U.S. Agriculture Outlook 2014 Edition

Most farmers will have 40 growing seasons in their lifetime...just 40 chances to improve on every harvest. – Howard g. buffett

THE NEW YORK TIMES

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– Dan Glickman Howard’s intellect is only surpassed by the size of his heart. This book will give readers a chance to learn from him in the way that I have and form their own plan for making the most of the 40 Chances we all have. – EVA LONGORIA Howard has three passions: his devotion to the fight against hunger and misery; his love for farming; and his ability as a photographer and writer to share his amazing journey. Through the stories in 40 Chances, Howard invites all of us to join his efforts to fight poverty. – CARLOS SLIM [T]he book successfully blends personal stories with a tough look at the struggle to fight domestic food scarcity and world hunger. – publishers weekly An impressive example of how an individual’s diligent work can truly affect the world. – Kirkus reviews Howard Buffett has figured out a way to tell 40 stories about hunger, farming, poverty, and war, while delivering a readable account of a formidable challenge.

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IRRIGATION SOLUTIONS FOR TODAY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AN INTERVIEW WITH FLORIDA AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONER ADAM PUTNAM .............................................................................................. 12

By J.R. Wilson

Innovative thinking for tomorrow

POLITICS AND POLICIES ............................................................................... 16 Optimism for a new farm bill despite hurdles

By Craig Collins

Grundfos offers the industry’s broadest line of irrigation pumping systems through our Grundfos, Paco and Peerless

AG FORECAST ................................................................................................ 26

By J.R. Wilson

product brands. We are driven by the desire to develop the market’s most intelligent

THE NEW AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE ........................................................... 36 Women are leading the way in sustainable and organic agriculture and adopting new roles to further the next generation of farmers.

By Tara N. Wilfong

solutions because, above all,

LINKING U.S. PRODUCERS TO THE WORLD .................................................... 46

By David A. Brown

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our goal is to help growers get more crop out of every drop.

CLIMATE CHANGE .......................................................................................... 54

By Craig Collins

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SMITH-LEVER ACT: EMPOWERING RURAL AMERICA .................................... 64

By David A. Brown

For over 35 years Fastline has helped farmers find the products

MORRILL ACT PLANTED THE SEEDS OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR ALL...................................................................................... 73

By David A. Brown

and services they need.

We are honored to earn the

FEEDING THE GAP ......................................................................................... 76 Agriculture’s sustainability depends on human capital as much as it does on natural resources.

By Megan Karlin, Agriculture Future of America

trust of farmers. We pride ourselves on running our business with integrity to help you achieve success and be

AGRITECH ..................................................................................................... 82

By J.R. Wilson

there when you need us.

“HERD” THE NEWS? ...................................................................................... 92 Cautious optimism replaces drought woes in the U.S. cattle industry.

By David A. Brown

Here’s to many more years as the farmer’s best friend.

INVASIVE SPECIES......................................................................................... 102 Scientists are rushing to agriculture’s defense.

By Craig Collins

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

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CAN A GENETIC TUNE-UP SAVE THE ORANGE?............................................... 108

By Craig Collins AGRICULTURAL BIOSOLIDS............................................................................ 112 Ready or not, they’re here to stay.

By Craig Collins URBAN ROOTS................................................................................................ 120 Growing crops in cities and suburbs has become a popular way to not only introduce fresh, healthy produce to the community, but also educate the next generation of urban farmers.

By Tara N. Wilfong SUPERBUGS................................................................................................... 132

By J.R. Wilson RURAL EFFORTS TO BENEFIT FARMERS......................................................... 140

By David A. Brown WE ALL WANT A BETTER APPLE...................................................................... 148 But maybe the apple isn’t the problem. Maybe it’s us.

By Craig Collins RODENT ROUNDUP......................................................................................... 156 Problems with and solutions to furry ag pests

By David A. Brown

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK 2014 EDITION

Published by Faircount Media Group 701 N. West Shore Blvd.

Tampa, FL 33609 Tel: 813.639.1900 www.faircount.com EDITORIAL Editor in Chief: Chuck Oldham Managing Editor: Ana E. Lopez Project Editor: Iwalani Kahikina Editor: Rhonda Carpenter Editor/Photo Editor: Steven Hoarn Contributing Writers: David A. Brown Craig Collins Megan Karlin Tara N. Wilfong J.R. Wilson DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Art Director: Robin K. McDowall Project Designer: Lorena Noya Designers: Daniel Mrgan, Kenia Y. Perez-Ayala Ad Traffic Manager: Rebecca Laborde ADVERTISING Ad Sales Manager: Patrick Pruitt Account Executives: Steve Chidel, John Caianello, Robert Panetta, Jim Huston OPERATIONS AND ADMINISTRATION Chief Operating Officer: Lawrence Roberts VP, Business Development: Robin Jobson Business Development: Damion Harte, Kevin Higgins Financial Controller: Robert John Thorne Chief Information Officer: John Madden Business Analytics Manager: Colin Davidson Circulation: Alexis Vars Events Manager: Jim Huston

Ensuring the future success of our company and communities through: • The sustainable stewardship of our natural resources.

• The efficient manufacturing of wood products.

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©Copyright Faircount LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction of editorial content in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

Faircount LLC does not assume responsibility for the advertisements, nor any representation made therein, nor the quality or deliverability of the products themselves. Reproduction of articles and photos, in whole or in part contained herein, is prohibited without express written consent of the publisher, with the exception of reprinting for news media use. Printed in the United States of America. None of the advertising contained herein implies U.S. Department of Agriculture endorsement of any private entity. This is not a publication of the U.S. government.

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INTERVIEW

AN INTERVIEW WITH FLORIDA AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONER ADAM PUTNAM

BY J.R. WILSON

F

lorida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam has a lifelong stake in his state’s agriculture. He grew up and is still involved in a central Florida citrus and cattle operation and earned a degree in Food and Resource Economics from the University of Florida.

He represented Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives for 10 years before being elected commissioner in 2010 – one of only 13 elected commissioners in the United States.

While agriculture may not be among the top things that come to mind when most people think about Florida, the state’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is involved in one of its top industries, in massive programs to conserve water and soil, in joint efforts with other states and nations to combat pests and diseases, and with efforts to improve the health of Florida children through nutrition programs tied to the state’s agricultural production.

As 2014 got under way, Putnam spoke about those efforts with senior writer J.R. Wilson.

J.R. WILSON: Most people think of Florida in terms of beaches and space launches; how big a part of the state’s economy is agriculture?

COMMISSIONER ADAM PUTNAM: Agriculture in Florida is $100 billionplus in terms of economic impact, a major job driver, and the second-largest industry year in and year out, behind tourism; construction is usually third.

The irony is some of our counties most closely associated with tourism also are our largest agriculture centers – Palm Beach County is No. 1 in the state for agriculture.

So agriculture helped level out the challenges from downturns in construction and tourism from the 2008 recession.

How does Florida compare to other states in terms of agricultural production?

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

In total value, we’re near the top.

California is No. 1 and Florida would be second or third, depending on the year, in terms of the value of our 300 different agriculture commodities, predominantly specialty crops.

At or near the top of the list is citrus, of course, but we’re also home to the largest herd of cattle on one ranch in the country, and cattle continue to be an important part of our economy.

What are you doing that differs from other states?

We became the first state for the legislature to transfer school nutrition from the Education Department to the Agriculture Department; Texas and New Jersey did it by gubernatorial decree. That is a contributing factor to health and wellness by ensuring more locally grown fruits and vegetables get on student lunch trays.

It’s been very successful so far, aligning school menus with the harvest season and connecting farms with schools to create a market of 4.3 million meals served every day, 180 days a year. But we still have a lot to do – getting it on the tray is part of the battle, but getting it from the tray to the students’ mouths is the biggest challenge.

We also take water issues very seriously. In water wars, agriculture loses first and most, so we’ve been very involved in trying to shape long-term water policy that grows the resources rather than fighting over who gets the biggest slice.

That includes best-use practices and water storage on grazing land, which has been successful in the northern Everglades.

I view water and nutrition as longterm opportunities for Florida agriculture to diversify and remain profitable.

What are Florida’s largest issues related to agriculture?

Labor shortages are a big problem; much of what we grow is reliant on hand labor. Water quality and quantity are a challenge, especially as property values rebound and urban growth returns.

With few hard freezes, we have a major problem with pests and diseases and it’s very hard to eradicate those before they do serious damage to our crops. Right now, our citrus industry is facing a serious problem from citrus greening, which we believe entered through one of our ports from overseas – and could mean an end to the Florida citrus industry if we don’t find a cure very soon.

Photo courtesy of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

INTERVIEW

To what extent and in what ways has agritech become important to Florida agriculture?

Agritech is critically important to our future viability: irrigation sensors, better technology to help us make decisions on upcoming weather events, technology inside the tractor cab.

If you look at our commodities, they are grown in so few states there is only a fraction of the number of people investigating our problems or improving genetics as there are looking into grains.

So by being a specialty crops state, we are in a small fraternity with California and Hawaii, and depend on their researchers to help us solve our problems.

Developing a workforce that is trained in and can adapt these new technologies to improve profitability on Florida farms and keep families going amid record energy costs and high land costs will be a challenge.

What are Florida’s water issues and how does the perception of Florida as a water-rich state differ from reality?

I would rather have our water problems than those of some of our western states, but we do have challenges.

People don’t think of Florida as a state that has a water problem because we’re surrounded by water on nearly all sides and have many lakes, rivers, and streams, including the second-largest freshwater continental lake in the United States.

“Developing a workforce that is trained in and can adapt these new technologies to improve profitability on Florida farms and keep families going amid record energy costs and high land costs will be a challenge.”

But we don’t have enough water to meet the needs of our growing population.

In Central Florida alone, we have to find an additional 200 million gallons a day to meet expected population needs by 2030. That requires conservation in agriculture, by homeowners, and by tourists – including reclamation and getting out of the habit of only using water once.

We have more than 9 million acres of agricultural land enrolled in the state’s best practices program designed to improve water quality, which includes full compliance with the state’s water conservation and quality laws. Overall, Florida is one of the – if not the – most progressive states in managing the quality and quantity of its water supply.

How do hurricanes and tropical storms affect the state’s water supply and agriculture overall?

It’s a matter of capturing and storing that water to use when we need it. For the past 150 years, ditches and pipes were designed to move water off land

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

13

INTERVIEW

areas as quickly as possible. Now we are making investments to hold that water during a wet season or tropical storm or hurricane so we can redeploy it at a later date.

Lake Okeechobee is essential to that effort. There is a tension between the state and federal government over management of the lake because of the dike that surrounds it and restoring it to put as much water into it as we would like.

What are the primary diseases affecting livestock and produce in Florida and what treatments are available to combat them?

Citrus greening is a deadly bacterial disease that is an existential threat to Florida’s $9 billion industry. It has infected nearly half of the groves in Florida – and there is no cure. It’s only a question of time before it spreads to all citrus-producing states.

There is a coordinated effort with those other states – California, Texas, Louisiana – to get federal funding to stop the spread of the disease by controlling the pest that carries it. We’re also working with our former competitors – now collaborators – in Brazil to find a solution to this disease before it leads to an extinction of the citrus industry.

T he giant African land snail is another. T his inva si ve spe c ies, detected in Miami, is a trifecta threat: It consumes 500 varieties of plants, it destroys structures, and it carries a form of meningitis. Furthermore, each snail [produces 1,200 offspring] per year. We’re working to eradicate this pest before it does too much damage.

We’re also dealing with the redbay ambrosia beetle, which carries laurel wilt disease. It came in through the Port of Savannah [Ga.] around 2002 and has been moving south. It has now reached our commercial avocado farms.

Florida, California, and Hawaii have similar challenges from international travel and high volume sea-based cargo.

We have checkpoints and inspection stations at strategic locations coming into the state and are in the process of using some federal funding for better

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

technology to locate bugs and get quick turnaround answers on releasing a shipment or taking appropriate action if it is a threat.

We have 90 million visitors a year, so we work very closely with our airports on international passengers and customs and border protection. Only Florida and California have a designated liaison with federal agencies to work through those issues.

Only a small fraction of cargo is being looked at, and that is a national challenge, to put the resources needed into inspecting cargo coming into this country to look for agricultural pests and other problems. Weapons, bombs, and such get the bulk of that effort, but biological threats to our food supply are something the federal government should take more seriously than they have.

Many pests and diseases are killed off by cold winter weather in most of the country; does the relative lack of cold weather in Florida cause additional problems for state agriculture?

That’s why Florida, California, and Hawaii are in the same club in being sentinel states to the problems of high volumes of international visitors and cargo traffic and a lack of cold weather.

Whether it is citrus greening or pythons in the Everglades, they are not being held back by normal seasonal constraints.

In the last two years, we have seen premature fruit drop as a result of citrus greening, which means your margin is lying on the ground rotting, your production costs have doubled to try to cope, and there is no treatment or cure on the horizon, with the best hopes out there being long term in nature.

I’m confident, over time, we will find a treatment, but it remains to be seen how many farmers will survive the wait.

I’d say it’s a question of big farms, big problems; small farms, smaller but still serious problems. If you have a larger continuous planting, you may do better than a neighbor who doesn’t. But at this point, it’s bad for everybody.

It started in Asia and now Brazil and Florida have it, but it is in all citrusproducing areas around the world, to

some extent. USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] has been supportive and we have lobbied Congress for a number of years to fund research ef forts to deal with this threat.

Hawaii has been less engaged on greening, but there have been other agricultural threats on which Hawaii and Florida have been shoulder to shoulder.

How has agriculture evolved in Florida, in terms of: Acres devoted to crops or livestock?

We’ve had a great growth in small farms, with younger farmers creating direct relationships with restaurants.

Percentage of the population involved in agriculture?

Like agriculture everywhere, it is a very innovative, adaptive industry.

There isn’t anybody running their farm today the same way their father did.

We have commodities, such as citrus, which have been grown here a long time, but we also have new ones, such as blueberries and peaches, that were not big crops here 10 or 20 years ago. Our researchers have developed varieties of those crops that can be successful in Florida.

We’re seeing a renewed interest by young people in returning to the land, as is true elsewhere in the country. There are more small farms sourcing urban areas with organic products. It remains to be seen if there has been a real shift in American behavior or just a passing trend.

Everyone is concerned about the aging workforce in agriculture, but there is a bubble of young people moving back into our industry, which has continued to maintain its strong economic position.

Given the problems you are facing, will Florida retain its status as a major agriculture producer?

I’m still bullish on Florida, given the need to feed a growing middle class and overall population around the world, along with technology that allows us to improve yields and fight diseases. So I’m confident in the future of Florida agriculture, but we do have more than our fair share of adversity to overcome.

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POLITICS AND POLICIES

Optimism for a new farm bill despite hurdles

BY CRAIG COLLINS

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

W

Photo by Cliff Yates

POLITICS AND POLICIES

hen the U.S. House of Representatives reconvened after Thanksgiving weekend of 2013, two months had passed since the previous farm bill – which was itself merely an extension of the 2008 law – had expired. The four principal negotiators – House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn.; S e nat e A g r ic ult ur e C o mmit t e e C hair woman Debbie St abenow, D-Mich., and ranking member Thad Cochran, R-Miss. – had failed before the holiday to meet their own deadline

Photo by Nicholas A. Tonelli

POLITICS AND POLICIES

for establishing the ground rules for a conference report.

The Senate passed its own five-year farm bill in June. The legislation would cost roughly $955 billion over 10 years, and included significant cuts in direct subsidies to farmers, as well as $4 billion in cuts to the Supplement Nutrition Aid Program (SNAP, or food stamps).

The House approved a farm bill about a month later, though it conspicuously lacked an important piece – food assistance programs, which now account for about 80 percent of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) budget. The House passed

a separate piece of legislation in September, cutting SNAP benefits by $40 billion over the next decade.

At press time, the sensitive subject of federal food assistance has tentatively met a compromise, eliminating about $8 billion of SNAP funding over the next 10 years. The House passed a new five-year compromise farm bill Jan. 29, 2014. The bill now moves to the Senate for a vote, where it is expected to pass.

Failure to enact a deal would result in a default to specific agricultural policies enacted in 1938 and 1949. The dairy provisions of the 1949 law could cause the price of milk to soar.

Opposite: Migrant workers carefully choose and cut off squash at Kirby Farms in Mechanicsville, Va., Sept 20, 2013. Comprehensive immigration reform remains a top concern for industry members – workers and employers. Above: The new compromise farm bill expands crop insurance for farmers.

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

17

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POLITICS AND POLICIES

Photo provided by the Office of U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow

Several areas of concern that have heretofore held up passage of a farm bill include: • The Commodity Title The commodity title is one of the more arcane pieces of the farm bill, one that gets little attention outside rural communities in part because it’s so difficult to explain. It consists of direct payments given regardless of need (which both House and Senate leaders support phasing out entirely) and counter-cyclical payments, made to participating producers when the average price for covered commodities falls below a target price.

How to calculate those payments is a point of contention between the House and Senate farm bills. Pat Westhoff, Ph.D., director of the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri-Columbia, summed up the debate in simple terms: “The House bill puts greater emphasis on a program that makes payments when prices fall, while the Senate puts greater emphasis on a bill that makes payments when revenues fall

below trigger level. And the House bill makes payments on a per-planted-acre basis, whereas the Senate makes some of its payments on the basis of what was planted previously, rather than what is planted this year. So there are some philosophical differences about when and how one should try to provide support.”

In late November, three of the nation’s most powerful commodity groups – the National Corn Growers Association, the American Soybean Association, and the U.S. Canola Association – wrote the four lead congressional negotiators to reiterate their opposition to payments calculated on a per-planted-acre basis. “A similar program during the 1980s,” they wrote, “caused major planting distortions when market prices fell below target prices.

The resulting production surpluses for certain crops required supply controls, including acreage set-asides and the Farmer Owned Reserve, which undercut producer income and disadvantaged U.S. exports in world markets.” If the House and Senate could not agree on a bill that did not couple target prices to planted acres, the group said, they would

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., is joined by Michigan agriculture leaders at Michigan State University to talk about her 2013 farm bill – the Agriculture, Reform, Food and Jobs Act, May 28, 2013.

reluctantly support a two-year extension of the existing 2008 farm bill, rather than a new five-year law.

Westhoff believes these differences could be sorted out, but both proposed programs involved price supports that ran the risk of international retaliation through the World Trade Organization (WTO) – one of the issues most in need of sorting out, according to the major commodity organizations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

• Crop Insurance While the cost of the House crop insurance provisions ($93 billion over

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

19

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POLITICS AND POLICIES

10 years) is comparable to the Senate’s ($89 billion), the two contain stark philosophical differences. The Senate bill, unlike the House version, requires farmers to meet certain environmental requirements in order to receive crop insurance. The linkage between conservation compliance and crop insurance was established by the 1985 farm bill, but was subsequently delinked. Since 1996, compliance has been linked only to commodity programs, which have made direct payments contingent on compliance. Re-establishing conservation and insurance seemed logical to Senate agriculture leaders, who believed the proposed reductions in both commodity and crop insurance might drive some farmers to opt out of conservation compliance altogether.

Donn Teske, president of the Kansas Farmers Union, supports a federal role in encouraging conservation compliance; in recent years, he’s seen many Kansas

farmers, spurred by record corn prices, taking marginal lands out of the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in order to plant. “A lot of that was put in the CRP because it was highly erodible land,” he said. “The diehards will say we’re natural stewards of our environment, but that hasn’t really historically been the case. All the erodible land in Kansas got terraced not because it was the right thing to do – it got terraced because the government helped us terrace it. We had the carrot and the stick both. I’m not even sure they should be eligible for crop insurance, taking some of that land out [of the CRP program] and farming it.”

Opponents of linking crop insurance eligibility to conservation, however, have suggested that a farmer could suffer a catastrophic loss, only to discover, upon review, that he or she is ineligible for insurance payment because of a deficient conservation program. But Chandler

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack receives input from a group of Missouri farmers and agribusiness and academic leaders on a farm bill and the importance of its quick passage at a roundtable discussion in Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 23, 2013.

Goule, the National Farmers Union’s vice president of government relations, considers that an unlikely scenario. “The Senate built leniency in there,” he said – the bill establishes a rigorous appeals process for such contingencies.

The Senate bill also requires farmers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) of greater than $750,000 annually to pay more for crop insurance – more specifically, it lowers their subsidy by 15 percentage points. Though the idea of “means testing” crop insurance has bipartisan support – Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., proposed a similar idea in

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

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POLITICS AND POLICIES

October – it also faces stiff opposition from some of the most powerful agriculture advocacy organizations, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Soybean Association, and the National Corn Growers Association, on the grounds that it would lower participation in the federal crop insurance program and result in a higher risk pool, and increased premiums, for those who remain in the program.

Increasingly, legislators from both parties are beginning to view crop insurance as a program that has expanded from a safetynet program into a subsidy that eliminates nearly all of agriculture’s financial risks, and disproportionately subsidizes the already well off. Today, about 4 percent of American farmers receive about a third of federal crop insurance benefits. Though lawmakers differ over some details, crop insurance reform has broad bipartisan support.

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

rules worked to the detriment of the meat industry on both sides of the border. Tyson Foods, one of the leading purchasers of animals raised in Canada, had ended such purchases after the enactment of the COOL regulations.

The WTO ruled partially in Canada’s favor in 2011 and, in a similar dispute, in Mexico’s favor in 2012. Though WTO did not find the rule itself to be noncompliant, but rather the way in which it was implemented, some lawmakers have moved toward abandoning COOL

This beef displays the required Country of Origin Labeling (COOL), a labeling law that requires retailers to notify customers about the source of certain foods.

USDA photo by Bob Nichols

• Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) The National Farmers Union was one of the organizations most influential in persuading Congress to implement mandatory COOL on all fresh beef, pork, or lamb – essentially requiring retailers to inform consumers whether meat was imported or born and raised in the United States. Support for COOL has, if anything, grown stronger in recent years among consumer groups and family farmers and ranchers, and the program, administered by the Agricultural Marketing Service, has expanded to include many other products.

Large and influential packer-producers, however, see the requirement as too troublesome, not to mention stigmatizing, for a supply chain that is increasingly global in scope. Brazil-based JBS, the largest multinational food processing company in the world, acquired Swift & Company, the third-largest U.S. beef and pork processor, in 2007; the largest U.S. pork producer, Smithfield Foods, was acquired by a Chinese company in 2013 in a deal valued at about $7.1 billion.

But it was the Canadian government, not China or Brazil, that launched a challenge to COOL at the WTO in 2009, arguing that American COOL

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POLITICS AND POLICIES

requirements. Others – with the support of organizations such as the National Farmers Union and the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association – are engaged in negotiations with Canada, Mexico, and the WTO to make the existing rules less discriminatory against imported cattle. For these organizations, it’s an important enough issue that their support for the farm bill hinges on whether COOL provisions remain in the law.

IMMIGRATION: TOWARD A MORE STABLE WORKFORCE The agricultural workforce – today around 2 million workers – contains a large contingent of seasonal employees.

T he U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS), the only federal survey that regularly determines the legal status of interviewees, has found since the mid-1990s that about half of the hired workers on crop farms have been undocumented immigrants – a fact that makes many Americans uncomfortable, for a variety of reasons.

In recent years, state and federal laws often have made it more difficult for farm operators to hire and retain workers. Recent examples include a 2011 Georgia state law designed, in the words of one of its authors, “to eliminate incentives for illegal aliens to cross into our state.” The law achieved this purpose; the state’s department of agriculture reported, in spring 2011, a labor shortage of 11,000 jobs, leaving farmers about 40 percent short-handed.

The University of Georgia later reported that among the state’s seven primary fruit and vegetable crops, direct and indirect losses amounted to $391 million for the year.

Such stringent immigration laws are often based on two basic tenets: First, that undocumented immigrants should not be rewarded for breaking U.S. laws.

Philosophically it’s difficult to argue with this point, but pragmatically, it presents an insurmountable problem: The federal and state governments simply don’t have the ability to process

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

and deport the estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States – and the unintended ripple effects of laws such as Georgia’s suggest that such an effort would have disastrous economic consequences.

The second tenet is that illegal workers take jobs from American citizens and drive wages downward. For this argument, there is much evidence to the contrary. The Western Growers Association, which represents the growers, packers, and shippers of about half the produce grown nationally, has estimated that labor shortages have forced growers to move about 80,000 acres of fruit and vegetable production out of California. “The issue is not wages,” said Tom Nassif, the association’s president and chief executive officer. “For example, in the strawberry industry, we have an employer, a member of our board, who was paying a piece rate that amounted to over $30 per hour, health benefits, overtime, a 401(k) retirement plan, vacation time – and still could not hire enough workers to get his strawberries harvested.”

One of the main reasons for the labor shortage is that the program under which workers can achieve legal status – the H-2A Visa, which allows a foreign national entry to the United States for temporary or seasonal agricultural work – is burdensome and time-consuming.

The program requires growers to first prove an inability to hire American citizens – which is difficult, if not theoretically impossible – and requires a 45-day waiting period before certification, which must be renewed annually.

Comprehensive immigration reform has long been a goal of the Obama administration, and in June 2013, the U.S. Senate introduced a bipartisan bill that proposed several practical solutions.

The bill offers a path to citizenship for many of the undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States, making them eligible to work. It also expands and streamlines existing worker programs, adding a “W” visa that will allow foreign nationals a three-year period of agricultural employment.

The Western Growers Association is a founding member of the nationwide Agriculture Workforce Coalition, a collection of organizations – now numbering more than 80 altogether – who support the Senate bill.

As of December, however, there was no comprehensive immigration bill forthcoming from the House of Representatives, nor were there any plans to discuss the Senate proposal.

“We have no intention,” said Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, in mid-November, “of ever going to conference on the Senate bill.” Instead, House Republicans have proposed smaller pieces of legislation, targeted at separate issues such as border security, employment verification, and a possible path to legalization for undocumented immigrants brought into the country as children.

None of the members of the House majority, however, have offered a time line for presenting these separate bills. As the month of December began – a month during which the House and Senate would be together in Washington, D.C., for a total of only five days – immigration reform seemed deader than the farm bill, and it seemed unlikely that Congress would be able to help the agricultural industry solve its most pressing problems before 2014.

The National Farmers Union, a supporting member of the Agriculture Workforce Coalition, still held out hope that a compromise could be reached.

“Agriculture is going to be a significant loser if the House of Representatives cannot come up with a comprehensive plan,” said Goule. “CBO [the Congressional Budget Office] has estimated that passing comprehensive immigration reform will save the U.S. more than $900 billion over 10 years, because you’re not only increasing your tax base but you’re also not paying emergency room fees, and all these other things that we pay for undocumented people in this country. Passing good, strong, comprehensive immigration reform is a win-win – not only for agriculture, but for the country and for deficit reduction.”

AG FORECAST

AG FORECAST

BY J.R. WILSON

As

Congress returned to work after the holiday recess, one of the major issues dividing the House and Senate was funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Though it appears, as of press time in late January, that passage of a farm bill is imminent, the fact remains that lawmakers have not passed a farm bill since 2012, meaning USDA, supporting one of the nation’s largest and most critical industries, has been operating under a continuing resolution (CR) and three-year-old funding levels.

The Congressional Budget Office baseline for USDA spending shows about 79 percent of its budget goes to nutrition programs, including food stamps.

The rest is split among commodity support, research and development, rural development, crop insurance, and so on. There have been calls, mostly from non-farming district lawmakers, to remove nutrition programs from the USDA budget.

“The conference committee seems to be in agreement on most issues, but some are still in the air. The big question is whether the full House and Senate will agree to any compromise,” according to Pat Westhoff, Ph.D., director of the University of Missouri’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute and a former staffer on the Senate Agriculture Committee.

“A major point of disagreement [has been] nutrition funding; reports say the conference is in basic agreement on a $10 billion cut – more than the Senate, a lot less than the House.”

Robert Johansson, USDA’s deputy chief economist, agrees the division

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

between the two chambers over nutrition programs has been a major obstacle to getting a new farm bill.

“The difference [before the recess], roughly over a 10-year period, was the Senate was looking to lower outlays on nutrition by about $3.9 billion, while the House wanted roughly $39 billion – 10 times as much,” he said. “There was a certain amount of pessimism [in December] about whether the reconciliation group could come to agreement on a new five-year farm bill, although there recently has been more optimism that they can agree on some things.

“They reportedly have come to agreement on the way forward for an overall federal budget, with savings from the farm bill wrapped into a larger budget bill. The secretary [of Agriculture] has been pretty adamant a new farm bill is necessary to give assurances to rural communities and farmers, so they know what to plan on for the next 10 years in making their investment decisions.

A new farm bill also would allow for reinstatement of some disaster funds that have expired.”

President Barack Obama reportedly favors the Senate version over the House proposal on nutrition spending, which is exempt from the mandatory cuts of sequestration.

“I don’t know what the president’s reaction would be,” Johansson said.

“There have been reports the White House is threatening to veto any bill containing large cuts to nutrition spending.”

As with the rest of the government, USDA also has begun work on its next budget request, but each year without a new bill further complicates efforts

to prepare the follow-up proposal for programs other than nutrition.

