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December 16, 2011
· USDA putting farmland on a fertilizer diet
· Closing gender gap key to food security
· Scientists test crops for biofuel potential
· Monsanto sues seed firms for royalties
· Brandt returns to NASCAR in 2012
USDA putting farmland on a fertilizer diet
(NPR.org)
– The
Yet this document represents the agency's best attempt to solve one of the country's — and the world's — really huge environmental problems: The nitrogen and phosphorus that pollute waterways.
There's a simple reason why this problem is so big, and so hard to solve. Farmers have to feed their fields, before those fields can feed us. Without fertilizer, harvests would dwindle. But lakes, estuaries, and coastal waters lie downstream from highly fertilized farmland, and now they are choking to death on too much nutrition.
Those nutrients typically come from commercial fertilizer, but they don't have to. Organic growers need to feed their fields, too. Farmers can also use animal manure (which is really recycled fertilizer from the fields that fed those animals) and legumes — crops like alfalfa or chickpeas, which add nitrogen it to the soil.
The problem is, those nutrients don't stay where they're needed. They migrate into groundwater, streams, or the air, and everywhere, they cause problems. They feed the growth of microbes and algae, turning clear water cloudy and depriving fish and other creatures of essential oxygen. (There are other important sources of nutrient pollution as well, including urban sewage and the burning of fossil fuels, but fertilizer is the biggest.)
In the
So around the world, environmentalists and scientists are mobilizing to fight the plague of over-nutrition. That's where the new USDA document comes in. It lays out a host of steps that farmers can take — and will have to take, if they get funding from certain USDA programs — to minimize the spread of nutrients outside farm fields.
Essentially, it involves putting farmland on a sensible diet. Only feed the land as much as it really needs. And don't apply fertilizer, including manure, when the crops don't need it. Also, try to capture and store any excess nutrients. For instance, grow wintertime "cover crops" that can trap free nitrogen before it leaches into groundwater.
Dave White, the head of USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service, told reporters that the new guidelines "could have a tremendous, continental impact." The guidelines do not have the force of actual regulations, but state governments can make them mandatory. Maryland, which is fighting a desperate battle to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, already requires its farmers to come up with detailed "nutrient management plans" that are supposed to minimize, and hopefully prevent, nutrient runoff.
At the briefing, White suggested that farmers will follow these guidelines voluntarily, simply out of economic self-interest. Fertilizer is expensive, and wasting it costs money. "If you're looking for someone who wants to regulate agriculture, you're talking to the wrong guy," he said.
Yet a long-running experiment at
Ken Staver, a research scientist
for the
Closing gender gap key to food security
"Unless they are at the centre of the future strategies for food security, we will not get it right," David Nabarro, the UN Secretary-General's special representative for Food Security and Nutrition said.
Nabarro said the food security challenge was about ensuring access as well as expanding production over the coming years.
"Our main concern right now is with the very unequal access to the food which is already being produced. Although there is enough food to go around right now, over 900 million people are chronically hungry," he said, at an event organized to coincide with a Chatham House conference on Food Security.
Ann Tutwiler, deputy director-general (for knowledge) at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, told the conference that improving the productivity of women farmers was a key goal.
She noted that studies in
"If we narrow that (gender) gap, we can help more than 100 million people out of poverty and hunger," said Shenggen Fan, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute.
HIDDEN HUNGER
Fan said around two billion people were affected by "hidden hunger" as they don't get the micronutrients they need. This can damage health and mental development.
"The challenges remain, particularly as the population continues to grow," adding some projections suggested there would be more than 10 billion people by the end of the century.
"Business as usual is not enough. New technologies are needed and they have to be smallholder friendly, environmentally friendly and gender friendly," he said, adding women farmers had less access to land, water and agricultural services.
UN's Nabarro said smallholder farmers were "the most important actors" in determining the ways in which water, land and energy were available for future generations.
"They can prove to be very effective as custodians of the environment. They can also, if they are not helped, have a negative impact on the environment," he said.
Nabarro said smallholder farmers were most easily able to improve production if they are helped to organize into groups such as co-operatives.
Michael Nkonu, Executive Director,
Fairtrade
"Producer organizations are going to be a key area of making the change and we need to continue to focus on that," he told the conference.
Scientists test crops for biofuel potential
(The
Wenatchee World)
The smell of dry hay fills the air. Machinery whirs. Dust coats the floor. There is a reason research assistants wear masks.
“You get down to it, it’s dirty
work,” said Steve Fransen, a research agronomist at
the Washington State University Irrigated Agriculture Research and
He means research, not farming, but farming is what WSU Prosser researches. And farming is the first step for the biofuels industry that Fransen and others swear is about to burst.
Fransen, a product of a cattle ranching family, is wrapping up his eighth year investigating growing techniques, climates, varieties, irrigation, rotation and all things farming for feedstock, the plant material that engineers and biochemists turn into fuel.
Among the crops are mustard, soybeans, rapeseed, wheat residue and a native Midwestern grass, switchgrass.
Lately, the Northwest biofuels scene has been abuzz with
activity and developments that hint at a full-fledged industry in the making.
