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April 2, 2010
· AR4D puts science to work for global food
· US growers are expected to plant more corn
· Big Sierra snowpack won’t slake Calif. thirst
· Tomato gene promising against brain tumors
· Warm weather a boon to Minnesota farmers
AR4D puts science to work for global food
(IRIN
via AlertNet.org)
This bottom-up approach to making Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) more effective, described as the way forward in helping the world become food secure in the next few years, was endorsed at a critical three-day meeting on agriculture in France which ended this week.
Proactive problem-solving was supported in a comprehensive assessment report on AR4D that formed the backdrop to the conference - the first Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) - held at the request of the G8 group of industrialized countries to identify future food production needs and a course of action, said Eugene Terry, one of the authors of the report.
Making science more accessible
The crux of the meeting was making science work for farmers and food security, and the answer lay in how to make the science more accessible.
Most countries and farmers shied away from genetically modified (GM) crops because they did not understand the science involved, said Terry, who was the first director-general of the West Africa Rice Development Association. "If people are not informed they will be vulnerable to all kinds of propaganda about GM crops."
The conference identified eight critical areas of agricultural research, with the development of GM crops as a critical part of the health and nutrition theme. "People need to be told about the risks and benefits of genetic modification, and then they can make their decision," said Terry.
GM foods sometimes caused allergic reactions because during genetic modification certain types of protein were introduced into the genetic makeup. "Research is ongoing in trying to minimize the impact of the 'alien' proteins," he said.
"Companies that produce GM seeds spend millions to reduce the toxicity, and none of these seeds can be released without FDA [the US Food and Drug Administration] approval, but the poor man is not told about these things."
Food crops "biofortified" by loading higher levels of essential micronutrients - minerals and vitamins like vitamin A, zinc, and iron, in their seeds and roots during growth - were one of the most effective ways of combating malnutrition, according to researchers who work in the area.
The HarvestPlus Challenge Program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which focuses on developing biofortified crops, said it was one of the cheapest ways to provide essential micronutrients, but most of their work still used traditional plant-breeding techniques.
US$75 million could buy vitamin A supplements for 37.5 million pre-school children in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan for a year; the same amount could fortify prepared foods with iron for 375 million persons for a year - about 30 percent of the population of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan - or it could help develop and disseminate rice and wheat varieties biofortified with iron and zinc for the entire South Asia, forever.
The other seven research themes were: agricultural systems for the poor and vulnerable; enabling agricultural incomes for the poor; optimizing the productivity of global food security crops; water, soils and ecosystems; forests and trees; climate change and agriculture; and agricultural biodiversity.
"Of course, these are not new themes," Terry acknowledged, but there were deadlines now. Three research "mega-programmes" adapted from any of the themes would have to be finalized by the end of 2010, and the progress reviewed by the next GCARD in 2012.
The themes
Agricultural systems for the poor should ensure they had access to food throughout the year. "The emphasis should be on high-yielding but short-season crop varieties, and encouraging farmers to go for mixed cropping," said Terry.
Small-scale farmers should be motivated to move away from producing food for subsistence and into commercial production, which meant making seeds and technology available.
Research would have to optimize the production of global food security crops - maize, rice, wheat - and look at roots crops like cassava.
Incessant cycles of crops depleted the soil of valuable nutrients, but using organic manure could help restore some of the nutrients. "The emphasis has to be on sustainable intensification," said Terry.
Investment in developing climate change-ready crops was critical, as large parts of the world were already grappling with droughts and floods.
Further research into the role of trees and forests in capturing carbon, and the role of the ecosystem in influencing rainfall patterns, was essential.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about three-quarters of the genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost in the last century, making research into enhancing biodiversity another major focus.
All this research would take lots of money, Terry pointed out. Developing countries have been asked to allocate 1.5 percent of their spending on agriculture on research, and donors at the conference said beneficiary countries looking for funds would have to show their commitment by investing in agriculture infrastructure, like building roads to connect the small-scale farmers to markets.
