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March 18, 2011
· Cheap eats may be a thing of the past
· Organic arsenal for war on pests
· Good fungi might improve crop health
· How broccoli helps fight cancer growth
· UK: Record-breaking chili is hot news
Cheap eats may be a thing of the past
(Los Angeles Times) – Americans spend only about 10% of their annual incomes on food, compared with as much as 70% in other countries, but with prices climbing, some economists wonder whether the nation's abundance of affordable food is history.
American consumers have long enjoyed a luxury that few others could boast: an abundance of affordable food.
But with prices of wheat, corn and other staples soaring, some economists and scientists are wondering how long that can last.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Labor Department reported that wholesale food prices jumped 3.9% in February over January, the highest monthly increase in 37 years. Economists expect to see a similar uptick in what consumers are paying for food at retail when the Labor Department releases its consumer price index Thursday.
"Food prices have been rising a lot faster, because underlying costs have really shot up. You're seeing some ingredients up 40%, 50%, 60% over last year," said Ephraim Leibtag, a U.S. Department of Agriculture economist. "When you see wheat prices close to 80% up, that's going to ripple out to the public."
Economists warn that such prices will probably remain high this year and possibly much longer, driven by a confluence of factors: the fall of the U.S. dollar, slowing growth in crop yields, political unrest in the Middle East, high crude oil prices and a revived interest in crop-based biofuels.
Violent weather patterns, which some scientists blame on
climate change, are compounding the problem. Recent floods in
"We're not sure if these extremes in weather are the new normal," said Clive James, founder of the not-for-profit International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications. "But the patterns we've seen in the past few years show that this may become more the rule than the exception."
Some commodity analysts said it was still too early to tell
what the broader economic effect would be from the March 11 earthquake, tsunami
and growing nuclear crisis in
They worry that even a temporary boost in grocery bills could have shoppers once again slamming their pocketbooks shut.
Produce prices are rising sharply. So is the price of orange
juice. This month, PepsiCo said it was raising prices for its Tropicana juices
by as much as 8%, after record cold temperatures chilled this season's citrus
crop in
Some of the biggest increases are expected in the meat section, as livestock feed prices have doubled in the last year, Leibtag said. McDonald's Corp. has warned that it might charge more for Big Macs and other items. Meat producer Smithfield Foods Inc. recently cautioned that consumers will be paying more for bacon, chops and ribs during this summer's barbecue season.
"Retailers understand there will be more price pressure," Smithfield Foods Chief Executive C. Larry Pope said during the company's recent earnings call with analysts.
Before the tragedy in
Increased demand from
Elsewhere in the world, where people spend 30% to 70% or
more of their annual income on food, starvation is growing. The World Bank has
reported that as many as 44 million more people had been forced into hunger
because of the rising costs of food. That, in turn, has helped fuel the
conflict in
"The situation is volatile and we're at a point of transition," said Abdolreza Abbassian, a grain economist with the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.
Now, as fears mount of a repeat of the food riots around the world in 2007 and 2008, developing new ways to feed the world has become more pressing.
For some, the solution is rooted in promoting natural farming techniques and weaning farmers off growing crops for biofuels. A recent U.N. report cited evidence of so-called "agro-ecology" techniques boosting crop yields by 80% in 57 developing countries.
Others argue that a broad structural change is needed in agriculture, led by more powerful technology.
Amid the debate, the use of genetically engineered seeds is steadily growing. Biotech crops now are used on 10% of the world's farmland, up from nearly nothing 15 years ago, according to a recent survey by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications. Last year, 81% of all soybeans, 64% of cotton, 29% of corn and 23% of canola grown worldwide came from biotech seeds, the organization said.
Historically, many biotech crops are grown to feed livestock or as ingredients for biofuels, rather than for direct human consumption. But that's changing.
Monsanto Co., which shelved its biotech wheat effort six years ago amid a political and consumer backlash, has revived its research. So have rival seed firms, including Syngenta.
Organic arsenal for war on pests
(The New York
Times)
They aren’t here for their beauty or as a cash crop — they are a key pest control strategy down on the organic farm.
Research here on wild sunflowers, he says, shows they are home to lady beetles and parasitic wasps, which are good bugs that kill bad bugs.
