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June 7, 2011
· Time running out to solve E. coli outbreak
· Spanish growers reeling from false blame
· Florida growers say free trade rules rigged
· For Delta growers great flood far from over
· Calif. ag land owners split on solar farms
Time running out to solve E. coli outbreak
(AP
via SFGate.com)
German officials are still seeking the cause of the outbreak weeks after it began May 2. In the last week, they have wrongly accused Spanish cucumbers and then German sprouts of sparking the crisis that has killed 22 people and infected over 2,400.
"If we don't know the likely culprit in a week's time, we may never know the cause," Dr. Guenael Rodier, director of communicable diseases expert at WHO, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
He said the contaminated vegetables have likely disappeared from the market and it would be difficult for German investigators to link patients to contaminated produce weeks after they first became infected.
"Right now, (Germans) are interviewing people about foods they ate about a month ago," he said. "It's very hard to know how accurate that information is."
Without more details about what exact foods link sick patients, Rodier said it would be very difficult to narrow down the cause.
"The final proof will come from the lab," he said. "But first you need the epidemiological link to the suspected food."
Other experts issued harsher criticism of the German investigation and wondered why it was taking so long to identify the source.
"If you gave us 200 cases and 5 days, we should be able
to solve this outbreak," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center
for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the
Osterholm described the German effort as "erratic" and "a disaster" and said officials should have done more detailed patient interviews as soon as the epidemic began.
The medical director of
Osterholm said the Germans should have been able to trace cases of illness to infected produce by now and that tests on current produce won't be helpful.
"It's like looking at camera footage of a traffic intersection today to see what caused an accident three weeks ago," he said.
"This is an outbreak response that is not being led by the data," he added. "Solving an outbreak like this is difficult, but it's not an impossible task."
On Tuesday, the EU health chief warned
Dalli told the EU parliament in
In outbreaks, it is not unusual for certain foods to be
suspected at first, then ruled out. In 2008 in the
In the current E. coli outbreak, tests are continuing on
sprouts from an organic farm in northern
But Rodier said that doesn't necessarily exonerate the vegetables.
"Just because tests are negative doesn't mean you can rule them out," he said. "The bacteria could have been in just one batch of contaminated food and by the time you collect specimens from the samples that are left, it could be gone."
He said food-borne outbreaks are difficult to contain
because they involve multiple industries, government departments and in
The outbreak has killed 22 people — 21 in
The institute said the number of new cases is declining — a sign the epidemic might have reached its peak — but added it was not certain whether that decrease will continue.
In a major difference from other E. coli outbreaks, women —
who tend to eat more fresh produce — are by far the most affected this time.
The majority of the victims in
"What do they have in common? They are thin, clean
pictures of health," said Friedrich Hagenmueller of the
Spanish growers reeling from false blame
(AFP via Yahoo! Finance) – Ten days into an E. coli outbreak wrongly blamed on Spanish cucumbers, Spanish fruit and vegetable exports are still suffering with no indication when they might recover, producers said Monday.
A total of 22 people have died, all but one of them in
Authorities in
Growers have seen their produce shunned, with
"Spanish fruit and vegetable exports were still not back to normal on Monday," the country's main agricultural export association, FEPEX, said, estimating losses to the sector at around 200 million euros ($290 million) per week.
"
"In addition to vegetables, fruits have begun to also be badly affected, not only because exports were frozen all of last week, but because this situation has led a fall in prices of 35 percent since May 27, according to estimates by producers" in the southern region of Andalucia, she said.
"The demand for fruits and vegetables has not recovered and that is due in large part to the lack of a clear and strong correction by German and (EU) authorities," the spokeswoman said.
Agriculture Minister Rosa Aguilar said
"We have told
Spanish government anger at
Florida
(naplesnews.com)
–
A tomato and bell pepper grower, Cecil Howell cannot compete with cheaper foreign labor and sales of produce.
Howell, co-owner of H&R Farms, about 20 miles east of
Immokalee, said free trade from
“International trade has not been kind to
Growers in other countries don’t have to adhere to the labor
rules and regulations like
“It makes it very difficult to compete,” McAvoy said.
Howell, who has been farming since 1980, said all farms in Immokalee spend thousands of dollars to abide by the rules and regulations, while not compensating for what farmers are spending to grow produce. In the fall, tomatoes were sold for 25 cents a pound.
“It’s frustrating,” Howell said. “We are just not getting paid enough for what we are farming.”
“Somehow, we have to come up with a way of making trade fair and I’m not sure how that is done,” McAvoy said.
He added that other countries should have the same
requirements as farms in
About 70,000 acres of vegetables are planted a year in
Some growers, such as Pacific Tomato Growers, have farms in
Currently, there is no inspection of pesticides on raw
agricultural produce from
Unlike the
Everglades Farms Inc. manager Frank Ochoa echoed Howell’s concerns.
