultural pests," said Tsutsui, corresponding author on the Argentine ant paper and co-author of two other papers on the genomes of the red harvester and leaf-cutter ants.
"This genome map will provide a huge resource for people interested in finding effective, targeted ways of controlling the Argentine ant."
The genome project showed that Argentine ants have a whopping 367 sensory receptors for odor and 116 for taste, more than double the honeybee's capacity for smell and almost well above the mosquito's 76 taste sensors.
"Ants are ground-dwellers, walking along trails, and for many, living most of their lives in the dark, so it makes sense that they would have developed keen senses of smell and taste," said Tsutsui.
The ants also appear to have adapted to the variety of poisons they may encounter in their diet by developing "a large number of cytochrome P450 genes, which are important in detoxifying harmful substances," the study said.
"Argentine ants have 111 such genes, while European honeybees, in comparison, have 46."
While the Argentine ants may excel beyond the honeybee in some aspects, in social ways the two are rather similar, each with a dominant queen who is responsible for reproduction in the colony and workers who hunt for food.
"We now know that ants have the genes and genome signature of DNA methylation -- the same molecular mechanism that published honeybee studies have shown is responsible for switching whether the genome is read to be a worker or queen," said Christopher Smith, assistant professor of biology at San Francisco State University, an author on three of the four genome studies.
Further study of the ant's genes, particularly those that detoxify it, could help determine whether the ants are resistant to pesticides, and possibly move researchers toward a new way to kill them.
But such developments can take a long time, and are trickier than they may appear.
"In biology, the idea is that once we know the genome of a pest species, we can come up with a magic bullet or smarter bullet to defeat it," said Smith.
"In reality, the genome is really just information; we now have to put that into action, and in order to do that, we must genetically manipulate ants to confirm if a target gene does what we think it does," he said.
"Having a genome is like being handed a big book with a bunch of words we don't understand. Now we have to figure out the grammar and syntax."
New strain of potato virus discovered
(AgWeekly.com)
Growers have grown used to seeing some signs of Potato Virus Y, better known as simply PVY, in fields. The disease causes foliar damage and infected plants must be rouged out of certified seed fields, but otherwise the virus hasn’t really been a threat.
But that could be changing. Researchers are finding new
strains of the virus that damage tubers with little apparent injury to an
infected plant’s leaves. When potato specialists in the
But by 2010, surveys showed tuber necrotic strains are
increasing in both incidence and distribution, said Stewart Gray, a plant
pathologist with the Agricultural Research Service in
“This is no longer just a seed certification problem,” Gray
told potato growers during the
The primary concern is that PVY will become a major quality
disease for the entire
As long as commercial growers could get seed and PVY didn’t
affect yield much, growers could handle some virus, said Jonathan Whitworth, a
research plant pathologist with the ARS in
One reason that necrotic strains may be slower to take hold
in the
“If we start to see loads of potatoes rejected because of
PVY at processing plants and shipping points in the South,
that will eventually come back to
Phil Nolte, UI extension see potato specialist at
Another emerging issue is that infected plants that do not
show much foliar or tuber damage, can still be
affected by PVY. Researchers at the
Because PVY cannot be cured, prevention is paramount. Gray recommends planting only certified seed to avoid problems but the shift in PVY strains is creating challenges for certified growers as well.
“A good looking crop in the field does not translate into disease-free tubers,” Gray said. “Post harvest data is more important than summer inspections.”
While aphids can spread the disease, Gray doesn’t suggest a large scale aphid control program. Rather he emphasizes removing infected plants and planting healthy tubers.
Agriculture changing at the speed of light
(herald-review.com) – While developing his theories of evolution, Charles Darwin penned, "All is change and only change is changeless."
Instead of ruminating about animal species, he could have been describing today's agriculture. It is changing at nearly light speed.
Many farms may have three generations involved to some degree, allowing for a substantial resource of institutional knowledge. For example, the senior generation is familiar with national corn yields that were 50-55 bushels per acre in the 1950s. Today, the national average yield is 160-plus bushels per acre, or a 300 percent increase during the 60 years that would encompass the three generations. In that same era, wheat yields have increased 215 percent and soybean yields have increased nearly 170 percent.
While yields have been going up, economists at
Yes, those are phenomenal statistics, which underscores the
fact that 75 percent of
One of the drivers is the demand for food, and the 7 billion mouths in today's world will increase to 9.5 billion in just 40 more years. Most of those new mouths will be in developing countries where food is not produced as efficiently as in the Untied States.
Another driver is technology, which includes electronics in the cab that will allow field operations regardless of when the sun shines, along with more efficient pest control, and biotechnology that will allow crop production despite environmental challenges.
Land, water and fertilizer resources will be another driver, because he who owns the resources will be the king.
Society and government will be a fourth driver of change, since consumers and regulations will have a great influence on how agriculture will operate.
The challenge for farmers, say the Purdue economists, will be to maintain profitability. And that has to be accomplished while those drivers of change are colliding randomly like the bumper cars at the county fair midway. Simultaneously, this challenge becomes three-dimensional as profits will be pulled down by production costs and pulled up by market forces.
While farmers have local relationships with the suppliers of inputs and buyers of outputs, those entities are ultimately connected to multi-national corporations which control fertilizers, seeds, and chemicals on the input side, and which control exports, feed and processing on the output side. While they may not be driving, they will determine how many bumps will be in the road and where traffic detours will have to be made from year to year.
Farmers certainly are not the drivers in this world of change, but they have had to evolve in Darwinian fashion, and there is no doubt the sustainability of their operation will be determined by survival of the fittest.
Stu Ellis is an
observer of the
End Transmission