
		" I heard it through the AgLine"

June 11, 2010

· Israel plows new ground in exotic crops

· Russia seeks world dominance in wheat

· EPA phasing out insecticide endosulfan

· ‘Good’ mould rescues Kenya corn crop

· Tracking the source of illegal honey

Israel plows new ground in exotic crops

(Los Angeles Times) – If Willy Wonka had a farm, it would fit right in here in Israel.

Want a lemon-scented tomato or a chocolate-colored persimmon? How about some miniaturized garlic cloves for the home chef who doesn't have time to chop, or a purple potato that tastes buttery when cooked?

There are no chocolate rivers or edible teacup flowers on Israeli farms, but you will find carrots shaped like potatoes, strawberries shaped like carrots, star-shaped zucchini and "watermelon" tomatoes — dark green on the outside with a juicy red flesh.

There are also specially bred red peppers with three times the usual amount of vitamins, and black chickpeas with extra antioxidants. Not to mention worm-shaped berries and blue bananas.

Though some mock such colorful crops as "frankenfruit," an Israeli tomato breeder, Hazera Genetics, has created a boutique crop worth more than its weight in gold.

The former kibbutz supplier developed a yellow cherry tomato that its own researchers feared might turn off consumers. Instead, the hybrid became a hit in Europe, where the seeds sell for about $160,000 a pound.

Bolstered by Hazera's success, a growing number of Israeli farmers, agricultural companies and government-funded research institutions are jumping into the market for freaky fruits and designer veggies, hoping to stumble upon the next big thing.

"It's fun, it's interesting and it brings in the customers," said Uri Rabinowitz, a Tel Aviv-area farmer who has developed a national following for his strange-looking crops, including elongated strawberries and round carrots. "You can charge twice as much."

Rabinowitz and other Israeli farmers grow exotic fruits and vegetables from imported seeds, including the chocolaty persimmon from Latin America (which makes a tasty ice cream) and the buttery potato from the Netherlands.

Some are trying to create new foods in the lab. A team of Israeli and U.S. scientists created the lemon-scented tomato by splicing genes from lemon basil into tomatoes, producing an aroma and taste of lemons and roses.

Efraim Lewinsohn, who has helped lead the project to develop the lemon tomato at Israel's Volcani Agricultural Research Institute, said the goal was to inject a little spice into tomatoes that had become bland from years of mass production.

"People complain that tomatoes don't taste like they used to," Lewinsohn said. "That's the driving force behind this project: attempting to restore the flavor of the past."

But because of consumer concerns about genetically modified crops, many in Israel are sticking with old-fashioned cross-pollination in which, for example, two tomato varieties — one known for its fast growth and the other for its long shelf life — are pollinated by hand to create tomatoes that grow quickly and last longer.

Israel isn't the only country pushing agricultural boundaries. Japan is producing square watermelons (easier to pack) and kumquat-sized grapes (good for giant raisins). The Netherlands and the United States are also leaders in innovative crops, such as yellow tomatoes and miniature watermelons.

But thanks to its warm climate and advanced research facilities, Israel is becoming a player in the emerging market for agricultural oddities.

"Israelis are a naturally curious people," said Avi Almogi, head of Israel's Exotic Fruit Assn., standing beside a display of fuzzless peaches at his trade group's recent exhibition at Kibbutz Givat Brenner in central Israel. "We take fruits, even things that may not be from here, and we play with them to make them better."

A few years ago, Israeli farmers imported a Chinese orange tree and cross-pollinated it with other breeds to make the fruit more colorful and easier to peel. "Now we are selling the seeds back to China," Almogi said.

Hazera made a splash internationally in the 1990s by breeding a tomato that could be vine-ripened and that stayed red three times longer than ordinary tomatoes. Its seeds were sold around the world.

Since then, the firm has been "diving into tomatoes," said Alon Haberfeld, Hazera's senior tomato product manager. The company pumps about 15% of revenue into research and development, a level he said was comparable to the pharmaceutical industry's.

