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March 17, 2010
· Judge green lights harvest of GM beets
· Economist says ag property tax unfair
· Deal will bring crop tech. to US growers
· EU nations must return ‘misused farm aid’
· Photo sleuths nab grape bacteria in the act
Judge green lights harvest of GM beets
(AP via Yahoo! Finance) SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge on Tuesday said farmers can harvest their genetically engineered sugar beets this year, ruling the economic impact too great and that environmental groups waited too long to request that the crop be yanked from the ground and otherwise barred from the market.
Nearly all sugar beets planted are genetically engineered and the crop accounts for half the nation's sugar supply.
U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White last year sided with the environmental groups when he ruled that federal regulators five years ago improperly approved the genetically engineered crop for market. White said in September that further environmental studies are required before the United States Department of Agriculture can decide the issue but didn't decide the next legal steps.
In January, the Center for Food Safety, Earthjustice and several other groups and organic farmers asked White to immediately halt the planting and harvest of all genetically engineered beets while determining how to resolve the lawsuit, which was filed in 2007.
The groups sued the USDA over its approval, and the biotech company Monsanto Co., which develops genetically engineered seeds, joined the lawsuit on the government's side.
The groups and organic farmers fear the biotech beets will cross-pollinate with conventional beets, as well as Swiss chard, and upset consumers who shun genetically engineered products.
In denying their request, White noted that the Center for Food Safety and the other groups who sued had ample opportunity to make such a request and he chastised them for waiting until this year to act. The judge said it appears most of the genetically engineered seeds have already been planted and it would be too disruptive to order their removal from the fields.
"This ruling provides clarity that farmers can plant Roundup Ready sugarbeets in 2010," said Steve Welker, Monsanto's sugarbeet business manager.
The judge also said such an order would cause an economic catastrophe — 95 percent of sugar beets are genetically engineered with a bacteria gene to withstand sprayings of Monsanto popular weed killer Roundup. Half the nation's sugar supply is derived from beets and a Monsanto expert testified that 5,800 jobs and $283.6 million in growers' profits would be lost if he shut down the market, which stretches across 1 million acres in 10 states.
"Moreover, an injunction which would ban the planting and processing of genetically engineered sugar beets in 2010 would have a large detrimental impact on the United States' domestic sugar supply and price," White said in his eight-page ruling.
Now the battle turns to whether the judge will bar future plantings of genetically engineered seeds while a new Monsanto application is pending before the USDA.
The judge said he wanted farmers to use as much conventional seed as possible but didn't say if he would bar the biotech variety.
The company said it would fight such an order.
Paul Achitoff, an attorney for Earthjustice, said he was "encouraged" by White's comments about future harvests.
"We will ask the court to halt the use of genetically engineered sugar beets and seeds until the federal government does its job to protect consumers and farmers alike," Achitoff said.
White scheduled a July 9 hearing to decide whether to ban future plantings.
"Without measures to protect farmers like me from
(genetically engineered) contamination, organic chard and beets as we know them
are at serious risk of being lost," said Frank Morton, an organic beet
farmer in
Economist says ag property tax unfair
(JournalStar.com)
– Bruce Johnson compares
"Now everything shimmies at 45 miles an hour instead of 60," said Johnson, an agricultural economist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Rapidly rising prices for agricultural land and relatively flat values for residential property mean the state's farmers and ranchers are picking up more and more of the cost of elementary and secondary education in rural counties, he said.
While it's true that agriculture has been weathering the
recession better than the rest of the
Johnson offered his thoughts as county assessors wrap up work on the latest round of valuation changes ahead of a Friday state deadline.
According to his analysis for 2008, agricultural land was valued at $31.2 billion. That's 22 percent of the total assessed value of all property for tax purposes.
However, in 58 of the state's 93 counties, agricultural land was the majority of the assessed valuation. In 38 counties it was more than 60 percent.
Ruth thinks Johnson is on the right track in proposing some sort of adjustment.
"I think the entire taxing structure in the state of
In the realm of what he regards as logical policy responses, Johnson thinks it may be time to lower the assessment rate on agricultural real estate from 75 percent of actual value to 70 or even 65 percent.
That would reduce agriculture's burden and trigger more state aid, he said.
"We haven't had the foreclosures and meltdowns of residential property that they've had in other parts of the country. But on the other hand, we haven't had a huge movement upward in the value of residential property.
"And on top of that, we're not building much."
York County Assessor Ann Charlton said the value of the typical agricultural acre there is likely to increase from $2,450 to $2,700 in the report she will file by Friday.
"I just hate it, because agricultural land is getting so high," Charlton said. "And as long as we have to value it for the market, that's where we are."
She said she spent more time setting agricultural land values in recent weeks than in any year since she became assessor in 1991.
