After a number of days of debate Bulgaria’s MPs finally passed the strongest possible amendments which although they do not include a total ban on GM crops, make it impossible for farmers to grow them commercially or in trials. Bulgaria has thus become the first country in Europe to introduce such stringent laws for all forms of GM crops.
The governing GERB party earlier removed the proposed 5 year GM crops moratorium proposal as they found that it was not necessary, considering the amendments proposed by rightist Blue Coalition MP Lachezar Toshev mean that farmers will never be given permission to plant them.
The long-debated articles 79 and 80 of the amended GMO Act were finally voted on and passed on Thursday: They ban the planting of GM crops within the boundaries of protected areas in the Protected Areas Act and within the protected areas of national ecological zone under the Biodiversity Law.
GM crops will not be allowed to be grown within 30 km of the protected areas, within 10km of bee hives or within 7 km of organic farmland - leading to an overall ban countrywide in practise.
“Environmentalists need not worry, I'm completely satisfied, because the law was made more rigorous, strengthening and protecting our traditional production and biodiversity,” Toshev concluded after the Parliament vote.
Bulgaria has seen a month of protests by environmentalists since the first reading of the ammended GMO Act in Parliament, which led to the government making a last minute decision to support the full and complete strengthening of the law.
]]>The second guest is Adam Wilson, who is now farming in Chittenden County thanks to the help of Vermont Land Trust. Finally, Eileen Peltier of the Central Vermont Community Land Trust talks about the importance of affordable housing, especially in walkable communities.
]]>That distinction matters to neighbors of composting operations and to farmers as well, because the proposed new law would apply a different regulatory scheme depending on which category the composting operation falls into.
The issue has been front and center in Montpelier, where Vermont Compost's successful business turns huge amounts of food scraps and waste agricultural products into useful compost, but has antagonized residential neighbors, especially because of a large population of crows attracted by food waste.
Last Thursday the House passed a composting regulation bill - which will now go on to the state Senate - but it received 46 no votes when it was being amended into final form, indicating lingering concerns about the regulatory issue. By Friday those doubts had - to some extent - been allayed and in the end no members of the House voted against it when the measure received final approval.
A key issue is that farms have always been exempt from the jurisdiction of the state's Act 250 land use law, but under the proposed bill some composting operations could find themselves facing Act 250 review. Farmers, both those in the Legislature and some outside it, were worried about how the bill makes a distinction between commercial composting operations and farmers who also compost manure and other materials - in part because it gave Act 250 regulators some say over whether a composting operation was trying to circumvent the rules.
Despite the House's unanimous approval, Jackie Folsom of the Vermont Farm Bureau says there are still concerns about whether the legislation would eliminate long-standing protections for farm operations, she said. Farmers have been and should continue to be regulated by the Agency of Agriculture, not Act 250 boards or other entities, Folsom said.
Will Stevens, a farmer and Independent representative from Shoreham, also admits some worries remain about the effect of the bill on farms, although he ultimately voted for it.
"My concerns about it had to do with the jurisdictional gray areas between farmers' right to farm and neighbors right to sue," he said.
Rep. David Deen, D-Putney, chairman of the Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee, said the bill was carefully crafted so as not to hit farmers by including that it applies to those composting food scraps.
"We were very, very careful to make it apply only to those situations where people are using food residuals," he said.
Vermont Compost may may be affected by the new bill if it goes through the Senate and becomes law.
Karl Hammer, who owns the composting operation, has been in a sometimes-heated debate with his neighbors and regulators over his composting company. One thing about the bill that concerns him is that, in part, it judges whether to regulate a business as a compost company or as a farm by how much income is made from each part of the operation. That could interfere with the state's "right to farm" law protection for farmers, Hammer said.
"It reaches into right-to-farm in ways that it seems to me inappropriate for Act 250," he said. He hopes the bill - which he is not sure will apply to his operation - will be changed in the Senate, Hammer added.
"We await the end of the legislative process," he said.
Barbara LaRosa, who lives next door, said she and other neighbors have a simple goal for the legislation. "Anything that will get the food waste off our property and keep it on his property will be a step in the right direction," she said.
"I don't think Act 250 is as bad as everyone makes it out to be," LaRosa added. "If it is the right thing in the right place, you will get your Act 250 permit."
Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier, chairman of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said the bill is not aimed at any one operation, including Vermont Compost, which is already in the review process.
"If the bill was directly aimed at Vermont Compost we would have been better off with no bill," he said.
]]>Such price increases for seeds — the most important purchase a farmer makes each year — are part of an unprecedented climb that began more than a decade ago, stemming from the advent of genetically engineered crops and the rapid concentration in the seed industry that accompanied it.
The price increases have not only irritated many farmers, they have caught the attention of the Obama administration. The Justice Department began an antitrust investigation of the seed industry last year, with an apparent focus on Monsanto, which controls much of the market for the expensive bioengineered traits that make crops resistant to insect pests and herbicides.
The investigation is just one facet of a push by the Obama administration to take a closer look at competition — or the lack thereof — in agriculture, from the dairy industry to livestock to commodity crops, like corn and soybeans.
On Friday, as the spring planting season approaches, Eric H. Holder Jr., the attorney general, and Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, will speak at the first of a series of public meetings aimed at letting farmers and industry executives voice their ideas. The meeting, in Ankeny, Iowa, will include a session on the seed industry.
