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May 19, 2010
· Now it’s a ‘Chinatown’ drought in California
· Turning arid desert into verdant farmland
· Pre-cut lettuce suspect in E. coli outbreak
· Rising CO2 levels threatens crop quality
· Cuba to let farmers buy their own supplies
Now it’s a ‘Chinatown’ drought in California
(SFGate.com)
– This winter, heavy snowfall buried the Sierra Nevada and torrential rains
drenched much of
But while El Niño ended
The bonds would pay for new dams and other water storage projects, drought relief, regional water management and restoration of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, among other things.
Jonas Minton, a former deputy director of the state
Department of Water Resources, likened the governor's extension of the water
crisis to the fabricated drought of the 1974 Roman Polanski film
"Chinatown," where
"
The ability to say the state is in a drought helps the bond
campaign immensely, said Jim Ross, a veteran
"Really what it does is simplifies the issue: We have rationing. We need to make sure we have enough water. Here's how," Ross said.
Drought declaration
Only the governor has the power to declare the beginning and
end of droughts in
At that time, the state's final snow survey of the year
indicated a water shortage.
This year, the final snow survey in the
Sierra, taken April 30, showed the snowpack at 143 percent of normal - double
the previous year's level. As of last week,
More snow has fallen since the final snow survey, more rain
is forecast - there's a chance of showers on Monday in parts of the state,
including
Oroville levels
Yet, the governor and his water experts say that, among
other reasons, the below-average levels at
So on June 4,
Administration officials caution that
The state's reservoirs did not return to normal levels for
another year after
Jeff Macedo, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, said 2010 has "been a great year for rain," but added, "We've only had one good season of rain over the past four years. It isn't time to call an end to the drought."
State water officials echo the governor's stance, though they acknowledge that the drought may indeed be over.
"Drought is an imprecise term and arguably most of the state is probably not in a drought at the moment," said Wendy Martin, statewide drought coordinator for the Department of Water Resources. "But you really can't tell until sometime in the future when you can look back."
National center
In 1995, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln established the
Based on its most recent data, updated Tuesday, the center
estimates that 83 percent of
They base estimates on a number of indexes, including precipitation, vegetation health, reservoir levels, snowpack, stream flow and soil moisture. The long-term forecast shows that drought probably will continue in the handful of affected counties - mainly Modoc, Lassen and Siskiyou - but no drought is expected in the rest of the state, said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist at the center.
"We put the information out, and for each state it's pretty much up to themselves if they declare they are in a drought or not in a drought," he said.
What is a drought?
-- Runoff for a single year or multiple years in the lowest 10 percent of the historical range.
-- Reservoir storage for the same time period at less than 70 percent of average.
If those two factors were considered today, there would be little to dispute.
The National Weather Service's
Reservoirs in the state are at 96 percent of average for this time of year, according to the Department of Water Resources.
But Martin said the department criteria are 10 years old and there are other factors to consider: the effects of climate change are becoming more acute and water demand is increasing because the state's population grew by 10 million people in the past decade. U.S. Census Bureau figures, however, show the state's population grew by about 3.1 million in the past decade.
Nonetheless, Martin said,
Water officials also are concerned that declaring an end to the drought could lead to a drop-off in conservation efforts by Californians, and the extra water could be needed if next year is dry.
Reducing consumption
Schwarzenegger's drought declaration includes orders for the state water department to work with local agencies on measures such as fast-tracking water-conservation grants and improving landscape and agriculture water efficiency and leak monitoring. It also calls for "aggressive and immediate action" to reduce water consumption.
But because of the high levels in the reservoirs, many water agencies in the state are reassessing their need for mandatory conservation, according to the Association of California Water Agencies.
The East Bay Municipal Utilities District ended its call for
voluntary rationing last month.
Those restrictions could be extended because of environmental concerns in the delta, and water officials say that is likely to be the new normal.
UC Davis Professor Jay Lund, who is director of the Center for Watershed Sciences there, said the state is "not unambiguously out of drought and we're not unambiguously in a drought," adding that it will depend on whether next year is wet again.
