" I heard it through the AgLine"

November 11, 2010

 

 

·        Sweet potato a key to malnutrition struggle

·        Organic leafy greens under the microscope

·        Regalia is named Best New Biopesticide

·        Ag subsidies face big squeeze in 2012

·        Climate tech sharing deal on the table

 

 

Sweet potato a key to malnutrition struggle

 

(McClatchy) WASHINGTON — The sweet potato, that Thanksgiving staple, is starring in a new agricultural revolution that aims not just to produce more food but to create more nutrient-enriched foods that can help save the world's poorest people from blindness, stunted growth and disease.

 

Agricultural researchers and nutrition and health experts from around the world gathered in Washington this week for a conference on the benefits of adding essential vitamin A, zinc and iron to ordinary foods such as sweet potatoes, corn, wheat and rice in a process known as biofortification.

 

The research has been going for more than a decade at universities and research stations around the world lead by the donor-funded organization HarvestPlus. In the next few years, nutrient-rich staple crops such as beans, rice and corn will be ready for farmers to try.

 

The first HarvestPlus food to go into the marketplace has been the orange sweet potato.

 

Traditional African sweet potatoes are red outside and white inside. They're not a source of beta-carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A.

 

Experts estimate that vitamin A deficiency blinds 500,000 preschool children globally each year, and that about two-thirds of them die within months of going blind because the deficiency destroys their immune system and makes them vulnerable to diseases.

 

Jan Low of HarvestPlus, an American agricultural economist who's worked in Africa for 24 years, has helped get orange sweet potatoes bred to meet the needs of two target countries, Uganda and Mozambique. It took years of work using conventional breeding to get the varieties right.

 

Orange sweet potatoes now are available in parts of the two countries. HarvestPlus found women willing to make the change once they learned how it would help their children.

 

"Orange is a great color," Low said. "So we had orange-painted buildings, orange billboards, orange vehicles, and orange hats and T-shirts decorated with the message."

 

Plant breeding to add vitamin A, zinc and iron is "exactly what we need to improve global health," said William Garvelink, a former ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo who heads a new U.S. government program on global hunger called Feed the Future.

 

"The time has come to mobilize modern agricultural technology to reduce the single largest health problem in the world — malnutrition," he said.

 

An estimated 3 billion people suffer from not getting enough vitamin A, zinc and iron. Like vitamin A deficiency, not getting enough zinc and iron also weakens the immune system. Low iron also limits children's ability to learn, saps the strength of adults and increases women's risk of dying in childbirth.

 

For a long time, the green revolution was all about increasing yields. HarvestPlus director Howarth (Howdy) Bouis said that in the 1990s, when he started talking about breeding staple foods that helped meet nutritional needs, breeders said it wouldn't work because yields would be too low. Over time, HarvestPlus found ways to breed in the nutrients without raising the cost of the food or sacrificing other qualities such as drought-resistance.

 

The fortified staple foods are conventionally bred and aren't expected to be more expensive than the traditional ones they replace. Farmers can save seeds for planting and get the same benefits crop after crop

 

The organization got started in 2004 with a $25 million donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

 

HarvestPlus also is developing pumpkin-colored beta-carotene-rich corn. Kevin Pixley of the University of Wisconsin heads the corn research in collaboration with seed companies in Zambia. Orange corn now must go through two years of trials under Zambian regulations. Pixley said they hope to learn from the success story of sweet potatoes when it's ready for use.

 

Other crops being developed are vitamin A-rich cassava and iron-rich beans for Africa and iron- and zinc-fortified millet, rice and wheat for Asia. Another biofortification program, Agro Salud, improves the nutritional quality of staple foods for Latin America and the Caribbean.

 

"We've made all this scientific progress," Bouis said. The next step is demonstrate that the food will get used and then scale up.

 

In the 1980s, 25 percent of U.S. foreign aid was for agriculture. Last year, it was 1 percent. The World Bank's share of development aid targeted for agriculture also declined.

 

Feed the Future, on its website, said not only the U.S. but also developing countries and donors have been giving less money for agricultural development in recent decades, "despite new threats such as the decline in soil fertility and the challenges of climate change."

 

Garvelink said the U.S. government has supported HarvestPlus from its beginnings in 1994.

