 |
|||
 |
" I heard it |
||
August 16, 2011
· College organic, sustainability programs grow
· Biotech giant seeks ‘yield company’ image
· Evidence points to deer in Oregon E. coli
· Rooting out crop water requirements
· Mexico sees bright future in biofuels
College organic, sustainability programs grow
With a bachelor's degree in organic agriculture already under her belt, Manuchehri plans to continue her studies and ultimately find work in sustainable agriculture.
Plenty of others are doing the same at dozens of universities that now offer courses, certificates or degree programs focused on organic and sustainable agriculture. Experts said those graduates shouldn't have trouble finding jobs as the agriculture industry replaces aging farmers — the average age of a U.S. farmer is 57 — and farmers increasingly look to diversify their operations.
"We're always looking at the university for our future ag workers," said Roger Pepperl, spokesman for Wenatchee, Wash.-based Stemilt Growers, the nation's largest organic tree fruit producer.
Thirty percent of Stemilt's crops are organic, comprising 3 million boxes of apples, pears, cherries, peaches and nectarines annually.
Organic and sustainable specialists don't just bring their unique skills to the farm, Pepperl said, "but can make our conventional farming better, too."
He noted, for example, that such specialists have new ideas about methods for handling pests, fungus and weeds that use fewer chemicals, making them environmentally preferable and potentially less expensive.
Experts said the growth in alternative agriculture programs is fueled by continued consumer demand for food seen as healthier and rising demand for food that is produced on sustainable farms that are environmentally responsible and treat workers and animals humanely.
In 2003, the Organic Farming Research Foundation in
The group found that few of the universities had invested much time or money in organic programs.
A similar survey this year has shown different results, said Jane Sooby, a grants program director.
"I haven't finished crunching the numbers yet, but I'm finding a huge acceptance of organic at many of these schools," Sooby said.
Some of these programs have been launched in states that had little organic activity in the past, she said.
This increased focus on organics and sustainability comes
amid a long-term trend toward greater education of
Curtis Miller, director of education for the American Farm Bureau Foundation, the education arm of the American Farm Bureau, noted that about one-quarter of all farmers today have bachelor's degrees and close to 70 percent have some college coursework. That's up from just 4 percent of farmers and ranchers who had college degrees in 1965.
"Everybody's going back to school because you have to. We know that equals earning potential and survivability on and off the farm," Miller said. "No matter how you raise your food, fiber or fuel, this diversification includes a lot of these educational programs."
For that reason, Miles McEvoy
called
McEvoy headed the
"Organics are growing. Not at the same rate as a few years ago, but it's still a growth area," he said. "So those farms and processers and other people involved in organic agriculture, they need people who have experience in that area."
In
Tom Tomich, director of the school's Agricultural Sustainability Institute, said sustainability takes into account global issues, which he argued would become increasingly important in the future because food and agriculture are so central to issues revolving around the environment, hunger and treatment of workers.
"In terms of education, we're going to need a new generation of educators who can frame the great issues of this century from this perspective," he said.
That's in line with what Manuchehri sees for her future. With an undergraduate degree in organics, her graduate work and possibly a PhD, she hopes to find work maintaining the balance between conventional and organic agriculture. She also wants to focus on sustainability issues, helping farms protect the environment while maintaining profits that keep them viable.
"Sustainability is just as important, and I don't think sustainability and organic is the same thing," she said. "There are some great conventional farms that are extremely sustainable, and I could easily see myself working for them."
Biotech giant seeks ‘yield company’ image
(ClimateWire via The New York Times)
The world will need to double its crop output to satisfy 9 billion people on just a sliver more of available land, said executives and agricultural policy experts at a three-day media conference hosted by the agriculture giant. Advanced research in breeding varieties faster than before, along with genetic technology, is more important than ever.
Globally, there will be at most 12 percent more arable land
available in the world in 2050 -- not including forested land and areas
susceptible to soil erosion or desertification. Self-sufficiency in sub-Saharan
"Climate change, the potential for mitigation, these are very large issues," said Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant. "If there never was a new acre [for farming], there would be so much potential to improve productivity."