“It would be very difficult – do you base it on the last actual budget, try to catch up what they wanted to do this year or start with a clean slate?” Westhoff said.

Johansson agreed: “We would submit a 2015 proposal on what we need to do everything in our mission area, based on what we asked for in the president’s 2014 budget. If we’re faced with a CR subject to sequestration, we would have to find the savings to meet those numbers, so we probably will submit several versions of our 2015 request, each contingent on what happens.”

One of the biggest concerns within the agriculture community is the expiration of disaster funding at a time when floods, fires, drought, new diseases and pests, and extreme winter cold have stunted or destroyed crops for many of the nation’s farmers, large and small.

“We have some funding flexibility in other programs that can be directed to areas in need of assistance. For example, last year, during the drought, we allowed some grazing on federal land,” Johansson said. “I think the language in the proposed farm bill allows funding previous disaster spending, but we need a new five-year farm bill to truly fund any future disaster assistance.

“The safety net we have in place now was very useful in dealing with last year’s drought, but some of the specialty crop and livestock producers were not able to fully avail themselves of those resources. For the most part, the new farm bill would extend disaster provisions that would cover those producers who were unable to cover their losses due to natural disasters.”

Photo by Linda Tanner

AG FORECAST

USDA and the nation’s land-grant colleges, home to most U.S. agriculture schools, also are concerned about the changing nature of farms and farmers – changes far greater than the general public realizes.

Prior to World War II, America was still essentially an agrarian nation, but the percentage of the U.S. population involved with agriculture has dropped significantly in the past half-century, especially among young people. At the same time, farms have become a lot more efficient as technology has made machines more productive and biologics have created more productive seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. In general, larger farms can take better advantage of those than small farms due to economies of scale.

According to USDA, looking at all farms as single units, regardless of size, small farms still greatly outnumber megafarms, but fall far short of the big producers in sales and economic impact.

“In 2010, the number of farms with sales of less than $100,000 was about 83 percent of all farms or roughly 1.8 million farms. But 92 percent of all U.S. ag production occurred on larger farms,” Johansson noted. “To be qualified as a

farm enterprise, you have to be living on the farm and managing it, although some are owned by corporations or individuals who do not actually work on them.

While there are fewer people involved in agriculture today than some decades ago, the numbers seem to have stabilized.

“The federal government has several programs to encourage new young farmers to get into the business, which is something the secretary is involved with, but reports still show the overall age of American farmers is climbing. We need to make sure, when they are gone, we have resources in place to help with that transition. For example, I’ve also seen reports that larger farms are now hiring young managers.”

Both small and large farms depend heavily on the department, which met its sequestration mandate last year with cuts to the direct payment program to farmers, Westhoff added.

“The commodity programs are important to both large- and small-scale producers. I don’t see that changing any time soon, especially if we have a downturn in prices for some commodities, making that program even more important to the safety net,” he said.

“Crop insurance is equally important to

The House passed a new fiveyear compromise farm bill Jan. 29, 2014. The bill now moves to the Senate for a vote, where it is expected to pass. Perhaps the most significant change to ag policy that this farm bill would make is ending direct payment subsidies.

producers of all scales, although perhaps of greater benefit to big ag.

“Environmental programs operated through national resource management services help provide funding and expertise to those trying to maintain natural resources on their farms. The extension programs have been important to farmers for decades and continue to be so, especially for small farms. USDA lending programs also are important to small farmers, especially those just getting started.”

While most large operations do not qualify for such loans, crop insurance is near the top of their USDA program needs, largely because it currently has no limitations, as commodity programs do, on how much any one farm can receive.

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

27

Photo by Ben Christenson

AG FORECAST

“Information in general is important to all producers, but what large-scale producers need can be different from year to year. They are more likely to access those reports directly and work with third parties to interpret the data for them, where small farmers are more likely to rely on others for advice on marketing,” Westhoff continued.

“We have policies that try to provide cushions against the bad times so farmers won’t be driven out of business, but we aren’t doing as much of that today; government payments are far lower than they were even 10 years ago. That’s the result of a lot of budgetary decisions.

The good news is, until recently, there have been major increases in commodity prices, so farm payments [from the government] became a smaller share of farm income. But that may be changing as commodity prices have dropped and we expect them to remain far below their peaks for many years to come.”

Agritech has not been the only driver of change in the size and productivity of farms or the demographics of farmers themselves. Cultural changes, some supported by governments at all levels, have led to an increase in “niche farms” supplying organic and free-range products directly to local speciality stores and restaurants. USDA, industry, and academia are working to change their programs and perspectives to better meet those changing needs.

“Extension has changed dramatically.

A lot of extension work was targeted at the mid-size producers, which have been hardest hit by reductions, but there is a whole new set of demands to help small-scale farms providing for niche markets and they probably are using a lot more university resources than before,” Westhoff explained.

“The share of agriculture offerings around the country has declined and there are few situations where the ag portions of land-grant colleges have grown. But the College of Agriculture at Missouri is still very active and doing a lot of things we didn’t do before, such as food and hotel management. But the focus on ag production is less than before and has new focuses.”

In its 2014 Funding Overview, the USDA Office of Budget and Program Analysis stated funding for ongoing discretionary operating and program expenses had decreased by more than $1 billion since 2009. The department’s overall budget authority grew from $116 billion in 2009 to a peak of $156 billion in 2013 (including $24 billion in discretionary spending both years), although the 2013 CR reduced that to $153 billion.

“USDA agencies have implemented efficiencies to manage a workload that has increased due to a greater number and complexity of programs and higher participation levels. Over the same period, staff resources to manage that increased program level have declined by roughly 5 percent,” the Overview reported. “USDA’s total outlays for 2014 are estimated at $146 billion. Roughly 83 percent of outlays, about $121 billion in 2014, are associated with mandatory programs that provide services as required by law.

“The remaining 17 percent of outlays, estimated at about $25 billion, are associated with discretionary programs such as WIC [Women, Infants, and Children nutrition services]; food safety; rural development loans and grants; research and education; soil and water conservation technical assistance; animal and plant health; management of national forests, wildland fire, and other Forest

The new bill strengthens risk management tools like crop insurance to prevent farmers from being wiped out by weather disasters. Farmers pay into crop insurance annually, ensuring they share in the cost of disaster relief.

Having an effective crop insurance program in place also reduces the need for Congress to pass ad hoc disaster bills.

Service activities; and domestic and international marketing assistance.”

Saying agriculture is “one of the bright spots in the recovering economy,” the report called for continued funding of innovative programs and technologies to enable the United States to out-compete the rest of the world in food production while growing the rural jobs base.

“Family household incomes in rural areas are on the rise, farm sector earnings and agricultural exports have reached record highs, and agriculture accounted for one in 12 jobs. However, rural America faces an increasingly challenging, technologically advanced and competitive environment,” according to the Overview.

“Meeting these challenges creates many opportunities for families in rural communities to generate prosperity in

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

29

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AG FORECAST

Left: The University of Massachusetts Amherst takes sustainability from the classroom to the field – and back again – with its Student Farming Enterprise. This program is one example of a broader interest in and renewed focus on sustainable agriculture. Right: Seanicaa Edwards (left), swine economist for University of Missouri (MU) Extension Commercial Agriculture Program, with Joseph Dolginow, MU graduate research assistant in agricultural economics.

new ways while conserving the Nation’s natural resources and providing a safe, sufficient, and nutritious food supply for the country and the world. The Department is well positioned to support its constituents in taking advantage of these new opportunities.”

The USDA’s “Strategic Plan FY 20102015” and “Strategic Plan FY 20102015 Update Addendum” set out three strategic goals for the agency: • ensure that all of America’s children have access to safe, nutritious, and balanced meals; • ensure our national forests and private working lands are conserved, restored, and made more resilient to climate change, while enhancing our water resources; and • assist rural communities to create prosperity so they are self-sustaining, repopulating, and economically thriving.

Central to meeting those and other priorities identified in each annual budget request is maintaining America’s global status as an exporter of agricultural products.

“The vitality of rural America is heavily dependent on agricultural exports – one-third of all U.S. agricultural cash receipts come from export sales,” according to the USDA’s Overview. “For every $1 billion of agricultural exports, an estimated 8,400 jobs are supported, and an additional $1.31 billion in economic activity is generated. Agriculture is one of a few sectors in the U.S. economy in which exports are creating a positive trade balance. Moreover, agricultural exports continue to grow, averaging 11 percent per year from FY 2006-2010.

“However, U.S. agricultural producers and small and medium enterprises face an increasingly challenging, technologically

advanced, and competitive business environment. USDA works to ensure that they are prosperous and competitive by supporting their access to international markets through market development programs, trade shows, prevention and resolution of Technical Barriers to Trade or those Sanitary/Phytosanitary measures that are not based on sound science, and market-expanding trade agreements for U.S. agricultural products.”

Leaders in government, industry, and academia agree achieving those goals depends on budgets that reflect rapid year-to-year changes in productivity, soil and water conservation, global demand for more and better food, and numerous other elements that have made agriculture one of the largest, most technologically advanced, and vital components of the U.S. economy.

In November 2013, the White House issued a report on “The Economic

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

31

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USDA photo

Agriculture Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Michael Scuse examines dry beans and lentils on a tour of the Carrefour Supermarket in Istanbul, Turkey, June 10, 2013. Scuse leads the Agibusiness Trade Mission to Turkey to promote U.S. agricultural exports to Turkey. Representatives from Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania, as well as 20 U.S. companies, participated in the tour.

Importance of Passing a Comprehensive Food, Farm, and Jobs Bill.” It was the latest installment in a nearly four-year effort to get a reauthorized farm bill through Congress.

“We need to focus on what the majority of Americans sent us here to do – grow the economy, create good jobs, strengthen the middle class, lay the foundation for broad-based prosperity and get our fiscal house in order for the long haul,” Obama said in October. “[That’s why] we should pass a farm bill – one that America’s farmers and ranchers can depend on, one that protects vulnerable children and adults in times of need and one that gives rural communities opportunities to grow and the longer-term certainty they deserve.”

But despite the administration declaring it a priority in June 2010, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, “43 months later and despite the best efforts of many in Congress, work on reauthorization on the farm bill remains incomplete. While some programs have been simply extended, others remain either unfunded, unauthorized, or without enactment of needed reforms.”

Vilsack said the White House report outlines many benefits a new farm bill would bring, not only to those directly involved in agriculture, but for all Americans and the nation as a whole.

Among them: • build on recent momentum of the U.S. agriculture economy, a key engine of economic growth;

• create a reliable safety net for U.S. farmers and ranchers, including a strong crop insurance program, a longterm extension of disaster programs, and retroactive assistance for livestock producers; • continue federal conservation efforts, working alongside a record number of farmers and ranchers to conserve soil and protect water; • promote new markets for U.S. producers abroad and at home, honor our trade commitments, and assist our farmers and ranchers to export a record amount of product around the world; and • support research ensuring that our long history of agricultural innovation continues.

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

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AG FORECAST

“T he past f ive years represent the strongest f ive-year period in our nation’s history for agricultural exports,” Vilsack said in his yearend blog. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture has focused on two key factors in recent years to help make this success possible. First, an unprecedented effort by USDA and our federal partners to expand and grow markets around the world. Second, a commitment to make sure our farmers and ranchers have the tools to grow more, even in the face of uncertainty.

“Thanks to the farm bill, particularly the Foreign Market Development Program and Market Access Program, USDA has been able to work with hundreds of U.S. businesses since 2009 to expand trade. We have led more than 150 U.S. agribusinesses on agricultural trade missions and helped more than 1,000 U.S. companies and organizations promote their wares at trade shows around the world. Together, these trade promotion programs yield $35 in economic benefits for every dollar invested. Unfortunately, without a new farm bill, these programs can’t continue.”

Top: Jeff Hoff at his farmstead in Perley, Minn., April 30, 2013. With the assistance of the USDA under its Red River Basin Initiative, Hoff was able to build up and modify an earthen dike (seen in background) that holds back flood waters around his home, structures, and farm equipment. Above: Montana ranchers used USDA Market Access Program (MAP) funds to explore market opportunities in Russia. Quarter horses were sent to Russia to work the herd and train the locals to become cattle hands.

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

35

WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

THE NEW AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE Women are leading the way in sustainable and organic agriculture and adopting new roles to further the next generation of farmers.

BY TARA N. WILFONG

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

industry,” said Tammy Gray-Steele, Ph.D., founder of the Oklahomabased National Women in Agriculture Association (NWIAA). “Women have always prepared and served the food we feed to our families, but now we’re also growing that food while simultaneously managing the daily business operations of farms and taking on key roles in major agricultural organizations. We’re doing many of the tasks we’ve always done, but now our actions are not only being noticed, but they’re also affecting policy change and contributing to the advancement of today’s changing agricultural industry.”

Some of the momentum behind the rise in the number of female farmers can be attributed to targeted national campaigns and organizations that provide information, education, representation, camaraderie, and assistance to this growing sector. USDA in particular has made a concerted effort to provide women and minority farmers with the resources they need to succeed and the platform for their voices to be heard. Through the Farm Service Agency’s outreach and education site, female farmers can access detailed information pertaining to policies, changes in the agricultural arena, finances, and community networks to help them succeed in this once predominately male industry.

NWIAA: PROMOTING DISADVANTAGED RURAL AND URBAN FEMALE FARMERS When Gray-Steele established the NWIAA in 2008, she envisioned an association that would use a multidisciplined approach to empower disadvantaged female farmers, giving them a voice and the necessary resources to succeed in the industr y. T he highly structured program provides outreach, education, and handson training for this under-serviced segment of the agricultural population, with the hope that participants will take the skills they’ve learned back to their respective farms and communities for immediate implementation.

While the NWIAA embraces anyone interested in furthering their personal, agricultural education – male, female, young, or old – the program primarily draws women, who account for 60 percent of all participants. “Our goal from the onset has been to make sure that any woman who wants to pursue a career in agriculture is community connected,” said Gray-Steele. “In this

Amy's Organic Garden owner Amy Hicks harvests greens at her farm in Charles City, Va.

USDA photo by Lance Cheung

A

recent study conducted by U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Economic Research Service (ERS) found that the agricultural landscape is undergoing some significant changes. Perhaps one of the most compelling of these changes is that women, for the first time in recent history, make up the fastest-growing sector of farm operators in the country.

Accounting for 30 percent of all U.S. farmers, women now number nearly 1 million strong in what was once a maledominated lifestyle.

The report, titled “Characteristics of Women Far m Operators and T heir Farms,” studied the Census of Agriculture’s data from 1978 to 2007. The data range encompasses the time period from when the census first asked for the primary operator’s gender through the date in which the most recent information is available.

During this nearly 30-year span, the number of women listing farming as their primary occupation almost tripled from 5 percent in 1978 to 14 percent in 2007.

Staggering as these numbers may seem to some, others simply classify it as “breaking the grass ceiling,” with women finally receiving due recognition for their efforts in the agricultural arena. “For years, women were ignored as a main vein in the agricultural

WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

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WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

USDA photo by Lance Cheung

Tammy Gray-Steele, Ph.D., founder of the National Women in Agriculture Association.

industry, it’s people and produce that grow. When women have the right community connections and they put their soul and spirit in to their growing business, they will succeed.”

With seven NWIAA chapters located across the southwestern and southeastern United States, and three pending chapters in California, Texas, and Kansas, the association invites participants to train and learn new agricultural techniques from its team of experienced and well-educated professionals. Charged with developing locally grown food security systems in underserved communities and guiding members on the principals of a sustainable, healthy lifestyle that will provide for future generations, some of the skills the association teaches is the fundamentals of garden planning, proper soil preparation, planting, and garden maintenance. Although the association’s outreach and education programs are far more encompassing based on the needs of its members, these grassroots campaigns really resonate among new and minority farmers.

Starting with the basics, Gray-Steele said they are fortifying the new generation of farmers – most of whom happen to be women – with the knowledge they need to grow their own fruits and vegetables while maintaining a healthier lifestyle.

“In many ways, we’ve moved so far away from the land, that we now must get back to the basics and learn to farm in the 21st century,” she said. “Our programs really target minority farmers so there is no longer a disconnect between the ability to grow and eat your own healthy food and your income level.”

For Gray-Steele, teaching other women the fundamentals of farming is in her blood. Growing up on a rural farm in Wewoka, Okla., her family was awarded 40 acres of land and a mule, and they worked hard to maintain and grow their operation. Today, their once-modest farm has expanded to 2,600 acres owned and operated between f ive family members. Although Gray-Steele no longer lives or works on the family

farm, she continues to experiment with her farming roots at her home garden and the gardens she helped create for the association. Using her early training to extoll the virtues of hard work and education, she avidly supports the next generation of female farmers.

In addition to hands-on training and educational outreach, the NWIAA hosts an annual symposium for women to network and learn about the newest opportunities that are available to them in agriculture. This year, the fourth annual New Generation Symposium takes place in Atlanta, Ga., April 24-26, and boasts the theme of divine intervention in agriculture through farming, education, and sustainability. Besides discovering new and innovative practices in agriculture, participants have the opportunity to visit local, womenoperated farms that are implementing successful strategies and learn about the different funding and incentive programs that are available to them.

Roxanne Molnar runs an 80,000 poultry farm in Grantville, Pa., while her husband, Matthew, works off the farm and frequently travels. A great example of the next-generation female farmer, Molnar’s daily tasks include controlling fans and vents and having to remove the 80,000 chickens from their feeders and moving them around to cool them.

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

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WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

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“Before I founded the NWIAA, I was working in agriculture by scheduling conferences for minority farmers,” Gray-Steele explained. “When I volunteered at the conferences and meetings, I noticed all of the women who attended [were] with their husbands.

Most of them stood in the background until their husband handed them the paperwork that needed to be filled out.

That’s when I decided women needed a voice in this industry and a way to not only further their education, but also to take on a leadership role in their farming operations. Six years later, we are certainly gaining ground in agribusiness, but by no means are we even halfway there yet. With more opportunities to learn, network, and succeed, we can introduce a new and empowered generation of ‘AgriDivas’ who have the energy and the technology to further this industry.”

A VOICE FOR YOUNG AND BEGINNING FARMERS With so many advances in the agricultural industry, and an increasing push toward a more sustainable lifestyle, many young people are choosing

farming as a viable career path.

Although they have the determination, ambition, and vision to sustain our country’s agricultural future, many of these new farmers lack the necessary financial, educational, and community support they need to succeed.

Founded in 2010 to fill this missing void, the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC) supports young, independent, and sustainable farmers, particularly those in their first 10 years of operation. Although the name may suggest otherwise, the organization readily includes anyone entering the field of agriculture, whether they are fresh out of school or making a mid-life career change. Serving as the voice for this underrepresented, and oftentimes overlooked group, the NYFC supports policy and legislative change that breaks the barriers new farm operators often encounter and offers viable solutions to support this expanding sector of the agricultural population.

Among this growing group, women comprise a vast majority of the new, sustainable and organic farmers entering the field, said Lindsey Lusher Shute, executive director of the NYFC and co-owner of Hearty Roots Community

Lindsey Lusher Shute, executive director of the National Young Farmers Coalition and co-owner of Hearty Roots Community Farm in New York, pictured with her husband, Ben, and daughter, Piper.

Farm in Clermont, N.Y. “On the ground, women are leading the way in sustainable agriculture,” she said. “For most women, this is a career in which they feel a sense of ownership, where they can have a tangible impact on our food system.”

Shute avidly supports this new generation of farmers who seek to change the country’s food system by growing healthier, more sustainable crops.

Although she was raised in suburbia, just outside Columbus, Ohio, Shute was first introduced to the rural lifestyle on her grandfather’s farm. While she had fond childhood memories of her time there, her passion for tending the land wasn’t realized until she moved to New York City and helped create the Red Shed Community Garden in Brooklyn.

“My work on the garden showed me the

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

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WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

power of farming and food as a platform for community building,” Shute said.

“During the time I lived in New York City, I was also exposed to Community Supported Agriculture and farm business models that help communities access affordable, high-quality food.”

Community gardening is also where Shute met her husband, Ben, who is originally from New York City and is now the primary operator of Hearty Roots Community Farm. Their farm faced numerous obstacles nearly from its inception. The most significant challenge – land access – created such a barrier that the couple knew they couldn’t possibly be the only young farmers struggling with policy, land, and financial issues.

Discussing their increasing frustration in securing land for their growing farm business with a friend, Severine von Tscharner Fleming, they learned that

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More women are taking the lead in running their own ag business.

she, too, was facing the same challenge.

Seated around a farmhouse table, the trio decided on the spot to band together to form a national coalition to support young and beginning farmers entering the agricultural industry, and in turn, fight for the future of farming.

That evening, the NYFC was born, and since it began, it has tackled many tough issues and brought numerous inequalities to the attention of agricultural policymakers. Shute, who had worked to build grassroots campaigns and pass several transportation laws in New York

state while Ben was farming, wanted to address the challenges faced by their farm through policy and organizing. “My work in policy and advocacy has been really essential in my ability to work in the agricultural sector as an advocate,” she said. “NYFC identifies the programs that aren’t working for young farmers and addresses them through administrative change and congressional advocacy.”

Among its most noteworthy calls to action is the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act of 2013. This marker bill provides provisions the NYFC would like to see incorporated into the much-delayed new farm bill to help young and beginning farmers.

The bill includes such points as access to land, credit, and technical assistance for new producers; assistance for new producers to launch and strengthen their businesses; help for new farmers to be good stewards of the land; and provide the training, mentoring, and research new farmers need to succeed.

Calling upon its 29 chapter groups across the country, as well as its network of 18,000 farmers and consumers, NYFC’s members as a whole support the bill and have presented it to Congress.

This past year, NYFC’s entire network banded together to react to the new food safety rules adopted by the Food and Drug Administration. According to Shute, the new rules are in conflict with organic farming, making it difficult for these farmers to comply. “We boiled down the 3,500 pages of rules for our constituents and presented those that would affect them most adversely,” she said. “Nearly 80 comment parties were organized in 49 states to address the rules and discuss how these changes would affect small and beginning farmers.”

With so many new farmers entering the field, the NYFC’s work is more important and impactful than ever.

While its current members can certainly affect regional change, Shute is hopeful that the coalition can continue to expand its farmer base, creating an expanded national network that can partner with USDA to help the next generation of farmers succeed.

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WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

THE FACE OF FEMALE FARMING

W

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

Postdoctoral researcher Amy Trauger, founder of the Pennsylvania Women's Agricultural Network (PA-WAgN).

When PA-WAgN was first founded, the goal was to encourage and support the female farmer through educational, networking, and mentoring opportunities, while also raising community awareness of agricultural issues and concerns.

The organization was equally committed to furthering farming as a successful livelihood. Today, the organization continues to support women’s agricultural endeavors, but it has grown to include a specialized mentorship program that encourages female farmers to work together to further their success.

By pairing established farmers with new, beginning, aspiring, and seasoned farmers, the organization cultivates a community of change, in which like-minded women can learn, share, and encourage one another. Workshops, forums, networking events, and one-on-one communication cover the issues that are important to most female farmers, namely fostering healthy food systems and promoting environmental sustainability.

These women who choose farming as their primary occupation are diversifying the field, using their education and desire for a healthier way of life to push sustainable and organic agriculture to the forefront. While they’ve encountered many obstacles along the way, they are certainly making significant strides. “That traditional gender divide is breaking down, I’m pleased to say,” Shute said. “In general, I don’t think women, particularly young women, see themselves as ‘women in agriculture,’ they simply see themselves as farmers and good stewards of the land.”

Photo courtesy of Penn State

hile women have always been involved in farming to varying degrees, many of today’s female farmers are claiming their role as the primary operator in response to both personal and professional factors. Many women choose to tend the land and livestock that has been in their families for generations, while others are taking on more responsibilities in partnerships they’ve entered into with husbands, sons, or other family members.

“Other women are getting into farming as the principal farm operator,” said Carolyn Sachs, Ph.D., professor of Rural Sociology, head of Women’s Studies at Pennsylvania State University, and organizer of the Pennsylvania Women’s Agricultural Network (PAWAgN). “The number of women farmers is increasing because they own more land and are using their farms in creative and innovative ways, such as community-supported agriculture, harvest dinners, and on-farm education for children. Many of these women are also involved in sustainable agriculture, valueadded production, and producing for local markets.”

This passion for producing healthy, high-quality food and putting it in the hands of the people in their community is a common trait among female farmers. Whether women are more likely to be hardwired to feed their children healthy, organic meals or they have a firm belief that the land should be preserved for future generations, many females see farming as a way to make an impact on a decidedly broken food system.

According to Lindsey Lusher Shute, executive director of the National Young Farmers Coalition and co-owner of Hearty Roots Community Farm in Clermont, N.Y., women are on the forefront of making our food system whole again. “Although I see many women drawn to the work of farming for the same reasons as men, they pair that interest with a call to action,” she said. “They see farming as an immediate way to create community health through good food and environmental stewardship.”

Less likely to operate large, sprawling farms that produce major commodities such as beef cattle, grain, and oilseeds – the farms generally operated by male farmers – female farmers tend to produce more specialty crops or classify their operation in the “other livestock farms” category. “Women-owned farms are smaller, more diversified and more likely to be financially at risk than farms operated by men,” Sachs explained. “Women report they are isolated and oftentimes not taken seriously as farmers. Networks such as PA-WAgN are helping women not only come together to claim their role in farming, but also to push to be recognized by agricultural institutions.”

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LINKING U.S. PRODUCERS TO THE WORLD

J

apan has long been one of the top importers of U.S.-grown organic grapes, but because of different certification standards, the process often proved prohibitive for America’s small- to medium-sized growers.

Fortunately, late September 2013 saw those walls crumble with a major trade breakthrough facilitated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) – the guide, adviser, and advocate for American growers and ranchers aspiring to send their agricultural products to the world.

In the case of the agreement with Japan, both countries import and export organic products, but now, a unified system of certification streamlines the process by allowing products certified organic in Japan or the United States to be sold as organic in either country. Exemplifying the FAS mission, the agreement greatly expands access for U.S. farmers and processors to the burgeoning Japanese organic market.

“This partnership reflects the strength of the USDA organic standards, allowing American organic farmers, ranchers, and businesses to access Asia’s largest organic market,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack stated in an agency release. “It is a win for the American economy and sets the foundation for additional organic agricultural trade agreements in Asia. This partnership provides economic opportunities for farmers and small businesses, resulting in good jobs for Americans across the organic supply chain.”

Prior to the new equivalency arrangement, U.S. organic farmers and businesses wanting to sell products in

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

Japan were required to obtain the Asian nation’s specific certification to meet its organic standards. The common result was increased fees, inspections, and paperwork beyond what was needed for domestic certification. The new system eliminates these redundant barriers and paves the path to a significant international market.

“This agreement will streamline access to the growing Japanese organic market for U.S. farmers and processors and eliminate significant barriers for small and medium organic producers, benefiting America’s thriving organic industry,” added U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. “This represents another key step in strengthening our economic relationship with Japan by boosting agriculture trade between Japan and the United States, leading to more jobs and economic benefits for American farmers and businesses in this important sector.”

ACCESS ABROAD In this and countless other examples of international trade facilitation, it’s all about connecting U.S. agriculture to the global marketplace, and FAS does so with two main goals: Maximizing export opportunities and promoting worldwide food security.

Of course, such ambitious objectives require manpower, and the FAS domestic staff based in Washington, D.C., extends its reach internationally through 96 foreign offices that cover 169 countries.

The life’s blood of this intricate network is the team of agricultural attachés

and local staff who observe, assist, and communicate with international communities on behalf of the U.S. agricultural industry. From problem-solving to public relations efforts, the FAS international network provides the eyes, ears, and hands to advance American agriculture and foreign policy.

Backed by the resources of the U.S. government, FAS divides its efforts into four main program areas: Trade Policy: Removing trade barriers and enforcing U.S. rights under existing trade agreements enables FAS to keep foreign markets open to U.S. agricultural products. International standards and rules to improve accountability and predictability are essential to U.S. export opportunity, so the agency works to ensure smooth operations by coordinating with foreign governments, international organizations, and the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Market Development and Export Assistance: For the purpose of helping U.S. exporters develop and maintain their

USDA photo by Blake Woodham

BY DAVID A. BROWN

FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL SERVICE

Photo by Cindy Wise of the Texas Pecan Growers Association

Photo by Northwest Cherry Growers; Seoul, Korea

Left: Agriculture Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden walks through a market in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sept. 17, 2013. Harden led a trade mission to the Sub-Saharan Africa Business Round Table to promote U.S. agricultural trade and investment in the region. The trade mission included 17 U.S. companies and 15 agricultural trade associations that represent a variety of products such as snack foods, beverages, fruit, nuts, and more. Below, left: Tim Montz (right) of the Montz Pecan Company speaks with members of the Chinese media while displaying his Texasgrown products at the USDA-supported SIAL China food trade show. Participation in USDA events and export assistance from the Foreign Agricultural Service has helped international sales of Montz pecans to thrive in recent years. Below, right: USDA resident cooperator Northwest Cherry Growers promotes fresh U.S. cherries at a Korean discount chain store for “Cherry Day.” Since the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement (KORUS) went into effect, Korean retailers have seen sales of U.S. cherries rapidly increase, and, in some cases, account for the top-selling imported fruit. KORUS removed twothirds of the tariffs imposed on U.S. food and agricultural products exporting to South Korea.

business opportunities, FAS harnesses the synergy of 75 cooperator groups with expertise in various aspects of the U.S. food and agricultural industry, while managing an array of market development programs. Furthermore, FAS uses export credit guarantees and other assistance programs to assist U.S. exporters.

