" I heard it through the AgLine"

July 25, 2011

 

 

·        Farm thieves nab everything in sight

·        Syngenta AG plans price hikes in 2012

·        Product research focus of Tomato Center

·        Non-destructive method to estimate leaf index

·        Getting real about the promise of vertical farms

 

 

Farm thieves nab everything in sight

 

(The New York Times) BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Sgt. Walt Reed said he could tell right away that the grapes were stolen. They looked like an ordinary bunch. Except, he said, for the way they were dressed.

 

"Usually grapes are put into plastic bags," said Sergeant Reed, a 28-year veteran of the Kern County Sheriff's Office. "But these grapes were just thrown in a Styrofoam box."

 

Sergeant Reed -- who eventually arrested a suspect after staking out a Kern County vineyard -- is just one of dozens of deputies on the front lines of agricultural crime in California, home to the nation's most productive farms and the people who prey on them. While thievery has long been a fact of life in the country, such crimes are on the rise and fighting them has become harder in many parts of California as many grants for rural law enforcement have withered on the vine.

 

While other states have their own agricultural intrigue -- cattle rustlers in Texas, tomato takers in Florida -- few areas can claim a wider variety of farm felons than California, where ambushes on everything from almonds to beehives have been reported in recent years. Then there is the hardware: diesel fuel, tools and truck batteries regularly disappear in the Central Valley, the state's agricultural powerhouse, where high unemployment, foreclosures and methamphetamine abuse have made criminals more desperate, officials say.

 

"All of our ag crimes are up," said Sergeant Reed, who oversees a unit of two full-time detectives -- down from three a year ago -- all patrolling a county about eight times the size of Rhode Island. A wet winter and warm summer, after all, have meant healthy crops, he said, and a healthy market means happy thieves.

 

"Everything this year is doing well," Sergeant Reed said. "And if it's doing well here, there's somebody looking to steal it."

 

Counties up and down the state also are dealing with a surge in copper theft -- a perennial problem made all the worse of late by the soaring price for the metal. Such robberies are remarkably simple. Bandits simply snip copper wires running between outdoor wells and their power boxes.

 

"To repair them is anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 a whack," said Greg Wegis, a Kern County farmer. "We repaired one, and it immediately got ripped off again."

 

And copper is not the only tempting metal.

 

"Two hundred pounds of iron might bring them 75, 100 bucks," Sergeant Reed said. "That's money they can use to put gas in their trucks. They can get some food."

 

Nor are the crimes limited to poorer areas; in Napa County, where fans of the good life flock for the wine and warm weather, the police set up a tip line in June to combat a raft of thefts, including solar panels at some vineyards.

 

In other areas, deputies say they have witnessed a kind of Robin Hood effect, where some small, struggling farmers filch materials from their better stocked competitors.

 

"It's typical during certain times of the year: you'll see a surge in theft from bigger farms," said Deputy Sheriff John H. McCarthy, a rural crime investigator for Santa Barbara County. "Chemicals, fuel and the type of things you need to put in a new crop."

 

Not even insects are immune. In Madera County, about 130 miles east of San Francisco, officials saw a rash of bee burglaries this year, as a shortage of able-bodied pollinators drove up the price. "They'd just go in there and they smoke the bees, sedate them and take them," Sheriff John Anderson said. "And they wear protective gear just like the pros."

 

Brian Long, a beekeeper based in Colorado, was one of those hit, losing more than 400 hives -- valued at about $100,000 -- in California in January. And while Mr. Long later recovered the hives, and most of the bees therein, he said the thieves were getting bolder. "This is way more than we've ever had to deal with," he said.

 

Like many lawmen in vast agricultural areas, Sheriff Anderson said a major challenge was the remoteness of farms and the lack of witnesses. "It's not like breaking into the neighbor's house and the dog barking," he said. "These things are just sitting out here in the middle of nowhere."

 

Chris Wadkins, the president of the California Rural Crime Prevention Task Force, a nonprofit coalition of law enforcement and agricultural organizations, echoed that sentiment. Mr. Wadkins, a deputy sheriff in San Bernardino County, said his department had been battling what he called "an organized crime ring of sorts" with a very specific target: avocados.

 

"You always get your mom and pop who might stop and pick one or two for dinner," Mr. Wadkins said. "That's not what we're talking about here."

 

Danielle Rau, the director of rural crime prevention for the California Farm Bureau, said the nonviolent nature of farm theft often made it a low priority when it comes to financing. "Violent crimes have to come first," Ms. Rau said.

 

California provides grants to some coastal and Central Valley counties for rural crime prevention. But the California Emergency Management Agency, which administers the grant program, says the amount allocated has shrunk from nearly $4 million in the 2008-09 fiscal year to a little more than $2 million in 2010-11.