'Thirst of the beholder'
He agreed with water department officials that it can be problematic to talk about drought in broad strokes.
"Drought is in the thirst of the beholder," he said.
When he declared the drought in 2008, Schwarzenegger - who had long before promised to overhaul the state's water infrastructure - said, "We must work together to ensure that California will have safe, reliable and clean water not only today but 20, 30 and 40 years from now."
The bond proposal that will appear on November's ballot is titled the Safe and Reliable Clean Water Drinking Act of 2010. It needs a simple majority to pass.
On Wednesday, the campaign to promote the bond issued a news
release on why it is critical for voters to approve the measure. Cited, among
other reasons, was that
Turning arid desert into verdant farmland
(redOrbit.com)
–
Gulf farming is tricky, with little water supply, high soil salinity and extreme heat. Many countries in the Gulf region do have the cash to implement expensive solutions that other cannot.
The Abu Dhabi Environment Agency has studied the soil to find areas with underground water systems and better soil quality, or soil that could be enhanced, said Faisal Taha, who led the project.
The survey found more than 495,000 acres of land that could
be used for agriculture if the proper investments were made, Taha told Reuters at an industry conference in
“We are talking about tens of millions of dirhams in investments ... but it's worth it because with this land vegetable and fodder production could be increased by up to 70 percent,” said Taha.
“This land will not be able to guarantee 100 percent food security for the UAE, but the strategy comes at a right time when many of the international agencies are criticizing rich countries for buying land in nations that can't feed themselves and exporting their crops,” said Taha.
Rich countries that buy up land throughout developing nations have worried the United Nations that such actions could be compromising farmers’ rights.
Kuwait and Qatar have been trying to increase domestic agricultural supply in their regions through the use of selected types of fungus that enhance the growth of plant roots in arid regions, said Rajendra Pachauri, director general of the New Delhi-based Energy and Resources Institute.
“By mixing the soil with these microbes, or what we call mycorrhiza, the roots of a plant can absorb nutrients from the soil that otherwise it would not be able to do given the climate and soil conditions in the Gulf,” Pachauri told Reuters.
In a matter of 18 months, the institute managed to convert
13,000 sq. ft. of salinity-rich wasteland in
“We have similar projects going on in
Pre-cut lettuce suspect in E. coli outbreak
(The Washington Post) – It's convenient and popular, a healthy option for harried shoppers. But bagged lettuce suspected of causing a multi-state outbreak of E. coli illness raises new questions about whether pre-cut produce is riskier than whole vegetables.
The outbreak, which involves romaine lettuce cut up and distributed in bags to 23 states and the District, is the latest in a string of recent food poisoning cases involving pre-shredded leafy greens.
Twenty-three people in four states have been sickened since March 1, with another seven probable cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of the confirmed cases, a dozen people were hospitalized and three developed a life-threatening type of kidney failure. No deaths have been reported.
The romaine in question was not sold directly to consumers
in the produce section but was used by food service companies and supermarkets
in salad bars and "grab and go" meals. Several of the victims were
students at colleges in
It is difficult to judge whether pre-cut produce has been linked to more outbreaks than whole vegetables because state and federal health officials don't always specify whether the leafy greens associated with an outbreak were bagged or whole. But several multi-state outbreaks involving pre-cut produce in the last five years have raised concerns, most notably the 2006 outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 associated with Dole bagged spinach that sickened 238 people and caused five deaths.
James Gorny, senior adviser for produce safety at the Food and Drug Administration, said bagged greens represent a disproportionate number of recalls, chiefly because they're easier to identify than whole produce. "When you buy a whole head of lettuce, you have no idea what the brand name is, or who the grower is," Gorny said. "So tracing it back is that much harder."
But, he said, pre-cut produce is not inherently riskier than whole vegetables.
Others disagree.
