" I heard it through the AgLine"

May 24, 2011

 

 

·        Global warming blamed for reduced yields  

·        N.J. farmers pioneer new ag technologies

·        Fungi helps lower dependence on fertilizer

·        USDA reports winter honeybee losses

·        Fear of envy stifles ag innovation – study

 

 

Global warming blamed for reduced yields  

 

(The New York Times) – Global warming is already cutting substantially into potential crop yields in some countries — to such an extent that it may be a factor in the food price increases that have caused worldwide stress in recent years, researchers suggest in a new study.

 

Wheat yields in recent years were down by more than 10 percent in Russia and by a few percentage points each in India, France and China compared with what they probably would have been without rising temperatures, according to the study.

 

Corn yields were off a few percentage points in China, Brazil and France from what would have been expected, said the researchers, whose findings were published in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

 

Some countries saw small gains from the temperature increases, however. And in all countries, the extra carbon dioxide that humans are pumping into the air acted as a fertilizer that encouraged plant growth, offsetting some of the losses from rising temperatures caused by that same greenhouse gas.

 

Consequently, the study’s authors found that when the gains in some countries were weighed against the losses in others, the overall global effect of climate change has been small so far: losses of a few percentage points for wheat and corn from what they would have been without climate change. The overall impact on production of rice and soybeans was negligible, with gains in some regions entirely offsetting losses in others.

 

But the authors of the study — David Lobell and Justin Costa-Roberts of Stanford University, and Wolfram Schlenker of Columbia University — pointed out that temperature increases were expected to accelerate in coming decades, making it likely that the challenges to food production will grow in an era when demand is expected to rise sharply.

 

Over the period covered by the study, 1980 to 2008, temperatures increased briskly in many of the world’s important agricultural regions. A notable exception was the United States: for reasons climate scientists do not fully understand, temperatures in the Midwestern corn and soybean belt during the summer crop-growing season have not increased in recent decades.

 

“One way to think of it is that we got a pass on the first round of global warming,” Dr. Lobell said.

 

However, the study found that in virtually all of Europe, large parts of Asia and some parts of Africa and South America, temperatures during the growing season have warmed by an average of several degrees since 1980, increasing the likelihood of extremely hot summer days. The study also looked at rainfall, but changes were relatively minor compared with the temperature increases.

 

Plants are known to be sensitive to high temperatures, especially if the hot days occur when they are flowering. “In many of these countries, a typical year now is like a very warm year back in 1980,” Dr. Lobell said.

 

Wheat, rice, corn and soybeans account for the majority of calories consumed by the human race, either directly or as meat from animals raised on grains. Because demand for these grains is inflexible and rising, the losses from climate change probably accounted for price increases of about 6 percent in the four major commodities, the study’s authors found.

 

At today’s grain prices, that calculation implies that climate change is costing consumers, food companies and livestock producers about $60 billion a year.

 

“We aren’t talking about the sky falling,” Dr. Lobell said. “But we are talking about billions of dollars of losses. Every little bit of production is valuable when we’re trying to feed the world.”

 

If the price estimate is correct, it makes climate change a small contributor to a large trend. The prices of many foodstuffs have doubled or tripled in recent years as a result of a host of factors, including rapidly rising food demand in Asia, government mandates to use crops for biofuel production and extreme weather that may or may not be linked to climate change.

 

The authors of the new study specifically excluded the effects of extreme weather like brief heat waves and flash floods because of limitations in the data that they used. For that and other reasons, Dr. Lobell said, the study’s estimate of the impact of climate change is probably conservative.

 

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N.J. farmers pioneer new ag technologies

 

(TheDailyJournal.com) NEPTUNE -- To find farming's newest frontiers in New Jersey, don't look for a pasture down a country lane.

 

The cutting-edge farms of the 21st century are smack in the centers of densely populated cities. They are in high-tech greenhouses where once-exotic, now in-demand produce grows in long-settled neighborhoods.