Uma Lele, lead author of the report on AR4D, commented: "We need action, action, action, and abolition - not alleviation - of poverty."
US
(DesMoinesRegister.com) – Growers nationwide plan to plant nearly 3 percent more corn this year, the government says, and that's good news for livestock farms and ethanol plants, as well as consumers.
The projected increase in plantings, plus a rise in
The higher acreage forecast by the Agriculture Department also could prevent a repeat of the political problems that struck corn growers and the biofuel industry when grain and food prices spiked two years ago.
"Certainly, there's going to be enough bushels, it appears, if we don't have extreme drought conditions, to satisfy all of the customers out there," said Rick Brehm, president and CEO of Lincolnway Energy LLC, an ethanol producer in Nevada, Ia.
Tim Burrack, who farms near
The increase in acreage isn't big enough to have a short-term impact on retail food prices this year, which are expected to rise about 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent, in line with historical trends, said the USDA's chief economist, Joe Glauber.
But the prospect of adequate corn supplies could lead cattle producers to expand their herds, which could eventually lead to lower beef prices, said Gregg Doud, an economist with the National Cattlemens' Beef Association.
The price of corn for May delivery fell 10 cents to under $3.46 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade on Wednesday. June cattle futures rose 5 cents to $93.70 per hundred pounds, while the price of lean hogs was up slightly to $83.25.
But some farmers say the actual
Burrack, who heads the Iowa Corn Promotion Board, said that the snow has melted quickly in his area and that he plans to plant an extra 160 acres of corn "just because the weather is cooperating so well."
But Doug Holliday, an
"The ground conditions are still quite damp," he said. "We need a lot of wind to get us dried out in this part of the state."
How much corn farmers actually plant will depend in part on whether the ground is dry enough for them to seed their corn in coming weeks and what happens to the relative prices of corn and soybeans, experts said.
"We've still got a long way to go before we see what this crop looks like," said Glauber, the USDA economist.
The USDA estimated that farmers would plant 88.8 million
acres of corn nationwide this year, the most since 2007, with the biggest
increases expected in
Farmers are expected to plant 78.1 million acres of soybeans, up from 77.5 million last year.
The report also illustrated how corn and soybeans continue
to spread in popularity because of varieties that have made them easier to grow
in areas that used to produce lower-revenue crops such as wheat:
The survey is based on interviews with 86,000 farmers in the first two weeks of March.
In a separate report, the USDA said supplies of corn were up 11 percent from March 2009 to 7.7 billion bushels.
Big Sierra snowpack won’t slake Calif.
(fresnobee.com)
– The Sierra snowpack is hefty. Waterfalls are starting to thunder in
It's time to celebrate the end of the state's three-year drought. Right? Wrong.
The El Niño-powered winter apparently was not a drought buster
-- even though some reservoirs may fill up and rainfall totals are above
average in two-thirds of
Here's the reality check: State officials expect only about 80% of average snowmelt will find its way into rivers and reservoirs this spring.
The dry Sierra landscape will absorb the rest.
"We needed a snowpack about 120% of average to make up for the last three years," said Maury Roos, a hydrologist for the state Department of Water Resources. "We're somewhere around 100%."
State officials will announce snowpack numbers Thursday, which is considered the end of the snow season.
April and May storms might add a little more to the snowpack, but the biggest snowfall months have passed.
Since more than half of the state's water comes from the snowpack, cities, industries and agriculture are poised to hear the announcement Thursday.
The global weather force El Niño -- a warming of the Pacific
Ocean at the equator -- influenced many storms to hit
Officials are expected to announce that the snowpack in the
Sierra north of
The southern Sierra from the
But in the central Sierra -- from Tahoe to
The hit-and-miss nature of the winter left Oroville Reservoir, the biggest reservoir for the State Water Project, at only 60% of average for this date. In contrast, massive Shasta Reservoir on the federal Central Valley Project is 103% of average.
Conservation will remain a high priority this summer, state officials said, but cities may not need to enforce severe water restrictions.
