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November 17, 2011
· UN warns of staple crop virus ‘epidemic’
· US ag exports boom as economy struggles
· Bluebirds earn their keep in vineyard housing
· Salmonella can infect tomato through leaves
· Dutch find energy answer not in the wind
UN warns of staple crop virus ‘epidemic’
(BBC News) –
UN scientists are warning that a virus attacking the cassava plant is nearing
an epidemic in parts of
Cassava is one of the world's most important crops providing up to a third of the calorie intake for many people.
The food and agriculture organisation of the UN says the situation is urgent and are calling for an increase in funding for surveillance.
None of the varieties of cassava being distributed to
farmers in
Cassava is a global food source of particular importance in
But like many crops it is threatened by a number of pests and diseases that hinder its production. Viral infections have periodically wiped out the crop in some regions leading to famine.
Now the UN's Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) says that another virus is threatening the crop in large
parts of
The scientists say the Cassava Brown Streak Disease (CBSD)
is on the verge of becoming an epidemic. It first appeared in
According to Mike Robson, a plant production and protection officer with the FAO it's hard to know exactly where the virus is as surveillance systems are poor.
"It is hard to say precisely but we're finding it where we go looking for it "
Robson says that a particular problem with this virus is that farmers may think they have a healthy crop until the harvest, as the symptoms only show on the roots.
"That's a particularly distressing situation where a farmer thinks he has a healthy field of cassava but when they come to uproot it, their expectations of food are not going to be met."
But there are some strategies that can help reduce the impact of the infection, according to Mike Robson.
"The main ways of controlling are to try and control the movement of planting material. Cassava is propagated from cuttings and if you move a cutting that has the infection you're effectively moving it to a new area"
"The other thing that farmers can do if they suspect they have the disease is to harvest early. They will get smaller roots of cassava but they will be less affected by the disease - it shows up late in the production cycle."
The FAO scientists say they are in a race against time with this particular strain of virus. They are calling for a rapid increase in funding to improve surveillance. They also want to improve training for farmers and they want to ban the distribution of infected plants between districts.
Some eight varieties of the crop are under development by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture which show some level of resistance to CBSD - It is hoped that these varieties could be made widely available within two years.
US
(AP)
The gains aren't limited to products like corn, soybeans,
rice, beef and pork.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Vilsack rattled off several reasons why agricultural exports are doing so well when much of the economy is stagnant: demand in China and other developing nations, the growing productivity of American farmers and ranchers, a positive perception of American agricultural products overseas, and aggressive marketing efforts by farm groups and the USDA.
"As long as we continue to focus on those countries with these emerging middle classes, and focus on countries that are open to trade agreements, that open their markets as much as our markets are open, we're always going to do well," Vilsack said.
He pointed to the new trade deal with
Exports in general have been a bright spot in the struggling
High prices for farm products explains much of the increase in value for agriculture exports -- the same products shipped overseas are worth much more today than they were 10 years ago. But the USDA also has done a "great job" of promoting agricultural exports, said Frank Vargo, vice president for international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers.
Vargo, who spent three decades in
trade policy positions at the Commerce Department, said he was always
"admiring and jealous" of the USDA's export programs. The agency
spends about double what the Commerce Department spends on export promotion, which
is a big reason why one-third of
"Our ag exports are a strong point for the United States and we'd like them to stay that way," Vargo said, "but we'd like manufacturing, even though manufacturing exports are 80 percent of our exports, we want steps taken to make them grow faster."
Vilsack, who left for
He'll then go to
The USDA credits agricultural exports with nibbling away at
the
Overall export totals don't tell the entire story of how farmers are benefiting, however.
Take corn, for example. A recent report by University of Illinois agricultural economists Scott Irwin and Darrel Good pointed out that while fewer tons of corn are being shipped overseas, exports of products made from corn, such as ethanol, distillers dried grains and pork from corn-fed pigs have skyrocketed. So corn farmers are coming out way ahead overall and that's what matters, Good said.
The growth in exports hasn't cost consumers much because farmers also have increased productivity, Vilsack said. Higher fuel costs have been a more significant factor in food price increases, he said.
"I think it is important for the American consumer to understand they've got a pretty good deal right now," Vilsack said. "Roughly 6 to 7 percent of our paychecks are spent on food. When you compare that to most developed nations, we fare very, very well."
Bluebirds earn their keep in vineyard housing
(The
New York Times) – In an innovative study, nest boxes installed at a
“Placing songbird nesting boxes in agricultural landscapes
can provide suitable nesting sites for a lot of birds that used to be plentiful
100 or 200 years ago but lost their natural landscapes,” said Julie Jedlicka, an ornithologist at the
Dr. Jedlicka set out to study whether installing the nest boxes would help attract the birds and reduce pests. Her research, published last week in the journal PLoS One, confirmed her hunch. Compared with control areas in the same vineyard that did not have the nest boxes, areas with the boxes attracted twice as many birds early in the nesting season and had 2.6 times as many birds later in the breeding season.
