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April 21, 2011
· Ag industry decries Fed over regulation
· DuPont profit trounces Wall Street goal
· Sweet corn favored as N.Y. state veggie
· Send in the robots to pick the ripest fruit
· Brazil: A new haven for high tech investors
Ag industry decries Fed over regulation
(Monterey County Herald) – Excessive and unfair regulation is hampering the agricultural industry's economic viability and capacity for creating jobs, said a panel of agri-business leaders testifying before a Congressional committee in Salinas this week.
At a hearing conducted at the Salinas Rotunda, six agricultural industry representatives told Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, and Sam Farr, D-Carmel, the environmental protection regulatory process, often made more complex by environmentalist groups' lawsuits involving endangered species or clean water laws, make it difficult and expensive for farmers to follow the rules.
They warned that implementing the "e-verify" online system and requiring employers to determine if their workers are in the country legally, without a guest worker program, would destroy the industry.
Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, hosted the sixth in a series of hearings aimed at investigating the "regulatory impediments to job creation," with Tuesday's focus on the impact the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's actions have had on agriculture.
Farr, the ranking member of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development and other agencies, joined Issa at the local hearing.
Those testifying included Tom Nassif, president and CEO of the Western Growers Association; Jim Bogart, president of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California; Richard Smith, owner of Paraiso Vineyards in the Salinas Valley; Norm Groot, executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau; Mike Jarrard, president and CEO of Mann Packing Co.; and Mark Murai, president of the California Strawberry Commission.
Nassif blasted the practice of suing the EPA to force tougher regulations through legal settlements without input from the ag industry, which he called a "de facto rule-making process that is harmful to farming and of questionable benefit to the environment."
"With a regulatory environment that is stifling job creation and economic opportunity, the majority of us must rely on off-farm income to support our families," Nassif said, "an increasing number of us are moving our production offshore, and some of us are simply shutting down our operations."
Bogart called for requiring a cost-benefit analysis for all regulation, especially involving pesticides and waterways. Smith suggested the agricultural industry might have to resort to filing its own lawsuits to force regulatory changes. And Groot ripped excessive water and air quality rules, while calling for unified oversight of environmental protections.
Issa compared the regulation and enforcement of agriculture to being "ticketed for speeding when you're not even in the car yet," noting that farmers were being required to prove they weren't polluting rather than reacting to proved pollution.
Farr said the issue "really calls out for a bigger reform," agreeing that litigation had proliferated and proposed a unified regulatory master plan designed to address all the critical issues.
He warned that Congressional Republicans' plans to gut the EPA would leave the agricultural industry at the mercy of litigation, and suggested any reform of the agency should avoid the "meat axe approach."
Issa asked if the endangered species act should be reformed to allow states to take over jurisdiction of locally listed plants and animals. Nassif said he preferred local control.
Issa quizzed the agri-business leaders about the impact of implementing the e-verify system in an industry known to employ a high percentage of workers in the country illegally.
Bogart said it would create a "perfect storm" to require the use of the system without an effective guest worker program to provide the industry access to a work force, and said that was more important than all other aspects of the business, including regulation. He said the industry wants to see passage of the proposed Ag Jobs legislation, which would expand the guest worker program, allow a path to legalization, and is supported by agri-business and by labor.
Nassif said the agriculture industry supports secure borders, employer enforcement and even the e-verify system, but only if it has a work force in place.
Farr said the impact of enforcement without reform would be especially severe locally, where he estimated at least 70 percent of the ag work force is undocumented.
"To have that much of your work force in the dark and in fear is a bad way to operate a community," he said, "and it's certainly a bad way to operate a large and complex agricultural operation."
DuPont profit trounces Wall Street goal
NEW YORK (Reuters) – DuPont's (DD.N) profit rose 27 percent to trounce Wall Street's expectations, fueled largely by sales to farmers and solar panel makers, and the chemical giant raised its earnings forecast.
The company, which plans to buy Danish food additives maker Danisco for $5.9 billion, is a Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) component. Its products, which also include the iconic Kevlar bulletproof vests and Tyvek homewrap, touch nearly every sector, from construction to agriculture and clothing.
Latin American sales posted the biggest sales percentage jump by region-- 30 percent -- and sales to electronics and communications customers rose 29 percent.
DuPont earned $1.43 billion, or $1.52 per share, in the first quarter, up from $1.13 billion, or $1.24 per share, a year earlier.
The results eclipsed the $1.36 per share analysts had been expecting, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Revenue rose 18 percent to $10 billion. Analysts expected $9.19 billion.
