Archive for the 'Agriculture' Category

Beer: Global Warming’s Next Victim? I’m so Sorry about this Bob.

Published by
Gene Shinai
April 17, 2008 in Agriculture, Food, Newz and The Environment. 0 Comments

From Celsias: 

We have seen many devastating effects of global warming in recent years – melting ice caps, damaged ecosystems, extreme weather conditions – but one troubling development might make a few more people sit up and take notice of the growing problem. Hold on to your kegs, kids – we’ve got a beer shortage on our hands.
A triple whammy of bad weather in Europe, an increase in the price of barley and a decrease in hops production in the U.S. has lead to a price increase of 20 percent for the most widely grown varieties, to 80 percent for specialty hops. The shortage is particularly hitting microbreweries, since they use more hops than major brewers.Industrial brewers like Anheuser-Busch and Miller are more insulated against the shortage because they have futures contracts with hops farmers. The contracts, which help big brewers hedge against rising prices, allow them to buy a quantity of hops for a specific period of time for a certain price. – NPR

Article Continues @ Sourced Site. 

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Taco Bell, Wal-Mart, NRA hired ‘black ops’ company that targeted environmental groups

Published by
Gene Shinai
April 12, 2008 in Agriculture, Business/Finance, Domestic Spying, Halliburton, In Defense of Democracy, Law and Justice, Newz and The Environment. 0 Comments

From Rawstory: John ByrnePublished: Friday April 11, 2008 

 Dumpster-diving firm collected Social Security numbers of activists

 

A private security firm managed by former Secret Service officers spied on myriad environmental organizations throughout the 1990s and the year 2000, thieving documents, trying to plant undercover operations and collecting phone records of members, according to a new report.

 

Documents obtained by James Ridgeway, a Mother Jones correspondent formerly with the Village Voice, reveals the contractor collected confidential internal records — donor lists, financial statements — even Social Security numbers, for public relations outfits and “corporations involved in environmental controversies.”

 

Beckett Brown International also offered “intelligence” services to the Carlyle Group, the controversial DC-based investment company; “protective services” for the National Rifle Association; “crisis management” for the Gallo wine company and for Pirelli; “information collection” for Wal-Mart.

 

“Also listed as clients in BBI records,” Ridgeway reveals: “Halliburton and Monsanto.”

 

Like other firms specializing in snooping, Beckett Brown turned to garbage swiping as a key tactic. BBI officials and contractors routinely conducted what the firm referred to as “D-line” operations, in which its operatives would seek access to the trash of a target, with the hope of finding useful documents. One midnight raid targeted Greenpeace. One BBI document lists the addresses of several other environmental groups as “possible sites” for operations: the National Environmental Trust, the Center for Food Safety, Environmental Media Services, the Environmental Working Group, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, an organization run by Lois Gibbs, famous for exposing the toxic dangers of New York’s Love Canal. For its rubbish-rifling operations, BBI employed a police officer in the District of Columbia and a former member of the Maryland state police.

 

Taco Bell genetic corn fiasco 

 

Article Continues @ Sourced Site. 

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The Alternative Food Network

Published by
Gene Shinai
April 10, 2008 in Agriculture, Commerce, Food, Foreign, Newz and The Environment. 0 Comments

From Celcias:

 Small scale food retailers, struggling in the UK (and many other countries) by massive monopolising corporations, are beginning to be joined in the battle by alternative food outlets. The fight rages on several fronts.

 

Farmers markets are going from strength to strength in many diverse parts of the UK. Whilst in the recent past these would have been a few overpriced stalls on a wet Wednesday in many towns, some are now fantastically vibrant and even supported and promoted enthusiastically by local authorities.

 

For example, Stroud in Gloucestershire recently won the UK farmer’s market of the year award.

 

The farmers’ market takes over the winding streets of Stroud every Saturday from 9am to 2pm. At its core is the Cornhill Market Place where the market started in July 1999. Steady growth in the number of stalls meant that the farmers’ market has spilled out into surrounding streets making surprises at each turn for the first-time visitor. On average there are 45 stalls attending every week. —farmersmarket.net 

This is particularly encouraging for anyone who remembers the Stroud of 20 years ago — an unremarkable small town in Western England that few bothered to visit. It had many empty shops and an air of boredom. Today the green economy is booming; there are several local alternative currencies and other green initiatives.

 Article Continues @  Sourced Site.

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Global warming rushes timing of spring

Published by
Gene Shinai
March 19, 2008 in Agriculture, Extinction, Newz, The Environment and sci-tech. 0 Comments

Via Yahoo News:

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON - The capital’s famous cherry trees are primed to burst out in a perfect pink peak about the end of this month. Thirty years ago, the trees usually waited to bloom till around April 5.