“I think most farmers would look to have more competition in the industry,” said Laura L. Foell, who raises corn and soybeans on 900 acres in Schaller, Iowa.
The Iowa attorney general, Tom Miller, has also been scrutinizing Monsanto’s market dominance. The company’s genetically engineered traits are in the vast majority of corn and soybeans grown in the United States, Mr. Miller said. “That gives them considerable power, and questions arise about how that power is used,” he said.
Critics charge that Monsanto has used license agreements with smaller seed companies to gain an unfair advantage over competitors and to block cheaper generic versions of its seeds from eventually entering the market. DuPont, a rival company, also claims Monsanto has unfairly barred it from combining biotech traits in a way that would benefit farmers.
In a recent interview at Monsanto’s headquarters in St. Louis, its chief executive, Hugh Grant, said that while his company might be the market leader, competition was increasing as the era of biotech crops matured.
“We were the first out of the blocks, and I think what you see now is a bunch of people catching up and aggressively competing, and I’m fighting with them,” Mr. Grant said. He said farmers chose the company’s products because they liked the results in the field, not because of any untoward conduct on Monsanto’s part.
Yet in a seed market that Monsanto dominates, the jump in prices has been nothing short of stunning.
Including the sharp increases last year, Agriculture Department figures show that corn seed prices have risen 135 percent since 2001. Soybean prices went up 108 percent over that period. By contrast, the Consumer Price Index rose only 20 percent in that period.
Many farmers have been willing to pay a premium price because the genetically engineered seeds that make up most of the market come with advantages. Genetic modifications for both corn and soybeans make the crops resistant to herbicides, simplifying weed control and saving labor, fuel and machinery costs. Many genetically engineered corn and cotton seeds also resist insect pests, which cuts down on chemical spraying.
Lee Quarles, a Monsanto spokesman, said the price increases were justified because the quality of the seeds had been going up, and new biotech traits kept being added. For example, he said, many corn varieties now include multiple genes to battle insect pests, raising their value.
Mr. Quarles said higher prices were justified because the traits saved farmers money and made their operations more efficient.
Monsanto began investing heavily in biotechnology in the 1980s — ahead of most other agricultural companies. In the mid-1990s, it became the first to widely market genetically engineered seeds for row crops, introducing soybeans containing the so-called Roundup Ready gene, which allowed plants to tolerate spraying of its popular Roundup weed killer. Soon after, it began selling corn seed engineered with a gene to resist insect pests.
The number of biotech plant traits has grown since then, and other large companies — including DuPont, Dow Chemical, Syngenta, BASF and Bayer CropScience — have gotten into the business. But Monsanto has taken advantage of its head start. Today more than 90 percent of soybeans and more than 80 percent of the corn grown in this country are genetically engineered. A majority of those crops contain one or more Monsanto genes.
As biotechnology has spread, Monsanto and its competitors have bought dozens of smaller seed companies, increasing the concentration of market power in the industry.
Monsanto sells its own branded seed varieties, like Dekalb in corn and Asgrow in soybeans, to farmers. But it has expanded its influence and profits by licensing those traits to hundreds of small seed companies, allowing them to incorporate the traits in the seeds they sell. It has also granted licenses to the other large trait developers, allowing them to create combinations of engineered traits in a process known as stacking.
Monsanto says that its licensing shows it is the opposite of a monopolist, encouraging rather than hampering competition.
But critics say the licenses give Monsanto excessive control. Seed company executives said the licenses were sometimes worded in a way that compelled them to sell Monsanto traits over those of its competitors. Mr. Quarles denied that, saying the contracts contain sales incentives typical of the industry.
Some of the most pointed accusations have come in a court battle between Monsanto and DuPont. Last year Monsanto sued its rival, saying DuPont had used a Monsanto trait to create a gene combination that was not permitted in its licensing agreement.
DuPont countered by charging that Monsanto was using its market power to strong-arm competitors and quash innovation that would benefit farmers and consumers.
In January, Monsanto won a partial victory. A federal judge ruled that the license barred DuPont from creating the gene stack. But the judge said that DuPont could move ahead with its antitrust claims, which, if successful, could potentially nullify the stacking ban.
DuPont made another accusation that caught the attention of farmers and regulators, saying that Monsanto was trying to head off the eventual entry into the marketplace of generic Roundup Ready seeds.
The company’s patent on the Roundup Ready trait in soybeans expires before the 2014 planting season, meaning that, just as in the pharmaceutical business, rivals would be free to sell a cheaper version. Farmers would also be free to save seed from one year to the next, a money-saving step they are now barred from taking.
But DuPont charged that Monsanto was trying to force seed companies to switch prematurely to its second-generation Roundup Ready soybeans and taking other steps to make the entry of generics more difficult.
Monsanto responded by announcing that it would not block companies from selling a generic version of Roundup Ready seeds. But farmers have continued to fret that cheaper generic seeds may be at risk.
6 pm
Newton School, Route 132, SOUTH STRAFFORD
]]>Come out to see the film King Corn, followed by a presentation and discussion led by Rural Vermont. King Corn is a documentary about two friends who journey from Boston to Iowa to plant, tend, and harvest one acre of corn, and then watch as it travels from their field into the industrial food supply. The Washington Post hails King Corn as “taking what could be a tiresome agri-civics lesson and delivering a lively, funny, sad and even poetic treatise on the reality behind America's cherished self-image as the breadbasket of the world.”