Data and Analysis: In terms of social and business advancement, some might suggest that it’s not what you know, but

who you know. Well, much to the benefit of America’s agriculture producers, FAS draws its strength from both the “what” and the “who.” With a global network of contacts and solid relationships with various international groups, the agency can assist U.S. growers and ranchers with objective intelligence on foreign market opportunities. FAS also provides insight into production forecasts, assesses export marketing opportunities, and keeps U.S.

producers up to date on policy changes that may affect U.S. exports and imports.

Food Security: Balancing business with benevolence, FAS spearheads USDA’s mission to guide the modernization of agricultural systems and bolster trade capacity within developing countries. Partnering with the U.S. Agency for International Development, FAS administers U.S. food aid programs sent to needy communities worldwide.

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SMALL BUSINESS BOOST

Courtesy photo

Given its global scale, FAS clearly casts a broad net. However, the agency never overlooks the needs of small businesses – the very foundation of the rural agriculture scene. In a recent USDA blog post, FAS Public Affairs Specialist Erin Tindell highlighted a regional example of the agency’s small business emphasis.

Noting that small businesses anchored the new record of $140.9 billion for U.S. agricultural exports in fiscal year 2013, Tindell said that USDA’s efforts to assist small businesses depends on the work of four State Regional Trade Groups (SRTGs). Comprising state departments of agriculture, these SRTGs use USDA market development program funds to provide support for about 30,000 companies annually.

Tindell offers this example of SRTG action: Food Export Association of the Midwest USA uses USDA’s Market Access Program funds to provide export assistance to companies in a dozen Midwestern states. In 2012, more than 750 companies took part in buyers missions, trade missions, trade show services, and educational seminars.

With Canada, China, Germany, and Mexico topping the market list, these Midwestern small businesses projected more than $413 million in export sales.

Tindell quoted Food Export-Midwest Executive Director Tim Hamilton as saying: “Many small- and mediumsized food companies are interested in exporting, but may not have the resources available to get started or maintain a successful export program.

This is where we can help with specialized services providing exporter education, market-entry activities, and market promotion programs.”

Focusing on a specific success story, Tindell describes the example of Flavor Consultants, Inc., which represents food companies in Eden Prairie, Minn., and Germantown, Wis. “Food ExportMidwest’s Focused Trade Mission program helped the company successfully export bakery and specialty products to Asian markets,” according to the blog post. Attending a 2009 trade mission to Thailand and the Philippines proved instrumental in the goal of increasing Flavor Consultants’ export sales.

“Focused Trade Missions are an economical way for us to get our name out there and sell U.S. products,” said Tim Wallace, company president and owner. “Through meetings with qualified buyers arranged through the Focused Trade Mission, we met a distributor from Indonesia. As a result, in June 2010, we started selling honey powder to the region for the Minnesota company we represent. Export sales for 2010 totaled $27,000. In 2011, these sales

grew to $116,000 and in 2012 reached $497,000.”

As Tindell described, the trade mission also allowed Flavor Consultants to meet new customers in the Philippines who are working to purchase flavored butter from its Wisconsin company. Evidencing the economic impact of FAS efforts to promote small agricultural businesses, the increase in agricultural sales enabled Flavor Consultants to build new facilities in both Minnesota and Wisconsin and create new jobs for the local community.

Tindell summarizes: “Partnering with SRTGs such as Food Export-Midwest and other trade organizations has helped USDA increase the number of new-toexport companies reached and expanded the number of markets U.S. companies have entered.”

NATIVE HERITAGE During November, FAS observes Native American Heritage month to recognize the U.S. agricultural exports grown, produced, and harvested by American Indians. But as Tindell explains, the agency’s interest in promoting and assisting Native American agricultural businesses spans the calendar.

Tindell notes that the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC), representing nearly 70 federally recognized U.S. Indian tribes across the United States, has promoted the conservation,

Michael Scott of Maniilaq Services, an organization that represents federally recognized tribes in northwest Alaska, serves samples of smoked salmon to buyers at FOODEX, Japan’s international food and beverage show. The Foreign Agricultural Service partners with the Intertribal Agriculture Council to help nearly 70 American Indian-owned businesses and organizations export their products.

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

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FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL SERVICE

PROMOTING AMERICAN MADE There’s no red carpet, no paparazzi, but U.S. agriculture benefits from the equivalent of an agent/publicist. Advancing the opportunities for and the awareness of America’s home-grown products, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) administers programs that facilitate the efficient, fair marketing of U.S. agricultural products, including food, fiber, and specialty crops.

In her USDA blog, AMS Administrator Anne L. Alonzo states that the recent worldwide surge in the popularity of American-branded agriculture is critical to achieving one of USDA’s core missions: fostering economic opportunity and innovation that will continue to help American agriculture grow and thrive in a global economy.

“USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service plays a key role in this area by opening new markets for American producers,” Alonzo said. “We enjoy a close working relationship and collaborate on many projects with our colleagues at USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Through our export certification and verification programs, we create opportunities for American farmers and businesses to succeed by connecting them with foreign markets.”

Among the AMS achievements listed by Alonzo: - AMS issued 37 percent more dairy export certificates in 2013, thanks to new programs developed with countries that import U.S. dairy products.

The previous year saw AMS issue dairy export certificates for goods going to more than 100 different countries (nearly 3.3 billion pounds of dairy products valued at more than $4.1 billion). One of these certificates allowed a U.S. producer to export raw milk cheese products to the European Union (EU), thereby meeting international demand for its blue cheeses.

- In 2013, AMS launched the Processed Eggs and Egg Products Export Verification program, which verifies that facilities handling further processed eggs and egg products are operating according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Good Manufacturing Practices for sanitation and food safety.

- The AMS Poultry Export Verification Program, which helps U.S. poultry companies export their products to EU countries, helped an American turkey producer to export nearly 300,000 pounds of product in 2013.

- Addressing an international demand for poultry products that are not fed animal protein or animal byproducts, the AMS Animal Protein Free Verification Program gave a U.S. producer the credentials needed for exports now reaching close to 20 million pounds annually.

“We have an historic opportunity to continue building on these successes and to help our farmers and ranchers sell more products than ever before,” Alonzo said. “While robust exports benefit farms and rural communities, agricultural trade is also an important building block to a strong national economy with good jobs and benefits all Americans. From helping individual farmers to international businesses, our mission at AMS is to support American agriculture by making sure the U.S. remains competitive in a global marketplace.”

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

development, and use of agricultural resources to benefit Native Americans for 25 years. With the help of FAS’s market development programs, IAC has introduced the world to American Indian foods that are grown and harvested in traditional ways established centuries ago.

Participating in the FAS Market Access Program, the council leverages the agency’s support to recruit and train new members, help businesses attend export readiness seminars and international trade shows, lead buyers’ trade missions, and conduct promotional activities in worldwide markets.

The American Indian Foods program, a partnership between the IAC and FAS, further showcases the products and cultural facets of American Indian-owned businesses in the foreign marketplace.

As Tindell explained, the past three years have seen participation by Native American-owned companies in IAC export programs increase by more than 100 percent. This has resulted in an increase of estimated export sales of $5 million to $12 million. In 2013, IAC helped 15 Native American-owned companies attend six international trade shows, plus two trade shows in the United States with an international component, where they enjoyed essential product promotion and developed import relationships.

Tindell offered this example of an American Indian-owned company, which benefits from FAS and IAC assistance: In 2013, an Alaskan seafood company called the Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association (APICDA) participated in American Indian Foods program events to attend trade shows in Belgium, China, France, and Japan. By displaying its fresh wild salmon and black cod in the shows’ Native Food Pavilion, APICDA attracted the attention of international buyers, which has led to increases in annual export sales to Europe and Asia. The influx of revenue helped APICDA acquire a new Alaskan fish company and offer more jobs in the local community.

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A PLAN FOR GROWTH With some 95 percent of the world’s consumers living outside of the United States, the nation’s export system is vital to U.S. agricultural producers. Taking a long look down the road of global development, FSA knows that the viability of U.S. agriculture hinges on the diligent drive to continue opening, expanding, and maintaining access to these foreign markets.

To ensure such long-term success for those who drive America’s exemplary agricultural industry while supporting the White House’s top economic priority of job creation, FAS is well under way with a strategic plan for the 2012-2016 period.

Driving this effort is the ambitious yet certainly attainable goal of increasing U.S. food and agriculture exports to $175 billion by the end of 2016. Reaching this target would result in adding $89 billion in additional economic activity.

In the pursuit of this important milestone, FAS employs tools such as market development programs, trade shows, prevention/resolution of market access issues, trade capacity-building, and market-expanding trade agreements – several of which have been previously illustrated in this article. Central to the

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack answers questions at the U.S. Agricultural Export Development Council (USAEDC) Conference in Alexandria, Va., July 10, 2013. USAEDC is a nonprofit private-sector trade association that provides an exchange and coordination of information to promote the export of the products of U.S. agriculture. USAEDC’s membership includes U.S. commodity trade associations, farmer cooperatives, and state regional trade groups from around the country. USAEDC’s export promotion efforts work in conjunction with the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service.

overall plan are a trio of pillars that support the objectives.

Pillar 1 – Trade Promotion: Equipped with a set of market development tools provided by Congress, FAS will work to support U.S. exporters facing fierce competition in the international marketplace. FAS administers these programs, working in partnership with privatesector organizations, state and regional trade groups, and U.S. food and agricultural exporters. Ultimately, these efforts

benefit the farm and non-farm sectors of the U.S. economy with increases in job creation and economic activity.

Pillar 2 – Trade Policy: The goal here is to ensure that U.S. exporters can sell safe, wholesome U.S. food and agricultural products around the world. The combined effort of its network of overseas attachés and Washington experts enables FAS to address complex problems. By partnering with other governmental agencies, trade associations, and regional and international organizations, FAS directs a coordinated effort to negotiate trade agreements, establish transparent, science-based standards, and eliminate trade barriers.

Pillar 3 – Trade Capacity-Building and Food Security: These priorities help further U.S. agriculture’s trade interests in developing countries, particularly those with promising market potential. With the strength and guidance of USDA technical assistance and training, foreign nations can expect economic growth and increased capacity to integrate into the global economy and become viable agricultural trading partners. Complementing the obvious economic upside of increased trade capacity, developing nations benefiting from USDA input also grow in their understanding and acceptance of U.S. and international trade and regulatory standards and policies. Moreover, new technologies, food assistance, and agricultural development programs bolster food security and reduce hunger and malnutrition. Coordinating the USDA’s experts for international development activities, FAS ensures alignment with U.S. trade and foreign policies, as well as the nation’s national security strategy.

So, getting back to those organic grapes, the small growers tending to their orchards may not be able to see that Japanese produce market through the tangle of vines, but they don’t have to.

FSA maintains a clear view of the intricate and often challenging course to international exports. From grapes to grain, cherries to chickens, the agency works tirelessly to clear the path and provide the dependable support that creates an endless tale of new success stories for U.S. agriculture.

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CLIMATE CHANGE

In

February 2013, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a comprehensive study detailing the possible consequences of climate change for U.S. agriculture and forestry, the department wasn’t revealing anything new – the study, titled “Climate Change and U.S. Agriculture: An Assessment of Effects and Adaptation Responses,” was a synthesis of existing scientific literature. It contained several key messages, many of which had been heard before: • Agricultural productivity will be affected, to varying degrees, by three main factors in the future: more atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), higher temperatures, and changing precipitation patterns.

• L ivestock production systems are vulnerable to temperature stresses, which can lead to reduced productivity or illness – or in extreme cases, death. For animal products such as meat, eggs, and milk, production costs and productivity losses are likely to increase as a result of climate change.

Ranchers herd cattle that survived the October 2013 Atlas Storm, a record-breaking storm that dumped 4 feet of snow in parts of western South Dakota and left many ranchers dealing with heavy losses after the unseasonably early blizzard.

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• Many factors that cause stress for agricultural plants and animals – weeds (a problem already costing $11 billion annually), diseases, pests, and fluctuating pollination cycles – are likely to be worsened by climate change, though such changes are likely to be complex and not universal among crops or regions.

• Among the most significant nearterm climate change effects on agricultural soil and water resources are the potential for increased soil erosion through extreme precipitation events, as well as regional and seasonal changes in the availability of water resources for both irrigated and rain-watered crops.

USDA photo by Keith Weston

BY CRAIG COLLINS

USDA photo by Tanse Herrmann

CLIMATE CHANGE

CLIMATE CHANGE

• Scientists expect a higher incidence of extreme weather events that will affect productivity during critical periods of crop and livestock development.

• People can do two things to change agriculture’s vulnerability to climate change: Adapt their practices to make the agricultural ecosystem more resilient and less sensitive to climate effects and enact mitigation efforts – actions to limit the magnitude and rate of long-term climate change.

One of the report’s most interesting conclusions is the near-term outlook for U.S. agriculture. For at least the next 25 years, scientists expect results to be mixed – that is, the effects of climate change won’t be all bad. Some crops may thrive in higher temperatures over longer growing seasons, leading to increased yields and income.

Growers of other crops – nearly all perennial specialty crops, for example, with winter chill requirements – will be forced to adapt. In the longer term, beyond the mid-21st centur y, the cumulative effects of climate change, especially those related to precipitation

Flooding and water damage in the Park and Tongue River Watersheds located in Cavalier and Pembina counties, N.D., May 23, 2013.

patterns, are expected to have “overall detrimental effects” on most crops and livestock.

CINCHING THE CORN BELT The USDA report focuses on the future. But farmers – perhaps more than anyone – live in the present. When they decide what and when to plant, they react to what they see. And what they’ve seen in just the past two years has caused some to question their career choice.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2012 was the hottest year in the United States since recordkeeping began in 1895. High temperatures, accompanied by a prolonged drought, reduced crop yields around the country. Many of those crops, loaded onto barges in the

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CLIMATE CHANGE

Mississippi River system, had nowhere to go; the drought had dropped the water level to historic lows in spots, closing locks while dredges carved out navigation channels. Barges lightened their loads by a fifth or more. In January 2013, a London insurance firm estimated the total cost of the Midwest/Great Plains drought at $35 billion.

The following spring, the drought continued to worsen in western states – it’s been declared a natural disaster in 597 counties and 14 states so far – but in the Midwest, which was inundated by a pair of spring floods, nine locks in the Mississippi River system were closed, opened, and then reclosed due to extreme fluctuations. Meteorologist Jeff Masters, Ph.D., co-founder of the Internet weather service Weather Underground, coined a term to describe what was happening to the nation’s farmers: “weather whiplash.”

The most recent victims of weather whiplash have been the people living east the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, the state whose annual $8.5 billion

agriculture industry is third-largest in the nation. Beginning around Sept. 9, 2013, a line of storms dumped as much as 18 inches of rain into streams along the northern Front Range. As tributaries throughout the Platte River watershed jumped their banks, floodwaters ripped away fences and irrigation lines, carried off entire barns and pieces of equipment, and left thousands of acres of crops under water. The damage, still being calculated, was spread over a dozen counties, and even as the floodwaters receded, many fields were too wet for farmers to harvest what remained.

Given the variables involved, attributing a single event – a drought or a flood – to climate change is as wrong-headed as claiming a snowstorm as proof that the Earth is not warming. For a variety of reasons, all of which can be boiled down to money, the phrase “climate change” has become politically loaded, with disagreements about whether human activity has anything to do with the changing climate, or about whether the climate is changing at all.

Livestock production systems are vulnerable to temperature stresses. For animal products such as eggs, production costs and productivity losses are likely to increase as a result of climate change.

But among most scientists and policymakers, the debate is over. The worsening cycle of extreme weather events, a pattern developed over time, is consistent with the science that forecasts future challenges for farmers and ranchers in dealing with a changing climate.

Whether they engage in political debate or not, farmers are already adapting to this pattern. In New York, for example, a state long considered too cool for planting soybeans, farmers planted a record 320,000 acres in 2013. In California, where fruit and nut growers have seen yields fall due to insufficient winter chill, some have begun grafting existing trees with new varieties that require fewer chill hours.

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USDA photo by Bob Nichols

CLIMATE CHANGE

In drought-stricken Texas, farmers are converting increasing acres of cropland into rangeland. And in the Midwest, according to Jerry Hatfield, Ph.D., – a lead author of the USDA report and director for USDA’s National Laboratory for Agriculture in Ames, Iowa – croplands are undergoing a pronounced reconfiguration.

“For 15 years, across North Dakota and South Dakota, for example, we have expanded wheat and soybean production into those two states, so now the Corn Belt looks like it has just shifted to the northwest a little bit,” he said.

“There have been multiple reasons for that. First, we’ve warmed a little bit, so we have a little longer growing season.

There’s been a bit more precipitation during the summer. They’re still dry compared to us [in Iowa], but they’ve got a little bit more water.”

Corn is notoriously thirsty late in the season, when temperatures are highest and rains are increasingly scarce. In Manitoba, Canada, corn acreage has nearly doubled in the past decade, while 700 miles to the south, in Kansas, at the southern edge of the Corn Belt, some farmers are getting out of corn altogether and switching to more drought-tolerant crops, such as sorghum and other millets.

Despite the challenges of growing corn, however, many farmers can’t resist record-high prices, driven in part by federal ethanol subsidies. In 2012, farmers nationwide planted more corn than any year since 1937.

Donn Teske, president of the Kansas Farmers Union, is one of several family members living on and farming a 160-acre quarter-section in the northeastern part of the state, homesteaded by his ancestors in 1868. He doesn’t grow corn anymore, but increasingly early planting dates are encouraging many of his neighbors. “I used to plant millet in May and corn in late April, early May – and now we’re sneaking into planting corn in March, and late February in some dramatic cases here in Kansas … Your soil temperature has to reach a certain warmth before corn will sprout, and the people who are planting at that stage are doing it according to

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ground temperature. So that tells you something.”

LIMITS OF ADAPTATION As farmers have changed, so too have some of their partners in agribusiness.

Cargill, anticipating increased grain production in Canada and the northern part of the United States, announced in fall 2012 that it would be shifting investments to facilities there. Cargill then-CEO Greg Page, a native of North Dakota, noted that farmers in his home state, because of the greater number of frost-free days, had been able to grow crops there that they could not when he was in high school in the 1960s. A few months later, in January 2013, the

Though the ground shows signs of the Texas drought, the drought-tolerant sorghum at Wilder Farms Navasota shows no ill effects. Also in Texas, farmers are converting increasing acres of cropland into rangeland.

company announced that it would be closing down its beef processing plant in Plainview, Texas, citing a dwindling supply of cattle brought on by years of drought in the region.

In October 2013, Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company and leading producer of genetically engineered crop plants, raised eyebrows when it

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CLIMATE CHANGE

acquired the Climate Corporation, a San Francisco-based company founded in 2006 by two former Google employees to help farmers cope with climate change. The Climate Corporation collects and analyzes weather data and provides insurance to farmers, enabling them to profit even in cases of extreme weather. The company, along with other corporations such as Pioneer and DuPont, is also in the process of developing drought-resistant crops, with an emphasis on corn.

In a time of record corn prices, it’s tempting to keep planting and wait for the day a seed company releases a drought-proof crop – but the performance of corn engineered for drought tolerance has so far been modest.

“Really all they are doing is putting a taproot on a corn plant,” said Teske, “so it’s going to go deeper for the moisture.

But if the moisture isn’t there, what good is that going to do?”

In the Cornhusker State, a research group led by Sally Mackenzie, Ph.D., at the Center for Plant Science Innovation at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

is looking into ways of manipulating existing genes to activate a plant’s existing resources for reacting to stress. The method relies on a branch of genetics known as epigenetics – the scientists aren’t genetically modifying plants, but changing the way existing genes express themselves when under stresses such as heat and drought. Though still in the early stages, the group’s research so far has revealed that offspring of these stress-enhanced plants are larger and more vigorous than their parents.

Hatfield, for one, thinks droughttolerant crops – genetically modified or not – are going to be only a small part of any long-term adaptation plan.

“You have to realize that drought tolerance is an escape mechanism,” he said.

“It only assures that something is going to survive. It’s not going to maximize productivity.”

The indications so far are clear: Farmers can do much to adapt to a changing climate – conserve soil and water; build organic matter into soil; and encourage greater biodiversity on their plots, among other things – but

Left: Researchers at the University of Missouri’s College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources are looking to find plants that can still produce in areas of reduced rainfall.

The corn roots on the left received adequate moisture as they grew.

The water-stressed plant on the right, while appearing normal above ground, has a mere fraction of a healthy root system. Plants with poor root systems convey reduced nutrients to the plant, resulting in reduced harvests or poor quality food. Right: Plant scientist Sally Mackenzie, Ph.D., of the University of NebraskaLincoln’s Center for Plant Science Innovation leads a team of researchers examining ways to manipulate genes to improve crop performance.

even aided by cutting-edge technology, adaptation can only go so far. There is no magic bullet.

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CLIMATE CHANGE

MITIGATING FUTURE RISKS: AGRICULTURAL POLICY

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organic farming looks better overall, both for greenhouse gases and carbon sequestration.”

Of course, the nation’s farmers aren’t about to launch a wholesale shift to organics – but CalCAN and other organizations point out that the current federal subsidy regime, with its price supports and crop insurance, is structured to encourage maximum planting.

Changing this structure – encouraging greater energy efficiency, for example, or more diversified farmer incomes, with payments for ecosystem benefits such as carbon sequestration – is seen as an important first step.

Teske worries that the current state of agribusiness, and the government’s support of it, is placing farmers, and the world’s food supply, at greater risk. “I think the mindset of corn is going to have a detrimental role,” he said, “in the near-term adaptation to climate change.”

With seed companies – and the federal government, through mechanisms such as crop insurance and ethanol subsidies – pushing farmers to plant as much corn as possible, it seems likely to Teske that when crunch time hits, and demand spikes for more drought-resistant crops such as millet, there won’t be enough seed to go around.

“Look, a bag of seed corn is worth $300 now, and it will plant three acres,” Teske said. “A bag of millet will cost you $100, and you can plant 10 acres. So

Adapting farming practices is essential to making the agricultural ecosystem more resilient and less sensitive to climate effects. In New Mexico, for example, El Rincon Farm has a high tunnel greenhouse to help grow crops of lentils, corn, and Chimayó chile earlier in the spring and later into the fall without fear of frost. what am I going to want to sell you? An awful lot of the commodity payments are going to nonhuman consumption commodities like corn and cotton. That’s going to be a harder sell in the future. A secure food supply is important to our nation, and I think we have to have some logic in what we’re doing.”

Until a better leadership emerges for the big picture, said Hatfield, farmers will continue to apply their own brutal logic, which has little to do with beliefs about climate change. Increasingly, mitigation is simply a better business decision. “If I have a poor soil, and I begin to improve its organic matter and improve its water-holding capacity, all of a sudden its productivity jumps up dramatically,” he said. “There is a direct economic return that our producers begin to see. We haven’t spent enough time explaining to producers that these adaptations have a tremendous impact on their bottom line and their future sustainability.”

Photo courtesy of USDA NRCS

In order to truly lower the level of risk for farmers of the future, it may be necessary to take steps that acknowledge, at least implicitly, agriculture’s role in increasing global temperatures. This is the controversial part of the discussion.

Clearly, excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were put there by human industry globally, of which agriculture is only a part. But the “green revolution” launched in the mid-20th century, which has fed so many millions of people worldwide, has also made agriculture an increasingly significant industrial sector.

It’s arguable that the wave of the green revolution, so bountiful for so long, has crested. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, agriculture represents about 70 percent of water withdrawal worldwide, and at least 25 percent of humanity’s annual greenhouse gas emissions are due to agriculture. The FAO is not alone in projecting worsening financial losses for farmers if no steps are taken to reduce these emissions.

Over the long term, some forms of mitigation – both of the risks associated with established practices, and of greenhouse gas emissions from all industrial sources – will be necessary to secure the food supply and stabilize agricultural markets. While farmers can make a considerable difference in their own practices, bigger-picture mitigation strategies will require decisions that many policy-makers thus far have seemed reluctant to make.

In California, a coalition of sustainable and organic farmers and agriculture organizations, the California Climate and Agriculture Network (CalCAN), has formed to advocate for policies focused on reducing agriculture’s carbon footprint. “When you look at the whole farm system,” said Renata Brillinger, CalCAN’s executive director, “and do a complete life cycle analysis … fossil fuels and synthetic fertilizers are incredibly energy intensive to produce. When you look at the embedded energy of the inputs, and compare them to conventional systems,

College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Sciences Dean’s Scholars Program Each year, ten (10) exceptional students seeking degrees in Agricultural Sciences or Family and Consumer Sciences are selected for the Dean’s Scholars Program, which, in coordination with the Hope Scholarship, covers all expenses for tuition, fees, and on-campus room and board.

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SMITH-LEVER ACT

SMITH-LEVER ACT: EMPOWERING RURAL AMERICA

K

nowledge is power, and suffice it to say, the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 empowered rural America with the tools and techniques to launch the agricultural machine that drives the nation’s heartland communities. Part tradition, part necessity, farming had long held an integral place in the fabric of American life, but aspirations rarely extended past feeding the family.

With the nation’s rural population entering the 20th century expecting only a meager existence, the U.S. Department of Agriculture made the improvement of farm life a high priority. The plan: infuse the tried-and-true methods of generational convention with previously unavailable information. The mechanism: the Smith-Lever Act. Introduced by Sen. Hoke Smith of Georgia and Rep. Asbury F. Lever of South Carolina, both Democrats, and

Professor and Cooperative Extension Specialist Ted Grosholz (center) has a research site on San Francisco Bay to study the effects of an invasive Spartina cordgrass on native Spartina (pictured) and other organisms. Also pictured are junior specialist Jessica Couture (left) and postdoctoral researcher Sylvia Yang, both members of the Grosholz lab in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis.

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signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on May 8, 1914, the act authorized the federal government to support, with matching state funds, the creation of a Cooperative Extension Service at the land-grant colleges – those institutions designated by states to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890. Essentially, Morrill granted federal lands to states, which sold the properties to fund institutions where agricultural and mechanical subjects took their place

alongside the established liberal arts curriculum that theretofore dominated higher education.

For the century since its inception, the army of extension agents established through Smith-Lever has brought new ideas, new techniques, and, most important, new opportunity to the rural farmer. Affiliated with land-grant colleges, these extension agents typically work off campus to teach practical skills to farmers and their communities.

Photo by John Stumbos/UC Davis

BY DAVID A. BROWN

A Century of Service

NMSU photo by Jane Moorman

SMITH-LEVER ACT

“The Smith-Lever Act was the first example in the world of a concerted effort by a government to disseminate info directly to the populace,” said Tony A. Glover, count y extension coordinator for Alabama’s agriculturally rich Cullman County. “Prior to that, almost all higher education was designed for the academic elites and higher society. Subjects like engineering and agriculture were considered blue-collar trades and did not have a lot of research basis for improvement. It was mostly trial and error by farmers.

“The Smith-Lever Act recognized that if we were going to make the strides needed for society to move into a level of productivity that allowed people to do other things than subsistence farming, then we were going to have to do it in a concerted scientific manner.”

Christopher M. Smith, Ph.D., director of the Universit y of California Cooperative Extension in Ventura County, described the process as an incubator for agricultural applied science.

“In the short term that we see every day, cooperative extension has provided a venue to take basic science techniques, approaches, and discoveries that were made in the laboratory on our campuses, and take those into the field where our growers, our producers, our farmers can use [this information] in a reallife application,” Smith said. “It’s

New Mexico State University (NMSU) Extension Specialist Hamdy Oushy explains the operation of an organic lettuce farm to visiting Iraq Agricultural Extension officials during their tour of New Mexico farms. The officials learned how the U.S. landgrant university’s Cooperative Extension Service programs operate during a USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Cochran Fellowship Program training at NMSU. The delegates’ faces have been blurred to protect their identities.

The revolutionary concept of taking university-based knowledge to the people in each state to improve their lives and livelihoods had its roots at Clemson University.

Frank Lever, a university trustee and member of the U.S. Congress, saw Clemson scientists sharing their knowledge with farmers and families across South Carolina.

The “Clemson Model” became the basis for the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 that established the national Cooperative Extension Service.

taking that basic science, revamping, adjusting, modifying it, and doing research on how you transition it into a grower’s field.”

IMPETUS FOR THE ACT Glover likens the far-reaching economic and cultural impact of Smith-Lever to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) ambitious plan to build a series of hydroelectric dams throughout that major waterway.

“I think it’s hard to overstate the benefit of what Smith-Lever did,” he said. “People look back and say, ‘What was the benefit of the TVA coming

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Today Clemson University is proud to continue this tradition with a focus on agriculture, forestry and natural resources, food safety and nutrition, economic and community development, and 4-H youth development.

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into rural southeastern United States and bringing electricity to the people?’

