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July 28, 2011
· EPA Chesapeake ‘Bay Model’ flawed … at best
· Texas agriculture losses could set new record
· Little guys parched by water bank system
· Dow AgroSciences reports record sales
· China to reward food safety informers
EPA Chesapeake ‘Bay Model’ flawed … at best
(AFBF) – WASHINGTON, D.C., – An updated report on the science surrounding Chesapeake Bay water quality confirms that serious and significant differences exist between the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Bay Model” and the model authored by the Agriculture Department. Left unchanged these differences could lead to farmers in the watershed paying a steep price for nutrients and sediments that have been mistakenly attributed to them, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
The analysis, conducted by LimnoTech and commissioned by the Agricultural Nutrient Policy Council, shows there are vast differences between the EPA and USDA Chesapeake Bay models in the areas of land use, total acreage of the Bay watershed and data and assumptions about farmer adoption of conservation and farming practices.
“It is clear to us that the EPA’s TMDL water regulations are based on flawed information,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman. “Due to the fact that farmers and others in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed are being directed to incur extreme costs and even take land out of production to comply with EPA’s harsh new regulations, those regulations must be based on reliable information. Currently that is not the case.”
As a result of the federal agencies’ disagreement in key areas such as conservation and farming practices used by farmers in the watershed, and the number of acres that fall within watershed borders, there is a wide discrepancy in the nutrients and sediments being attributed to agriculture. Given USDA’s superior knowledge of agriculture and farming practices, Stallman said EPA’s disregard for USDA information is not acceptable.
“We all want a clean
“While we need EPA and USDA to work together to resolve these key differences, ultimately we believe that the types of regulations put in place for the bay by EPA are unlawful. This is a job for our state governments, not the federal government. But, since federal regulators are pursuing restrictive regulations on our farms, they should at least base their actions on credible facts.”
A copy of the LimnoTech report is available at http://nutrientpolicy.org/ANPC_News.html.
Texas
Lubbock, Texas (AP) -- Randy McGee spent $28,000 in one month pumping water onto about 500 acres in West Texas before he decided to give up irrigating 75 acres of corn and focus on other crops that stood a better chance in the drought.
He thought rain might come and save those 75 acres, but it didn't and days of triple-digit heat sucked the remaining moisture from the soil. McGee walked recently through rows of sunbaked and stunted stalks, one of thousands of farmers counting his losses amid record heat and drought this year.
The drought has spread over much of the southern
McGee is still watering another variety of corn, cotton and sorghum but the loss of nearly one-sixth of his acres after spending so much on irrigation weighs on him.
"Kind of depressing," the 34-year-old farmer said. "You use that much of a resource and nothing to show for it. This year, no matter what you do, it's not quite enough."
About 70 percent of
Part of the reason for the high dollar figure is that while farmers have lost a lot, the corn and other products they are losing are worth more this year. Strong global demand and tight supplies have helped push up prices for commodities like corn, cotton, wheat and beef.
Cotton supplies are low worldwide, and
Cotton and corn are selling for more than two-and-a-half times what they did five years ago, and the price of wheat is more than one-and-a-half times what it was in 2006.
"This was a year farmers might have done well,"
Consumers will eventually see the cost of the drought passed on to them, although it's hard to say by how much since processing, marketing, transportation and other costs also play a big role in retail prices, he said.
"That's a fairly substantial portion of the
And, it's a hardship that's following close on the heels of
others.
Thousands of acres of crops have failed in areas where farmers rely on rain, while those grown with irrigation continue to struggle. Already, more than 2 million acres of cotton that's not irrigated has been lost, adding about $1.1 billion to an initial $1.5 billion loss agriculture officials announced in mid-May. That included livestock and wheat, corn and sorghum crop losses from November through May 1.
"It's ugly right now," said cotton farmer Rickey Bearden, who hasn't had a good rain since October on his 9,000 acres on the South Plains, the world's largest contiguous growing patch. "This one, we were all hopeful of a really good price and a good crop. It just doesn't seem like this is going to be the year for it."
Some ranchers have begun culling their herds because the cattle have nowhere to graze and prices are high for supplemental feed and hay. They're sending more animals to auction and selling calves earlier. Old cows are being sold, and in some cases, ranchers are getting rid of animals normally considered vital to future production — heifers and 3-year-old to 6-year-old cows.
"It's heartbreaking," said Debbie Davis, a rancher
northwest of
The situation isn't likely to improve soon: forecasters
predict
Little guys parched by water bank system
(The
New York Times)
But even as Mr. Key and neighbors spent $14,000 to deepen their community well here, they had identified a likely culprit.
They blamed water banking, a system in which water-rights holders — mostly in the rural West — store water in underground reservoirs either for their own future use or for leasing to fast-growing urban areas.
So the neighbors’ small local water utility has gone to state court to challenge the wealthy farming interests that dominate two of the country’s largest water banks.
Viewed as test cases for the size and scope of water-banking operations, the lawsuits claim that enormous withdrawals of water by the banks lowered the water table, causing geological damage, service disruptions and costly repairs.
Water managers and the farmers they serve have long been
major political players here in
A memorandum of understanding between the small local utility that brought the suit, Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District, which serves 20,000 customers, and the Kern County Water Agency, which operates one of the water banks, stipulated that any problems resulting from its bank would be the agency’s responsibility.
But the agency said it was not to blame, and made no effort to cover costs.
“For two years, we asked them to do it and they didn’t,” said Eric Averett, general manager of the district.
