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October 19, 2009
· Water uncertainty frustrates California growers
· Excessive rain leaves Mississippi crops in ruins
· Britain will starve without GM crops – report
· Mexico cautiously green lights GM corn trials
· Farmers, critics divided over migrant worker bill
Water uncertainty frustrates California
(AP via SFGate.com) – Farmers in the most prolific agricultural region in the country should be planting winter romaine lettuce and calculating spring cantaloupe acreage at this time of year.
Instead the romaine packing company left this year for the
searing
"How bad does it have to get for people to take action?" farmer Jeremy Freitas asked a panel of state agricultural officials last week, choking back tears.
They had come to
As
The lack of water in the state's reservoirs, coupled with the environmental collapse of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta where water from the state's wet north is pumped south to irrigate fields, has restricted the amount of water some of the state's most prolific farmers receive to as little as 10 percent of normal.
"It's October going to March quickly and we can't seem
to get an agency to move," said farmer Dan Errotabere, who lost his
romaine contract when the local packinghouse moved to
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants a special legislative
session this fall to look at issues surrounding
Meanwhile, farmers have been begging for several quick fixes
so they count on water in 2010, including temporary suspension of the
Endangered Species Act so water can be pumped to them even if it kills
threatened smelt. Congress once granted a temporary reprieve to
Also unresolved after a year of discussions: environmental issues related to transferring water from wet regions to dry ones; a clear sense of how much agriculture contributes to the environmental degradation killing smelt and salmon in the Delta compared to urban impacts; and a "two-gates" project that would block fish from the large pumps that transfer water from the Delta into delivery canals but would allow farmers water in the spring.
This year nearly 500,000 acres were left fallowed across the
valley, half of that in the Westlands Water District, where farmers
historically have created the state's highest yields of almonds, garlic and
tomatoes with the most junior water rights. Several thousand acres of almonds
and pomegranates died, though canals carrying water to
Across the region farmworkers were idle, hardware stores suffered lost sales and tractor dealers didn't move John Deeres. Food banks turned away hungry families.
University researchers estimate $700 million in farm losses in 2009 alone, not counting taxes or the loss of value on farmland where water is no longer reliable.
"You think we had a tough year this year?" said
Marvin Meyers, an almond grower on
Farmers and the advisory board of the California Department of Agriculture said the state's $36 billion agriculture industry cannot afford another season of uncertainty. More packing houses they depend on to send their fruits, nuts and vegetables around the world will move to more reliable areas — across the border into Mexico they fear — if they cannot count on a reliable supply.
Another year of pumping salt-laden water from underground aquifers could kill their soil, they say. Board members warned that the Westlands Water District on the valley's west side is the first to be hit by the crisis, but the water problems are spreading to the state's other agricultural regions.
Some avocado growers in
"Where will the next shoe drop?" said board member Adan Ortega Jr.
Excessive rain leaves Mississippi
(clarionledger.com) – Unseasonably heavy rain is forcing farmers to leave their crops in the fields to rot, costing them an estimated $377 million.
The soggy weather conditions, which have kept tractors out of the fields, eventually could force some farmers out of business.
Only a small percentage of the 3.6 million acres of row crops - cotton, soybeans, sweet potatoes, corn and rice - was harvested before rain soaked and flooded fields throughout the state.
"I'd say 90 percent of farmers are not done with harvest," said Leland farmer Kenny Fratesi, who planted about 4,000 acres of soybeans.
"Don't many want to talk about it (the crops)," he said. "It's too depressing."
Before the damage, five crops had an anticipated value of
about $1.7 billion,
Soybeans, the state's largest crop, take up about 2.2 million acres and before the rainfall had an estimated value of $700 million. John Michael Riley, an MSU extension specialist, estimates that value has fallen to $537 million.
Cotton, the third-largest crop, may be hardest hit by the rain. Only about 2 percent of the state's 295,000 acres of cotton have been harvested, Riley said. Usually by this time of year, 61 percent of the crop has been harvested.
"There are producers who are looking at a 100 percent loss on their farm," Riley said.
With too much water, root plants such as sweet potatoes rot in the ground. Vardaman farmer Paul Cook has harvested about 25 acres of the 150 acres of sweet potatoes he planted.
