High and Dry: Why Genetic Engineering Is Not Solving Agriculture's Drought Problem in a Thirsty World (2012)

High and Dry is the third in a series of reports highlighting genetic engineering’s limitations and demonstrating the importance of increasing public investment in more effective—but often neglected—agricultural technologies. The first two reports in the series are Failure to Yield and No Sure Fix.

Droughts can be devastating to farmers and to the people who depend on the food those farmers produce. The historic Texas drought of 2011 caused a record $5.2 billion in agricultural losses, making it the most costly drought on record.

While extreme droughts capture the most attention, mild and moderate droughts are more common and collectively cause extensive damage. Climate scientists expect the frequency and severity of such droughts to increase as the global climate heats up.

Furthermore, agriculture accounts for the lion's share of water extracted from rivers and wells, setting up conflicts between food production and other uses. Other important organisms, such as fish, also compete with humans for fresh water. So there is a vital need for crop improvements that will increase drought tolerance and water use efficiency (WUE).

Biotechnology companies such as Monsanto have held out the promise that genetic engineering can accomplish these goals, creating new crop varieties that can thrive under drought conditions and reduce water demand even under normal conditions. High and Dry offers an analysis of the prospects for delivering on that promise.

Read More:

http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/science/high-and-dry.html

Tom Philpott - How California Could Force the Rest of the U.S. to Label GMO Foods

In November, California voters will decide on a ballot initiative that would require labeling of all foods containing ingredients from genetically modified crops. The initiative made it to the ballot after almost 1 million Californians signed a petition in favor of it—nearly double the 504,760 signatures needed under the state's proposition rules. The campaign that organized the push to get the measure on the ballot focused on possible health effects of GMO foods.

This news will not likely be applauded by my friends over at Crop life America, the main trade group of the GM seed/agrichemical industry. The big GMO crops—corn, soy, sugar beets, and cotton—are processed into sweeteners, fats, and additives used widely by the food industry. Everything from high fructose corn syrup-sweetened Coke to soybean oil-containing Hellman’s would have to bear a label reading something like "Contains GMO ingredients."

That would send a shockwave through the food industry—one that could ultimately be felt on the industrial-scale U.S. farms that have been devoting their land to GMO crops for years, and the companies that profit from selling them patented seeds and matching herbicides. The reason isn't just that California represents an imposing chunk of the U.S. food market. It's also that a food-labeling law that starts in California is unlikely to stay in California.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/how-california-could-force-rest-us-label-gmo-foods-1338536857

Blanch Your Weeds, Study Suggests

You don't need to spray weedkiller to remove the weeds between your paving stones. Six treatments throughout the summer with either boiling water, steam or careful flaming will dispatch even the hardiest of unwanted plants. This is the conclusion of a new PhD project from the University of Copenhagen.

Weeds can be killed off with repeated treatments, but it is important that each treatment is dosed correctly.

Basically, every single plant needs to be burned lightly -- or blanched -- and treated frequently.

However, little is achieved if you just treat the weeds superficially by running quickly over the paving stones. The leaves must collapse completely -- and the plant's stem must also be struck by the flames.

Six times a season

Treatment must be repeated up to six times a season. A regime of fewer treatments encourages grass weeds to regrow, while more treatments are not necessarily more effective:

"We have conducted several kinds of experiments since 2004. Controlled field experiments, experiments where we have planted weeds in hard surfaces and then burned them, as well as experiments with 'real' weeds on stones. We have observed that the treatments work. It does not really matter whether you use flaming, steam or boiling water. However, if we only give a few treatments or if we use low doses, the weeds quickly reappear. Very low doses can even stimulate grass growth. This is also the case with many herbicides," says Anne Merete Rask, PhD from Forest & Landscape, Faculty of Life Sciences at the University ofCopenhagen.

Read More:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120531102340.htm

Alexis Baden-Mayer - G8 Gives Monsanto Power to End Hunger in Africa

At the Group of 8 (G8) meetings this past weekend, President Obama and the leaders of the rest of the world’s richest nations abandoned their governments’ previous commitments to donate $7.3 billion a year to end hunger in Africa, after disbursing only 58 percent of the total pledge of $22 billion and giving less than 6 percent in new money they pledged three years ago.

Instead, rich nations will leave the problem in the hands of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition where private corporations will invest $3 billion over 10 years — Monsanto has committed $50 million – beginning in three countries, Tanzania, Ghana and Ethiopia.

Human-rights activists have questioned the inclusion of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, noting that his authoritarian government has jailed dissidents and banned media access to hunger zones. The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a letter to President Obama that the Ethiopian government “routinely downplays the extent of the crisis by denying journalists access to sensitive areas and censoring independent news coverage.”

Read More:

http://wakeup-world.com/2012/05/31/g8-leaves-monsanto-in-charge-of-ending-hunger-in-africa/

Exercise and a Healthy Diet of Fruits and Vegetables Extends Life Expectancy in Women in Their 70s

Women in their seventies who exercise and eat healthy amounts of fruits and vegetables have a longer life expectancy, according to research published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Researchers at the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University studied 713 women aged 70 to 79 years who took part in the Women's Health and Aging Studies. This study was designed to evaluate the causes and course of physical disability in older women living in the community.

"A number of studies have measured the positive impact of exercise and healthy eating on life expectancy, but what makes this study unique is that we looked at these two factors together," explains lead author, Dr. Emily J Nicklett, from the University of Michigan School of Social Work.