]]>The company is advocating that Indian farmers switch to its second-generation product to delay resistance further. Monsanto's critics say that this just proves the ineffectiveness of the Bt technology, which was recently sought to be introduced in India in Bt brinjal as well.
In November 2009, Monsanto's scientists detected unusual survival of the pink bollworm pest while monitoring the Bt cotton crop in Gujarat. In January and February, samples taken from the field were tested in Monsanto's laboratories. It has been confirmed that pink bollworm is now resistant to the pest-killing protein of Bt cotton in four districts — Amreli, Bhavnagar, Junagarh and Rajkot.
Until now, Monsanto has held that “there have been no confirmed cases of poor field performance of Bt cotton or Bt corn attributable to insect resistance.” Although there have been cases of insects resisting the technology in the laboratory, Monsanto held that “field resistance is the criterion of relevance to agricultural producers.”
Now that the company itself has admitted that its product has been proved ineffective against some insects on the fields of Gujarat, its advice to farmers is to start using its second generation product instead. “Farmers have another choice. We have a two-gene product called Bollgard II which has greater ability to delay resistance,” says Monsanto India's director of scientific affairs Rashmi Nair. She also recommends that farmers conduct better monitoring and plant “refuges,” or areas of non-Bt crop which would attract insects.
Agricultural scientists and activists say Monsanto's advice is “ridiculous”. The Bollgard II product has no additional toxin to combat pink bollworm, says G.V. Ramanjaneyulu of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture. It is simply that as a newer product, Bollgard II will take longer for the pest to develop resistance. Anyway, the Bt toxin is only active for 90 days, while pink bollworm is a late season pest, he adds.
“All the hype about the effectiveness of Bt against pests is bogus …This proves that you can't stay ahead of the pest with … this shortsighted approach,” says Kavitha Kuruganti of the Kheti Virasat Mission. Indian farmers with small holdings cannot be expected to give up large parts of their land for non- productive “refuges,” added Dr. Ramanjaneyulu.
Monsanto's Dr. Nair says the Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) was informed about the resistance “about eight to ten days ago.” The CICR, which has been collaborating in the field monitoring of Bt cotton since 2003, has reported this to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), she said. However, the Ministry of Environment and Forests seems to have been unaware of the test results until Monsanto issued a statement on Friday.
Over the last month, the GEAC and the Ministry have been at the centre of a storm regarding the government's moratorium on Bt brinjal's commercial release. Critics are now pointing to the ineffectiveness of Bt cotton in Gujarat to strengthen their case against Bt brinjal as well.
]]>The case against Emanuel Miller Jr. of Loyal was the first in the state against an Amish farmer over refusal to obey the 2005 mandatory livestock registration law, aimed at controlling outbreaks of disease. It requires owners of premises where livestock is kept to register the location, number and type of livestock with the state.
Paul McGraw, the assistant state veterinarian, said he expects the state to appeal the Miller decision.
Amish and other farmers around the nation have been following Miller's case because of a fear that the law is the first step to the individual tagging of all livestock, a program once advanced by the federal government. Some Amish and others say such a numbering system would amount to the "mark of the beast," which is referenced in the Book of Revelation as being related to Satan. Clark County Circuit Judge Jon Counsell ruled that the state failed to show how mandatory registration furthers animal health and food safety any more effectively than alternatives that would not affect Miller's religious freedom.
Counsell presided at the trial in September, when Amish packed the courtroom, said District Attorney Darwin Zwieg.
In his nine-page ruling Tuesday, Counsell wrote that Miller, 29, had shown a sincere religious belief that would be impinged by the state law. Then the burden shifted to the state to show it had a compelling interest in animal health and food safety that could not be served by something less restrictive than mandatory livestock registration.
Government over God
Miller and his bishop testified that the law reflects a faith in government over God, and would bring the Amish out of isolation from the modern world.
If he registered his farm, Miller testified, he would be shunned by his church and risk eternal damnation. Further, if he didn't register, he would be unable to buy and sell livestock or use a horse and would essentially have to give up his farming way of life. He kept cattle, chickens and horses at his location, as of September, according to the ruling.
Counsell noted several flaws with Wisconsin's mandatory livestock premise registration. Because it is only renewed every three years, it doesn't account for changes. It will never achieve 100% compliance, and doesn't require the owner to have a telephone, so going door-to-door could still be needed during an outbreak. Further, while the statute allows for exceptions, state regulators chose not to write any that would have covered the Amish.
Meanwhile, Counsell found, the Amish have always agreed under a different state law to list their names and addresses when buying and selling livestock, and that information is sufficient for the state to track animal disease.
]]>In January, the Justice Department launched a formal antitrust investigation of the St. Louis company's handling of the most widely planted genetically modified crop in the U.S., a herbicide-immune soybean.
Now, Justice's tight-lipped antitrust division is taking the unusual step of inviting competitors, farmers, politicians and activists to air any gripes about Monsanto—and to suggest ways to limit the company's reach before a high-profile audience.
The Obama administration disclosed Wednesday that Attorney General Eric Holder will speak Friday at the first of five such meetings, billed as joint "workshops" with the Department of Agriculture on competition issues.
Friday's meeting in Iowa will focus on genetically-modified seeds, the 14-year-old market largely created and led by Monsanto, which has at least one of its patented genes in about 90% of soybeans grown in the U.S. and in about 80% of U.S. corn.
