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March 26, 2010
· Developers betting on organic farms
· FDA roasted over irradiation petitions
· Washington ‘cold train’ to ship produce
· ‘A-maiz-ing’ discovery could boost yields
· Tomato discourse is not rotten in ‘Ripe’
Developers betting on organic farms
(The Washington Post) – Forget the golf course. The hot new "amenity" being offered to residents of new subdivisions is a working farm. You don't have to weed it (unless you want to), but you can have access to food that could not be more local and participate in a slice of vanishing farm life. Ironically, the housing developers that are so often the culprits in farmland extinction are starting to save some of it.
There is a difference, of course, between the old farming community where everyone farmed and a planned community with a farm included, but something of the old sense of rural village life can be retained by clustering homes and having them anchored by a farm, as part of set-aside open space. Often a farm market is set up, or a community-supported agriculture program through which residents can buy food shares. Farm-centered festivals and activities bring residents together.
Several hundred projects like this are underway or in the
planning stages throughout the country, but there is no one formula for setting
one up. Two well-established residential-farm developments: Bundoran
Farm (http://www.bundoranfarm.com),
near
By contrast, Prairie Crossing (http://www.prairiecrossing.com)
in
Most of these projects start with a matchup between a fine old farm to save and a smart developer with a vision, but in the case of Potomac Vegetable Farms (http://www.potomacvegetablefarms.com), west of Tysons Corner, the farmers saved it themselves. Hiu Newcomb and her family now have a co-housing project (a community with shared common areas and responsibilities) clustered in one area, but most of the popular farm remains.
Another uncommon example is the South Village Community (http://www.southvillage.com) in
It remains to be seen whether development-based farms will
progress from enticements to resources that can feed an entire planned
community. Encouragingly, a project called Brewster Point in
But any progress is good, since farm soil, once lost, is nearly impossible to recover. As Julia Freedgood, head of American Farmland Trust's Growing Local Campaign puts it: "It's fantastic to see the increasing trend recognizing local food as a key element in creating sustainable communities. Ultimately, it's helping keep farms in agriculture."
FDA roasted over irradiation petitions
(FoodproductionDaily.com) – A US Congressional watchdog has slammed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a catalogue of failings over its handling of petitions to use irradiation on food.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the food regulatory agency was too slow in reviewing six outstanding irradiation applications, and had failed to meet statutory and regulatory deadlines in which to deliver a verdict.
FDA officials had also consistently not documented its decisions about the petitions and failed to communicate key information to applicants, said the GAO.
“As a result, FDA’s petition review process lacks transparency and leads to understanding and confusion among petitioners,” added the body in a stinging report.
Food irradiation is the process of exposing food to ionizing radiation in order to control foodborne pathogens. Food is irradiated using gamma rays, X-rays or electron beams. Its use is permitted in 56 countries and the process has been declared safe by the World Health Organisation, the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The GAO cited research that said the technology had the capacity to eliminate 99.999 per cent of potentially deadly bacteria such as E.coli, Listeria monocytogenes and Campylobacter.
FDA failures
The report listed how the FDA repeatedly failed to acknowledge receipt of petitions within the prescribed 15-day deadline or notify applicants of their success or failure. The six petitions have been under deliberation for an average of 8.5 years and some for as long as a decade.
The paper noted that FDA employees said the 180-day timeframe to decide on a petition was too short - but added that the agency had never requested a change in the law. The FDA is not obliged to make any reports on an application once the deadline has passed, said the report.
The food safety watchdog was also criticised for its lack of documentation on the outstanding petitions.
“FDA’s petition files contain little or no documentation of its decision-making on the six petitions and in some cases fail to reveal the process FDA used to make decisions”, said the report.
Furan
Giving an example of the FDA’s working practices, the GAO outlined how two petitions for irradiating meat and poultry were held up for almost ten years because the agency had decided to review them in conjunction with a third application for multi-food ingredients to save cost and time – although no record of this decision existed in any file.
The delay appeared to stem from concerns that furan, a carcinogenic colourless liquid, can form during irradiation. However, even though the agency determined in 2003 that furan was not an issue with irradiated meats, those petitions remain blocked in the system because they are still administratively “linked” to the multi-ingredient petition over which FDA concerns persist.
The FDA admitted its mistake in this respect and acknowledged it was possible to move forward with the meat and poultry applications. However, the agency said it had yet to set a deadline to finish it review of those meat applications.
The safety body has also failed to communicate properly with applicants which has limited their ability to understand or respond to FDA actions and decisions, said the oversight office.
The GAO urged the FDA to overhaul its administrative processes by documenting key decisions and communicating more effectively. The agency said it accepted the recommendations and had begun to implement them.
Washington
(columbiabasinherald.com) – The upcoming start of refrigerated intermodal container service from Quincy is expected to reduce product handling and help the local fresh produce industry get their product to market quicker.
Service officially starts April 1 from the
Nearly 95 percent of
“It will be cheaper for the shippers, we’re hoping,” said
Connelly also commented about how the service is “finally going to happen after all of these years.”
