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November 12, 2010
· How rice (that’s right!) can save the world
· ‘Rice of the Prairies’ may be a Canadian hit
· Stink bug numbers explode along East Coast
· Gowan acquires two Dow crop products
· Vintage tractors still ready for dirty work
How rice (that’s right!) can save the world
(Time) – Another blueprint for the Green Green Revolution was announced at the 3rd International Rice Congress, and this time it's all about — you guessed it — rice. Well, according to rice types anyway (the corn guys might have a different theory). But the scientists that unveiled the Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP), a plan for revolutionizing the world's rice crops, make a convincing case.
The thing you need to know about rice is that more than half the world relies on it every day. The other thing you need to know is that unlike other staple crops like corn, rice is still cultivated by millions of small-scale farmers. That means that both rice production and its consumption are two the biggest economic activities on the planet.
The fact that 90% of the world's rice crop comes from
How? By focusing on improving the technology used to grow rice, both production costs and prices will fall, says Robert Zeigler, director of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), a GRiSP partner. “The major way that rice research can help lift people out of poverty is to reduce the price of rice,” says Zeigler. “The majority of the world's poor depend on it. But if you just lower the price, you don't want to condemn your farmers to poverty. So you need to lower production cost simultaneously.”
The fundamental change that Zeigler and his colleagues are working toward is increasing rice yields, which, after the improvements of the first Green Revolution, have plateaued. To do that, scientists are working to develop new rice varieties tailored to farmers' particular environments (flood prone, drought prone, etc) and also trying to find a way to help “supercharge” the photosynthesis process in rice. At the same time, more basic changes are also needed – better efficiency in fertilizer use and water, and better pest and disease management.
The changes could also take a major load off the atmosphere. The report released today says that the suite of improvements would prevent the emission of greenhouse gases by some 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide, through improving land efficiency and avoided deforestation, as well as through reducing paddies' methane emissions through changes in water use.
Sound like a silver bullet? Not quite, says Zeigler. “Complex problems require complex solutions.” If you look at the number of organizational acronyms involved in the implementation of GRiSP you'll know this project falls under that umbrella. But perhaps their most complex task of all will be figuring out how to get an off-the-grid network of millions of small-scale farmers on board. “All of this we know how to do,” says Zeiger. “It's a question of getting it into farmers hands.”
‘Rice of the Prairies’ may be a Canadian hit
(thestar.com)
–
Here was a made-in-Canada grain that could catapult oats out of the breakfast cereal bowl and onto dinner plates. Here was a nutritious and versatile rice substitute that could be grown on the prairies without the need for flooding or irrigation.
“It’s so totally game-changing,” says the 41-year-old Sigvaldason, still awestruck five years later.
He trademarked the grain Cavena Nuda, for Canadian naked oats (“avena” is Latin for oats, “nuda” means naked). Wisely, he threw in a catchy nickname: Rice of the Prairies.
I stumbled upon a one-sentence mention of “rice of the prairies” on the trends page of The Old Farmer’s Almanac and was intrigued. When Sigvaldason came to town recently for a health food show, I invited him to the Star test kitchen.
He and his national sales director Marshall Galloway brought raw, cooked and frozen grains that we sampled hot and unadorned, pan-popped with Thai spices, and mixed into cold edamame-tomato and Greek-inspired salads. The frozen, cooked grain, once rinsed, tasted almost as good as fresh.
Rice of the Prairies is mildly nutty with a pleasing chew — a cross between wheatberries and brown rice. It is low glycemic, and gluten- and GMO-free. Its protein and fibre levels blow white rice away, although it has more fat.
“It’s as Canadian as it gets,” boasts Sigvaldason. “This is a no-brainer as far as good, healthy, new food.”
Sigvaldason’s family has been
farming “anything and everything” at Wedge Farms near
Burrows — a.k.a. Dr. Oats — registered dozens of oat varieties in a career that earned him an Order of Canada. Now retired, he’s thrilled that Gehl is feeding people, and even visited Arborg for a first-hand look and taste.
Sigvaldason, meanwhile, sold or rented out most of his land and switched his focus to marketing his wonder grain. He scored a spot last year on the CBC’s Dragon’s Den. To take his grain “from the field to the food industry,” he asked the show’s five rich “dragons” for $250,000 in exchange for a 20-per-cent stake in his company.
“I’ve spent my whole life on the farm and seen plagues, pestilence, floods and droughts,” says Sigvaldason, a father of two. “I figured, `What can these guys do to me?’ You’ve got 30 seconds to engage them and if you don’t, they’re on you like a pack of coyotes.”
