 |
|||
 |
" I heard it |
||
February 26, 2010
· ‘Monster’ weed escaping Roundup lasso
· Vilmorin sets sights on biotech seed market
· High-tech tool assists with pest forecasting
· GM crops seen as crucial to UK agriculture
· UN support of GM crops in Mexico denounced
‘Monster’ weed escaping Roundup lasso
(The Commercial Appeal) – Weeds have always bedeviled farmers, but as planting season begins, Palmer pigweed -- called a "monster weed" -- is expected to be an agricultural "game changer."
That's because it has become resistant to Monsanto's ubiquitous Roundup herbicide, a glysophate-based weed killer that has been the top-selling herbicide for decades.
Monsanto said 2009 sales of Roundup were about $1.8 billion, and sales of other glysophate-based herbicides were $422 million.
Monsanto pairs the weed killer with its seeds that are genetically modified to be resistant to it. So, if a farmer sprays Roundup on a field, it will kill everything but those plants modified to resist it. While Monsanto engineered this trait into crop seeds in laboratories, pigweed and a handful of other weeds have developed it on their own.
Larry Steckel, a
He said the problem is top of mind for Mid-South farmers on
both sides of the Mississippi River from the Missouri Bootheel
to
"Their fear is that it's going to be on huge acres of fields this year and I think it most likely will be," Steckel said. "It's changed everything."
The existence of glysophate-resistant
weeds was a rumor in 2004. Pigweed first emerged on a
He said he'll spray Roundup again this year and spray a herbicide mixture just for pigweed. But farmers have to spray for pigweed before it comes out of the ground or else the weeds become "steel" and have to be pulled out by hand.
"If we can't control the weeds, you just can't grow cotton with them," Moody said. "The worst possible scenario is that it puts us out of business."
While one crop-input problem rarely gets a spotlight at the annual Mid-South Farm and Gin Show, this year's show will feature a special seminar solely devoted to glysophate-resistant weeds.
"Sometimes an issue comes along that we think merits a highlight," said Timothy Price, the show's manager. "Our industry openly and honestly looks at challenges and tries to find solutions."
Vilmorin sets sights on biotech seed market
(Bloomberg)
– Vilmorin & Cie.,
The French company now sells biotech crops from Monsanto Co.
and other rivals, and is developing its own modified plants, Huige said in an interview in
Biotech crop planting worldwide rose 7.2 percent in 2009, according to a report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, a non-profit group funded by governments and companies including Monsanto. Brazilian farmers grew more herbicide-tolerant soybeans and insect-resistant corn, the group said.
“Monsanto’s dominance will continue, but over time that dominance will be reduced,” said Huige.
Paris-based Vilmorin says it accounts for 5 percent of the world seed market, compared with 25 percent for Monsanto, 15 percent for DuPont Co.’s Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. unit and 9 percent for Syngenta AG.
Commercial introduction of biotech wheat, now five to seven years away, will raise the value of the market for planting material for the grain, Huige said. Only 30 percent of global wheat plantings use commercial seed at the moment, he said.
Wheat Market
“There is a real potential to revolutionize the market
there,” Huige said at a press conference yesterday.
Farmers carry out two-thirds of planting in Europe and four-fifths in
The value of the wheat market, based on royalties paid for seeds, is estimated at $200 million to $300 million, compared with more than $5 billion for corn seed, Huige said.
“In terms of surface, wheat is the most-cultivated crop,” Huige said. “In value, that’s certainly not the case. If we succeed in introducing GMOs in wheat and good hybrids, you could see a similar effect to what we saw in corn.”
Existing wheat hybrids “haven’t been convincing” to farmers in terms of performance, the CEO said. For wheat, “improved hybrids are at least 10 years off, but you have to invest in them today,” Huige said.
Insect-Resistant
Wheat improvement will focus on more efficient use of nitrogen by the plant, as well as drought tolerance, according to the executive. Resistance to insects and pesticides will be “less important” than in corn, he said.
Genetically modified crops cannot be sold in the European Union without regulatory approval, whether for use in food, animal feed or cultivation, and food products that contain biotech ingredients must be labeled as such.
The EU ended a six-year moratorium on new gene-modified crops in 2004 after introducing new regulations, though it has yet to endorse any request for cultivation since then. Two modified corn varieties approved under prior rules can be grown in the 27-nation bloc, according to GMO Compass, an EU-funded database.
Seed companies work to improve traits by cross-breeding different plants in a process called hybridization, as well as by using biotechnology to introduce genes from different species such as bacteria into plants.
Vilmorin held the press conference after releasing results
for the first half through December. Its net loss narrowed to 25.9 million euros ($35 million) from 28.5 million euros
a year earlier as sales gained 2.7 percent to 314.2 million euros.
The stock has dropped 13 percent this year in
The French company plans to raise 200 million euros by selling shares at a discount to current investors,
Chief Financial Officer Daniel Jacquemond said
yesterday. It wants to use the money to pay for takeovers, expand its
vegetable-seed business in
“This operation has as its only goal to finance growth,” the CFO said. “It’s not a refinancing operation.”
High-tech tool assists with pest forecasting
(Northeastern IPM Center)
–
The Pennsylvania Pest Information Platform for Extension and
Education, or PA PIPE, was developed by
The PA PIPE provides forecasts for diseases, insects, and weeds, including those that affect field crops, grapes, tree fruit, forests, tomatoes, and potatoes.
“Growers in our state are using the system to predict when pest activity will be happening and to focus their scouting efforts,” explains entomologist John Tooker, who has helped to adapt the system for field crops.
“Timing is critical when it comes to managing plant
diseases,” says plant pathologist Beth Gugino, who is
fine-tuning models to predict the severity of risk for early blight and late
blight. For years, her colleague Alan McNab had
issued forecasts to growers throughout the state based on his own network of
weather stations. When McNab died in 2006, vegetable
growers urged the college to find some way of continuing this crucial service.
