December 29, 2011· Farmers markets flourish in winter snows · Scientists a-buzz: Superbee combats mites · Young farmers break the traditional mold · Growers may contribute to GM corn resistance · Apple rain? Wackiest produce story of the year! · Happy New Year: AgLineNews returns Jan. 3 Farmers markets flourish in winter snows(npr.org) – If you're a fresh vegetable lover, it's hard to get excited about what's available in the supermarket produce section in the dead of winter. Whatever is there often has made a long journey from a field in a distant, sunny locale and been sprayed with something to keep it looking fresh. It's usually a little worse for the wear. But winter veggies from your local farmer may be right under your nose for the picking, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Earlier this month, the agency announced that winter farmers markets are taking off. Since 2010, these markets have increased 38 percent across the country to more than 1,200 sites. You can scout out the closest one through the National Farmers Market Directory.
But even though more farmers are finding a way to maintain the harvest through the cold months, and get crops to market, coaxing vegetables out of the ground when the air is chilly and the wind brisk is tough work. That's why some universities that work with farmers have made winter production a new research priority. "Winter farmers markets
showing up throughout A lot of simple measures already exist to help cold weather
crops like green and root vegetables along. Some farmers, like Zach Lester and
Georgia O'Neal in Other farmers prefer low tunnels to protect cold-hardy crops
from the elements. They're much cheaper and simpler than high tunnels, and
usually only two-feet tall. (Check out this nifty tunnel primer from This year, the folks up at "We also want to preserve the harvest," Helms tells The Salt. That means improving root storage and cold storage so that fall vegetables last deep into the winter. Good, hearty seeds are also key to growing vegetables that beat the cold. "We want high productivity and flavor," she says. Scientists a-buzz: Superbee combats mites(The Washington Post) – On a farm on the outskirts of Frederick, Md., Kelly Rausch and Adam Finkelstein crack open a wooden beehive whose design dates to the 19th century. Inside, they point out a superbee they have made for the 21st century. In two months, the carefully bred queen bee has built a large, productive colony that knows how to cluster against the cold and fill the winter larder with honey. More important, her bees have sought out and destroyed a sneaky parasitic mite that feeds on their baby sisters. “The bees are definitely taking care of everything,” said Finkelstein from behind his veil. The desire for a bee that will look after itself may seem pretty basic. But with as many as one-third of honeybee colonies routinely dying off each year and the rest requiring extraordinary care, the quest for a better bee has become critical. Scientists are trying to find the cause of colony collapse disorder, the five-year-old phenomenon of worker bees suddenly disappearing. Other maladies abound and may be a factor in the disorder: new pests and diseases, the effects of pesticides and the strain of industrial-scale pollination. Farmers rely on the insect not just for honey, but also to pollinate much of our food. From their five bee yards in The object: a queen that will pass on to her colony the traits of disease and pest resistance, gentleness, productivity and winter hardiness. The single greatest threat is an Asian mite called the varroa. It feeds on honeybee young and adults and spreads viruses. Commercial beekeepers have turned to heavy feeding and
medication to try to keep hives strong in advance of their biggest gig of the
year. In the new year, beekeepers will assemble more
than a million hives — half the nation’s stock — in the almond groves of One of the bright spots has been the development of a bee that battles the mite. Marla Spivak, an entomologist at
the Separately, scientists at the U. S. Department of
Agriculture’s honeybee lab in Tom Glenn, of Glenn Apiaries in As vital as the hygienic bee is, the breeder must preserve existing desirable traits — a reluctance to sting or swarm, for example, as well as genetic diversity as a hedge against future diseases or pests. “That’s why gains are so slow,” said Susan Cobey, a bee geneticist at the Finkelstein, however, says he thinks he is close to achieving his primary aim of creating a bee that can survive with just basic husbandry. He says he hasn’t medicated his hives in 14 years. Another challenge is that unlike with apple or cattle breeding, for example, the average bee breeder cannot control the male line. The queen mates on the wing with 2o or so drones from surrounding colonies. The most able breeders are getting around this by artificially inseminating virgin queens with the semen from known drone stock, a technique perfected by Cobey. Only a handful of hybridizers can do it. Glenn is one. Rausch is another. Creating a superbee is one thing, getting professional beekeepers to accept it is another. For now at least, there is enormous resistance by the commercial beekeeping industry to using improved bee stock without the continued regimen of medication and supplemental feeding. “The large commercial beekeepers are essentially farmers,
and they’re risk averse,” said Robert Danka, a research entomologist at the
government’s Pat Heitkam, a major queen
producer in Under a new initiative, entomologists are working with queen
producers in Near-term salvation may come from backyard hobbyists, who are more willing to risk losing an unmedicated colony. Karla Eisen of the Prince William Regional Beekeepers Association tracked the fortunes of more than 40 hives over two years and found the survival rate of locally sourced hives and queens — most of them from Rausch and Finkelstein — significantly outperformed traditionally sourced queens and bee packages from the South. After two winters, 74 percent of the local colonies were still alive compared with 40?percent of the Southern bees. “They call it the James Bond approach,” Spivak said. “Live and let die. You keep colonies without any medications. In theory it sounds good, except you reduce the gene pool” by losing bees that might have other valuable breeding traits. Everyone agrees that a bee that could survive pests without
the stresses of chemicals “would make beekeeping a lot easier,” said Reed M.
