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August 30, 2011
· GM corn pest resistance rattles industry
· Texas+ dust bowl driving commodity rally
· Crop mobs sprout to help small farmers
· Are farm subsidies making Americans fat?
· Kenya farmers learning greenhouse production
GM corn pest resistance rattles industry
(AFP) – A voracious pest which has long plagued corn farmers is devouring a widely-used variety that was genetically modified to thwart the rootworms, raising fears of a new superbug.
The news sent shares of farm chemical and seed maker Monsanto Co. down nearly 4 percent on Monday, according to the Associated Press.
So far, there is no evidence that a significant number of rootworms have developed a resistance to the corn's protective toxin.
However, experts warn that farmers may be forced to resume the heavy use of pesticides if resistant bugs become widespread.
They also caution that farmers may be using genetically modified crops in ways that hasten the development of resistant bugs.
"The western corn rootworm is one of the most
significant insect pests of corn in the
Farmers used to be able to manage the pests by rotating which crops they planted in their fields.
But rootworms started to lay their eggs on soybeans -- the most common substitute -- which meant farmers had to use pesticides to get rid of them. The hardy and adaptive bugs have also developed resistance to some pesticides, Gray said Monday.
Monsanto released the first seeds that were
genetically-modified to protect themselves from rootworms in 2003.
Evidence of the first resistant rootworms was found in four
Gray is currently investigating whether rootworms which
devoured genetically modified corn in
Laboratory testing published last month confirmed that the
bugs collected from the
"These results suggest that improvements in resistance
management and a more integrated approach to the use of Bt
crops may be necessary," wrote lead researcher Aaron Gassmann
of
The fields where the resistant rootworms were found had been planted with the genetically modified seeds for at least three consecutive years.
That could have helped the bugs develop a resistance, Gassmann wrote.
Another contributor could be the insufficient use of "refuges," he concluded.
Farmers are supposed to plant 20 percent of their fields with corn that doesn't have the genetic modification so that if resistant bugs develop they will end up breeding with non-resistant rootworms drawn to the unprotected plants and lessen the chance of passing resistance on to the next generation.
Monsanto is already working to make it easier for farmers to comply with these government-mandated "refuges" by selling bags that contain a mix of unprotected and protected seeds.
It also has several other products already on the market which could work as a substitute if significant resistance develops and has several new products in the pipeline, said spokesman Lee Quarles.
But while Monsanto is taking the study results "seriously" there is no reason for farmers to stop using the current seeds, he said.
"Today's products work," Quarles told AFP. "They continue to provide tremendous performance to farmers and we're seeing that performance on greater than 99% of all acres planted."
Texas +
(Bloomberg)
-- The worst
Withering fields in
“It’s by far the worst drought I’ve ever been through,” said Dahlen Hancock, 52, who has farmed cotton for three decades near Lubbock, Texas, and lost more than half of the 5,850 acres he planted this year. “We thought we’d kind of seen it all, to some degree. This rewrote the books.”
Shortages in everything from corn to coffee are spurring speculators to buy crops, anticipating that slower economic growth will still mean supply deficits. At a time when bets on higher oil prices dropped 13 percent in seven weeks and those on copper disappeared, wagers on 11 agricultural commodities rose 38 percent, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show.
Cotton slumped 52 percent since reaching the all-time high
of $2.197 in March and encouraged
Gap, American Eagle
The MSCI All-Country World Index of equities fell 9.1 percent, and Treasuries returned 7.2 percent, a Bank of America Merrill Lynch index shows. Costlier fiber may raise costs for clothing companies from Gap Inc. to American Eagle Outfitters Inc.
