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October 18, 2011
· Trade deals seen as boon to farmers
· Farm groups polish image on the web
· Consumers will pay for food safety, but …
· USDA spends $46M on specialty crops
· Myths surrounding global farmland rush
Trade deals seen as boon to farmers
(SFGate.com)
–
Congress approved free-trade agreements with
"We'll be able to ship more products into these markets
cheaper than our competition," said Chris Garza, senior director of
congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation, a nonpartisan
group that represents farmers and ranchers across the nation. Garza added that
tariffs for shipping products to
President Obama is expected to sign the agreements this week.
The trade policy, much of which will go into effect
immediately and some over a two to five-year period, could raise the nation's
agricultural export gains by $2.5 billion, according to the Farm Bureau, and
could mean an additional $239 million a year for farmers in California. The
group also estimates that the free-trade agreements will support a mixture of
22,500 new and old jobs, including adding 2,150 jobs to the
"We can certainly meet the demand needs out there," said Robert Guenther, senior vice president of United Fresh Produce Association, a trade group representing the food industry, including farmers, shippers and processors in this state.
"Increasing opportunities for those who grow and ship fresh produce is the foundation for the future success of the industry."
Farm groups polish image on the web
But he still makes time to tweet.
Whether it's touting the benefits of a new fertilizer, sharing photos of a newborn calf, debating genetically modified crops or discussing modern-day hog farming, a growing legion of farmers and ranchers like Grimm are increasingly turning to Facebook, Twitter, and personal web blogs to try to connect with consumers, educators and others about agriculture.
"We all eat," said 37-year-old Grimm, who helps run the 18-month-old AgChat Foundation, teaching other farmers how to use online social media to tell their stories to a sometimes skeptical public.
"Food is important to everybody but very few people
produce that food," he said. "We farmers need to connect with
consumers ... whether it's a mom in
Calling themselves "agvocates," these tech-savvy farmers and their supporters are hoping their efforts counter images of animal abuse, environmental damage and health problems that have become associated with industrial agricultural practices.
"There are lots of perceptions about what I do. I would like to have a voice in that perception," said 31-year-old Mike Haley, who keeps his Twitter followers up to date as he plants soft red winter wheat on his Ohio farm.
The fight for hearts and minds in agriculture on the Web is also being taken up by agribusiness in a big way.
A new organization backed by some of the most powerful corporate names in agriculture hopes to swing public opinion with a mix of social media and conventional marketing methods.
The U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA), which boasts Monsanto, the world's largest seed technology company, and DuPont, one of the world's biggest chemical and seed producers, as members, has a multi-year agenda.
The aim is to address consumer attitudes and opinions about food production by farmers, ranchers and their suppliers.
"We've sensed some concerns ... about what is going on about food safety and food quality," said communications director Ken Colombini at the National Corn Growers Association.
DuPont, which has contributed $500,000 to the effort, said the need for such a dialogue was "glaringly obvious."
"There is a growing disconnect," said Bill Even, DuPont senior manager of biotech and regulatory affairs. "People have lost touch with modern agriculture. This isn't an event. It is more of a process, more of a movement."
With more than 50 national, regional and state agriculture groups as members and a projected budget above $11 million, USFRA has hired a veteran marketing expert as general manager and begun national advertising and marketing efforts.
Last month the group debuted an online "Food Dialogues" townhall-style discussion and website project, and the group has a list of bloggers and others seen as influential voices targeted for the ongoing campaign.
A recent sampling of some of the queries posted to a USFRA Food Dialogue website covered a gamut of issues, from a request that USFRA members disclose the amount of government subsidies they receive to complaints about "factory farms."
There were posts relaying concerns about nitrogen fertilizer
run-off affecting the
The organization acknowledges up front the animosity obvious in many of the postings about farming. "When did agriculture become a dirty word?"it asks on its website.
For some critics, agriculture is not the problem, but the practices of certain players are.
The fact that some of the key players in USFRA are opposed to food labeling proposals, yet are saying they want to communicate more openly with consumers, particularly rankles.