Crops need to be stronger against pest, thriftier with water, better fertilizer managers and able to withstand more heat, salt and variability. Conventional breeding techniques, in which scientists crossbreed two varieties of the same species, are useful and are a major part of Monsanto's research budget.
But conventional breeding can be limiting. Some important genes simply don't exist in a species' gene pool, say agricultural scientists.
Genetic engineering, in which genetic material is taken from one organism and transferred into another, can fill the gaps that can't be provided through breeding -- at rates thousands of times faster than using conventional breeding methods. The practice has garnered controversy, as consumer groups claim there is a lack of knowledge on the health and environmental risks of the technology.
A raft of new products
The company's pipeline is teeming with seeds aimed to protect farmers from losses due to pests, heat, drought and nutrient deficiencies. Nitrogen-efficient corn is expected in the next three to 10 years, as are high-yielding soybeans.
Stress-tolerant and herbicide-resistant wheat, developed in
collaboration with chemical company BASF, is in the first of four phases. The
company is set to begin field testing its biotech drought-tolerant corn variety
in the western Corn Belt of the
But the company's critics assert that Monsanto's research does not lead to significantly higher yields -- certainly not enough to double supply by 2050.
In June 2008, the company began releasing advertisements with the tag line "Producing more, conserving more, improving lives" to reflect a new focus on yields.
The timing was impeccable. In the same month, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's monthly food price index hit record levels. The price index tumbled precipitously after the summer of 2008, rising slowly again to once again break records in February of this year.
Again, the timing matched well with Monsanto's new focus. At a World Economic Forum meeting in January, the company, in partnership with several organizations, governments and multinational corporations, launched the New Vision for Agriculture. This outlined a commitment to increase crop yields by 20 percent, decrease poverty by 20 percent and slash greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent in the next decade using high-efficiency methods (ClimateWire, Jan. 31).
Games of word association
As little as three years ago, a Monsanto word association game would have brought up terms like "R&D," "corn" or "Roundup," said Kerry Preete, senior vice president of global strategy for the company.
"All of those would have been accurate. We would have ... defined ourselves by that. But as we look at that picture that we've just painted looking forward, we have redefined ourselves over the last three or four years," he said. Now, "we have to think of ourselves as a yield company."
Ask Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist in the Food and Environment program of the Union of Concerned Scientists, to play the Monsanto word association game, and he is more likely to pull out "exaggerated claims," "profit-driven" or "misleading."
"It is making major media pushes to try to argue that genetic engineering is the way to go for addressing [food security]," he said of the agricultural biotech industry in general. Although Gurian-Sherman believes there is value in using genetic engineering to produce seeds, he said "there are real opportunity costs to putting too many eggs in one basket."
"Conventional breeding, with a conventional understanding of how genomes work, will far outpace genetic engineering in the next decade," he added.
In the year after Monsanto announced its three-point commitment, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report titled "Failure to Yield." The study reported scant -- if any -- yield benefits to using biotech crops. The study looked specifically at herbicide-resistant corn and soybeans and Bt corn, which is genetically engineered to produce bacteria toxic to corn pests.
"I don't think anything has really changed substantially since 2009," he said.
Gurian-Sherman, who prefers investment in conventional breeding and agroecology, said it is feasible to develop a conventionally bred trait that increases yields slowly, with a steady annual rate. They are much more cost-effective, as well. It costs about $100 million to develop a biotech seed. Conventionally bred ones require about $1 million in investment, he said.
Hunger, profits and a large unknown factor
But more importantly, the uncertainty of what climate change can bring is not addressed, he added. Nobody has an answer to what the rate losses in agriculture through drought, floods and insects may be.
Whether Monsanto will continue to invest if its predictions are off is still to be determined. Jerry Steiner, executive vice president of sustainability and corporate affairs, said that increasing yields around the world, while maintaining profits, is "absolutely possible."
"We're going to protect our profitability by making sure what we do gets enough value so that it moves the farmer ahead and also ultimately works for us," he said. "There are going to be places where we're going to make more investment that year than what we're going to get back in that year, but that can make commercial sense over a series of time."
Monsanto's strategy for increasing yield has typically focused around non-food crops like corn and soybeans, primarily used for cattle feed. The company only began investing in wheat in 2009, and stress-resistant varieties are years away from the money crops (ClimateWire, March 28).