 

President Barack Obama in September pledged $3.5 billion over three years for development aid focused on small farmers. The government also expects innovation from the private sector and universities on food production.

 

Staple crops should deliver nutrients because they're the main source of food for the vast majority of the world's people, Garvelink said. Other challenges ahead will be how to grow more food for a growing population on the same amount of land — in order to spare the rain forests — and how to do it in a world that will have less water.

 

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Organic leafy greens under the microscope

 

(The University of Arizona) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided $2.9 million for the University of Arizona to improve the safety and post-harvest quality of field-grown organic leafy greens.

 

“This is a very comprehensive project covering all aspects of leafy green production, from field to fork,” said principal investigator Sadhana Ravishankar, an assistant professor in the UA’s department of veterinary science and microbiology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

 

“The goal is to provide safer and better-quality organic leafy green products for consumers and to increase profitability for growers of organic produce.”

 

U.S. producers are turning to certified organic farming systems as a way to lower input costs, decrease reliance on nonrenewable resources, capture high-value markets and boost farm income. Since the late 1990s, U.S. organic production has grown steadily. Now, more than two-thirds of U.S. consumers buy organic products at least occasionally, and 28 percent buy organic products weekly, according to the Department of Agriculture, or USDA.

 

Leafy greens include spinach, lettuce, arugula, cabbage and radicchio, all of which are part of the grant in one way or another.

 

“The large foodborne outbreak affecting mostly organic spinach in 2006 was a reminder of how important it is to ensure safety of leafy greens,” Ravishankar said. “The two most common disease-causing pathogens in leafy greens are Escherichia coli strain O157:H7 and Salmonella enterica. Contamination can come from human or animal excrement, for example from runoff from nearby farms, communities or from contaminated irrigation water.”

 

While cooking eliminates both E. coli and Salmonella, consuming raw leafy greens can pose a risk.

 

The researchers are going to look at ways to eliminate bacterial contamination in bagged leafy greens using organic methods. In previous studies, Ravishankar’s team tested edible films made from apples, carrots, or hibiscus, which contained essential oils and other plant extracts. These antimicrobial edible films effectively inactivated E. coli and Salmonella on various foods.

 

“We are going to test whether these plant extracts and essential oils inactivate bacteria if incorporated into an edible film lining the insides of the bags in which leafy greens are sold or as pieces of edible film mixed into the salad,” she said. “Since the films are made of edible plant parts, they can be consumed as part of the salad.”

 

“At the field level, we want to look at various production practices as well as environmental factors affecting the quality and safety of leafy greens,” she added. “We will study organic fertilizers, mainly compost teas, and see how the microbes survive in them.”

 

Those studies will involve growing organic leafy greens on an experimental parcel and fertilizing them with compost teas inoculated with harmless strains of E. coli. The benefits of compost teas and organic nutrients on plant growth will also be evaluated, through Jorge Fonseca at the Yuma Agriculture Center, part of the UA’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

 

In collaboration with Kelly Bright and Charles Gerba in the UA’s department of soil, water and environmental science, the team plans to monitor irrigation water by sampling water from different areas in Arizona for contamination with E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella and viruses at different times of the year.

 

“In addition to taking seasonal samples, we are going to sample right after a rainfall to see whether that affects the contamination risk,” she said. “If it turns out that rainfall is causing a hazard, then we’ll advise farmers to not irrigate fields or harvest after rain.”

 

“Some researchers say the bacteria are only on the surface and there is no way for them to get inside the fruit," Ravishankar said. “Others say they can. We are going to study how the microbes attach to the plants and whether they get inside. Limited research has been done with regard to these issues in organically grown leafy greens. We hope to be able to find an answer.”

 

Vegetable surfaces are not the only areas that could breed foodborne bacteria. Contaminated harvesting tools are likely to spread bacteria further.

 

“Commonly, the growers sanitize the harvesting tool but then use it for harvesting numerous lettuce heads before they sanitize it again,” Ravishankar said. “All it takes is one bad apple in the row for the harvester to spread the microbes to other plants.”

 

“We will artificially inoculate tools used for harvesting and for coring lettuce with harmless strains of E. coli and put them to the test: How many lettuce heads can they contaminate along the way?”