"I try to be fair to those who are not selling ground with those who are selling ground. It's a real difficult process."
In
In contrast, "our statistics are showing that
residential is fairly stable,"
Things don't change much from year to year in who carries
the property tax load in
The only town, Tryon, is unincorporated and home to about 130 people, Dailey said.
Whether a grazing acre is worth $235, as it was, or $270, as it is likely to be, agricultural landowners pick up most of the tab for public education.
"Our small town has very little value compared to ranches," Dailey said. The owners of those ranches "are concerned about it -- as we all are."
In remarks prepared for a PowerPoint presentation, Johnson had more to say about "a warp" in the taxing structure.
"In essence, the rural agricultural land base is subsidizing the process of educating our young people and largely to the ultimate benefit of distant urban centers who are the recipients of those educated, productive young adults."
Deal will bring crop technology to US growers
(Wire Services) – Crop Microclimate Management Inc. (CMM), a
leader in the research and development of solutions for the management of abiotic stress in crop plants, has teamed with leading
biopesticide developer and distributor Certis
SCREEN Duo produces larger yields of higher quality fruit and vegetables by reducing losses due to excess heat, light and drought. SCREEN Duo is CMM’s first product based on its proprietary (patent pending) Fusion Technology.
According to CMM vice president Nick Phillips, Certis
“Certis
SCREEN Duo has demonstrated excellent results in many crops, including citrus, apples, wine grapes, tomatoes and melons.
“CMM is unique because it is focused exclusively on the development of solutions for managing abiotic stress using only naturally occurring compounds,” Phillips said.
The leading sales regions for CMM crop stress products are Australia, the Mediterranean, South America and South Africa -- geographies where the impact of abiotic stresses on crop productivity are well recognized.
Entering the
EU nations must pay back ‘misused farm aid’
(AFP)
Cash-strapped
The EU Commission stressed that the 27 member states are responsible for paying out and checking expenditure under the bloc's massive Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
"This exercise remains a very important instrument in making sure that Member States have sufficient controls in place to ensure that taxpayers' money is properly spent," said EU Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos.
The CAP will this year eat up more than 40 percent of the European Union's total budget of 123 billion euros.
Reform of the system is a subject of near constant debate
among EU members with the main beneficiaries, led by
After
Photo sleuths nab grape bacteria in the act
(ScienceDaily.com) – Like a band of detectives surveying the movement of a criminal, researchers using photographic technology have caught at least one culprit in the act.
In this case, electron microscopy was used to watch a deadly bacteria breakdown cell walls in wine grape plants -- an image that previously had not been witnessed. The study will be published in Botany.
"Basically, we've been interested in determining how
the bacteria moves," said Dr. B. Greg Cobb, Texas AgriLife
Research plant physiologist in
The death of wine grape plants from Pierce's Disease is a
serious threat to wineries from
The bacteria that causes Pierce's Disease, Xylella fastidiosa, colonizes a plant over a period of time causing it to weaken and die.
"It can be a matter of a few years or more quickly, but plants tend to stop producing before they die, so growers will pull them out of a vineyard," Cobb said.
Cobb and his team of researchers zeroed in on the "matchstick" effect of Pierce's Disease. Plants suffering from the disease drop their leaves, but the petiole -- or stem that connects a leaf to the vine -- remains, resembling a matchstick. This occurs over the length of the vine no matter where the initial insect injection occurred, Cobb explained.
"We've been looking at that area because we think that is a very important indicator of Pierce's Disease, but it also indicates that something is going on there," he explained.
The xylem of a plant is like a pipe with a spring in it which transports nourishing water to various parts of the plant. The bacteria that causes Pierce's Disease, Xylella fastidiosa, moves through the plant in this way.
"What is happening is that the bacteria is actually able to degrade and move through these very thin parts of the cell wall between the xylem elements," Cobb said. "You can actually see them in the 'pit membranes' that are the borders between adjacent cell walls."
The researchers focused the electron microscope at 100,000th of a millimeter along the pit membrane. The membrane normally blocks larger particles from passing through the pits that are located in the xylem, but high-level photographs show the bacteria breaking down the membrane in order to get through the plant.
Cobb said the study examined syrah and cabernet sauvignon plants because they have been known to be impacted by Pierce's Disease. In the field, they selected leaves that were still viable but had some "scorching" or water stress which indicated the disease was present.
"Then we isolated that very small part at the pit membrane and down the stem or petiole and looked at the xylem there," Cobb said. "To basically see the breakdown of the pit membranes had not been seen before."
Water stress contributes to the death of the Pierce's Disease-infected plant, he added, but it may not be the only factor.
With this information and the photographs to illustrate the process, Cobb's team continues to study the disease in hopes of figuring out what could be done to help an infected plant live longer.
The two-year research effort was supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
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