Researchers found that the women who were most physically active and had the highest fruit and vegetable consumption were eight times more likely to survive the five-year follow-up period than the women with the lowest rates.

Read More:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120530100512.htm

Blogger: State Agency Censored Online Health Food Advice Column

Steven Cooksey says all he wanted to do was help other diabetics get healthy, but a North Carolina agency tried to censor his online healthy food advice column, saying he was not a licensed dietitian.

Cooksey filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal court, saying the state violated his free speech rights.

“When did it become illegal to tell people to eat meats and vegetables?” Cooksey said in an interview with The Associated Press. “How is it illegal to tell people not to eat grains? We’re talking about healthy eating. This is wrong.”

Read More:

http://charlotte.cbslocal.com/2012/05/30/blogger-state-agency-censored-online-health-food-advice-column/

Joanna Blythman - Vandals! No, not protesters trashing crops but the GM lobby still trying to force increasingly discredited Frankenstein Food down our throats

Genetic modification was supposed to be the ground-breaking science of the future. Its magic wand would feed the world and make toxic pesticides redundant.

But, in reality, it has dismally failed to live up to the expectations of its cheerleaders.

The high crop yields the GM lobbyists promised us just haven’t happened. Farmers are having to use more pesticide, not less, on their GM crops.

Thanks to GM, vigorous new superweeds stalk the fields in countries such as the U.S., where controversial GM crops have been forced onto the market — against the wishes of citizens — at the behest of profit-driven corporations.

What’s more, we now have evidence that GM crops can cross-pollinate with non-GM crops, contaminating land for miles around.

Read More:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2151380/GM-lobby-trying-force-increasingly-discredited-Frankenstein-Food-throats.html

Groundwater Depletion in Semiarid Regions of Texas and California Threatens US Food Security

The nation's food supply may be vulnerable to rapid groundwater depletion from irrigated agriculture, according to a new study by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere.

The study, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, paints the highest resolution picture yet of how groundwater depletion varies across space and time in California's Central Valley and the High Plains of the central U.S. Researchers hope this information will enable more sustainable use of water in these areas, although they think irrigated agriculture may be unsustainable in some parts.

"We're already seeing changes in both areas," said Bridget Scanlon, senior research scientist at The University of Texas at Austin's Bureau of Economic Geology and lead author of the study. "We're seeing decreases in rural populations in the High Plains. Increasing urbanization is replacing farms in the Central Valley. And during droughts some farmers are forced to fallow their land. These trends will only accelerate as water scarcity issues become more severe."

Three results of the new study are particularly striking: First, during the most recent drought in California's Central Valley, from 2006 to 2009, farmers in the south depleted enough groundwater to fill the nation's largest human-made reservoir, Lake Mead near Las Vegas -- a level of groundwater depletion that is unsustainable at current recharge rates.

Second, a third of the groundwater depletion in the High Plains occurs in just 4% of the land area. And third, the researchers project that if current trends continue some parts of the southern High Plains that currently support irrigated agriculture, mostly in the Texas Panhandle and western Kansas, will be unable to do so within a few decades.

Read More:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120528154857.htm

John Atcheson - 'Faster Than We Thought': An Epitaph for Planet Earth

Sometime later this Century, a writer will sit down and attempt to document how his or her grandparents’ generation could have all but ignored the greatest disaster humanity has ever faced.

It won’t be a pleasant world she lives in. Cities and countries will be locked in an expensive battle with rapidly rising seas; but after spending trillions of dollars, most of the world’s ports will have been abandoned anyway.

Up to seventy percent of the planet’s species will be wiped out.  Gone. Vanished. Kaput. Songbirds will no longer serenade us.  Butterflies will no longer dazzle us.  The boreal forests – the largest belt of green in the world – will be gone. 

Brutal heat waves will be the norm. Off-the-chart hurricanes and storms will be the rule.  Deserts will have expanded.  Haboobs, giant black blizzards of dust will sweep across vast portions of the US’s high plains and the southwest. The Amazon rainforest will be a shrunken, wizened remnant of a once vast source of life. 

The once bountiful seas will be acidic crypts in which jellyfish and other primitive forms spread in vast sheets across the surface, covering the rotting hulks of the fish we used to eat. 

Agricultural productivity will collapse, famine will be widespread. 

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/23-5

Not so organic - USDA accused of conspiracy with agribusiness insiders

A watchdog group that handles issues dealing with the American agriculture industry is lashing out at the federal government for allegedly corrupting the advisory board that oversees organic food stuffs in the United States.

The Cornucopia Institute from the state of Wisconsin is calling out the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in their latest report by saying that the governmental panel that determines what is and isn’t considered “organic” is stacked with federal insiders with an alternative agenda.

According to the findings in The Organic Watergate paper released this week, the USDA’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) has taken a turn for the worse in recent years, hiring staffers in bed with corporate entities that aren’t as concerned with protecting consumers as they are with making a buck.

"This is the proverbial fox watching the organic chicken coop,” Mark A. Kastel, co-director of The Cornucopia Institute, says in a press release.

The NOSB was established in order to oversee and monitor any and all synthetic ingredients used in the farming or production of so-called “organic” foods to "assure that it is not a threat to human health or the environment,” as well as recommend policy and modifications “to the regulations governing organic agriculture and food processing” in the US. Without proper oversight, it is feared by some that a slippery slope will effectively erode the USDA’s original standards and allow for Big Business and the government’s corporate colleagues to remove the rules that currently exist to guide consumers.

Read More:

http://rt.com/usa/news/organic-usda-agriculture-board-820/