"You can't get out in the field when water is all over it," he said. "Everybody's crop is ruined. It's all over now. I don't have a bit of hope."
Rather than harvesting, Cook has spent the last several days at home or hanging out at Sweet Potato Sweets, a local shop his wife and other farmers' wives run.
"This is the worst I've seen," said Cook, 77, who has been farming for 57 years.
Earlier this month, Gov. Haley Barbour asked the U.S.
Department of Agriculture to have its
Reports from the state's 82 counties are due to the local
office next Friday, said Ricky Carnegie, agricultural program specialist with
the USDA's Farm Service Agency in
If a disaster is declared, farmers would be eligible for low-interest loans or Supplemental Revenue Assurance, a program that pays farmers based on losses, Carnegie said.
Given that October is typically a dry month, the rain was
unexpected.
Year-to-date rainfall totals show similar excesses.
Farmers, who spend months preparing the ground, planting and nurturing plants to maturity, already had experienced a wetter-than-normal spring. They earn their money at harvest time, so a wet field can zap all or most of their annual income.
That might be the case for Fratesi, who runs a store where farmers hang out in Leland. He has been unable to harvest about 2,500 of the 4,000 acres of soybeans. Under normal conditions, he would have finished harvesting by the beginning of October.
By now, he'd normally be getting the field ready for next year. Instead, he and other farmers have been forced to consider the worst: plowing over unharvested crops too damaged to sell.
The same goes for George King, who farms about 5,000 acres
in
Rather than harvesting, he's walking some of his 350 acres of cotton to see the damage. The 49-year-old won't know for sure how much of a loss he'll have to take on his crop until he can get a cotton picker in the field.
"I thought I was going to pick 1,250 pounds (of cotton) an acre," King said. "I'll be lucky to make 750 pounds."
Plants of the above-ground variety - such as soybeans and cotton - become heavy with fruit near harvest, Houston Therrell with the Rankin County Extension Service explained. When the moisture level is ideal, plants draw water from the ground. That water balance keeps a ready-to-harvest plant strong enough to stand straight and ready for farm equipment to roll down the rows.
Plants weighed down by rain in a muddy field can fall. If plants are slanted or leaning over rows, they get run over by machines.
And excess water causes a variety of problems with cotton. If left on the stem too long, the stem and seeds in the cotton will sprout. In some cases, the boll - capsule that holds the cotton - won't open, so the picker can't extract the cotton. Left on the plant too long, the cotton will fall to the ground.
"Once it hits the ground, it's ruined," Therrell said. "We don't have vacuum cleaners to suck cotton up off the ground and if you had a vacuum to suck it up, you'd still pull dirt off the ground."
A cotton crop unharvested can represent a zero return on a $600- to $700-per-acre investment, Therrell said.
Fratesi, 47, has been farming about 25 years and hasn't seen a field this bad since 1984.
"It took a long time to recover," he said.
Fratesi would not talk about the financial side of the equation, but it could be dire, especially in this economic climate where banks have become more conservative lenders.
But Riley said, "Long term, there are going to be some producers that are hurt and could suffer, either being forced to exit for a number of years or forever if they don't have the ability to stay in the market.
"They're going to have to get the funds they need to pay off loans. They may have to sell equipment or land, the stuff they need to be in operation."
Britain
(Telegraph.co.uk) -- A new row over genetically modified foods
being introduced into our shops has broken out after a Royal Society report
recommended GM crops should be grown in
The study concluded that GM crops are needed to prevent a catastrophic food crisis by 2050.
But the report has sparked a backlash from opponents of GM foods who say they present a threat to the livelihood of small farmers.
They fear the Government will use the 100-page study, due to
be published this week, to force the introduction of GM technology back on to
the political agenda. Many in the Cabinet and
Previous plans to grow GM crops commercially in the UK had to be scrapped following a concerted campaign by environmental protesters and a backlash by consumers who refuse to eat so-called 'Frankenstein foods'.
However, the Royal Society report, which has taken more than
a year to compile, is expected to say that
A source told The Sunday Telegraph: "The report will say the right GM crops should be used in the future to alleviate food shortages. This study is going to move the debate forward. The Government will have to take notice of this.