 

These farms also sit in the heart of the state's farm belt, looking more like industrial parks lined with glass and metal structures that pop with the colors of greens and berries and cherry tomatoes within.

 

Pioneering farmers in the Garden State's $1-billion-a-year agriculture industry are using new technologies to take advantage of widespread consumer interest for fresh and exotic foods. They add to their profits by feeding not only neighbors who choose to buy locally grown produce, but the restaurant and specialty market industries where the newest ingredients are the most prized commodities.

 

What is being grown, and what these farmers say could soon be coming to Asbury Park, Lakewood, Camden and New Brunswick, range from the esoteric -- minuscule leaves of wasabi and crunchy choys from China and Japan -- to the basic -- salad and soup greens, turnips and spinach.

 

Urban farmer Lorraine Gibbons is growing a vast array of produce in a small greenhouse and sizable containers she can transport and set up anywhere.

 

"Have farm, will travel," said Gibbons, whose enterprise is called Garden State Urban Farms. Her business is centered in inner-city blocks in Hudson and Essex counties.

 

On plots in Orange, Newark and Jersey City, the concept of the urban farms zeroes in on technological advances in greenhouses and Earthbox container systems, which use organic soils and fertilizers and sport reservoirs for water and plastic covers for protection. Gibbons wants to expand her farm network to urban areas throughout the state.

 

State Secretary of Agriculture Douglas H. Fisher says Gibbons' plans for an urban farmscape are perfect for New Jersey.

 

"New Jersey has 8.5 million people, so the market is here," Fisher said. "Every municipality has lots available that are not part of the currently used real estate landscape. Plus, there is a clamoring for this. These concepts won't work in less-populated areas of the country."

 

To get to the new farm frontier, he said, it's "go East, young man."

 

Or, remake the playing field.

 

More than 100 miles southwest in Cumberland County, a world apart from Gibbons' urban farm lots, Bruce Cobb is growing everything from tiny Asian greens to jumbo heads of lettuce 12 months a year in super-size greenhouses in Shiloh. All around him, traditional farms reign.

 

Gibbons and Cobb, agriculture officials say, are at once innovative and entrepreneurial in their business models, making the most of high-tech growing systems that allow maximum harvests from minimum spaces, enormous flexibility in locale and pinpoint focus on crops by the farmer.

 

"Quality is what really counts," said Cobb, who started as a one-man operation in 1984.

 

Today he owns and operates ARC Greenhouses in Shiloh, where he employs 22 full-time workers year-round in 14 greenhouses protected by the manufactured sounds of predatory birds that keep pests from invading his growing spaces. He recently bought more than four acres in Florida, where he is growing Chinese medicinal herbs in greenhouses.

 

Are Gibbons' and Cobb's newfangled farms a sign of what's ahead in New Jersey agriculture? Yes, says Fisher, because the potential for income is there, the products are desired, the career opportunities nearly unlimited.

 

Even with 10,300 farms spanning 730,000 acres in New Jersey, according to state Department of Agriculture figures, there is a need for more local production, particularly on a year-round basis and in urban areas, Fisher said.

 

Gibbons, who farms using organic methods, says an urban farmer can make a good living -- grossing about $5,000 to $6,000 a month in a small-scale greenhouse such as her 1,800-square-foot model in Orange, and netting about $3,000 to $4,000.

 

"Our problem," Gibbons said, "is that we don't have enough space in this greenhouse."

 

That's why she expanded operations this year to lots across from Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and in Jersey City. Still, she can't meet the demand from the local communities, where she sells her produce at an affordable price, and from a critically acclaimed group of restaurants in New York City, whose owner is willing to pay a premium for her produce.

 

Another reason for solid profits? Gibbons and Cobb agree that the new technologies they employ keep waste and energy consumption to a minimum.

 

"We make all our own electricity," Cobb said. "We manage our environment precisely with computer control."

 

That has helped him to expand ARC's business throughout the Northeast, selling leafy greens, baby lettuces, herbs and microgreens under his Mr. McGregor's label to restaurants, upscale markets and supermarkets.