It's a different story in west
The west-siders are suffering cutbacks because of the subpar
runoff and
"Agriculture will have another year of record acres unfarmed," said Westlands spokeswoman Sarah Woolf.
From a meteorologist's point of view, the drought ends when
there is average rain and snow during a winter, said Steve Mendenhall,
meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service's
But Mendenhall added that reservoirs often do not recover with just one average year.
Climatologists agreed, saying other factors are at work. For
instance, the state had an average snowpack on April 1, 2008. But
The pattern of dry years may not have been broken, said state climatologist Mike Anderson. He said the state has had one-year reprieves in the middle of six-year droughts during the last century.
"An average year, like this one, is better than a dry
year," he said. "But
Tomato gene promising against brain tumors
(ScienceDaily.com)
– Tomato genes could be used as a future treatment in gene therapy, according
to new research results from
Jure Piskur is a Professor at the Department of Biology,
Research on gene therapy has been underway for a long time
and last autumn the first gene therapy treatment was launched onto the market,
by Ark Therapeutics from
The idea of gene therapy is to introduce an alien gene into a patient's cancer cells. In combination with a specific drug, the introduced gene can cause the cancer cells to die. The tumour does not disappear, but the hope is that the disease can be halted for a couple of years.
"Our research results on the tomato gene show a
superior alternative to the main ingredient that they have started using in
It certainly sounds incredible that it could be possible to use a tomato plant in cancer treatment. Jure Piskur explains that it is a matter of 'suicide genes', which can cause cells to die.
In the tomato the gene's actual task is to produce small building blocks for the plant's genetic make-up, but in combination with the drug AZT the tomato gene appears to kill the cancer cells. AZT is a drug that was first developed in the fight against HIV.
Professor Piskur came into contact with cancer research by chance. He is a researcher in molecular evolution and his interests include how enzymes have developed over millions of years. Enzymes are proteins that set off or speed up different chemical reactions in the body.
Jure Piskur has studied enzymes in a wide range of different organisms, from bacteria to animals. The tomato gene in question codes for an enzyme called thymidine kinase.
Warm weather a boon to Minnesota
(MPR
News)
Despite a wet fall, and then heavy snow, a dry, warm March got farmers going much earlier than anyone could have hoped for. For some, the early field work includes a rare spring harvest.
On a warm, windy, final day of March, the signs of a dry spring have spread out across the countryside.
A road grader smooths out the winter ruts of a gravel road. Nearby a red tractor pulls a plow and a tank of fertilizer through the stubble of last year's soybean crop.
In a field near the small town of
The corn stood untouched in the fields all winter long. He's pleased to note that the corn he's picking quickly fills the storage box on the big machine.
"Doesn't take long to get the bin full," Anker said.
The
Many
Heavy snow drifted over the corn stalks on the edge of the field, knocking some down. He said he probably lost 10 or 15 percent of the corn in those problem areas, but he's surprised that even where the corn plant fell over, he's often able to catch the stalk with combine and salvage the ear. His neighbors are finding the same thing.
"There's a few other people bringing grain into the elevator, too, now that didn't get done," Anker said. "And they're very pleased with the standability of the stalks and the quality of the grain too."
Anker says the quick warm up this year really helps him out. Even though the spring harvest means extra work, the early start should allow him to plant this year's crop on a normal schedule.
When farmers get their planting underway, it looks like they'll be seeding about the same number of acres to corn and soybeans as last year. The only significant change in the state's major cash crops will be in wheat.
The U.S. Agriculture Department predicts
"I think most producers would tell you, we're right on the cusp of profitability and not being profitable," Usset said.
If prices continue to decline, farmers could lose money on their crops this year. Corn prices alone have declined nearly 20 percent since the beginning of the year. Usset said the problem is, there's a lot of grain in storage.
"I think from a
That big supply drives down the price paid for corn,
soybeans, wheat and other crops. Farms harvesting now in the southern
hemisphere are also affecting prices.
Usset said a lot could change though before
End Transmission