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December 9, 2011
· Earth increasingly hostile to agriculture
· Pesticides found in Canadian organics
· A rare success story in parched India
· Three named to ARS Hall of Fame
· Yule tree wars: Fake or natural
Earth increasingly hostile to agriculture
(Scientific
American)
The Horn of Africa is in the midst of its worst drought in
60 years: Crop failures have left up to 10 million at risk of famine; social
order has broken down in
That's a taste of what's to come, say scientists mapping the impact of a warming planet on agriculture and civilization.
"We think we're going to have continued dryness, at
least for the next 10 or 15 years, over East Africa," said Chris Funk, a
geographer at the U.S. Geological Society and founding member of the Climate
Hazard Group at the
Funk and other experts at the American Geophysical Union
meeting in
Even the northeastern
A series of sediment cores drilled from
"We're just beginning to map the extent, but we know it
was pervasive," she said. "There are hints of drought all the way up
to
Of course, climate change can't be blamed for all the food shortages and social unrest, several researchers cautioned. Landscape changes such as deforestation can trigger droughts, while policy choices exacerbate impacts.
Some hard-hit African countries have the highest growth
rates on the planet, and gains in agricultural productivity simply have not
kept up with those extra mouths. Per capita cereal production, for instance,
peaked worldwide in the mid-1980s, Funk said, and is decreasing everywhere. But
no place on the globe is decreasing faster than
Simple policy decisions can blunt a crisis.
Meanwhile, researchers probing the climate in pre-Columbian
More than 1,000 years ago, "significant
deforestation" throughout
The forest - and local moisture - rebounded with the population crash that followed European contact, he added. But today the region is even more denuded than during its pre-Colombian peak.
But with the frequency of droughts expected to triple in the next 100 years, researchers fear the resulting variability and stress to agriculture and civilization could prove destabilizing for many regions.
"We should take it seriously," Peteet said.
Pesticides found in Canadian organics
(CBCnews.ca)
– Some organic produce in
Records released to CBC News by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency show 23.6 per cent of the 178 organic apples tested in 2009 and 2010 contained pesticide residue.
"Based on the limited data we have, we can also say that it appears that these pesticide residues are being found in 'organic' products less frequently and at somewhat lower levels than 'conventional' produce," CFIA officials told CBC News in an email.
Dr. Walter Krol, who tests produce
for the State of
"Pesticides are ending up in produce somehow and it's not supposed to happen so there are flaws in the integrity," he said in an interview.
Krol noted that pesticides can come from several sources, including post-harvest processing, spray drift or the soil in which the produce was grown. However, he said, the CFIA's test results will not likely reassure consumers.
"If they are concerned about pesticide residues, I don't think it does a very good job of meeting those expectations," he said.
Sara Neufeld, a dedicated organic consumer in
"Whether they are a consumer of organics or not, an average consumer would think that there wouldn't be any chemicals on those products," said Neufeld, who added she does not mind paying extra for organic produce.
"A lot of what I need to do as a consumer is be able to trust where my stuff is coming from," she said. "Otherwise, I'm going to be tearing my hair out every time I pick up an apple."
Many of the 112 individual produce samples from 2010-11 contained more than one type of pesticide residue, according to CFIA documents obtained through Access to Information Act.
The agency's data showed that the organic apples that were found to have pesticide residue contained an average of 0.03 parts per million (ppm) of the fungicide thiabendazole. Conventional apples contain an average of 0.4 ppm of the substance, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2009 summary from its Pesticide Data Program.
The vast majority of the organic apples with thiabendazole fell within the range measured on conventional apples. Most of the samples were imported from other countries.
Matthew Holmes, executive director of the Canada Organic Trade Association, said pesticide contamination is likely occurring after harvest, largely during packing and processing.
"It's a concern for us. From the organic perspective, we'd like people to keep their chemicals to themselves," Holmes said. "The organic sector doesn't want to see these sorts of pesticides, and that's why we're producing products using organic methods."
Only one of the 112 samples violated the maximum pesticide residue limit allowed for safety reasons that apply to all produce. The CFIA said it investigated this one case because it potentially posed a health risk.
The other samples were sold as organic.
The CFIA sets regulations on what can be called organic, but it does not directly certify products as organic. Instead, the agency relies on certification bodies outside of government to ensure producers are complying with the rules.
To be certified as organic in
The CFIA currently does not have enough information to track down specific certifying bodies to find out how the pesticide got on certain produce — an issue the agency is trying to address.
"Unfortunately, because there's information missing, that information at this time could not be used to link to a certification body at this time … It's not possible," said Michel Saumur, the national manager of the CFIA's Canada Organic Office.
CBC News has learned of at least one case in which an organic company faced enforcement action due to the deliberate use of a prohibited pesticide.
"We feel that most of this presence is based on non-intentional contamination," Saumur said, adding that work must be done to minimize such contamination through buffer zones and other options.
