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July 24, 2009
· T&A lettuce recall expands, no sickness reported
· NY ag season a washout, growers seek gov’t help
· Monsanto predicts monster market for new seed
· Tracking project will help restore bumblebee habitat
· Land pirates? Indian investors hustling in Africa
T&A lettuce recall expands, no sickness reported
(TheCalifornian.com) – Starting today, consumers can buy romaine lettuce heads from Salinas-based grower-shipper Tanimura & Antle and be certain they were not part of a lot recalled as a precaution against salmonella contamination, the company said.
Grocery shoppers who bought T&A romaine heads Thursday or earlier should discard them, said spokeswoman Amy Philpott.
The voluntary recall of 22,000 cartons of wrapped, banded
and unwrapped romaine heads that began Tuesday was expanded Thursday from 29 to
50 states. Puerto Rico and
"It's still 22,000 cartons," Philpott said. "We know exactly where we sent the product, but what we have realized is that some of our customers may have distributed the products in states beyond the original 29. We're just going to include all 50 to be safe."
The recall began after a random test by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture found salmonella in T&A romaine from a lot coded 531380. Only that lot was recalled. No illnesses have been reported.
The lettuce, harvested between June 25 and July 2, is already past its 14- to 16-day shelf life. The recall is a precautionary measure, company officials said.
"We are so far beyond normal shelf life that it's really unlikely that there's any product out there," Philpott said.
"We very much regret the inconvenience that the recall may have caused our consumers and customers," Rick Antle, chief executive officer of Tanimura & Antle, said in a statement. "Food safety and consumer health are our top priorities."
The company's customers in the food service and grocery businesses can tell from shipping cartons whether their romaine came from lot 531380, and use those which did not. Consumers don't see those cartons, so they have been advised to discard all T&A romaine heads purchased Thursday or earlier.
The affected lot came from a
Financial effect
The financial impact was still being calculated Thursday.
"Time has been taken away from my salesmen's jobs just to be sure we've found where all the boxes went," said Gary Tanimura, vice president at Tanimura & Antle. "They're still out there assessing. By Friday, we'll have a better idea."
Since the product has already gone through the system and is past its shelf life, losses may be modest, Tanimura said.
"Undoubtedly, product not in that lot and from that field is going to be caught up in it," Philpott said. "We may be capturing some of that."
On Thursday, the company posted online photos of the recalled product at www.taproduce.com/images/uploads/recall.jpg.
NY ag season a washout, growers seek gov’t help
(The Suffolk
Times) –
If passed, the initiative will give farmers access to low-interest loans, helping them recoup losses in preparation for next year.
"I've just realized how serious this situation is," said 1st District Assemblyman Marc Alessi, who sent a letter to the governor last week urging him to take action. "More and more people are coming to me and saying they've lost entire crops."
The second wettest June on record has devastated North Fork
farms -- drowning entire vegetable fields, ruining strawberry season and
spreading late blight, the fungus-like pathogen responsible for
Vineyards too are suffering.
"By and large we're not declaring this the end of the world," said Charles Massoud, owner of Paumanok Vineyards in Aquebogue. "Welcome to farming. I like to say that we're partners with Mother Nature, but we're the junior partner."
Mr. Massoud has seen his fair share of weather-related hardship over the years. In 2003, for instance, a hailstorm demolished his vineyard, leaving only 25 percent of his vines to harvest.
"But that's farming," he said. "You're never going to have a straight line."
Sam McCullough, vineyard manager at Lenz Winery in Peconic, faces a 30 percent reduction in production this year.
"What we're looking at is a pretty drastic crop reduction," he said. "For some varieties, there's probably no crop loss at all, but in other blocks there might be 100 percent loss. It's different from field to field and variety to variety. You can't stress that enough."
Because a vine's flowering season varies from one grape species to the next, a hard rainfall could potentially destroy one vine, whose buds are just beginning to flower, while leaving the next one unharmed.
Jim Silver, general manager of Peconic Bay Winery in Cutchogue, lost 30 percent of his riesling variety but only 10 percent of the chardonnay.
"It's just a matter of when it decides to rain really hard," he said. "A really hard rain just when you're flowering can be really unfortunate."
Vineyard owners expect losses across the board, but what they've lost in quantity they've gained in quality.
"When you have fewer fruit on a tree or vine, there's actually more nutrients and sugars that can be pulled from the soil and into the fruit," said Jason Damianos, owner of Jason's Vineyard in Jamesport. "Kind of like if you had a million apples on a tree, you're not going to have as sweet of an apple... If the root system is trying to nurture too many babies, there's only so much sugar that can be synthesized from the soil."
In other words, even though there might not be as much wine at the end of this year, it will probably be better tasting, as long as the weather cooperates long enough for the grapes to mature.
"You can't grow a plant in the refrigerator," said
Mr. Silver of
State Agricultural Commissioner Patrick Hooker will be examining local farms this week to determine the extent of crop damage. However, despite this season's hardships, some local farmers are not convinced they need government aid.
"I might consider it," said Philip Schmitt, owner of Schmitt Farms in Riverhead, "but it's something I've never done in the past. I try to keep government out of my business."