Likewise, taking information to the people has had a dramatic impact on their lifestyle, livelihood, and what people are capable of doing.”

As Smith noted, cooperative extension benefits the small, rural farmer with knowledge and expertise that would otherwise remain out of reach due to economic barriers. (Concerted efforts to include minorities and Native American groups extended the reach of Smith-Lever.) By comparison, large agricultural conglomerates with their own in-house labs fund their own high-tech research and development, while the mom-and-pops have to focus all of their effort and resources on production.

Smith said the nation needs a blend of large and small farms, but cooperative extension exists to ensure the latter have the best shot at success.

“The Smith-Lever Act made it equitable across the board for all farmers,” Smith said. “Instead of having to till away in the field while the big conglomerate was very successful, the act [evened] the ball field – or the growing field – by giving them the access [to] the same techniques that big industry has been able to develop.”

Clearly, much has changed since the days of Smith and Lever’s public service and, while the key tenets of their legislation maintain modern-day relevance, new applications have also arisen. Specifically, today’s cooperative extension serves a critical role in keeping farmers compliant with various regulations. For example, county agricultural commissions serve as the government’s regulatory arm to ensure proper use of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides by farmers. Extension agents provide advice that helps farmers not only be successful, but also help the farmers maintain compliance.

“We didn’t have the chemical regulatory norms back in 1914 that we have today,” Smith said. “So I look at cooperative extension as the perfect complement to the regulatory provisions for chemical use. That’s something they didn’t envision back in 1914.”

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WHAT’S BEING SHARED Among the many new farming practices influenced by extension research, Glover pointed to a handful of current examples: Precision Agriculture: Particularly important in the row crop arena, precision agriculture is applicable to all areas of agriculture. Using Geographic Information System and GPS technology to determine specific areas of fertilizer and pesticide needs, farmers can then dial in precise applications.

“Smart tractors” communicate in real time the results of soil tests to allow the

From space, Noreen Thomas’s farm in northwest Minnesota looks like a patchwork quilt. Fields change hue with the season and with the alternating plots of organic wheat, soybeans, corn, alfalfa, flax, or hay. Thomas enjoys this view from hundreds of miles above Earth’s surface – not just for the beauty, but the utility. She is among a growing group of Midwest farmers who rely on satellite imagery from Landsat to maximize their harvest and minimize damage to their fields. It’s become another crucial tool like their tractors and sprinklers. The true color image (top), taken by the Landsat satellite, shows Thomas’s organic farm along the banks of the Buffalo River near the center of the image.

Lush green fields dominate the image, though some crops have already been harvested, leaving squares of tan and brown. The bottom image shows the same scene in false color. Made with infrared light, the false color image provides a wealth of information about crop conditions. Thomas is now trained to see yellows where crops are infested, shades of red indicating crop health, black where flooding occurs, and brown where unwanted pesticides land on her chemical-free crops. The images help detect problems caused by Canadian thistle and other weeds; help confirm crops are growing at least 10 feet from the borders of a neighboring farm – required to maintain organic certification; and can also spot the telltale signs of bottlenecking in the fields – where flooding is oversaturating crops – and monitor the impact of hail storms.

farmer to identify exactly where fertilizer and pesticides are needed.

“You can put what you want, where you want it,” Glover said. “That sort of technology is going to increase efficiencies.”

NASA images created by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey. Caption by Gretchen Cook-Anderson.

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Genetic Engineering: Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) offer largely untapped potential for farmers to produce crops tailored to particular nutritional needs. Unlocking the genetic info in crops such as rice will usher in the development of “designer foods” that are genetically modified to deliver more nutrients than standard crops.

“From an efficiency standpoint and a nutritional standpoint, precision agriculture and genetic engineering are two of the things that are going to allow us to feed the increasing populations,” Glover said.

Smith said he’s particularly intrigued by the potential of precision agricultural imagery – unmanned aircraft recording images for crop analysis, planning, pest monitoring, and chemical treatment plans. Take, for example, aerial spraying: Pesticides are very expensive, so overspraying can mean huge financial losses due to wasted resources, not to mention compliance issues.

Else where, the Uni versit y of Tennessee Cooperative Extension MANAGE program guides farming families in the business analyses that facilitate informed decisions. From financial planning and record keeping to budgeting and marketing decisions, MANAGE teaches the prudence needed for a solid farming operation.

Photo by J. Lamb

STILL MAKING A DIFFERENCE Glover credits Smith, Lever, and Wilson for having the foresight to establish a system that not only helped rural America overcome early 20th century poverty, but continues to benefit contemporary farming efforts.

Knowledge-borne power only realizes its potential through application and that’s the essence of what the SmithLever Act made possible.

“Taking that information from the university setting directly to the people so they could apply it was a very new concept,” Glover said. “That was not a proven model at that time, so it was certainly a new venture.”

Glover has spent time teaching agricultural extension in Uruguay, while

colleagues have done the same in the former Soviet Union nations. He said the fact that other countries, from South America to Europe, have used the U.S. cooperative extension model to develop similar systems speaks volumes about the core wisdom that Smith-Lever contained.

“By all accounts, if you just look at agricultural productivity and what has happened to it in the 100 years since [the act’s inception], it’s been a tremendous success.”

As Glover pointed out, naysayers may quote national statistics that only a small percentage of the population is engaged in farming. But, in his view, that’s not a negative.

“That means [the majority] of the population can do other things – they’re not needed to produce food anymore because agriculture has become so efficient,” Glover said.

“That’s not totally due to extension, of course; but it is due to the system that we’re part of and that’s creating the research, disseminating it out, and then farmers successfully applying it.

“It’s hard to overstate the impact because it’s not just the farming communit y – ever ybody in rural America can pursue their lifetime dreams because they don’t have to live a subsistence lifestyle on a farm.

So everybody’s affected.”

Tennessee is ranked second in the nation in the number of goats produced, and the University of Tennessee (UT) Institute of Agriculture and Tennessee State University were pleased to present the state’s first small ruminant conference in January 2014 in Knoxville. The Boer goat (nanny and kids shown in photo) is among the most popular meat goats in production.

UT Extension provides a gateway to the university as the outreach unit of the UT Institute of Agriculture. With an office in every Tennessee county, UT Extension delivers educational programs and research-based information to citizens throughout the state.

In cooperation with Tennessee State University, UT Extension works with farmers, families, youth, and communities to improve lives by addressing problems and issues at the local, state, and national levels.

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SMITH-LEVER ACT

YOUTH ELEMENT

O

ne of the most meaningful elements of the 1914 Smith-Lever Act was the collection of boys and girls clubs activities under U.S. Department of Agriculturebacked cooperative extension. This would include the 4-H Club established about five years earlier for the positive development of the “Head, Heart, Hands, and Health” of youth. There’s no denying the youth benefit of 4-H activity but there was always a complementary facet of strategic design.

“Just like anything new, when you had farmers that were set in their ways with ‘this is how it’s always been done,’ it was hard to get them to adopt a new practice,” said Tony A. Glover, county extension coordinator for Cullman County, Ala. “The initial beginnings of the 4-H and youth programs provided a way to get the farmer to adopt practices that they would not try on their own so we worked through the youth.”

For example, a youth program student would plant an acre of corn in the manner that the local extension office recommended and another acre would follow traditional planting methods. After harvest, the family was able to compare yields and the results would typically solidify the parents’ interest.

“When the parents saw the difference, that would be a way to draw them into it,” Glover said. “They would be willing to try something new – a new hybrid corn variety, a new method of fertilization or pest management, or whatever it was that [the youth] were trying.”

Glover pointed out that, while the youth programs started as a way to reach the adults, today’s 4-H efforts engage youth in a variety of modern interests from robotics to public speaking. However, agricultural science remains the unifying chord and Glover said he’s pleased to see the spirit of the Smith-Lever Act alive in today’s youth.

Case in point: Two of the most popular youth projects promoted through Alabama public schools are Chick Chain and Pig Squeal. Through the former, kids learn the science of raising chickens, while the latter teaches youths how to raise a small hog to help feed their family.

“Amazingly, there’s been a resurgence in the interest in agricultural-related topics,” Glover said. “It has evolved over time because we don’t have [the majority] of our population living on a farm anymore, so the youth have other interests.”

At the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources Cooperative Extension, Gwyn Vanoni serves as the 4-H program director for Ventura County. She said the 4-H Club project has historically given youth an opportunity to introduce a new perspective.

“Through this experience and knowledge gained, there has been innovation and progress. These proficiencies prepare youth for all frontier-breaking careers, but especially

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for agriculture as we struggle with a vision and technology to meet the demands of an ever-growing population.”

Christopher M. Smith, Ph.D., director of the University of California Cooperative Extension in Ventura County said that one of the biggest challenges in feeding a growing population is educating consumers about the right food choices. Nurturing informed citizens, he said, starts with the youth. Vanoni agreed and added this: “The really basic understanding of where our food comes from is critically important at a very young age. Having this foundational concept prepares us to make healthy personal decisions and to become good stewards of the land. Ask a group of 5-yearolds, ‘Where does milk come from?’ About 90 percent will tell you that it comes from the store. Helping them to work backwards and find the origins of their food is enlightening to them and occasionally their parents, too.”

Among the Ventura County 4-H programs, Vanoni said that field trips to the county’s Hansen Agricultural Research and Extension Center offer real-world examples for its partner program, Classroom Outreach. Other examples of 4-H activities include: A technology-magnet high school in Ventura, where what began as the vision for a few raised beds and lessons about agriculture and sustainability, quickly grew into plans to take some border land strips, at an open-space hindered school, and turn them into a learning garden. Each gardening team is comprised of students taking on the roles of sustainability manager, nutritionist, environmental engineer, and agricultural scientist – all focused on learning how science and technology contribute to the development of ways to feed people in the years to come.

Vanoni oversees three military 4-H clubs organized through the Navy Youth Centers with Naval Base Ventura County. These clubs use 4-H curriculum to expand the offerings of the youth centers to include gardening, health, leadership, citizenship, and various programs such a water stewardship curriculum called There’s No New Water.

The University of Tennessee’s (UT) Extension also offers several engaging 4-H activities. Among them, the 4-H Livestock Skillathons challenge youth to learn and demonstrate knowledge through projects involving beef, sheep, and swine. Learning about animal husbandry helps students develop critical-thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills, while the recognition they earn boosts confidence and self-esteem.

Also at UT Extension, Tennessee 4-H has teamed up with the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development to create the 4-H Energy Program, which stimulates youth interest in science while teaching them the science of energy.

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MORRILL LAND-GRANT ACTS

MORRILL ACT PLANTED THE SEEDS OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR ALL

BY DAVID A. BROWN

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Brady-Handy Photograph Collection.

A

merican author Leo Buscaglia once wrote: “Change is the end result of all true learning.” In post-Civil War America, some of the greatest changes that came through learning were actually precipitated by monumental changes that availed this learning.

Credit Vermont Rep. Justin Smith Morrill for the congressional act that would redefine the nature of higher education and unleash its uplifting power like a mighty river breaching its dam.

At this time in American history, college-level education, which largely focused on the liberal arts, was reserved for societal elites.

However, Morrill’s plan would forever loose those fetters and usher in an age of broader potential.

Stepping back a bit, the nation’s changing social class, prompted by the industrial revolution, had sparked an interest in teaching agriculture, science, engineering, and military science at the university level. After much debate and political shaping, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law Morrill’s namesake 1862 Act, which funded these newly focused educational institutions by granting federally controlled lands to states.

From the plan for states to raise funds by selling these properties came the term “land-grant” colleges.

The initial Morrill Act bore immediate impact on the nation’s mindset, but with slavery and legal separation of the races still the norm for Southern Rep. Justin Smith Morrill. states, blacks were not permitted to attend the original land-grant institutions. Fortunately, 1890 saw a second version of the Morrill Act addressing this inequality with important changes.

Enacted Aug. 30, 1890, the second Morrill Act authorized additional direct appropriations for the land-grant colleges of agriculture established under the 1862 Act. This later act stipulated that funding would be contingent upon schools either accepting blacks into their programs or providing separate but equal agricultural college programs for black students. Under

the 1890 Act, 16 Southern states established separate landgrant colleges with an agricultural focus for black students.

WHAT IT MEANT Essentially, the Morrill Act of 1862 set forth a plan for broadening the accessibility of higher education, but the 1890 version truly emphasized equality by requiring states to make the college option available to all. This point resonates deeply with Dean Robert Taylor of Florida A&M, who earned his bachelor’s degree in agronomy from Tuskegee Institute – a college that would eventually become considered part of the land-grant system for its adherence to the key principles.

Taylor said the evolution of the Morrill Act truly changed the nation’s view toward higher education.

Specifically, it shattered the socioeconomic barriers that once held a college degree well out of reach for all but the privileged few.

“I think it was very important because prior to that, you had to have money or status to go to the universities that were present at that time,” Taylor said. “The 1890 Act opened a lot of doors because it allowed for us to start training professional agriculturalists and scientist. Rather than just being workers out in the field, the establishment of these schools allowed us to train African-Americans in the agricultural science.”

Adell Brown, Ph.D., vice chancellor for research, Southern University Ag Research and Extension Center in Baton Rouge, La., concurs. He said it’s important to consider how the 1890 Act stood out in that historical landscape.

“We were living in a time when America was an agrarian society and there was a need to find a way to make the country better off,” he said. “Access to education did that and the Morrill Act of 1890 extended that to African-Americans.

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Teaching

Promoting the development of human capital in agriculture, food, natural resources and related sciences

Ext ension

Research

A legacy of discovery that addresses the needs of society while training future scientists.

Enabling people to improve their lives by extending research-based education to the community.

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MORRILL LAND-GRANT ACTS

“Because segregation was [prevalent] in the South, these opportunities had not been provided through the 1862 Act. For the South, [the second Morrill Act] was a grand opportunity.”

EDUCATION = EMPOWERMENT Brown continued his historical analysis: “If we go back into that period and we think about what was going on, especially around 1890 – we had just come out of slavery, the Civil War had been settled. Black land ownership was becoming very important as slaves left the plantation and became free people.”

Indeed, as a new age of American culture dawned with boundless opportunity for so many who had lived so long without such hope, education provided the key to capitalizing on what freedom offered. Basic agricultural knowledge and the skills to work the earth were in no short supply; but, as Brown pointed out, the 1890 Act built a path for blacks to transform themselves from knowledgeable workers into educated owners and managers.

“That’s why it was so important to have these institutions,” he said. “They knew how to manage components of the land, but not the entire enterprise. So this education was critical to a lot of black farmers and a lot of black people in general who moved off the plantation and began to own their own property.

“When you start dealing with the finance and ownership, you may be a good planter, but to have the wherewithal and education to put the whole enterprise into something that made sense and made money was critically important. That’s what the act did for us.”

Signed into law more than 150 years ago, the Morrill Act made higher education more democratic, supporting practical studies in agriculture and engineering.

Photo courtesy of University of Minnesota

FRUIT OF SUCCESS Land-grant institutions established under the Morrill Act of 1890 have produced highly acclaimed figures, not only in the agricultural field, but also sports, politics, and military careers.

Among them: • Steve McNair (Alcorn State University), quarterback for the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV; • Jesse Jackson (North Carolina A&T State University), former presidential candidate and civil rights leader; • Congressman Harold Ford (Tennessee State University), U.S. House of Representatives; • Wilma Rudolph (Tennessee State University), first American woman to win three Olympic gold medals; and • Daniel J. “Chappie” James Jr. (Tuskegee University), fourstar general, U.S. Air Force, and commander in chief of the American Air Defense Command.

Tuskegee also proudly claims two of history’s most prominent agricultural luminaries: Thomas Monroe Campbell, the first African-American extension agent, created the Movable School concept, which took newly developed agricultural technology and methods to rural

black farmers in the early 1900s. Also, peanut lovers owe a debt of gratitude to George Washington Carver whose pioneering efforts in southeastern Alabama launched a massive industry.

Noting the ongoing efforts in research and innovation occurring at land-grant universities, Taylor said the rich harvest of agricultural advancements has played a major role in bolstering the nation’s ability to keep up with the nutritional demands of a growing population. Moreover the system established by the Morrill Acts and the subsequent Smith-Lever Act, which created the Agriculture Extension Service, has affected societies well beyond U.S. borders.

“What you find is that a lot of countries such as India, China, and Taiwan look toward the United States and they realize [the effectiveness] of the three-part land-grant system – research, teaching, and extension. This was important for India to become self-sufficient in food. Once they applied the land-grant model of training, work, and production – that made a big difference.”

Could Morrill have ever envisioned his bill enabling such global impact? Perhaps, but there’s no questioning the power of effecting change through learning.

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Credit

FEEDING THE GAP

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FEEDING THE GAP

FEEDING THE GAP Agriculture’s sustainability depends on human capital as much as it does on natural resources.

BY MEGAN KARLIN, AGRICULTURE FUTURE OF AMERICA

The

chal lenge to safely and sustainably feed a growing population isn’t a new concept for agriculturists. How to efficiently leverage and protect limited natural resources is a frequently pondered question. From climate change to a decrease in arable land and even a dissenting public, feeding 9 billion people by 2050 can quickly seem like a daunting challenge.

In the midst of the struggle for natural resources and public goodwill, there is another element of the equation that cannot be overlooked if the hungry are to be fed.

“No matter what else we have, if we don’t have people in place to make this happen then it is going to be a very difficult process,” said Richard Moneymaker, manager of the Bunge North America Trainee Program.

Research done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Purdue University forecasts there will be more job openings than graduates to fill them in the agriculture industry through 2015. Mike Gaul, Iowa State University director of career services for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, participated in this study and said he does not see this agriculture workforce trend ending quickly. Between increasing demands for agriculture products and the expected retirement of the baby boomer generation, there are many positions that will need to be filled.

“We need more people,” Gaul said. “In the next five to 10 years, the number of people leaving their jobs due to retirement is going to make the market that much stronger for students in agriculture.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, all industries are expected to see significant replacement needs. In its “Employment Projections 201020” release, the bureau projects 54.8 million jobs to open over the course of the decade. Of these openings, 61.6 percent are projected to be replacement needs due to retirement or personnel permanently leaving the workforce for other reasons.

While these predictions promise a positive outlook for agriculture’s future, the prospects of today’s agriculture graduates are brighter than most other industries’. In 2012, there were 18,692 baccalaureate agriculture degrees given in the United States. That same year, there were 39,794 employment opportunities posted on AgCareers. com, according to AgCareers.com’s “2013 Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Enrollment and Employment Outlook.” This is more than twice as many openings posted than there were graduates.

Gaul said that while some students and parents are starting to notice the bright employment outlook of agriculture, this isn’t quite enough.

Because the number of youth growing up with an agriculture background is decreasing, more students are being recruited from urban and suburban areas as well. Many of these suburban and urban students may have never considered agriculture as a career path because they do not have a connection to the industry, said Tola Oyewole, director of the Cargill Foundation.

“Agriculture is not always a popular field of study right away,” she said. “If

your school is known for agricultural sciences, you might stumble upon it and make it your major.”

Agriculture’s powerful long-term selling points of feeding the world, giving back, and making the world a better place connect with the values of the millennial generation, Gaul said.

Yet some students do not see agriculture as a very attractive or glamorous career path, Moneymaker said. Talented students, who would be well suited for grain merchandising positions, are often pulled away to pursue careers in other industries that are higher paying or considered more attractive.

At the end of the day, many students do not fully understand the opportunities of agriculture. While it may be more expected that students without agriculture backgrounds may not perceive the industry’s opportunities, this is also true of those who do have an agriculture background, said Jay Akridge, Ph.D., Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture at Purdue University.

“It’s easy for even our young men and women who grew up in rural and agricultural environments to have a narrow perspective of what agriculture may offer,” Akridge said. “Across the board, we have to make fewer assumptions about what students know and understand about agriculture.”

From consumers to prospective students and employees, agriculture is not doing enough to tell its story. Not enough people understand what needs to be done to make agriculture successful and what the implications will be if agriculturists are not successful in increasing production.

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Purdue Agricultural Communication photo by Tom Campbell

Agriculture Future of America photo

FEEDING THE GAP

“We have a dynamic story to tell, but it doesn’t lend itself to 140 characters very easily,” Moneymaker said. “It’s a complex issue in which seriously minded people have to engage. Once you get them and you explain to them what exactly it is we are looking at, then they tend to be a little more interested.”

Gaul said he has seen students’ perspectives improving. While 15 years ago he often heard softly negative comments about the agriculture side of campus, he said often students are now more receptive to and interested in what is happening in agriculture.

“In the last five years especially, I’ve noticed a significant turnaround in the respect college students show for agriculture,” he said. “Agriculture is looked upon in a positive light by students who can see the big picture and recognize the important role agriculture plays in their daily life.”

While agriculture tries to engage a greater number of young people, those who are here now need to be viewed as resources who are just as vital to agriculture’s success as natural resources.

“The only way we are going to get to be where we need to be is by leveraging the human capital we do have to its fullest ability,” Moneymaker said.

Some companies have enhanced their recruitment efforts and created trainee programs to effectively leverage current human resources as well as to prepare young employees to take on responsibility as the baby boomer generation retires.

“Many companies are being proactive by stepping up their campus presence, recruitment efforts, and making sure they get young people on board now rather than waiting for these retirees to walk out the door with years of experience and knowledge,” Gaul said. “They’re bringing a lot of people in trainee roles so when positions open up, they can hit the ground running.”

The “2012-2013 U.S. Agribusiness HR Review” conducted by AgCareers.com confirms this increase in recruitment. Sixty percent of the responding agribusinesses reported plans to increase their graduate recruitment in the next one to five years.

Respondents indicated that the top three drivers of this increase were career progression/succession planning, competition for talent, and retirement of staff.

Between retirements and increasing demands, agriculture employment practices and succession planning don’t look like they used to. Many career time lines have accelerated, causing management trainee programs to grow in popularity.

Left: Agronomy student Zoe Higgenbottom works the soil at the student-run farm at Purdue University. The farm provides experience not only in farming but also in research and in running a business. Right: With the increasing demands for agriculture products and the expected retirement of the baby boomer generation, there are many agriculture positions that will need to be filled. Agriculture Future of America (AFA) focuses on developing collegiate and young professional leaders in the agriculture industry. Pictured above are attendees at AFA Leaders Conference.

Recently, Bunge North America launched one of these trainee programs.

While companies like Bunge previously hired college graduates for specific positions and allowed these new employees to gradually learn from their colleagues, Bunge now feels the need to educate new hires more quickly in order to keep the knowledge of the baby boomer generation from escaping the workplace.

“The situations we face now don’t allow us the luxury of having a person stay in the same place for a long period

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FEEDING THE GAP

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that are going to make young men and women even more effective wherever they go in their work world,” Akridge said. “AFA programming helps young men and women better understand the agriculture industry, the opportunities in the industry, and what it takes to be successful in agriculture.”

Each year, a group of students from Purdue attends AFA Leaders Conference to take advantage of the opportunities for personal and professional development, as well as making connections with the nearly 600 students and 300 industry professionals the event brings together.

“AFA is an organization that gives students access – to leaders in the industry, other students, and information from industry experts,” Oyewole said.

Driven students desire these things and the mentorship opportunities that come about when industry professionals invest in students. Cargill Inc., has recognized the value of mentorship and is pursuing ways to increase the availability of opportunities to students. One way they are striving to meet this need is through the recently launched Cargill Global Scholars program.

“The Cargill Global Scholars program allows us to impact the education of future industry leaders around the world,” said Oyewole, who directs the Global Scholars program. Currently the program benefits collegiate students studying agriculture in the United States,

Agriculture Future of America gives students access to industry experts, other students, and industry leaders, such as AFA Leader in Agriculture Award recipient Howard G. Buffett, above.

China, India, Russia, and Brazil, with plans to expand its reach in the future.

The program connects students with their peers and to industry mentors.

“It’s a way we can access students who want to be in this field, and connect them to mentors who can help them grow in their careers,” she added.

Moneymaker said programs that help students create a network of peers and industry professionals are important to helping agriculture solve the challenges of limited resources both natural and human capital. “We have to start somewhere, and get like-minded individuals together and bring awareness to the issues facing agriculture,” he said.

Looking at all of the challenges related to agriculture sustainability, he said human capital is the resource that will drive the needed innovation to provide solutions. Akridge agreed, saying, “Ultimately our challenge is about people. How successful we are is going to depend on whether or not the right people are engaged in this industry. The human talent challenge is fundamental.”

Agriculture Future of America photo

and learn organically,” Moneymaker said. “We created a program where we are going to broaden the scope of exposure of these employees across the valuechain and condense it into a two-year period. Hopefully, this will put them in a position to move into the next level of their employment with Bunge with a great deal of confidence.”

While trainee programs allow companies to expedite the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next through colleague relationships, engagement is also needed at the collegiate level. Through internships and professional development organizations, collegiate students are hungry for access to knowledge and wisdom of industry professionals and soft-skill training.

Studies show that not only are students hungry for these opportunities, they also need them. In “The Real Reason New College Grads Can’t Get Hired,” an article by Martha C. White in Time magazine, various surveys are cited in saying students’ lack of organization, interpersonal, communication, and problem-solving skills are impeding their desirability in the hiring process. One of these surveys, “The State of the Economy and Employment Survey,” conducted by Adecco Staffing U.S., showed executives recognize a serious gap in the workforce skills of potential employees. A statement released by Adecco states 44 percent of the survey respondents said soft skills represented the biggest gap.

“It doesn’t matter what organization you’re working for, they’re all looking for that broad set of leadership skills: communication, team building, etc.,” Akridge said. Thus it is important for students to develop these soft skills, both inside and outside the classroom.

Akridge encourages students to seek out opportunities that allow them to focus on developing their soft skills and leader potential. Agriculture Future of America (AFA), a nonprofit program based in Kansas City, Mo., is focused on developing collegiate and young professional leaders in the agriculture industry, specifically through soft-skill training.

“AFA’s focus on leadership development is helping build a set of capabilities

some things get better with age

west Virginia state University is proud to celebrate 100 years of the Cooperative Extension System as we continue our long tradition of innovative, research-based extension programs reaching everyone from the novice backyard gardener to the professional farmer.

wvstateu.edu/extension

AGRITECH

AGRITECH

BY J.R. WILSON

U.S.

agriculture in the 21st century bears an uncanny resemblance to the nation’s high-tech military. Both use precision guidance, increasingly network-centric operations, GPS navigation and location, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), self-driven vehicles, and a C4I (command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence) system linked to multiple layers of remote support, data-gathering, and information distributing systems.

“Farming is by far one of the most technological industries in the world, probably the most advanced outside the military,” said Jason O’Flanagan, marketing manager for AGCO Technology Solutions. “Tomorrow’s farmers will need to know as much about technology as they do about farming. I wouldn’t say that means a college degree will be a requirement, but the more successful farmers will be those with that level of education.

“In 1914, farming was a family-based operation that revolved around the environmental conditions when you planted the crops. It really was a gamble.

A hundred years later, you’re less reliant on weather because of irrigation, you can see long-term forecasts, you can plant and harvest more in a given field with less equipment and fewer people and there has been a massive increase in yield. The 50 years between 1914 and 1964 saw major improvements, especially with

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mechanization. The last 50 years have been more about electronic technologies. And I expect the next 50 years will see a similar increase.”

Pat Westhoff, Ph.D., director of the University of Missouri-Columbia Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute, agreed, adding that farmers have replaced machinery so rapidly it has made the transition to more advances faster and more productive.

“In fact, a much greater share of the cost in today’s crops is the seed [rather than equipment or labor],” he said.

“Which doesn’t mean we will shut down all the older equipment or stop using [basic] seed still available, but farmers will see less support for those as time goes by.”

One of the world’s leading farm equipment manufacturers, Illinoisbased John Deere, has been a proponent of new technologies since its founding in 1837 and the introduction of self-scouring plows. But Deere and its major competitors are no longer only equipment manufacturers, they also gather data (much of it from sensors on their equipment), do advanced technology research and development, provide Internet-based information and training, and offer new college graduates opportunities to contribute to the future of agriculture as programmers and system designers.

“There have been a number of hinge points in agriculture, starting with

the plow all the way to self-propelled machines,” noted Chris Batdorf, product marketing manager with Deere’s Intelligent Solutions Group. “We’ve given our customers the ability to do other things while the tractor drives itself. So they’re spending more time now looking at ways to increase yield and decrease costs per acre.

“Past generations may have been harvesting 15 or 20 bushels of corn an acre; today’s farmer expects to get 10 times that level. That’s the result of a completely new ecosystem, where one plus one equals three. Each element of today’s agritech individually is better – but added together, they are significantly better. Hybrid seeds are more insect and weather tolerant, but that doesn’t mean much if you don’t plant them at precise depths and spacing. We can do that today with a combination of advanced equipment and a data system that not only provides far more detailed information about a given field, but also controls that equipment.”

Lalit R. Verma, Ph.D., head of the University of Arkansas Department of Biological and Agricul tural Engineering, also serves as president of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), an independent organization dedicated to advancing engineering applications for agricultural, food, and biological systems. Founded in 1907, the Michigan-based ASABE currently has

Photo courtesy of HoneyComb

AGRITECH

some 8,000 members in more than 100 countries.