Their request was the impetus for
ZedX’s high-resolution weather data drive the specific forecasts of various models within PA PIPE. Once a particular pest model has been plugged into the system, forecasts can be generated on a fairly automatic basis.
Ground-truthing is important though, so Tooker and Gugino verify the system’s predictions and supplement the data with real-world observations. For example, forecasts for the black cutworm depend on the pest’s northward movement during a particular growing season, so Tooker monitors the insect’s arrival across the state. These observations then allow the models to be set in motion and predict larval activity.
Currently there is no cost to growers who use PA PIPE, although additional levels of service might be available for a fee in the future. Growers can log in to the system and save their own data so they can gather crop-, pest-, or location-specific information quickly on their next visits.
“Many states are searching around for different extension
models that use information technology,” says PA IPM Coordinator Ed Rajotte, who sees potential for other states to adapt the
system and expand its utility. Currently the system covers
For more information about PA PIPE, contact John Tooker (814-865-7082), Beth Gugino (814-865-7328), or Joe Russo (814-357-8490).
The
GM crops seen as crucial to UK
(guardian.co.uk) – The government's drive to push controversial genetically modified crops up the national agenda will receive a further boost today, when former cabinet minister Chris Smith will tell farmers that the technology has a key role in helping the UK beating climate change.
Lord Smith, former culture secretary under Tony Blair and now chair of the Environment Agency, will say that both GM crops and new technologies to support "precision farming" - including nanotechnology - could help tackle growing climate pressures such as water shortages.
Addressing delegates at the National Farmers' Union's (NFU)
annual conference in
Intense lobbying by food companies, the growing significance of climate change, recent international food crises and shortages and a major independent Royal Society report have all helped to give the government the authority to put GM back on the national agenda. The controversial technology was the focus of intense campaigns including destruction of GM crop trials by environmentalists in the 1990s, and last month came under renewed attack from academics and organic food campaigners at the Oxford Real Farming Conference.
Lord Smith will say: "We can already see wildlife
following climate change – the mayfly is now found some 40 miles further north
than before and warmer winters and wetter summers are thought to be a major
factor in the rapid decline of pollinating insects with
"The reliance on seasonal weather patterns means that farming will follow climate change too. My own personal view is that we probably need to be readier to explore GM options, coupled of course with proper environmental safeguards, in adapting to the changes that the climate will bring."
The GM industry now involves 14 million farmers in 25 countries who are growing 134m hectares of GM crops around the world. This is a 7% increase compared with last year.
Lord Smith will recommend more use of new technology: "New tools and technologies are becoming available, nanotechnology for example, as well as the use of satellites, IT and other tools to support precision farming. We need to understand the environmental implications of novel approaches in order to embrace them and be clear how they will help us achieve long-term goals.
"We need to ensure that science is at the forefront of development and innovation and that effective knowledge transfer means farmers can adapt and innovate. Innovation has already seen British agriculture adapt to the economic challenges it has faced over the last 15 years or so and I know it will do so into the future."
Organic farmers have been more resistant to the use of GM than "conventional" farmers represented in the membership of the NFU, although the latter broadly agrees that any such developments must be subject to proper scientific evaluation.
Yesterday Paul Kelly, founder of Kelly's
As well as exploring the potential of new crops and technologies, Lord Smith will underline the need for agriculture to become more water efficient as climate change ushers in longer, hotter, drier summers.
On the opening day of the conference yesterday, the Conservatives set out plans to prevent development on top quality farmland, reform the body which delivers EU subsidies to farmers and set up a review of red tape as part of efforts to back British farming.
The Liberal Democrats also set out proposals to improve delivery of subsidies by the Rural Payments Agency, which in 2006 left farmers without EU grants after problems with its computer system.
UN support of GM crops in Mexico
(IANS/EFE)
'The only thing these types of tools do is ensure that the biotechnology industry has a monopoly on the seeds that feed the world,' Greenpeace Mexico and dozens of national and international non-governmental organisations said in a letter sent Wednesday to organisers of an FAO conference on agricultural biotechnologies in developing countries.
The conference will be held March 1-4 in
The missive expressed concern about the gathering and said it is regrettable that more than $900,000 will be spent on a conference 'to whitewash the image' of a technology that 'contaminates (native crop varieties), increases the use of pesticides and, through patents, eliminates traditional agriculture'.
Greenpeace
Last October, the Mexican government - backed by domestic farm producers eager for higher yields - issued the first permits for experimental cultivation of transgenic corn 'on plots isolated' from other fields, saying the measure was necessary to ensure food security.
Corn has been the staple of the Mexican diet for centuries, especially among low-income segments of the population.
The letter to the conference organisers was signed by more than 80 Mexican and international organisations, which said they were 'dismayed' over the FAO's support for genetically modified strains of corn, describing the diversity of that crop in Mexico as 'a resource of unprecedented importance for humanity'.
One of the organisations co-signing the letter was Semilla de Vida (Seed of Life), whose spokeswoman, Adelita San Vicente, told EFE that the richness of Mexican agriculture 'is not compatible with the transgenic plants'.
'Irreversible transgenic contamination,' San Vicente said,
'would mean the end and the death' of agricultural diversity in
The country is home to 59 species and 200 adapted varieties of maize, used in ancient times by different Mesoamerican peoples and cultures such as the Olmecs and Aztecs.
According to San Vicente, the solution to the environmental crisis and hunger lies not with GM crops but with a return to smallholder farming.
The Semilla de Vida representative said 'industrialised agriculture controlled by large corporations' is responsible for the imbalances that have divided the world into countries with problems of obesity and regions ravaged by hunger.
End Transmission