Monsanto declined to make Hugh Grant, its chairman and chief executive, available for comment, but issued a statement that "an objective review of the agricultural sector will reveal that competition is alive and flourishing." A Monsanto vice president is scheduled to speak Friday.
Farmers and the seed companies that license genes from Monsanto have long complained about the prices it has been able to command. The price of a bag of soybean seed, for example, has roughly quadrupled since Monsanto began licensing genes.
Pioneer Hi-Bred, the seed unit of Wilmington, Del., chemicals concern DuPont Co., has alleged that Monsanto is trying to use gene licenses to limit competition. Monsanto has also tried in recent months to dispel fears among some farmers and seed breeders that Monsanto will make it hard for them to use generic versions of genetically modified crops after the company's patents expire.
Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybean is genetically modified to survive dousing by a weedkiller made by Monsanto called Roundup. Introduced in 1996, the seed made it so easy for farmers to chemically weed their fields that many stopped using other herbicides or mechanically tilling their fields. With that seed losing its ability to draw royalties after 2014, Monsanto is trying to get farmers to switch to a second generation of Roundup Ready seed that it has patented.
Mr. Holder will be joined Friday by Christine Varney, his antitrust chief, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and several states' attorneys general, some of whom have been investigating Monsanto's business practices for years.
"Seed technology is pretty heavily consolidated," said Mr. Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa, a state where Monsanto and Des Moines-based seed giant Pioneer Hi-Bred are locked in a bitter fight for farmer loyalty that includes dueling lawsuits in a federal courthouse. "I'm not taking sides," Mr. Vilsack said Wednesday. "What I'm really concerned about is farmers getting a fair shake."
The USDA estimates that U.S. farmers spent $17.2 billion on seed in 2009, up 56% from $11 billion in 2006.
President Obama promised early in his administration to "reinvigorate" antitrust enforcement, which involved the Justice Department disavowing Bush era guidelines. His antitrust chief has largely pushed on her own for a closer look at agriculture, where everything from hogs and cattle to corn, soybeans, milk and seeds are processed by a handful of big concerns.
Ms. Varney said she came up with the idea for the workshops a year ago during her nomination hearings, when Sen. Russ Feingold (D. Wis.) and other farm-state legislators complained the Bush administration permitted a merger wave among agricultural processors that undermined farmers. More than 15,000 people have submitted comments to the Justice Department on the workshops.
Ms. Varney, who said she worked for a time during her youth organizing farm workers, said she feels a personal connection to farmers, who by nature of their business are usually dwarfed by the companies they buy from and supply. "I don't have any preconceived notions," she said, adding that the Friday workshop is arranged in a way that will allow her "to get a variety of views" on Monsanto, among other things.
Still, several of Friday's slated speakers have been critical of Monsanto, and the meeting is an opportunity for them to present to senior government officials what they see as remedies for curtailing its influence. While it is far from clear that the Obama administration will adopt any of these ideas, which mostly touch on how Monsanto licenses its genes, it's probably the best chance that many speakers will ever get to present their arguments. "This is a rare opportunity," said Diana Moss, vice president of the American Antitrust Institute, a Washington think tank.
Neil E. Harl, a retired Iowa State University economics professor, says the meetings are "a very different tactic for the (antitrust division) to go public like this," he said. "Maybe they think just talking about these things might have an impact on the boardroom."
Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson, for example, filed a comment for the workshop that calls on the federal government to stop biotechnology companies from using gene licenses to block independent seed companies from stacking genes from various companies in a plant.
]]>The phenomenon is not all that new, said Mike Owen, a weed specialist at Iowa State University who has been discussing herbicide-resistant weeds since the 1980s. But widespread adoption of certain biotech advances have made matters much more complicated.
It has only been in the last few years that crops have been selectively engineered to tolerate topical application of active ingredients in a specific herbicide. The resistance that weeds have developed to that ingredient — called glyphosate — combined with its widespread adoption, has the potential of costing Iowa producers millions of bushels of produce, and severely crippling the state’s ag-based economy.
An herbicide with glyphosate was introduced by the Monsanto Co. in 1974 under the commercial name Roundup. Roughly 18 years later, the company introduced its first biotech crop, Roundup Ready soybeans, which would tolerate direct application of the glysophate-based herbicide. Modified corn was introduced two years later.
When these glyphosate-resistant crops came onto the market, many hoped and some believed that another herbicide or genetically-modified crop wouldn’t need to be developed. However, over time, crop farmers encountered more and more glyphosate-resistant weeds, and no new herbicide ingredients being developed to control them. Within a decade, some environmental and consumer groups were beginning to question the safety of the Roundup Ready crop line, specifically pointing to the emergence of “super weeds.”
Despite the concerns voiced by some, and increasingly aggressive tactics by Monsanto to protect its seed patents, use of the Roundup Ready crop brands were widely adopted by farmers in Iowa and throughout the nation. While each individual grower had his or her own specific reasons for changing to the Roundup Ready system, Owen believes that larger scale operations’ search for simplicity and convenience as well as corporate marketing played key roles.
“[P]art of this is definitely the issue of scale. Growers are looking at time management. They are looking for simplicity and convenience because of the scale that agriculture has achieved over the past 10 years,” Owen said. “We also need to look at how the marketing has influenced the growers’ decisions. Certainly marketing campaigns are very influential in the decisions that growers make. They are very persuasive, and they are very pervasive in the marketplace.”