The drought in
The USDA expects 30 percent of the domestic cotton crop will
be lost, topping the previous record of 27 percent in 1933, when dust storms
wiped out fields in
Crop Insurance
Insurance and programs to conserve soil and water are
helping today’s farmers avoid the same economic devastation, according to Jon
Devine, a lead economist at Cotton Inc., a trade group based in
Claims will be higher than in recent years because of damage
to non-irrigated, dry-land cotton and crops on farms with access to stored
water supplies, according to Ted Etheredge. He’s the
president of Lubbock, Texas-based Armtech Insurance,
the fifth-largest
Monitored Warehouses
The
Cotton may rally because the
“This bottleneck situation could temporarily spike prices,” Egli said. Manufacturers “don’t have to panic,” because
supplies from
Global production is forecast at a record 122.7 million bales, up 7.1 percent from a year ago, according to the USDA. Worldwide consumption will rise 1.1 percent to 115.2 million bales, the estimates show.
Chinese Production
In March, cotton surged to the highest in 140 years of
trading in
Output in
Concern about economic growth may curb demand, limiting the rally anticipated in the Bloomberg survey. The U.S. will expand at an average 2.3 percent annual rate in the second half of the year, about a percentage point less than projected in July, the median estimate of 53 economists surveyed by Bloomberg showed.
Economic Growth
Gross domestic product climbed at a 1 percent annual rate from April through June, less than previously estimated, capping the weakest six months of the recovery that began in mid 2009, revised Commerce Department figures showed on Aug. 26.
Slowing job growth and plunging confidence, exacerbated by political gridlock and financial-market turmoil this month, threaten to weigh on consumer and business spending for the rest of the year. The Federal Reserve’s policy-setting committee said Aug. 9 that growth is “considerably slower” than anticipated.
Global consumption slid 11 percent to a four-year low in the
2008-2009 marketing year, amid the worst global recession since World War II.
World use also declined during the
Buying Underwear
“The consumer gets the final vote,” said Mike Stevens, an
independent trader in
The 7.6 percent rebound in global demand after the end of
the
Abandoning Crops
Farmers have abandoned 54 percent of cotton fields in the
High Plains region of
“My dad was a dry-land cotton farmer,” Governor Perry said
in a speech while standing on bales of hay at the Iowa State Fair in
Conditions today in the south central
Worsening Conditions
The conditions that caused the drought will probably persist
or intensify, according to Chris Hyde, a meteorologist at MDA EarthSat Weather Inc. in
More than 50 percent of the area in a six-state region in
the southern U.S., which consists of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana,
Mississippi and Tennessee, is experiencing “exceptional” drought, according to
the University of Nebraska Lincoln’s U.S. Drought Monitor.
In Texas, the second-biggest winter-wheat grower and the biggest cattle producer, 99.9 percent of the state is suffering from drought, and 96 percent of pasture and range conditions were rated “poor” or “very poor” in the week ended Aug. 21.
Clothing retailers are still contending with the surge in
prices over the past two years. San Francisco-based Gap, the largest
Squeezing Profit Margins
“Companies have seen 10 to 20 percent year-on-year cost
increases” in cotton and other raw material costs, said Adrienne Tennant, an
analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in
Cotton will squeeze margins in the second half of the year for American Eagle Outfitters Inc., the Pittsburgh-based teen- apparel chain, Chief Executive Officer James O’Donnell said Aug. 24 on a conference call with analysts. The company lowered its full-year profit forecast to 85 cents to 95 cents a share, from a May projection of $1.02.
The slump in prices since March won’t reduce costs until later this year, Susan McGalla, chief executive officer of Wet Seal Inc., the Foothill Ranch, California-based apparel chain, said in a conference call with analysts Aug. 18.
“When we think about buy, hold or short, cotton’s definitely
something that we would lean toward buying,” said James Dailey, who manages
$200 million at TEAM Financial Management LLC in
Crop mobs sprout to help small farmers
(McClatchy News Service) – Jamie Vidich looked over his acre of farm land and considered the tasks that had to be done that day. Remove diseased eggplant and tomato plants, pull irrigation tape, make soil boxes for new seeds, uproot weeds -- normally it would take him days to finish. It's usually just him, a brother and a friend working the land at Bear Island Farm in Colleton River Plantation. But Sunday, the chores only took a few hours.
More than 15 volunteers came to the small farm as part of a growing trend of helping hands. Popping up all over the country, "crop mobs" are loose organizations of volunteers that organize trips to assist independent farmers with daily tasks.
