
		" I heard it through the AgLine"

August 17, 2009

· A truck farm rolls as it grows in Brooklyn

· Colorado unleashes beetles on invasive weed

· ARS completes genome for parasitic wasp

· Trade deal could boost world GDP $300-700B

· Fear and loathing on the green retail front

A truck farm rolls as it grows in Brooklyn

(NY 1.com) -- Many people believe it is important to "eat locally" to help boost healthy food choices, but two Brooklyn urban farmers have literally hopped on the bandwagon. NY1's Health reporter Kafi Drexel filed the following report.

Click here to check out the video

A vegetable garden grows in Brooklyn, but it's being hauled around in the back of an old 1986 Dodge Ram pickup. The plant-laden truck, called "Truck Farm," only gets about 12 miles to the gallon, but now it is providing its own kind of fuel.

"Truck Farm" is the brain child of Brooklyn residents Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney, two documentary filmmakers who graduated from Yale.

"We think Truck Farm may be the last great hope for Detroit," says Ellis. "The big three automakers are hurting and I think the answer might be to come up with the greenest car of all for their next design, which is a car with a garden in the bed."

Part-public arts project, part-community food source and part-educational tool, the two urban farmers planted their first crop of vegetables in the truck bed in May and are simultaneously working on a short film about their mobile harvest.

Joining the local foods movement, they say the goal is to help demonstrate the healthy benefits of being able to plant and grow one's own food and to prove it can be done anywhere.

"We've noticed neighborhoods all across New York City, many of them have limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables. And we see the sky rocketing rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes," says Ellis. It seems like part of what we need to do to fix the problem is to get more fresh, healthy food available to people."

The old truck inherited from Cheney's grandfather that used to cart futons around in their college days now sprouts lettuce, arugula, peppers, broccoli, tomatoes and more.

"The first tomato of the season was actually plucked by the guy pumping gas down by the [Brooklyn-Queens Expressway], and he said it tasted pretty good," says Cheney. "I think for the most part Truck Farm helps people pause and think, "Where might I be able to grow food?"

Since May, Ellis and Cheney have harvested more than two full shopping carts of produce. They also shot time-lapse video that shows the progress of their crops. Most of their harvest has wound up on the plates of community members who pay for the vegetables ahead of time.

Onlookers can't help but give it a stamp of approval.

"It's different, it's a truck with a garden inside of it - real fruits, real tomatoes. I think it's nice," said a neighbor.

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Colorado unleashes beetles on invasive weed

(AP) DENVER – Colorado agriculture officials are widening their battle against the West's most voracious invasive weed, tamarisk, by deploying a controversial leaf-eating Chinese beetle east of the Continental Divide.

State teams have planted 100,000 of the yellow-striped Diorhabda beetles along banks of the Arkansas River.

They planned to release another 100,000 along the river this month, placing them on tamarisk, a water-sucking weed that chokes off native life such as cottonwoods and willows.

"We want them to feed like crazy," said Dan Bean, director of biological pest control for the Colorado Department of Agriculture.

As national expenditures in a decade-old campaign to combat invasive species top $1.3 billion a year, proponents see these beetles as cost-saving gems. But there are concerns. The Diorhabdas may threaten an endangered bird, the southwestern willow flycatcher, which uses tamarisk in New Mexico and Arizona for nesting.

The federal government recently was forced by a lawsuit to suspend its releases of Diorhabda beetles in eight Western states -- where tamarisk has gobbled more than 1.5 million riparian acres.

Yet Colorado biologists contend the beetle is relatively benign and are pressing ahead -- determined to suppress tamarisk with fight-the-enemy-with-its-enemy tactics that so far have proved successful.

"I need to follow the rules put out there by government agencies," Bean said. "But I also have to worry about the people in Colorado who need this as a tamarisk-control measure. Sometimes, there are conflicting interests."

Imported from China eight years ago, Diorhabda beetles are native to the same parts of central Asia as the tamarisk, which was imported more than a century ago as an ornamental plant that could control erosion -- before it spread out of control.

A single tamarisk can soak up more than 200 gallons of water per day, drying up springs, streams and wetlands and fueling fires. One tamarisk produces 500,000 seeds a year, each germinating within 24 hours.

Around Colorado, tamarisk has engulfed more than 70,000 acres along rivers including the Colorado, Yampa, Green, Rio Grande and Dolores.

Experimental beetle releases began in 2001, and ever since federal authorities in 2005 approved widespread use, they've been thriving. The beetles eat their way from tamarisk to tamarisk.

Then the beetles circle back, devouring any resurgent green shoots.

Federal authorities are watching Colorado's expanding deployments.

"We very much recognize that biological controls are an important aspect" of suppressing invasives, said Chris Diogini, acting executive director of the National Invasive Species Council.

