" I heard it through the AgLine"

April 23, 2010

 

 

·        Robo-suit gives new powers to aging farmers

·        Supreme Court to hear first biotech crop case

·        Concerns expressed over GM food labeling

·        Growing grain for fuel not food is a bad idea

·        AgLineNews takes a break; Returns April 28

 

 

Robo-suit gives new powers to aging farmers

 

(AFP via Yahoo! News) TOKYO – While Robocop and Iron Man can dodge bullets and crush villains, a new powered suit from Japan promises its elderly users more modest powers, such as pulling up radishes without getting a backache.

 

Unlike its heavily-armed Hollywood counterparts, the Power Assist Suit aims to make life easier for Japan's army of greying farmers.

 

The metal-and-plastic exoskeleton boasts eight electric motors that amplify the strength of the wearer's arms and legs, as well as sensors that can detect movements and respond to commands through a voice-recognition system.

 

Professor Shigeki Toyama and his team developed the power-enhancing suit at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, and Toyama plans to set up a company to start producing the futuristic outfit by the end of the year.

 

"If the farmer bends over to grasp a radish, his back will be firmly supported," said Gohei Yamamoto, one of the students working on the team, as he recently demonstrated the suit on his university campus.

 

"A brief vocal instruction will instantly straighten the rods along his legs, giving him the power he needs to pull the vegetable without effort."

 

Fifteen years in the making, the robosuit will soon hit the market in Japan to help ageing farmers harvest their fruit and vegetables while avoiding backaches and nasty cramps, its developers say.

 

Japan, with a low birthrate and a high life expectancy, is facing a demographic crisis as its population rapidly ages and shrinks.

 

Industrial robots have long been common in Japan, and robo-suits are making inroads in hospitals and retirement homes, where they can help carers lift patients or aid in physical rehabilitation exercises.

 

But with two thirds of the country's farm-workers already over 65 years old, the agriculture sector is a potentially lucrative untapped market.

 

The suit should hit the Japanese market in 2012, when it will initially retail for about one million yen (11,000 dollars), a price tag its makers hope to halve if the device is mass-produced, the team said.

 

There are however no plans so far to sell the suits overseas.

 

"I doubt that the suit would sell in Europe and in America, where foreign migrants workers often perform farm-related tasks," Toyama said.

 

The team has developed a heavy-duty 30 kilogram (66 pound) model, for lifting big loads and pulling vegetables out of the ground, and a 23 kilogram version designed for lighter tasks such as picking grapes.

 

The robo-suits can reduce the user's physical effort by 62 percent on average, the inventors say. When bending knees the muscular activity is reduced by half, and the suit can also take most of the strain out of crouching.

 

"We conducted a survey of 102 people for the latest model, asking what part of the body hurt when they picked grapes," Yamamoto said. "Most farmers complained about aches in their arms, necks and lower backs."

 

The suits are already tough, but soon they will also become smarter.

 

By the end of the year Toyama plans to start working on augmented reality goggles on which useful information could be displayed for the farmer, in much the same way as data is projected onto the inside of a fighter jet's cockpit.

 

Useful information might include how ripe the grapes are, or the user's heart rate and calorie consumption, said Toyama. "The goggles would tell you for instance how long you've been working and when you should rest."

 

Return to Top

 

 

Supreme Court to hear first biotech crop case

 

(Environmental News Service) – The first genetically engineered crop case ever heard by the U.S. Supreme Court will be argued on April 27 and it has already attracted a lot of interest from food companies, farmers unions, scientists and legal scholars.

 

The case, Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, pits the giant agribusiness company against family and organic farmers over the issue of whether to allow the planting of Monsanto's Roundup Ready alfalfa after the Bush-era U.S. Department of Agriculture failed to analyze the crop's impacts on farmers and the environment.

 

In January, the Supreme Court granted the petition of Monsanto and its seed partner company, Forage Genetics International for review of a 2007 federal district court order which halted planting of Roundup Ready alfalfa, genetically engineered to tolerate exposure to Monsanto's herbicide Roundup.

 

After finding a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, the district court ordered and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a permanent nationwide injunction against any further planting of Roundup Ready alfalfa.

Harvesting alfalfa in Yolano, California (Photo by Bruce Barnett)

 

Monsanto argues that the district court acted "without a full consideration of the evidence, without deference to the USDA's expertise, and cost farmers the right to continue using a valuable seed technology that was previously authorized by the USDA.