“The influx of produce from other countries is what is really killing the small farmer,” Ochoa said.
The farm off County Road 858 grows and packs a variety of produce including tomatoes and bell peppers.
As the growing season ends, McAvoy reflected on the season.
He said local farmers had a good season because
McAvoy said the freeze isn’t a long-term solution to the problem. He is interested in protecting local growers.
“It’s a big problem, if we continue down this road, we will
push food produce out of the
For Delta growers great flood far from over
(The Commercial Appeal) – This was supposed to be a big year.
Crop prices were up. The weather had cooperated, mostly, in the fall and the spring. Mid-South farmers had their fields ready and were looking to cash in.
In fact, a lot of farmers were depending on 2011's crop to make up for the low prices and bad weather of the past two years.
Then the water came.
It crept out of the
Up north in
"It was going to be an above-average year at worst," Edgar said. "To put it into perspective, our wheat crop was going to be the highest-priced crop we'd ever sold and was the highest-yielding crop we'd ever raised."
Edgar was only able to harvest 150 acres of that high-priced, high-yielding wheat. The remaining 650 acres of it are still underwater. So are hundreds of acres of his soybeans and corn. In all, 75 percent of the crop acres he planted this year were ruined by floodwaters.
He's not alone. Rob Coker also farms around
"We really did think we were going to have a very good year, and now we're just going to scrape and try to hope we can break even," Coker said. "It's been a difficult ride; you never know what's going to come with floodwaters. It's happened before, but nothing like this."
In all, floodwaters ruined about 600,000 acres of
The flood hit
An ironic twist -- and there are a few with this flood -- saved Payneway, Ark., rice farmer Dan Hosman from posting an even bigger loss this year.
Light but weekly rains in April kept him from planting the thousands of acres he farms with his brother, Don, and father, Buddy. So, rain saved them from planting seed and spending hours of work on land that would have been washed away. Some of that land is in the St. Francis Floodway, which syphons water away from nearby Trumann and Marked Tree but doesn't flood every year.
"I've heard about the (flood of 1973) all my life. That was always the bad one around here," Hosman said. "This one beats '73 by a foot or two."
Remnants of white sandbags remain in the yards of just about every house close to Hosman's grain storage facility at the intersection of highways 63 and 14. Muddy banks, dingy water lines on cars and sheds, and dark, empty fields are the ghosts of the highest water that has come and gone.
Even though the gawkers and cameras have left the banks of
the
On Thursday, Hosman rumbled his SUV on a graveled levee road to one of his best fields, a flat, 1,500-acre expanse just off of Highway 63. All of it was underwater Thursday, the surface occasionally disturbed by fish feeding below.
The water -- about a foot-and-a-half of it -- moved slowly
along, creating a babbling, hissing white noise as it streamed across an access
road on its way, by and by, to the
"I'll have roads I'll have to rebuild where they've washed out," Hosman said looking over the flooded field. "All of these farms are precision leveled (with GPS systems) so we'll have to go back in there and fine-tune them, so that's more money, too. We'll have washouts, some holes, sand blows and we'll have to deal with all that, too."
It'll be another two or three weeks before Hosman and his
family will know where they stand.
"We really don't have a choice," Edgar said. "If we don't, we'll have no income for the rest of the year so we have to find another crop."
But that is posing its own challenge. While Edgar and Coker and farmers throughout the Delta wait for some fields to dry, in yet another ironic twist, they're battling a monthlong drought.
Meanwhile, crop insurance adjusters are fanning out to farms all over the Delta. Farmers will get some of their investment back, but likely not enough to carry them over to the next year.
The government has also stepped in with help to just about
anyone affected by the floodwaters, tornadoes and other natural disasters that
struck this year. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has so far approved
more than $5 million in assistance for
The USDA's Farm Service Agency is now providing emergency loans to farmers in counties that have been federally declared disaster areas. The low-interest loans are set to help them recover from production and physical losses of the flood to restore or replace farm-essential property, pay for production costs this year, pay essential family living expenses, reorganize farm operations and refinance certain debts.
Edgar knows what many think of all this.
"Everybody thinks the farmers have got it made and that insurance is going to take care of them and then the government gives us all these handouts, but all of that is definitely not true," he said.
This year's flood has been "disastrous" and that the insurance companies and government would respond the same way to emergency situations with other industries.
Back at Hosman's flooded rice field, he chose reality over philosophy when asked what he thinks about the flood of 2011 in general.
"I think it's June 1st and it's getting late (to plant)," he said with a laugh but without hesitation. "Farming has been a great livelihood and we love it, but, gosh, these last three years have been, well, trying."