"The world is undergoing dramatic change and it won't
be long before people are thinking 'where is my next meal coming from?' Where
GM has been proved effective at either increasing yields or else resistant to
diseases it should be used in the
The report entitled Reaping the Benefits: Towards a Sustainable Intensification of Global Agriculture, was commissioned in July 2008 in response to a UN report which predicted that world food production needs to double by 2050 to sustain a global population expected to reach nine billion.
The remit of the Royal Society working group – made up of
eight eminent scientists and chaired by Professor David Baulcombe, Professor of
Botany at
The report looks at a series of options to increase crop yields in the UK and around the world by between 50 per cent and 100 per cent, and although GM – the altering of the genetic make-up of a crop to produce better growing results – is only one option it is likely to be the most controversial.
The fear of the effect of GM crops on surrounding harvests led to eco-activists destroying field test sites which was a major factor in forcing producers to withdraw proposals to grow GM in the UK at the beginning of the decade.
Only one GM crop, a type of maize engineered by the American
agricultural biotech firm Monsanto, has even been approved for planting in the
European Union. It is currently farmed commercially – albeit on a relatively
small scale – in
However nearly two-thirds of the 2.6m tonnes of soya
imported into the
Environmental campaigners are suspicious that the Royal Society report is part of a renewed attempt to force GM crops on to the British public.
They point to an announcement slipped out last month by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), the Government body in charge of food safety, to hold a new round of public debates on the value of GM. When a similar exercise was carried out in 2003, the public failed to be persuaded of the need for GM.
A Cabinet meeting at the start of the year, which included
Gordon Brown, the chief scientist Sir John Beddington and the then chair of the
FSA, Dame Deirdre Hutton, is understood to have concluded that
Cabinet papers leaked at the time showed the government appeared to be ready to go ahead with GM crops despite what it recognised would be considerable public resistance.
It is understood the Royal Society report will present the Government with a perfect opportunity to begin the process of winning the public round to GM foods.
A DEFRA spokesman said: "We have not yet seen the report, but we look forward to its release and will read it with interest. Our top priority is to safeguard human health and the environment and always follow the science. We recognise that GM crops could offer a range of potential benefits over the longer term."
But environmentalists said last night that the Society's terms of reference were flawed and accused scientists of using the public's fears over climate change to try to influence the debate on GM.
Kirtana Chandrasekaran, Friends of the Earth's food campaigner, said: "There is no scientific evidence that GM produces huge yields. The public doesn't want it, small scale farmers don't want it and yet the Government keeps on pushing it. It's completely outrageous."
Many experts and academics regard the argument that GM can solve the world's food crisis as deeply flawed.
Tim Lang, professor of food policy at
Mexico
(AFP
via Yahoo! News)
The agriculture and environment ministries announced the first two permits in a joint statement, but did not name the companies involved or specify where the fields were. They said that 35 permit requests had been made.
The first permits would be applied under controlled conditions, "totally isolated from other crops," the statement said.
Critics worry that the crop genes will spread to other
plants -- creating uncontrollable superweeds and superbugs -- and also that
they could contaminate
Greenpeace immediately slammed the permits and planned to file motions in court to "prevent this environmental crime," said watchdog representative Aleira Lara.
"They've ignored the warning from the scientific community about the risk for our country, the center of origin and genetic diversity of corn, to be contaminated by these kind of organisms," Lara said.
Corn is used to make the country's staple flat tortillas and
many other dishes.
Supporters of the technology tell farmers that they will reap profits from growing genetically-modified crops. Initially, the cost is expensive but money is saved on pesticides.
Farmers, critics divided over migrant worker bill
(detroitnews.com)
– Federal lawmakers are considering a bill that proponents say would help to
stabilize the migrant work force on which
The Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act of 2009 grants undocumented, foreign migrant farm hands temporary resident status, giving farmers peace of mind knowing their employees won't be subject to raids and deportation, proponents say. Supporters also argue that with legal status, migrant workers would no longer have to suffer unfair treatment for fear of being deported.
But critics say granting undocumented migrant workers legal status won't solve the problem of work force instability because if farm hands choose to pursue more lucrative work, growers will be left in the lurch. They also argue the bill grants illegal immigrants amnesty.
