
		" I heard it through the AgLine"

November 2, 2009

· Legal pot – Golden State’s green or pipe dream?

· Modified crops reveal hidden cost of resistance

· GM corn trials spark fear and anger in Mexico

· Monsanto asks High Court to review alfalfa ban

· Farmers fight climate bill, but still have concerns

Legal pot – Golden State’s green or pipe dream?

(Oakland Tribune) – Just in from Stockton, Mary parks her car and enters the downtown Oakland coffeehouse — but she hasn't come all this way for a cup of joe.

Instead, she peruses a menu of dozens of strains and preparations of marijuana, all grown in California, all taxed, all legal. Producing a wad of cash and proof of her age — but no doctor's note — for a fragrant ounce of "purple kush," she departs a satisfied customer, perhaps grabbing a snack at a nearby restaurant before hitting the highway.

This could be California's near future, what with three marijuana-legalization initiatives in circulation for the November 2010 ballot. A legislative bill is pending as well, although it's being revamped by its author.

Groups such as the National Association for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and the Marijuana Policy Project favored waiting at least until 2012, when a presidential vote might mobilize a younger, more progressive electorate. But these measures' proponents believe shifting attitudes and the economic crisis make 2010 the time to act.

They say legalization makes fiscal sense as well as moral sense — ending the centurylong practice of criminalizing a widely used substance that's less harmful than alcohol, America's legal drug of choice. They tout an immediate, massive savings in state and local law enforcement and corrections costs, and perhaps significant new revenue; a state Board of Equalization study found California could reap $1.3 billion a year from licensing and taxing what's already its biggest — albeit off-the-books — cash crop, if the federal ban on marijuana is lifted.

But many in law enforcement contend whatever money is saved and made wouldn't be worth the harm done to communities.

Measure of movement

Of the three ballot measures seeking petition signatures, the one with the most money and buzz behind it would legalize personal cultivation and use but would let local governments choose whether to allow commercial cultivation and retail sales of up to an ounce at a time, creating a patchwork of "wet" and "dry" cities and counties.

"It's up to the local jurisdictions for what works best, just as we have alcohol laws," said co-proponent and Oaksterdam University President Richard Lee, who could see his business — providing "quality training for the cannabis industry" — grow exponentially if his measure passes.

Co-proponent Jeff Jones directed the now-defunct Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative and now runs its successor, the Patient ID Center, in Oakland and Los Angeles. They've hired a professional petition drive management firm, and went in expecting to spend about $1 per signature.

"We got 206,000 in the first three weeks, so that's about 32 percent in 14 percent of the time," Lee said. "We think we'll be done maybe a little after Thanksgiving at the rate we're going. People have been ripping the petition blanks out of our hands, they're so eager to sign them."

But would marijuana be sold in coffeehouses, in dedicated stores, in liquor stores or in a neighborhood drugstore? Where and when could one smoke? What kind of advertising would be permitted? Could California employees of national companies be fired for testing positive for cannabis? All these questions and many more would be left up to state and local lawmakers.

Lee hopes places that choose to allow, regulate and tax commercial sales — most likely the more liberal, coastal areas at first — would adopt a "coffeehouse" model like Amsterdam's, which proliferated for a while in Oakland under California's medical marijuana law. Such businesses balance sensitivity to the community with knowledgeable customer service, better than impersonal mass-market retail sales, he said.

Nation vs. states

The wild card is federal law, which still bans all cannabis cultivation, use and sale. The Obama administration advised federal prosecutors last month not to pursue medical marijuana patients and providers adhering to their states' laws. But while health is often constitutionally considered to be within states' purview, interstate commerce and control of dangerous drugs has been federal territory, and there's no telling whether the first county to authorize a big, commercial farm growing marijuana for recreational use would see it immediately busted by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

All the measures' proponents hope legalization in California — a state comprising about 12 percent of the nation's population, and a higher percentage of its agriculture and commerce — would lead other states and eventually the federal government to do the same. Until then, California once again would be a trailblazer, with all the potential headaches accompanying that distinction.

Those headaches would include increased drug abuse and its accompanying crime, according to law enforcement officials who testified at an Assembly Public Safety Committee hearing Wednesday in Sacramento.

Committee chairman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, in February introduced a bill that would legalize marijuana cultivation, sales, possession and use by adults, regulating it somewhat like alcohol; Wednesday's hearing was to gather input as he rewrites the bill to address concerns raised this year.