Calif. ag land owners split on solar farms
(fresnobee.com)
–
With nearly two dozen solar energy projects in the pipeline
across
The checks are modest, but growers and county policymakers expect the rules to tighten as more proposals emerge and more farmland gives way to power generation.
"If we take ag land and fill it with solar panels,
you're never going to replace that land," said Manuel Cunha, president of
the Nisei Farmers League, a
Solar developers and some in what is proving to be a divided agricultural community believe the two enterprises can co-exist.
Patrick Enrico, whose family has farmed near Firebaugh for more than 50 years, is among many who believe committing less-productive agricultural land, particularly on the county's drier west side, to the production of electricity makes good sense.
"It's actually a better use of the land than having to put water on it and creating drainage problems," Enrico said. He plans to lease 158 acres that once grew tomatoes and cotton to a solar developer. "It's almost like the perfect situation."
Many farmers have remained open to seeing more marginal lands used for generating power. Support, though, has slipped as the number of solar proposals has grown and developers have set their sights on more fertile areas.
Most of the installations are slated for "prime" farmland, considered of highest value to growers, and almost all require cancellation of Williamson Act contracts. Those are deals that leverage state money to keep agricultural land from being developed.
Farming advocates say that while some prime farmland, like Enrico's, may be better suited to solar panels today when water shortages are common and farmed food is plentiful, times will change and retired farmland may be needed again.
"Prime ag land is not something we want to see go away," Fresno County Agricultural Commissioner Carol Hafner said. "We want to maintain the agricultural production that's going to provide the food and fiber for this region."
Most of the leases to solar companies are planned for 20 to 30 years with optional extensions.
To date, only a handful of the projects have won approval in
Given that the same fundamentals that farmers want -- space and sun -- are what solar developers want, the stage is set for conflict.
"This is sort of a new area," said John White, executive director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, a Sacramento-based partnership of environmental and energy groups.
"The industry is not as prepared for the issues as we should be. ... You're going to have land-use conflicts in areas where communities aren't sure this [technology] is appropriate."
The disputes, said White, could slow the development of renewable power, but he believes the problems will work themselves out with time.
The surge in solar energy proposals in
While
Last year, that interest prompted
The Board of Supervisors last month ended the impasse. Responding to concerns from the farming community, supervisors initiated an extensive application process for developers who want to use farmland for power generation -- and need to get out of Williamson Act contracts to move forward.
Under the board's new provisions, solar developers must provide the agricultural history of the land they are pursuing and explain why they didn't select a non-agricultural site. The solar companies also must present a plan for removing their panels should power generation cease.
The board reserves final say on whether the projects proceed.
Several solar companies declined to comment on the new rules, but industry groups said the requirements don't appear burdensome.
Supervisor Phil Larson, who represents western
"There are a lot of issues that aren't in these [provisions] that need to be dealt with," Larson said. "There needs to be more control."
Supervisor Susan Anderson has talked about limiting solar projects to certain parts of the county. Some in the farming community have suggested quotas.
In addition to losing farmland, growers worry that new solar installations won't make good neighbors. They say the operations may take issue with agricultural dust and pesticide drift. And they fear that the new equipment could harbor bugs and weeds.
There are economic concerns, too.
The farmland converted to energy production may initially produce more property taxes for local governments as the tax breaks from Williamson Act contracts are lifted. However, unlike construction of a building, which would add to a property's taxable value, solar panels are exempt from property taxes.
Lorelei Oviatt, director of planning in
The solar industry also presents different job opportunities than agriculture, Oviatt noted. Often, she said, solar plants don't stimulate employment like farming does. When agricultural products are shipped, packaged and sold, each step creates jobs.
"We're still looking for the right balance of solar
here in
Can they live together?
Advocates for solar power say
"When you turn your pump on or your cold-storage compressors
on, you want electricity to be there," said Greg Kirkpatrick, who is
spearheading two solar proposals south of Dos Palos in
Responding to public support for clean energy, Gov. Jerry
Brown in April signed legislation requiring one-third of
PG&E officials say solar energy now constitutes only a small portion -- less than one-tenth of one percent -- of its California energy portfolio, although that fraction is growing.
"There are a lot of these contracts out there but they're just not all producing yet," said PG&E spokesman Denny Boyles.
Boyles said tapping unused farmland to generate solar power
in the
The first of the backlogged solar proposals in
Last month, an advisory panel to the Board of Supervisors recommended that the Williamson Act contract on part of the proposed site be canceled and the project be allowed to proceed.
The applicant, European-based Gestamp Solar, which has more than a half-dozen local projects in the hopper, declined to comment.
Industry insiders, though, say solar companies will go out of their way to respect agriculture.
"Give these guys a chance to show that they can be good neighbors," said Mignon Marks, acting executive director of the California Solar Energy Industries Association.
End Transmission