 

The cutbacks are not limited to California. Florida officials recently lost or left vacant more than a dozen positions from their agricultural crime units. In Texas, which also has seen an increase in agricultural crime, the authorities rely on groups like the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, whose Special Rangers investigate livestock and equipment theft.

 

With many California counties cutting back, some rural dwellers have taken matters into their own hands. Take Steve Mello, for example, a charmingly crusty corn and alfalfa farmer on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta who said thieves have taken about $15,000 worth of his property in the past year. "It's difficult to lock up 1,400-plus acres," he said. "The value of the fences would be worth more than I'm worth."

 

Still, Mr. Mello was so frustrated that he briefly took to sitting sentinel on his tractor with a shotgun. Not that he ever saw anyone, thankfully.

 

"Death for thievery is kind of a severe sentence," he said. "I wouldn't want that on my conscience."

 

Instead, Mr. Mello is now relying on a camera system, something professional lawmen like Sergeant Reed also use. The Kern County Sheriff's Office also uses hidden tracking devices in seemingly defenseless pumps and other decoy equipment.

 

Rural theft cost Kern County about $4 million in the last 12 months, Sergeant Reed said. And despite the cuts, he said that his detectives had made an impact, if only by speaking the farmers' language.

 

"If we send a guy who doesn't know which end the hay goes in and which goes out, that becomes a little -- I don't want to use the word offensive -- but it becomes troublesome," he said. "Now, at least, they've got someone they can talk to."

 

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Syngenta AG plans price hikes in 2012

 

ZURICH -(Dow Jones)- Syngenta AG (SYT) expects prices for seeds and crop protection products to rise in 2012, partly due to increased inflationary pressure in emerging markets, chief financial officer John Ramsay says.

 

"Prices have stabilized in 2011," Ramsay told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview after the Swiss agrochemicals reported a 14% rise in first-half net profit to $1.4 billion.

 

"But we are looking at price increases in 2012 as inflation in emerging markets, which make up some 50% of our sales, is significant."

 

Syngenta has benefited from soaring food prices over the past few months and has said earlier this year that it expects to double revenue from its key products over the next few years. In the first half, sales increased 14% to $7.7 billion on soaring demand.

 

Ramsay said that although Syngenta was "short of candidates" when it comes to potential takeover and partnership targets, it was open for deals.

 

Even as it expects to generate more than $1 billion in cash in 2011, Ramsay said Syngenta would continue to diligently protect its balance sheet, to have cash on hand for deals. Ramsay, however, said the company is considering to buy back another $100 million in shares.

 

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Product research focus of Tomato Center

 

(HanfordSentinel.com) – It’s no secret that there’s a huge tomato-processing plant south of Lemoore, Calif. run by Olam, an international food processing company. But something new has been added to the mix — the Olam Global Tomato Innovation Center.

 

It’s not what you might think.

 

The center, which opened last week as the long tomato-harvesting season got under way, isn’t doing genetic research to build a “super tomato.” It is, however, researching better ways to transport tomato paste. Complete with a research kitchen, it is also designed to develop all kinds of sauces, mixes, flavors, salsas and other consumer products that build on the basic tomato in a seemingly infinite variety of ways.

 

“It’s about the product itself,” said Christoph Rudolf, Olam’s U.S. president of spice and vegetable ingredients.

 

Olam isn’t just on the processing side. It also formulates bulk product specifically for customers, Rudolf said. Olam also processes and develops varieties of garlic, onions and peppers. Mixing them together in new combinations is part of what the Tomato Innovation Center aims to accomplish.

 

Salsa alone is a huge opportunity because of the rapidly growing Hispanic population in the Southwest, Rudolf said.

 

That’s not the only reason Olam located the new center in Lemoore. California is the world’s largest producer of processed tomatoes, and the Central Valley is at the epicenter of the action. Just by itself, Olam — one of several large processors in the Valley — employs more than 3,000 people at plants in Lemoore and Williams, Rudolf said. With more than 1,200 workers at the peak of the season, the Lemoore plant is one of Kings County’s biggest employers.

 

“Obviously, California is one of the key sourcing grounds for tomato paste,” Rudolf said. “That’s why we decided to place the Tomato Innovation Center here.”

 

Olam also operates a research facility on East Lacey Boulevard in Hanford that produces seed for onion and garlic. On May 18, the Singapore-based company opened its new Fresno office, signifying its growing presence in the San Joaquin Valley.

 

Now comes the Tomato Innovation Center and its efforts to keep Olam in the game for a long time come.

 

“I think it’s very exciting,” Rudolf said. “The tomato industry here in the Central Valley is very important for the growers and the people we employ.”