"There's more people out than I've ever seen here," Vidich said.
The idea grew out of
A crop mob based out of
The mob worked for several hours Sunday morning before breaking for lunch, catered by Cast Iron Chef, followed by a refreshing dip in the nearby river.
"Small farms couldn't do what they do without support from the community," Vidich said. "It's the community that makes the farm."
Lady's
Beaufort still is an up-and-coming area in terms of farming, Hislop said. It hasn't reached a saturation point, and farmers have to fight each other for business. In the spirit of the crop mob, farmers will have to work together if they want to flourish, he said.
"I believe in collaboration between farmers," Hislop said. "We complement more than we compete."
For more information about Crop Mob, go to www.cropmobgeorgia.com or www.facebook.com/CropMobSavannah.
Are farm subsidies making Americans fat?
(Orlando Sentinel) – At a time when the nation is struggling to reel in its fiscal and physical waistlines, cutting programs that may bloat both seems like a good idea. As a result, farm subsidies — payments the federal government gives to American farmers when their profits are off — have found themselves squarely in the crosshairs.
When the federal government subsidizes a crop, farmers are enticed to grow more of it, which drives supply up and prices down. Food manufacturers buy more abundant cheap crops and thus more of them stream into the food supply. If the food happens to be unhealthy, that's a problem. Or so the argument goes.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture distributes $10 billion to $30 billion a year in subsidies to farmers. More than 90 percent of those subsidies go to growers of five crops: corn, wheat, rice, soybeans and cotton. Less than 1 percent goes to fruits and vegetables — precisely the foods the federal government says we need to eat more.
Corn, which reaps nearly 40 percent of the subsidies, and wheat are the most heavily subsidized. They are also staples in a variety of common, fattening, nutrition-deficient foods.
Corn is the main ingredient in high-fructose corn syrup, a cheap sweetener laced into packaged foods and sodas. Wheat gets refined into flour, a chief component of breads, bagels, processed cereals, cakes, cookies and muffins — foods nutritionists refer to as simple or "bad" carbohydrates. Both corn and wheat are heavily used to feed livestock, a leading source of saturated fats.
Subsidies also encourage farmers to focus on innovations that aid the production of those crops, making them even cheaper.
So has the government tipped the food scale in a direction that makes us fat?
Not so fast, say agricultural economists.
"I get annoyed because everyone points to farm
subsidies as one of the top two reasons for the obesity epidemic, but it's
irrelevant," said Julian Alston, professor of agricultural economics at
the
"If farm subsidies have contributed to
Not all about the money
However, the Environment Working Group — a nonprofit public-health advocacy group that has been tracking and condemning farm-subsidy policy for years — sees the matter differently.
"Decades of subsidizing big grain growers have assured a cheap, steady supply of corn and wheat, which is in almost every food on the shelves," said David Degennaro, legislative analyst for the environmental group. "It has contributed indirectly to making the wrong kind of calories cheaper."
Even so, said Post, "If the price of corn went up 50 percent, the net effect would increase the cost of a box of cornflakes by 1.6 cents or a 2-liter bottle of soda by 1.9 cents. That is not likely to impact consumer behavior."
Another report shows that a 30 percent increase in the price of feed grain would raise the price of meat and poultry by 4 to 5 percent.
Such a shift could affect consumer behavior, said Lisa
Powell, a senior research scientist at the Institute for Health Research and
Policy at the
Powell has done studies that show the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables goes up when prices go down. She's also found that food price and weight are related.
In a study she published in 2009, children's weight was sensitive to the price of fruits and vegetable, and that was particularly true for low-income children. "A 10 percent reduction in fruit and vegetable prices reduced low-income children's BMI by 1.4 percent," Powell said.
But shelf price isn't the only issue here. There's also the problem of conflicting agendas.
Subsidy programs are at odds with federal health
recommendations, said Dr. Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine, which issued a report this year on the conflict
between
The new USDA dietary guidelines released in January emphasize eating more fruits and vegetables and less processed fats, meats and corn-based sweeteners. Yet the unhealthy foods are the ones that get the subsidies. "From a public-health perspective, altering these policies is key to addressing the epidemic of obesity among Americans," Barnard said.
