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April 5, 2011
· Washington sees dip in organic farming
· Research focuses on better biocontrols
· Salmonella suit filed against Del Monte
· Growers planning to use GM sugar beets
· Runoff proposal has Calif. farmers upset
Washington
(yakimaherald.com)
Though demand for organic food is up throughout the nation,
a
It's probably just a matter of supply and demand reaching a
balance, which is a good thing, said David Granatstein,
author of the report and a researcher at the Center for Sustaining Agriculture
and Natural Resources in
"I think it's all pretty encouraging," Granatstein said.
His statistics showed that
However, the previous four years' organic acreage more than doubled. Growers might be pulling back to let demand catch up, he said.
Meanwhile, organic still comprises a small share of the overall market, making it susceptible to big swings. One grower switching a large block can dramatically skew the percentages.
Stores won't pay
Local growers suspect lower prices at the farm gate and new pests were behind the dip.
Shoppers may still be willing to pay more for organic food, but stores won't, said Dennis Jones, who has 114 acres of fruit trees between Zillah and Granger.
"There's been less of a premium to grow organic produce," said Jones, who has not cut his organic acreage.
Research supports his theory.
After netting $246.7 million in 2008, organic farm-gate sales in the state fell to $210.7 million in 2009, the most recent year with sales statistics. Sales figures lag a year behind acreage planted.
Sales in
Even with the rising cost of fertilizers and chemicals for conventional farming, growers said organic produce still costs a lot more to grow, mostly because it takes more labor.
Mike Adams, orchard manager for Harrah-based Green Acre Farms, estimated it costs $50 per ton more for organic fruit destined for processors than for conventional. Organics require more trips through the orchard to thin buds and pull weeds because they aren't sprayed.
Pesky fruit fly
Meanwhile, a new pest may have growers concerned enough to switch, fruit growers said. The spotted wing drosophila fruit fly has proven tough to control with organic methods.
The fly, native to Southeast Asia, has caused problems in
"It's a bad bug," Jones said.
In spite of the ups and downs,
And demand for organic products continues to grow, just more slowly, Granatstein said. Organics accounted for 11.4 percent of all produce sales in the nation in 2009, compared to 9.8 percent in 2008.
"It's still growing."
Research focuses on better biocontrols
(USDA-ARS) – Agricultural Research Service scientists are moving closer to developing an environmentally friendly bacteria-based biocontrol agent that offers long-lasting protection against caterpillars and other pests in a garden or cultivated field.
Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is now used to control gypsy moths, tent caterpillars, leaf rollers, canker worms, and other pests that attack garden plants, corn, and other crops. But the commonly used strain, B. thuringiensis kurstaki, doesn’t survive more than one generation.After an initial round of pests is killed, the biocontrol dies out and the pests return.
Michael Blackburn, an entomologist at the Invasive Insect Biocontrol and Behavior Laboratory in Beltsville, has been searching among the 3,500 characterized Bt strains in the ARS Beltsville Bacterial Collection for a strain that will not only kill an initial generation of pests, but will also survive to kill later generations.
The researchers looked at survival rates of the bacteria over several generations of caterpillars and found that urease-producing phenotypes survived better when repeatedly fed to gypsy moths. Of 26 urease-producing Bt strains, 23 survived 5 passages through gypsy moth larvae, while none of the 24 strains that don’t produce urease survived them.
The results, published in Biological Control, bring scientists a step closer to finding a Bt strain that will be more effective at combating gypsy moths and possibly other insect pests. The efforts should also lead to the discovery of Bt strains with other desirable traits, such as the ability to grow on mulch, multiply on specific crops, or thrive in gardens and other sites favored by a targeted pest.—By Dennis O'Brien, Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.
Michael Blackburn is with the USDA-ARS Invasive Insect Biocontrol and Behavior Laboratory, 10300 Baltimore Ave., Bldg. 011A, Room 281, Beltsville, MD 20705-2350; (301) 504-9396.
"Getting Closer to Better Biocontrol for Garden Pests" was published in the March 2011 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
Salmonella suit filed against Del Monte
(denverpost.com) BRIGHTON — A 12-year-old Thornton girl was sickened with salmonella in March after she ate a Del Monte-brand cantaloupe purchased at a local Costco.
The strain of salmonella that caused her illness was the same strain associated with a March 22 recall of Del Monte cantaloupe, according to a lawsuit filed in Adams County District Court on behalf of Robert and Kelli Lopez by Marler Clark, a food-safety law firm.
"Del Monte had a responsibility to provide its customers with safe, healthy, unadulterated cantaloupe," said attorney Bill Marler. "Kids should not land in the hospital because they choose to eat fruit instead of processed foods."
Del Monte could not be reached for comment.
The suit says the Lopez family bought the cantaloupe in early March, and their daughter — identified as S.W. — became sick with a gastrointestinal illness about March 4. Her condition worsened, and she was hospitalized March 10-14. She is still recovering, attorney Dave Babcock said.
While hospitalized, the girl tested positive for salmonella, the suit said. The family was then told by health officials that the strain of salmonella that infected the girl was linked to the March 22 cantaloupe recall.
Del Monte recalled 4,992 cartons of cantaloupe that were
potentially contaminated with salmonella
Marler said there have been 13
cases of salmonella
This is the third cantaloupe recall Del Monte has initiated because of salmonella contamination in less than two years, Marler said.
