" I heard it through the AgLine"

September 20, 2007

 

 

·        Ag Secretary Johanns’ resignation expected soon

·        Some growers burning out on farmers’ markets

·        GM eggplant bred for south Asia pest resistance

·        Lettuce could be crucial to diabetes battle

·        US ag subsidies on the WTO bargaining table

 

 

 

Ag Secretary Johanns’ resignation expected soon

 

(DesMoinesRegister.com) Washington, D.C. — Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns will resign soon and return to Nebraska to run for the U.S. Senate, a former state Republican official said Wednesday.

Johanns, a native of Osage, Ia., and former Nebraska governor, has been running the Agriculture Department since 2005.

"I can confirm that his resignation is likely to be imminent and that he is likely to pursue the open U.S. Senate seat in Nebraska at some point," said David Kramer, an Omaha lawyer who was chairman of the state GOP from 2001 to 2005.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., recently announced that he was retiring from Congress, creating what could be one of the most closely contested Senate races next year. Three other Republicans already are in the race, including the state's attorney general, Jon Bruning.

In resigning, Johanns would leave his post before Congress passes a new farm bill, a goal the secretary has said he wanted to reach by the end of the year and an issue being watched closely by Iowa farmers and ag groups. The politically popular legislation would give billions in aid to farmers and pays for nutrition programs, but the current version expires at the end of this month.

Johanns refused to talk about his plans, but joked about his Cabinet position during a speech Wednesday to the National Pork Producers Council.

"It's unbelievable how literally in less than 36 months that world has changed. It's changed pretty significantly," he said. "A friend of mine talked to me recently and said, 'I've got a good strategy for you.' I said, 'What?' He said, 'Take credit for all these high prices and quit.' "

Johanns will be joined by President Bush to make an announcement about his future this morning, his spokes- woman Terri Teuber said Wednesday. She would not comment on what Johanns will say.

"What I can tell you is that he understands that this is a decision he needs to make in the immediate future, and he intends to do so," she said.

Johanns and his wife, Stephanie, looked at homes in Nebraska during a trip to the state last week, Kramer said.

Johanns, 57, also a lawyer, invariably refers to his boyhood on his family's dairy farm near Osage when talking to farm audiences. He has served as the Bush administration's chief spokesman on farm policy and agricultural trade issues.

His departure would come in the middle of Congress' drafting of the next farm bill.

The House passed a farm bill in July that the administration has threatened to veto, but the Senate has yet to act on its version. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, declined to comment until the resignation was official, said spokeswoman Kate Cyrul.

Ron Litterer, a Greene, Ia., farmer who is president of the National Corn Growers Association, said Johanns should get some credit for the bioenergy boom because of the financial aid the USDA has been providing ethanol and biodiesel producers.

"That's been a major focus for the USDA," he said.

Litterer downplayed the potential impact on the farm bill because of Johanns' expected departure. "The truth is that it's a legislative branch that's going to write the farm bill," he said.

Johanns also has been a forceful advocate for the administration's trade policy. However, the administration's chief trade goal, a worldwide agreement to lower tariffs and other trade barriers, has not materialized.

Although the secretary isn't directly involved in international trade negotiations, Johanns' replacement would be expected to sell the administration's policy to farmers and push for agriculture interests.

This article contains reporting from the Associated Press.

 

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Some growers burning out on farmers’ markets

(sfGate.com) – Terra Firma Farm's bountiful stand, offering organic vegetables, fruits and herbs, has been a steadfast weekly presence at Berkeley's Saturday farmers' market for more than 15 years.

But in late July, at summer's peak, Terra Firma posted a "dear friends and valued customers" letter announcing that it was done for the season. From now on, the Winters-area farm will make the trek to the Berkeley market just a few months in late spring and early summer.

"Sales have gone down as the number of produce sellers has increased and the diversity of items on everyone's tables has increased. This is great for shoppers but makes life rough for us," the letter explained.

The farmers' market, says Paul Underhill, one of the three farmers who co-own Terra Firma, "is by far the hardest way for us to make a dollar."