 

The respondents are Geertson Seed Farms, Trask Family Seeds, the Center for Food Safety, Beyond Pesticides, the Cornucopia Institute, the Dakota Resource Council, the National Family Farm Coalition, the Sierra Club, and the Western Organization of Resource Councils.

 

In preparation for Supreme Court hearing next week, seven interest groups, including the attorneys general of three states, have filed briefs with the court supporting the Geertson side.

 

In their brief, the attorneys general of California, Oregon and Massachusetts emphasized the "States' interests in protecting their natural resources and their citizens' rights to be informed about the environmental impacts of federal actions."

 

The attorneys general note "immense" ramifications for all environmental protection should Monsanto prevail, which would damage the states' interest in "protection of wilderness, habitat preservation for endangered species, watershed protection, [and] air quality."

 

Organic businesses and trade groups, including Organic Valley, Stonyfield Farms, the Organic Trade Association, United Natural Foods, Eden Foods, Annie's, Clif Bar and Nature's Path Foods, warned of the threat to their businesses from unwanted biotech contamination.

 

The $25 billion-a-year organic foods industry, is at particular risk from the effects of contamination because alfalfa is pollinated by bees, which can fly many miles to cross-pollinate fields.

 

The organic industry brief warns that "widespread planting of RR alfalfa imposes massive risk and uncertainty on the continued viability of organic dairy farming" and that overturning the lower courts would "irreparably harm" their ability to grow and sell organic food.

 

Conventional farmers and exporters filed a similar brief, warning of lost overseas alfalfa markets in Asia, Europe and the Middle East that reject biotech-contaminated crops.

 

The Arkansas Rice Growers Association, which produces half of all exported U.S. rice, in 2006 lost overseas markets from a biotech rice contamination episode. In its brief, the association wrote, "Genetically engineered crops have already contaminated conventional crops, resulting in damages of over a billion dollars to the rice trade..."

 

The Union of Concerned Scientists and other scientists warned that allowing the planting of Monsanto's alfalfa would "bring with it certain predictable, serious risks of irreparable harm to farmers and to the public" that will "continue to contaminate agriculture and the environment indefinitely."

 

These risks include the "spread of unwanted transgenes to surrounding fields and wild plant populations and the proliferation of herbicide-resistant weeds," the scientists said. "Both events are likely, and when either occurs, the resulting harm is effectively irreversible."

 

Law professors, scholars and several former general counsels of the White House Council on Environmental Quality filed two separate briefs explaining that, contrary to Monsanto's arguments, the processes and standards used by the lower courts were correct.

 

Environmental groups including the National Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife, the Humane Society of the United States, and the Center for Biological Diversity, also filed briefs in support of Geertson.

 

Monsanto has collected a stack of briefs to support its side of the argument - that "every American farmer" should have the "right to choose biotechnology."

 

In one brief, the American Farm Bureau Federation, Biotechnology Industry Organization, American Seed Trade Association, American Soybean Association, National Alfalfa and Forage Alliance, National Association of Wheat Growers, National Cotton Council and National Potato Council wrote, "The lower courts effectively presumed irreparable harm to the plaintiffs by ignoring key data and established farming practices."

 

"Cross-pollination with genetically engineered crops does not represent irreparable injury," this group argues.

 

The Sugarbeet Growers Association, U.S. Beet Sugar Association and National Corn Growers Association also filed a brief supporting Monsanto.

 

In their brief, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, American Petroleum Institute, National Association of Home Builders, and CropLife America argue that injunctions such as that imposed by the lower courts against the planting of Roundup Ready alfalfa must be based on evidence of irreparable harm. They point out that no evidentiary hearing was held before the court made a determination of irreparable harm.

 

In two separate briefs, the Washington Legal Foundation and Allied Education Foundation and the Pacific Legal Foundation argue that Monsanto was "entitled to an evidentiary hearing on the likelihood of irreparable harm."

 

Return to Top

 

 

Concerns expressed over GM food labeling

 

(Food Safety News) – More than 80 public health, environmental, agriculture, and organic food organizations are fighting to protect genetically modified (GM), or genetically engineered (GE) food labels.

 

The groups sent a letter Tuesday to Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner for food at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and to Kathleen Merrigan, deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), expressing serious concerns about a proposed U.S. position on genetically modified GM/GE labeling.