 

"You just look for things that other people in agriculture are not doing, something new and different, things the chefs can use, and grow them," Cobb said.

 

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Fungi helps lower dependence on fertilizer

 

(EurekaAlert.org) – The next agricultural revolution may be sparked by fungi, helping to greatly increase food-production for the growing needs of the planet without the need for massive amounts of fertilizers according to research presented today at the 111th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans.

 

"The United Nations conservatively estimates that by the year 2050 the global human population is expected to reach over 9 billion. Feeding such a population represents an unprecedented challenge since this goes greatly beyond current global food production capacity," says Ian Sanders of the University of Lusanne, Switzerland, speaking in a session entitled "How Microbes Can Help Feed the World."

 

Sanders studies mycorrhizal fungi, a type of fungus that live in symbiosis with plant roots. When plants make symbioses with these fungi they tend to grow larger because the fungi acquire the essential nutrient phosphate for the plant. Phosphate is a key component of the fertilizers that fueled the Green Revolution in middle of the 20th century that made it possible then for agriculture to keep up with the growing global population.

 

"In most tropical soils plants have enormous difficulty in obtaining phosphate and so farmers have to spend a huge amount of money on phosphate fertilizer. Farmers have to add much more fertilizer than in temperate regions and a very large amount of the cost to produce food is the cost of phosphate," says Sanders.

 

Phosphate reserves are being rapidly depleted. Increasing demand for the nutrient is driving up prices and some countries are now stockpiling phosphate to feed their populations in the future, according to Sanders.

 

While mycorrhizal fungi typically only grow on the roots of plants, recent biotechnological breakthroughs now allow scientists to produce massive quantities of the fungus that can be suspended in high concentrations in a gel for easy transportation.

 

Sanders and his colleagues are currently testing the effectiveness of this gel on crops in the country of Colombia where they have discovered that with the gel they can produce the same yield of potato crop with less than half the amount of phosphate fertilizers.

 

"While our applied research is focused on Colombia it could be applied in many other tropical regions of the world," says Sanders.

 

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USDA reports winter honeybee losses

 

(USDA via EurekaAlert.org) WASHINGTON - Total losses from managed honey bee colonies nationwide were 30 percent from all causes for the 2010/2011 winter, according to the annual survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA).

 

This is roughly similar to total losses reported in similar surveys done in the four previous years: 34 percent for the 2009/2010 winter, 29 percent for 2008/2009; 36 percent for 2007/2008, and 32 percent for 2006/2007.

 

"The lack of increase in losses is marginally encouraging in the sense that the problem does not appear to be getting worse for honey bees and beekeepers," said Jeff Pettis, an entomologist with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) who helped conduct the study. "But continued losses of this size put tremendous pressure on the economic sustainability of commercial beekeeping." Pettis is the leader of the Bee Research Laboratory operated in Beltsville, Md., by ARS, the chief scientific research agency of USDA.

 

The survey, which covered the period from October 2010 to April 2011, was led by Pettis and by AIA past presidents Dennis vanEngelsdorp and Jerry Hayes.

 

Beekeepers reported that, on average, they felt losses of 13 percent would be economically acceptable. Sixty-one percent of responding beekeepers reported having losses greater than this.

 

Average colony loss for an individual beekeeper's operation was 38.4 percent. This compares to an average loss of 42.2 percent for individual beekeepers' operations in 2009/2010.

 

Average loss by operation represents the percentage of loss in each operation added together and divided by the number of beekeeping operations that responded to the survey. This number is affected more by small beekeeping operations, which may only have 10 or fewer colonies, so a loss of just five colonies in a 10-colony operation would represent a 50 percent loss. Total losses were calculated as all colonies reported lost in the survey divided by the total number of bee colonies reported in the survey. This number is affected more by larger operations, which might have 10,000 or more colonies, so a loss of five colonies in a 10,000-colony operation would equal only a 0.05 percent loss.