"For farmers, this is a burning issue, especially at
harvest time," said Vera Bitsch, who specializes in human resources in
agriculture at
Farmers say they live in fear of raids and worker
deportations, which can create labor shortages and result in crops going
unharvested. In
If it passes, the bill will legalize about 1.5 million undocumented agricultural laborers over five years. The bill also proposes making the federal H-2A program that gets foreign workers into the country legally less burdensome. It would allow illegal workers to apply for a blue card (temporary residency) and eventually get a green card (permanent residency).
Immigration reform is a priority for the Obama administration, but with so many other issues on the table, it's unclear when lawmakers will get to it. And, if a comprehensive reform of immigration is not reached, it's unknown if Congress will vote on the piecemeal bill, experts say.
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Refugees had scheduled a hearing on the bill, supported by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, for Sept. 22, but it was delayed.
U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland, while acknowledging migrant workers' contributions to agriculture, said he's "very nervous" about giving workers who got here illegally permanent residency.
"I just think it's fundamentally wrong," said Hoekstra, who is running for governor.
More than 200 groups and agencies support the bill, touting it as the best compromise between workers and employers to reach Congress in several years.
Impact on agribusiness
The loss of migrant workers would have a significant impact
on
The Michigan Department of Agriculture likes the bill
because it will "provide stability" to the agricultural work force,
Director Don Koivisto said.
A majority of the migrants -- up to 80 percent -- are from
The jobs migrant workers do are vital to fruit and vegetable
growers, said Denise Donohue, executive director of the Michigan Apple
Committee, which likes the bill. They're needed to handpick 1 billion apples
off trees in
Regelbrugge, also vice president of government relations for the American Nursery and Landscape Association, praised the bill.
"If we screw this thing up, it will be a tremendous
blow to
Critics say bill problematic
But, opponents say the bill will create more problems for farmers by allowing workers to move on to better-paying jobs once they become authorized.
"It's an amnesty," said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "Granting green cards to workers won't help because once they get legal status, they won't stick around to do farm jobs."
"(The bill) allows the agriculture industry to continue the practice of hiring people at exploitive wages," Mehlman said.
All farm hands get paid an average of $10 an hour and the
current law requires foreign workers to be paid more than
The bills are a farce, said Rick Oltman, national media director for Californians for Population Stabilization, a Santa Barbara-based agency whose purpose is to get the government to enforce immigration laws. He called them a "window dressing" on behalf of politicians who want to appear as though they want reform, but, he pointed out, the bills have never passed both houses, even after several attempts.
"I view this as nothing more than Congress pandering to agribusiness," Oltman said. "The authors (of the bills) do it so they can say they supported this."
Growers depend on migrants
All his employees have documents and, although he knows some may not be here legally, he said he will hire them if they are willing to do the job. Employers are required to review workers' documents, but discrimination law prohibits them from questioning the documents' authenticity.
When Leitz advertises job openings to
"If (migrant workers) aren't here, there are no replacements," he said. "I have no domestic workers willing to come in and pick this stuff. I would be bankrupt."
Two years ago, even though thousands of Michigan residents were out of work, 15 percent of the state's asparagus crop, or about $2 million worth, had to be destroyed because growers couldn't find enough workers to pick it, said John Bakker, executive director of the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board. The asparagus board is not taking a stand on the bill because it is a quasi-governmental entity, Bakker said.
"It doesn't matter what the unemployment rate is, harvesting asparagus is not the type of work Michiganders are looking for," he said. "We need migrant workers."
Legalizing the migrant work force would solve a lot of problems, said Virginia Ruiz, senior attorney for Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy organization. Because 50 percent to 75 percent of the workers are unauthorized, many are reluctant to speak up when they run into issues like unfair wages and poor working conditions, she said.
"We feel (the bill) is a reasonable compromise to resolve the problems with agricultural labor," Ruiz said.
Additional Facts
Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act
# The AgJOBS bill would allow undocumented farm workers to become legal, giving farmers peace of mind that their migrant work force won't be subjected to raids and giving workers protection against unfair treatment. Nationwide, more than 75 percent of the migrant workers are here illegally. Undocumented farm hands who qualify can get a "blue card," which gives them temporary resident status, and they can eventually apply for citizenship.
# The second part of the bill makes it easier for growers to apply for foreign workers through the legal process. Many growers say they don't like to use the current H-2A program to find workers because it is too cumbersome and they are sometimes stuck with workers they don't need, but must pay them anyway.
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