"I've been avoiding bagged lettuce for years,"
said Michael Doyle, a nationally known microbiologist who directs the Center
for Food Safety at the
Most processors of fresh-cut produce remove the outer leaves and core the heads of lettuce in the field, where cutting utensils can come into contact with soil and spread contamination from the dirt to the crop, Doyle said. In farming areas, especially in a region near cattle farms, it is not unusual to find E. coli in the soil.
In a study published last year in the Journal of Food Protection, Doyle and several colleagues contaminated coring devices with soil that contained E. coli O157:H7 -- the most common E. coli strain associated with human illness -- and showed how the bacteria spread from the coring equipment to heads of lettuce. Washing the cored lettuce with a chlorine spray, a standard step, did not kill enough of the bacteria, the researchers found.
"In a processing plant, you'd have to have walls and clean floors," Doyle said. "But here, they're starting it right out in the dirt. It's a very hazardous practice."
Once the bacteria attach to a lettuce leaf, "it's very
difficult to remove them," said Robert Gravani,
a microbiologist at
Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said cross-contamination is another danger. "The process of harvesting lettuce, chopping it or tearing it, washing and putting it in a bag is a process similar to mixing ground beef," she said. "You're taking lettuce that could be grown in different areas and batching it together. So if you've got one infected field, you're mixing it with lettuce that would otherwise be uninfected, and now the whole batch is contaminated."
Fresh-cut produce began in the food service industry in the 1980s and then migrated to retail shelves to meet growing consumer demand for a fast, healthful product that required no more preparation than slicing open the bag. According to Nielson Co. ratings, pre-cut salad mix was the top-selling fruit or vegetable between January 2009 and January 2010, outselling heads of lettuce by more than 2 to 1.
"As long as it's treated with respect and handled properly, consumers should feel as confident in the safety of fresh-cut leafy greens as they do in whole-head forms," said Julia Stewart of the Produce Marketing Association.
The current outbreak is drawing special attention because the romaine lettuce was contaminated with E. coli O145, a strain that is primarily found in cattle and wildlife feces and has never before been linked to a food-borne illness, according to the CDC.
Patricia M. Griffin, chief of CDC's Enteric Diseases Epidemiology branch, said it is likely that E. coli O145 has caused previous food poisonings but has gone undetected because only about 5 percent of clinical laboratories are able to detect it. "The fact that we found it now doesn't mean it wasn't there before," she said. "The ability to look for the organism in ill people and in outbreaks and food has been increasing. We're gradually finding more of these organisms."
The FDA, which has repeatedly urged growers to improve produce safety, is crafting what will be the first federal regulations for growing, harvesting and processing fresh produce, Gorny said. The proposed rules are scheduled to be published next year, he said.
In addition, a bill pending in Congress would give the FDA broad new authority to regulate the safety of produce and other foods.
"The FDA needs much more authority to set standards on the farm, and that's contained in the legislation that's been passed by the House and is currently being considered in the Senate, Smith DeWaal said. "The FDA needs to do a much better job at inspecting plants that process and bag lettuce, and it needs to provide better guidance to lettuce producers so they know how to avoid these problems."
Rising CO2 levels threatens crop quality
(US Davis) – Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide
interfere with plants’ ability to convert nitrate into protein and could
threaten food quality, according to a new study by researchers at the
The scientists suggest that, as global climate change intensifies, it will be critical for farmers to carefully manage nitrogen fertilization in order to prevent losses in crop productivity and quality.
The study, which examined the impact of increased carbon dioxide levels on wheat and the mustard plant Arabidopsis, will be published in the May 14 issue of the journal Science.
"Our findings suggest that scientists cannot examine the response of crops to global climate change simply in terms of rising carbon dioxide levels or higher temperatures,” said lead author Arnold Bloom, a professor in UC Davis’ Department of Plant Sciences.
“Instead, we must consider shifts in plant nitrogen use that will alter food quality and even pest control, as lower protein levels in plants will force both people and pests to consume more plant material to meet their nutritional requirements," Bloom said.
Climate change, CO2 and agriculture
Historical records have documented that the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has increased by 39 percent since 1800. If current projections hold true, the concentration will increase by an additional 40 to 140 percent by the end of the century.