 

Among surveyed beekeepers who lost any colonies, 31 percent reported losing at least some of their colonies without finding dead bee bodies-one of the symptoms that defines Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). As this was an interview-based survey, it was not possible to differentiate between verifiable cases of CCD and colonies lost as the result of other causes that share the "absence of dead bees" as a symptom. The cause of CCD is still unknown.

 

The beekeepers who reported colony losses with no dead bee bodies present also reported higher average colony losses (61 percent), compared to beekeepers who lost colonies but did not report the absence of dead bees (34 percent in losses).

 

A total of 5,572 beekeepers, who manage more than 15 percent of the country's estimated 2.68 million colonies, responded to the survey.

 

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Fear of envy stifles ag innovation – study

 

(SciDev.net) NAIROBI/LONDON – Fear of envy from neighbours can discourage impoverished villagers from adopting new ideas on how to increase food production, according to a rare quantitative study of the phenomenon.

 

The authors, from the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, found that villagers in rural Ethiopia were reluctant to adopt new agricultural ideas, such as water harvesting and using fertilisers or improved seeds, because they feared a negative reaction from others in the community.

 

Previous research has shown that envy can work for or against innovation. Researchers have suggested it may have played a role in delaying the emergence of entrepreneurs in China and Eastern Europe, because of fears of retaliation against successful individuals. Other experiments have shown that people invest more in development when competing groups also invest — a positive effect of rivalry, which is similar to envy, according to Daniel Zizzo, co-author of the new study.

 

"[There has been] quite a bit of anecdotal evidence and a lot of sociological work, but very little in terms of actual quantitative evidence," he said.

 

To assess feelings of envy, his team simulated economic games with people from four villages, and used questionnaires, focus groups and sociological studies conducted by Addis Ababa University. Results were compared with Ethiopian Household Rural Surveys, which contain information about the implementation of agricultural innovations and, therefore, attitudes to innovation.

 

The amount of envy among villagers correlated with the likelihood of innovating.

 

"There is a clear and well-defined sense in which a measure of social envy negatively predicts real–world, actual innovations," Zizzo told SciDev.Net.

 

Policymakers should consider the role of social preferences and use institutional changes to turn them into productive, rather than destructive, effects, said the authors, who suggest that promoting innovations that are less socially conspicuous would allow innovators to elicit less resentment from others.

 

"This is an initial study, the first example of a quantitative study of this kind," said Zizzo, adding that he is "reasonably confident that what is captured is a more general phenomenon".

 

Anne Bruntse, regional coordinator of ecological development organisation BioVision, said that similar feelings are common in some areas of Kenya, but are disappearing elsewhere.

 

"It is my impression that, along with so many other improvements in the political climate, giving people hope of the possibility of a better future is doing much to eradicate those old fears," she said.

 

Stephen Mugo, a plant breeder at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), said he had heard many stories of destruction or theft of agricultural innovations in Kenya. He said that involving the whole community in accepting invention could help curb these negative feelings.

 

But Mary Abukutsa, an agriculture lecturer at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya, said that a small Ethiopian study could not be generalised to other developing countries, and that she had no experience of such fears in West and Central Africa.

 

Envy manifests itself most negatively in situations with extreme inequalities or insurmountable exclusion, said Calestous Juma, professor of the practice of international development at Harvard University, United States. It is caused by a feeling of powerlessness and is a major obstacle to socio-economic improvement, he said.

 

"But explaining lack of innovation using emotion alone as the key barrier is too rudimentary an analysis," he added.

 

John Thompson of the Institute of Development Studies, United Kingdom, said: "The problem has been that agricultural extension is treated as a strictly technocratic process. What this study, and many studies like it, often show is that these are socio-technical processes, and we need to get to grips with the social side of these processes if agricultural extension and innovation are to succeed."

 

The study was presented last month (18 April) at the Royal Economic Society Annual Conference in London, United Kingdom.

 

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