Drawing on ideas from supermarket owners, farmers and chefs, the company's breeders can devote years to developing a single hybrid. Researchers pollinate the plants by hand and must wait months to see what grows.

Hazera's mini-watermelon was created in response to consumer complaints that standard specimens of the fruit were too big to finish.

Most of the company's research is targeted at specific goals, such as developing a tomato that tastes sweeter or whose vine has a high yield. But sometimes Hazera encourages its breeders to pursue whims.

"We let them go crazy," Haberfeld said. "We tell them to surprise us."

The results aren't always pretty. A snow-white tomato looked "terrible" and was quickly abandoned, Haberfeld said. A teardrop-shaped tomato tasted great but looked unappetizing to consumers.

So when a Hebrew University professor approached Hazera with a golden-hued cherry tomato, made by breeding regular cherry tomatoes with a rare yellow variety, she was greeted with skepticism.

The hybrid, eventually dubbed Summer Sun, had about three times the sugar level of ordinary tomatoes and high acidity, giving it a unique taste.

Researchers thought the flavor held promise. But would consumers bite?

"It takes time to educate people to eat yellow tomatoes," Haberfeld said.

With the rising popularity in the West of cooking shows, healthier eating and gourmet restaurants, Hazera started marketing its products the way other companies sell sports cars and fancy watches.

"It's all about lifestyle," reads a company brochure, depicting attractive young people at the beach, playing tennis, meditating and, of course, munching on tomatoes. "A moment of sensual pleasure. A moment to relax and pamper ourselves."

But in Israel, Hazera tried a different strategy, showing the yellow cherry tomatoes dripping in honey to emphasize their sweet flavor and gold color.

To Israelis, the fruit didn't look ripe. Only one supermarket chain carries them here.

The breakthrough came in Europe, where consumers prefer sweeter produce. Now the yellow tomatoes are showing up on salad plates in France, Britain and Austria, where buyers are willing to pay as much as $11 a pound.

Hazera has sold its yellow cherry tomato seeds to a San Diego-based grower for production this summer.

That motivated Hazera scientists to redouble efforts to develop what they hope will be their next big hybrid hit: the purple tomato.

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Russia seeks world dominance in wheat

(Businessweek) – On May 28, Egypt, the world's biggest importer of wheat, bought 180,000 metric tons from Russia for $178.50 per ton, about $13 less than the U.S. price. The deal is one of many signs that Russia is challenging America's supremacy in the global wheat market. In the past 11 months Russia has won 58 percent of Egypt's regular purchases of wheat, compared with 40 percent the year before. The U.S. share of Egypt sales fell to 8 percent from 13 percent over the same period, says Egypt's General Authority for Supply Commodities.

For Russia, it's an extraordinary turnaround. As recently as the 1990s, it had to buy wheat from U.S. farmers to feed its people, so inefficient were its farms after decades of ruinous Soviet practices. Then Russian investors slowly started buying land and introducing modern farming in the country's fertile "black earth" region near Ukraine and the Black Sea. In 2002 the country emerged as a major exporter for the first time in decades by selling 15.6million tons abroad. "Exports suddenly became profitable," says Arkady Zlochevsky, president of Russia's Grain Union, a lobby group.

By 2008 global grain prices were reaching record levels, and Swedish, British, Chinese, and Korean investors were piling into Russian farmland. Today Russia exports 14 percent of the world's wheat, up from 0.5 percent in 2000. The U.S. share of wheat exports has slipped from 26 percent to 19 percent.

Moscow is now making dominance of the wheat market a goal, and it has a shot: The U.S. Agriculture Dept. predicts that Russia will become the top wheat exporter by 2019. President Dmitry Medvedev last year ordered the creation of a state company, United Grain, to modernize the storage and shipment of wheat in a $3.3 billion overhaul. United Grain will also pursue export deals in Southeast Asia and Latin America, says CEO Sergei Levin. Those regions are traditional strongholds for Australian and U.S. grain exporters.