Johnson, an entomologist at Young farmers break traditional mold(SFGate.com)
– The average age of a farmer in
The need is especially acute, given that experts are
forecasting that the world will have to double its food supply to keep up with
a booming population - growing from 7 billion people to 9 billion by 2050.
Farming also is a $37.5 billion business in
"We are leaders," she said. "Being one of only five Mediterranean climates in the world, we produce the food - fruits, vegetables and nuts - that have the greatest health benefits."
But how do you convince people that back-breaking work, risky conditions and low profit yields are a good career move?
Bucking the norm
Oddly enough, Ross said, there's a whole crop of greenhorns willing to take the reins. But they're decidedly different from the face of the traditional farmer or rancher. And their methods - everything from urban rooftop gardening to the latest in conservation and sustainability practices - buck the old norm.
"We're seeing an interest from young people who don't come from farming families," Ross said, adding that last year a record-breaking 70,000 students enrolled in their high school Future Farmers of America program.
Craig McNamara, an organic walnut and olive grower and president of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture, knows the difficulties of farming and is concerned.
"Our nation needs 100,000 new farmers in a short amount of time," he said.
The 61-year-old doesn't know if his own three children will
take over his farm, Sierra Orchards in Winters (
Poppy Davis, the USDA's national program leader for small
farms and beginning farmers and ranchers, said
"The next generation doesn't have to be lineal descendants," she said. "While it might be good public policy to say this land needs to stay in farming or ranching, who are we to say, 'This land needs to stay in the same family.' "
While
"There are lots of people starting whole different
lives in their 50s," she said. "And for a lot of the new farmers in
There are other changes, too. It used to be that farming and ranching required large swaths of land and expensive equipment. Not anymore.
"A young man came to me four years ago and said he wanted to farm," McNamara said. "He was a graduate from UC Santa Cruz. To this day, he's farming without owning land or a tractor." McNamara leases the young farmer some of his Winters land. As for the tractor, McNamara pitches in with his.
Inspired by
Marisa Alcorta, 34, of
"I came back completely inspired," she said. Getting the capital to start a farm was overwhelming, but when she met three women with a similar goal, they joined forces. The owner of Bridgeway Farms in Winters leased them 16 open acres and 4 acres of peach, nectarine and apricot trees at a very low price, Alcorta said. The women plan to pitch in about $5,000 each to start a community-supported agriculture business. They will sell 20 to 30 public shares in Cloverleaf Farm at Bridgeway in the form of weekly or monthly produce boxes.
"It's the first farming opportunity that I've come across that feels doable," she said.
There are even smaller operations taking root across the state, including public vegetable gardens in city vacant lots, rooftop gardens and urban farms, said Ross, the agriculture secretary.