This trend is of concern to agriculture because elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been shown to decrease the rates of photorespiration, the naturally occurring chemical process that combines oxygen with carbohydrates in plants.
At first, this reduction in photorespiration boosts photosynthesis, the complementary process by which plants grow by using sunlight to turn water and carbohydrates into chemical energy in the form of plant sugars. In time, however, the increase in the rate of photosynthesis tapers off as the plants adjust to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, and plant growth slows.
The nitrogen connection
Nitrogen is the mineral element that plants and other living
organisms require in the greatest quantity to survive and grow. Plants obtain
most of their nitrogen from the soil and, in the moderate climates of the
Earlier research has shown that when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase by 50 percent, the nitrogen status of plants declines significantly.
More specifically, findings from previous research by Bloom and colleagues suggested that elevated levels of carbon dioxide decreased photorespiration and inhibited nitrate assimilation in plant shoots.
New UC Davis study
In their most recent study, Bloom’s team examined the influence of elevated carbon dioxide levels and, in some cases, low atmospheric oxygen concentrations, on nitrate assimilation in wheat and Arabidopsis plants using five different methods.
Data from all five methods confirm that elevated levels of carbon dioxide inhibit nitrate assimilation in wheat and Arabidopsis plants. The researchers note that this effect could explain why earlier studies by other researchers have documented a 7.4-percent to 11-percent decrease in wheat grain protein and a 20-percent decrease in total Arabidopsis protein under elevated carbon dioxide levels.
“This indicates that as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rise and nitrate assimilation in plant tissues diminishes, crops will become depleted in organic nitrogen compounds, including protein, and food quality will suffer,” Bloom said. “Increasing nitrogen fertilization might compensate for slower nitrate assimilation rates, but this might not be economically or environmentally feasible.”
He noted that farmers might be able to increase their use of nitrogen-rich ammonium fertilizers to ease the bottleneck of nitrate assimilation in crops but would have to carefully manage fertilizer applications to avoid toxic accumulations of ammonium in the plants.
To develop solutions for dealing with the impact of major increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on crops, further research is needed on how plants assimilate nitrate and ammonium, Bloom said.
Working with Bloom on this study were Martin Burger of UC Davis’ Department of Land, Air and Water Resource; Jose Salvador Rubio Asensio of UC Davis’ Department of Plant Sciences; and Asaph B. Cousins, currently of the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State University.
Cuba
(Reuters
via Yahoo! News)
Economy Minister Marino Murillo made the announcement at the
close of a congress of
The farmers, who account for 70 percent of the food produced
in
At issue are regulations guaranteeing the state's near monopoly of the agricultural system through a long-standing practice of contracting for 75 percent of farmers' production in return for fuel, pesticides, fertilizer and other supplies.
The government had approved plans to modernize the economy and "create in the majority of municipalities supply markets where farmers can acquire directly the necessary resources to produce, substituting the current system of assigning resources centrally," Murillo said.
He said there were no plans to eliminate the state's monopoly on food sales. But, various farmers and cooperatives spoke during the congress about how they were selling more of their products directly to consumers and institutions such as schools and hospitals with positive results.
Raul Castro, who attended the closing session of the congress, has made food security his signature issue since taking over the presidency from older brother Fidel Castro two years ago. The semi-tropical island imports 60 percent of its consumed food, a huge burden on its fragile economy.
Castro has boosted what the state pays for produce, leased state lands to farmers, decentralized decision-making and allowed some farmers to sell a small part of their produce directly to consumers at fixed prices.
The reforms spurred production last year of bumper crops of tomatoes, garlic and other food, but that has not happened this year.
In meetings before the congress, farmers said recent production has fallen, partly because the state did not provide fertilizer and pesticides on time. It also failed to get all of their produce to market the past two years, they said.
Government statistics indicate that sugar, coffee and citrus production are at all-time lows, and non-sugar agriculture was down 13 percent through March.
End Transmission