“The sunflowers help us provide a bed-and-breakfast for beneficial insects and keep them going year round,” he said. “And native sunflowers are a lot better at it than domestic. There’s a lot more insect biodiversity in wild sunflowers.”
While conventional farmers have a quiver full of chemical arrows to battle the invasion of weeds and pests, the organic farmer has a tougher row to hoe. There simply aren’t organic bug sprays that can match the power of synthetic chemicals and almost nothing in the way of organic herbicides.
Instead, there’s a growing understanding among organic farmers of ways to harness natural systems as part of what is called integrated pest management.
And there’s a small burst of new research into organic farming techniques as a result of the 2008 farm bill, which finances a range of agricultural programs at a total of $307 billion. For years such research was financed at $3 million a year, and though the funds are still minuscule compared with conventional agricultural research, it’s now $20 million annually for the next few years, and may increase further. Instead of five to seven research grants per year, there are now two dozen.
“You aren’t considered a kook anymore if you do this kind of
research, as you were in the 1980s,” said Fred Kirschenmann,
an organic farmer and a distinguished fellow at the
Research on organic agricultural ecosystems in the last few years has made some key findings and refined techniques organic growers use.
A paper published in Nature this year confirmed what organic
farmers have long suspected — that conventional farming can make the pest
problem worse. David Crowder, an entomologist at
Natural enemies are key to the
organic approach. Eric Brennan is the lone full-time organic researcher for the
Agriculture Department, and he works in the
The treatment of choice for commercial organic lettuce is to plant an ornamental flower called alyssum among lettuce beds, taking up 5 to 10 percent of the total field. Hoverflies live in the alyssum and need a source of aphids to feed their young, so they lay their eggs in the lettuce. When they hatch, the larvae start preying on the aphids.
“If you were an aphid on a head of lettuce, a hoverfly larva would be a nightmare,” said Dr. Brennan. “They are voracious eaters of aphids. One larva per plant will control the aphids.” Dr. Brennan is studying the most effective configuration of lettuce and alyssum beds.
Some organic strawberry farmers use “trap crops” to lure insects away from their cash crop. Lygus bugs cause the berries to deform. But the bugs like alfalfa better than strawberries, so some farmers plant one bed of alfalfa for every 50 rows of berries. As the lygus bugs crowd into the green growth, a giant tractor-mounted vacuum cleaner comes by and sucks them up. Other farmers simply suck the bugs off the strawberry plants.
Increasing native vegetation in the farm fields for biodiversity’s sake is not without controversy. After an outbreak of E. coli in 2006 in spinach, some produce buyers told farmers they would not buy crops from farmers whose fields weren’t clean, because brush could harbor rodents or other animals that might carry disease. Despite a lack of scientific evidence, Dr. Brennan said, some farmers have torn out vegetation.
Not all predators are other bugs. Rachael Long has studied bats and their role in pest management in the Central Valley of California for 15 years. Pear, walnut and apple orchardists were fighting the codling moth. By studying DNA in the undigested parts of bat waste, she found they did eat the moths and other insects, equal to their body weight each night.
The next phase, which took eight years, was to find out how to attract bats to bat houses. “The pups are born without hair,” Ms. Long says. “So you have to put them where they get morning sun, so they are warm in the morning, and shade in the afternoon, so it’s not too hot.”
There’s a huge demand for bats in farm country, she said. “They eat a ton of insects,” Ms. Long said. “They also eat cucumber beetles and stink bugs, which affect tomatoes.”
A bat house needs to be attached to a structure like a barn or a bridge, she says, and not mounted on a pole. Hawks will wait for young bats to come out of a house, if it’s not sheltered, Ms. Long says, and pick them off one by one.
Organic researchers are also studying the role of soil fertility in pest control. Some studies show nutrient-rich soil may enhance the plant’s immune system and increase natural resistance to insects and pests, or provide a home to natural enemies. Organic soil in potato fields that Dr. Crowder studied, for example, has higher levels of a fungus that kills potato beetle larva than conventional fields.
Cover cropping, planting grasses and legumes that fix nitrogen between cash crops, can make a tremendous difference in soil, according to studies by Dr. Brennan. “If we can get farmers to plant a cover crop every three years instead of every 10, we would be much further ahead” in soil fertility, he said. “There’s a huge difference.”