Jim Treliving, Manitoba-born chairman of Boston Pizza International, offered $250,000 for 50-per-cent ownership. Sigvaldason accepted on air, but eventually struck a deal with an Arborg seed company that let him keep full ownership.
Now he’s busy pitching Rice of the Prairies to consumers and
chefs. Several hundred stores, including 25 in
Agriculture
“I do think it’s an interesting product, but I worry that the name is just a bit too difficult for people to get their heads around,” she says. “Think of the simplicity of ‘rice’ or ‘barley’ or the simple poetry of Italian words like ‘pasta’ and ‘risotto’ and you’ll see what I mean.”
Michael Olson, chef/professor at the Niagara Culinary
Institute, discovered Rice of the Prairies when researching the
“I loved working with it — it has a grounded, earthy flavour profile,” says Olson, who doled out samples to fellow chefs. “Cooks are always on the lookout for something cool and neat, and it doesn’t have to be crazy, high-end stuff.”
Sigvaldason now owns the licensing
rights to the seed. He hired a dozen
“As a farmer, I always looked across the fence and saw the food companies making all the profits while the farmers just grow the base product,” he explains. “I want to bring across as many people as I can.”
And he’d love to see
“Some day I would hope this is grown all over the world. I don’t need to be Bill Gates. I just think it would be really cool when we’re old and grey and swapping stories at the coffeeshop to say ‘Look at it now.’ ”
Stink bug numbers explode along East Coast
(USA Today) – This summer as the first, major population explosion of a new, invasive insect hit the middle Atlantic region, researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture were busily trying to find a natural enemy to fight it.
The sudden blossoming of brown marmorated stink bug numbers signaled the arrival of a major agricultural pest and a minor but aggravating household one.
Newly-arrived alien insects often survive under the radar
for years before their population suddenly reaches a point where they
"explode," says Douglas Luster, research leader at USDA's Beneficial
Insects Introduction Research Unit in
The stinkbugs got their name for the herbal, pungent smell they emit when frightened. This summer there was a major infestation of the brown, three-quarter-inch bugs in houses across the mid-Atlantic.
"We had three or four nights in a row when we had hundreds of them in our bedroom," says Luster. The bugs don't bite and can't fly well, so while a nuisance they're not dangerous to humans. "They vacuum up pretty well," he says.
But while annoying in the home, in the field they are
becoming a major agricultural pest. The bugs suck the juice out of corn, fruits
and other crops, making them unsalable. Back in 2005 USDA researcher Kim Hoelmer began looking to see if the brown marmorated stink bug had any natural enemies in the
To find a better biological control, Hoelmer
went to
The team is now studying these wasps in USDA's high-security
containment facility in
Introducing a non-native species to go after another
non-native species is a delicate operation because of the possible unintended
consequences. In 1930 poisonous South American cane toads were introduced into
northeast
"We're required to do a full risk assessment by USDA," says Luster. "It's going to take a couple of years."
Gowan acquires two Dow crop products
(AgPR)
M-Pede® is an OMRI certified insecticide/fungicide that controls aphids, thrips, and mites on a variety of crops including vegetables, grapes, tree fruits, tree nuts, cotton, and ornamentals. Scythe® is a non-selective herbicide used for controlling a broad spectrum of weeds. These purchases are an excellent addition to Gowan Company’s line of crop protection products and allow Dow AgroSciences to focus resources on priority solutions in its agricultural chemical portfolio, especially new molecules in the launch phase, as well as its growing biotechnology portfolio.
“This is part of Dow AgroSciences’ ongoing portfolio management activities to maximize value and further our global growth strategy,” said Pierre Flye Sainte Marie, Global Business Leader for Growth Insecticides at Dow AgroSciences.
“The acquisition of M-Pede® and Scythe® will enhance Gowan Company’s continued efforts to provide IPM solutions to growers around the world. The addition of these two products combined with Gowan’s Aza-Direct® brand solidifies our commitment to building a strong Green platform,” said Sergio Comparini, Gowan Company Business Development Manager.
Under this agreement, Gowan and its subsidiaries will start selling M-Pede® and Scythe® effective November 10, 2010. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
About Gowan
Gowan Company, based in
Learn more at www.gowanco.com
About Dow AgroSciences
Dow AgroSciences LLC, based in
Vintage tractors still ready for dirty work
(The
New York Times) – FROM
Not every gathering needs to be a concours
d’élégance where white-gloved judges probe the
undersides of pristine Duesenbergs in search of a
historically incorrect hose clamp, however. A decidedly more populist show was
the 21st Red Power Roundup, which attracted an estimated 25,000 people last
June to the LaPorte County Fairgrounds in northwest
One of more than 1,400 antique tractor events across North America in 2010 listed by Farm Collector magazine, it is considered by many in the hobby to be the World Series of farm tractor meets, a heartland counterpoint to blazer-and-ascot antique car events and casual suburban cruise nights.