For Verma, the state of the art in agritech is the growing combination of automation in the field and very site-specific precision production with minimal resource and chemical use.

“Great progress has been made with sensor technologies to very precisely locate a problem, a site where a resource input is needed. That includes remote or non-invasive on-site sensing; for example, using imaging to identify the foreign element in a crop field, then taking specific action to target it. Rather than treating the general area around the plant, you can focus on that one specific weed using sensor technology that doesn’t actually touch the weed,” he explained.

And just as high-speed computers and sophisticated imaging are used to sort good apples from bad in food processing plants, the same can be applied to crops in the field.

“Such capabilities already are on tractors and combines, but also increasingly on UAVs,” Verma said. “A multi-rotor UAV could have multiple sensors to detect diseases or pests, help predict yield, etc. It also works hand in hand with available satellite images.”

Such equipment and capabilities often are too expensive for any but large, high-profit farms. But with more than 80 percent of all U.S. farms classified as small, family-owned operations, Verma and others expect increasingly profitable “niche” producers will combine resources to acquire whatever technology best suits their needs.

They also expect all U.S. farms to incorporate some elements of agritech, whether self-driven, semi-autonomous multi-row combines, or real-time weather forecasts. All farmers, no matter the size or type of operation, can access useful information online about local soil and best practices for planting and harvesting from the extension services

HoneyComb’s hand-launched AgDrone™ UAV has cameras, including infrared sensors, that can provide early detection of disease or pest outbreaks, irrigation problems, plant stress, or other issues.

and agriculture research stations that are part of the nation’s land-grant university system.

While users at all levels will become more comfortable with the high technologies that are redefining agriculture, the use of agritech will become both more intuitive and increasingly automatic, according to O’Flanagan.

“A lot of the kids going through ag schools now are being educated in all these technologies. But just as computers used to be complex and now anyone can use them, the majority of agritech will be the same. In many cases, the equipment will know what

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convert data into knowledge and then decisions is still a bit lacking.”

As with the military, also lacking is access to adequate bandwidth to handle an exponential growth in data.

“There are a couple of holes at the moment, especially in rural area cellphone coverage, but once those are filled, you will see big data expand very rapidly. As a result, we also will see equipment become more intelligent and autonomous as time goes on,” Jason O’Flanagan, marketing manager for AGCO Technology Solutions, predicted.

“The technology isn’t there yet, but is a vision for the 2020s. In some cases, autonomous systems will connect to the Internet to get updates and send data back and forth – especially on large operations. As far as autonomous slave vehicles in the field, that already has been demonstrated, where you have one vehicle in the field with an operator on board

The CLAAS TELEMATICS system is a management tool that collects important operational data of a self-propelled harvester and transfers it to a Web page to give the owner unlimited access using just an Internet connection.

Telematics helps analyze the efficiency of the harvester, displays all settings, and offers a wide range of management tools, such as live remote GPS tracking, GPS tracing, direct machine comparison, live settings, yield monitoring and mapping, and checking the status of machine maintenance. and several others running around being controlled by it.”

John Deere Intelligent Solutions Group product marketing manager Chris Batdorf sees the coming data explosion as an opportunity for both equipment manufacturers and farmers.

Photo courtesy of CLAAS TELEMATICS

ust as many of the tools and technologies of modern high-tech agriculture resemble those of the 21st century U.S. military, so are both faced with the same boon and bane of massive data overload. They also share a need for data security, although for different reasons.

Data collection and interpretation is nothing new in agriculture, farmers have been keeping records on individual animals and fields for thousands of years. The difference, even more than how it is collected, is how to store, transmit, and convert massive amounts of data into useful information, then transmit, store, and utilize it in the field.

The nation’s most productive farms – generally 100,000 acres or more – would have less competition for available broadband than small, more closely clustered farms. At the same time, cellular and WiFi coverage currently are limited for remote locations, even as they require more bandwidth to handle the greater number of platforms seeking both local and broad area connections.

“The younger generation is accustomed to immediate access to information from the Internet and on their cellphones. And I think that’s where precision ag is going, increasing the idea that the producer really wants more information in order to make a decision,” said Ken Sudduth, research agricultural engineer with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service.

“The question now is how to use these technologies as a farmer and make money. But precision ag sort of stagnated because we had all this technology and the ability to collect a lot of data and equipment that could use it to vary operations, but the ability to

Credit

“We’re sending more high-tech products from the factory. That includes a cellular telematic product – basically, a cellular device built into the machine to store data, display it on the tractor’s monitor, and send it on to other users. It can do that in real time, so long as it has a cellular signal, which is something we’ve been working on a lot in recent years,” he said.

O’Flanagan agrees with the potential, but also predicts a major clash developing over privacy. Just as the military is concerned about the security of critical data, farmers don’t want their competitors to have access to detailed information on their operations.

“That is a big story. Data recorded on machines, associated with the operation of the equipment, planting data, yield data, what the machine did in the field, how it performed, its characteristics, etc. – all help industry design better machines to fit the applications. But AGCO’s perspective is that data belongs to the farmer and we want to maintain customer privacy. So if a farmer wants a dealer to have access, he has to opt in; otherwise, the dealer has no access. Others require the farmer to opt out of their datasharing networks,” he said.

“Yield data already are being harvested and used by a lot of different people, so privacy and who owns and uses information about your farm is probably going to cause trouble in the future. And any farmer not concerned about it should be. No one wants to hand over their tax returns for anyone to look at; farm data is much the same. Everyone involved in farming has fine print in their contracts regarding data-sharing. Farmers need to be aware of what those are and what options they have.”

Photo courtesy of University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture

AGRITECH

it is doing – what field you’re going to, what is being done there, and so on.

So, basically, the farmer just drives his equipment into the field and it will take care of everything else,” he said.

The evolution of agritech is becoming increasingly symbiotic, a blend of technology with animals, plants, and the environment. Universities, already having redesigned their courses to incorporate the designing and networking of hightech equipment, have further modified their curricula to include interactions with biological systems. To best use the ongoing IT transformation and current and future agriculture technologies – such as nanotechnology and nanobiotech – universities needed both faculty and students who could understand how to apply agritech to living things and the environment.

“Folks moving away from farms and into urban areas are getting involved in urban farming – small niche specialty crops, rooftop gardens, and so on. I think that is driving a rejuvenation of sustainable food production compared to sustainable agriculture. The difference between the words is small, but the difference in concept is huge,” Verma

Sreekala Bajwa, Ph.D., of University of Arkansas’s Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, uses an instrument that creates an electromagnetic field to measure soil conductivity, which can be used as a measure of soil compaction.

said. “Universities have tried to deal with that by applying engineering to agriculture, but you lose the interest of young people when you use the word agriculture. But if you talk about food production, organic food, maintaining environmental quality, it changes the whole area of interest, not only in young people but also their parents.

“A couple of years ago, Forbes magazine identified agricultural engineering as one of the top future engineering careers because of its importance to sustainable food production. Ag engineering today takes technologies from other disciplines – biotech, nanotech, sensor-tech – and uses them to make food production safer and more affordable, enabling urban contributions to food sustainability. Now we’re seeing a lot of students coming into these majors

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AGRITECH

Photo by Brenda Tubaña

Louisiana State University (LSU) Extension agents Dennis Burns (left) and R.L. Frazier work closely with Brenda Tubaña, LSU AgCenter soil scientist, testing the validity of optical sensorbased nitrogen recommendations.

The four GreenSeeker optical sensors are mounted on the front of a high-clearance tractor to allow prescription application of nitrogen fertilizer rather than a uniform amount across the entire field.

who never set foot on a farm, but learn to use cutting-edge applications, such as UAV-mounted technology, to solve critical problems in agriculture.”

Much of what is coming in the near-term will be enhancements to current state-of-the-art technologies, O’Flanagan predicted.

“Yield monitoring, variable rate planting, and so on have been available for more than a decade, but have not been widely used because of the complexity of the technologies. But with the advent of wireless communications and cloud computing, you are seeing more farmers using those technologies to better understand yields, using the appropriate amount of fertilizer and pesticide to get the best productivity and so on,” he said.

“Future technologies will include genetic modification of seeds and making sure each seed gets the right amount of

nutrients and water it needs. We will be looking at more precise measuring of every single seed in the field, what the generation rates are, which grew well, which died, all of which will affect your yields in the future. And as water becomes more and more critical – and it is the most precious resource on the planet – technologies will be brought into play to maintain it. In the 1800s and 1900s, farming meant putting seeds out there and hoping they would grow.

Now it is not looking at the field, but at the individual seed and plant.”

Just as U.S. farming in 2014 bears little resemblance to that of 1914 – or even 1964 – the next 50 to 100 years are likely to see even more startling advances in agritech, especially nanobased applications.

“The future of food production will be a combination of small urban gardens, small farms, and big corporate farms,

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Photo courtesy of the United Soybean Board

all working toward a sustainable foodwater-energy system,” Verma concluded, adding the application of high-tech solutions to each of those also is leading toward another evolution – natural health. “Ongoing research is not just to produce more, but also better. Right now you have organic and regular; what if you had a third category, with added characteristics that can prevent the onset of certain diseases or even contains antiaging chemicals?

“The challenge is to make modifications using bionanotech or other means to convert a unit of nutrition – feed – more efficiently into a better product – not just increased meat, but also better quality food that includes characteristics of disease prevention. You’re still raising chickens and pork and cattle and growing plants, but in the future, we need to make milk and meat and vegetables that are not just nutritious, but also make the consumer healthier.

And that is not science fiction.”

USDA photo by Lance Cheung

Top: The Edisto Research and Education Center at Clemson University is one of two sites selected in South Carolina to host a state-of-the-art NOAA U.S. Climate Reference Network station (station name: SC Blackville 3 W) with automated measurements of air temperature, humidity, solar radiation, soil temperature and moisture, leaf wetness, and rainfall. Center: Tractor-mounted GPS receivers combined with other imported data (soil samples, weed density, and moisture content) help determine how much fertilizer, weed control, and water is needed in specific locations.

Bottom: Low energy precision application (LEPA) systems deliver irrigation water in a precise application at reduced pressure, which reduces water losses due to wind drift and evaporation.

Photo courtesy of the Edisto Research and Education Center

AGRITECH

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI: COLLABORATING FOR THE GREATER GOOD

By

SECURING SAFE SUSTENANCE Recently, the Food and Drug Administration announced that trans fats are unsafe in food.

CAFNR researchers have been working for years to create healthy alternatives to trans fats. Last year, they announced a soybean oil that produces no trans fat in cooking.

Grover Shannon, professor of plant sciences, and Kristin Bilyeu, USDA molecular biologist, have found a naturally occurring gene in soybeans that, when combined with another natural gene, increases the amount of

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Randall Prather, distinguished professor of reproductive biotechnology, College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources; Jerry Taylor, distinguished professor of animal sciences and Wurdack chair of animal genomics, College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources; and Carolyn Henry, professor in the department of veterinary medicine and surgery, College of Veterinary Medicine, and Division of Hematology/ Oncology, School of Medicine, gather at the Bond Life Sciences Center on the University of Missouri campus to chat. The collaborative team meets regularly to discuss upcoming issues with animal sciences and veterinary medicine.

oleic acid in the oil from 20 percent to 80 percent.

“We are working with researchers around the country to begin growing these healthier soybeans and get the soybean oil into the market as soon as we can,” said Shannon, who also is associate director of the National Center for Soybean Biotechnology based at MU. Work continues to increase the crop yields of these healthier soybeans.

CAFNR scientists are studying food safety on the molecular level, too. One project is looking at nanomaterials, particles increasingly used in water treatment, food packaging, pesticides, and cosmetics. A growing concern is that they pose a potential health risk to humans and the environment, but thanks to CAFNR researchers a reliable method for detecting silver nanoparticles in foods has been found.

Mengshi Lin, associate professor of food science, and his colleagues studied the residue and penetration of silver nanoparticles on pear skin and discovered they were still attached to the skin and in the pulp, even after cleaning.

Lin also was a part of a team of CAFNR food scientists that studied how to better detect and deal with contamination issues in the global food chain. The group worked together with Jiangnan University in China to disseminate food safety knowledge and analytical techniques to Chinese faculty, students and the country’s food industry to alleviate problems at their source.

A SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT With land and water becoming a limiting commodity, it is important that we all be stronger stewards of the land.

CAFNR researchers at the Center for Agroforestry think that 116 million acres of marginal land near the Missouri and Mississippi rivers could be planted with biofuel crops such as switch grass, poplar trees, willows, or Miscanthus. The study found that these crops can also remediate soil, improve water quality, and provide an additional revenue stream for farmers.

Photo by Kyle Spradley

the year 2050, the world’s population is expected to exceed 9 billion. The problem at hand for producers is how to feed this fast-growing human race.

Solutions won’t be found in a single program. There must be a collaborative effort.

Since its establishment in 1870, the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources (CAFNR) has embraced collaboration. Beyond the mission of a land-grant university to provide accessible educational opportunities, CAFNR is a leader in research and a prominent partner working to solve global problems.

Each year, ground-breaking research takes place at its central Missouri campus as well as at more than 20 statewide centers totaling nearly 14,000 acres to rank CAFNR among the top 15 programs in the world for animal and plant science research.

Mizzou’s collaborative culture encourages researchers to cross disciplines on campus, working on projects and sharing resources – called Mizzou Advantage. CAFNR faculty regularly team with colleagues at the Danforth Plant Science Center, Bond Life Sciences Center, MU School of Medicine, and MU College of Veterinary Medicine. MU plant and animal scientists also work with industry experts nationwide.

In addition to traditional agriculture, CAFNR helps to make the latest discoveries in science in food safety concerns, promote a sustainable environment, improve economic development, further genetic research, refine animal production systems, and enhance the health of humans.

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI: COLLABORATING FOR THE GREATER GOOD

Left: Photo by Randy Mertens, Right: Photo by Kyle Spradley

Left: One of two drought simulators at the Bradford Research Center, part of the network of outstate research centers in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. The simulators allow investigators to test soybean and corn varieties to various stages of water stress. A network of these simulators is planned around Missouri to test crops important to the state’s regional economies. Right: High oleic oil inside a glass bottle sits among soybean seeds from variety tests at the Fisher Delta Research Center in Portageville, Mo. The center, managed by the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, performs variety testing of corn, soybean, wheat, cotton, and rice at farms across the “Bootheel” in more than a dozen soil types.

Other researchers are working with Missouri farmers to control phosphorous and nitrogen runoff into rivers to help control the infamous “Dead Zone” in the Gulf of Mexico.

A recent study involving shrimp sought to better control the detrimental impact to water ecosystems worldwide. David Brune, a professor of agricultural systems management, is developing a more environmentally friendly seafood production system.

This system not only curbs overfishing, but uses algae to control water quality by providing oxygen and removing carbon dioxide and ammonia. Paddle wheels keep the water moving for greater photosynthesis of the algae. That productivity makes it possible to maintain water quality while stocking shrimp at a high density.

ThermalAid is a new smartphone app that monitors heat-related stresses on beef and dairy cattle and alerts farmers when there is a problem. The app also recommends which intervention strategy will be most effective.

Another animal agriculture issue is the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV) that annually costs the hog industry $800 million. The virus can inhibit pigs from reproducing and slows the growth of young pigs. A collaborative team of CAFNR and Kansas State University researchers have disproved one way the virus spreads, which helps narrow the search for an ultimate cure.

REFINING ANIMAL PRODUCTION

CAFNR crop variety trails have historically been a valued tool for farmers. Each year, countless cotton, corn, soybean, and rice varieties are grown and tested for yields in varying soil types and environment conditions.

But just studying plants isn’t enough.

Drought destroys 10 percent of global crops each year. MU has 13 experts specifically studying ways to improve yield in water-deficit conditions. CAFNR operates two drought

“One of the top causes of fatality in cattle is heat stress,” MU postdoctoral student Brad Scharf told the crowd last summer at a field day at CAFNR’s Wurdack Research Center, southwest of St. Louis. “But with our new app, hopefully ranchers can get quick access to beneficial information that could help save an animal’s life.”

BATTLING ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS

simulators (of fewer than a dozen in the world) that test the effects of water deficiency on crops. Two more simulators are planned.

CAFNR researchers also are looking at how to grow crops on land where it cannot now be planted. Gene Stevens, associate professor, is looking at ways to replace traditional “rice paddy” methods with center-pivot sprinkler irrigation systems to increase rice production.

“Information developed from this research could result in more rice acres being planted in other locations of Missouri and the world,” said Stevens. “The economic impact would go beyond farmers, creating more jobs in rice processing endeavors.”

Solving problems is what science is about.

Science must lead the way through a team approach to innovation. As science progresses, researchers at the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources will be collaborating for the greater good of the planet.

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“HERD” THE NEWS? Cautious optimism replaces drought woes in the U.S. cattle industry.

BY DAVID A. BROWN

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REASON AND RESOURCES Increased rains in 2013 not only started refilling Martin’s cherished bass lakes, but also rekindled his long-term interest in eventually restocking his herd. As of year’s end, he was encouraged by what he saw.

“We’ve started getting some grass back and a lot of us [cattle ranchers] have started hoping and praying that 2014 will continue to rain and

Commercial Angus and Red Angus beef cattle at pasture on Guptill Ranch in Quinn, S.D.

everything will come around and we’ll be able to sustain our herds, because we haven’t been,” he said. “It’s not only the water sources, but the ground resources.

USDA NRCS South Dakota photo

endell Martin Jr. loves his largemouth bass fishing, but the past few years have forced him to change some of his seasonal tactics due to low water in the lakes near his East Texas home in Nacogdoches. No doubt, many of the logs, stumps, and fallen trees he’d normally cast to had been left standing high and dry. But that’s just his leisure activity. Recent drought conditions plaguing the Southern Plains and central United States through early 2013 have given Martin and other cattle ranchers bigger fish to fry.

Martin runs approximately 450 head of cattle, mostly cross cows known as “Brangus” – a Brahman/Angus mix known for producing favorable calves.

His is a cow-calf operation, which mostly produces calves for sale.

Martin, who keeps himself abreast of the overall cattle industry trends, said that 2013 brought more money per head of cattle than he’s made in many years. The downside, though, was that he had fewer cows in his operation than he typically likes to run.

That choice, he said, was prompted by climatic concerns.

“I think all of the ranchers, especially in Texas, couldn’t run the amount of cattle they could normally run because of the drought, and I fell right in that as well,” he said. “My income was tight because of not running as many cows.”

BEEF CATTLE

Photo courtesy of Rock Hills Ranch

Rock Hills Ranch in Lowry, S.D., is a cow-calf operation, home to about 400 Black Angus cattle.

“Droughts affect feed costs because in a dry year, when your native pastures don’t generate the production that you’d hoped for, your choices are to either reduce your numbers or buy hay for them. In our operation, we just reduce numbers, by selling cows. But there are people who, instead of reducing numbers, will buy stored feed.”

In Palestine, Texas, Gary Yamamoto runs about 200 head of Wagyu cattle on his 750-acre ranch. Native to Japan’s Kobe region, these cows yield highquality beef with exceptional flavor and

tenderness, as well as the rare quality of a higher monounsaturated fat-to-saturated fat ratio. For this and any breed of beef cattle, optimal productivity requires steady grazing.

Yamamoto said that with 2013 bringing a good amount of rain to Texas, his ranch produced a large amount of hay from bermudagrass. His ranch manager also planted some winter grass (wheat, ryegrass) for cold-season grazing.

Securing this vital resource, Yamamoto said, is essential to his profitability.

“The biggest thing about a drought situation is the grass,” he said. “If you have to buy hay at $100 a bale, you’re not going to make any money in the cattle industry. Ranches that can produce enough hay and grass for the cattle, they can survive, but in a drought situation where you have to buy feed for your animals, you won’t make any money.”

DROUGHT PROVISION Of course, cattle need water to drink too, so Lyle Perman, of South Dakota’s Rock Hills Ranch, provides his cows with a variety of ways to find a sip. For him, consistency hinges on preparedness.

“A drought plan doesn’t start when the drought hits,” Perman said. “A drought plan must be something that [addresses future contingencies]. Right now [late 2013], we’re sitting pretty good for moisture. But we’ve got a drought plan, just in case 2014 is dry.

That drought plan includes an adequate supply of water for when we don’t get enough rainfall and snow to fill our dugouts and our dams or maybe even recharge our spring.

“An adequate water supply in a drought is something you have to plan for in advance. You can’t wake up one

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SUPPLY AND DEMAND Acknowledging that the United States is a major cattle importer, Martin said he has faith in America’s beef industry.

Nevertheless, market-influencing factors are undeniable, and he expects that the United States will see continued attrition due to the drought’s long-reaching effects.

“There are not a lot of [cattle ranchers] staying in business,” Martin said. “This drought really knocked a lot of us back.

When we reduced our herds, we sold cattle at cheap prices, and it’s hard to get back in with as high as cattle are right now.

“If a man takes $100,000 right now and wants to buy 100 cows – the type of cows that he needs to raise a herd with – he can’t hardly do it.”

By comparison, Martin said that the same quality cow he could buy for $400 four years ago would fetch $1,200 to $1,300 in the 2014 market. Such inflation speaks volumes about the state of the market.

Rancher Christopher Helt of Cherryvale, Kan., puts feed down for his Angus cattle. Drought and reduced cattle feed supplies have led to a nationwide drop in cattle production.

“When I’m not fishing, I go to a cattle sale nearly every week – sometimes two a week,” Martin said. “Cattle prices are as high as I’ve ever seen them. That tells me that there are not many available and there are a lot of people wanting them.”

Bottom line: While Martin believes that the law of supply and demand will reward ranchers resilient enough to have weathered the drought years, not all will prosper. Those with sufficient herds will hold a commodity whose value has greatly increased and is likely to increase. However, Martin believes serious economic challenges will forestall the rebuilding of herds thinned by drought demands.

“I think over the next few years, we’re going to raise less and less cattle and

USDA photo by Bob Nichols

morning and decide, ‘We’re short on water in this pasture,’ and try to figure out what to do.”

On Perman’s ranch, wells and rural water offer backup sources that he can tap into as needed. This, he said, provides a sense of security that insulates his herd from drought impacts.

“We’ve installed pipelines and water tanks to make our grazing plan one that we can carry out, regardless of the amount of moisture [a given year brings],” he said.

As Martin alluded, cattle ranchers often practice herd culling as a drought response. In his case, recent dry years have necessitated very selective herd management. In a cow-calf operation such as his, cows that aren’t bred are sold to beef operations, but bred cattle may be transported to different locations with adequate water.

“I try to run better herds with my better cattle,” he said. “I get rid of the ones that are older and do as good a job. You trim your herd down to where you’re trying to keep the best.

“The thing about running less cattle is that they’re doing a better job, you’ll raise bigger calves and they’ll be the ones the buyers like to see so they’ll bring you more money. The ones that I sold [in 2013] averaged really well and they brought some really good money.”

As Perman pointed out, the general shape of the U.S. economy hasn’t made cattle ranching any easier, but there’s no overstating the effects of the recent drought. At the beginning of 2013, he reduced his cow numbers by about 15 percent because of the dry conditions.

“Economics did not drive that,” Perman said. “We wanted to keep the cattle, but we had a plan that we executed because it was dry. As it turned out, we didn’t need to [reduce the herd size], but we have certain trigger dates and if we don’t get a certain amount of moisture by a certain date, we start liquidating.”

This liquidation plan, Perman said, was set up by 2012 moisture levels.

The year ended very dry, and with arid conditions lingering into the following calendar, he felt that his herd reduction was a prudent move.

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BEEF CATTLE

U.S. Angus cattle on pasture.

About 11 to 14 percent of the beef raised in the United States is exported.

in it, but we’re still going to have less beef produced in this country than what we had before the drought.”

EXPECTING AN UPSWING

we’re going to start importing more and more from countries like Brazil and Mexico and even the high-quality beef from Japan,” he said. “There’s less cattle in this country [than before the drought] and there are fewer ranchers being able to go back into it. The ones that are still in business I think are going to make some money and do really well

Preparing for what he hopes will be a period of opportunity, Martin said: “Cows are bringing top dollar right now and I see them getting even higher in 2014. With the drought we’ve had all across the nation, we just don’t have the cows that we used to have. That’s one reason that beef pricing is as high as it is.

I look for 2014 to be a great year, as far as [cattle pricing] goes, if we get some rain.

That’s what we need to stay in business.”

USDA photo by Scott Bauer

HERD SECURITY There’s a reason cowboys typically carry firearms, and it’s not so much about Hollywood’s portrayal of cattle rustling from the old Westerns. Rather, the threat from predators looms ever present – especially during calving season. Large predators such as bears and mountain lions take their share, but across the board, coyotes and dogs (wild and the occasional domestic) remain the top concern.

Ranchers employ a mix of lethal and non-lethal options for controlling coyotes, but rancher Lendell Martin Jr. of Nacogdoches, Texas, said mules offer the best protective services. They may lack horns, but one solid kick from a mule hoof and that coyote’s herd harassing days are done.

As Martin pointed out, coyotes and even domestic dogs present the most common threat to young calves, but a good mama

Yamamoto, whose plan involves producing genetically pure Wagyu cattle for stocking and some for slaughter, is charting a different course. Demand for his premium product is rather small in the U.S. market, but Yamamoto said his recent communication with Chinese investors indicates that disposable income among the country’s expanding middle class continues to grow.

“The market in China is going to open up quite a bit,” Yamamoto said. “The Chinese people have money and they’re looking to the U.S. for the high-end products we’re producing. I don’t know what the outcome will be, but I’m expecting to either sell some of my genetics or have a

cow will fight them off and protect her calf until it’s large enough to fend for itself. The problem is that if they stay after a new calf, the mama usually ends up (accidentally) killing it by stomping it while she’s fighting off the attackers.

“The best thing I’ve found is to put a couple of mules out there in the pasture and they’ll run off the coyotes,” Martin said. “They stay with the herd and if they see a coyote coming, they’ll usually keep him on the outskirts. If you put two or three mules in there with 50 cows, that will eliminate a lot of those problems for you.”

Martin said he’s come to realize that mules have something of an inner guardian mentality with a really clear disdain for the canine form. Often he’s seen a trio of mules gang up and chase an encroaching coyote all across the pasture.

“Those mules just get to where they like those cows and they’re their buddies, so they’re going to try to take care of them as best they can,” he said.

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BEEF CATTLE

LIVESTOCK PROJECTIONS

USDA photo by Scott Bauer

Nelore breed of beef cattle in Itapebi County, Bahia, Brazil.

Roughly 8 to 10 percent of beef consumed in the United States is imported from other countries.

partner come in to raise beef for the Chinese market.

“This is not the typical beef industry.

But if I’m producing beef for 1 percent of the Chinese population [1.354 billion, according to worldpopulationstatistics. com], I think there’s tremendous potential there.”

Perman said he’s planning to rebuild his herd in 2014 with gradual addition and a long-term vision. Better-than-expected moisture during 2013 was encouraging,

he said, but experience has taught him the value of cautious optimism.

“After a year like 2012 where we felt that the grass plants were stressed and we weren’t getting the moisture we needed, we reduced our cow numbers accordingly,” Perman said. “It takes a while for grass plants to recover, so the first rain that comes along doesn’t mean that your plant has fully recovered.

“We’ll try to build our numbers back up to pre-drought. We’ll do that, but it’s not going to happen probably in 2014.

But by 2015, our numbers should be back to what they were when we started 2012. In 2014, our numbers will recover somewhat to what they were in the beginning of 2012, but it will be a year from now until we have our numbers where we want them.”

According to a USDA Economic Research Service report on U.S. agricultural projections for 2012-2022, several trends will affect the cattle/beef industry. Among the key points: • Recent years have seen lower producer returns and lower production incentives in the livestock sector. The main causes are high feed prices, economic recession, and drought conditions plaguing the Southern Plains and central United States. As a result, total U.S. red meat production showed declines in 2013. However, improved forage supplies and higher net returns should push U.S. beef production higher over the rest of the projection period.

• Drought conditions that lasted through 2012 prevented producers from expanding beef cow inventories until 2014, and this will likely lead to declines in beef production through 2015. After this, production should increase, as returns allow producers to expand their herds.

• Declines in per capita beef consumption through 2015 are tied to reductions in beef production. Once production increases, consumption will follow.

• U.S. meat exports are expected to rise through 2022, due to steady global economic growth, depreciation of the U.S. dollar, and increased foreign demand for selected meat cuts and parts.

• High-quality, grain-fed beef bound for Mexico, Canada, and Pacific Rim nations comprise most of the U.S. beef exports.

The report suggests increased exports of U.S. beef to Japan and South Korea, which were previously closed to the United States following the first U.S. case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in December 2003.

• Post-drought rebuilding and relatively low beef cow slaughter is expected to increase U.S. import demand for processing beef.

The United States is expected to increase its exports of grain-fed beef to East Asian markets, while increasing its imports of grass-fed beef from countries like Australia and New Zealand.

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

99

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BEEF CATTLE

DROUGHT RESOURCES • Alternative Herd Watering: Improved grazing strategies such as intense rotational grazing require dependable and economically beneficial ways of delivering water to livestock. Options include direct access, gravity flow, utility power, solar, ram pump, sling pump, and nose pump.

