" I heard it through the AgLine"

June 14, 2011

 

 

·        Scientists claim breakthrough in E. coli battle

·        Ag financial success bolsters sagging economy

·        Bayer CropScience names new president/CEO

·        Feb. freeze a mixed bag for produce importers

·        Super wheat will help boost global food security

 

 

Scientists claim breakthrough in E. coli battle

 

(IrishTimes.com) – DUTCH SCIENTISTS say they have made a “worldwide breakthrough” in combating antibiotic-resistant E.coli, including the bacterium EHEC, which has killed 29 people in Germany and left some 3,000 others across Europe and the US seriously ill.

 

The breakthrough was announced by the director of food and nutrition at the highly regarded TNO Research Institute in Delft, Dr Jan Pieter van der Lugt, who described it as “an international first in the war against life-threatening bacteria”.

 

Although Dr van der Lugt said the detailed breakdown of the cure was being kept secret “to protect our commercial interests”, one of the most significant aspects of its development was that it comprised only natural ingredients.

 

“It appears to be a valuable alternative to antibiotics, and can achieve the same effects as antibiotics,” he said.

 

“It has already been tested using the ESBL bacterium, but it is also applicable against the EHEC bacterium.” ESBL stands for “extended-spectrum beta lactamase” and is becoming known as the latest antibiotic-resistant hospital superbug.

 

EHEC is also known as enterohemorrhagic E.coli, the rod-shaped bacterium which in its severest form attacks the blood, kidneys and brain, usually – in 63 to 85 per cent of cases – as a result of exposure through food.

 

“There are countless bacteria out there capable of mutating into equally dangerous counterparts to the EHEC bacterium. For example, 94 per cent of the chicken in our supermarkets is infected with ESBL, which is also resistant to antibiotics.”

 

Despite the significance of the breakthrough, he acknowledged that it would not be available in time to treat the roughly 3,000 people estimated by the World Health Organisation to be suffering from EHEC in Germany, 12 other European countries, and the United States.

 

Another six months would be needed to conclude its development, he said, after which it would have to comply with stringent government regulations.

 

The EU has offered €210 million compensation to farmers suffering heavy financial losses as a result of scare stories surrounding the deadly E.coli outbreak.

 

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Ag financial success bolsters sagging economy

 

(Kansas City Star) – An overall lackluster economy is masking a bright spot: the farm economy.

 

Despite isolated droughts and floods that have ruined some Midwest crops this spring, times are generally good for U.S. farmers.

 

And that is creating a financial trickle-down throughout agriculture-related industries. Sales of big farm implements, for example, are strong.

 

Net income at John Deere & Co. doubled in the first half of this year compared with the same time last year. And that’s good news for more than just Deere.

 

“When farmers buy a $300,000 combine, the people at the factory who build the combine have jobs, the parts supplier has jobs, the truckers who take the stuff up and down the highways have jobs, and I make a living off a farmer,” said Greg Schwartz, who sells agricultural implements at the Heritage Tractor dealership in Baldwin City, Kan.

 

Even the government’s report last week that the corn crop is likely to be smaller this year sent farm machinery company stocks higher based on the upward push that report gave to corn prices — fostering the expectation that more farm equipment will be bought.

 

Schwartz is careful to note that the high crop prices pumping up farm income are balanced by high expenses.

 

“Farmers’ costs are incredibly high and keep going up,” he said. “Record prices on the commodities board means the price of a bag of seed corn goes up, along with the price of fertilizers and chemicals and the fuel the farmer needs to put in that combine in the field.”

 

A bag of seed corn costs more than $200 to plant about four acres, he noted.

 

But the good news on the sale side is that a bushel of corn is up to about $7.50 from $4 a year ago.

 

Overall, net farm income is expected to be about 20 percent higher in 2011 than 2010, said Jason Henderson, economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Omaha, Neb., branch.

 

“The row crop side — corn, wheat, beans and cotton — will lead most of the gains, but cattle and hog producers are returning to profitability,” Henderson said. “That translates into more jobs on the farms and ranches, and it fosters increases in hours worked and wage rates in the food processing companies.”

 

Henderson also noted that farmland values are up. At a time when housing prices have slumped or stagnated, farm acreage is selling at up to 20 percent higher than last year in some markets, with institutional investors as well as farmers buying.