Western bluebirds were responsible for much of the increase: 313 of them were counted at the nest box sites, versus 39 in control portions of the vineyard.
Over all, 1,122 birds representing 25 species made an appearance. Both the nest box sites and the sites without boxes had about the same number of species present, but the numbers of insect-eating species was 50 percent greater in areas with the nest boxes. Insectivorous birds removed about 2.4 times as many insect larvae at the nest box sites as they did in the control areas.
Dr. Jedlicka’s idea is not new. From 1885 to 1940, the federal Department of Agriculture devoted resources to studying “economic ornithology,” or using birds as biological controls for agricultural pests. After pesticides like DDT were developed during World War II, that approach largely faded in favor of a quick chemical fix. Now Dr. Jedlicka envisions a revival of economic ornithology through the lens of ecosystem services and bird conservation.
As cavity-nesting songbirds, bluebirds are particularly well suited to the task. Although they look for enclosures to build their nests, they tend to prefer those found within otherwise open spaces, and agricultural fields fit the bill. What is more, “they respond rapidly to new nesting opportunities,” Dr. Jedlicka said. Within one year of placing about 100 nest boxes in two vineyard study sites, bluebird families occupied over 75 percent of the boxes, she said.
Bluebirds are not picky about what they eat: caterpillars, beetles, and grasshoppers are all fair game. A bluebird family of five nestlings requires 125 grams of arthropods per day, and bluebird pairs can produce two broods per year.
The birds probably won’t replace farm pesticide use entirely. Some pests, like spider mites, are too small for bluebirds to consume.
Dr. Jedlicka hopes that wineries will gradually adopt the “Bird Friendly®” stamp, a certification already widely available for coffee growers. Vintners could then market their products to the growing eco-friendly consumer sector while helping the birds.
Wine growers aren’t the only farmers who can benefit: the
combined range of North America’s three bluebird species extends across the
Nest boxes can be used to attract bluebirds to urban gardens as well. “I imagine it would be difficult to find an agricultural system where this wouldn’t work,” Dr. Jedlicka said.
Salmonella can infect tomato through leaves
(University of Florida) – Food-safety experts have long believed that Salmonella bacteria could only enter tomatoes through wounds in the stem or fruit — but a new University of Florida laboratory study shows it can also happen another way.
Plant pathologist Ariena van Bruggen, a professor in UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, published a paper today in the online journal PLoS One, with research findings that show — for the first time — that Salmonella can enter tomato plants through intact leaves, travel through the plant and end up in the fruit itself.
But she says she can’t stress enough that it isn’t at all easy for it to happen, even in the lab, and would be unlikely under field conditions.
“The message is that yes, (Salmonella) can be internalized in tomato, but it’s rare — the chance is so low,” she said. “I would tell consumers not to worry too much.”
Although van Bruggen, a member of UF’s Emerging Pathogens Institute, described her experiment as a “worst-case scenario,” she said the findings suggest tomato growers and packers should continue to review their already-stringent safety standards, taking a look at factors such as irrigation water sources, the possibility of wild animals getting too close to plants and the use of surfactants.
Keith Schneider, a food safety expert and IFAS faculty member, called the study’s findings intriguing, but said hand-washing by consumers and food handlers is still likely to have the single biggest impact on whether people become ill from anything they eat.
“There is probably a far bigger risk of people becoming sick from not washing their hands, or their kids not washing their hands, than the possibility of this route of infection occurring in nature,” he said.
Tomatoes are a $619 million annual industry in
Salmonella is among the most common foodborne illnesses, often spread by raw or undercooked meat, poultry or eggs, but sometimes through contaminated produce. It can cause abdominal pain, fever, nausea and vomiting.
Results from the 2 1/2 -year study were published today in the online, open-access journal Public Library of Sciences (PLoS) One. To test the hypothesis that Salmonella might be able to enter tomato leaves, van Bruggen and two postdoctoral researchers briefly dipped one leaf from each of 84 tomato plants into a potent solution that contained high concentrations of Salmonella, plus a surfactant commonly used by tomato growers to ensure that pesticides or fungicides stay on the plants. Another 42 plants were left as a control group.
Later, they tested adjacent, non-inoculated leaves and the tomatoes themselves.
The study was conducted over a 10-month period and then replicated.
In the study’s first phase, nine tomatoes from one inoculated plant tested positive for Salmonella. In the second, Salmonella was found in adjacent, non-inoculated leaves from eight tomato plants; as well as 12 tomatoes from two plants that were leaf-inoculated with a different strain of Salmonella.