• Planned Culling: Systematically removing cows from the herd is a prudent strategy for conserving limited winter feed, but the practice is particularly important when drought conditions severely strain resources.

Identifying which cows to eliminate requires careful consideration of the animal’s physical traits, reproductive abilities, and temperament.

• Marketing During Drought: Seek advice on the tactics and timing of preparing cattle for maximum selling price.

To assist its state farmers facing drought-related challenges, the University of Tennessee Cooperative Extension created an array of online resources, many of which offer broad geographic applicability. Farmers throughout the United States can find valuable tips on managing drought conditions at utextension.tennessee.edu/drought.

Insightful topics include: • Hay-buying Tips: Large, round bales may vary in weight, with those so-called 1,000-pound bales often weighing about 800 pounds. Covered bales can lose 10 to 15 percent of their mass, while those stored outside on the ground may drop 20 to 30 percent. Accounting for these fluctuations is crucial for planning, so ranchers may need to adjust hay inventories to obtain more realistic estimates.

U.S. Drought Monitor SL

L SL

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S SL

SL

L SL

January 7, 2014

(Released Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014) Valid 7 a.m. EST

SL

L

L

SL

SL SL

L

S

L

SL

Delineates dominant impacts

L S S

L

L SL

L

L SL

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L = Long-Term, typically greater than 6 months (e.g. hydrology, ecology)

Intensity:

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L L

S = Short-Term, typically less than 6 months (e.g. agriculture, grasslands)

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Author: Mark Svoboda National Drought Mitigation Center

S SL SL SL

S

D0 Abnormally Dry D1 Moderate Drought D2 Severe Drought D3 Extreme Drought D4 Exceptional Drought

The Drought Monitor focuses on broadscale conditions. Local conditions may vary. See accompanying text summary for forecast statements.

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Drought Impact Types:

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http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

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INVASIVE SPECIES

INVASIVE SPECIES Scientists are rushing to agriculture’s defense.

BY CRAIG COLLINS

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U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

more than 120 miles from Laguna Beach, but Mark Hoddle, Ph.D., director of the Center for Invasive Species Research (CISR) at the University of California-Riverside, believes those miles to be insignificant when you consider the red palm weevil has already expanded its range

into the Middle East, Mediterranean Basin, Caribbean islands, and now the continental United States.

“It’s a very agile insect,” Hoddle said, “that can fly probably 20 to 30 kilometers easily in a 24-hour period. It can cover a lot of ground very quickly, because it’s such a big beetle. And then

Above: The red palm weevil. Opposite: Invasive plant species such as garlic mustard (top), swallowwort, kudzu (bottom), and Canada thistle reduce crop yields by crowding out and competing with crops for sunlight, nutrients, and water.

Photo by Philippe Teuwen

At

first glance, California’s Coachella Valley, the arid expanse from Palm Springs south to the Salton Sea, seems an unlikely agricultural oasis. But it’s where 95 percent of the nation’s dates – the sweet, supernutritious fruits of the date palm – are grown, some in orchards that have been tended for more than a century. From nearly a quarter-million domestic date palms, farmers in the valley produce 35 million pounds of the fruit every year.

It would be a mistake to assume these orchards – many of them irrigated oases, walled off by mountains – are safe from one of the most destructive invasive species to enter the United States in the past few years: the red palm weevil.

Native to tropical Asia, the weevil is a huge insect; adults can reach up to 2 inches in length. Its larvae – grubs so fat they’re farmed for food in some parts of Asia – can easily destroy a palm tree by boring tunnels into its fibrous trunk and devouring tissue as they go.

Given the destruction the weevil has caused as an invasive species – it has destroyed more than 20,000 palms in Spain since being accidentally introduced nearly two decades ago – the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) imposed a ban on imports of live palms in 2010. But later that year, in August, landscape contractors removing a diseased Canary Island date palm in Laguna Beach, Calif., discovered weevil grubs in its decaying trunk.

The discovery of the red palm weevil in Southern California set off alarm bells. Coachella’s date orchards are

Photo by Donna Sullivan Thomson

Photo by hspauldi

INVASIVE SPECIES

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

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INVASIVE SPECIES

THE COSTS OF INVASION For California’s $30 million annual date industry, and for the 2,500 workers who depend on it for their livelihood, an invasion by the red palm weevil, which has no natural predator in the United States, would be catastrophic.

Ornamental growers – who sell $70 million worth of palms every year in California, and $127 million per year in Florida – would likewise be devastated.

These numbers pale in comparison to the costs of invasive species nationwide.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. agriculture loses $13 billion in crops annually to invasive insects. The most widely cited estimate of invasive species’ overall cost to the United States, published in 2005 by Cornell University researchers, is $120 billion a year.

The damage inflicted by invasive species is multifaceted. Some species, such as the red palm weevil, attack crops

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ABOVE: Soybean aphids on a plant.

RIGHT: Adult Asian citrus psyllids on a young lemon tree.

directly, consuming plant tissue – but even these invaders are often difficult to detect. By the time a palm shows signs of weevil infestation, for example, it is almost certainly past saving.

Throughout the croplands of the interior, invasive plant species such as kudzu, swallowwort, garlic mustard, and Canada thistle reduce crop yields by crowding out and competing with crops for sunlight, nutrients, and water.

As Mark Renz, Ph.D., a weed specialist in the Agronomy Department of the University of Wisconsin, pointed out, some of these plant species also act as facilitators, hosting organisms that attack crops. “These invasive plants are host to many of the pests that are influencing agriculture,” he said. “A great example is the soybean aphid, which overwinters in an invasive plant called common buckthorn.” Buckthorn, brought to North America from Eurasia in the 19th century as an ornamental, forms dense thickets that choke out native plants, but harboring soybean aphids is its more costly offense: According to a 2011

report by the North Central Soybean Research Program, an unchecked infestation of soybean aphids can reduce yields by as much as 40 percent.

Some invasive species, while they may do modest damage by feeding on crops or livestock, become many times more destructive by introducing deadly pathogens. The family of leafhoppers known as psyllids, equipped with needle-like mouth parts used to suck sap from vascular tissues, are particularly

Photo by Randy Higgin

it’s not going to be too much of a stretch for it to hopscotch through Palm Springs, to other developed areas in the desert that have a lot of ornamental palm trees it can use for food. And that’s really an artifact of humans living in desert environments, irrigating those environments, and planting exotic tree species that these invaders can use for food.”

CISR photo by Mike Lewis

INVASIVE SPECIES

notorious; pathogenic microorganisms are known to cling to these mouth parts and, once deposited, infect the host with often fatal results.

It is through its role as a disease vector that the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) has become one of the most destructive agricultural pests in recent U.S. history.

The insect carries the worst-known pathogenic citrus disease, huanglongbing (HLB, pronounced “wong-longbing” and previously known in North

America as citrus greening), a bacterial infection that kills citrus trees and renders fruit unusable. First detected in Florida’s orange groves in 2005, the disease spread rapidly, killing off 10 percent, or 60,000 acres, of the state’s citrus trees within four years. Today, about a third of Florida’s citrus acreage has been lost.

There is no cure for HLB, and efforts to learn more about the disease have advanced slowly because infected plants

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

105

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are difficult to keep alive long enough to study. Florida citrus is worth $9 billion a year, and the state’s growers – who have long prided themselves on minimal use of pesticides and nutrient sprays – have resorted to desperate measures in order to save their crops.

Citrus growers in California, where the industry is worth $1.2 billion a year, have spent about $15 million annually (on top of federal and state funds) since 2010 to fight off the psyllid, which has now been documented in 10 Southern California counties. On March 30, 2012, the first case of HLB in the state was confirmed, in a single backyard lemon tree in Hacienda Heights. Since then, no other cases of HLB have been confirmed in California. The disease can lie dormant for years before tests are able to detect it, however. Experts such as Hoddle believe an isolated case of HLB in one back yard is unlikely – other backyard citrus trees, in fact, are already infected. In August, the psyllid (but not HLB) was documented in Tulare County, on the threshold of the Central Valley citrus growing region.

Photo courtesy of Center for Invasive Species Research

FIGHTING BACK The stakes are high, and there is no bigger research program at Hoddle’s Center for Invasive Species Research than its participation in the statewide ACP initiative.

How do you battle an invasive pest, particularly one that has the potential to wipe out a $10 billion industry?

In the short term, governments and growers rely on traditional commonsense methods: USDA has imposed a quarantine – a ban on interstate movement – of citrus plants in nine states, including all of Florida and the 10 California counties where the ACP has been documented. Infected plants are promptly removed and destroyed. This strategy, which has been used to isolate and destroy infested California palms, may have helped halt the spread of the red palm weevil, which hasn’t been seen in more than a year.

Another traditional method – the use of chemical pesticide – is often effective if used as part of an integrated approach,

but so far has not yielded good results in either Florida, where the psyllid is already widespread, nor in California, where it remains a largely urban and suburban pest. “The spray programs to contain and eradicate that psyllid failed,” said Hoddle. “They were just too costly to sustain. The insect was spreading far too quickly. And there was homeowner resistance to having their trees sprayed through a governmentmandated program.”

Hoddle’s proposed solution – like many solutions developed through the CISR – is an integrated approach that relies primarily on biological control. In the case of the Asian citrus psyllid, that has sent Hoddle to the Punjab region of Pakistan – the Asiatic region most analogous to Southern California – to study, and then collect, tiny parasitoid wasps, Tamarixia radiata, that destroy ACPs by injecting eggs into the pysllid’s abdomen.

Once they hatch, Tamarixia larvae devour their host from the inside.

Biological control – introducing a known predator to check the spread of an invasive pest – is not a new idea; in fact, it’s already been attempted in Florida, where a Vietnamese species of

A male Tamarixia radiata. This wasp species was released on biological control in California in 2011 to help combat Asian citrus psyllids. Results have been encouraging.

parasitoid wasp was introduced. That wasp failed to establish a viable population. “There were a number of reasons for that,” Hoddle said. “Part of it could have been due to the part of the Asian continent that they took the parasite from. The climate-matching, and the genetic variability they brought back, may not have been particularly good.”

Determined to avoid a similar mistake, Hoddle and his team visited the Punjab six times over a two-year period, collecting different wasps from different parts of the region and then returning to Riverside to establish, in quarantine, 17 different populations, each with a unique genetic profile.

Since late 2011, Hoddle and his team have been releasing the offspring of these Tamarixia wasps – more than 157,000 so far, at more than 800 release sites among 64 cities in six counties. As continued on page 111

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

107

CAN A GENETIC TUNE-UP SAVE ORANGES?

BY CRAIG COLLINS

W

hen the Asian citrus psyllid first introduced its noxious stowaway – the Liberibacter bacterium that infects citrus plants and ruins their fruit – to Florida’s orange groves in 2005, the state’s growers, who had been monitoring the insect since first observing it in 1998, had been preparing for seven years. But they weren’t even close to being ready.

Florida’s citrus acreage has shrunk by about a third over the last decade, and Huanglongbing (HLB), or citrus greening disease, has been a major contributor to this decline.

In December 2013, USDA’s crop forecast for the season was revised downward, again, to 121 million boxes, more than 10 percent less than the previous year. The cause of the decrease was soured, shrunken, or fallen fruit, caused

by HLB. For the earlier-ripening non-Valencia oranges, the report states, “Current droppage, above the maximum and steadily increasing, is projected to be highest in the series dating back to 1960-1961.” The report was so alarming that USDA promptly formed an emergency response framework, consisting of federal, state, and industry partners, to coordinate and combine research efforts.

American agriculture seems to have grown calluses against seemingly near-constant reports of catastrophe, and it’s possible that many Americans could misunderstand the threat posed by HLB. To be clear: The nation’s commercial orange groves are fighting for their lives. Growers have tried everything: pesticides, nutrient supplements, biocontrols, and quarantines; they’ve searched the world for HLB-resistant citrus. All these approaches have failed. The rate of HLB infection is not slowing among Florida oranges: It’s increasing.

Faced with an existential threat to his company’s 21,500 acres of orange trees, Ricke Kress, president of Southern Gardens Citrus in Clewiston, Fla., launched a search for a transgenic orange plant that could stand up to Liberibacter. “I have yet to meet a researcher in the world that doesn’t feel that the ultimate solution to this disease will be genetic,” he said. “Every one of us wishes we could find something easier, but nobody has. And so we’re working with the idea that the long-term solution could be a genetic modification.”

108

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

Southern Gardens Citrus planted research field trials of potential canker and greening disease-resistant citrus trees in its Hendry County, Fla., citrus groves. The trees, noted to be resistant to canker and greening in the lab, were planted in small plots to determine if the trees are disease resistant under commercial grove conditions.

Photo courtesy of Southern Gardens Citrus

GMO ORANGES

Center for Invasive Species Research photo

GMO ORANGES

CDFA Office of Public Affairs photo

ABOVE: The Asian citrus psyllid is an efficient vector of the bacterial citrus disease Huanglongbing (HLB).

LEFT: Leaves of newly infected trees develop a blotchy, mottled appearance. On chronically infected trees, the leaves are small and exhibit asymmetrical blotchy mottling.

After considering several alternatives, Southern Gardens Citrus is focused on a modification pioneered by Erik Mirkov of Texas A&M University, which uses a gene extracted from spinach DNA to activate a defense against HLB infection.

The company has planted several experimental plots of these trees, which remain under federal supervision; the first were

put in the ground in 2009. “We’ve modified those initial trees to be more resistant,” Kress said, “and we’ve got more trees in the ground. We have different generations coming along, and we’re seeing some pretty positive results right now. But the proof is in the ground.” Growing mature, commercially productive trees – and earning regulatory approval for their fruit – will take a few more years.

Even assuming everything goes as he hopes, Kress concedes he isn’t sure the orange industry will ever be what it was. Though the seriousness of the HLB pandemic is enough to convince many – even the staunchest skeptics of genetically modified crops (www.motherjones.com/tomphilpott/2013/08/what-does-looming-citrus-apocalypse-tellus-about-gmos) – that biotechnology may be the commercial orange’s only hope, it may take an additional few years before American consumers decide they’re ready to drink the juice of transgenic oranges. For growers such as Kress, that’s something to worry about later. Without saving the orange from HLB, it won’t be anything to worry about at all.

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

109

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of October 2013, the team was still making follow-up visits to these sites, recording parasitism among an average of 55 percent of the psyllids examined.

According to Hoddle, Tamarixia wasps have been found up to 8 miles from the nearest release site, and DNA testing has confirmed that the wasps are of Punjabi origin – which implies that the wasps are reproducing.

Hoddle lab; UC Riverside photo

FINALLY, PLAYING OFFENSE Biological controls, if implemented successfully and used in conjunction with inspection and restriction regimes, have distinct advantages over the use of chemicals, which are effective only within a certain time window and often pose environmental hazards. But as in Florida, where the parasitoid wasps failed to establish, biocontrols are not always effective – and they also carry the additional risk of becoming invasive themselves, attacking other plants or animals.

Hoddle’s team has worked carefully to counter these shortcomings, assuring genetic diversity and conducting a USDA-mandated environmental assessment that assures Tamarixia is only interested in the Asian citrus psyllid; the wasp poses no harm to people or other animals, including native California psyllids. Given the encouraging results of the Tamarixia release so far, Hoddle has quarantined a second species of Pakistani wasp and recently submitted an environmental assessment to USDA. The fight against invasive species has been going on for more than a century in North America, and the rapid pace of global commerce has accelerated the introduction of these species – the CISR estimates that a new invasive species is introduced to California every 60 days.

The nation’s farmers, ranchers, and aquaculturists have spent many decades playing defense – but they have reason to be encouraged by the development of proactive approaches, designed to check invasive pests before they can cause devastation.

In the upper Midwest, where invasive plant species pose such a serious threat

to crops, Renz and his colleagues have developed tools that will allow farmers a big-picture look at the risks posed by invasive plants. One such tool, recently released, is a Web-hosted database of invasive species, the Great Lakes Early Detection Network (GLEDN), which allows users, through either the Internet or a mobile-device application available to the public, to input sightings of particular species. According to Renz, the network can provide an early warning tool to help in the development of a rapid response plan, aimed at eradicating species before they spread.

It can also provide a big-picture view, known as a habitat suitability map, that will allow land managers to target resources to areas most at risk for certain species.

Meanwhile, Hoddle is preparing a scheme that could be used to counter invaders to California’s avocado groves, which are worth about half a billion dollars annually – and which now have no natural native enemies. Hoddle’s work has taken him to Guatemala, where he has discovered numerous moth and weevil species that bore into avocado seeds and destroy the fruit – but he has also discovered the natural enemies of these pests. His team is developing both an early warning system, using pheromone-baited traps, that inspectors can use to detect these pests in orchards,

The avocado seed moth, Stenoma catenifer, is an extremely destructive insect and it is an invasive threat to California growers, because larvae may be accidentally introduced inside of imported avocado fruit that originate from countries where this pest is native.

and a biocontrol plan that can be implemented without delay. “I’m not going to be wasting years trying to figure out where the pest has come from, what its natural enemies are,” Hoddle said. “I’ll know exactly where to go, and what to look for, and what to bring back. So the biocontrol program, should it be needed, theoretically could start in a few months rather than in many years.”

So far, federal and state inspectors have protected California’s avocados from these pests. “But if they should establish here,” said Hoddle, “it’s going to be a huge economic burden for the industry.

It’s free of these major fruit pests right now, and it gives them a big advantage.

We don’t want an invasive pest that could just push the balance against them, against avocados being a viable crop in California.” On at least this one front in the fight against invasive species, Hoddle believes he has the growers covered.

U.S. AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK

111

BIOSOLIDS

AGRICULTURAL BIOSOLIDS Ready or not, they’re here to stay.

BY CRAIG COLLINS

The

story of fertilizing agricultural land with biosolids – the sludge left behind when municipal sewage is treated – is not an easy story to tell. It’s fraught with emotions, ambiguity, lawsuits, and, almost everywhere you read about it, bad puns about hitting the fan, or raising a stink, or varying forms of “(sludge) happens.”

Today, more than half of the 8 million tons of sewage sludge processed annually in the United States ends up on agricultural land – a practice encouraged by the federal government and praised by many farmers and wastewater processors. It’s also an issue received by scientists, environmentalists, and consumer advocates with varying degrees of resistance, generally ranging from skepticism to outrage.

The story began about 40 years ago, in the flush-and-forget 1970s, when Americans could pretty much dump untreated sewage anywhere they wanted.

The Clean Water Act put a stop to that, more or less, and in 1988, Congress banned ocean dumping of sludge and instructed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to come up with better alternatives for disposing of it.

EPA came up with three options: dumping it into landfills, burning it in hazardous waste incinerators, or using it as a soil amendment on agricultural land.

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The first two options were both expensive and subject to stringent regulations, but the third made intuitive sense; farmers had been using animal wastes as fertilizer for centuries, and human waste, regardless of what people might tell themselves, wasn’t that much different.

EPA, after conducting a national survey of substances in sewage sludge, discovered several heavy metals common to industrial wastes, such as lead, mercury, copper, and cadmium. After conducting a risk analysis, the agency issued a set of regulations, commonly known as the Part 503 rules, in 1993, establishing quality requirements and encouraging the beneficial use of sludge.

Stuck with the unenviable task of promoting a product called “sludge,” the sewage treatment industry’s lobbying group, the Water Environment Foundation, by this time had sponsored a contest to rename it. The winner, selected from 250 entrants (also-rans included “black gold” and “hu-doo”), was “biosolids.”

For the last 30 years, biosolids treated under Part 503 regulations have been widely acknowledged to contain low amounts of the nine heavy metals restricted by the EPA. Land application is now the leading method of sludge disposal for municipalities, given the obvious advantages to those involved: Farmers receive fertilizer at no cost, recapturing and recycling nutrients taken from

the soil. Cities and treatment plants avoid more expensive disposal options, and the money spent on hauling and spreading biosolids goes to private contractors, boosting local economies.

The practice received a rare media closeup in September 2013, when the public radio program Radiolab aired a segment titled “Poop Train,” about New York City’s arrangement – since discontinued – to send treated biosolids to farmers in eastern Colorado by rail. Despite initial resistance, the farmers enjoyed their free soil amendment; those interviewed claimed not only yield increases of up to more than a third, but also the mysterious disappearance of pests such as wheat aphids and prairie dogs.

But still – for a variety of reasons – not everyone is ready to climb aboard the train just yet.

A SHORTAGE OF FACTS William Toffey, former manager of Philadelphia’s biosolids recycling program and executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Biosolids Association (MABA), puts it simply: Biosolids have a public relations problem. First, they are repellent by nature. “Internally,” Toffey said, “it’s called fecaphobia.”

Second, Toffey said, biosolids smell bad, and the way they are applied – most often, in a moist slurry flung from machines like manure spreaders – is

Photo courtesy of Iowa State University

BIOSOLIDS

often offensive to farmland neighbors.

“There is sometimes lack of care or due diligence on the part of the agencies and the service companies to apply the material in a way which does not cause offense,” he said. “My personal opinion is that we have brought on a lot of the fear and upset ourselves.”

Toffey and his colleagues formed MABA for two primary purposes: To advocate internally among the industry for best practices and knowledge to advance the field, and to articulate the rationale for biosolids recycling to the public. Despite the increasingly widespread practice of land application, the

industry faces a daunting task: Today, at least eight major food companies, including General Foods Corporation, Kraft, Dole Food Company, Inc., Del Monte®, Nestlé®, and H.J. Heinz Company, refuse to buy produce grown on land spread with sludge.

USDA’s organic certification disallows anything grown with biosolids to bear an “organic” label.

The agricultural use of biosolids is so controversial, in part, because science has not adequately determined the risks they pose to the environment or human health. The debate, while increasingly informed by patient scientists, is a

Liquid biosolids land appplication.

One advantage of biosolids is that the nutrients are not as soluble as those in chemical fertilizers and are released more slowly.

perplexing barrage of anecdotal claims and counter-claims: On one side, advocates who tout bumper crops and fleeing prairie dogs; on the other, opponents who blame biosolids for contaminated wells, respiratory or other illnesses, and even deaths.

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To some scientists, this last point is the most important: We simply don’t know enough about biosolids – about what’s in them, about where those substances go once they’re applied to the land, or about the risks they pose to people and the environment – to be unquestioningly flinging 5 million tons of them over our farmland every year.

Top: Activated sludge.

Above: Solid waste coming out of the end of a waste management plant in Baltimore, Md.

Katharina Löw/Sustainable Sanitation

Let it be said: Neither this praise nor this criticism have been confirmed in a meaningful, quantitative way. But it is precisely for this reason that many scientists remain skeptical, or at least cautious, about the widespread use of biosolids to amend agricultural soil. Their objections can be distilled to three main points: • Biosolids are not composed simply of human waste; they contain everything that gets flushed into a municipal sewer, including pharmaceuticals, detergents, antibacterial agents, bacterial and viral pathogens, steroids and hormones, and industrial chemicals such as flame retardants.

• Sewage treatment plants are not designed to make fertilizer; they’re designed to remove solid waste from water. The resulting sludge wasn’t meant to be fertilizer, but a distillation of everything we don’t want in our water supply.

• The technology for identifying chemicals and pathogens in biosolids is better than it was 20 years ago, and EPA’s Part 503 rules, which focus on nine heavy metals, should probably be updated – and, in fact, stricter laws have been passed in most of the states – to reflect the concerns people have about a small number of the tens of thousands of other compounds in biosolids.

Photo by Kristian Bjornard

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BIOSOLIDS

“Biosolids are probably the most complex uncontrolled material ever produced by mankind,” said Robert Hale, Ph.D., a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and a leading expert on the presence of flame retardants in soil. “Because if you just think about what goes into the stuff – well, it’s basically everything … entering a wastewater treatment plant from undefined sources.” While permits are required to dump certain chemicals into the system, Hale said, those permits usually focus on the highest priority pollutants.

Hale’s work has studied persistent organic pollutants (POPs) – more specifically, brominated flame retardants – that resist environmental degradation and tend to travel up food chains. While a study of Chicago-area biosolids applications suggested that the chemicals weren’t being taken up by plants – the chemicals are known to bond strongly with soils – the prospect of repeated applications over time concerns Hale.

“What if I’ve got cattle grazing on land that has had biosolids applied?” he said.

“They do eat a fair amount of soil in the process of grazing. And if you reapply fertilizer over time, you may build up

levels in the soil with those chemicals, which are quite fat-soluble. They’re like PCBs [polychlorinated biphenyls]. They tend to build up in organisms. We need to do studies involving land application and animal grazing. Not much has been done in that area.”

POPs are among the chemicals that Toffey and others in the industry acknowledge need more attention.

Another category, he said, is the perfluorinated chemicals used to make Teflon®: “It used to be we wouldn’t be able to measure it,” he said, “But now we can, and we know it’s out there.” Another is a class of antibacterials including triclosan and triclocarban, used in toothpastes, hand soaps, and disinfectants, which may have an effect – though there is no evidence yet – on soil biology.

ABOUT THOSE PATHOGENS It’s not direct contact with these substances that scientists tend to be concerned about – our direct exposure is far greater in our own homes, where we sit on furniture literally basted in flame retardants, and lather up our teeth and hands with triclosan. It’s the idea that these

Biosolids being transferred from a dump truck to a spreader prior to being applied to an agricultural field. As organic fertilizer, biosolids that meet the EPA’s Part 503 regulations also provide material for use on sports fields, golf courses, and public parks.

chemicals can persist and build up over time, and perhaps affect ecosystems in ways we have not yet been able to predict.

When biosolids are spread onto the land and disked into the soil, however, workers and neighbors are exposed directly to airborne particles – and it has been during this window that most anecdotal complaints have arisen. To study the risks during this period, a team of Yale University researchers led by Jordan Peccia, Ph.D., an associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering, has been taking a closer look at these airborne pathogens.

Part 503 established essentially two classes of biosolids: Class A, which are treated in anaerobic digesters until they are “pathogen-free” (i.e., contain

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undetectable levels of Salmonella and enteroviruses), or Class B, which contain some pathogens but are expected to pose no public health or environmental risk. Today, 75 percent of the biosolids applied to agricultural land are Class B. Peccia and his associates have been studying land applications and have discovered interesting things – most recently the detection, through genomic sampling and analysis, of 46 different human viruses, including adenovirus, rhinovirus, norovirus, herpes, and HIV. None of the 46 surprised Peccia; any biosolid sample is going to contain viruses from everyone who uses a sewer system. To Peccia, what’s interesting is the difference between what his group has found and the priorities established by the EPA 20 years ago. “Because enterovirus was easily measured, that’s the one people thought was important,” he said. “Enterovirus can grow in the lab.

We can culture it. But most of the other retroviruses you can’t culture; you have to use DNA to get to them. But that technology didn’t become available until pretty recently.”

Research by one of Peccia’s associates, Emily Viau, has linked biosolids

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A U.S. Geological Survey scientist bags up large amounts of biosolids to be used for the development of methods to detect the presence of emerging contaminant compounds in solid material. to toxicity and inflammation of human lung cells grown in vitro. In field studies, the group has established that aside from accidentally ingesting Class B biosolids, the greatest risk of human infection is posed by the “bioaerosol” released during land applications. “For enterovirus and for Salmonella there was really no real infectious risk,” said Peccia. “But when we added these new emerging viruses, the viruses the EPA hadn’t thought about before, the risk skyrocketed. Instead of a one-in-amillion risk now, they’re going up to a 1-in-10 risk, a 1-in-100 risk.”

Peccia emphasized that this work is not aimed at determining whether agricultural biosolids are safe or unsafe.

“You can’t say, with something like biosolids, if it is safe or not,” he said.

“That’s not really the right question.”

His research is aimed, ultimately, at reducing the risks we understand to be associated with biosolids. The body

of work so far suggests that Part 503 regulations requiring buffer zones – setbacks designed to prevent accidental ingestion of biosolids – aren’t sufficient to counter the risks of bioaerosols. A better risk-reducing strategy is to treat wastewater more rigorously before biosolids leave the plant.

“The technology we have today,” said Peccia, “can better stabilize our sewage sludge at waste treatment plants. We can turn up the heat in digesters. We can do a better job composting. You can really decrease the risk significantly by treating your sewage to a higher standard.”

Leadership for these higher standards does not appear to be coming from EPA, which has no plans to revisit Part 503 – but things are already happening at the local level. “Municipalities are seeing the handwriting on the wall,” said Peccia. “It’s not the state governments or the federal government making changes. It’s local municipalities, people in wastewater treatment plants reacting to public concerns. We’re getting better and better technologies. There are places where you can dry it at a high temperature, so it kills the pathogens, and pelletize it so that it doesn’t have the same odor.”

Still, without a higher-level impetus for change, Toffey said, Americans should not expect things to happen very quickly. “The wastewater industry is enormously resistant to change, because it is mostly driven by regulatory components that are not changing,” he said.

“But I think we’re seeing the technological capacity to accomplish, at the wastewater plant, a level of treatment that surpasses the minimum standards set for effluent discharge.” Technologies have improved to the point where some wastewater agencies are choosing to upgrade, simply because their existing equipment, much of it acquired during the 1970s and 1980s, is reaching the end of its useful life.