To a casual spectator, the rows of gleaming red International tractors represent the steady progress of industry in modernizing crop production, but to the shrinking number of Americans rooted in farming, they represent a heroic era. From the early 20th century, tractors pulled plows and cultivating equipment, powered grain combines and hay balers, eventually hauling crops to the barn or to an elevator in town. They enabled American farmers to feed the world.
International Harvester played an important role in
mechanizing the farm, producing its first proprietary tractor design in 1908.
The company’s origins reach back to the invention of the reaper by Cyrus
McCormick in 1831, and it had a powerful influence on
By 1910 International was the country’s fourth-largest company in America by the value of its assets, making trucks and farm equipment — cotton pickers, manure spreaders and the other necessities of agriculture — as well as tractors. The agricultural division was split off and sold in the 1980s, later merging with Case.
Though tractors live a rugged life, the farmer’s reliance on them to earn a living assured a reasonable degree of mechanical care, so many survive. And they were designed for hard work.
“These tractors were made to be overhauled — no planned
obsolescence,” said Dan Steiner, a supplier of restoration parts in
As a result, when huge new machines were developed to work increasingly large farms, there was a ready supply of old tractors for restoration. And in many cases, the seasonal cycle of farm life helped to foster tractor restoration as a hobby, a productive way to fill the winter months.
For some farmers, it’s both a business and a hobby. Jim
Seymour and his father, Wayne, who run a garden tractor dealership in LaPorte, restore tractors in their garage, a process that
involves disassembly down to the bare chassis before sandblasting, fixing all
the worn or broken parts and finally painting. It’s a pursuit that can turn
into a habit: there are now some 30 tractors in the collections of
To handle the endless logistics of a major show like the Red
Power Roundup requires hundreds of dedicated volunteers. The 2010 roundup was
hosted by the northern
Jerry Smoker is president of the northern
While county fairs and farm equipment meets often feature displays of distinctive green John Deere tractors, the bright red of International machinery, which includes the Farmall models and brand, is more frequently seen because the company was for many years the largest maker of tractors.
“International Harvester made their five-millionth tractor by 1974, while it took John Deere 10 more years to hit 2 million,” said the editor of Red Power magazine, Dennis Miesner.
A bumper sticker popular among International partisans reads: “If it ain’t red, leave it in the shed.”
Finally, because International was an early maker of what became known as sport utility vehicles — the Scout and Travelall utility vehicles — a broader range of interest exists for International than for tractor-only brands.
Highlights of the 2010 roundup included popular country fair
attractions like a working border collie
demonstration, and there was an appearance by the 2009 Miss
Daily machinery demonstrations showed the versatility of tractors, using a belt drive system to power a thresher, corn sheller and hay baler, and there was an auction of 110 International tractors, memorabilia and equipment that drew hundreds of bidders.
Rounding out the rural heritage displays were blacksmithing and craft demonstrations, a quilt contest and jug band; more than 150 vendors of restoration parts, magazines, memorabilia and farm toys exhibited in several 4-H livestock pole barns and a huge outdoor lot.
In the swap meet area, so many rusty red parts were available that, more than one attendee noted, a smart shopper could build a tractor from scratch by buying the shop manual for $30 and using it to shop for all the parts needed.
Other International Harvester products, including many types
of heavy construction equipment — even freezers and
For some collectors, the tractors have become alternatives to stock market investments, with families designating tractors as assets for their children’s college fund. But that is a minor motivation; most do it for the love of the machinery. As in the art world, the issue of provenance comes up.
“I keep getting requests to authenticate items,” said Darrell Darst, editor of the club’s quarterly publication, Harvester Highlights. “ ‘Do your research’ is all I can say.”
Farm toys, being part of the traditional antique business,
attract many investors. But some collectors are taking a different approach.
One collector, Jerry Mez, for instance, decided to
create a museum with the items he accumulated, Farmall-Land,
in
“Like many, I got the bug from my father,” Mr. Mez said. “My wife says it’s a disease, but it’s one of the better ones I could have.”
What is the future of antique tractor restoration and collecting? Will a new generation carry on the tradition?
Hugh Tonagel, an agricultural
extension agent for
But James Shatava, a retired
agricultural economist from the
Among restorers it is said that tractor restoration starts
out as a hobby, but makes a grown man into a damn fool. Mr. Smoker, the
president of the northern
End Transmission