According to the CFIA's Organic Production Systems General Principles and Management Standards, "Organic practices and this standard cannot assure that organic products are entirely free of residues of substances prohibited by this standard."
The standards document notes that some of the pesticide exposure is beyond the farmer's control.
Routine pesticide residue testing is not part of the certification
process in
The USDA's National Organic Program (NOP) has proposed a rule that would require organic certifiers to test produce from five per cent of the farms it certifies before the products hit store shelves.
"Residue testing plays an important role in organic certification by providing a means for monitoring compliance with the NOP and by discouraging the mislabeling of agricultural products," according to the department.
The data CBC News has received is from a special dataset retrieved for the National Organic Program from the CFIA's National Chemical Residue Monitoring Program.
The CFIA says these statistics do not provide a complete picture of the organic sector because data collection is limited, CFIA testers do not need to indicate if a product is organic or not. As well, the CFIA's Canada Organic Office does not conduct its own routine testing as part of the certification process.
Holmes said he would like to see zero pesticides in organic produce, but he added that the CFIA test results are not cause for alarm.
"Data has shown consistently that organic produce has much lower incidence of pesticides than non-organic, and so we're not seeing any big red flags out there right now," Holmes said.
"We'd obviously like to see the system work as best as it can, and we'd like to see less and less chemicals on consumers' plates, so that's why we choose organic."
A rare success story in parched India
(The
Christian Science Monitor) – In
Wankute, a tiny village located
high in the Sahyadri mountain range of the
Maharashtra state of
The men worked outside of the village to bring in enough income for their families. Women sometimes walked for a kilometer and a half (one mile) to obtain the day’s water. During the three months of annual, inevitable drought, the villagers would pay to have water tankers come in.
“The Green Revolution that transformed agriculture elsewhere
in
In 2003, the residents heard about the success of watershed development in similar nearby villages and wanted to try it for themselves. The main problem in Wankute was not that there was no rainfall, but that the limited 450 millimeters (18 in.) that fell every year did so during a short period of time, usually for less than three weeks.
To transform their community, the village partnered with the Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR), a not-for-profit NGO that works in several Indian states, to bring much-needed water and prosperity to Wankute.
Since 1996, WOTR has conducted 747 watershed projects in
Efforts were at first met with some skepticism and resistance. Villagers were especially uneasy when WOTR mandated a ban on tree felling and the free grazing of cattle. But this was necessary for the planting of new trees and grasses, which would hold the soil and moisture in place.
The main idea of the watershed development in Wankute was to build a water- treatment structure composed of bunds (ridges and ditches in the soil) and check dams. Today, the results are clear. The water tables have risen significantly, and the villagers have not imported tankers for water since the project was finished.
The vegetation planted eight years ago continues to thrive on the hillsides. And overall employment has increased because farmers can work with their crops for eight months out of the year instead of a meager three. A wide variety of more water-intensive crops now flourish, including wheat, tomato, onion, and potato. Because of this bounty, the export of foodstuffs and the import of agricultural labor have both increased.
In addition to agricultural benefits, the watershed development has also had health and social benefits for the village. There is now no shortage of potable water, reducing the risk of waterborne illnesses such as cholera and dysentery.
With their greater total income, the villagers built a new community hall, two new schools, a public health center, 150 latrines, and more roads for better transportation of goods. The women of Wankute have formed nine different self-help groups and invested in alternative-energy methods, such as solar lamps, because they can no longer cut down trees for fuel. Furthermore, because labor and resources are now both readily available in the village, men can work locally and families are more physically intact.
The introduction of watershed development has had far-reaching effects that, 10 or 15 years ago, neither the people of Wankute nor the world at large could have imagined.
• Kamaria
Greenfield is a research intern with the Nourishing the Planet project.
Three named to ARS Hall of Fame
(USDA-ARS)
Zoologist Ronald Fayer, soil scientist Ronald F. Follett and agricultural engineer Allen R. Dedrick will be honored at a ceremony in Greenbelt, Md. ARS established its Science Hall of Fame in 1986 to recognize agency researchers for lifelong achievements in agricultural sciences and technology. Recipients must be retired or eligible to retire to receive the award.
"The breadth and complexity of work conducted by this year's Hall of Fame honorees demonstrates once again that ARS scientists are global leaders in agricultural research and innovation," said ARS Administrator Edward B. Knipling. "Their efforts and results exemplify the skill, knowledge, persistence and insight we depend on to improve our daily lives."
Fayer works in the ARS
Environmental Microbial and Food Safety Laboratory in
Follett, who is being recognized for outstanding research
contributions in the enhancement of soil, water and air quality, works at the
ARS Soil Plant Nutrient Research Unit in
Dedrick, who died in 2009, is being recognized for national and international impact and leadership in the development and application of technology for efficient use of scarce water resources worldwide. He also was the Deputy Administrator of the ARS Natural Resources and Sustainable Agricultural Systems programs, and retired in 2005. During his career, he advanced the use of laser controls for land grading, a practice now widely followed in most surface-irrigated fields in the western United States and parts of the lower Mississippi River valley. Dedrick also developed a range of other innovations that significantly improved the cost-effectiveness of irrigation-system installation and operation, and his work is now used in arid agricultural systems around the world.