Co-chaired by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the council is charged with coordinating federal, state and local responses to biological invaders -- and refereeing disputes.

Federal researchers now track some 50,000 exotic species, which unlike chemical pollutants that can be banned and eventually break down, can cause ever-growing problems.

But one major challenge "is making sure you don't get rid of one invasive species only to see it replaced by another," Diogini said.

And balancing combating invasive species while protecting endangered species also can lead to conflicts.

"It's a delicate dance," Diogini said.

Earlier this month, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials revoked permits that let Colorado's state-run teams move beetles across state borders.

That means Colorado's use of the beetle -- raised in a state "insectary" east of Grand Junction -- must be more confined.

This was the first year the state had enough beetles to attack tamarisk along the Arkansas River, Bean said.

The first 400 beetles, delivered from northwestern China, have multiplied to more than 50 million, he said.

Most live wild along rivers and have the ability to move up to 20 miles a day on their own -- into neighboring states.

Should this beetle work on tamarisk, others could be tried on such invasive species as Russian knapweed, Oriental fruit moths and alfalfa weevils.

All may pose significant unaddressed threats to agricultural producers, and a half dozen or so beetles and mites have been identified as possible predators, Bean said.

"They're being tested in Kazakhstan and at a lab in Switzerland," he said. "It's going to be a while. There are regulatory hurdles."

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ARS completes genome for parasitic wasp

(USDA-ARS) – The sequencing of the genome for an important parasitic wasp called Nasonia has been completed by Agricultural Research Service scientists and cooperators. Nasonia is a key experimental organism that's been used for genetic research for over half a century.

The ARS research was led by entomologist Wayne Hunter, at the U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory in Fort Pierce, Fla.

The small Nasonia wasps seek out blow flies, flesh flies, and house flies, and then lay their eggs in the fly pupae. It's an effective biocontrol wasp because the females produce offspring quickly, have large family sizes and, best of all, are easy to work with in the lab. Commercial hosts are available, making it easy to rear the wasps.

Currently U.S. biological control programs using parasitoid wasps save approximately $20 billion annually in crop losses to newly invasive species. These wasps have been a major benefit to food production for humans by reducing the quantity of food crops destroyed by pests and reducing the need for pesticides.

It's no wonder that Nasonia was the logical first choice for sequencing a parasitoid genome. Information from the Nasonia genome is being used to identify important genes in parasitoid biology. There's also a broad interest in utilizing the Nasonia genome to identify genes involved in important biological processes like sense of smell, behavior, toxicology and enzymatic pathways.

Collaborating with Hunter is ARS National Program Leader Kevin Hackett and University of Rochester (New York) genetics professor Jack Werren. The scientific team produced genetic libraries and sequenced over 10,000 expressed sequence tags of the genome.

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Trade deal could boost world GDP $300-700B

GENEVA (Reuters) – A successful Doha round trade deal could boost the global economy by $300-700 billion a year, a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics said.

The figures that the Washington-based institute calculates are similar in size to stimulus packages deployed by the biggest countries to tackle the economic crisis, and underline how much is at stake in the long-running talks.

Delays in completing the round, now in its eighth year, prompted two leading trade economists at the institute -- Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Jeff Schott -- to examine the potential benefits.

The economists estimated the boost to global exports from concluding the Doha Round could range between $180 billion and $520 billion annually, depending on how far-reaching an eventual deal turns out to be.

"The potential GDP gains are significant, between $300 billion and $700 billion annually, and well balanced between developed and developing countries," they said.

World leaders have called for the round, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001 to help poor countries prosper through trade, to conclude next year.

INDIA MEETING

Key trade ministers will meet in Delhi early next month to relaunch the talks, which collapsed in July last year at the World Trade Organization (WTO), largely through differences between the United States and big emerging countries such as China and India over measures to protect subsistence farmers from floods of imports and eliminate duties in some industries.

It is notoriously difficult to quantify the possible gains from a new trade deal because there are so many variables.

Estimates vary widely, with some more skeptical economists seeing few benefits, especially for developing countries.

World Trade Organization Director-General Pascal Lamy has put the gains to the global economy at $130 billion but that conservative estimate largely reflects the savings on existing trade flows from cutting tariffs as proposed in the talks.

The Peterson economists looked at the impact on exports and imports of cutting tariffs and subsidies in agriculture and industrial goods, examine the broader impact on the economy, and then look at the possible impact of some proposed deals -- some of which are still far from agreement.

Proposed agreements in agriculture and industrial goods would increase exports by $65 billion a year, pushing up world gross domestic product by $100 billion annually, they said.

"The reason GDP gains are so large is that both imports and exports contribute to economic efficiency and income growth, and world two-way trade gains are more than double export gains alone," they said.

Proposals to create duty-free zones in the chemicals, electronics and environmental goods industries -- sought by the United States but resisted by China and some other countries -- would increase exports by a further $57 billion and the world economy by a further $104 billion a year, they said.