U.S. farmers are worried. "The Black Sea region is becoming a bigger competitor for us," says Dean Stoskopf, 54, a wheat grower near Hoisington, Kan. Up to now, he says, U.S. farmers have commanded premium prices for higher quality—U.S. wheat generally has higher protein content than Russian grain and suffers less from insect infestations. That may change, Stoskopf fears, as the Russians improve their growing practices and storage facilities.

Some members of Congress want Washington to do more. "I would not rest on the attitude that we have a great product," says Senator Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), who was Secretary of Agriculture from 2005 to 2007. "Price is a factor. We should be working on free-trade agreements or very quickly we'll find ourselves behind." Free-trade agreements in certain parts of Latin America and Asia would open up new markets for U.S. wheat. Russia is part of a bigger problem, says Jason Britt, president of Central States Commodities in Kansas City, Mo. Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade have fallen 32% in the past year as stockpiles have grown.

Kirill Podolsky, 39, is CEO of Valars Group, Russia's No. 3 wheat exporter. "We are completely opportunistic. We ship anywhere there is demand," he says at his headquarters in Taganrog by the Sea of Azov, which connects to the Black Sea. Valars will supply a third of the shipment in the Egypt deal. Podolsky founded Valars in 2006 and has spent $250million on farmland and $108million on equipment.

Vasily Pechersky, 64, who runs Valars' 41,230-hectare Sarmat farm, north of Taganrog, says his winter wheat yield was 4.4 tons per hectare, on a par with U.S. yields. He credits his U.S.-made New Holland tractors and harvesters as well as higher use of fertilizers and new technologies. "One New Holland harvester stands in for two Russian-made ones," he says. Russian-made tractors sit to one side, covered in rust.

The Russians still have challenges to overcome. Investors such as Podolsky bought land at top prices right before the global financial crisis and are struggling to pay off debts. Valars may sell shares on the market to repay $500 million of debt before investing anymore in farming: Wheat-growing brought "zero" profit last marketing year after a plunge in prices, says Podolsky. The Grain Union is asking Moscow for $320 million in subsidies to improve the profitability of exports. Such state aid could help Russia's growers compete even more ferociously with the U.S. on price.

The bottom line: As Russia strives to replace the U.S. as the world's No. 1 exporter of wheat, pricing pressure will remain intense, affecting profits for all players.

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EPA phasing out insecticide endosulfan

(ENN.com) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking action to end all uses of the insecticide endosulfan in the United States.

Endosulfan, which is used on vegetables, fruits, and cotton, can pose unacceptable neurological and reproductive risks to farm workers and wildlife and can persist in the environment.

Endosulfan has been used in agriculture around the world to control insect pests including whiteflys, aphids, leafhoppers, Colorado potato beetles and cabbage worms. It has also seen use in wood preservation, home gardening, and tse-tse fly control, though it is not currently used for public health or residential purposes. India is the world's largest consumer of endosulfan.

Endosulfan is an organochlorine compound that is used as an insecticide. This colorless solid has emerged as a highly controversial agrichemical due to its acute toxicity, potential for bioaccumulation, and role as an endocrine disruptor. It was first introduced in 1954. By 2000 it had started being banned from use.

It is already banned in more than 62 countries, including the European Union and several Asian and West African nations, it is still used extensively in many other countries including India, Brazil, and Australia. It is produced by several firms such as Bayer CropScience, Makhteshim Agan, and Government-of-India—owned Hindustan Insecticides Limited among others.

Because of its potential threats to the environment, a global ban on the use and manufacture of endosulfan is being considered under the Stockholm Convention.

In 2002 EPA enacted a partial ban/reduced usage on Endosulfan, New data generated in response to the EPA's 2002 decision have shown that risks faced by workers are greater than previously known. EPA also finds that there are risks above the agency’s earlier level of concern to aquatic and terrestrial wildlife, as well as to birds and mammals that consume aquatic prey which have ingested endosulfan.

Makhteshim Agan of North America, the major manufacturer of endosulfan, is in discussions with EPA to voluntarily terminate all endosulfan uses.

