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July 23, 2010
· When pest control involves really big pests
· FDA reaps bumper crop of safety comments
· Discovery may spur plant health strategies
· Valent Biosciences registers US operations
· And J. R. Simplot says, “If I was … “
When pest control involves really big pests
(IRIN) - People and wildlife have never been in greater competition for limited resources as human populations invade shrinking natural habitats in a fight for living space, food and water. In this vignette of a planet-wide battle, IRIN looks at how to keep elephants away from your crops and raiding monkeys out of your food stores.
Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) threatens the continued survival of a growing number of species, and more and more often is presenting a significant hazard to crops, livestock, property, and even lives.
"The increasing conflict is related to human development needs, demographic expansion and extended agricultural practices," René Czudek, Forestry and Wildlife Officer at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Southern Africa, told IRIN.
There are no global figures available on crop losses, but "to the family concerned, the loss of a patch of maize to raiding elephants can mean the loss of their food supply for a year; the difference between self-sufficiency and being destitute," Czudek said.
With the world's human population expanding by some 75
million a year, people and wildlife are both squeezed for space.
The good news is that HWC has been around for a very long time. In a joint effort, FAO, the Agricultural Research for Development Centre (CIRAD), the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other partners are tapping into centuries of experience across the continent to create a Human-Wildlife Conflict Toolkit.
"It's about finding ways to save livelihoods and the
animals," said George Mapuvire of BIO-HUB, a
CIRAD project funded by the French government, who is leading tests of the kit
in
Offer a sandwich that bites back
Baboons are intelligent and crafty; they can raid human dwellings and are often considered an agricultural pest. Are these pillaging apes giving you a hard time? Booby-trap some bread.
"Baboons which enter vehicles or buildings to steal food may be deterred by placing a snake, preferably a live one, or a look-alike replica, in a closed loaf of bread with the soft inner removed," the toolkit suggests.
"The offending baboon, seizing the opportunity, grabs it without the customary caution usually displayed by primates, discovers the snake and faints ... hopefully learning its lesson!"
Get them drunk
More persistent baboons will need to be relocated. The kit recommends getting them "drunk and incapacitated", which is cheap, easy and non-lethal. Mapuvire notes that this is more cost-effective than bringing in rangers with tranquilizer dart guns, and can be carried out with locally available products.
Once the "problem animals" become accustomed to the taste of Mahewu – a local non-alcoholic brew - it is "beefed up with concentrated alcohol in the region of 90 percent, which the baboons don't detect". When the animal passes out it can be safely relocated.
Give them a chilli reception
Elephants spell disaster to many rural Africans. They raid
crops, destroy homes and livelihoods, and sometimes even take lives. Elephants
eat up to 450kg of food per day - from leaves, grass and twigs to crops - and
uproot, scatter and trample as much as is eaten. FAO estimates that the annual
cost of elephant raids on crops in Africa ranges from $60 (
Angry farmers often kill elephants in retaliation and,
according to WWF, wildlife authorities in
So, how do you drive a full-grown six-tonne bull elephant off your property? Well, elephants hate chilli pepper. It can be grown around crops that elephants like to eat; twine can be painted with a mixture of chilli pepper and old engine oil and strung up around fields, or the chilli pepper can be burnt with elephant dung to produce a pungent smoke.
Slightly more dramatic is the trademarked "Mhiripiri Bomber", a plastic gun that shoots balls containing a highly concentrated chilli solution. Fired at a trespassing elephant the ball bursts on impact, "liberating the pepper over its body", the kit says.
The accompanying information reads: "The area struk is investigated by the trunk, in so doing it takes in the papper. For this reason, it is suspected that elephant are affected more than any other animal."
Blind them
Hippos, like elephants, are fond of raiding crops by night, but can be deterred by strong flashlights. "The brighter the light the better, which must be turned on at the last moment as close to the animal as possible," the toolkit recommends. Caution should be exercised because hippos are unpredictable, and may charge instead of running away.
Stink them out
Certain species of wildlife, especially bush pigs, are sensitive to strong scents and are successfully repelled by them, Mapuvire said.
"The pungent smell emanating from burning old tyres or old engine oil" is particularly effective, the tool kit says. However, "this should not be carried out routinely ... rather have everything ready and then fire it up when the animals enter [the cleared area]."
The cosmetics industry offers another solution: "Bush pigs are so sensitive to smell that they may also be repelled by using strong scented perfumes and soap, sprayed every two metres around the crop," the kit suggests.
Employ a donkey or wildebeest
Training guard dogs is a good way to warn of approaching predators and keep them at bay. Having dogs grow up with and follow a herd of cattle has proved very effective, Mapuvire said. The toolkit says, "In Namibia, wildebeest have been used in the same way and are raised as orphans to protect livestock."
Why settle for a dog if you can get a donkey to the job?
According to FAO, in some parts of
Fence yourself in
Reports from
The tool kit advises strong fencing at watering points, but points out that crocodiles are less likely to attack humans or livestock in places where there are abundant fish stocks. Avoiding over-fishing would thus be one way of reducing the danger of being eaten.