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XLack of sleep contributing to obesityHow fat is
And eliminating subsidies would likely improve the nation's economic health.
Times have changed
Farming has changed a lot since the Great Depression, when farm subsidies played a big role in helping farmers survive and families eat. "But it doesn't make sense to rely on policies we had 80 years ago," said Degennaro.
Every year since 1996, the average farmer has done better financially than the average person. "Farms fail far less often than non-farm businesses fail, so the rationale for government to continue to prop up this sector has gone away," he said.
When asked to respond, the Florida Farm Bureau refused to comment.
Although Alston doesn't believe subsidies have had much effect on Americans' health, he opposes them for financial reasons. "Propping up farmers and leaving them on the farm is not a rational economic position, because we have too many farmers. A better solution would be to help get them out of agriculture," he said.
Now would be a good time, adds Alston, because farm subsidies, which fluctuate depending on world market prices, are at record lows.
"Given the debt and
Kenya
One third of Kimani’s three-acre plot in Ndeiya, a rain-starved village on the northwest edge of the capital, is covered by a polyethylene-sheet greenhouse.
Kimani believes that greenhouse
farming can increase crop yields - an essential goal in a country where the
poor are at risk of going hungry - while also protecting the environment and
helping
Kimani says that greenhouses offer environmental advantages over open fields, particularly when farmers use chemicals to increase crop yields.
“In open field farming it is not possible to manage the flow of chemicals and so there could be damage to the environment when fungicides and pesticides are applied irregularly,” Kimani said.
“But in a greenhouse, where we apply chemicals through drip irrigation, we are able to control spillage and surface runoff.”
GROWING MORE UNDER COVER
Greenhouse technology can also help farmers produce more on
a small piece of land, according to Elijah Mwangi,
the farm manager at Mang’u Youth Polytechnic in
central
Even under extreme weather conditions, Mwangi says, a single eight metre by 30 metre greenhouse can generate revenue of 240,000 Kenyan shillings (about $2,600) in one season, more than twice what an average small-scale farmer earns cultivating one acre of land outdoors.
Last month, Mwangi led a team of agronomists at the Mang’u farm in testing the efficiency of greenhouse technology by planting a dozen tomato seedlings inside a greenhouse and another in an open field, both watered with drip irrigation.
“The plants in the open field have already withered because of exposure to erratic weather, pests and diseases,” Mwangi says. “We are expecting a good harvest from the plants in the greenhouse in the next few months because they are shielded from changing climatic conditions.”
Ian Rector,
“Greenhouse farming prevents GHGs
emitted by agrochemicals from escaping into the atmosphere, so this is a better
way of (adapting to) climate change in industrial and agricultural sectors,”
said Rector during a press conference in
HIGH COSTS
However, there are concerns that the technology will not be
widely adopted in
Kimani says that erecting a greenhouse is expensive: a greenhouse covering 240 square metres can cost as much as 250,000 shillings (about $2,700) to erect, which puts it beyond the reach of many poor farmers.
“Even when farmers decide to invest in a smaller greenhouse, the cost of buying materials is still very high,” Kimani says. “This can tempt them to look for timber which they use as poles to put up the unit. It can stress the forest reserves.”
Nevertheless, an initiative by the government and a private
horticulture company, Amiran
Launched in May with a budget of 88 million shillings (about $943,000), the Kenya Polytechnics Next Generation Farmers Initiative plans to equip the country’s 650 youth polytechnics with greenhouses, which Amiran Kenya manufactures.
The idea is to change the perception that agriculture is an occupation for the aging, according to Aileen Kamau, the project leader at the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.
So far 100 polytechnics have been supplied with greenhouse training kits to spur uptake of the technology.
“The youth polytechnics serve as community demonstration centres, where the technology can be transferred to farmers living near the institutions through skills support,” Kamau said. “This year we will be investing in the technology in another 150 institutions.”
End Transmission