Organic farmers aren’t averse to rolling out certain kinds of chemical sprays. Some — the so-called killer spices — are made from a blend of essential oils and water from strong-smelling plants like clove, mint and thyme. A decade of studies in Canada show that they can be very effective at repelling and killing pests, and are safe, though they aren’t active in the environment long and require multiple applications.
As far as weeds on organic farms, the biggest help there may also be cover crops, things like rye and fava beans. Many cover crops aren’t seeded at a high enough rate, Dr. Brennan said. “We have five times more weeds in vegetables where cover crop is the accepted rate,” he said. “If we increase the seeding rate by three times, we have virtually no weeds. That’s extremely important because organic farmers have no herbicides.”
The scientific search continues for a blend of systems that will grow food naturally and be good for nature on and beyond the farm field. “That’s the holy grail,” says Mr. Van Horn. “An agricultural system that mimics a natural system.”
Good fungi might improve crop health
(Texas A&M via physorg.com) – Researchers have come closer to understanding how a common fungus "makes its living in the soil," which could lead to its possible "career change" as a therapeutic agent for plant and human health.
That's according to Dr. Charles Kenerley,
Texas AgriLife Research plant pathologist, and a team
of scientists from the
T. virens already enjoy a good reputation in the plant world. The fungi is found throughout the world in all types of soil, Kenerley explained.
"We started working with this organism because it has what we would call biological control activity," he added. "They are used either as seed treatment, as a foliar spray, or in the mixtures of potting soil at nurseries (to help control disease)."
Because they are mycoparasites, T. virens attack other, less desirable fungi that can harm roots and foliage of plants, he added. Colonization of plant roots by T. virens also prompts the plant to produce defense responses to fight off pathogenic fungi.
As a bonus, when no pathogens are loitering, T. virens enhance the growth of plants, he added.
"These fungi are very diversified organisms that have various roles in ecology," Kenerley said, "so agriculture has adopted them for use in biocontrol or growth promotion. T. virens will colonize most agricultural crops including corn, cotton, sorghum and alfalfa, as well as woody plants and numerous other nursery plants."
Anything good enough to fight off disease and encourage growth might have more to offer, the scientists reasoned, so they looked deeper.
Sure enough, Kenerley noted, T. virens also produce antibiotics and short chains of amino acids called peptaibols. Amino acids — because they string together to form protein — are like the cinder blocks of all living things.
In this study, the researchers found two classes of peptaibols that contain more than 70 components that had never been described.
"What is also exciting is that the 11- and 14-amino acid peptaibols have great diversity. The chemists I work with have been able to identify 52 different forms of this 11-amino acid peptaibol," Kenerley said. "When you have so many different forms, you have now a suite of compounds that you can test (for potential uses)."
Sorting out that diversity to determine any specific uses for each of the 52 forms is something the team continues to pursue.
"Some might be interesting for use in plant science and some might be looked at by the pharmaceutical industry for human uses," he said.
The researcher said finding potential uses for the compounds will not be easy.
"The biggest challenge is not only in selection of the most appropriate form, but then how do you gear the organism to produce more of what you want rather than the whole suite of its compounds," Kenerley said. "There's probably an ecological reason the fungus produces a diversity of these compounds. I'm sure it has to do with survival in the soil, and its interaction with other organisms and plant roots.
"The compounds are not necessarily there for our benefit, but we would like to use these compounds in different applications," he added.
While Kenerley's team is considering agricultural uses for the peptaibols, others are considering pharmaceutical uses for treating tumors in humans or perhaps their ability to work against harmful bacteria, fungi and viruses, he said.
"You can see that they would have great potential if they have therapeutic value but are not harmful to the hosts — the hosts being humans," Kenerley added.
The scientist said once researchers understand how the peptaibols are produced by the fungus, the fungus could be potentially modified to produce only the part needed for a specific use.
"If we can demonstrate a cheap way to make these, the specific form desired could be synthesized," he said. "The problem right now is there are so many forms of these peptaibols, you really don't know which one to go after. We need to figure out 'do I need a combination of these things? or really do I only need to make one or two?"
Kenerley's team is working with
chemists in
Provided by
How broccoli helps fight cancer growth
(webmd.com) – Broccoli may help fight cancer by blocking a defective gene associated with tumor growth, according to new research.