In central California, the first of the field skipper sachem, a drab little butterfly, was fluttering about on March 12. Just 25 years ago, that creature predictably emerged there anywhere from mid-April to mid-May.

And sneezes are coming earlier inPhiladelphia. On March 9, when allergist Dr. Donald Dvorin set up his monitor, maple pollen was already heavy in the air. Less than two decades ago, that pollen couldn’t be measured until late April.Pollen is bursting. Critters are stirring. Buds are swelling. Biologists are worrying.

“The alarm clock that all the plants and animals are listening to is running too fast,”Stanford University biologist Terry Root said.

Blame global warming.

The fingerprints of man-made climate change are evident in seasonal timing changes for thousands of species on Earth, according to dozens of studies and last year’s authoritative report by the Nobel Prize-winning international climate scientists. More than 30 scientists told The Associated Press how global warming is affecting plants and animals at springtime across the country, in nearly every state.

What’s happening is so noticeable that scientists can track it from space. Satellites measuring when land turns green found that spring “green-up” is arriving eight hours earlier every year on average since 1982 north of the Mason-Dixon line. In much ofFlorida and southern Texas and Louisiana, the satellites show spring coming a tad later, and bizarrely, in a complicated way, global warming can explain that too, the scientists said.

Biological timing is called phenology. Biological spring, which this year begins at 1:48 a.m. EDT Thursday, is based on the tilt of the Earth as it circles the sun. The federal government and some university scientists are so alarmed by the changes that last fall they created a National Phenology Network at the U.S. Geological Survey to monitor these changes.

The idea, said biologist and network director Jake Weltzin, is “to better understand the changes, and more important what do they mean? How does it affect humankind?”

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Newly Discovered Fungus Threatens World Weat Crop

Published by
Gene Shinai
March 17, 2008 in Agriculture, Food, Foreign, Government, Middle East and Newz. 0 Comments

From Slashdot:

The UN reports that a variety of the rust fungus originally detected in Uganda in 1999 has already spread as far north as Iran, threatening wheat production across its range.

Story Continues @ Sourced Site.

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Opinion: My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)

Published by
Gene Shinai
March 1, 2008 in Agriculture, Government, Newz, Opinion and Policies and Procedures. 2 Comments

From The New York Times:

IF you’ve stood in line at a farmers’ market recently, you know that the local food movement is thriving, to the point that small farmers are having a tough time keeping up with the demand.

But consumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and vegetables not just at farmers’ markets, but also in the produce aisle of their supermarket, will be dismayed to learn that the federal government works deliberately and forcefully to prevent the local food movement from expanding. And the barriers that the United States Department of Agriculture has put in place will be extended when the farm bill that House and Senate negotiators are working on now goes into effect.

As a small organic vegetable producer in southern Minnesota, I know this because my efforts to expand production to meet regional demand have been severely hampered by the Agriculture Department’s commodity farm program. As I’ve looked into the politics behind those restrictions, I’ve come to understand that this is precisely the outcome that the program’s backers in California and Florida have in mind: they want to snuff out the local competition before it even gets started.

Last year, knowing that my own 100 acres wouldn’t be enough to meet demand, I rented 25 acres on two nearby corn farms. I plowed under the alfalfa hay that was established there, and planted watermelons, tomatoes and vegetables for natural-food stores and a community-supported agriculture program.

All went well until early July. That’s when the two landowners discovered that there was a problem with the local office of the Farm Service Administration, the Agriculture Department branch that runs the commodity farm program, and it was going to be expensive to fix.

Story Continues (Sourced Site)

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USDA Rejects ‘Downer’ Cow Ban: Agriculture Secretary Finds Existing Meat-Processing Rules Adequate

Published by
Gene Shinai
February 29, 2008 in Agriculture, Newz, Policies and Procedures, Product Safety and The Congress. 0 Comments

Courtesy The Washington Post:

 By Christopher Lee

Washington Post Staff Writer 

Friday, February 29, 2008; Page A03 

Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafertold Congress yesterday that he would not endorse an outright ban on “downer” cows entering the food supply or back stiffer penalties for regulatory violations by meat-processing plants in the wake of the largest beef recall in the nation’s history.
Appearing at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Schafer said the department is investigating why it missed the inhumane treatment of cattle at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino,Calif., including workers administering electric shocks and high-intensity water sprays to downer cows — those too sick or weak to stand without assistance.
The secretary announced interim steps such as more random inspections of slaughterhouses and more frequent unannounced audits of the nearly two dozen plants that process meat for federal school lunch programs.
But he deflected calls from Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), the subcommittee chairman, for the government to ban all downer cows from the food supply, increase penalties for violators and require installation of 24-hour surveillance cameras in processing plants.
“The penalties are strong and swift, as we have shown,” Schafer said. “Financially, I don’t see how this company can survive. People need to be responsible and, from USDA’s standpoint, they will be held responsible. . . . They broke the rules. That does not mean the rules are wrong. I believe the rules are adequate.”