From television to radio to numerous ag-specific print publications, Iowa’s rural community has been bombarded by a wealth of advertising by corporations that need growers to adopt their systems. As agriculture has grown, and larger growing plots have become more time-consuming for producers, the companies have successfully highlighted the aspects of their products they believe will most appeal to producers.
“These are very powerful and very desirable things in the marketplace. Convenience and simplicity are both very useful and very important; however, they are also something that have considerable risks associated,” he explained.
Although it might seem logical to point an immediate accusatory finger at either the modified crops or the herbicides as being the key forces behind the problem, Owen warns that while both might play an indirect role, neither are fully or totally to blame.
“The predominant system that has emerged in Iowa is based on glyphosate-resistant crops, and the subsequent use of glyphosate,” he said. “Now, as a result of that, we are beginning to see weeds that no longer respond to that herbicide. The question becomes if this resistance is because we are planting these crops. No, because the trait that dictates resistance to glyphosate is essentially benign in the environment. Is the herbicide causing the problem? The answer to that is directly no, but indirectly yes.”
If the situation cannot be fully placed on the back of the crops or herbicide, what or who is to blame?
“The who or what is the manner by which the growers decide to use the technology,” he said. “Their decisions are influenced by obviously their own interpretation and assessment of the technology, but also influenced by the marketing that the corporations use to move their proprietary traits and herbicides into the grower marketplace.”
While Owen has no doubt that farmers and producers are some of the best stewards of our land, water and overall environment, he is also concerned that they are not seeing the big picture when it comes to management and control of weeds.
“In relation to some of the obvious issues that reflect land and environmental quality — tillage, waterways and things like that — I think [growers] can foresee long-term problems, and they do make stewardship efforts once those issues are identified,” Owen said. “In relation to weed management and the potential evolution of resistant weeds, however, I don’t think they fully understand the implications of the practices that they use or anticipate the severity of the problems that may result”
To some degree that is the industry’s fault, Owen said, because “historically we have always been able to come back with a better tool, a new tool, that would take care of those problems. What we’ve found ourselves in now is a situation where those tools are not readily available and they are not, at least in the near future, observable.”
There needs to be a renewed understanding on the part of growers that “what we’ve got is what we’ve got, and there’s going to be nothing — that is, the Lone Ranger isn’t going to come riding in on Silver to fix the problem.”
There is no new silver bullet, he said, so growers need to take care of the tools that they have.
“I think we can do this and, as it turns out, based on what I’ve observed, we can actually make money by using some of the practices that provide better diversity of management practices for weed control,” he said. “But growers, at least at this point, just don’t seem to be accepting this message for a number of different reasons.”
Although glysophate-based herbicide had been on the market for a number of years, the 1996 Field Crops Summary conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicated that less than 1 million pounds of the herbicide were applied to roughly 15 percent of Iowa soybean fields — a figure well be below what was being used at the same time by farmers in Illinois and Indiana.
In 2006, however, use by Iowa farmers had skyrocketed to more than 12 million pounds on nearly 90 percent of all soybean acreage — and had out-paced use by any other Midwestern state known for soybean production. Not only had the percent of Iowa’s land use for soybean production increased during that time frame, but the statistics clearly show that producers were more than doubling the amount of glyphosate that was initially used for weed control.
Just as diseases can evolve resistance to antibiotics, weeds can evolve resistance to herbicides, prompting more frequent application to provide adequate control and maintain crop yield potential. Glyphosate-resistant weeds are now established in 19 states and deemed a serious economic concern — both for the increased cost to destroy the weed, and for the potential to drag crop yield.
Currently there are at least 15 different types of herbicide-resistant weeds in Iowa. The first, Kochia scoparia, was reported in 1985 with a resistance to atrazine. The most widespread glyphosate-resistant weed in the state is common waterhemp, which infests an estimated 1,000 to 10,000 acres. The most recently discovered glyphosate-resistant weed, identified just last year, is giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida). It is estimated by state weed scientists that there are 1,210 sites and more than 12,400 acres invested with herbicide resistant weeds in Iowa, and that they infest corn, railways and soybeans.
Although those figures may seem striking to a person who is not familiar with the problem of resistant weeds, the truth is that Iowa has fared much better than Southeast states. For instance, producers in Macon, Georgia abandoned about 10,000 acres of cropland in 2007 following an infestation of glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth, a member of the pigweed family.
“My sense is that we are going to see more weed problems if growers continue to rely only on glyphosate,” said Owen. “If the only thing they are planning to do this year is use glyphosate, then I would suggest that they may have greater problems with weeds this year than what they may have had last year.”
For now, there are other options available to farmers — options they should use wisely, Owen said. Despite the initial cost of using a soil residual pre-emergent herbicide, Owen believes there is a significant yield boost associated with the application. He and his colleagues at Iowa State University have developed a 2010 Herbicide Guide for Iowa Corn and Soybean Production that outlines and highlights some of the best practices they have used for maintaining crop profits.
“Just as an estimate, if growers are only using glyphosate, and if they are making application at only particular instances, they are likely losing five or so bushels of soybeans per acre. And there are similar, if not higher, numbers of bushels of corn being lost,” he said. “If your project that over all the acres — five bushels of soybeans over 9 million acres of soybeans produced — then you are looking at 45 million bushels of soybeans that may be lost because of poor timing of weed management. Although that’s just a ‘back-of-the-envelope’ projection, it seems reasonable based on some of the modeling routines that we’ve done.