 

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Non-destructive method to estimate leaf index

 

(eurekalert.org) BADAJOZ, SPAIN—The productivity and health of horticultural crops depends on the ability of the plant cover to intercept light energy. This ability is a function of the amount of leaf area, the architecture of the vegetation cover, and plants' ability to convert light energy. One estimate of a crop's ability to capture light energy is the leaf area index (LAI). Introduced in 1947, the concept of the LAI was defined as the ratio of leaf area to a given unit of land area. Today, understanding LAI is critical for successful crop management.

 

Many methods have been used to measure LAI directly; most are variations of either leaf sampling or litterfall collection techniques. To date, direct methods for determining leaf area have been restricted to the use of an automatic area-integrating meter (planimeter). Tracing, shadow graphing, and the use of a planimeter to measure LAI are all time-consuming and tedious approaches. These direct, or "destructive" sampling methods also have multiple limitations; equipment handling by different operators, limitations in sample size, and measurement errors in the planimetry can all reduce the reliability of the sampling method.

 

Scientists Carlos Campillo, M.I. García, C. Daza, and M.H. Prieto designed a research study they describe as "aimed at developing a cheap and simple method to estimate LAI". The researchers measured percentage of groundcover (PGC) in two vegetable crops with prominent differences in leaf type and plant architecture. "Our experiments analyzed digital images obtained with a commercial camera with open-source software", explained Campillo.

 

At an experimental farm near Extremadura, Spain, the team set up a polyethylene frame along a crop row in an area containing six tomato and four cauliflower plants. Photographs of the selected areas were taken using a commercial camera with a resolution of 8 megapixels at a height of 160 cm above the soil surface at 10-day intervals, with a total of 12 measurements for each crop from transplantation to harvest. Free software (GIMP 2.2) was used to analyze the digital images and to differentiate between the vegetation and the soil or plastic by means of a color reclassification process. A reclassification method as a measure of PGC was used to quantify the percentage of vegetation cover.

 

Results showed that the method produced non-destructive estimations of LAI comparable to more expensive indirect methods. The method produced rapid, accurate estimation of leaf area. "This method allows non-destructive estimations of LAI measured from complex types of cover compared with other indirect methods that are more expensive and require skilled operators", the researchers concluded.

 

 

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The complete study and abstract are available on the ASHS HortScience electronic journal web site: http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/45/10/1459

 

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Getting real about the promise of vertical farms

 

(Free Internet Press) – Agricultural researchers believe that building indoor farms in the middle of cities could help solve the world's hunger problem. Experts say that vertical farming could feed up to 10 billion people and make agriculture independent of the weather and the need for land. There's only one snag: The urban farms need huge amounts of energy.

 

One day, Choi Kyu Hong might find himself in a vegetable garden on the 65th floor of a skyscraper. But, so far, his dream of picking fresh vegetables some 200 meters (655 feet) up has only been realized in hundreds of architectural designs.

 

In real life, the agricultural scientist remains far below such dizzying heights, conducting his work in a nondescript three-story building in the South Korean city of Suwon. The only thing that makes the squat structure stand out is the solar panels on its roof, which provide power for the prototype of a farm Choi is working on. If he and his colleagues succeed, their efforts may change the future of urban farming -- and how the world gets its food.

 

From the outside, the so-called vertical farm has nothing in common with the luxury high-rises surrounding it. Inside the building, heads of lettuce covering 450 square meters (4,800 square feet) are being painstakingly cultivated. Light and temperature levels are precisely regulated. Meanwhile, in the surrounding city, some 20 million people are hustling among the high-rises and apartment complexes, going about their daily lives.

 

Every person who steps foot in the Suwon vertical farm must first pass through an "air shower" to keep outside germs and bacteria from influencing the scientific experiment. Other than this oddity, though, the indoor agricultural center closely resembles a traditional rural farm. There are a few more technological bells and whistles (not to mention bright pink lighting) which remind visitors this is no normal farm. But the damp air, with its scent of fresh flowers, recalls that of a greenhouse.

 

Heads of lettuce are lined up in stacked layers. At the very bottom, small seedlings are thriving while, further up, there are riper plants almost ready to be picked. Unlike in conventional greenhouses, the one in Suwon uses no pesticides between the sowing and harvest periods, and all water is recycled. This makes the facility completely organic. It is also far more productive than a conventional greenhouse.

 

Choi meticulously checks the room temperature. He carefully checks the wavelengths of the red, white and blue LED lights aimed at the tender plants. Nothing is left to chance when it comes to the laboratory conditions of this young agricultural experiment. The goal is to develop optimal cultivation methods -- and ones that can compete on the open market. Indeed, Korea wants to bring vertical farming to the free market.

 

Nine Billion People by 2050 

 

 

Vertical farming is an old idea. Indigenous people in South America have long used vertically layered growing techniques, and the rice terraces of East Asia follow a similar principle. But, now, a rapidly growing global population and increasingly limited resources are making the technique more attractive than ever.