 

“An indirect effect is that improves farmers’ balance sheets, and that makes it easier to get loans,” said Tom Jackson, a regional economist with IHS Global Insight. Farming, he noted, is a “very credit-driven industry.”

 

Another big plus for the farm economy is higher export demand, especially from China. In addition to row crops, pork, particularly, is a rising export.

 

Rising domestic demand and global demand are fueling a need for bioscience experts to help improve crop yields.

 

The health of the farm economy — unlike the economy at large — isn’t as tied to employment or unemployment statistics, simply because the demand for labor is relatively small.

 

Still, employment in the agricultural sector rose 1.83 percent from March 2010 to March 2011 — a healthy sign compared with a barely perceptible gain of 0.69 percent in the non-farm sector, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

 

And more job growth is expected.

 

“In the past five years we hired 4,000 people, and we expect to add another 4,000 in the next five years,” said Randy Minton, business director for Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a seed and crop protection company. “We need more genetics researchers, more plant breeders, more agronomic sales and marketing folk.”

 

Pioneer, among other agricultural research companies, is recruiting deep into college agricultural programs — especially, Minton said, at about 30 land grant universities such as Kansas State, Iowa State, Nebraska and Missouri.

 

“Worldwide, people are eating better, demanding more protein in their diets,” Minton said. “It’s a very small population of farmers that will actually meet the global demand for food for people, the feed for animals and the bio materials needed.”

 

The United States is the world’s largest exporter of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and sorghum. This year, the forecast calls for about 13.3 percent of the corn crop and 51.4 percent of the wheat crop to be exported.

 

There’s a flip side to higher crop prices, though, that’s hitting livestock and dairy producers who are coping with higher feed costs. And that flip side also affects consumers, who are paying more in the grocery store.

 

But when the crops are good and prices rise, it allows farmers to invest in the equipment that bolsters productivity.

 

“Machines are doing the work, so even when farms expand, the requirement for men per acre is down,” said David Lambert, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University.

 

“Driving a combine is not labor-intensive, so there isn’t an explosion in jobs. Lots of people have been pulled or pushed off the land because of mechanization.”

 

Jackson left his family farm in western Ohio to hold a desk job as an economist.

 

But the farm is prospering without his contribution of daily labor.

 

“My family farm hasn’t gotten bigger. It’s still pretty much my brother and my dad,” Jackson said. “But the equipment has gotten bigger. Seed and fertilizer growth has increased productivity. Crop prices are up. So, yes, things are doing well back home.”

 

Will that kind of farm prosperity last?

 

Those who remember the farm foreclosure crises of the 1980s say some downturn — perhaps a 20 percent drop in corn prices — is expected, but there are big differences from a generation ago.

 

Then, rising land values and low interest rates motivated many farmers to go into debt to expand on the assumption that commodity prices would continue to rise.

 

But the farmland bubble burst, overproduction sent prices lower, and a grain embargo limited exports, causing ripple effects in banking and industry as farms failed.

 

“The difference today is that farmers haven’t piled up debt,” said Henderson, the Fed economist. “Their debt-to-asset ratio is at a near-historic low. Even if there’s a correction in values, farmers have a lot of wealth in equity, enough to withstand correction.”

 

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Bayer CropScience names new president/CEO

 

(Wire Services) – Bayer CropScience has appointed Jim Blome as President/CEO and Head of Crop Protection for the North American region, effective July 1, 2011. Blome succeeds Bill Buckner, current President/CEO, who will retire from Bayer CropScience at the end of the year.

 

Blome joins Bayer CropScience from Valent U.S.A. Corp., which is wholly owned by Sumitomo Chemical Co., where he most recently served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. In this role since 2009, Blome led the North American crop protection business and provided oversight to 270 employees, while delivering record sales and profits.

 

With more than 25 years of leadership experience in agriculture, Blome has held management roles at companies such as Agriliance LLC, FMC Corp., Agtrol International, Griffin Corp. and Nufarm Ltd.

 

“Jim’s depth of knowledge of the agricultural industry and his leadership experience will guide the North American business to a new level of success,” said Lykele van der Broek, global COO of Bayer CropScience. “I look forward to working with Jim as we navigate through this ever-changing marketplace.”

 

Buckner will support Blome in his transition during the summer months and focus on completing his term as Chairman of the CropLife America board.