 

The United Nations' Codex Committee on Food Labeling is meeting in Quebec City, Canada in early May to discuss the labeling issue. According to the letter, much of the concern comes from the position the FDA and USDA drafted on the issue.

 

"We are concerned that the current U.S. position could potentially create significant problems for food producers in the U.S. who wish to indicate their products contain no GE ingredients, including organic food, where genetic engineering is a prohibited method," reads the letter, signed by experts from Consumers Union, the National Organic Coalition, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Food and Water Watch, and many others.

 

In the draft position, the agencies oppose a Codex document, which says countries can adopt different approaches to labeling of GE food, in line with existing Codex guidance. The current U.S. draft position says mandatory labeling of food as GE/GM "is likely to create the impression that the labeled food is in some way different" and would therefore be "false, misleading or deceptive."

 

A recent poll, conducted by Consumers Union, found that two-thirds of consumers would be concerned if they thought that GM ingredients were in organic food, according a release issued by the group.

 

"Both science and existing law in the United States acknowledge and incorporate the fact that GE/GM seeds and foods are different from non-engineered varieties," says the letter.

 

"Such foods clearly are different," said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union. "USDA organic rules specifically state that GE seed cannot be used in organic production. The FDA has also taken the position that within the U.S., voluntary labeling as to whether or not a product contains GE ingredients is permissible."

 

"We find it hard to understand how FDA and USDA can argue to Codex that mandatory labeling is inherently false and misleading, but voluntary labeling, which is permitted in the United States, is not," says the letter.

 

"We are, in fact, concerned that the current U.S. position appears to seek to establish precedents at Codex that would make it difficult to label food as non-GM within the U.S."

 

Return to Top

 

 

Growing grain for fuel not food a bad idea

 

(Michigan State University) – Using productive farmland to grow crops for food instead of fuel is more energy efficient, Michigan State University scientists concluded, after poring over 17 years' worth of data to help settle the food versus fuel debate.

 

"It's 36 percent more efficient to grow grain for food than for fuel," said Ilya Gelfand, an MSU postdoctoral researcher. "The ideal is to grow corn for food, then leave half the leftover stalks and leaves on the field for soil conservation and produce cellulosic ethanol with the other half."

 

Other studies have looked at energy efficiencies for crops over shorter time periods, but this MSU study is the first to consider energy balances of an entire cropping system over many years. The results are published in the April 19 online issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

 

"It comes down to what's the most efficient use of the land," said Phil Robertson, a University Distinguished Professor of crop and soil sciences and one of the paper's authors. "Given finite land resources, will it be more efficient to use productive farmland for food or fuel? One compromise would be to use productive farmland for both – to use the grain for food and the other parts of the plant for fuel where possible. Another would be to reserve productive farmland for food and to grow biofuel grasses – cellulosic biomass – on less productive land."

 

He, Gelfand and Sieglinde Snapp, another co-author and an MSU associate professor of crop and soil sciences, analyzed data collected from 1989 to 2007 at the W.K. Kellogg Long-Term Ecological Research site. That National Science Foundation-funded project studies ecology and environmental biology to provide a better understanding of both natural and managed systems. It is the only agricultural program in the 26-site NSF national LTER network.

 

The scientists compared the energy inputs and outputs of producing corn, soybeans and wheat and energy balances for growing alfalfa, an important forage plant that can be used either for biofuel or for beef cattle feed. The analysis showed that using non-tilling production to grow grain for food was the most energy-efficient system for food or fuel production, as it reduces tractor fuel use during production.

 

Robertson and Gelfand also are members of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, a partnership between Michigan State and the University of Wisconsin-Madison funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to conduct basic research aimed at solving some of the most complex problems in converting natural materials to energy.

 

"This research is aimed at policymakers who have to decide how and where biofuels should be grown and the best way to encourage farmers to follow those suggestions," Robertson said.

 

"The promise of biofuels made from biomass is huge, from both climate mitigation and economic perspectives," he said. "But the promise could come up short if we don't pay attention to details such as the land on which they are grown."

 

The research is funded by the GLBRC, the NSF and the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station.

 

For more information on Michigan State University's biofuel and bioenergy research, visit: www.bioeconomy.msu.edu.

 

About Michigan State University

Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving.

 

The Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, www.maes.msu.edu, is one of the largest research organizations at Michigan State University. Founded in 1888, the MAES funds the work of nearly 400 scientists in six colleges at MSU to enhance agriculture, natural resources and families and communities in Michigan.

 

Return to Top

 

End Transmission