“Suffice it to say that it is a butt-load of money.”
]]>April 21, 2010, Wed., 1 pm - 5pm, Hildene, Manchester, VT
April 29, 2010, Thur., 8:30 am - 12:30 pm, Marlboro College Graduate
School, Brattleboro, VT
Compost 201 - Best Practices for the Use of Compost in Vermont Towns
A Workshop on Sustainable Site Design and Land Management
What: This 4-hour workshop provides compost related ecoliteracy for
decision-makers, professionals and advocates working with Vermont
communities and businesses. As a workshop participant you will gain
technical know-how to assist with planning and decision-making on
issues such as stormwater, erosion, water quality and conservation,
soil health, and carbon footprints. Please join us! And learn how to
adopt best practices to use compost in development, road construction,
landscaping, and land management projects.
See attached announcement for more workshop details.
When: Up to 10 workshops will be scheduled spring and fall 2010, see
below for April dates
Where: Various locations. See below for April locations.
April workshops:
April 13, 2010, Wed., 1 pm - 5 pm, USDA/NRCS, Colchester, VT
April 21, 2010, Wed., 1 pm - 5pm, Hildene, Manchester, VT
April 29, 2010, Thur., 8:30 am - 12:30 pm, Marlboro College Graduate
School, Brattleboro, VT
Register at: http://www.regonline.com/compost201
Registration is limited to 25 for each workshop
Questions?
Contact:
Pat O'Neill
802-744-2345
pats@pshift.com
Experts and industry groups say such an injunction could jeopardize U.S. sugar supplies, about half of which comes from the biotech beets planted on more than 1 million acres in 10 states stretching from Michigan to Oregon.
"It will be a big problem," if the injunction is granted, said Carol Mallory-Smith, professor of weed science at Oregon State University. "The industry really had converted to this."
The beets, engineered to be resistant to Monsanto's popular herbicide Roundup, comprise 95 percent of the crop after two seasons of planting. All the seed comes from Oregon's Willamette Valley.
Organic farmers, food safety advocates and conservation groups already have won a lawsuit forcing federal authorities to reconsider their 2005 approval of the Roundup Ready beets for unrestricted use, saying the government failed to take a hard look at cross-pollination risks.
If granted at a hearing scheduled for Friday in San Francisco, a requested injunction would halt planting of the altered beets until the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service does an environmental impact statement — a process that could take two or three years.
The farmers also want to bar the sale of any sugar made from genetically engineered beets.
"The sugar beets were unlawfully deregulated," said Paul Achitoff, an attorney for Earthjustice, the environmental public interest law firm representing plaintiffs. "The court has already found that. Legally, they shouldn't be on the market.
"Consumers should not be exposed to it," he said. "The environment should not be exposed to it."
In 2007, another lawsuit stopped planting of Roundup Ready alfalfa pending an environmental review, though at that point only a small percentage of farmers used it. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Monsanto's appeal.
The latest lawsuit's roots are in Frank Morton's small farm outside the small town of Philomath on the western edge of the Willamette Valley, where he grows seed for organic vegetables in fields surrounded by tall trees.
When he learned BetaSeed in nearby Tangent and other growers were producing genetically modified sugar beet seed for use elsewhere, he went to his local growers' association and tried to get them to push back.
"They told me if you don't like it you can sue USDA. So we did," he told The Associated Press last September. He has since stopped talking about the case.
The problem is not just the potential for cross pollination. Testing is so sensitive now that genetically engineered pollen could be detected on his crops, making them worthless, whether it pollinates them or not, Morton said.
The Center for Food Safety and the Organic Seed Alliance also worry Roundup Ready crops — which include corn, soybeans and cotton — are creating herbicide-resistant weeds and threaten food safety.
Sugar beet growers declined interview requests, referring questions to the American Sugar Beet Growers Association. Spokesman Luther Markwart characterized the injunction request as "radical."
"It would have disastrous impacts on the 10,000 growers, our processors, the seed companies, and the economies of 10 states," he said.
If the groups believed there was an immediate threat, he said, they should have filed for an injunction two years ago rather than wait until the biotech beets were being "widely and safely used," he added.
Agricultural extension educator Jim Gill in Worland, Wyo., said they are worried about the case, and already have invested in preparing for this year's crop. Planting starts in early April in the Big Horn Valley.
If the injunction is granted, there is not enough conventional seed and related herbicides to go around, and farmers will have to scramble to plant other crops, he said.
"It's a tough situation. There's a lot of money that's already been invested — put in the ground — to prepare for the 2010 crop," he said. "These are all things that these guys and gals are trying to figure out."
The court hearing will focus on whether allowing this year's crop to be planted is likely to cause irreparable harm.
Mallory-Smith said growers already take precautions to prevent cross-pollination between conventional crops, and the Roundup Ready seed growers are keeping their distance from Morton's farm.
Monsanto spokesman Garrett Kasper said the past two years have demonstrated the beets are safe.
Achitoff counters that there's already evidence in the ground in Oregon that growers are not heeding the precautions.
Last May, specklings — tiny roots planted to produce seed — for Roundup Ready sugar beets were found in a batch of compost being sold at a garden center in nearby Corvallis.
"People have these Roundup Ready sugar beets sprouting, whether they are in backyard farms or gardens," he said.
]]>The starch of the Amflora potato can be utilised for industrial uses like making paper, and for animal feed - but not for human consumption.