 

Buckner joined Bayer in 1993 and has held several senior positions in the U.S., Canada, and Germany prior to being named President and CEO of Bayer CropScience North America in 2006. During his role as President and CEO, Buckner remained an ardent supporter of modern agriculture and worked tirelessly to promote advocacy of innovation within the industry.

 

“We appreciate Bill’s leadership and passion for agriculture,” said van der Broek. “He helped establish a solid foundation for this company to further build upon.”

 

Blome will relocate to the North American headquarters in Research Triangle Park, NC, this summer.

 

For more information on Bayer CropScience, visit www.bayercropscience

 

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Feb. freeze a mixed bag for produce importers

 

(Nogales International) – A freeze the first week of February that hammered crops in northwest Mexico was the likely culprit driving down the value of produce imports in Nogales by $124.3 million between October and April of this year, industry insiders said.

 

February saw the worst freeze in 54 years. Produce growers, brokers, distributors and retailers braced themselves during those first harrowing days for skyrocketing prices and supply shortages.

 

However, after assessing the impact of the freeze, growers and distributors by mid-month were projecting steady but reduced volumes of items such as tomatoes, bell peppers and melons throughout the season.

 

West Mexico has a variety of micro-climates, meaning that while some fields were damaged extensively, growers from other areas were able to maintain supplies of these fruits and vegetables.

 

But market fears were already set in motion on this side of the border, said Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Nogales-based Fresh Produce Association of the Americas. Anticipating reduced availability, supermarket chain stores reduced shelf space for west Mexico produce, he said. “When the big displays go away, obviously less produce gets moved.”

 

Overall, the season has been “a mixed bag,” said Jungmeyer, whose organization represents 110 local produce and produce-related firms.

 

“Some companies were not damaged very much or at all and were able to get through the whole thing,” he said. Others were not so lucky. Seed, container, and fertilizer companies were all affected.

 

“Any time the wheels stop turning down in Mexico with the growers, all those types of companies are losing out,” Jungmeyer said.

 

There were certain seed vendors who did well, however. It was early in the season and some growers were able to secure credit to buy more seed.

 

“Some growers took a gamble and said, ‘Everybody’s been hurt and I have an opportunity to replant. I’m going to do it.’ And they were able to have product,” Jungmeyer said.

 

By mid-April, volume on those key items began to climb and reflected in the truck traffic at the Mariposa Port of Entry. According to statistics compiled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists, there were 1,834 more truck crossings in April than in March. “But now, we’re very close to the point where all the domestic production … is starting to kick in gear” to compete with Mexico produce, Jungmeyer said.

 

The numbers

 

In the first seven months of the federal fiscal year, the value of produce imports at the Mariposa Port of Entry was $1.49 billion, down about 7.6 percent, according to CBP statistics. For the same seven months in 2010, the import value for fruits and vegetables was $1.62 billion.

 

The stats indicate commercial traffic at Mariposa slipped by 2,391 trucks between October and January, a relatively small dip that may have been due to increased use of permits for overweight trailers, which cross more volume with fewer trucks.

 

After the freeze in February and through the month of April, crossings nosedived by 19,118 trucks. In those three months there were 83,641 commercial crossings vs. 101,634 during the same period in 2010.

 

Terrance Shannon Jr. of Shannon Customs House Brokerage, which for three generations has dealt exclusively with produce imports, said that the sense in among his peers is the number of trucks crossing fruits and vegetables were down between 30 percent and 40 percent compared to last year.

 

“Ourselves, we were down a little more than 20 percent,” he said.

 

The freeze was a factor, but Shannon said it is hard to pinpoint all of the reasons for the decline. “There is no doubt more shipments are going to Texas for various reasons,” he said. Longer waits due to insufficient port staffing plays a part.

 

But Shannon said he attended a conference in McAllen, Texas hosted by the Fresh Produce Association of Americas and the Texas Produce Association, “and it was almost like sitting in Nogales; they have the same concerns about violence in Mexico, long lines and staffing issues. But the thing that struck me the most is that Texas is more in tune with their ports of entry at all levels.”

 

For example, he pointed out a recent meeting in which three Nogales businessmen asked a state border security committee for help in decreasing wait times but were met with skepticism that a problem even exits. CBP officials say the Nogales ports require an additional 200 officers to be considered fully staffed and that is before the completion of the expanded Mariposa Port of Entry in the fall of 2012. The lawmakers “were shown the statistics and they still don’t get it.”