EPA is currently working out the details of the decision that will eliminate all endosulfan uses, while incorporating consideration of the needs for growers to timely move to lower risk pest control practices.

For further information: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/44C035D59D5E6D8F8525773C0072F26B

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‘Good’ mould rescues Kenya corn crop

(IRIN) NAIROBI – A deadly fungus that has blighted thousands of tonnes of maize in Kenya could be defeated by introducing a less dangerous cousin to crops while still in the field, say scientists.

"The bio-control technology works by introducing strains of the Aspargillus flavus fungus that do not produce the aflatoxin, or ‘the good guys’, into the affected fields, which outcompete and drastically reduce the population of the poison-producing strains, or ‘the bad guys’," according to a statement released by the Agriculture Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA-ARS), the Africa-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).

Symptoms of the poison produced by these “bad guys” include swollen stomach and legs, fatigue, yellowing eyes, liver cancer, reduced immunity and even death. Aflatoxin has killed at least 200 people in Kenya since 2004, according to government figures.

In May 2009, the Kenyan government announced that some 2.3 million 90kg bags of maize were contaminated with aflatoxin (the term is a contraction of “A. flavus toxin”), largely because an unexpected bumper crop and heavy rains had prevented farmers from drying the grain sufficiently to prevent the formation of the moisture-loving poison.

James Muthomi, a plant pathologist at the University of Nairobi's department of plant science and crop protection, welcomed the announcement, but offered some caveats.

"Much of the [research] work has been done under controlled conditions," he told IRIN.

Before releasing the technology on to the Kenyan market, Muthomi said, published data on its effectiveness in various field conditions should be made widely available.

"Different fungi express differently under different environments," he said.

"The atoxigenic Aspergillus flavus isolates that have already been proved to control aflatoxin contamination may first require some tests to prove that (a) their effectiveness is retained under the Kenyan conditions, (b) that the 'foreign' atoxigenic strains cannot mutate into toxigenic strains under Kenyan environment, and (c) that there are no chances the ‘foreign’ can recombine with the Kenyan toxigenic strains to produce even worse strains than what we already have in Kenya.

NAIROBI, 7 June 2010 (IRIN) - A deadly fungus that has blighted thousands of tonnes of maize in Kenya could be defeated by introducing a less dangerous cousin to crops while still in the field, say scientists.

James Muthomi, a plant pathologist at the University of Nairobi's department of plant science and crop protection, welcomed the announcement, but offered some caveats.

"Much of the [research] work has been done under controlled conditions," he told IRIN.

Before releasing the technology on to the Kenyan market, Muthomi said, published data on its effectiveness in various field conditions should be made widely available.

"Different fungi express differently under different environments," he said.

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Tracking the source of illegal honey

(Houston Chronicle) COLLEGE STATION — The last decade has really stung U.S. beekeepers.

There’s been the widely reported Colony Collapse Disorder, in which some keepers have reported the loss of 30 to 90 percent of their hives, the underlying cause of which remains mysterious.

Less well known but just as significant for their economic vitality, U.S. beekeepers have also had to deal with tens of thousands of tons of Chinese honey being illegally dumped onto the market.

These combined natural and economic forces have dampened honey production by large American producers from 221 million pounds in 1998 to 144 million pounds last year.

Last year’s levels were the lowest since the 1970s.

“It’s been a real struggle for many to survive,” said John Talbert, owner of the Sabine Creek Honey Farm in Josephine, and executive secretary of the Texas Beekeepers Association.

While scientists continue to study the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, there is hope that the economic issues stemming from illegal Chinese honey flowing into the United States may be addressed. Vaughn Bryant would welcome the help.

An anthropologist at Texas A&M University, Bryant has honed a unique honey sleuthing talent since 1975, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture asked him if he could test a sample of honey and determine its origin.

At the time Bryant studied pollen at archaeological sites in order to tease out historical details.

As it turns out, pollen in bee honey — traces of the many, variable nectar sources bees use — can be used to geographically pin down where the honey was made.

“Holy Moses, I had no idea what I was getting into,” Bryant recalled.