These examples are by no means all-encompassing. Once completed and thoroughly tested, the Human-Wildlife Conflict Toolkit will offer a wide range of solutions to dealing with HWC - from high-tech GPS tracking collars on lions to noisy tin cans filled with pebbles; from soft approaches like shouting, to lethal cyanide poison.
Mapuvire said the best way to reduce conflict between wild animals and humans was to educate farmers and villagers. Awareness and training people to co-exist with wild animals is fundamental to the use of the HWC Toolkit.
Czudek said training had been
"organized so far for wildlife practicioners/extensionists
from
An online version, open to comment and suggestion, was
anticipated for August 2010 and requests had already come in for translations
into French, Portuguese and other languages widely spoken in
FDA reaps bumper crop of safety comments
(CIDRAP)
– The
The agency has set a deadline of Jul 23 for groups and individuals to submit comments on current practices in the production and packing of fresh produce and approaches for improving safety. Comments can be submitted electronically (see links below).
The FDA invited the public to comment in February and set an original deadline of May 24, which was later extended to Jul 23. No firm deadline for developing the produce safety regulations has been set, but it is a top priority for the FDA, agency spokesman Sebastian Cianci told CIDRAP News today.
The move toward produce safety regulation follows a series
of disease outbreaks linked to fresh produce in recent years. Notable ones
included more than 1,400 Salmonella cases tied to hot peppers imported from
The FDA's online docket for comments on produce safety currently shows 530 comments from individuals, industry groups, and other organizations, with some organizations submitting multiple statements. Examples of groups that have weighed in include the National Organic Coalition, the National Potato Council, the Northwest Horticultural Council, the Produce Safety Project, and the National Watermelon Promotion Board.
Many of the comments from farm and produce industry groups express concern about potentially burdensome regulations that would be especially difficult for small farm operations to deal with.
The FDA has said it plans to consider the wide range of types and sizes of farming operations in the regulations it proposes.
The FDA's move to write produce safety regulations is paralleled by an effort at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop a voluntary marketing agreement for leafy green vegetables with the aim of improving safety. The proposed agreement spells out best practices for minimizing microbial contamination of leafy greens during growing and handling and provides for an audit-based verification program.
Last September and October the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) held seven public hearings on the proposed agreement around the country. Major produce industry groups such as the United Fresh Produce Association, the Leafy Greens Council, and Western Growers have been working with the USDA on the proposal.
When the AMS has finished analyzing comments made at the hearings and afterward, it will publish a proposed decision and solicit another round of comments, according to information on the USDA Web site.
In a statement in February, the FDA and USDA said they expected that "any marketing agreement would conform to any regulations promulgated by FDA."
Discovery may spur plant health strategies
(Virginia Tech via PHYSORG.com) – A research team led by scientists at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech has discovered a fundamental entry mechanism that allows dangerous fungal microbes to infect plants and cause disease.
The discovery paves the way for the development of new intervention strategies to protect plant, and even some animal cells, from deadly fungal infections. The findings are published in the July 23 edition of the journal Cell.
The researchers have revealed how special disease-related proteins, known as effectors, blaze a trail into cells. Fungi and fungal-like microbes known as oomycetes produce effector molecules that penetrate cells and switch off the host's defense system. Once the host's immune system has been disabled, the fungus or oomycete swiftly follows up, breaking and entering the cell and unleashing disease.
The pathogens in question, which include the microbe that caused the Irish potato famine in the nineteenth century, cause billions of dollars of losses for commercial farmers worldwide in crops such as soybean. They are also responsible for potentially fatal infectious diseases in humans.
Said Brett Tyler, professor at VBI and the leader of the project, "Our breakthrough finding is that these dangerous disease-causing proteins must bind a specific lipid molecule found on the cell surface before they can enter the cell."
In a previous study, Tyler and other researchers had
pinpointed specific regions of the effector proteins
that are intimately involved in breaking and entry of the cell. The new study
shows that these regions on the effector proteins
bind the lipid phosphatidylinositol 3-phosphate and
that this binding is essential for the proteins to enter the cells. Adds
Intriguingly, the researchers have also identified two methods to block the entry process that could lead to new disease interventions against infection in medicine and agriculture. Shiv Kale, a graduate student at VBI and one of the lead authors on the study, remarked: "We were able to block the entry process of the disease-related proteins using two types of inhibitors. The first group of inhibitors covers the lipid so that the pathogen cannot get access to it. The second jams the site on the protein that normally binds the lipid."
The scientists were also able to show that the entry process into some human cells takes place by the same mechanism. Said VBI Associate Professor Chris Lawrence, who collaborated on the study, "Our finding that the entry of the effectors into human cells can be blocked with small molecules suggest that it may be possible to find new strategies to combat several debilitating human diseases, in addition to treating plant diseases."