Environmental groups have strongly opposed the introduction of GM crops.
But the Commission insisted its decision was based on "a considerable volume of sound science".
Planting this spring
The Amflora variety was developed by German chemical and biotechnology firm BASF, for the special qualities of its starch.
BASF says: "Amflora starch can be used in many different ways. It makes yarn stronger and paper glossier; it also makes spray concrete adhere better to the wall and keeps glue liquid for longer."
But it has been a political hot potato for seven years.
BASF applied to grow it in Sweden in 2003. Sweden agreed but was obliged to seek EU permission.
The Council of ministers - the committee of national governments - has been unable to agree a decision, passing the issue back into the hands of the Commission.
Even though it has now been cleared, individual countries still have the right to decide whether it should be grown on their territory.
The potato is expected to be planted in the Czech Republic and Germany this spring, and Sweden and the Netherlands in following years.
The only other GM product currently grown commercially in the EU is Monsanto's MON 810 maize, which was cleared back in 1998.
It is grown in five countries - Spain, the Czech Republic, Romania, Portugal and Slovakia.
On Tuesday, the EU Commission also allowed three GM maize products to be placed on the European market, though not grown in Europe.
'Bad day'
Some countries remain firmly opposed to the cultivation of GM crops, arguing that they could eventually reduce biodiversity and natural resistance to pests and disease, and that it is very hard to stop them cross-pollinating with non-GM crops.
Italy said it objected to the Commission's decision.
German Green MEP Martin Hausling said it "flies in the face of the 70% of consumers who are against GM food".
"This is a bad day for European citizens and the environment," Friends of the Earth told the AFP news agency.
It said the Amflora potato "carries a controversial antibiotic resistant gene which it cannot be guaranteed will not enter the food chain".
The Commission said it was imposing strict conditions on the cultivation of Amflora to address some of the environmental concerns.
For instance, the potato "will be cultivated and harvested before it produces seeds".
It said growing this form of potato "helps to optimise the production process and to save raw materials, energy, water and oil based chemicals".
]]>Bobby Tucker, the 28-year-old co-owner of Okfuskee Farm in rural Silk Hope, looked eagerly at the 50-plus volunteers bundled in all manner of flannel and hand-knits. In five hours, these pop-up farmers would do more on his fledgling farm than he and his three interns could accomplish in months. “It’s immeasurable,” he said of the gift of same-day infrastructure.
It’s the beauty of being Crop Mobbed.
The Crop Mob, a monthly word-of-mouth (and -Web) event in which landless farmers and the agricurious descend on a farm for an afternoon, has taken its traveling work party to 15 small, sustainable farms. Together, volunteers have contributed more than 2,000 person-hours, doing tasks like mulching, building greenhouses and pulling rocks out of fields.
“The more tedious the work we have, the better,” Jones said, smiling. “Because part of Crop Mob is about community and camaraderie, you find there’s nothing like picking rocks out of fields to bring people together.”
The affable, articulate Jones, 27, is part of the group’s grass-roots core, organizing events and keeping them moving. The Mob was formed during a meeting about issues facing young farmers, during which an intern declared that better relationships are built working side by side than by sitting around a table. So one day, 19 people went to Piedmont Biofarm and harvested, sorted and boxed 1,600 pounds of sweet potatoes in two and a half hours. A year later, the Crop Mob e-mail list has nearly 400 subscribers, and the farm fests now draw 40 to 50 volunteers.
The Crop Mob works well partly because the area around Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Durham is so rich in small-scale, sustainable farms, and the sustainable-agriculture program at Central Carolina Community College draws students from across the nation who stay put after graduation.
One of the biggest issues facing sustainable agriculture is that it’s “way, way, way more labor-intensive than industrial agriculture,” Jones said. “It’s not sustainable physically, and it’s not sustainable for people personally: they’re working all the time and don’t have an opportunity to have a social life. So I think Crop Mob brings that celebration to the work, so that you get that sense of community that people are looking for, and you get a lot of work done. And we have a lot of fun.”
“It’s good to get off the farm you’re farming,” said Jennie Rasmussen, a 25-year-old Indiana native who traded an office job for community gardening before moving to the area to farm. “It’s great to meet other people who have the same challenges and just network and build community.”
“Networking” and “building community” popped up in almost every conversation I had that day, and it never came across as slick or earnest. Both have real context here, as these mostly farmless farmers hear about internships, learn about affordable land and find potential dates. For those who don’t farm, it’s a way to explore getting their fingernails dirty. One woman, who recently moved to the area from New Jersey after losing her job in the financial-services industry, was eager to plug in to the vibrant local food scene. “I’m trying not to hinder the effort,” she said with a laugh as she distributed twigs on a hügelkultur bed made from dead trees.
The farmer Trace Ramsey, who is part of the Mob core as well as its documentarian, has watched the young-farmer phenomenon explode. “People are interested in authentic work,” he said. “I think they’re tired of what they’ve been told they should accomplish in their life, and they’re starting to realize that it’s not all that exciting or beneficial from a community perspective or an individual perspective.” At 36, Ramsey joked that he’s the old man of the project — remarkable considering the average American farmer is 57. But as people of all ages become involved, he said, “what started as a young-farmer movement is just becoming a farmer movement.”