Previous studies have heralded the potential cancer-fighting ability of broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower and watercress. But researchers say until now they didn't know the secret behind the vegetables' anticancer attributes.
In a new study, researchers found compounds in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables called isothiocyanates (ITCs) appear to target and block mutant p53 genes associated with cancer growth.
Gene p53 is known as a tumor suppressor gene and appears to play a critical role in keeping cells healthy and protecting them from cancer. When this gene is damaged or mutated, it stops offering this protection. Researchers say these mutations are found in about half of all human cancers.
In a report published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry,
researcher Xiantao Wang of
The results showed that ITCs were capable of removing the defective p53 gene while leaving healthy versions of the gene alone.
Researchers say if further studies confirm these findings, it could lead to new therapies for preventing and treating cancer.
UK
(BBC News) – Experts have pronounced a chilli grown in the market town of Grantham, Lincs, as the hottest in the world.
Tests have revealed the "Infinity Chilli" to have a Scoville Scale Rating of 1,176,182 - hotter than chilli reportedly used in hand grenades by the Indian military. But what is the attraction of this insanely hot ingredient?
The story of the world's hottest chilli
begins not in
Nick Woods, working shifts as an RAF security guard and considering his growing family, decided he had to do something more entrepreneurial with his life.
That was five years ago. What was Nick's hobby - cooking up hot sauces in his kitchen - developed into his Fire Foods sauce business, and now the 38-year-old Grantham man finds himself literally in possession of hot property.
Like many great discoveries Nick says he developed the Infinity Chilli accidentally.
Fire Foods
"There are 4,000 different varieties of chilli," he explains, "and they're really easy to cross.
"I knew as soon as I saw it in the polytunnel. It stood out, and when I dissected it I could tell by the skin tissue and the seeds that it was a hot one."
Technically the chilli is not a vegetable but a fruit, from the plant genus "Capsicum".
The heat comes from the substance "capsaicin" which is found in all chillies. The attraction of it lies in the way it livens up our foods and makes the body produce pleasurable endorphins afterwards.
The chilli fire is measured by the Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) designed by American chemist Wilbur Scoville in 1912.
To put the Grantham chilli in context, a Jalapeno can score anything between 2,500 to 8,000 SHU on this scale.
The Bhut Jolokia chilli weighs in at just over 800,000 SHU. The Indian military are reported to have developed a counter-terrorism hand grenade which uses it as an ingredient to immobilise their adversaries.
But Grantham's Infinity Chilli has
scored 1,176,182 SHU in a test done last year by Andrew Jukes, a scientist at
the
Bigger and better
It's boom time for the chilli,
because
Cookery writer Michael Michaud runs an online chilli supply firm and was responsible for the development of the "Dorset Naga", until recently one of the hottest known chillies in existence.
Chillies appeal to our globalised tastes "It's a versatile spice," he says.
"And the vast majority of British people have been eating chillies, and have been for years, because almost every high street has an Indian restaurant.
"But I think people are growing and cooking with them more. And now it's a bit like an arms race, with a macho culture going on, you know, I can eat one that's hotter, and so on.
"And trying to grow the hottest one can also get obsessive."
But the British attraction to the chilli is more than simply a yearning for the burn.
There's evidence our palates are becoming more sophisticated as our exposure to it lengthens.
"When Indian restaurants first arrived in the
"Now it's much more subtle and we're using chillies with lots of different tastes and textures. We don't try to overpower the food."
'Worrying'
Despite the obvious immediate discomfort - not to say total agony - that comes from eating the hottest of peppers, doctors are yet to notice any lasting ill effects from them.
In fact it's thought they could play a valuable part in pain relief and there are reports of them being used to help people undergoing chemotherapy.
Earlier this week Nick Martin decided to try one of his Infinity Chillies.
"I actually ate one yesterday. It was one I'd had frozen from last year - so I thought it wouldn't be as hot as if it was fresh - and I thought I'd try it.
"It was all a bit worrying. The burn on my tongue lasted half an hour and the effects went on and on. At one point I was doubled over in pain and thinking about ringing the hospital.
"The worst was over by 11 o'clock, but it wasn't funny."
End Transmission