Story Continues @ Sourced Site. 

 

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US Government accepts Food from Animal Clones to be Safe

Published by
Gene Shinai
January 17, 2008 in Agriculture, Business/Finance, Government, Newz and Product Safety. 0 Comments

From Reuters:

By Missy Ryan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government ruled on Tuesday that food from cloned animals and their offspring is as safe as other food, opening the door to bringing meat and milk from clone offspring into the food supply.

“Extensive evaluation of the available data has not identified any subtle hazards that might indicate food consumption risks in healthy clones of cattle, swine or goats,” the Food and Drug Administration said in a final risk assessment that confirmed preliminary findings from 2006.

The FDA, after reviewing more than 700 studies, said it did not have enough facts to make an assertion about cloned sheep.

The ruling was the latest twist after years of debate over the reproductive technology, which advocates say will provide consumers with top-quality food by replicating prized animals that can breed highly productive offspring.

The cloning industry, made up so far of only a handful of firms, expects that it will be the offspring of cloned animals, not the costly clones themselves, that would provide meat or milk to U.S. consumers.

There are currently about 570 cloned animals in the United States, but the livestock industry has so far followed a voluntary ban on marketing food from cloned animals.

Even as the FDA unveiled its final rule, the Agriculture Department asked the cloning industry to prolong the ban on selling products from cloned animals during a “transition” period expected to last at least several months.

That ban would not extend to meat and milk from clone’s offspring, a USDA spokesman said.

It could take four or five years before consumers are able to buy clone-derived food on a wide scale as animals are cloned, mature and give birth to progeny used for food.

While the FDA findings are a boon for the cloning industry, the topic remains controversial even among food producers and is an unpalatable idea for many American consumers.

U.S. food companies are approaching the ruling gingerly. Some dairy firms oppose cloning, betting that shoppers will shun goods they see linked to cloning technology.

Several major food companies, like Tyson Foods Inc, quickly stated that they are not signing up for cloned livestock, at least right away.

CAUTION AMONG LAWMAKERS, PRODUCERS -More>

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SunScreen for Vegitables

Published by
Gene Shinai
December 11, 2007 in Agriculture, Business/Finance, Health, Newz and sci-tech. 0 Comments

From CNet News:

Posted by Michael Kanellos

Purfresh, which used to go by the name Novazone, has tested and now will more actively market a sunscreen for things that come out of the ground.

Called Eclipse, it’s a powder made from multicrystalline calcium carbonate. You spray it on onions and other crops to reduce solar stress. Farmers can lose 30 percent or more of their crops to overexposure to the sun, said Purfresh CEO David Cope. The remaining, salable crops can also get damaged and lose some of their value through overexposure. Spray on the powder–which is rated SPF 42–and you can eliminate losses due to in-field sunburn.

The product has mostly been tested in Chile, but the company will try to market it in a variety of regions. It’s safe for humans, too.

“It’s the same white power you see in chewing gum wrappers,” said Cope.

Eclipse is part of the company’s plans to become a full-service house for food and water technology. Currently, it mostly earns revenue through its systems that purify bottled water or produce with ozone. The company has 300 customers in 22 countries. While most of the customers are growers, the company is expanding sales to transportation outfits and retailers. -More>

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Global Warming Could Wipe Out Decades of Progress, Groups Say

Published by
Gene Shinai
November 21, 2007 in Agriculture, Economy, Environmental Disaster, Foreign, Human Rights and Newz. 0 Comments

From Bloomberg:

By En-Lai Yeoh

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) — Climate change may cut rice and wheat yields in Asia and wipe out decades of social and economic progress, a report on the environment said.

“An increase of just 1 degree Celsius in night-time temperatures during the growing season will reduce Asian rice yields by 10 percent,” according to environmental group Greenpeace, one of the contributors to the “Up in Smoke” report. “Wheat production could by fall 32 percent by 2050.”

The report comes just before the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand will pledge to reduce the impact on global warming at their summit meeting in Singapore Nov. 21.

“Slowing and reversing these threats is the defining challenge of our age,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Nov. 17 at the release of the world body’s panel report on the climate and emissions, ahead of a conference in Bali on global warming.

The U.S. is the world’s biggest producer of man-made carbon dioxide, followed by China, with India ranked fourth, according to the UN. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.

The “Up in Smoke” report said China’s wheat, rice and corn yields could fall by as much as 37 percent at the end of the century from drought. WWF, Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, the World Council of Churches, Indiadisasters.org and Down to Earth Indonesia were also among the report’s 35 contributors.

“In India, there have been some recent floods affecting 28 million people and also widespread drought in some Indian states,” Greenpeace said. “If no action is taken, 30 percent of India’s food production could be lost.”

Warmer Weather -More>

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