Food security in the face of climate change is dependent on public-private partnerships, said Thompson, with public entities to keep goals in check.
"The private sector will be generous in their philanthropy, but they won't give it all away," he said. "There needs to be public-sector partnership or a major foundation to induce them to apply their research tools."
Evidence points to deer in Oregon
(BusinessWeek) – Health officials think they'll be able to prove deer droppings in a strawberry field caused an E. coli outbreak that killed one person and sickened 14 others.
Ten percent of the samples taken from the Jaquith Strawberry Farm tested positive for the bacteria, epidemiologist William Keene said Thursday.
Scientists are testing more than 100 samples of soil,
strawberries and deer droppings found in the field in
"We're increasingly confident that we will be able to
prove beyond any reasonable doubt that deer were the source of contamination of
the strawberries,"
"It could be there but in such low quantities that you have to collect thousands of samples," he said. "We don't have the resources to pay for that kind of testing."
Of the 15 people involved, two suffered kidney failure,
including an elderly woman in
None of the berries remain on the market, though some could be packed in people's freezers. Oregon Public Health urged consumers to throw out any berries from Jaquith purchased in June or July that are not cooked. Thorough cooking kills E. coli and other food-borne pathogens.
The Oregon Department of Agriculture has published a list of locations known to have distributed Jaquith Farm strawberries. Ron Spada Farms is recalling 4,800 flats of strawberries sold between June 11 and Aug. 1 at stores and farm stands; Growers Outlet is recalling Jaquith strawberries that were sold between June 11 and July 23.
Farm owner Joe Jaquith issued a statement this week, saying the family of fourth-generation farmers was deeply saddened by the outbreak and were fully cooperating with the investigation.
This is the second time in
Since then, studies in other states have confirmed the presence of E. coli O157:H7 in the colon or droppings of deer. Elk have also been shown to carry the bacteria.
E. coli is most often associated with ground beef. Bacteria in soft cheese, raw milk, unpasteurized apple cider and spinach also have caused outbreaks.
"I don't think we're going to answer every question
about deer,"
Rooting out crop water requirements
(USDA-ARS) – To help farmers make the best use of limited irrigation water in the arid West, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) researchers are helping farmers determine how much water major crops actually need.
Tom Trout, research leader of the Agricultural Research
Service (ARS) Water Management Research Unit (WMRU) in
ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency, and the research supports USDA's commitment to agricultural sustainability.
Trout is in the fourth year of a study to determine how much water the four crops common to the High Plains region-corn, wheat, sunflower, and pinto beans-actually use.
Regenesis Management Group, LLC,
in
Trout and his colleagues designed the study to find out if limited irrigation is best for farmers for each of these crops and to help with irrigation timing, amounts, and other options. The four crops are being grown with six levels of irrigation, from full irrigation down to only 40 percent of full. In the first three years of the study, each acre of land produced about 10 bushels of corn for each inch depth of water consumed, or one pound of corn for each 60 gallons of water.
These results will help farmers in this region decide whether to put all their irrigation water into producing corn, or to reduce either their irrigation levels or the amount of land they plant, and sell or lease water rights on the rest.
These results are preliminary and may vary with different timing of water applications or newly developed varieties.
The scientists plan to extend the results over a wide range of conditions throughout the central high plains.
Mexico
(CNN)
– Earlier this month, an AeroMexico plane made an
important flight from
The engines on that flight were powered by a fuel mixture that was 30% biofuel from the jatropha plant, and the trip followed a pair of Mexican domestic commercial flights by Interjet that used the same formula.
Jatropha-based biofuels are being
increasingly used in
Some biofuels, such as ethanol derived from corn and sugar, can indirectly raise the prices of staple foods in many places, along with raising ethical issues, said Gilberto Lopez Meyer, director of Airports and Auxiliary Services (ASA), the Mexican government agency that oversaw the biofuel flights.
So in 2007,
"We returned to
Lopez's agency teamed up with the state of
ASA partnered with American company UOP, which refined the
When the standards for biofuel use in
commercial flights was approved July 1,
End Transmission