He knows his pollen

After decades of experience, Bryant can look at samples of honey under a microscope in his lab and identify hundreds of types of pollen on sight. That’s no small feat considering each looks like a roundish, nondescript speck of dust.

By linking pollen to plants, and knowing the geographical range of plants, he almost always can pin down the location of the bees that produced a certain sample.

To help him, along one wall of Bryant’s lab stand several large cabinets in which he houses a multimillion-dollar collection of 20,000 pollen samples. Two-thirds of the collection, he says, was donated by BP and Exxon Mobil Corp., which use pollen in oil exploration activities to determine the relative ages of rock strata.

In addition to pinpointing a honey’s country of origin by glancing in a microscope, Bryant has a second talent: storytelling.

There’s the anecdote about Greek armies that catapulted beehives into enemy cities. Or the one about “mad honey,” produced by bees that use nectar from certain plants that produce a toxin. The Persians, in 67 B.C., apparently left jars of mad honey along the roadside. Honey-loving Roman soldiers came along and ate it, got sick, and then the Persians fell upon them, Bryant said.

Today, in some Turkish nightclubs, he said, mad honey is taken as a drug.

Since becoming involved in honey in the 1970s, Bryant has closely followed the fortunes of the industry.

The U.S. honey habit

To meet its needs, the United States imports about one-third of the honey it uses.

While consumers may be most familiar with jars of honey on grocery shelves, industry uses most of the honey as a flavoring in foods such as cereals, breads and barbecue sauce.

The tobacco industry uses a lot of honey, too, as it enhances the body’s ability to absorb nicotine, Bryant said.

“If you put sugar into tobacco, you get a bigger charge out,” he said. The domestic honey market itself isn’t that large, about $200 million a year.

The real economic concern, Bryant said, is the loss of pollination. Fewer bees will mean less pollination of crops.

The Department of Agriculture estimates that pollination is worth about $15 billion in America, particularly for crops such as almonds and other nuts, berries, fruits and vegetables. About one mouthful in three in the diet directly or indirectly benefits from honeybee pollination, according to the government.

So in 2001, when it determined that lower-priced Chinese honey was flooding the market and driving beekeepers out of business, the U.S. government imposed 200 percent and higher tariffs on honey from China.

But since then, Bryant said, there’s been a dramatic rise in honey exports from countries near China, at very low prices. Bryant’s analysis of this honey reveals that it has either been transshipped from China, or even cut with high-fructose corn syrup to increase its volume.

“At the rate the Chinese are dumping this honey, it could devastate the U.S. honey industry,” he said.

Enforcement efforts

The government has undertaken recent enforcement efforts.

Last month U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested a Taiwanese executive, Hung Ta Fan, 41, in Los Angeles for allegedly conspiring to illegally import honey that was falsely identified to avoid U.S. tariffs.

“ICE will not tolerate products being illegally imported into the U.S. marketplace,” John Morton, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for ICE, said in a statement.

And in May 2009, Yong Xiang Yan, the president of a honey manufacturer in China, was arrested and later pled guilty to conspiring to illegally import Chinese honey that was falsely identified as coming from the Philippines. Yan is cooperating in the ongoing investigation while awaiting sentencing, according to the affidavit against Fan.

Big flow of cheap honey

Earlier this month, five U.S. honey producers launched the Honest Honey campaign to raise consumer awareness of this illegally imported honey. They estimate the United States loses about $100 million annually in uncollected duties because of illegal honey imports.

“We’re encouraged by the activity we’ve seen from the Department of Homeland Security on this issue,” said Jill Clark, an official with Lancaster, Pa.-based Dutch Gold Honey, one of the companies sponsoring the campaign.

Bryant, who studies about 150 samples a year to determine their origin, is more skeptical about the U.S. fight to stop Chinese dumping of honey.

Many importers, he said, are happy just to get the honey at a good price. So it will take a lot of enforcement to solve the problem.

“Essentially,” he said, “what we’ve got is a big leak in the dike with the government sticking a few fingers into it, trying to plug small holes.”

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