As USDA's s chief scientific research agency, ARS is leading
ensure high-quality, safe food, and other agricultural products;
assess the nutritional needs of Americans;
sustain a competitive agricultural economy;
enhance the natural resource base and the environment; and
provide economic opportunities for rural citizens, communities, and society as a whole.
Yule tree wars: Fake or natural
(AP) RALEIGH, N.C. - If the holidays are truly a time for peace on earth and goodwill toward all, someone forgot to tell the Christmas tree people.
For these holiday antagonists, there can be no Yule truce: It's either a natural tree grown at a farm or an artificial model that lasts year after year.
Choose wisely, each side says, because the other option can be downright dangerous, carrying risks for allergies, environmental damage and even lead.
The best choice, of course, depends on whom you ask
"Misinformation is the biggest competition," said Rick Dungey, spokesman for the National Christmas Tree Association, which represents growers of natural trees. "People think a lot of weird things about trees. ... They think they're allergic to them, or they're going to burst into flames or they're a hassle."
Thomas Harman, the founder and chief executive officer of Redwood City, Calif.-based Balsam Hill, a manufacturer of artificial trees, agreed there is plenty of misinformation. He blames much of that on the natural tree group.
"There is a perception among the National Christmas Tree Association that artificial trees are stealing their business," said Harman, who is also president of the American Christmas Tree Association. "Whether or not that's really true or Christmas tree use per capita has declined, they've historically put out a bunch of content about artificial trees that isn't true."
It's a dispute that has remained bitter even as the market for all Christmas trees, natural and artificial, has slumped since the start of the Great Recession in December 2007. That year, the National Christmas Tree Association reports that Americans bought 31.3 million natural trees and 17.4 million artificial trees. By 2010, the group said the number of natural trees sold had dropped to 27 million, and the number of artificial trees had more than halved, to 8.2 million.
The American Christmas Tree Association, formed in 2008, disputes those figures, saying artificial tree sales average 10 million to 11 million a year.
ACTA won't reveal membership numbers but said members include merchants who sell both real and artificial trees. Harman said the organization supports both kinds of trees, but the group's website is slanted to artificial ones.
In an effort to reverse the sales slump, the National Christmas Tree Association asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to approve a 15-cent fee on each tree sold to raise money for natural tree promotion efforts. The USDA backed the fee but delayed the move after criticism by conservative critics, who accused President Barack Obama of taxing Christmas trees.
In the great debate over natural or artificial trees, it's easy to find people with strong views on each side.
Katie Dow, a 44-year-old photographer from
"It never looked right," she said. "It made me nauseous."
For her first Christmas after she graduated from college, Dow bought a natural tree, and her friends bought ornaments for her. One year, her mother wanted her to put up the artificial tree for a Christmas Eve dinner. Dow refused.
"I literally took the tree I had decorated, put it in the Jeep — decorations and all — and put it in the living room for the party," Dow said.
Chris O'Donnell was a live tree person all his life — until he lost his job the day after Thanksgiving 2010 and a friend loaned him an artificial tree.
"I was one of those live-trees-til-death
people," said O'Donnell, 44, of
The loaned artificial tree changed all that.
"Once we had a fake tree in the house and I didn't have to clean up needles and I didn't have to climb under it twice a day to water it, I kind of wondered why I ever bothered with the real ones," he said.
O'Donnell is now the director of sales for a technology company. He recently paid $110 for a 7-foot artificial tree.
"I guess if we miss the pine smell, we can buy some candles," he said.
To draw people to their sides, both tree associations make claims about the safety of the other products, with topics including allergies and lead dangers. The NCTA points to the artificial trees that end up in the landfill, while real trees can be recycled, for example. The ACTA published a study on its website this month that concluded either kind of tree has a negligible impact on the environment.
Safety-testing company Underwriters Laboratories Inc. said fire is the biggest threat, not the possibility that artificial trees contain lead. The company notes that natural and some artificial trees can burn up in as little as a minute.
"That's why we test for fire," said John Drengenberg, UL's director of consumer safety. "It has not been for lead."
In 2004, researchers at the
And they noted that some tree lights also contain lead.
Some also claim one tree or the other is worse for causing sneezing or sniffles, but allergists are divided on which is worse.
Dr. Neeta Ogden, an allergist in
"The main reason is that people store them in their
homes in the basement and attic, and those are places where they're going to
attract dust and mold,"
But Dr. Neil Kao, an allergist in
For patients with severe asthma and sinus problems, he recommends a poster of a tree. "It's not very touchy-feely, but it serves the purpose."
End Transmission