Proponents say it will create jobs, give farmers a new market and wean the
The U.S. Department of Agriculture this fall made its
largest grant ever — $80 million for five years — to the
Construction of a new commercial production facility is
scheduled to start in
In fact, the Navy’s first 5,000 gallons of test fuel came from seeds pressed at Sunnyside’s Natural Selection Farms more than a year ago.
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Seattle, has encouraged Washington farmers to apply for a USDA program that would pay them to grow camelina at 1.5 times what they receive for keeping land in the conservation reserve program.
To join the fun, WSU Prosser is converting its greenhouse boilers to run on biodiesel. “We’re going to put our money where our mouth has been the last few years,” Fransen said.
Much of the research in recent years has been aimed at
disarming those who criticize the production of fuel instead of food.
To combat that, researchers have been studying non-food crops, such as camelina. Some plants grow on marginal ground, require little water and can be used as rotations for potatoes or wheat.
“The diversity of cropping is only limited to your imagination,” said Hal Collins, a soil microbiologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Lately, Fransen and Collins are
high on switchgrass, a haylike
plant native to the
They know switchgrass grows in
sunny and irrigated Central Washington two to three times as well as in the
It also can be fed to cattle, though it’s toxic to horses, sheep or goats. That’s where dusty building No. 117C comes in.
Inside, mask-clad research assistants grind switchgrass — and other biofuel feedstocks — into 40-gram bags of powder, labeled by variety, date of harvest and plot number.
Between each bag they painstakingly clean the countertop grinders, encased in plastic to mitigate dust in the room, to avoid contamination. They spend more time cleaning than grinding.
“It just takes patience because the machines, they’re not very quick,” said Griselda Gondinez, 38.
One thing nice about switchgrass: It puts out 4.5 units of energy for every one that it takes to make it. Corn is more like 1.2 units.
“The potential is there,” Fransen said. “We can do this.”
Monsanto sues seed firms for royalties
(stltoday.com) – Monsanto Co. is suing six seed companies acquired by rival, E.I. du Pont de Nemours, accusing them of not paying royalties.
The Creve Coeur-based biotech seed giant filed a lawsuit in federal court district court in St. Louis Wednesday, saying the companies - Agventure Inc., Doebler's Pennsylvania Hybrids Inc., Hoegemeyer Hybrids Inc., Nutech Seed, Seed Consultants Inc., and Terral Seed Inc. - failed to pay fees for using Roundup Ready corn and soybean seeds.
The companies were all acquired by DuPont's Hi-Bred International.
The suit says that Pioneer, in 2007, launched a program called PROaccess that allowed the companies to circumvent the licensing agreements they signed with Monsanto, prior to being bought by Pioneer.
As a result, the lawsuit says, Monsanto lost "tens of millions in royalties" that the companies were required to pay for selling soybean and corn seed containing Monsanto's Roundup Ready technologies.
In 2009, Monsanto sued Pioneer for combining a DuPont-developed technology with Monsanto-developed technology. In 2010, a federal judge ruled that DuPont was not licensed to do so.
Brandt returns to NASCAR in 2012
SPRINGFIELD, IL, (AgPR), – BRANDT announced this week they are returning to Turner Motorsports as the primary sponsor of the No. 31 BRANDT Chevrolet driven by championship contender Justin Allgaier. Allgaier finished the 2011 season third in the overall NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) championship point standings, notching one win, six top-five finishes and 17 top-10 finishes, with the win coming at Chicagoland Speedway, the home track of BRANDT and Allgaier.
BRANDT President and CEO, Rick C. Brandt, is enthusiastic about the company’s return to NNS competition with Turner Motorsports.
“We are extremely pleased with the outcome of our first season in NASCAR and look forward to returning as a championship contending team with Turner Motorsports and Justin Allgaier in the Nationwide Series,” said Brandt. “We look to expand on the successes we had with the program both on and off the track in 2011 and take the program to the next level in 2012.”
In 2012, BRANDT plans to work with other agricultural organizations to put an “all agriculture” car on the track, helping to spotlight the hard work and dedication that makes agriculture a leading global industry.
Turner Motorsports owner, Steve Turner, welcomed BRANDT back on board as an integral part of his NNS program.
“We are thrilled to have BRANDT back as a primary partner for the 2012 season,” said Turner. “Just like Turner Motorsports, BRANDT is a family-based company, whose values and ideals align well with ours. Also, Justin [Allgaier] is a great fit for BRANDT, having grown up not far from the company headquarters. We believe 2011 was a great start to our partnership, but plan for the 2012 season to be even better as we contend for more wins, and ultimately, a Nationwide Series championship.”
Allgaier, a Riverton,
About Brandt Consolidated, Inc.: BRANDT was founded in 1953 to help farmers adopt new and profitable technologies for their operations. The company has experienced aggressive growth under the leadership of President and CEO Rick Brandt. Innovation, technology and strong customer service are a few of the core beliefs that have made BRANDT a leader in today’s agriculture industry. Brandt’s focus is providing the products and services that gives growers the best opportunity for maximum return on their investment and build a stronger, healthier and more abundant food supply. Visit BRANDT on the web at: www.brandt.co
About Turner Motorsports: Turner Motorsports, LLC,
established in 1999, has completed its sophomore season of NASCAR competition.
Owned by
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