“Our agency leaders are looking at new technologies that will bring in this new stage,” said Toffey, “and the public will be invited to comment, if they’re seeking improvement – and it’s going to be awhile.”

USGS photo

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URBAN ROOTS Growing crops in cities and suburbs has become a popular way to not only introduce fresh, healthy produce to the community, but also educate the next generation of urban farmers.

BY TARA N. WILFONG

The

face of farming has dramatically changed over the last century. Gone are the iconic days of the old, grizzled farmer single-handedly working the land with nothing but a dilapidated tractor and hard-earned ingenuity. Instead, a more modern era of agriculture has emerged in which oldschool grit meets innovative procedures and technological advances.

Among these changes is a new approach to growing and disseminating food. Far from the sprawling rural farms that comprise America’s heartland, tiny urban farms are cropping up in bustling cities, on in-town rooftops, and in suburban communities in need of revitalization. This move to smaller, community-based micro-farms is a testament to changing times and changing attitudes toward food production, delivery, and consumption. With so much emphasis on green practices, sustainability, and healthier living, modern growers are keen on introducing what once was considered a rural endeavor to the urban and suburban masses.

Urban farming is by no means attempting to supersede its rural counterparts. In fact, the larger, rural farms with their abundance of fertile land continue to provide the bulk of food for most of the country, while smaller,

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city-centered farms bridge the distance gap between the country and the city, giving their communities instant access to the healthiest and freshest food available. By introducing city dwellers to produce locally grown on the rooftops and street corners of their communities, urban farmers increase agricultural awareness and promote healthy habits for generations to come.

THE SKY’S THE LIMIT In perhaps one of the most unlikely places to house a thriving urban farm – New York City – Brooklyn Grange has beaten the odds to grow one of the most lucrative rooftop farming operations in the country. With two agricultural oases towering over the populated city, Brooklyn Grange grows a combined 50,000 pounds of organically cultivated produce each year.

Its first endeavor, a one-acre rooftop farm looming from the seventh story of the sprawling Standard Motor Products building on Northern Boulevard in Long Island City, is approaching its fourth year in operation. When the concept for the farm was first realized, the founding partners were not only determined to bring a bit of the country to the unused spaces of the city, but also to create a sustainable model for urban agriculture that

produced healthy and tasty vegetables for the community at large.

“Part of our mission from the start has been to engage our neighbors and our community,” said Ben Flanner, head farmer and president of Brooklyn Grange Farm. “Farming brings people together, and in dense, urban cities like New York City, there’s a need for green space as well as experience and education when it comes to growing food.

People are very energized and inspired by the creation of green spaces in the city, and, of course, by the production of high-quality vegetables.”

Building on the success of its first farm, Brooklyn Grange soon expanded, installing its second farm in 2012 atop Building No. 3 at the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard. Situated 11 stories above the East River, the one-and-a-half-acre modern marvel is widely recognized as the world’s largest rooftop farm.

Both locations grow a variety of crops that one would typically find at a diversified market vegetable farm, and adhere to a strict no chemical pesticides or herbicides policy to grow produce according to organic principles. “We are strong proponents of the value of the nutrients in vegetables to provide nutrition and strong immune systems for peoples’ bodies,” Flanner said. “We also don’t think it would be appropriate to use such chemicals in the city around so many people.”

Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Grange, www.brooklyngrangefarm.com

URBAN ROOTS

Specializing in greens, arugula, tomatoes, peppers, kale, herbs, carrots, and turnips, Flanner said the farms are a study in smart and economical crop combinations. Without an inordinate amount of space to truly diversify their crop, urban farmers must make a concerted effort to grow with economic, as well as ideal, growing conditions in mind. For this reason, Flanner said consumers will not see much cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, or potatoes at his farms, however plans are in the works to resume experimenting with smaller varieties of potatoes, particularly colored and fingerling.

Distributing all of this fresh produce is a definite advantage of maintaining a farm in the city. Since urban farmers are

in close proximity to the people who buy their produce, they can provide a true farm-to-table experience. Without the added downtime for shipping consumables great distances, farmers in these areas provide some of the freshest, offthe-vine, and preservative-free produce.

“Since we do not distribute anything more than about 5 miles, we are also very close to our customers,” he explained.

“We are able to develop strong and close relationships with the people who cook and eat our vegetables.”

Like any endeavor worth pursuing, there are challenges that urban farmers – particularly those who choose to farm the rooftops of major metropolitan cities – must contend with as well. Unlike traditional farms, which are planted firmly on

With a one-and-a-half-acre rooftop farm at the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn Grange Farm grows a variety of crops, including tomatoes, peppers, kale, turnips, and arugula as well as herbs. solid ground, rooftop farms have accessibility issues. Soil, seedlings, and nutrients must be hauled several stories in the air, and shipments must be precisely coordinated for smooth operation. Certain natural manifestations, such as subsoil, are nonexistent on a bricks-and-mortar substrate, so soil lab tests are imperative for the health of the crops.

Besides the challenging locale, rooftop farms are also limited when it comes to

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Farmers tend to crops at the Brooklyn Grange rooftop farm in Long Island City, N.Y.

the use of available equipment. Luckily, even though these agricultural giants may tower over their adopted cities, they are constrained by the parameters of the buildings on which they sit, eliminating the need for large, heavy machinery.

According to Flanner, if you take away the large tractors and work animals, rooftop farms are very similar to those on the ground, and the fields are tended using some of the same agricultural practices. “Our soil is a blend of compost mixed with lightweight, porous stones, so it’s fluffy and not very heavy,” he said.

“Therefore, we use a lot of metal rakes and shovels to prepare our beds.”

In addition to the basics, one of the most important tools Brooklyn Grange employs is a four-row seeder, which

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allows the farmer to more efficiently seed the crops on their weekly cycles. A relatively new tool, the tilther – essentially a miniature tiller – is ideal for sustainable, rooftop farms. Powered by a cordless drill battery, the tilther is essential for bed preparation, particularly for incorporating compost.

Another innovative addition is the CoolBot, a digital cooling device that interfaces with a standard window air conditioning unit to create an inexpensive walk-in cooler. Both of Brooklyn Grange’s farms employ the CoolBot in their custom-built coolers to keep produce cool and fresh. Designed by a farmer, CoolBot uses much less energy and costs significantly less than a standard walk-in cooler compressor.

Finally, one of the most crucial tools for the rooftop farms is drip irrigation.

Every linear foot of bed space at Brooklyn Grange has a drip line on it run via a timer system so every crop gets the right amount of water just when it’s needed.

Maintaining successful rooftop operations in such a populated, urban area provides so much more than just fresh, healthy produce. “Each year we teach a good number of people about farming, and many of them have gone on to work at other rural farms and in urban farming endeavors,” Flanner explained. “Others have chosen paths in nutrition education or applications in which they use what they learned at our farm. We’re very proud to be inspiring other stewards of the land who understand the positive value of a diverse, healthy diet.”

TINY FARM, BIG CITY Across the country in another thriving metropolis, Amanda Morse has fed her community healthy, organic vegetables from her Blue House Greenhouse Farm for nearly four years now. When Morse first began growing vegetable seedlings in the tiny greenhouse in her backyard in Portland, Ore., she never expected her

Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Grange, www.brooklyngrangefarm.com

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experimental project to morph into a local farming operation. But after finding success selling crops on the weekends to friends, family members, and passersby, she was ready to expand, and soon found a onethird-acre lot to lease in the heart of the city to continue her growing passion.

While she continues to use her greenhouse for seedlings and seed starts, most of Morse’s operation takes place in the ground of her tiny city plot. Employing sustainable farming practices, with an emphasis on manual labor, organic meals and amendments, and drip systems, Morse is proud that her crops are chemical and pesticide free.

Growing a huge variety of vegetables, including kale, spinach, carrots, potatoes, garlic, onions, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, squash, and more, the Blue House Greenhouse Farm is a popular stop for those living in the city. “The community is really positive about the farm and they’ve readily accepted it,” Morse said.

“The farm is in a very visible location

so people come by all the time. We also offer volunteer days where people can work in exchange for food, and we run a weekly farm stand every Tuesday evening from May through October.”

Although small in size, the farm has created a niche for consumers to buy fresh, local produce without traveling outside the city. Similar to an edible garden, which essentially is filled with homegrown fruits, vegetables, and herbs to feed the grower’s family, Morse’s farm does this and more.

With a year-round growing season – the climate in the Pacific Northwest, as well as her use of low tunnels, PVC frames covered with plastic to shield more sensitive crops from the elements, makes year-round growing possible – the farm manages a profitable income while feeding farmer and urban populace alike. “I’ve never really grown food outside a city,” Morse said. “I think it’s important to grow where you live, and farming in a city offers many benefits,

Blue House Greenhouse Farm is situated in the heart of Portland, Ore.

including being close to eaters, making a part of the food system more visible and demonstrating the capability of growing on a smaller scale.”

As Morse and her bevy of volunteers gear up for their next harvest, the future of the Blue House Greenhouse Farm is cause for concern. Profitable as it is, the farm’s location in the heart of Portland has it competing with constant development. With the imminent approach of a new condominium project, Morse said it is possible that the farm will have to move or transition into something different. Even in the face of adversity, however, she continues to grow her seedlings and nurture her crop in preparation of feeding her loyal patrons. “I believe urban farmers have to suspend disbelief

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URBAN ROOTS

Photo courtesy of MCAA

when doing this work,” she explained. “I think the only future for urban farms is if local and regional governments make it a priority.” Just like the little farmers in the big cities.

EDUCATING A NEW GENERATION OF FARMERS Just outside Atlanta, Ga., in the bustling Marietta suburb, elementary students at a truly innovative school

Students at Marietta Center for Advanced Academics elementary school get hands-on experience running a community garden.

– Marietta Center for Advanced Academics (MCAA) – receive a firsthand education in suburban farming and sustainability. Here, in the first STEM-based school in the state, which

provides students with a science, technology, engineering, and math-based education to prepare them to meet the challenges of our global society through innovation, collaboration, and critical and creative thinking, farming may seem a bit outside its academic repertoire. However, for these thirdthrough fifth-grade students, learning to tend and live off the land is an unprecedented experience with global implications.

When the idea for a student-run community garden was first conceived, the school collaborated with Harry’s Whole Foods – a local “grocer” that stocks quality natural and organic products to promote healthy eating – to install its first manifestation. “Farmer D came to the school to install 12 raised beds for students to learn about plants, sustainability, and the environment,” said Jennifer Hernandez, Ed.S., principal of MCAA. While this inaugural garden was a great learning tool for students to experiment with the fundamentals of suburban farming, last year the staff and students at MCAA were afforded an unprecedented opportunity to not only revamp their community garden, but also turn it into a global learning experience. “When the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education made MCAA a stop on its annual bus tour, more than 75 people from across the state participated to see Georgia’s best practices in education,” Hernandez explained.

“One of the participants, Brin Enterkin, contacted me after the tour about a possible partnership between MCAA and her school, SOUP – Sponsorship of Orphans in Uganda Project – in Isti, Africa. We discussed ways our students could collaborate and decided to create a community garden in which MCAA students grow crops using high-grade agricultural techniques and SOUP students grow the same crops using low-grade agricultural techniques.”

With a plan germinating, fifthgrade teacher Rob Pinto reached out to Kennesaw State University (KSU) in Kennesaw, Ga., one of MCAA’s partners in education, for help in

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creating the garden. KSU’s Students for Environmental Sustainability group applied for, and received, a $2,000 Lowe’s Project Partnership Grant, which helped fund the elementary school’s community garden.

While KSU designed and created what is now referred to as the “Garden of Hope,” MCAA’s students did much of the dirty work, donning gloves to lay down cardboard, compost, and mulch.

They created raised garden beds designed to mimic the natural cycles found in nature, where decaying leaves, branches,

Small-scale greenhouses can be used for starting plants, raising young plants to maturity and yield, and protecting plants from inhospitable conditions.

and other organic materials provide the necessary nutrients for the plants. “Our students were a huge part of this process, and they learned about sustainability as they created the garden,” Pinto said. “This whole endeavor has given our students

an opportunity to not only interface with children across the world, but to also learn about soil nutrients, layering plants, and proper planting techniques.”

Using an organic keyhole shape for the garden to maximize the planting area, students recently finished planting hardy winter crops, including strawberries, fava beans, kale, onions, and vetch, and eagerly await their first harvest.

“During the initial installation, it was important for the soil to set and develop the needed nutrients before planting,” Hernandez explained. “The plants that were chosen were picked because of the nitrogen nutrients supplied from the trees nearby that produce pine needles. The soil was also a factor in the choice of plants.”

As the garden continues to mature, students are also learning about the importance of the rainwater collection barrel that was installed on site, as well as the solar water pump and drip irrigation lines. Their next step is to fully utilize the compost bin that was built at the same time the garden was installed.

According to Hernandez, students will soon recycle their lunchroom waste to provide nutrients for the garden’s soil, and continue their hands-on lessons in sustainability. While the school will not be able to serve the fruits and vegetables they grow in the cafeteria, its nutrition department does plan to provide lessons on the produce and the nutrition it provides to their bodies.

Soon, MCAA students will upload the data and pictures of their garden’s progress to a secure Wiki page they created and share their results with their sister school in Africa. As the two groups electronically interface, they’ll celebrate their successes and brainstorm ways to overcome potential failures while comparing and contrasting their growing styles.

The last item on their to-do list: Consider their options for sharing their harvest with the community. Ideas include using the crops to feed the families at the school, sell the crops at the KSU Farmers Market, or supply Marietta High School’s culinary students with the produce they need. Whatever the plan,

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the teachers at MCAA are sure to turn it into a learning experience, demonstrating the link between farming and entrepreneurship.

THE RISE OF BACKYARD FARMING Although most urban and suburban farming enterprises are designed to feed and educate the masses, many smallerscale ventures – particularly microgardens – are perfect for the homeowner who has the desire to farm but with minimal space to cultivate. In just a couple of square feet, a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables can be grown on a balcony, patio, or in a tiny backyard.

Add a few repurposed containers, and a small kitchen space can be converted to an indoor edible garden.

For the more serious backyard farmer, greenhouses are a popular way to extend the life of favorite vegetables and enjoy

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the benefits of farming all year long in any climate. Similar to large-scale commercial greenhouses – also known as hot houses and glass houses – the home-based varieties allow the farmer to control almost every facet of growing.

Using the effects of the sun to create a warm and moist environment ideal for growing, greenhouses typically use little to no soil and support hydroponics and aeroponics for chemical- and pesticidefree plants.

While the first commercial greenhouses were sophisticated and extremely expensive luxuries, today’s home versions can be designed with easily attainable materials on a small budget. Glass, plastic, and Plexiglas® structures are typical, and instead of computerized irrigation and sprinkler systems, and automatic ventilation systems, enterprising homeowners can control these aspects manually.

Edible gardens can be tailored to your growing style and are viable in even small backyards, patios, and balconies.

Though the trend of greenhouse farming is rising, it is a passion that should not be taken lightly. Growing crops in a greenhouse takes time and plenty of trial and error, but the serious backyard farmer can certainly reap what they sow.

Like urban and suburban commercial farms, growing food in your own backyard is a move toward healthier production and consumption alternatives. Traditionally considered a necessary function of the rural lifestyle, the face of farming today has dramatically changed to include a new generation of farmers with a decidedly different growing environment.

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state, federal, and international agencies, and with the general public.

The result has been a mixed bag of new regulations, potential international boycotts, both improvements in production and higher operating costs for farmers – and growing opportunities for the expansion of a new class of “niche” farms.

“In general, it’s clear that food and food-related issues are much more salient in the debate in Congress and across the country than even five years ago. Consumers are showing a lot more interest in how and where their food is being produced,” noted Pat Westhoff, Ph.D., an Iowa farm boy who served on

the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee staff (1992 to 1996) and now is director of the University of Missouri-Columbia Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute.

“There definitely is a market for products seen as being safe and healthy for consumers and good for the environment. So those once very niche, small markets have become a larger share of the overall farm economy and have enabled a lot more very small farms to provide a living where conventional crops and farming would not.”

The bulk of research and data collection on many drug-related farm issues falls not to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), but to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and FDA programs such as the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS).

NARMS was created in 1996 as a collaboration between the FDA, CDC

Antibiotic resistance tests. The bacteria in the culture on the left are sensitive to the antibiotics contained in the white paper discs, while the bacteria on the right are resistant to most of the antibiotics.

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Photo by Dr. Graham Beards

W

hile advances in technology have greatly affected nearly every aspect of modern farming, equivalent leaps in drugs and chemicals used with livestock and produce have led to higher yields, larger cattle producing more milk or meat, and greater resistance to disease, weather extremes, and nearly the entire range of problems that have decimated herds and frustrated farmers for millennia.

At the same time, the widespread and growing use of antibiotics, pesticides, and genetic engineering and bioengineering on or near what eventually will go on a consumer’s plate has raised concerns at

USDA photo by Lance Cheung

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(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), and USDA. Data collected from humans, animals, and retail meat on antimicrobial resistance are tested for vulnerability to a battery of antimicrobial drugs and monitored for changes over time.

“The focus really is on foodborne pathogens, such as E. coli, and whether they are still susceptible to a variety of classes of antimicrobial drugs,” said Bill Flynn, D.V.M., Ph.D., a veterinarian who serves as the deputy director for science policy at the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine. “It provides information to us and the public, more generally, relating not only to human populations but also what we’re seeing in food-producing animals and retail meat products.

“Antibiotics have been used in animals for many decades and play an important role. We have data we collect and report out on the quantity of antibiotics sold for that use, but sales and distribution data don’t necessarily represent actual use at the farm level. We don’t

have current data on that, but efforts are under way to gather better data on use practices over time.”

The concern about antibiotic use on livestock mirrors those surrounding their use in humans. If too much is given too often, the targets of such treatments may develop immunities. The result would be “superbugs” – microbes against which current science has no other defense.

A similar result can develop with the improper or overuse of pesticides or other chemicals.

In large part thanks to Hollywood, there has been a growing public aversion to plants or animals that have been genetically engineered for size, disease and pest resistance, or the ability to thrive in previously too-harsh environments, including those with minimal food and water.

“Strong financial pressures have driven the industrialization of U.S. livestock farms,” states a 2009 USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) report titled “The Transformation of U.S.

According to data published by the FDA, more antibiotics are sold nationally for food-producing animals than for people, which contributes to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in food-producing animals.

Livestock Agriculture.” “Larger operations are able to realize lower costs and higher returns, while tighter coordination among firms at different processing stages can reduce financial risks.

“But growing to a more efficient scale also concentrates livestock in a limited area – and excess concentrations of manure-based nutrients can lead to increased air and water pollution. Large operations are also more prone to use antibiotics intensively in order to preempt the spread of animal disease and to accelerate animal growth. Extensive antibiotic use in livestock raises concerns about increased

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pathogen resistance and related risks to human health.”

Changes related to larger farms, often with more pen-fed beef and dairy cattle, hogs, and chickens, has benefitted from economies of scale in applying new technologies, drugs, and chemicals, ultimately resulting in lower consumer prices. However, the researchers added, “structural change in livestock agriculture has had less felicitous effects, as well,” especially as animal wastes become more geographically concentrated in the United States.

“High concentrations of animal manure can lead to increased air and water pollution, with adverse health and environmental consequences. ... A heavy reliance on antibiotics for growth promotion and for disease prevention may spawn antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, with human health risks,” they wrote. “Changes in farm structure are intertwined with these concerns because larger operations concentrate manure more and rely more heavily on growth-promoting antibiotics than smaller operations.”

Growth-promoting antibiotics also are a feature of industrialized hog and poultry operations, where sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics routinely go into their feed and water. However, many producers still reject the routine use of antibiotics, relying instead on alternative strategies, such as extensive testing and sanitary protocols, to prevent disease and promote growth. In some cases, such alternatives involve little or no additional cost, but in others, labor and resources may be both expensive and time consuming.

“Individual producers may have little incentive to take costly actions to mitigate the harmful effects of livestock industrialization. Livestock production is highly competitive and operations with high costs may jeopardize their own survival in policing themselves. However, steps can be taken, at modest cost, that preserve the benefits of industrialized livestock production while limiting its harmful effects,” the report concluded.

ERS researchers previously reported a number of high-profile cases of

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Through April 2012, BSE surveillance identified 23 cases in North America: four BSE cases in the United States and 19 in Canada. Of the four cases identified in the United States, one was born in Canada; of the 19 cases identified in Canada, one was imported from the United Kingdom.

Salmonella and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) – aka, “mad-cow disease” – which brought heightened international attention to the use of antibiotics in food animals. That was further complicated by the limited scientific understanding – by the public, news media, and government officials – of the implications for human health. The U.K. cattle industry, in particular, was nearly destroyed by repeated BSE crises, each of which led to reduced beef consumption in the European Union (EU) and stricter import controls, both within the EU and by other nations, including the United States.

The negative impact of BSE was not limited to food, however. Because bovine

byproducts are used in a wide range of industries, including cosmetics, medical, pharmaceutical, animal feed, and others, trade restrictions are felt across many sectors. That demonstrated not only the breadth of markets for agricultural products, but the widespread negative impact such increasingly common practices as antibiotic use can have on local, regional, and even global economies.

Members of the World Trade Organization are not bound by a common set of export controls on farm products, but can create their own – often quite different – regulations.

The science and technology revolution in agriculture also comes into play there, where increasingly sensitive monitors have greatly improved the ability to detect pathogens. That has led some countries to adopt a zero tolerance standard. However, as some pathogens appear to be common in the global environment, precision detection tools may combine with efforts to achieve zero risk to result in some nations banning all imports.

Since the development of antibiotics decades ago, the U.S. Congress and lawmakers worldwide have debated the

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USDA photo by Alice Welch

The adaptability of Criollo cattle to the conditions of the Jornada Basin, without the use of special feeds or drugs, is one research focus at the USDA/ Agricultural Research Service Jornada Experimental Range near Las Cruces, N.M.

prohibition or severe restriction of their use in food animals.

“Resistance is a very complicated issue, with multiple ways in which bacteria can become resistant to various drugs. That can occur naturally, but using these products can drive resistance to emerge in bacteria,” Flynn said. “Bacteria can be shared between animals and humans, including disease-causing bacteria. Food

products derived from animals could be exposed to those and so humans downstream could become sick as a result. That is further compounded if that bacteria also is resistant to a drug doctors typically use to fight it, which would affect the outcome of a patient’s treatment.

“Looking at it from an animal health perspective, these drugs have played an important role in treating and preventing disease, so having bacteria become resistant could be detrimental to managing disease in animal agriculture. We are looking at what options we have to gather additional information to get a better understanding of use practices at the farm level and hope to seek further public input this year.”

The pharmaceutical industry also is looking at new uses of their products as

part of the drug approval process and Flynn expects good cooperation with the most recent FDA proposal regarding antibiotics.

“In December 2013, we published a three-year plan that asked the pharmaceutical companies marketing these products to work with the FDA in changing them from over-the-counter [OTC] status to requiring a veterinarian’s oversight. Once that is done, it becomes mandatory for users downstream to get prescriptions in order to acquire and use those drugs. Even though it is voluntary for the pharms, we expect a high rate of cooperation,” he said.

“We need to be judicious about how and when we use these important tools for treating disease in animals. Our proposal to take all medically important

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antibiotics currently being marketed OTC for food-producing animals and create a new labeling status requiring an authorized prescription would be a significant change in how these products have been available for decades – and in how animal producers work and consult with veterinarians.”

USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) also works with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and NARMS on periodic surveys of various industry segments on related issues and supports studies into alternative approaches to animal husbandry.

At the ARS Jornada Experimental Range near Las Cruces, N.M., for example, research animal scientist Dean M. Anderson is studying range animal ecology – so-called “free range” livestock raised without the use of special feeds or drugs.

“Many people might think an animal scientist is focused on feedlot nutrition, but I look at animals that gain their nutrition foraging on native rangeland – and, where I’m at, [it’s] mostly arid land. There obviously are some exceptions, but every bovine starts its life tied to a foraging environment rather than a confinement situation,” he explained.

As has been true for more than a century, domestic cattle and sheep raised in 17 western states gain most of their nutrition from the sparse vegetation they find while walking across hundreds or even thousands of acres of barbed wire fence-enclosed rangeland.

“Our area at Jornada has been trying to improve the efficiency of the plantanimal interface, to use innate animal behaviors to improve efficiency of production, both in terms of how we harvest the forage and the labor requirements to manage free-ranging livestock,” he said. “My focus has been to use the best genetics adapted to this area.”

Anderson said he was not referring to genetic engineering, but in finding those animals best suited by natural selection or breeding to forage on wild grasses and native shrubs, normally growing without any chemicals or irrigation. The key is to achieve uniform use of all rangeland; in his case, by combining 21st century

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While not unusual for raw poultry from any producer to have Salmonella bacteria, it is uncommon to have multidrugresistant Salmonella bacteria.

technolog y with natural behavior to move animals over the landscape to prevent both over- and underuse and, in so doing, produce healthy food animals free from drugs and chemicals.

“Before humans became involved, animals moved freely, according to the ‘green-up’ – when the temperature rises and plants start growing in the spring, compared to dormant forage, which is basically brown. Think of it like fresh bread versus bread that has been sitting on the shelf for a week or so. When animals were domesticated, herding became the art form used to place them in the right location for the right amount of time,” he explained.

“But when barbed wire fencing came along, we basically did away with the herding approach and stocked the enclosed area based on the relationship between what each cow needs and what the land can provide. But that’s what led to over- and underuse. Since 1926, there have been at least 68 different things tried to improve animal distribution – change the location of water or

supplements, place shade or fertilizer in certain areas, burn other areas, and so on.

Some have been beneficial, some not; some worked synergistically, some not.”

How and when antibiotics are used in food animals has become an international concern, leading researchers to look both forward to new ways to treat disease and increase production and back to the best practices of animal herders through the centuries.

“The steps we’re taking are not out of line with what other countries have done to address this issue. We also make an effort to collaborate as much as we can with other countries and learn what we can from their experiences and actions taken,” Flynn concluded. “Given the multi-factorial nature of this issue, which is very complicated – there is no one single problem that can be pointed to – and challenging to articulate, it is hard to ensure everyone is well informed.

But it is important that we do a better job of informing the public.

“Obviously, based on the sheer scale of the U.S. agriculture industry, a lot of variables may play into driving the need for the use of antibiotics. This is a cost for producers, so there is some incentive for them to find ways that are more efficient, but that also will vary considerably among the different types of operations we have out there. And vets will play an increasingly important role in making sure these drugs are used properly.”

USDA photo

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Cooper Vineyards in Louisa, Va., became the second winery in the country to be awarded the Platinum LEED® Certification. The vineyards received two USDA Rural Development Rural Energy Financing program grants to help with the expenses of construction. The tasting room and building: collect rainwater from the roof; use low-flow water fixtures to reduce usage by 40 percent; utilize structurally insulated panels for the roof and walls; have a geothermal system to heat and cool that includes pipes that are embedded into the parking lot; have low-voltage LED lighting with daylight and occupancy sensors for lighting; have a solar panel array that provides more than 15 percent of the energy needs for the building; and much of the construction materials are from local and recycled material sources.

through the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (better known as the 2008 farm bill), authorized and targeted funds to rural areas by limiting eligibility based on total population.

Promoting economic development is a powerful tool in the USDA’s efforts to enhance quality of life and bolster opportunities within America’s rural areas. Examples include business loans;

cooperative grants; single-family loans and financial support for community facilities, electric and water utilities, and telecommunication infrastructure.

LADDERS AND SAFETY NETS At the FSA office in Polk County, Fla., Donald Royster administers grants and disaster recovery funds for rural farmers

USDA photo by Lance Cheung

was too much of a good thing, and Doug Cherry found himself looking at a big financial setback on his small farm in western Tennessee. Soybean, wheat, and cotton fields, like those on the 2,000 acres that Cherry oversees, need rain, but when torrential downpours inundated his fields, he faced a total loss for that growing season.

That’s a tough break for anyone, but for a rural operation, it’s potentially devastating. Fortunately, a disasterrelief grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) helped Cherry through this catastrophic event.

“That year, we had a flood, we lost $20,000,” Cherry said. “We got $6,000 of it back [from the USDA]. We still lost $14,000, but $6,000 [reimbursement] is better than nothing.”

This and countless other examples nationwide illustrate the USDA’s commitment to rural farmers and their communities. From supporting essential public facilities – water and sewer systems, housing, health and emergency services – to providing various technical assistance, the agency’s Rural Development office makes empowerment and advancement its mission.

A USDA report states that the impetus for Rural Development (RD) programs is that rural areas often are excluded from national programs, while private investors and lenders avoid such communities due to lack of capacity and the economic demand for the highest return on investment. Addressing rural America’s unmet needs, Congress,

Photo courtesy of Penn State

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who experience unforeseen calamity.

Extreme weather events such as freezes, hurricanes, droughts, and excessive moisture account for most of the claims he sees, but he knows that the rural farmer faces the potential for devastation from myriad threats – most of which offer little or no warning of impending doom.