Of course, if worse comes to worst, government aid might be the only option.
"It's sort of like a horse race," said Ed Harbes Sr., owner of Harbes family farm in Mattituck. "It's a little premature to know whether you're coming in first, second, third, or last just yet. We're still hoping that good things happen... Low-interest loans are a great thing, but they still need to be paid back."
Monsanto predicts monster market for new seed
(DesMoinesRegister.com) Washington, D.C. -—Officials with Monsanto Co. say its newest biotech corn seed could eventually be planted to as many as 65 million acres, about 75 percent of the corn acreage planted this year.
The seed, known as SmartStax and developed with Dow AgroSciences, contains eight genes for insect and herbicide resistance.
Its key feature is that the Environmental Protection Agency will allow the corn to be grown on up to 95 percent of a farm's acreage.
Under agency rules, farmers are allowed to plant existing biotech corn varieties, known as Bt corn, on no more than 80 percent of their acreage to prevent insects from becoming resistant to the toxin that the plants contain. The array of genes in SmartStax will make it harder for insects to develop resistance.
Philip Miller, vice president of
DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred is dealing with the 20 percent refuge requirement differently. Bags of Pioneer's Optimum AcreMax product will contain a combination of seed traits already on the market. A Pioneer spokesman said the company expects to have agency approval shortly.
Monsanto and Dow plan to launch SmartStax next year on 3 million to 4 million acres. About 87 million acres of corn were planted this spring nationwide.
Miller said the companies are on track to get the necessary foreign approvals for the corn. Prices of the seed will vary by region, depending on how valuable the product will be to farmers.
BB&T Capital Markets said SmartStax corn could increase Monsanto's earnings per share by 10 percent.
Tracking project will help restore bumblebee habitat
(AP via Yahoo! News) – GRANTS PASS, Ore. – With bumblebees and other native insects that pollinate crops dying off, scientists are working on the best ways to restore natural habitat on or near farms.
The Xerces Society, based in
Part of the money will go toward tracking how pollination
improves on farmland around
The rest will be spent on working with universities and agricultural organizations to develop local combinations of trees, shrubs and plants that can be used nationwide to make life better for beneficial insects.
"If you provide the habitat, what we see is these animals will come and will help farmers," said Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Xerces Society.
Farmers have been relying increasingly on native pollinators
such as bumblebees since honeybees — a European transplant — began dying from a
mysterious combination of ailments known as colony collapse disorder. But many
of the 4,000 species of bumblebees in
Modern industrial farming has been terrible for native
pollinators, said Claire Kremen, associate professor
of zoology at the
"It's kind of ironic that the place where we need them most to pollinate fruits and vegetables, that's where we don't have them any longer," Kremen said.
The habitat project created six hedgerows as much as a mile long and 80 feet wide planted with trees, shrubs and herbs that flower from January — when the first bumblebees emerge from hibernation — through fall, when the bees die off or go back into hibernation. Farmers planted the hedgerows in 2007, and about 60 bumblebee species use them.
The nectar and pollen also will help honeybees by providing a more nourishing source of food than the sugar water they usually get from beekeepers, Kremen said.
Land
pirates? Indian investors hustling in Africa
(nzherald.com)
– Once the jewel in
Backed by federal government loans, cheap credit and preferential import tariffs, some 80 private Indian companies have, over the past two years, acquired or leased thousands of hectares in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal and Mozambique's Zambezi Valley.
They are growing rice, sugar cane, maize, pulses, oilseeds, tea and even flowers, vegetables and fruit. Many Indian investors are also cultivating jatropha, the bio-fuel crop in West African states as part of the country's overall strategy of crop outsourcing.
Indian agricultural experts said that, unlike in the past
when governments and conglomerates colonised and
acquired land for profit, the 21st century drive was prompted by escalating
shortages in emerging economies like
However, environmental changes triggered by global warming, shrinking land holdings and urbanisation of agricultural land are affecting output.
Over half the US$4.15 billion ($6.23 billion) invested by the New Delhi Government in Ethiopia last year was via long-term loans which have enabled Indian conglomerates to develop in agriculture and floriculture.
In early June, the Bangalore-based Karuturi
Global signed an agreement with
And in January another Indian company Varun
Agriculture SARL inked an agreement with 13 landlords in
But such activity has been criticised by food policy experts who accuse the Indian Government with practicing "neo colonialism" and of sponsoring "exploitative" agreements with poor African states. They reason this would further exacerbate their food insecurity, triggering civil strife.
"I call them food pirates on a land grab spree," Devinder Sharma of the Forum for Biotechnology and Food
Security based in a
The Confederation of Indian Industry disagrees. "Involvement
in agriculture across
According to a report by the International Food Policy
Research Institute in Washington, between 15 million to 20 million hectares of
land had recently been sold for US$20 billion- $30 billion across Africa to a
handful of investors from China and the Gulf - regions which face graver land
and water shortages than India.
"Many governments, either directly or through State-owned entities and public-private partnerships are in negotiations for, or have already closed deals on, arable land leases, concessions, or purchases abroad," said the IFPRI report titled Land Grabbing by Foreign Investors in Developing Countries: Risks and Opportunities.
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