 

The Green Revolution of the late 1950s boosted agricultural productivity at an astounding rate, allowing for the explosive population growth still seen today. Indeed, since 1950, the Earth's population has nearly tripled, from 2.4 billion to 7 billion, and global demand for food has grown accordingly.

 

Until now, the agricultural industry could keep up well enough -- otherwise swelling population figures would have leveled off long ago. But scientists warn that agricultural productivity has its limits. What's more, much of the land on which the world's food is grown has become exhausted or no longer usable. Likewise, there is not an endless supply of areas that can be converted to agricultural use.

 

By 2050, the United Nations predicts that the global population will surpass 9 billion people. Given current agricultural productivity rates, the Vertical Farm Project estimates that an agricultural area equal in size to roughly half of South America will be needed to feed this larger population.

 

Vertical farming has the potential to solve this problem. The term "vertical farming" was coined in 1915 by American geologist Gilbert Ellis Bailey. Architects and scientists have repeatedly looked into the idea since then, especially toward the end of the 20th century. In 1999, Dickson Despommier, a professor emeritus of environmental health sciences and microbiology at New York's Columbia University seized upon the idea together with his students. After having grown tired of his depressing lectures on the state of the world, his students finally protested and asked Despommier to work with them on a more positive project.

 

From the initial idea of "rooftop farming," the cultivation of plants on flat roofs, the class developed a high-rise concept. The students calculated that rooftop-based rice growing would be able to feed, at most, 2 percent of Manhattan's population. "If it can't be done using rooftops, why don't we just grow the crops inside the buildings?" Despommier asked himself. "We already know how to cultivate and water plants indoors."

 

With its many empty high-rise buildings, Manhattan was the perfect location to develop the idea. Despommier's students calculated that a single 30-story vertical farm could feed some 50,000 people. And, theoretically, 160 of these structures could provide all of New York with food year-round, without being at the mercy of cold snaps and dry spells.

 

 

The Power Problem 

 

 

Despite these promising calculations, such high-rise farms still only exist as small-scale models. Critics don't expect this to change anytime soon. Agricultural researcher Stan Cox of the Kansas-based Land Institute sees vertical farming as more of a project for dreamy young architecture students than a practical solution to potential shortages in the global food supply.

 

The main problem is light -- in particular, the fact that sunlight has to be replaced by LEDs. According to Cox's calculations, if you wanted to replace all of the wheat cultivation in the U.S.  for an entire year using vertical farming, you would need eight times the amount of electricity generated by all the power plants in the US over a single year -- and that's just for powering the lighting.

 

It gets even more difficult if you intend to rely exclusively on renewable energies to supply this power, as Despommier hopes to do. At the moment, renewable energy sources only generate about 2 percent of all power in the US. Accordingly, the sector would have to be expanded 400-fold to create enough energy to illuminate indoor wheat crops for an entire year. Despommier seems to have fallen in love with an idea, Cox says, without considering the difficulties of its actual implementation.

 

 

Getting Closer To Reality 

 

 

Even so, Despommier still believes in his vision of urban agriculture. And recent developments, like the ones in South Korea, might mean his dream is not as remote as critics say. Ten years ago, vertical farming was only an idea. Today, it has developed into a concrete model. About two years ago, the first prototypes were created.

 

In fact, the concept seems to be working already, at least on a small scale. In the Netherlands, the first foods from a vertical farm are already stocking supermarket shelves. The PlantLab, a 10-year-old company based three floors underground in the southern city of Den Bosch, has cultivated everything from ornamental shrubs and roses to nearly every crop imaginable, including strawberries, beans, cucumbers and corn. "We manage completely without sunlight," says PlantLab's Gertjan Meeuws. "But we still manage to achieve a yield three times the size of an average greenhouse's." What's more, PlantLab uses almost 90 percent less water than a conventional farm.

 

As a country which has limited land resources but which possesses much of the necessary technology, the Netherlands seems to be an ideal place to develop vertical farming. This is especially true now that its residents are increasingly demanding organic, pesticide-free foods -- and are prepared to pay more for it.

 

 

'The Next Agricultural Revolution' 

 

 

Despommier believes that entire countries will soon be able to use vertical farming to feed their populations. The South Korean government, at least, is interested in exploring the possibility. At the moment, the country is forced to import a large share of its food. Indeed, according to a 2005 OECD report, South Korea places fifth-to-last in a global ranking on food security. Increasing food prices, climate change and the possibility of natural disasters can compound the problem.

 

These facts are not lost on the researchers in the vertical farming laboratory in Suwon. "We must be prepared to avert a catastrophe," Choi says.

 

Still, it will be some time before vertical farming is implemented on a commercial scale in South Korea. Choi's colleague Lee Hye Jin thinks that five more years of research are needed. "Only then will our vertical farm be ready for the free market," he says.

 

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