 

How effective is washing at removing bacteria from produce? The researchers will take a closer look at that, too. “We will be looking at about a dozen plant extracts, essential oils and organic sanitizers for their effectiveness against bacteria as well as viruses,” Ravishankar said. “The most effective ones can potentially be applied in the rinse water used for washing leafy greens after harvest.”

 

To ensure that the recommendations are economically viable, the grant includes commercial scale validation of the results. The team plans to assess the efficacy of the most effective organic sanitizers, plant extracts and essential oils by applying them in the flume washers used to clean the harvested produce in Yuma, Ariz.

 

Organic leafy greens treated with the most effective organic sanitizers, plant extracts, essential oils as well as antimicrobial edible films will be evaluated for their sensory acceptability using a panel of consumers.

 

“We will communicate our results through workshops for people in the industry to make it easy for them to adopt safe practices,” Ravishankar added. “There will be training workshops, field days, presentations to extension agents and media outreach to raise public awareness.” Kurt Nolte, director of Yuma County Extension, will be responsible for this effort.

 

This grant includes collaborations with scientists from the Southern University Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Baton Rouge, La., the USDA-ARS-Food Safety Laboratory in Beltsville, Md., and the USDA-ARS-Western Regional Research Center in Albany, Calif.

 

USDA’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture awarded this grant through the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative.

 

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Regalia is named Best New Biopesticide

 

(Wire Services) LONDON – Marrone Bio Innovations, Inc. (MBI) won the “Best New Biopesticide” category with its Regalia Biofungicide, a powerful new tool that controls a wide spectrum of fungal and bacterial diseases in numerous crops around the world.

 

Regalia has a unique induced systemic resistance (ISR) mode of action, which causes plants to arm their own defense systems against attacking pathogens.

 

In hundreds of third-party trials and on-farm demos, Regalia has provided equal or superior disease management when compared with standard fungicide programs. It is used in crops such as citrus, vegetables, leafy greens, tree fruits, grape vines, nuts and ornamentals where diseases are a constant problem and fungicide resistance to existing chemical fungicides is a continual threat. Regalia’s value in increasing yields and crop quality when incorporated into fungicide programs has resulted in multimillion dollar sales in its first full year of US registration. Regalia is also used for managing chemical residues at harvest by growers who export their crops. Chemical pesticide residues, which are globally regulated, are being further restricted by food retailers in response to consumer pressure, especially in Europe.

 

Regalia is listed by the U.S. Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) for use in certified organic production, and is therefore an effective tool for both conventional and organic growers.

 

The Agrow Awards are given annually by London-based Agrow, a leading information provider for the global crop protection industry. In addition to Besides Best New Biopesticide, additional award categories include Best New Crop Protection, Most Innovative Chemistry, Best Formulation Innovation and Best Novel Agricultural Biotechnology, with entries made from around the globe.

 

The award was accepted at a ceremony in London today by Pam Marrone, CEO and Founder. “We are honored to receive this award from a competition that is the premier showcase for leadership in the crop protection and production industry,” she said.  “It is a sign that innovation is recognized and biopesticides are mainstream crop protection products.”

 

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Ag subsidies face big squeeze in 2012

 

(DesMoinesRegister.com) – Congress isn't likely to start writing a new farm bill until 2012, but the nation's largest farm organization will have a major debate in coming weeks over potential reforms to deal with a likely shortage of money.

 

A landmark proposal by the Iowa Farm Bureau to shift direct payments into other forms of farm assistance is likely to be one of a series of proposals the American Farm Bureau Federation will wrestle with, said Bob Stallman, the organization's president.

 

"It won't just be Iowa against everybody else, I can pretty well assure that. They were just the first ones out there" with a proposal, Stallman told reporters.

 

The direct payments have strong support in many Southern and Plains states, including Stallman's home state of Texas as well as Oklahoma, the home state of the incoming House Agriculture Committee chairman, Republican Frank Lucas.

 

But Stallman said the direct payments represent one of the few pots of money lawmakers have available to fund other parts of the farm bill. Nearly 40 programs in the 2008 farm bill have no funding after 2012.

 

"There's more budget pressure this time around than there ever has been before," he said.

 

The Farm Bureau's state presidents will meet in December to sort through which proposals to present to the organization's delegates at their annual meeting in Atlanta in January.