Officials from various law enforcement agencies and associations testified that legalization under any scheme could lead to more, not less, use by children; more people driving under the influence, causing more injuries and deaths; decreased worker productivity that could hurt the economy; and the continuance of a thriving black market. California Peace Officers' Association President John Standish said there's "no way marijuana legalization could protect or promote society — in fact, it radically diminishes it."

After the hearing, Sally Fairchild — deputy director of the Northern California High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, who had testified on behalf of the California Narcotic Officers Association — said a wet-and-dry county scenario like that envisioned by Lee and Jones' measure would be "unenforceable" as a practical matter. Any county choosing to regulate commercial cultivation and sale will become "the dope dealer for that region," fueling rampant black market operations.

Cops aren't only critics

Some say Lee and Jones' measure doesn't go far enough. Dennis Peron, a proponent of 1996's successful medical marijuana ballot measure, Proposition 215, recently likened limits set by Lee and Jones' measure to a hypothetical law allowing only one bottle of wine in a home: "These limits guarantee confusion, harassment and black marketeering forevermore."

There's no exception from the prohibition on "smoking cannabis in any space while minors are present" for parents in their homes, he noted in a recent statement. "We don't lock up parents for having a glass of wine with dinner, and we certainly don't tell the kids to leave the house for the purpose of consuming any other substance, so why start with cannabis?"

And taxation would maintain cannabis "as the most expensive, blatantly overpriced product on the market thus forcing most people to choose cheaper, more dangerous drugs," Peron wrote. "Surely we can do better than this. How about just legalizing it?"

Alternative views

Another proposed ballot measure seems closer to that scenario. One of its proponents, San Francisco attorney James Clark, was helping Lee and Jones draft their measure when he hit upon what he believes is a better plan.

Lee and Jones' limits on personal cultivation and use encourages "very much a commercial model, very much keeping prohibition alive," Clark said, while his proposal seeks to "make this like soybeans" so anyone can grow and use as much as they want for themselves, which he believes will actually reduce demand in the long run. Commercial cultivation and sales would be licensed and taxed; Clark envisions big farms furnishing cannabis products to retail outlets — perhaps liquor stores, perhaps drugstores.

Clark said his measure "was never meant to be a really viable petition," lacking funding and full-time staff members, but "we're really starting to get traction. "... If our growth continues to be exponential, it's possible we'll make the ballot." He acknowledges, however, that Lee and Jones' measure is more likely to qualify.

John Donohue, 84, of Long Beach — a marijuana user since 1946, embittered by his five arrests for the drug — offers another measure, co-authored with longtime marijuana and Peace and Freedom Party activist Casey Peters, of Los Angeles. Donohue said they tried to keep it simple — specifics of taxation and regulation would "just have to be worked out in the process" — and hoped people would get behind it, but their petition drive has stalled as Lee and Jones' measure gets most of the exposure.

"(We are) giving various interviews and telling people what our position is and hoping we can start a movement," he said. "The main point is: Stop arresting people for a non-crime. I have bumper stickers that say, 'Show me the crime.'"‰"

The next Budweiser?

Ultimately, any legalized marijuana scenario will have pluses and minuses, says Mark Kleiman, professor of public policy and director of the Drug Policy Analysis Program at the UCLA.

"How much different does it look than today? You don't have to get a phony doctor's recommendation," he said. "How much bigger would the market be than it is today? There's no way to tell."

But Kleiman predicts it would be bigger, especially if commercial advertising — print, online, radio and television ads, billboards, catchy jingles — becomes commonplace.

"Do we get brand names? You can imagine this becoming like the liquor industry," he said. "I don't think it's the end of the world. But if we go the whole commercial route, I think you will have more drug abuse."

If a million more Californians take up marijuana use, "we'll have another 100,000 pretty screwed up on it. Being screwed up on marijuana might not be as bad as being screwed up on alcohol, but it's still bad enough," Kleiman said. "Unlike some people, I don't think the stuff's harmless."

Yet, with careful regulation and steps to avoid commercialization, California could do far worse, he said. "Do I believe the state could get half a billion out of this (in taxes)? Yeah I do. Do I think it could also save a couple of hundred million (on law enforcement)? Yes, probably."