Terra Firma's move follows some recent high-profile departures from San Francisco's Ferry Plaza Farmers Market by farms that have been there since the beginning. Some of the market's best-known personalities went with them - Andy Griffin and Julia Wiley of Mariquita pulled out early this year, and Fitz Kelly of Fitzgerald's peaches fame, a summer-only presence, didn't return after last season.

Every departure sends a wave of anxiety through shoppers who have embraced farmers' markets for their fresh-from-the-farm produce and for the opportunity to connect with the farmers who raise it.

Farmers' market managers chalk such changes up to normal turnover.

"There's a natural cycling, and retirement, and people choosing different business plans," says Dave Stockdale, executive director of CUESA, the nonprofit Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, which runs the Ferry Plaza market. But the farmers who left, as well as some who are feeling the same pressures but are staying, tell a different story.

"I think there's a certain kind of burnout that happens," says John Lagier of Lagier Ranches, in Escalon. Lagier, who works Ferry Plaza and three other San Francisco and Oakland markets on the weekend, is staying put. But he knows - firsthand and from the constant stall-to-stall buzz - that it's become harder make a living at the market.

"It's a combination of things," he says.

First, there's the sheer hard work of spending a full day or two at city markets after putting in a long week on the farm.

"When you're coming to the Bay Area - and we're as close as any farm, just an hour's drive - it's a really long day," says Terra Firma's Underhill.

Underhill's market day would go like this: Packing the truck, one hour; driving, one hour; hauling boxes off the truck, setting up the stand and cutting tastes, one hour; the market itself, five hours, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; breakdown, one hour; the drive back, one hour. A best-case scenario would have him getting up at 6 a.m. and arriving back at the farm by 4 p.m. - if there was no traffic on I-80.

Mariquita, near Watsonville, is a good 2- to 21/2-hour drive away, and Ferry Plaza keeps even longer hours - 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, with some customers showing up as much as an hour early. So Griffin or Wiley, or both, would get up at 3:15 a.m. and not land back home until 5 or 5:30 p.m.

"That's way too long," says Wiley. "We called Sunday our market hangover day."

Just for its long hours, Wiley says, "It's the most egregious market in the state for what they expect from their farmers."

The payoff was more worth the effort back when farmers' markets weren't so common.

"There are just so many farmers' markets now. That model of marketing is diluted, so we don't have the same profitability," Lagier says.

The Berkeley market used to draw shoppers from all over the East Bay, Underhill says, but now there are at least seven in Berkeley and Oakland alone. "People are coming from a smaller geographic area, so fewer customers are coming," he says.

Not only are markets proliferating, but existing ones keep raising stall fees and adding new farmers who sell the same products already plentiful in the market.

Modern farmers' markets, nonprofit or not, support larger staffs and are expected to keep generating more income. Many markets these days - though not Berkeley or San Francisco - are run by for-profit companies that handle multiple markets in different areas.

"The basic model, in my opinion, is a broken model," Underhill says.

At Berkeley a few years back, pioneers like Terra Firma fought to keep the nonprofit Ecology Center, which runs the market, from giving space to a 125-acre farm with land in both hot and cooler climates, so its growing season ran from early to late.

But the market wanted the farm for its popular salad mix and let it come in, according to market spokesman Kirk Lumpkin. Because of the pressure from the farmers, though, the farm can't sell its large crop of heirloom tomatoes there. Still, there was lots of overlap with existing farm stands. Terra Firma saw its sales drop 40 percent, Underhill says, although sales rebounded somewhat later on.

The same reason drove Fitz Kelly to stop bringing his peaches, and Mariquita its rare vegetables and herbs, to Ferry Plaza.

"I was down to 45 percent of what I was making, and I was driving 200 miles," says Kelly, who farms near Fresno. He's still selling at Santa Monica market, which he says is friendlier to locals and also brings in more chefs and local wholesalers.

Lagier remembers the early days at Ferry Plaza, when he was one of the few farmers selling cherries.

"My gosh, now there's a billion cherries. Everybody has everything. I even think to myself, 'Gee, this is crazy,' " he says.

He's found ways to adapt.