Farmers gobbled up DuPont's genetically modified seeds ahead of the spring planting season, boosting agricultural sales 18 percent.
Chief Executive Officer Ellen Kullman said earnings growth and increased productivity "support our confidence in raising our full-year earnings outlook."
DuPont raised its 2011 earnings forecast to a range of $3.65 to $3.85 per share. The Delaware-based company had previously forecast $3.45 to $3.75 per share, and Wall Street expects $3.71.
DANISCO
DuPont provided no update on its offer to buy Danisco.
The current tender offer for the Danish company expires at the end of the month, and DuPont has yet to get more than 10 percent of Danisco shareholders to agree to the deal.
DuPont's offer represented a 25 percent premium to Danisco's stock price just before it was announced in January.
If a deal closes, nearly half of DuPont's revenue will come from food-related businesses. The company expects the acquisition to dent 2011 earnings by 30 cents to 45 cents per share.
DuPont finance chief Nick Fanandakis told Reuters last week that he was "confident" the deal will be approved before the end of April.
If a success, the buyout will define Kullman's legacy at the company, much the way predecessor's Charlie Holliday's acquisition of seed maker Pioneer defined him.
Kullman's two-year track record at DuPont has thus far been marked by success. Her deft handling of the company's finances during the recession earned her a 15 percent base salary raise in 2010 to $1.3 million
Sweet corn favored as N.Y. state veggie
(The
Reporter)
The New York Farm Bureau's Facebook friends voted for sweet corn more than twice as much as onions, the other main contender for the title.
The unscientific poll followed two competing bills
introduced in the state Senate seeking to designate an official vegetable for
Corn received 725 votes in the Farm Bureau's Facebook poll, compared to 311 for onions. Other vegetables like cabbage, potatoes and pumpkins accounted for 240 votes.
Send in the robots to pick the ripest fruit
(Israel21c)
–
Robotics researchers at
The project is part of "cRops" (Clever Robots for Crops), a European Union Seventh Framework program. cRops will develop the scientific know-how and several prototype systems to harvest greenhouse peppers, orchard fruits and premium wine grapes.
The highly configurable, modular platform system will consist of a robot transported on a carrier along with manipulators and "intelligent tools" -- sensors, algorithms, sprayers and grippers -- that can be adapted to new tasks and conditions.
The cRops robotic platform will be able to detect the fruit, sense its ripeness, and then move to grasp and softly detach only the ripe fruit. It will also be capable of targeted spraying during the growing process.
The math behind the robots
BGU's role in the project will be to lead the development of intelligent sensing and manipulation algorithms.
"An agricultural robot must be equipped with intelligence so as to be able to robustly operate in the unstructured, dynamic and hostile agricultural environment," explains BGU project leader Prof. Yael Edan of the department of industrial engineering and management.
"We are developing an autonomous robotic platform that will reliably and accurately judge which produce is ready for harvest, and skip the ones that aren't."
Because developing such a concept requires a strong multidisciplinary approach, the BGU team also includes Dr. Ohad Ben Shahar of the department of computer science, Dr. Amir Shapiro of the department of mechanical engineering, Dr. Sigal Berman of the department of industrial engineering and management and Prof. Helman Stern of the department of industrial engineering and management.
The cRops research grant
consortium is coordinated by Wageningen University
& Research Centre in the
Brazil
(AFP
via Yahoo! News)
"The biggest challenge for
"We are encouraging industrial groups to innovate...
and we are setting up foreign research centers that will register or apply for
patents in
One of these centers is CENPES, launched by Brazilian oil
giant Petrobas in a northern suburb of
Created in 1970 and located on the campus of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, CENPES has invested $700 million since 2005 to attract international firms involved in the Brazilian oil industry, including France's Schlumberger and US-based GE, Halliburton and Baker Hughes.
"The biggest suppliers of Petrobas,
seeing
He cited biotechnology, biofuels and environment research as projects being developed.
Petrobas invested $2.6 billion in
research and development in 2008-2010 and plans major investments for deepwater
oil exploration in the
Brazil's current proven crude oil reserves of 14 billion barrels could more than triple by extracting the oil buried in the sea, making the country one of the biggest exporters of crude.
With a booming consumer market,
"
Multinational firms Accenture, Motorola and IBM are among the giants that have established a foothold there.
The transfer of military technology is also a key factor as
Competition for the contract has dragged on for years, with President Dilma Rousseff inheriting it from her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who had declared a preference for the French planes.
The contract is for 36 fighters with the possibility of many more aircraft in the future.
End Transmission