# The plans to legalize pot Assembly Bill 390: Introduced in February by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, it would legalize marijuana cultivation, sales, possession and use by people 21 and older, regulating it somewhat like alcohol. A license to grow for sale would cost $5,000 to start and then $2,500 to renew each year, and a $50-per-ounce tax would be placed on retail sales. Ammiano said he hopes this would bring upward of $1.4 billion per year for drug abuse prevention efforts. No taxation would occur unless the federal marijuana ban is lifted; otherwise, the bill's only effect would be legalization of personal cultivation and use. Ammiano held the bill in committee this year, and is now rewriting it to put it forth again in January.

# The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010: Proposed by Oakland marijuana activists Richard Lee and Jeff Jones, it would legalize personal possession of up to an ounce of cannabis and up to 25 square feet of cultivation per home. It also would give local governments the option of whether to permit, regulate and tax commercial sales, a system akin to show alcohol is or isn't sold in "wet" and "dry" counties in some states. This seems to be the measure to watch; the proponents say their petition drive is surging, and its endorsements include that of Oakland mayoral candidate and former state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata. For details, go to www.taxcannabis2010.org.

# The Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act of 2010: Advanced by proponents Joe Rogoway, Omar Figueroa and James Clark, all of San Francisco, it would legalize personal cultivation and use without limits, but would require -- not just allow -- state and local governments to regulate and tax commercial marijuana cultivation and sales. Tax revenues would have to be spent on education, health care, environmental programs, public works and state parks. For details, go to www.californiacannabisinitiative.org.

# The Common Sense Act of 2010: Advanced by proponent John Donohue, of Long Beach, it would require the Legislature to adopt laws regulating and taxing marijuana within one year, but would let local governments choose whether to also tax marijuana's cultivation, sale, and use. For details, go to www.grasstax.org.

Modified crops reveal hidden cost of resistance

(Penn State University) – Genetically modified squash plants that are resistant to a debilitating viral disease become more vulnerable to a fatal bacterial infection, according to biologists.

"Cultivated squash is susceptible to a variety of viral diseases and that is a major problem for farmers," said Andrew Stephenson, Penn State professor of biology. "Infected plants grow more slowly and their fruit becomes misshapen."

In the mid-1990s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved genetically modified squash, which are resistant to three of the most important viral diseases in cultivated squash. However, while disease-resistant crops have been a boon to commercial farmers, ecologists worry there might be certain hidden costs associated with the modified crops.

"There is concern in the ecological community that, when the transgenes that confer resistance to these viral diseases escape into wild populations, they will (change) those plants," said Stephenson, whose team's findings appear (Oct. 26) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "That could impact the biodiversity of plant communities where wild squash are native."

Stephenson and his colleagues James A. Winsor, professor of biology; Matthew J. Ferrari, research associate; and Miruna A. Sasu, doctoral student, all at Penn State; and Daolin Du, visiting professor, Jiangsu University, China, crossed the genetically modified squash into wild squash native to the southwestern United States and examined the resulting flower and fruit production.

Unlike a lab experiment, the researchers tried to mimic a real world setting during their three-year study.

The researchers then looked at the effects of the virus-resistant transgenes on prevalence of the three viral diseases, herbivory by cucumber beetles, as well as the occurrence of bacterial wilt disease that is spread by the cucumber beetles.

"When the cucumber beetles start to feed on infected plants they pick up the bacteria through their digestive system," explained Sasu. "This feeding creates open wounds on the leaves and when the bugs' feces falls on these open wounds, the bacteria find their way into the plumbing of the plant."

The researchers discovered that as the viral infection swept the fields containing both genetically modified and wild crops, the damage from cucumber beetles is greater on the genetically modified plants. The modified plants are therefore more susceptible to the fatal bacterial wilt disease.

"Plants that do not have the virus-resistant transgene get the viral disease," explained Stephenson, whose team's work is funded by the National Science Foundation. "However, since cucumber beetles prefer to feed on healthy plants rather than viral infected plants, the beetles become increasingly concentrated on the healthy -- mostly transgenic -- plants."

During a viral epidemic, the transgene provides modified plants with a fitness advantage over the wild plants. But when both the bacterial and viral pathogens are present, the beetles tend to avoid the smaller viral infected plants and concentrate on the healthy transgenic plants. This exposes those plants to the bacterial wilt disease against which they have no defense.

"Wild and transgenic plants had the same amount of damage from beetles before viral diseases were prevalent in our fields," said Stephenson. "Once the virus infected the wild plants, the transgenic plants had significantly greater damage from the beetles."