"They want to tell consumers how their food is produced, well, let's really tell consumers how their food is produced," said National Organic Coalition Director Liana Hoodes.
"It's great to have a dialogue," Hoodes said. "We hope it will be an honest dialogue."
Consumers will pay for food safety, but …
(Food Safety News) – American shoppers are willing to pay more money for verifiably safer food, but their willingness to pay declines as the cost and level of safety rise.
That is the conclusion of a study published in the September
2011 issue of the journal Risk Analysis, conducted by
The study used the subject of food safety as a context in which to compare the two most commonly-used economic methods for analyzing risk reduction: Willingness to Pay and Quality-adjusted Life Years (QALYs). QALYs are a measurement of disease burden that applies a decimal value between zero and one to the quality of life a person experiences during a year. In QALY assessment, someone in perfect health has a value of one, while a mild foodborne illness might qualify as 0.8. Death equates as zero.
Because Willingness to Pay and QALY assessment are often seen as similar methods for analyzing risk, the study's authors wanted to compare them in a practical context like food safety. Not only did they conclude that Willingness to Pay does not correspond proportionately with QALY assessment, the study provides statistical insights into consumer attitude toward paying for safer food.
Surveying 2,858 random adults, the authors asked consumers about their willingness to pay higher prices for chicken, ground beef or packaged deli meats to reduce their risk of general foodborne illnesses, which ranged in length from one to seven days and in severity from mild stomach aches to hospitalization. For example, one respondent might report a willingness to pay an additional 25 cents for deli meat to avoid a 1 in 10,000 chance of becoming moderately ill for three days, while another respondent might opt to pay $2 for that same reduction in risk.
The conclusion: Depending on the length and severity of an illness, Americans are willing to collectively pay between $4,500 and $6,500 for each case of illness they avoid as a whole.
"Suppose 100 people were each willing to pay $1 to reduce their risk of 1 in 100 -- they're willing to pay $100 to save that one person from getting sick," said Kevin Haninger, Ph.D., health economist and co-author of the study. "If you are willing to spend 45 cents to reduce your risk by 1 in 10,000, you value that risk at $4,500."
While consumers are willing to pay a certain premium to avoid a mild illness, they are not willing to pay proportionately higher to avoid worse illnesses, essentially proving that Willingness to Pay and QALYs are not equal measurements of risk reduction analysis.
The study estimates that consumers value the avoidance of a mild, one-day illness at $4,500, while the avoidance of a hospitalizing, seven-day illness with a 1 in 1,000 chance of death was worth $6,500. If the consumers' willingness to pay equated with the quality of life it affected, the monetary value attached to avoiding the seven-day illness would be exponentially higher.
"This is a very important issue because federal agencies are supposed to do both types of analyses," Haninger said. "But you're not willing to pay twice as much to avoid a two-day illness as you are to avoid a one-day illness. We're trying to speak to this economic debate."
Haninger said he hoped this study would inspire more debate about the changes needed to the field of public health risk analysis. Risk analysis currently contains too many inconsistencies, he said, and he hopes this paper helps encourage more consistent study.
The subject of food safety served as an ideal context for the study because of the private nature of buying and preparing food, Haninger said, and the fact that these economic hypotheses need to be tested in scenarios that are accessible and plausible. When the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that approximately one in six Americans acquire a foodborne illness each year, the risk becomes readily apparent to respondents.
"The take-home lesson from an economic perspective is that cost-analysis and cross-benefit-analysis won't always produce the same results," Haninger said. "You can't really go back and forth between the two if you consider them proportional. From a broader perspective, the study shows Americans really care about foodborne illness. They're willing to pay a relatively substantial amount of money to avoid it."
USDA spends $46M on specialty crops
(USDA)
"Over the last 60 years, agriculture, including horticulture, has become increasingly reliant on science and technology to maintain profitable production," Merrigan said. "Specialty crop producers in the United States—as with all of American agriculture—are seeing sales surge both domestically and abroad as consumers search for high quality, 'Grown in America' fruits, vegetables and tree nuts. These projects will help provide specialty crop producers with the information and tools they need to successfully grow, process and market safe and high quality products, supporting jobs and opportunities for Americans working in specialty crops. From herbs to apples, from walnuts to grapes, specialty crops are central to the richness of American agriculture."