By the end of the afternoon, the transformation was remarkable. The towering piles of soil and mulch had dwindled to child’s height. The greenhouse beds were filled and the walls framed out by older volunteers who knew what to do with the table saw. The Tamworth pigs had a new fenced-in grazing area to uproot. Thickets and trees were removed from the edge of a field, a bonfire built from the haul. Garden rows were tidied while someone sang. And the hügelkultur beds were handsomely finished. The dreary mess of winter had been cleared to make way for a well-ordered spring.
There was even time for a pecan-tree-planting demo before the buffet lunch. (Farmers are required only to feed the workers; no money is exchanged.) Tucker, bleary from exhaustion, thanked the smiling gang. The group then threw around ideas for which farm should be Mobbed next. When it was agreed that a volunteer’s employer would win the reciprocal-labor lottery, she hopped around in excitement.
The idea is catching on, Jones said. Requests for advice on starting mini-Mobs have come in from around the state. Two Crop Mobbers are traveling to Spain to talk to farmers. In cities, Jones added, there’s no reason that backyard and community gardeners can’t mob, too. Because anywhere there’s dirt, a community can grow.
]]>Economic Information Bulletin No. (EIB-63) 39 pp, February 2010
Ninety-one percent of U.S. farms are classified as small—gross cash farm income (GCFI) of less than $250,000. About 60 percent of these small farms are very small, generating GCFI of less than $10,000. These very small noncommercial farms, in some respects, exist independently of the farm economy because their operators rely heavily on off-farm income. The remaining small farms—small commercial farms—account for most small-farm production. Overall farm production, however, continues to shift to larger operations, while the number of small commercial farms and their share of sales maintain a long-term decline. The shift to larger farms will continue to be gradual, because some small commercial farms are profitable and others are willing to accept losses.
]]>State Rep. Chris Danou (D-Trempealeau) said Monday that regulators have subjected Midvalleyvu Family Farm, in Pepin County, to harassment and excessive requests for information.
The Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection asked the farm's owners for bank records including signature cards, monthly statements, canceled checks and deposit tickets.
It asked the farm to identify by full name, address and telephone number all people who supply animal feed, supplements, medications, cleaning supplies and equipment used for milk production. It also asked for copies of all invoices for the purchase of glass milk containers.
The farm has "a long history" of raw milk sales, said Steve Ingham, administrator of the agency's food safety division.
With the exception of limited, incidental sales, state law prohibits selling unpasteurized milk to the public because it could carry bacteria that cause food borne illnesses.
To satisfy demand from customers, some farmers sell shares in their dairy herd and then provide raw milk to shareholders for a handling fee. That, farmers say, has allowed them to stay in business.
State regulators say the farm-share program does not allow widespread sales of unpasteurized milk to the public.
Midvalleyvu is one of many farms that state officials have investigated. But the farm, owned by Wayne and Janet Brunner, is one of only a few that the state has pressed for detailed documents through a process known as interrogatories.
"These were not typical situations," Ingham said. "These were not farms where somebody just showed up with a jug wanting some raw milk."
Yielding to pressure from regulators, Midvalleyvu no longer sells unpasteurized milk. Not long ago, the farm had more than 600 customers, said Janet Brunner.
"It started out with people coming to get dairy products and then wanting eggs, honey, maple syrup, beef and other things. Over the course of several years, a little store developed," she said.
The Brunners say their income dropped 90% after they quit selling raw milk last October. They have recently acquired a retail license for their on-farm store, but without raw milk, the store doesn't have much allure.
"We are really putting our time and attention into getting raw-milk legislation passed. Without it, our farm and others like us will be gone soon," Janet Brunner said.
The Brunners are chapter leaders for the Weston A. Price Foundation, a national organization that promotes raw milk as a safe product with many health benefits.
"Reports of individuals becoming ill after drinking raw milk do exist . . . but even these reports do not usually provide proof that raw milk caused the illness," Sally Fallon, foundation president said in a Journal Sentinel interview last year.
Danou has introduced legislation that would legalize the sale of raw milk in Wisconsin when done by permit under regulations. The legislator said he would not blame the Brunners if they ignored the state's request for documents.
"My blood started to boil when I heard about this," he said. "I almost felt as if these people were being punished for the legislation that I wrote."
Pepin County Sheriff John Andrews, a former dairy farmer, has sided with the Brunners.
"An arm of the state should not be trying to intimidate small businesses and family farms by demonizing their product and threatening their livelihood," he said. "I have watched for the last 25 years as politicians said they were concerned about small family farms and, while saying that, they were implementing policies" that put small farms out of business.
Last September, University of Wisconsin-Extension said at least 35 people, most of them children and teens, were sickened after consuming raw milk. State officials urged residents to discard any unpasteurized milk after individuals tested positive for campylobacter jejuni, a bacterial infection that causes gastro-intestinal symptoms and fever and occasionally leads to severe complications.
The illnesses were not connected to the Brunners' farm. Raw-milk advocates said it was impossible to prove that the illnesses were tied to any farm.
In January, state Agriculture Secretary Rod Nilsestuen put together a panel of dairy and health experts to consider legal and regulatory issues pertaining to the sale of unpasteurized milk, and to consider what conditions would be required to protect public health.
"In recent months, raw milk sales have been an increasingly contentious issue in Wisconsin and other states," Nilsestuen said in a written statement. "There is a clear demand among some consumers, and a clear desire on the part of some producers, to open this market. But we also have a clear duty to protect public health and the reputation of our vital dairy industry."
The Raw Milk Working Group Panel has scheduled its first meeting for March 15.
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