More information: Kale S, Gu B, Capelluto DGS, Dou D, Feldman E, Rumore A, Arredondo FD, Hanlon R, Fudal I, Rouxel T, Lawrence CB, Shan W, Tyler BM (2010) External lipid phophatidylinositol 3-phosphate mediates entry of eukaryotic pathogen effectors into plant and animal host cells. Cell 142(2) In press. Available online at http://www.cell.com/current
Valent Biosciences registers US operations
(Wire Services) – Valent BioSciences
Corporation, the worldwide leader in the development and commercialization of biorational products for agriculture and public health, has
achieved ISO 9001:2008 registration of its
Valent BioSciences serves customers in more than 90 countries. Its low-risk, environmentally compatible products include key brands such as DiPel, XenTari, ProGibb, Promalin, ReTain and VectoBac. The company also has extensive intellectual property in the emerging area of crop stress management.
“Earning ISO 9001:2008 registration illustrates to customers worldwide our strong commitment to quality at all levels of our organization,” said Mike Donaldson, President and CEO of the company. “Customers want to be confident that they are doing business with an organization that can meet or exceed their needs in a timely manner. Successfully completing the rigorous process required for certification demonstrates that we are continually improving our quality management systems."
The approval for registration follows the recommendation of the official auditing team, which conducted an extensive audit of Valent BioSciences’ Quality Management System. The audit report specifically noted that “the quality system was well documented and very detailed. It was obvious that the system was being used.”
Donaldson said Valent BioSciences has a strong heritage of quality systems across all of its business operations, which have been the foundation for the consistent quality and performance of its products and the value they have delivered over the decades to its customers.
“As a company specializing in biorational products, the quality in the fermentation, down-stream processing and formulating has been paramount to the sustainability and success of the company,” Donaldson said. “In the future, the Quality Management System will help to continually improve on the products and services we provide to our customers.”
Valent BioSciences received its ISO 9001:2008 registration from Perry Johnson Registrars, Inc., a nationally accredited registrar that performs assessments of quality management systems against requirements of national and international standards for quality.
Valent BioSciences is a worldwide leader in the research, development and commercialization of low-risk, environmentally compatible technologies and products for the agricultural, public health, forestry and household insecticide markets. For more information on Valent BioSciences Corporation, call toll-free at 800-323-9597, or visit the company’s Web site, www.valentbiosciences.com.
And J.R. Simplot says, “If I was …”
(IdahoStatesman.com) – Doug Moser still winces about the time he introduced J.R. Simplot to green garbanzo beans.
"It was at a lunch in
"I wish he had been 20 years younger."
These days, Moser's beans are doing all right without
Simplot. They're being sold at Treasure Valley Costco stores as of this month,
along with Costco stores in other Northwestern states,
"It's one of the areas we have targeted," said
Moser, who began growing garbanzo beans on his Genesee farm, near
Garbanzo beans, also known as chickpeas, have been a food staple for centuries. The thing that makes Moser's different is that he's pioneered a method of harvesting and processing them while still green.
"For years I ate them green fresh out of the field," he said. "They were so good that I wondered why you couldn't harvest and market them that way. It took a lot of trial and error to learn how to do it, but we're finally starting to smile now."
The fruits of his labor include a sweeter flavor than traditional garbanzos, greater nutritional value and a blanching and freezing process that makes them available in stores year-round.
Farmers like them because they're resistant to insects and don't need fertilizer because they return nutrients to the soil.
"With the green movement taking off, I see a lot of farmers turning to them," Moser said. "The Palouse, where I live, has historically been wheat and pea country. But peas have gone out of favor a bit, and more garbanzos are being planted. This year is an all-time high."
Justin Christensen plans to grow a test crop of garbanzos on his Melba farm next spring. He normally grows potatoes, peas, beans, corn, peppermint, hay and alfalfa and sees garbanzos as a good fit with his other crops.
"You plant them early and harvest them early, so you have time to do another crop like corn," he said. "You get two crops in one season. They put some nitrogen into the ground, so they're great to follow potatoes with, and their short growing season makes them ideal for a short water year. I think there'll be a lot of interest in them here in the Valley. They'll give us another way to diversify."
Chefs like green garbanzos for their flavor and versatility.
"They're dynamic," executive chef Vern Bauer of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center said. "They have great health benefits, and they're super flavorful. When you look at the clientele here - nurses, doctors and people trying to be healthier - it's a no-brainer. They're good for you, and they have a yummy, delicious flavor."
Bauer uses the beans in hummus, salads, Indian food, guacamole, even meat loaf.
"They have a nuttier flavor than the blond garbanzos, so they're flexible," he said.
"They have more fiber and protein than regular garbanzo beans," she said. "The fiber helps lower cholesterol and prevent diabetes. They're high in folic acid, a B vitamin that's been shown to protect against heart disease, and phyto chemicals that are heart-healthy, help improve cognition and help prevent certain kinds of cancer. É It's rare that we get something new that's actually a whole food that's nutritious."
Moser, whose Clearwater Country Foods business distributes
the beans, thinks they could be the next
Linja hopes to see more of the
colorful beans in
"Anything that's green is a hard sell," she said.
"But I'd love to see
End Transmission