SCRI supports the specialty crop industry by developing and disseminating science-based tools to address the needs of specific crops. Specialty crops are defined in law as "fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits and horticulture and nursery crops, including floriculture." Funded projects address five focus areas: 1) improve crop characteristics through plant breeding, genetics and genomics; 2) address threats from pests and diseases; 3) improve production efficiency, productivity and profitability; 4) develop new innovations and technologies and 5) develop methods to improve food safety.
SCRI gives priority to projects that are multistate, multi-institutional or trans-disciplinary; and include explicit mechanisms to communicate results to producers and the public. Each of the focus areas received at least 10 percent of the available funds. The majority of funded projects addresses two or more focus areas, and includes many collaborating institutions in addition to the awardee.
The projects funded address research and extension needs for crops that span the entire spectrum of specialty crops production, from researching plant genetics to improving crop characteristics; identifying and addressing threats from pests and diseases; improving production and profitability; developing new production innovations and technologies; and developing methods to respond to food safety hazards.
Projects were funded in
The
The
The
A full list of awardees can be found online at: www.nifa.usda.gov/newsroom/news/2011news/scri_awards.html
Through federal funding and leadership for research, education and extension programs, NIFA focuses on investing in science and solving critical issues impacting people's daily lives and the nation's future. For more information, visit www.nifa.usda.gov.
Myths surrounding global farmland rush
(theguardian.com) – Governments and companies involved in leasing land claim it is little used and that the projects will bring food security, create jobs and boost tax revenues – none of which is true.
For a few thousands dollars a year, an Indian agribusiness, Karuturi, rents 2,500 sq km of land in Ethiopia's Gambela province. Government ministers in
In fact, the black soil is extremely fertile, the vast
landholding is accessible by a good road, and, above all, the land borders the
mighty river Baro, a tributary of the
But, say Oxfam researchers, it is one of the four great myths built up by governments and companies that most of the 100m hectares of land allocated in the last few years by governments in Africa and Asia to foreign agribusinesses, pension funds or speculators is "marginal" or little used.
"Despite claims to the contrary, investors target the best lands," say the researchers. "They seek land with access to water resources, fertile soil, infrastructure and proximity to markets to facilitate the profitability and viability of their ventures. The large-scale projects tend to be located where most people live. Further analysis shows that these are also the places where poverty rates are relatively lower and where land was already in use for food production – rather than it being empty, unused, marginal land in poor regions."
The second myth is that the projects will help bring food
security and energy security. Research in
"Unrestricted export clauses in contracts, together with small-scale food producers losing their key productive asset, may well worsen rather than improve food security," says the report. "Moreover, investors' short time scales may tempt them into unsustainable cultivation practices, undermining agricultural production in the long-term. The research also shows that current costs of producing biofuels are prohibitive for African countries, meaning that raw materials must be exported to US or European markets to be economically viable."
The third myth being encouraged by host governments is that the projects will create jobs. In fact, analysis of the contracts, shows that local employment generation requirements are absent from contracts and rarely materialise in practice. "Jobs appear to be few, short-lived, seasonal and low-paid.
Surveys and analysis of agro-investment in west Africa show that very few jobs were created for local people, while pastoralists and women – who rely upon the land, trees and water in common areas for economic activities – were suffering as a result of reduced access.
The fourth myth is that the projects will bring tax revenues. What really happens, says Oxfam, is that governments "actually forfeit benefits by offering tax incentives in the race for investment finance. In 2008, the government of Pakistan offered 'tax exemptions, duty-free equipment imports, and 100% land ownership in special free zones in its agriculture, livestock and dairy sectors', in a bid to attract foreign investors.
"Income tax is usually only payable once the investment project becomes profitable. Even if the host government has not forfeited benefits through tax incentives, it often lacks the capacity or the political will to regulate and monitor the investment, enforce the terms of the contract, or collect taxes."
The World Bank, the International Institute for Environment
and Development, and Oxfam's research in
End Transmission