Results from the study show that over the course of three years, the prevalence of bacterial wilt disease was significantly greater on transgenic plants than on non-transgenic plants.

According to the researchers, their findings suggest that the fitness advantage enjoyed by virus-resistant plants comes at a price. Once the virus infects susceptible plants, cucumber beetles find the genetically modified plants a better source for food and mating.

"Our study has sought to uncover the ecological cost that might be associated with modified plants growing in the full community of organisms, including other insects and other diseases," said Ferrari. "We have shown that while genetic engineering has provided a solution to the problem of viral diseases, there are also these unintended consequences in terms of additional susceptibility to other diseases."

GM corn trials spark fear and anger in Mexico

(AFP via Yahoo! News) MEXICO CITY – As scientists race the clock to increase food production worldwide, new trials to plant genetically-modified maize have stoked anger in Mexico, the cradle of corn.

Many here are sensitive about meddling with maize, which dates back to pre-Hispanic times, when mythologies held that people were created from corn.

Some fear Mexico could one day lose the wealth of native varieties it still produces, including red and blue, to a few, tough breeds of GM maize, as well the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers.

The government this month granted its first 22 permits to agribusinesses Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences and Pioneer to carry out tests on GM maize on farms in north and west Mexico.

Mexico is the number one producer of white maize, which is used to make its famous flat tortillas, but it imports increasing amounts of yellow maize from the United States, mainly for cattle feed.

The tests are part of efforts to help the country return to maize self-sufficiency and keep food prices down.

The price of maize has more than doubled since 2007, which prompted tens of thousands to protest the price of tortillas in Mexico last year.

"No country should be dependent for its food from other countries," Ariel Alvarez Morales, head of the Bi-Secretarial Commission on Biosecurity of Genetically-Modified Organisms, told AFP.

"We can take advantage of this biodiversity we have in maize, and part of that can also be through this (GM) technology," Morales said.

The United States, China and India are among countries that already grow GM crops, while six European countries have banned them.

GM crops, also including soya and cotton, are highly controversial, with critics underlining potential risks to health and the environment.

Greenpeace has led efforts to protect Mexico's maize after GM traces have turned up in samples of native varieties in the past decade, despite a moratorium on planting GM maize.

The new test permits cover more than 10 hectares (25 acres) in northern border states and the western top corn-producer of Sinaloa, and the government has pledged to prevent them from contaminating native varieties.

But Greenpeace claims they risk polluting 31 of more than 50 native seeds and is filing court motions to withdraw the permits.

"The final goal is not to experiment. It's to open the door for these kind of crops which only benefit the companies, not the producers nor Mexican consumers," Greenpeace campaigner Aleira Lara told AFP.

The government should spend more money helping small farmers and protecting native corn, Lara said.

Of the country's 1.9 million corn farmers, some 85 percent have less than five hectares (12.5 acres) of land, according to government figures.

As the GM debate rages on, much of Mexico's treasured maize diversity is for now protected in a giant seed bank in central Mexico, which keeps tiny grains of different colors and sizes at freezing temperatures, holding 27,000 maize samples from across the Americas.

"It's a repository of potentially useful genes for future breeding and response to problems ... for example in response to climate change," said maize expert Kevin Pixley, at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Texcoco, where the bank lies among fields of maize.

Scientists also cross-breed grains and advise on more efficient farming techniques to help them survive challenges, such as this summer's severe drought.

They say that, in the current climate, Mexican farmers need all the help they can get.

"If conserving diversity in the field actually conserves poverty of the farmers by having them grow varieties that are far inferior to those that are available, then I think it's a debatable issue," Pixley said.

Monsanto asks High Court to review alfalfa ban

(stltoday.com) Monsanto Co. asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court's decision to ban the planting of genetically modified alfalfa until an environmental review is complete.

The petition by Creve Coeur-based Monsanto argues that taking biotech alfalfa off the market creates an unnecessary burden for alfalfa hay and seed growers.

"We feel the court took some real drastic actions when it didn't need do,"

company spokesman Garrett Kasper said.

Zelig Golden, staff attorney for the Center for Food Safety, a Washington-based advocacy group, disagrees. Other courts have rejected arguments by Monsanto and the Department of Agriculture, and the Supreme Court should, too, he said.

The Center for Food Safety was part of a coalition of environmental groups and alfalfa growers that sued the Agriculture Department in 2006, arguing that the agency unlawfully approved Monsanto's alfalfa, which is genetically modified to resist applications of Roundup herbicide.