In late 2009, the California Department of Public Health warned consumers not to eat Del Monte cantaloupe because of salmonella contamination and recalled 1,120 cartons of its product.
In 2010, the Michigan Department of Agriculture detected salmonella on Del Monte cantaloupe, and the company recalled 81 cartons, Marler said.
"By nature, cantaloupe is riskier than some other fruits, but with proper safety precautions, salmonella outbreaks are preventable," Marler said.
The lawsuit is seeking damages caused by medical expenses, lost wages, travel-related expenses and emotional distress.
Growers planning to use GM sugar beets
(Star
Tribune) –
Last August, a federal judge in
The judge put the seeds back into "regulated" status, something that can't be totally removed until the USDA completes an environmental impact statement, a two-year process.
The USDA came up with a stopgap solution in February: partial deregulation of sugar beets that have been engineered to be resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. In other words, beet growers could plant Roundup Ready seeds under certain conditions, including closely monitoring their crops.
But Earthjustice and the Center for Food Safety, groups opposing genetically modified seed, are continuing their court battle, trying to overturn the USDA's partial deregulation.
That's left a cloud over beet growers, who have been debating whether to go ahead with genetically modified seed or use conventional seed, which they say is inferior and in shorter supply.
With the planting season just a few weeks away, the board of Moorhead-based American Crystal Sugar on Wednesday decided to go with genetically modified seeds. Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative in Wahpeton, N.D., and Renville-based Southern Minnesota Sugar Beet Cooperative, had already reached that conclusion.
"It's legal to plant and grow Roundup Ready sugar beet seeds," said Dave Roche, Minn-Dak's chief executive.
Still, he and executives at the other co-ops acknowledged some trepidation in going forward with genetically modified seeds. "We've had a lot of worries and fears," Roche said.
If a court ruling that favors environmentalists comes down between now and planting, beet farmers may suddenly have to switch to conventional seed, which could delay planting.
In a worst-case scenario, a court ruling against the USDA after planting could force the destruction of crops already in the ground. "There's a very remote likelihood of that, though it is possible," Roche said.
Beets are the nation's main source of sugar, and
Environmental groups say genetically engineered seed could lead to the development of herbicide resistant weeds -- superweeds -- and cause contamination of non-genetically engineered crops through inadvertent pollination.
Runoff proposal has Calif.
(recordnet.com)
–
The infamous "ag waiver" allows tens of thousands of farmers to join coalitions rather than obtain individual wastewater discharge permits, as factories, businesses and cities must do.
The coalitions sample for pollutants such as pesticides, bacteria and heavy metals including copper and arsenic. They share results with the state, then encourage upstream growers to clean up the water draining from their fields.
The long-term program would keep the coalitions indefinitely, with some changes.
Farmers say the proposal, which would require them for the first time to monitor pollution leaching into groundwater, is too strict. Environmentalists say it's too lenient. Either way, it may be awfully expensive, with estimates ranging from $200 million to $1.3 billion per year - most of that cost tied to growers' projects to improve water quality.
While the debate goes on, pollution persists in
"It's difficult to just say, 'Have things improved, or have they not?' " said Joe Karkoski, with the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. "I would say it's too early to really quantify how much things have improved. We're not seeing water quality getting worse."
A growers' coalition representing parts of San Joaquin, Alameda, Contra Costa and Calaveras counties says in its most recent monitoring report that while "substantial improvement" has been found in many areas, water quality in most of the region still is not protective of drinking water, agriculture, recreation and aquatic life.
During 2010, the problem most frequently found in our waterways was low levels of dissolved oxygen for fish. While there were fewer hits on pesticides and metals in 2010 than one year earlier, there were also fewer samples taken.
The report concludes that water quality last year was "not worse" than in previous years, and may improve when growers have more time to respond to public outreach. In some cases, however, it's hard to say whether the contaminants are coming from farms or someplace else.
"We're doing a lot of outreach and education, and
evaluation of farms in areas where we know there are water-quality
issues," said Mike Wackman, a spokesman for the
Wackman said many meetings have been held with growers encouraging them to manage runoff by installing newer irrigation systems, or capturing runoff and pumping it back for reuse on the same fields.
Farmers believe the long-term coalition program to be considered next week goes too far. It includes a requirement to test not only runoff into rivers and streams, but also irrigation water that percolates into the ground.
Not all farmers are in locations where they might be polluting groundwater, Wackman said.
Environmentalists dislike the coalitions as a whole, saying the groups shield individual farmers and fail to hold them accountable for pollution they discharge.
Outreach isn't enough, those critics say, adding that the state lacks evidence that methods to reduce pollution have actually been implemented.
The end result is a "license to pollute that, like the
current program, does not mandate that any farmer reduce or eliminate a single
molecule of pollution in their discharges," the Stockton-based California Sportfishing Protection Alliance said in comments to the
state. The alliance sued
"The water board doesn't know who is discharging and what they're discharging," said Bill Jennings, head of the alliance. "We know there are (pollution) problems, but we don't know who's creating them. We don't know the good farmers from the bad farmers."
But the new rule will have teeth, said the water board's Karkoski. If coalitions can't demonstrate that their outreach efforts are successful, he said, the state will step in and regulate the growers themselves.
End Transmission