 

Willing to invest

 

In Nogales, local politicians have done little to prepare for the Mariposa expansion. While the project calls for an elaborate pedestrian crossing, for example, there have been no provisions on the U.S. side of the border for people who cross on foot only to find a truck route and no sidewalks.

 

On the other hand, the City of McAllen, Shannon said, sprung for a cold storage unit “because the mayor and the council there understand that this will make their port more attractive for shipments of produce such as berries that are delicate and have a very limited shelf life. They were willing to invest in their port.”

 

Underscoring the importance of the Mariposa port to Nogales and Arizona, overall between October and April 2011, the value of imports including produce and manufactured good totaled $8.1 billion, nearly $82 million more than during the same period in 2010, according to CBP.

 

On average, about 4 billion pounds of fresh produce is shipped through Mariposa each year, or more than one third of the fresh produce consumed in the United States during the winter months.

 

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Super wheat will help boost global food security

 

(Associated Press) MINNEAPOLIS – Scientists say they're close to producing new "super varieties" of wheat that will resist a virulent fungus while boosting yields up to 15 percent, potentially easing a deadly threat to the world's food supply.

 

The research is part of a global drive to protect wheat crops from the Ug99 strain of stem rust. It will be presented next week at a conference in St. Paul that's part of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, based at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., organizers said Thursday.

 

Scientists will also report that Ug99 variants are becoming increasingly virulent and are being carried by the winds beyond Uganda and other East African countries where they were first identified in 1999. Once infected with the deadly fungus, wheat plants become covered in reddish-brown blisters.

 

According to a news release issued by the initiative ahead of the symposium, the fungus has now spread across all of eastern and southern Africa, and it might just be a matter of time before it reaches India or Pakistan, and even Australia and the Americas.

 

"We are facing the prospect of a biological firestorm, but it's also clear that the research community has responded to the threat at top speed, and we are getting results in the form of new varieties that are resistant to rust and appealing to farmers," Ronnie Coffman, who heads the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project at Cornell, said in the release.

 

Researchers will report at the conference that new varieties of wheat under development at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico show resistance to all three kinds of wheat rust — stem rust including Ug99, yellow rust and leaf rust — the release said. Some of those varieties also boost yields 10 to 15 percent, it said.

 

But significant obstacles must be overcome before the resistant new varieties of wheat can replace the susceptible varieties that make up as much as 90 percent of the wheat now in production, the researchers acknowledged. They called for more investments by wealthy countries and international institutions to continue developing the varieties, to help them keep them effective against diseases that continue to evolve, and to develop the seed production and distribution infrastructure needed to put the new varieties in the hands of poor farmers in developing countries.

 

The new strains mark a huge advance, said Marty Carson, research director at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Cereal Research Laboratory at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul.

 

"Anytime you can talk about a 15 percent boost in yields from existing varieties, I mean that's phenomenal. And to get combined resistance to all three rusts, that's also a very big deal," said Carson, who wasn't directly involved in that research. His lab, which is heavily involved in the fight against Ug99, is hosting the conference along with the University of Minnesota.

 

Carson pointed out in an interview that wheat farmers in the developing world that the Mexican institute known by its Spanish acronym CIMMYT is targeting with these new varieties don't have many other options, such as fungicides, for dealing with threats such as rust. And while he was skeptical about the 15 percent claim, he said even a lower yield increase would be a major accomplishment.

 

The Borlaug Global Rust Initiative was launched five years ago by the late Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug in response to the Ug99 threat. Borlaug, an alumnus of the University of Minnesota, was a leader of CIMMYT. His research sparked the "Green Revolution" of the 1960s that transformed agriculture through high-yield, disease-resistant crops and other innovations, helping to more than double world food production by 1990. He's credited with saving perhaps 1 billion people from starvation.

 

Ravi Singh, a wheat breeder at CIMMYT, helped lead the research on the new strains, which he'll present at the conference and publish later this year in the Annual Review of Phytopathology. He said in an interview that the new varieties were developed through conventional crossbreeding, not genetic engineering. They have been tested successfully for disease resistance in Kenya and Ethiopia, where Ug99 is endemic, as well as at the USDA lab in St. Paul.

 

Donor-funded CIMMYT distributes its seed for free to keep it affordable, Singh said, and the new varieties will be planted in several countries for yield trials in the coming growing season in hopes they can enter widespread use in a few years.

 

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