In June, a federal appeals court voted 2-1 to uphold a 2007 district court

ruling and to maintain a two-year-old injunction preventing farmers from

planting the crop.

The injunction doesn't affect farmers who have already planted Roundup Ready alfalfa, which makes up about 1 percent of the U.S. crop.

In a separate but similar case, a federal judge last month ruled that the

Agriculture Department unlawfully approved Monsanto's Roundup Ready sugar beets.

The Center for Food Safety is likewise seeking a ban on the planting of

genetically modified beets until an environmental impact statement is complete. The group argues a ban is necessary to prevent non-genetically modified sugar beets from being contaminated through cross-pollination.

"The court found that the USDA didn't do its job," Golden said. "Until it does its job, that harm is a real possibility."

While Monsanto's genetically modified alfalfa is planted on relatively few

acres, 95 percent of North American sugar beet acreage is planted with Roundup Ready seeds, meaning an injunction could have significant consequences, the company said.

"Our goal is to make sure the judge is aware of the ramifications of that,"

Kasper said.

Farmers fight climate bill, but have concerns

(McClatchy) WASHINGTON — Farm state senators and others soon will get a taste of what their colleagues from Missouri already have piled high on their desks: thousands of letters from farmers urging them to vote against the climate and energy bill.

The Missouri Farm Bureau started the letter campaign early, weeks before the bill was fully written and made public. It was followed this month with a pitch from the American Farm Bureau, the nation's largest agriculture lobby, to get farmers to take farm caps, sign their bills and send them to senators with notes that say, "Don't cap our future."

Agriculture is likely to have a central place in the debate on the bill later this year about the short-term costs of acting to curb climate change -- and the costs of failing to address the long-term risks.

Farm lobby groups and senators who agree with them argue that imposing limits on the nation's emissions of heat-trapping gases from coal, oil and natural gas would raise the cost of farming necessities such as fuel, electricity and natural gas-based fertilizer. A government report, however, warns of a dire outlook for farms if rising emissions drive more rapid climate shifts in the decades ahead.

The Senate bill includes provisions that would hold down energy costs for consumers, and some senators are working to add sections that would help farmers.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in written testimony while traveling in China this week that the bill would create opportunities for farmers to sell renewable energy and to earn money by selling credits for reducing emissions. He also said the bill contained provisions that would prevent fertilizer price increases before 2025, even though fuel prices would rise.

The benefits of the bill probably will outweigh the costs in the short run, and "easily trump" increased costs in the long run, he said.

Others are worried, however.

"I can understand in the political world why they're trying to get this under control," said Bill Wiebold, a University of Missouri agronomist, a scientist who specializes in crop production and soil. "What are the ripple effects? That's what farmers are concerned about. They understand that what's being passed in Washington, D.C., could have a direct effect on their bottom line."

Another side of the cost question, however, will be the burden on the daughters and sons who succeed today's farmers, and the generations after them. A comprehensive review of scientific literature and government data undertaken by a team of 19 U.S. scientists at the end of the Bush administration and released in June forecast a disturbing future for American agriculture as warming accelerates in the decades ahead.

The report, "Global Change Impacts in the United States," is the most comprehensive U.S. effort so far to move from a global view of rising temperatures due to accumulating greenhouse gases to a more regionally focused look at current and future changes.

The key messages on agriculture:

* Early on, some warming and elevated carbon-dioxide levels may be good for some crops, but higher levels of warming impair plant growth and yields. More frequent heat waves, for example, would be hard on crops such as corn and soybeans.

* Other more frequent extremes, such as heavy downpours and droughts, also would be likely to reduce crop yields.

* The quality of grazing land will decline, and heat and disease will be harder on livestock.

* Finally, warming will be good for something: pests and weeds.

"This is going to have profound effects on agriculture and forests around the world," said William Hohenstein, the director of the Global Change Program at the Department of Agriculture.

It's not clear how agriculture might adapt to a changing climate and at the same time improve productivity to help meet the needs of a growing population.

"We may not keep up," said Melanie Fitzpatrick, an Australian glaciologist and science adviser to the Union of Concerned Scientists. The environmental advocacy group recently produced reports on climate change in Midwestern states.

Jere White, the executive director of the Kansas Corn Growers Association, said that farmers might be leery of predicted climate changes because "they have a perspective of having to appreciate what occurred with the weather over a fairly long period of time. It's not an abstract issue to them. It's part of their livelihood."