"Eighteen to 20 percent of Growers may contribute to GM corn resistance(Associated Press) – One of the nation's most widely planted crops — a genetically engineered corn plant that makes its own insecticide — may be losing its effectiveness because a major pest appears to be developing resistance more quickly than scientists expected. Scientists also admit part of the problem may be the fault of the farmers themselves. The When it was introduced in 2003, so-called Bt corn seemed like the answer to farmers' dreams: It would allow growers to bring in bountiful harvests using fewer chemicals because the corn naturally produces a toxin that poisons western corn rootworms. The hybrid was such a swift success that it and similar varieties now account for 65 percent of all U.S. corn acres — grain that ends up in thousands of everyday foods such as cereal, sweeteners and cooking oil. But over the last few summers, rootworms have feasted on the roots of Bt corn in parts of four Midwestern states, suggesting that some of the insects are becoming resistant to the crop's pest-fighting powers. Scientists say the problem could be partly the result of farmers who've planted Bt corn year after year in the same fields. Most farmers rotate corn with other crops in a practice long used to curb the spread of pests, but some have abandoned rotation because they need extra grain for livestock or because they have grain contracts with ethanol producers. Other farmers have eschewed the practice to cash in on high corn prices, which hit a record in June. "Right now, quite frankly, it's very profitable to grow
corn," said Michael Gray, a A scientist recently sounded an alarm throughout the biotech
industry when he published findings concluding that rootworms in a handful of Bt cornfields in Similar crop damage has been seen in parts of Without strong winds, wet soil or both, plants can be
damaged at the roots but remain upright, concealing the problem. He said the
damage he observed in "The analogy I often use with growers is that we're looking at an iceberg and all we see is the tip of the problem," Ostlie said. "And it's a little bit like looking at an iceberg through fog because the only time we know we have a problem is when we get the right weather conditions." Seed maker Monsanto Co. created the Bt strain by splicing a gene from a common soil organism called Bacillus thuringiensis into the plant. The natural insecticide it makes is considered harmless to people and livestock. Scientists always expected rootworms to develop some resistance to the toxin produced by that gene. But the worrisome signs of possible resistance have emerged sooner than many expected. The Environmental Protection Agency recently chided
Monsanto, declaring in a Nov. 22 report that it wasn't doing enough to monitor
suspected resistance among rootworm populations. The report urged a tougher
approach, including expanding monitoring efforts to a total of seven states,
including Monsanto insists there's no conclusive proof that rootworms have become immune to the crop, but the company said it regards the situation seriously and has been taking steps that are "directly in line" with federal recommendations. Some scientists fear it could already be too late to prevent the rise of resistance, in large part because of the way some farmers have been planting the crop. They point to two factors: farmers who have abandoned crop rotation and others have neglected to plant non-Bt corn within Bt fields or in surrounding fields as a way to create a "refuge" for non-resistant rootworms in the hope they will mate with resistant rootworms and dilute their genes. Experts worry that the actions of a few farmers could jeopardize an innovation that has significantly reduced pesticide use and saved growers billions of dollars in lost yields and chemical-control costs. "This is a public good that should be protected for future generations and not squandered too quickly," said Gregory Jaffe, biotechnology director at the Center for Science and Public Policy. For now, the rootworm resistance in "I think this provides an important early warning," Gassmann said. Besides rotating crops, farmers can also fight resistance by switching between Bt corn varieties, which produce different toxins, or planting newer varieties with multiple toxins. They can also treat damaged fields with insecticides to kill any resistant rootworms — or employ a combination of all those approaches. The EPA requires growers to devote 20 percent of their fields to non-Bt corn. After the crop was released in 2003, nine out of 10 farmers met that standard. Now it's only seven or eight, Jaffe said. Seed companies are supposed to cut off farmers with a record of violating the planting rules, which are specified in seed-purchasing contracts. To improve compliance, companies are now introducing blends that have ordinary seed premixed with Bt seed. Brian Schaumburg, who farms 1,400 acres near the
north-central But "If we don't do it right, we could lose these good tools," Schaumberg said. If rootworms do become resistant to Bt
corn, it "could become the most economically damaging example of insect
resistance to a genetically modified crop in the Apple rain: Wackiest produce story of the year!(The
Christian Science Monitor) – Sky Apples? Motorists in In the make-believe town of One night earlier this month, it started raining apples. “I honestly don’t know where the apples could have come from,”
Brian Meakins, a retired truck driver told More than 100 apples fell from the sky onto car roofs and windshields of motorists who were traveling through a busy intersection in the English city. The bizarre phenomenon caused traffic congestion, left many wondering what had happened. A motorist told the Daily Mail that the apples fell out of nowhere. “They were small and green and hit the bonnet hard,” she added. “Everyone had to stop their cars suddenly.” Bewildered by the incident, Mr. Meakins speculated: “At first I assumed kids must have thrown them because we do get the occasional egg and apple thrown.” “But there’s way too many for that,” he continued. British media also puzzled over the rain of apples. Some speculated that a mini-tornado sucked up the apples
from an orchard and deposited the fruit over BBC ‘s Magazine reported that this
is not the first time it has precipitated something other than H20. The site
said that frogs had fallen from the sky in the past in Llanddewi,
Powys as well as in Croydon, south Paul Sieveking, co-editor of the Fortean Times, a magazine devoted to the analysis of
strange global phenomena, told BBC that 300 apples came down in 1984 in Accrington, However, Dr. Lisa Jardine-Wright,
a physicist at “A tornado which has swept through an orchard will be strong enough to 'suck up' small objects like a vacuum [cleaner]. These small objects would then be deposited back to earth as 'rain' when the whirlwind loses its energy," she told BBC. End Transmission |
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