Port officials expect containers to start showing up this week. “We’re excited, we’ve been doing upgrades to equipment and facilities. We’re pretty pumped about it,” Connelly commented.
The intermodal yard was completed in 2006, when the railroad had all the business it wanted, he explained.
The port first planned to have product shipped to the West Coast, but the economy changed and the railroad started looking for business, he said.
With the new service, apples, onions, potatoes, cherries,
nectarines, peaches and all kinds of frozen fruits and vegetables will head
east to
Connelly is traveling to
The port and Rail Logistics have entered into a contract for the company to provide the service.
Lerner, of Rail Logistics, said the company signed up growers, processors, purchasers, brokers, food distributors and grocery chains for service.
He explained the term intermodal means between modes of transportation.
Here’s how the company’s service works: The refrigerated container
is placed on a chassis. The load is picked up, taken to the
The service can help reduce the cost of delivering the product, said Charles Pomianek, executive director of the Wenatchee Valley Traffic Association (WVTA).
The WVTA represents the packing, warehousing, shipping and marketing community in North Central Washington.
“I think it’s like all new opportunities. It may take a bit to get up and running to full capacity,” Pomianek said. “It’s exactly what the fresh produce industry needs to get product to market in a timely fashion.”
The service allows for less handling of the product, reducing bruised fruit and creating a greater environmental advantage because it takes less diesel to fuel a train, he said.
“I think it’s a pretty exciting opportunity,” Pomianek commented.
‘A-maiz-ing’ discovery could boost yields
(Genetics
Society of America via PHYSORG.com) – Scientists may have made an
"a-maize-ing" discovery that could lead to
higher corn yields in the
In a new research report published in the March 2010 issue
of the journal Genetics, scientists used tropical maize from
"Photoperiod response is the major barrier to using
tropical maize for the improvement of temperate maize varieties," said
James B. Holland, Ph.D, a researcher involved in the
work from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Plant Science Research Unit at
To discover these important regions of the plant's genome,
researchers interbred two tropical, photoperiod-sensitive corn lines (one from
Mexico; one from Thailand) with two photoperiod-insensitive corn lines from the
United States, and grew out hundreds of progeny lines in North Carolina (long
day-length summers) and in Florida (short day-length winters). Lines with
strong photoperiod response were identified as those flowering much later in
In addition to allowing for improved strains of domestic corn, the research also is important because it suggests that the genes controlling the photoperiod response in corn are at least partly distinct than those believed to control photoperiod response in model plant species such as Arabidopsis (Mustard Weed) and rice. Future studies to pinpoint specific genes involved in the photoperiod response, however, will be necessary to draw definitive conclusions. The results of these future studies should lead to a better understanding of the extent of shared genetic pathways among distinct plant species and provide insights into how such pathways evolve. Ultimately this knowledge could have significant implications for agricultural species around the world.
"Corn is obviously an important crop, and geneticists and plant breeders are always looking for ways to improve it," said Mark Johnston, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Genetics. "This research may help us coax even more production out of this 'a-maize-ing' plant."
More information: Nathan D. Coles, Michael D. McMullen, Peter J. Balint-Kurti, Richard C. Pratt, and James B. Holland. Genetic Control of Photoperiod Sensitivity in Maize Revealed by Joint Multiple Population Analysis. Genetics 2010 184: 799-812. http://www.genetics.org
Provided by Genetics Society of
Tomato discourse is not rotten in ‘Ripe’
(AP via Yahoo! News) -- "Ripe: The Search for the Perfect Tomato" (Counterpoint, 304 pages, $26), by Arthur Allen: "Ripe" is the latest in a rapidly growing number of books examining U.S. agricultural and food production systems and their affect on public health and the environment.
Arthur Allen, a former Associated Press writer, focuses on the tomato industry, and he's somewhat more sympathetic to corporate farms and big business than trendsetter Michael Pollan and others writing on similar topics. The first part of "Ripe" includes a number of derisive comments about members of the "crunchy left," who want cheap, locally grown, organic tomatoes year-round. Allen notes, rightly, that that's nearly impossible to provide, given the climate in most of the country.
He visits
That musing leads into an examination of American tomato
breeding that has created ever firmer, but increasingly bland fruit. As labor
problems and costs grew in
In
But while Allen is understanding of the risks farmers face and their need to make a profit, he becomes increasingly critical of the effect of business interests on the American diet as "Ripe" progresses. Americans eat tomatoes that fit the needs of Heinz, McDonald's and a few other corporate giants because those companies provide the bulk of farmers' sales. McDonald's and other fast-food companies need firm tomatoes that hold up when sliced thin and look nice on a hamburger bun. Taste, Allen insists, is not a priority.
Allen also delves into labor and trade issues, writing
critically about the treatment of farmworkers in
While each chapter in "Ripe" is focused, the book as a whole has a meandering feel as Allen jumps from plant breeding to international trade to labor organization. Parts are also heavy with science and Latin plant names.
But readers with endurance and a strong interest in understanding the politics of food and the forces dictating what's available at their supermarkets will probably find it enlightening.
End Transmission