"You just have to do more markets to survive," he says. He's also started growing crops that other people don't, including paw paws and exquisitely sweet Bronx grapes. And he's developed some portable value-added items like almond snacks and pies that appeal to casual shoppers.

The same economic dynamic seems to affect farmers' markets broadly. But Ferry Plaza, because it's boomed into a national destination, generates other criticisms as well.

When Mariquita left, Wiley was clear that the decision was "about the nature of the market."

Back when it occupied a cozy corner a few blocks north at Green Street, the market had a community feel, Wiley and others say. Stalls were crowded and cozy, and the customers were chefs and people who came to buy their weekly carrots and potatoes, as well as a few perfectly ripe peaches. And parking was easy.

Since the Ferry Building was transformed into a food mecca and the market moved back and expanded both behind and in front of the building, it attracts huge crowds. But farmers say the atmosphere - and sales - have suffered.

"The problem with Ferry Plaza is it's in Fodor's, Conde Nast and Holiday - it's no longer friendly to locals," says Kelly.

Tourists may leave with a jar of jam or a package of nuts, but they aren't buying their week's groceries.

"I'm not a value-added farm wife," says Mariquita's Wiley.

Mariquita decided that between its CSA and its sales to restaurants, it could afford to quit the market.

Since then, Wiley has started "guerrilla vegetable deliveries" in San Francisco, roughly every other Thursday. Customers can order online ($25 minimum) and then meet her outside a San Francisco restaurant during a two-hour window from 5-7 p.m. Nopa, Incanto and Piccino have been recent drop sites.

Instead of the 12- to 14-hour farmers' market day, Wiley spends more like six or seven hours - and often pops into the restaurant for a bite before heading home.

"It's so relaxing not to be at the market," she says.

Most farmers, of course, don't quit their markets.

Full Belly Farm has been going to local markets for 20 years, and currently each partner goes to one a week: Palo Alto on Saturday, Berkeley on Tuesday and San Rafael on Sunday.

About a quarter of its income comes from the markets, although sales are going up more slowly or even leveling off compared to its CSA, restaurant and wholesale business, according to Judith Redmond, one of Full Belly's farmers.

"We definitely get tired and wonder if we should stop doing it," she says.

But, she adds, "It's great money. And it keeps us in touch with the community of people who support the local food movement. I think it's a really important part of our business."

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GM eggplant bred for south Asia pest resistance

 

(Cornell University) – Cornell researchers and Sathguru Management Consultants of India have successfully led an international consortium through the first phase of developing a pest-resistant eggplant. By about 2009 this eggplant is expected to be the first genetically engineered food crop in South Asia. Farmers have grown genetically altered cotton in India since 2002.

The engineered eggplant expresses a natural insecticide derived from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), making it resistant to the fruit and shoot borer (FSB), a highly destructive pest. The tiny larvae account for up to 40 percent of eggplant crop losses each year in India, Bangladesh and the Philippines, and other areas of South and Southeast Asia.

The work on the resistant eggplant is part of the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project (ABSP) II, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and administered by Cornell in partnership with Sathguru, a firm associated with Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS).

Cornell researchers from plant breeding, entomology, molecular biology, applied economics, communication, international programs and the Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization began collaborating on the development of the Bt eggplant in 2002. Another partner, Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds, is on schedule to commercialize the genetically modified fruit by 2009.

"Cornell has worked effectively to facilitate a productive partnership between the public and private sectors that will make this technology available to eggplant producers at every economic level," said Ronnie Coffman, international professor of plant breeding and genetics and director of International Programs in CALS.

"In five years, with support from Sathguru and Cornell, our partners were able to bring this flagship program to field trials and get food, feed and environmental safety approvals," said K.V. Raman, Cornell professor of plant breeding.

All the safety tests for the Bt eggplant have been conducted in India, starting in greenhouses and now moving to large-scale field trials. The eggplant has been found to be nontoxic to fish, chickens, rabbits, goats, rats and cattle as well as nonallergenic. Ongoing tests will examine such questions as whether the plant will continue to resist FSB in the field and for how long; whether the Bt eggplant cross pollinates with other eggplants in the field and how far the Bt plants should be from other eggplant fields; whether nontarget insect populations are affected in the long term; and how yields compare with those of other eggplant varieties.