Climate scientists, in reports such as those used in the government study, say that while the weather will keep varying from year to year, the long-term warming trend that's already being observed will continue and accelerate. The severity of the warming will depend on the amount of heat-trapping gases that build up in the atmosphere.

Richard Oswald, 59, grows corn and soybeans and raises cattle with his son on 2,000 acres in Rock Port, in Missouri's northwest corner. He's the chairman of the board of the Missouri Farmers Union, which is part of the National Farmers Union, a group that supports a mandatory cap on emissions and a trading scheme for pollution permits, as long as farmers' concerns are met.

"We can either get behind this and push this legislation in a direction that will help farmers, or we can sit back and fight it all the way and get something we really don't want," Oswald said.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the Agriculture Committee's ranking Republican, said he'd oppose the bill because it would bring "economic pain for no benefit" and would "only hurt farmers, ranchers and forest landowners and provide them no opportunity to recoup the higher costs they will pay."

"The huge taxes on carbon would be devastating to Midwest farmers," said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo.

The bill would charge large sources of emissions, such as power plants, for the amount of greenhouse gases they produce. Farms wouldn't be required to reduce their emissions.

As those limits further tighten, businesses would have to find ways to comply or pay more.

Some of those penalty payments would be used to help vulnerable industries and consumers. Energy costs would rise, but how that would affect Americans would depend on the policies the law imposed.

Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., who was the secretary of agriculture for several years during the Bush administration, said that higher energy costs were certain if the bill passed. He wasn't convinced by the government study that climate changes are equally certain.

It's important to know "the predictability of the studies relative to what climate change could look like," Johanns said. "That gets tougher. The USDA is only starting to dig into that."

He said the report on climate changes in the U.S. was "based on some studies I think are incomplete."

The USDA had a lead role in the agriculture section of the study. The report's conclusions drew from a large body of scientific reports.

Richard Krause, an American Farm Bureau lobbyist, said his group wouldn't dispute the study, but he stressed that it was "about future events, based on models and assumptions."

Unless China, India and other developing countries also reduce emissions, "we're going to be spending money on something for very little return," Krause said. "All the impacts are going to happen anyway."

The U.S., China and other countries have started to move toward cleaner sources of energy, but studies conclude that more changes will be needed to prevent dangerous climate shifts. Climate scientists, meanwhile, say that climate disasters aren't a given but can be averted by large reductions starting soon.

"Most farmers are just sort of skeptical," said Oswald, the farmer and Missouri Farmers Union board chairman. "You're out every day working to overcome adversity from the government, adversity from Mother Nature, adversity from the market. You learn not to put all your eggs in one basket. That's where we are now with climate change. Farmers aren't willing to sign off on all of it."

Sidebar

Global warming would be bad news for all those amber waves of grain, and for the corn and soybeans that are plentiful throughout the Midwest.

"The grain-filling period" -- the time when the seed grows and matures -- "of wheat and other small grains shortens dramatically with rising temperatures. Analysis of crop responses suggests that even moderate increases in temperature will decrease yields of corn, wheat, sorghum, bean, rice, cotton and peanut crops," according to "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States," a report based on a comprehensive review of scientific literature and government data by a team of American scientists.

Other details from the study:

- Plant winter hardiness zones -- each of which represents a 10-degree Fahrenheit change in minimum temperature -- in the Midwest are likely to shift by a half- to a full zone about every 30 years. By the end of the century, plants now associated with the Southeast are likely to become established throughout the Midwest.

- "Higher temperatures will mean a longer growing season for crops that do well in the heat, such as melon, okra and sweet potato, but a shorter growing season for crops more suited to cooler conditions, such as potato, lettuce, broccoli and spinach."

- Fruits that require long winter chilling periods, such as apples, will experience declines.

- "Higher temperatures also cause plants to use more water to keep cool . . . . But fruits, vegetables and grains can suffer even under well-watered conditions if temperatures exceed the maximum level for pollen viability in a particular plant; if temperatures exceed the threshold for that plant, it won't produce seed and so it won't reproduce."

- Climate change is expected to result in less frequent but more intense rainfall. One consequence is expected to be delayed spring planting. In the Midwest, heavy downpours are now twice as frequent as they were a century ago.

In the Great Plains, most water comes from the High Plains aquifer. Water withdrawals outpace natural recharge. Increasing temperatures, faster evaporation rates and more sustained droughts will stress the water resource further.

End Transmission