Instead, the smaller districts and the City of
Water remains a contentious subject. Everyone’s complaining, said Mr. Key, a horse trainer, who had to borrow from his neighbor to water the horses he boards.
Water banking has been widely embraced as a tool for making
water supplies reliable, sustainable and marketable. Groups
traditionally at odds — environmentalists seeking full rivers for fish and
farmers tending pistachio or pomegranate trees — agree that water banking is a
useful strategy for managing a vital resource. A consulting group based in
As climate change produces earlier snowmelts, sending too much of the water into reservoirs in the spring and too little in summer, the need for storage grows.
“Water banking is a way of dealing with the volatility,”
said Bruce Aylward, an expert in water economics who
founded Ecosystem Economics in
The economic concept is simple. Farmers, through the water districts that they control, have acquired land entitling them to use water, or have contracted for water supplies flowing to their region. Municipal and industrial water users also have rights.
While some districts limit sales to distant urban areas,
others allow them. One
The value in banking lies in the certainty that water will be available when it is needed. In wet years, excess water recharges the depleted aquifer, a hedge against a prolonged drought.
The porous soil below the gravel and sand here, which are
carried here from the Sierra Nevada by the
Yet with its local supplies and water deliveries from the
state and federal governments,
Changes in the agricultural economy over the last 15 years, including the rising popularity of pomegranates and pistachios, prompted many farmers to switch to permanent crops, taking away the option of letting fields lie fallow in dry years. So water banking expanded.
Since 1978, when water banking started here, 5.7 million acre-feet — about a third of the annual flow of the Colorado River — has been stored in the two largest banks, said James M. Beck, the general manager of the Kern County Water Agency, which regulates local use. The two banks’ combined storage capacity is about 2 million acre feet.
Pumping out huge amounts of stored water in dry years was
thought to have little impact on the underground geology — at least until Mr.
Key’s shower head sputtered. Now engineers believe it reversed the area’s
underground hydraulic gradient, turning a hill-shaped water table, accessible
by shallow wells, into a valley. The trigger for the huge withdrawals was a
drought that began in 2007.
“I don’t think anyone fully appreciated the magnitude of the impact they would have,” said Mr. Averett of the Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District.
POM Wonderful, part of the fruit-drink empire owned by Stewart and Lynda Resnick, makes its profits from pomegranate trees kept green by the Kern Water Bank Authority. The authority, technically a public agency, is controlled by the Paramount Farming Company, which like POM, is a subsidiary of Roll Global, a company owned by the billionaire Resnicks.
Ernest Conant, a lawyer for the Kern Water Bank, disagrees
with the lawsuit’s main contentions — that the rapid pumping caused the well
problems in west
“You have the right to bank water and take it out, but you have to do it in a manner that does not cause significant harm to others,” Mr. Conant said. “We think our program accomplishes that.”
Mr. Beck, whose agency manages the Pioneer Water Bank and who is the defendant in the other suit, said, “We haven’t seen enough data to indicate that our operations are the cause of the decline.”
Because so much is at stake, many people expect a settlement before a judge can decide the issues. The water problems have eased, and some contend the aquifer healed itself — although Mr. Averett said the water tables were still lower than before. A separate suit filed by environmentalists a year ago challenges the 1990s deal that transferred the Kern Water Bank from the state to a group of water suppliers controlled by the Resnicks.
All three lawsuits could have broad consequences.
“Everybody wants to bank and sell. Everybody,” Mr. Core said. “If a lawsuit like Rosedale-Rio Bravo’s is successful, someone may be working on a banking project and it could come to a screeching halt — after they’ve started counting the money.”
Dow AgroSciences reports record sales
(IBJ.com) – Indianapolis-based Dow AgroSciences on Wednesday reported record second-quarter sales of $1.5 billion, up 18 percent from the same period a year ago.
Quarterly earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization also improved, from $196 million last year to $287 million in the quarter ended June 30.
The company
attributed double-digit volume gains to higher prices and stronger demand for
its products, as well as a strong growing season in
Midland, Mich.-based parent company Dow Chemical Co., meanwhile, said second-quarter profit surged 73 percent on a combination of higher prices and increasing sales.
The company also said
it predicts continued growth in major markets such as the
Dow Chemical said second-quarter profit rose to $982 million, or 84 cents per share, up from $566 million, or 50 cents per share, a year ago.
Revenue increased 18 percent, from $13.6 billion to $16 billion.
China
BEIJING (Reuters) - China will offer rewards to people who report on food safety issues such as the illegal use of additives or sale of meat from animals which die of disease, state media said Thursday, as Beijing tries again to crack down on a persistent problem.
"Government departments at all levels must set up dedicated funds for a reward system for reporting on food safety," the official Xinhua news agency cited a government directive as saying.
Rewards will be paid out if investigations prove the veracity of the tip-offs, it added.
Those who work for people or companies which adulterate food products are especially encouraged to participate, the report said.
Governments must also make sure they protect the identities of the tipsters to prevent "revenge attacks," and will punish those who slander others with false reports or provide false information to get the rewards, Xinhua added.
It did not say how much money would be up for grabs.
Repeated campaigns to crack down on the problem and the
meting out of tough punishments have failed to bring an end to
This week, a Chinese court handed out long sentences, including a suspended death penalty, to five people involved in producing and selling pork tainted with a poisonous chemical.
In 2008, at least six children died and nearly 300,000 fell ill from drinking powdered milk laced with melamine, an industrial compound added to fool inspectors by giving misleadingly high results in protein tests.
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