Liberalizing services such as banking and telecoms could add another $56 billion to exports and $100 billion to world GDP.

Helping developing countries trade more effectively by developing ports and customs, easing red tape and improving the service sector could increase world exports by $340 billion and world GDP by $385 billion, they said.

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Fear and loathing on the green retail front

(post-gazette.com) – The problem of saving the planet one purchase at a time doesn't seem to be a difficult one to grasp. Just to solve.

Consider the kitchen stocked with Dolphin Safe tuna, Fair Trade coffee and Certified Organic produce.

The refrigerator gets a good Energy Star rating, the wall paint was certified under the EcoLogo program and the light bulbs were suggested by Home Depot's Eco Options.

Are carbon emissions more important than treatment of coffee growers? How do paint fumes and pesticides play into the future the planet? Where does protecting the ocean's resources fit into the equation?

"It's a complex area because what is green is changing and it's multidimensional," said Anastasia O'Rourke, co-founder of sustainability issues firm Big Room Inc. in Vancouver, British Columbia.

There's no end of efforts by retailers and suppliers and various organizations to help guide shopping choices based on sustainability issues -- to the point that many consumers are either confused or skeptical about claims on labels.

"That is definitely a problem, and a lot of people have identified that as a problem," said Dr. O'Rourke, whose company last year tried to help out by producing a directory of more than 280 ecolabels used around the world on nearly 500,000 products.

Next up, an iPhone app to help shoppers understand eco labels and offer recommendations as they are standing in a store.

Last month, heavyweight retailer Wal-Mart threw its heft behind a plan to create a worldwide sustainable product index that would produce yet another rating system.

It's hard to tell if the move will strike a blow for green clarity or just be another piece of the puzzling process.

Wal-Mart plans to survey suppliers -- about 100,000 of them -- on issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, water use, community reinvestment and raw material sources.

The retailer also is backing a consortium involving universities that would work with retailers, government agencies and other interested parties.

"We want to spur the development of a common database that will allow the consortium to collect and analyze the knowledge of the global supply chain," said Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke, in the mid-July announcement.

The big company's sustainability shove has been received with a mix of support and skepticism from those who know the Bentonville, Ark., retailer's history.

Wal-Mart has, with mixed success, used its acres of shopping racks to push such causes as more efficient packaging and radio frequency identification technology.

In July, the retailer's call for health care reform involving employer mandates brought a public rejection from the National Retail Federation.

On the sustainability front, Dan Butler, vice president of retail operations with the Washington, D.C., trade group, applauded Wal-Mart for trying to be a leader, but he didn't discount the complications.

Mr. Butler has talked to as many as 300 different retailers who are all at work on some piece of this issue, whether it's green marketing or merchandising or environmentally sensitive construction or recycling. They all have a different style, he said.

"The challenge becomes expecting everyone to do everything the way you want them to be done. It's not very realistic," he said.

While a number of suppliers have been quoted as indicating a willingness to work with Wal-Mart on its sustainability project, bloggers have questioned whether the push will create new costs for those trying to earn good ratings.

Many suppliers have already been at work on their own systems and products. In some cases, changes were driven by cost-cutting from better packaging and energy use. Consumer demand and competition also has spurred many on. Suppliers have to meet certain standards if they want to serve various retailers.

"We don't see it as a fad," said Mr. Butler. "This isn't something that's going to pass in a year or two. Retailers are making permanent changes."

Dr. O'Rourke praised the initial outline of Wal-Mart's plan because the retailer seems to be acknowledging work already done. Among 15 questions being sent to suppliers are ones asking if a manufacturer has reported greenhouse gas emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project or if it already has received certain third-party certifications.

"A lot of companies have already done that work," she noted.

For Jay Golden, an assistant professor in Arizona State University's School of Sustainability and co-director of the Sustainability Consortium, Wal-Mart's splashy announcement carries risks.

Dr. Golden spent about two years as a noncompensated adviser to Wal-Mart on these issues, and he's enthusiastic about the possibilities.

The big retailer's support brings momentum to the consortium. "When they move, they really move the whole industry," he said.

But the index will need to develop an identity beyond that of Wal-Mart's pet project.

The program, under way for at least a year, already involves other companies -- both big and small -- as well as universities both inside and outside of the United States.

The consortium, whose other co-director is from the University of Arkansas, is launching pilot projects to look at indexing various products such as laundry detergents and apparel.

The goal is to work on categories in waves and eventually produce ratings that consumers can trust and understand.

Part of the process is to understand what's important to customers, Dr. Golden said. That could vary by country, climate and culture.

"We've had a lot of people say, 'We're skeptical that it can be done,'" he acknowledged. Yet, he added, "There's a lot of people that want to give it a try."

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