“We handle just about any kind of peril that the farmer can endure,” Royster said. “We alleviate the magnitude of the disaster with financial assistance so he can stay in business. We try to minimize the financial impact to the farmer when he is hit by a devastating disaster.”

As with Cherry’s loss, USDA disaster assistance doesn’t ensure smooth sailing – it just patches a hole in the bottom of the boat.

“The programs are not designed to fully compensate the farmer,” Royster said. “They provide a safety net to try and help them stay in the business so

we can keep the supply of food going for the country.”

Bronwyn Bethea-Myers, farm loan manager for Florida’s Hillsborough County Farm Service Agency, noted that because farming is inherently a risky business, small rural operations are constantly beset by myriad variables that could derail their plans. Be it pricing fluctuations, supply issues, or productivity, uncertainty looms ever present.

“One year you could have a very good [result] and the next it could be very dismal,” she said. “Farmers are subject to many factors that can affect their bottom line.”

For this reason, FSA makes every effort to assist rural farmers along their precarious path. From the quest for start-up capital to disaster recovery loans, Bethea-Myers sees the USDA’s rural emphasis as a ladder that helps the farmer reach beyond the common ground-floor limitations.

Flooded cropland in southwest Iowa. The Farm Service Agency offers disaster recovery funds in the event of extreme weather.

“The smaller rural farmer may be less experienced and have less community support because they’re not as large or as established as a larger operation,” she said. “Also [they] may have less credibility so brokers and financial institutions may have less faith in them.

“But there are those operations that do start small and they can grow from there and become one of the larger operations. That is definitely one aspect of what FSA tries to do. We definitely try to help farmers and ranchers get started in their business; we can help someone expand their business; we can help someone reestablish themselves after suffering some kind of setback.”

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As Bethea-Myers explained, FSA is a lender of first opportunity – an option that often provides a vital connector for rural farmers who are unable to meet commercial lending standards.

“If the commercial lenders are not able to assist them for some reason, maybe the FSA can step in and help with a loan on a temporary basis,” she said. “That could mean anywhere from a year to seven years, or even longer, depending on when the farmer can get financially stable to refinance or graduate into commercial credit.”

KEEP IT CONNECTED In this digital age, a community’s potential hinges on its ability to reach

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That’s the thought behind the USDA Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP), established with trading provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Seeking to increase economic development and improve the quality of life for rural communities, BIP provides funding for loans, grants, and loan/grant combinations for projects that facilitate this objective.

Farmer Jorge Espinoza qualified for financial assistance to install a solar pump on an existing well through the USDA’s StrikeForce for Rural Growth and Opportunity in Laredo, Texas.

In late October, RUS announced 14 awards for projects to bring broadband to unserved rural communities in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alaska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. Projects include providing free broadband service to schools, libraries, and other essential community facilities; establishing centers

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with free Internet service; and deploying high-speed broadband to allow communities access to real-time weather reports to monitor severe weather alerts.

For areas where land-based broadband services are unavailable, the BIP Satellite Program provides financial incentives for private satellite companies to offer satellite broadband connections.

USDA photo by Lance Cheung

REAP WHAT YOU SOW Renewable energy generated from wind, solar, and geothermal sources moves the nation in the right direction while also creating economic opportunities for rural America. Guided by these symbiotic goals, the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 directed USDA RD to establish the Renewable Energy System and Energy Efficiency Improvement Guaranteed Loan and Grant Program for the purpose of helping farmers, ranchers, and rural small businesses purchase renewable energy systems and implement energy-efficient improvements.

Renamed the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) in 2008, this

combination of vision and innovation helps rural small businesses, farmers, and ranchers lower their energy consumption and improve their bottom line through the installation of renewable energy systems and other energy efficiency strategies. From anaerobic digesters and solar panels to high-efficiency irrigation pumps and ventilation systems, REAP offers grants and loan guarantees to help eligible applicants complete such undertakings, along with energy audits and feasibility studies.

STRIKING A CHORD OF OPPORTUNITY With the vast majority of persistent poverty occurring in rural America, the USDA in 2010 launched the StrikeForce for Rural Growth and Opportunity. Leveraging partnerships with community-based organizations in poverty-stricken rural areas, this targeted program seeks to make sure USDA programs are reaching every community equally.

Piloted in Arkansas, Georgia, and Mississippi, StrikeForce expanded to

Seldom Rest Farms, located north of Myerstown, Pa., maintains crops, a herd of sheep, and 17,000 poultry. The hens are kept in a two-story chicken house and produce approximately 2.5 million chicks each year.

To supplement its electrical needs, the farm sought out USDA REAP grants. The farm was awarded a $152,000 grant (25 percent of total cost) to install a 1,001-kilowatt solar array to power itself, a neighboring farm, and homes on the local electrical grid. The 240 solar panels were ground mounted with 5-foot clearance underneath to allow sheep to graze and rest underneath, sheltered from the rain, sun, or snow fall.

Ten converters change the DC electrical energy from the panels into AC energy that goes into the local power grid.

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local extension services to promote locally grown food on Nevada’s tribal lands.

RURAL RELEVANCE Woven with diverse strands, the tapestry of rural support programs boldly displays the USDA’s commitment to this vital part of America’s decor. Thanks to this solid framework of support and encouragement, smaller rural farms provide a healthy complement to the nation’s large-scale agricultural operations. Considering the bigpicture importance, Royster believes that helping keep the little guy afloat benefits the overall picture of the nation’s productivity.

“It’s like parts of a puzzle – they all fit together – small farms and large farms. We try to help them both stay in business.”

Bethea-Myers concurs and notes that the USDA’s ongoing efforts to empower the nation’s rural communities help strengthen American agriculture.

Littlestown Veterinary Hospital in Littlestown, Pa., received a grant from USDA Rural Development under REAP to have solar panels installed to help reduce its carbon footprint and to have costeffective electric power for the hospital. The expected cost savings using solar power for the hospital’s electrical needs is expected to reduce the facility’s operating expenses by 30 to 40 percent.

“I think that the FSA is helping keep our rural farmers in business so that we are producing food for our country and not having to rely on other countries,” Bethea-Myers said. “I know that we import a lot of food from other places and we export, as well. But it’s nice to know that we have the ability to produce our own food to feed our country.”

USDA photo

Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada in 2011, with 2013 bringing further expansion into Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. Kentuky, Louisiana, Tennessee, and West Virginia were added to the roster of states in January 2014.

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APPLES

WE ALL WANT A BETTER APPLE But maybe the apple isn’t the problem. Maybe it’s us.

BY CRAIG COLLINS

The

Gravenstein apple is the unofficial mascot of western Sonoma County, Calif. Its name appears everywhere on buildings, road signs, and storefronts; and if you visit, you won’t be able to get anywhere without driving on at least some of what’s been renamed the Gravenstein Highway. In the spring, the apple stars in the Apple Blossom Festival, where it’s literally paraded down the streets of the town of Sebastopol; in August, locals celebrate the Gravenstein Apple Fair.

In Northern California, the Gravenstein is beloved for its versatility: While many people have two favorite apple varieties – one for eating whole, and one for

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cooking – the Gravenstein tends to be a favorite for both. It’s crisp, juicy, honeyed and tart, and aromatic, with a bit of spice creeping in just before harvest. It’s perfect for pie, sauce, juice, and cider. For decades, it’s been the workhorse of the county’s apple industry. In its early 1900s heyday, it occupied 11,000 acres of prime Sonoma County land.

But the Gravenstein is also disappearing here; every year there are fewer acres. One of the biggest culprits is the wine industry: Many orchards have been torn up and planted with wine grapes, which, according to the “2012 Sonoma County Crop Report,” go for more than $3,000 a ton, compared to $328 a ton for Gravensteins. But the Gravenstein also has its own built-in

problems. It has a short harvest season, from late July to early August, and its stem is relatively short and weak, which causes it to fall early; up to 40 percent of a grower’s crop ends up on the ground.

It also bruises easily, and it goes soft faster than most apples, which limits its distribution.

Today, there are fewer than 480 acres of Gravenstein orchards in Sonoma County, and 75 of those belong to Paul and Kendra Kolling, the husband-andwife team who turn their fruit into applesauce, juice, cider, and vinegars, many of them using recipes passed down from Paul’s grandmother, Nana Mae. Their company, Nana Mae’s Organics, is one of only a handful still making the effort to bring Gravensteins to market. Kendra, a chef, also cooks these apples into dishes for her award-winning catering business, The Farmer’s Wife.

After discovering he can earn $20 more per box by trucking Gravensteins to San Francisco farmers’ markets, Paul makes a few trips per season – but that’s about as far as he’ll go with whole apples.

“If you ship an apple across the country – or around the world,” he said, “it’s going to taste different than if you just picked it off the tree.”

All told, the Kollings farm 450 acres throughout the region, most of them planted with apples such as Jonathan, McIntosh, or clones of an old cultivar Paul found growing on a family-owned plot near the town of Occidental, and which he named the Kolling Golden. He likes Gravensteins as much as the next person, but they’re getting harder to find.

Aside from this shrinking checkerboard

APPLES

Photo by BookFinch

of orchards in Sonoma County, the nearest – the only other Gravenstein orchards in North America, in fact – can be found in Nova Scotia, Canada.

“Everyone says they want to save the Gravenstein,” Paul said. “But nobody really should have to work that hard.”

THE TROUBLE WITH APPLES How did we get here – a beloved apple, poised to vanish from the Western

Hemisphere? The answer boils down to two factors: genes and commerce.

The apples that pioneer nurseryman John Chapman – Johnny Appleseed – introduced to America throughout the Ohio River Valley weren’t meant to be baked into delicious pies. They were mostly for cider – which American settlers drank like water – and livestock fodder. The trait that made apples widely adaptable, and that enabled people to turn them into tasty fruit, is

Gravenstein Apple Fair in Sebastopol, Calif.

that they are heterozygous: Like a human being, each contains seeds that, once fertilized, will grow into entirely unique offspring.

But heterozygosity, it turns out, is inconvenient for growers who want to reproduce the same winning cultivar again and again. Plant the seed of a

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APPLES

Courtesy photo

Photo by Jeff Kubina

Left: The EverCrisp is a controlled cross of Honeycrisp and Fuji apples. It is very sweet, and somewhat harder than Honeycrisp, but with a similar crunch. It maintains quality for extended periods under adverse conditions, is annual-bearing and selfregulating, non-dropping, and has a long harvest window, with minimal bitter pit. Right: An apple orchard at Larriland Farm. Of the 2,500 varieties of apples grown in the United States, about 100 are grown commercially.

Granny Smith, and you have no idea what will sprout; the only sure thing is that it will be different from any other seedling. In order to get another Granny Smith tree, you’ll have to create a clone of the original by grafting or budding onto a new rootstock.

Our practice of cloning popular apple varieties, sometimes over centuries, has created an evolutionary imbalance. Most commercial apples haven’t evolved at all, not one gene, in the last century-and-a-half, when they could have been strengthening themselves

against increasingly variable weather patterns, and against the pests and pathogens that now thrive against their static defenses. We’ve bred the apple – one of the hardiest plants by nature, capable of limitless genetic diversity – into a botanical version of the toy poodle. The apple is now among the highest-maintenance crops in the United States, requiring more pesticide than any other – often about 10 applications every year.

Another thing that has changed around these unchanging apple varieties has been the taste of the American consumer. The time when the Red Delicious could be described as delicious, compared to the competition, is viewed by many people – though certainly not everyone – as past. One of these people is Mitch Lynd, now a semi-retired apple grower from Pataskala, Ohio.

“One of the most damaging things to the entire apple industry,” said Lynd, “was the popularity of Red Delicious for 50 years, which was entirely appearance-driven. They were attractive and they were highly promoted. But quite honestly, the opinion of professional tasters was that they were rather blah. But the public didn’t know the

difference, because they didn’t have a choice. It’s what grocers bought.”

The Gravenstein – a cultivar dating to 17th century Denmark – is better tasting than the Red Delicious, but genetically and commercially speaking, it’s the sick little boy from The Secret Garden. In spite of its charms, it can’t travel far enough to entice many admirers outside its local fan club.

For the past few decades, apple breeding programs across the country have been trying to solve the problems we’ve brought upon ourselves – to create apples that taste great, last longer, and have at least some resistance to pests.

THE MIDWEST APPLE IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION Lynd’s family has grown apples on the 300-acre Lynd Fruit Farm for seven generations – until recently, mostly the Rome Beauty, a cultivar that originated in nearby Rome Township back in the Johnny Appleseed days. The Rome Beauty is as beloved in the midwestern and eastern United States as the Gravenstein is in Northern California – round, glossy red, with a flavor that blossoms in the oven, it’s nicknamed the

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APPLES

Photos courtesy of Nana Mae’s Organics

Photo by David Prasad

Top: The Kolling family who own and operate Nana Mae’s Organics. They have 75 acres of Gravenstein orchards. Above: Chef Kendra Kolling turns their fruit into applesauce, cider, vinegars, and more. Right: Granny Smith apples. “baker’s buddy,” and though it’s not as sweet or flamboyant as some, its subtle flavor keeps it a favorite eating apple for many – including Kendra Kolling, a Massachusetts-to-Sonoma transplant.

By the mid-1990s, however, it had become obvious to Lynd that the sweeter new competitors being introduced to markets by apple breeders – including the reigning taste champion, the Honeycrisp – were luring consumers away from Lynd Fruit Farm. The Lynds tried to grow other varieties, including Jonathan, Red Delicious, and Golden Delicious – but those apples often succumbed to early frost.

“The Rome flowers bloomed after all the danger of frost was gone,” said Lynd.

“They were highly freeze-resistant. For more than a hundred years, there was

always a market somewhere for Rome apples. That was the backbone of our business. But eventually … that day was over. There was no longer a market for the Rome.”

Lynd knew what the answer was, and he knew neither he nor any of his neighbors had it: “We needed an apple that tasted at least as good, if not better than, all the most popular apples of the time. But they would have to be late bloomers also.”

Another problem confronted Lynd and his friends: The nation’s apple breeding programs, most of them now university-based, were keeping a tight proprietary hold on licenses for growing some of these new varieties, either licensing the highest bidder or overseeing controlled releases.

It was obvious to Lynd, he said, that area growers needed their own breeding program. “And it was further obvious to me that the only intelligent thing to do was to roll up your sleeves and do it yourself – don’t expect to have someone ride in on a white horse and rescue some little handful of apple growers in Ohio.”

The cooperative founded by Lynd – the Midwest Apple Improvement Association – identified among themselves the characteristics it wanted from their new apple: It would have to taste great, bloom late, and be resistant to the region’s most damaging diseases. Beginning in 1997, Lynd and other members contributed $100 each, bought seeds, and, with the help of Diane Miller, Ph.D., a professor of horticulture at the Ohio State University, performed controlled crosses of Honeycrisp and Fuji apples. In their crosses, they tried selecting for the desirable traits of each (taste, texture, keeping, and disease resistance), and deselecting the less desirable (Honeycrisp, for example, tends to behave as more of a biannual producer, giving tons of fruit one year and then taking the following year off).

These offspring were planted on test plots among members’ orchards. For 15 years, their $100 annual membership contributed to the rearing of these first 5,300 trees and the planting of new seedlings. In 2007, the seedling that became the Midwest’s newest

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APPLES

In hindsight, the grassroots effort of Lynd and his friends does seem simple.

All they had to do was remember: It was entirely within their power to allow their apples’ genes, bottled up for so many years, to begin expressing themselves again. The EverCrisp has brought new waves of customers to association orchards throughout the Midwest.

In Northern California, the Gravenstein’s predicament isn’t quite analogous to the Rome Beauty’s: It’s not the demand for Gravensteins that’s shrinking; it’s the supply. No amount of selective breeding can solve that problem.

However, a legion of champions has sprung up around the apple – including the local chapter of Slow Food USA, which established a “Presidium” – one of only

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Photo by Connie Ma

five Slow Food Presidia so far for regional U.S. foods – aimed at ensuring a viable future for the Gravenstein.

The Kollings, meanwhile, have devised their own simple solution to the Gravenstein’s problem: Let the Gravenstein be the Gravenstein. They aren’t waiting for some hopped-up version of the apple, with a brawnier stem and a six-month shelf life. Their business has always focused on bringing customers the freshest locally grown produce they can find. That could be a Gravenstein – or not, depending on the season.

“If an apple weren’t good, people wouldn’t be growing it,” said Paul. “I think people put too much emphasis on what kind of apple it is, when they ought to be thinking more about how fresh it is.

People ask me my favorite apple all the time, and I tell them: ‘My favorite apple?

It’s the one I just picked.’”

Photo by Kel and Val

ONE APPLE’S PRESIDIUM

Above: Jonathan apples ripening on a tree. Left: Rome apples for sale at a market.

Bottom left: A ripe Gravenstein apple.

Photo by Stephanie M.

apple – the EverCrisp® – produced its first fruit. Association members propagated that tree, whose progeny fruited in 2011, and fast-tracked the release of EverCrisp in 2012.

The EverCrisp is a very sweet, crunchy apple that blooms late, bears annually, and keeps for a long time. The association’s current president, Bill Dodd – owner of Dodd’s Hillcrest Orchards in Amherst, Ohio – pointed out that not only is it popular among consumers; it’s available for any Association member to grow. “That was one of the goals of this group,” Dodd said, “that if we ever did come up with something, we were not going to close anybody out. We were going to release it to everyone.”

Just a year after EverCrisp’s release, Lynd claimed business at his family’s farm was better than ever. “We not only have EverCrisp patented and available, we have a bunch of numbered selections in advanced testing that are far better than things on grocery shelves today,” he said. Association members are now rearing more than 50,000 experimental seedlings.

“I’m astounded,” said Lynd. “It was far simpler than I thought it would be to end up with apples that taste a lot better than anything that’s been available to customers up until now.”

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RODENTS

RODENT ROUNDUP Problems with and solutions to furry ag pests

BY DAVID A. BROWN

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gophers, and ground squirrels in no short supply throughout his region.

On his farm, though, they’re harder to come by – probably because they’re afraid to stick their heads up.

“We rely on nature to take care of any pest problems we may have and we absolutely do not have a problem with pests because of it,” Brown said.

“That’s not to say we don’t ever have

any, but they’re never to the level of causing any economic damage.”

Terming his cover crops “armor on the surface,” Brown said his farming plan focuses on a healthy ecosystem with an emphasis on improving the health of his soil resources. Taking advantage of natural processes like erosion prevention and the work of pollinator insects that favor cover crop habitat was a no-brainer.

Gabe Brown pictured in a high Brassica cover crop on his ranch in North Dakota. While these cover crops are purposely grown to improve soil health, Brown noted that an added benefit to diversifying crops is that a polycultures landscape draws natural predators to ward off most rodent pests.

Photo courtesy of Brown’s Ranch

A

red-tailed hawk grips its perch, watches the deer mouse’s movement, and waits for the right moment to swoop in for the swift capture. Not far away, a mother fox, well nourished on a recent ground squirrel meal, nurses her kits. What’s the connection? Rodent control.

Though he’s never met them, North Dakota rancher Gabe Brown appreciates the protective services that such creatures provide for his 5,400-acre farm in Bismarck. At Brown’s Ranch, only 2,000 acres are used for cash grain crops including spring weed, sunflower, corn, peas, oats, barley, and triticale livestock feed. The remaining 3,000 acres remain in native form, and that’s no random design.

Despite the tempting food source, Brown said rodents simply do not present an issue on his farm. That’s because he also cultivates many acres of cover crops before, after, and concurrent with his cash crops. The primary objective of cover crops such as sedan grass, millet, clovers, buckwheat, and cow peas is to build soil health, but they also offer vital habitat for nature’s pest patrol.

“We don’t try to eradicate anything; what we try to do is have a natural balance. Because we have a very diverse crop rotation and a lot of cover crop, we tend to have plenty of predators like coyotes, foxes, badgers, hawks, etc., and they keep the rodents in check.”

Brown said the warmer growing season finds various mice, pocket

RODENTS

Photo by Debra Roby

USDA photo

Photo by David Baron

Left: Damaged Swiss chard. The likely culprit: hungry pocket gophers. To control rodent damage, the first step is accurate identification: survey the damaged area for runs, tracks, tail marks, droppings, nests, burrows, and food caches. Above: Rodents such as mice (top) and ground squirrels cause millions of dollars in damages to field crops, stored grain, and storage containers each year.

“All I’m trying to do is mimic nature, where you have the natural balance of predator and pests.

“I’m not going to say I seeded the cover crops specifically to control rodents; it’s just one of the many benefits of having a cover crop.”

THE USUAL SUSPECTS Given the many different sizes and configurations, not all farms enjoy such low rodent impact as Brown’s. In fact, the furry marauders that crawl, scamper, and burrow throughout crop fields all over the United States present significant

challenges for the agriculture industry.

The forces of ag field folly are numerous and diverse. Among the top offenders: mice, voles, wood rats, red fox squirrels, ground squirrels, and pocket gophers.

Crop cover plays a role in the extent of rodent activity. As with Brown’s Ranch, smaller cash crops adjacent to cover crops benefit from predator proximity, while vast fields of cash crops afford rodents broader areas to forage with less concern over imminent predation.

Crop type matters, also. Cotton and corn, for example, offer little cover for rodents during the growing season, whereas denser crops like peanuts offer

more concealment. Moreover, rodents can flourish in no-till farming operations where the sustainable agriculture goals of soil and water conservation eliminate annual plowing. This leaves rodent burrows undisturbed and allows for the buildup of plant residue, which provides cover and insulation.

THE PROBLEMS With most of these rodent pests, crop damage takes center stage, as the economic loss is undeniable. Some of the harm stems from direct damage, while other instances are less direct

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“It makes the field rougher and a little uneven so you have to slow down if there are a lot of pocket gophers. If you’re haying that field, that’s when they cause a problem because if it’s wet outside, those mounds of dirt tend to block up your sickle if you’re cutting hay.”

Mark E. Tobin, Ph. D., and Michael W. Fall described some examples of rodent issues in a USDA National Wildlife Research Center report: • Rats gnaw on the internodes of growing sugarcane stalks, thereby killing stalks, diminishing yields, or allowing infection by bacteria or fungus. Such damage reduces cane quality and sugar yield.

• Fruit orchards are highly susceptible to vole damage. During winter, and anytime their preferred vegetation is scarce, these rodents gnaw the roots and trunks of trees for the underlying phloem and cambium

The root structure of this cabbage plant has been severely gnawed. Gopher damage is unmistakable: a couple of plants wilted and leaning over with a fringe of telltale churned-up soil.

They'll often eat halfway up the plant and, if the plant is small enough, they will then pull the remainder into their run to store.

Fortunately, this irrigation line was left undamaged.

tissue. The damage inflicted interferes with the transport of nutrients between the roots and aerial portions of the tree and increases the chance of infection by root pathogens. Common outcomes are reduced fruit production, longer

Photo by Ben Ketaro

but no less problematic. At times, rodents seem frustratingly intent on dismantling various elements of a farm’s operations.

As Brown pointed out, ground squirrels build subterranean dens, but forage above ground; pocket gophers spend most of their time downstairs, feeding on plant roots. Sightings of the actual rodent may be less common, but evidence of their excavation is all too familiar to stricken farmers. Not only does gopher activity create numerous eyesores; it presents operational headaches.

“One of the big issues with pocket gophers is that as they dig their burrows, they push mounds of soil above the ground,” he said. “They’re only about 6 inches high and about a foot or two in diameter. But depending on what you’re doing mechanically on that field, those mounds can hinder the harvest of certain crops.

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RODENTS

•

•

USFWS - Pacific region photo

•

times from planting to production, and tree death.

In tropical regions, rats climb coconut palms of all ages to feed on developing nuts, which then fall prematurely.

Macadamia orchards in Hawaii sustain extensive damage from arboreal rats that gnaw through the hard shell to eat the developing kernel inside. Damaged nuts also fall prematurely.

When rodents find where farmers store food and grains, ensuing economic and public health problems include consumption, damage to storage structures and containers, and indirect losses caused by spillage, spoilage, or contamination that results in condemned or rejected shipments. Since most rodent species are nocturnal, their maladies may

go unnoticed in the absence of regular monitoring and inspection.

• Many burrowing rodent species cause damage, water loss, and flood risks by excavating earthen dams, irrigation canals, or flood control structures. Surface drip irrigation, common to vegetable crops and field crop production, loses its effectiveness when rodents chew holes in the drip tubing. Common North American culprits include beavers, muskrats, gophers, ground squirrels, and nutria (giant water rats).

In Opelousas, La., crawfish farmer Jeremy Guidry said the nutria will tunnel through levees or at least weaken them to the point of breaching. This problem also spells trouble for Bayou State rice farmers who face the threat of crop damage and/or hefty irrigation bills.

“Pumping water is pretty expensive and when you lose your water, it can

Caged nutria. Farmers often shoot these tunneling rodents on sight.

add a lot of expense to your operation,” Guidry said.

With damage like that caused by nutria, determining the cause of breaks in water structures is often difficult because animal activity is impossible to assess if the evidence has washed away.

END GAME Guidry said that farmers often hold a shoot-on-sight sentiment for the bothersome nutria. Trapping remains a viable option, as a state bounty plus a market for meat and pelts provide economic incentive for persistent old-schoolers.

For a variety of rodent pests, trapping provides a dependable method

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and kestrels to spend more time hunting around agricultural fields.

At times, leveraging natural predation may be as simple as teaching farm workers how to peacefully coexist with the snakes that hunt rodents on agricultural fields. It maybe easier said than done for some folks, but learning to distinguish venomous from nonvenomous reptiles is the first step toward eliminating the common killon-sight reaction many have toward these natural exterminators.

No doubt, critters with a taste for rodents can contribute to the overall control picture, but what do we do when the pest populations outpace natural predation? The University of California’s Cooperative Extension Office for Ventura

The red-tailed hawk, pictured here with prey, is a natural predator to voles and other rodent pests.

County offers insight into a few rodent control methods: Pest: Pocket gophers Method: Trapping or poison baits.

Find the burrow running in both directions below the mount - 8 to 12 inches deep. Clean out the burrow and place trap or poison in each direction. Cover with paper and soil to exclude light. This is important, for if a gopher sees light, it will push soil ahead and spring the trap or cover the poison.

Photo by Steve Jurvetson

for capture and removal, but it’s also an effective tool for surveillance and monitoring. Whether baited or set to capture animals in the course of their normal movements, trapping is a laborintensive undertaking that requires skill for effective use, but low-cost operation makes trapping a primary method of choice for rodent control. Moreover, traps are preferred when non-target animals are of high concern or where rodenticides and other methods are not permitted.

In smaller scenarios, strategies like Brown’s can keep the culprits at bay; and sometimes a little construction goes a long way. Providing additional habitat such as nesting boxes and perch poles can encourage raptors such as barn owls

Photo by seabamirum

IRRI photo by Isagani Serrano

RODENTS

Pest: Ground squirrels Method: Unaffected by chemical or physical means, control through the use of toxic fumigants, poison baits, traps, or shooting are the best measures. In some counties, the agricultural commissioner provides effective poison baits at costs. Pest: Meadow mice (voles) Method: Mousetraps baited with oatmeal, rolled oats, or bits of apple or carrot may be set in these runways with the triggers of the traps across the runways. Mice running in either direction can then be trapped. When large numbers of mice are present, it may be more advantageous to poison them.

Top: Eastern screech owl perched in nesting box. These boxes are great for attracting raptors, a simple option for ridding an area of small rodents. Above: A rodent expert discusses the mechanics of a simple but very viable rat trap.

Other thoughts on rodent control include: Habitat Management: Rodents need food, water, and cover to survive and reproduce, so altering agricultural lands to remove these rodent resources usually

minimizes the potential attraction. For example, apple growers often eliminate all vegetation under the orchard canopy to discourage voles from living near the bases of trees, where they cause the greatest damage. Mowing the orchard ground cover during the growing season further discourage voles from residing in the orchard.

Rodenticides: When the rodent problem covers a broad area with a large number of pests, toxicants are usually the best option in terms of practicality and cost-effectiveness. Application requires minimal manpower, and properly formulated and applied toxicants can provide quick results with minimal impact on the environment and nontarget animals.

For rapid knock-down of their rodent foes, farmers usually go with fast-acting, single-feed toxicants like red squill, sodium fluoroacetate, strychnine, and zinc phosphide. In many cases, rodenticide success shows decreasing effectiveness with repletion, as the naturally cautious animals grow wise to the bait.

However, savvy farmers have learned to “prebait� infested areas by applying pretreatments of nontoxic bait to get the rodents used to the food source.

Integration: In most cases, best results come through an Integrated Pest Management system. IPM is generally described as the utilization of a variety of control methods that address specific rodent scenarios, emphasize the use of environmental controls on population growth, and continuously evaluate the chosen tactics relevant to the goals of economically and socially acceptable damage levels.

Ultimately, an effective rodent control (ridding) plan requires a few key pieces.

First is identification and target analysis: Where does the rodent live, what does it eat, and how does it move from den to foraging areas? Next comes the assessment of control options, with careful consideration given to the economic costs of such methods weighed against that of inaction. Tying this all together should be a set of realistic expectations.

Counting dead rodents is far less important than counting the crops you saved.

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