 

Stallman defends Vilsack against big ag criticism

 

American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman defended Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack against criticism by conventional farmers that he was putting too much focus on small-scale agriculture and nutrition issues.

 

"The reality is that USDA's mission is a lot broader than just" large-scale agriculture, he said last week. "I don't view what has happened thus far as being negative for commercial agriculture."

 

ADM earnings down, ethanol sales up

 

Archer Daniels Midland of Decatur, Ill., reported a third-quarter profit of $345 million, down $496 million from the same quarter last year.

 

The multinational grain processor said its third-quarter profits were helped by improved sales and margins in its ethanol plants, which include facilities in Clinton and Cedar Rapids.

 

ADM said "profits for biofuels and related products were up significantly from last year's loss on improved ethanol and lysine margins, a favorable corn ownership position and increased ethanol sales volumes. In the quarter, bioproducts recorded $32 million in costs related to the startup of new plants."

 

ADM does not break out separate sales and profit figures for ethanol. The company has opened a new ethanol production plant in Cedar Rapids this year.

 

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Climate tech sharing deal on the table

 

(AP via Seattle Times) NEW DELHI – Next month's crucial U.N. climate summit can yield agreement on a system for transferring funds and technology to developing nations - but only if intellectual property issues are left for later, officials said Wednesday.

 

Mexico's Environment Minister Juan Elvira Quesada said there was a "very important advance" toward a technology deal during a two-day conference in New Delhi.

 

But the sticky issue of how to share patented technologies cannot be resolved before the two-week Cancun summit begins Nov. 29, delegates said.

 

Giving poor countries the funds and means for coping with rising temperatures is a key pillar of a climate change agreement sought in Cancun - along with renewed pledges to cut greenhouse gases beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

 

Poor nations need help adapting to a warming world, by building barriers against rising seas, shifting crops threatened by drought, building water supply and irrigation systems, and improving health care to deal with diseases.

 

Developing countries like China and India also need help moving to low-carbon energy systems, such as solar and wind power, and away from the fossil fuels whose emissions are blamed for global warming.

 

The last U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, failed to produce an international agreement mandating significant emissions cuts among industrialized nations, which demanded developing countries also rein in emissions.

 

"What we want is to have a very inclusive process," Elvira Quesada said at the end of the New Delhi meeting, attended by 35 delegations including from the U.S., China, the European Union and Japan.

 

For a deal to include pledged cuts by developing nations, financial help and technology sharing are considered essential.

 

"Some technology transfer is necessary, and some countries are not in a position to pay for it," said Sha Zukang, head of the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

 

But the talks have divided rich and developing nations over the issue of intellectual property rights.

 

Industrialized nations say reducing patent protections in sharing technology would undermine financial incentives for innovation, while developing countries argue they would miss targets for limiting their growing emissions if they have to reproduce research already done.

 

India's holding the conference, just weeks after another climate meeting in Tainjin, China, has raised hopes that developing nations, also including Brazil and South Africa, will come to Cancun ready to compromise for a successful deal.

 

"We cannot have a repeat of Copenhagen," Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said.

 

India has suggested the priority should be in helping poor nations adapt to the affects of warmer temperatures - by sharing technologies for water, health and agriculture - and the more divisive talks on emissions-cutting technologies should left for future debate.

 

"We have to find a middle path between the two extremes. Cancun is the last chance," Ramesh said. "The technology for adaptation is less controversial than the technology for mitigation."

 

But even without agreement on intellectual property issues, he said, "that should not mean we cannot have an agreement on a technology mechanism."

 

The delegates in New Delhi have focused on setting up a governing body to manage the sharing of technologies across borders, with many saying they preferred a small committee staffed with experts for efficiency, according to a conference summary.

 

The body, called the Technology Executive Committee, could also advise on how climate funds should be spent.

 

Industrial nations, led by President Barack Obama, agreed at December's Copenhagen summit to set a goal of $100 billion in annual climate finance by the year 2020.

 

Toward reaching that goal, a high-level U.N. panel on Friday released a report suggesting potential sources, including levies on international flights and "carbon pricing" - either a direct tax broadly on emissions of carbon dioxide or a cap on emissions coupled with trading in emissions allowances. That report will be discussed at Cancun.

 

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