Reggie Brown, manager of the Florida Tomato Committee, which
has regulatory authority over most of the state’s tomato production, said the
industry has some of the most stringent safety standards in agriculture,
anywhere. In
“Food safety is never an absolute, but we are doing everything that good science and good practices tell us to do to produce the safest product possible,” he said. “Ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine percent of produce is safe.”
Dutch find energy answer not in the wind
EGMOND AAN ZEE,
Towering over the waves of the
The 36 turbines -- each one the height of a 30-storey building -- produce enough electricity to meet the needs of more than 100,000 households each year.
But five years later the green future looks a long way off. Faced with the need to cut its budget deficit, the Dutch government says offshore wind power is too expensive and that it cannot afford to subsidise the entire cost of 18 cents per kilowatt hour -- some 4.5 billion euros last year.
The government now plans to transfer the financial burden to households and industrial consumers in order to secure the funds for wind power and try to attract private sector investment.
It will start billing consumers and companies in January 2013 and simultaneously launch a system under which investors will be able to apply to participate in renewable energy projects.
But the new billing system will reap only a third of what was previously available to the industry in subsidies -- the government forecasts 1.5 billion euros every year -- while the pricing scale of the investment plan makes it more likely that interested parties will choose less expensive technologies than wind.
The outlook for Dutch wind projects seems bleak.
COUNTRY OF WINDMILLS
For centuries, the
Now however, one of the most densely populated countries in
Europe -- with 489 people per square kilometre (0.6
miles) compared to 356 in
Arguments over the high cost and maintenance of sea-based turbines, as well as complaints from residents about unsightly land-based models, have brought the Dutch to an impasse.
Offshore wind farms produce more electricity than onshore ones but it costs twice as much as onshore wind power due to the higher cost of materials, more expensive drilling methods, and more complex maintenance.
Wind turbines in the sea need to be more robust to withstand strong winds and salt water; their maintenance some miles away from the coast requires special equipment and transportation.
Drilling the seabed is more expensive as it requires a specialised workforce and equipment. Then there's the additional cost of connecting the offshore farms to the grid.
Onshore, wind turbines face local resistance.
In 1994, a group of entrepreneurial farmers around the Dutch
town of
The project has since been adapted to meet changes in legislation and 20 years after it was launched, construction may finally start this year and be completed in 2014. The only thing holding up the project now is a lawsuit filed by local residents. They say the 30-metre-high wind turbines will spoil their views.
"If we have wind turbines here this old picture will be destroyed," said the mayor, Jaap Kroon. "We are also concerned about the safety and noise."
Ironically Urk itself used to be an island until windmills were used to drain the surrounding land and connect it to the mainland. The Dutch Wind Energy Association says about half the country's onshore wind projects such as the one in Urk are disputed.
"People don't want big wind turbines in their backyards," said Kasper Wallet, an energy consultant. "They think it will impact the value of their property."
SHORT-TERM SAVINGS?
Renewable energy meets just four percent of the
"We have come to the conclusion that the most likely targets with the current policy to be reached will be in the range of 8 to 12 percent," said Paul van den Oosterkamp, manager of the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), an independent institute for renewable energy.
Under the government's new system aimed at attracting private sector involvement, known as SDE+, investors will be able to apply in four phases to participate in renewable energy projects, with government subsidies set between 9 and 15 cents per kilowatt hour of produced electricity they produce.
A spokeswoman for the ministry of economic affairs, agriculture and innovation said this would not cover the current subsidy cost of offshore wind projects.
"Some technologies like offshore wind, tidal and wave energy and solar are on average more expensive than the SDE+ maximum cost price," said Esther Benschop in an email to Reuters.
Dutch power firms say wind remains key to meeting green energy targets but is still too expensive for them to manage alone.
Dutch grid operator TenneT, which became a major player in German electricity transmission after it bought E.ON's high-voltage grid, has complained about the cost of connecting offshore wind farms to the national grid because of the expensive materials, particularly cables, involved.
It currently has nine projects in
Nico Bolleman -- managing director of Netherlands-based Blue Technologies, a company which develops platforms for offshore wind turbines -- says fairer comparisons need to be made when calculating the cost of wind power.
"Even if you take everything into account, wind energy is not expensive. Take into account the hidden costs of fossil fuels. For example, transport of coal generates more carbon dioxide emissions and no-one calculates that into the electricity price."
Others insist the negative impact will be short-term.
"The new subsidy scheme is not supportive, (but) offshore wind is a long-term game," said Greven Hein, spokesman for Dutch utilities firm Eneco, recently given subsidies to build a 129 megawatt offshore wind farm.
"In a couple of years it will be back on the agenda."
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