It is estimated that the Bt eggplant will reduce insecticide use by 30 percent while doubling the yield of marketable fruit (although eggplant is eaten as a vegetable).

Eggplant is a popular crop in the subtropics and tropics, especially in India and Bangladesh, where it is grown on about 1.5 million acres.

India and Bangladesh together expect to plant 110,000 acres of the FSB-resistant eggplant commercially by the end of 2010 and 650,000 acres by 2015. Economists from Cornell and other institutions report that the Bt eggplant would result in lower prices for consumers, higher yields for farmers and, by 2015, boost the Indian economy by $411 million and the Bangladeshi economy by $37 million.

"In spite of the green revolution in India, agricultural growth has stagnated there to less than 2 percent per year," said Raman. "It is important for a land-grant university like Cornell to be engaged in the improvement of technologies and help create a road map that leads to agricultural and economic growth in places like South and Southeast Asia and Africa."

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Lettuce could be crucial to diabetes battle

 

(abc7chicago.com) – We often think of lettuce as a healthy food choice, but how about using leafy greens to cure type-one diabetes?

 

Scientists in Florida say genetically modified lettuce could hold the key to restoring the body's ability to produce insulin.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida injected the plant early on with the human gene for insulin. Scientists say after eight weeks on the powdered lettuce mice were producing normal levels of insulin.

"When this is absorbed, we anticipate that this methodology would cure diabetes and not simply provide temporary relief," Henry Daniell, Ph.D., researcher at UCF.

Therapeutic insulin is usually injected because strong stomach acids basically break it down. But researchers say when insulin is surrounded in a plant cell it's protected.

Once it's put inside a plant cell and ingested in the stomach, that plant cell is surrounded by a cell wall. The cell wall protects it from amino acids in the stomach and enzymes for digesting. But, when the plant cell reaches the stomach, bacteria poke holes in the plant cell wall and release the insulin.

The hope is when it is delivered in capsule form to humans it could be used to prevent diabetes before there are any symptoms.

It may also treat the disease in later stages and even eliminate it for good.

If successful, the treatment would not only make life easier for millions of diabetic people worldwide, but it could also dramatically reduce the cost of fighting the disease.

Scientists say the capsules cost just pennies to produce.

The National Institutes of Health provided $2 million to help fund the UCF study.

Human trials are expected to begin in the next couple years.

The idea was originally tested in tobacco. Researchers say they switched over to lettuce because it can be produced cheaply and does not carry the stigma associated with tobacco.

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US ag subsidies on the WTO bargaining table

 

(AP) GENEVA -- The United States has signaled its willingness to limit trade-distorting farm subsidies to a level of between $13 billion and $16.4 billion, breathing life into struggling world trade talks, the World Trade Organization's lead farm trade negotiator said Wednesday.

The negotiator, Crawford Falconer of New Zealand, said Washington made the move contingent on other countries accepting proposed cuts in agricultural tariffs. The U.S. has never said publicly it could accept a cap on payments to American farmers below around $23 billion.

''I thought it was very constructive,'' Falconer said at the WTO's Geneva headquarters, where he has been chairing intensive agriculture talks since the beginning of September.

Those talks aim at bridging differences between rich and poor nations over proposed subsidy and tariff cuts.

The question of rich countries' farm subsidies has been a major stumbling block in the WTO's six-year effort to liberalize world trade.

Sean Spicer, spokesman for the U.S. trade representative in Washington, said he could not immediately comment.

But several WTO diplomats present at the meeting confirmed that Joe Glauber, chief U.S. farm trade negotiator, said Washington accepted the proposed subsidy range if other nations agreed to Falconer's plan for cutting tariffs on farm goods.

The global trade talks known as the Doha round aim to add billions of dollars to the world economy and lift millions of people out of poverty. But they have repeatedly stalled since their inception in Qatar's capital in 2001.

Washington spent only $11 billion on trade-distorting subsidies last year. However, the Bush administration wants flexibility in the event that farmers need greater assistance because of declining global agricultural prices

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