Russia Bans Grain Exports Amid Crippling Drought

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin on Thursday banned all exports of grain after millions of acres of Russian wheat withered in a severe drought, driving up prices around the world and pushing them to their highest level in two years in the United States.

The move was the latest of several abrupt interventions in the Russian economy by Mr. Putin, who called the ban necessary to curb rising food prices in the country. Russia is suffering from the worst heat wave since record-keeping began here more than 130 years ago.

“We need to prevent a rise in domestic food prices, we need to preserve the number of cattle and build up reserves for next year,” Mr. Putin said in a meeting broadcast on television. “As the saying goes, reserves don’t make your pocket heavy.”

Steve Case’s ownership in ML&P now at 62.8 percent

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WAILUKU – AOL co-founder Steve Case has significantly expanded his stake in Maui Land & Pineapple Co., buying additional stock that increases his ownership to 62.8 percent of the company.

Case paid $15.6 million to acquire an additional 4 million shares, according to a report filed Monday with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission. The deal comes just days after Case paid $16.5 million to acquire 4.27 million shares July 28, under a rights offering by the company.

The back-to-back transactions more than triple Case’s holdings in Maui Land & Pineapple, to a total ownership of 11.8 million shares.

Faraway current set off Mauna Kea glacier

A North Atlantic ocean system also caused more intense storms, a new study revealed

Slowing of the North Atlantic Ocean current system appears to be the reason for more frequent major storms and re-advancing of the glacial age in Hawaii 15,400 years ago, according to a new study.

“These connections are pretty remarkable — a current pattern in the North Atlantic affecting glacier development thousands of miles away in the Hawaiian Islands,” said Oregon State University professor Peter Clark, one of the study’s authors.

Glaciers in Hawaii? Yes — during and just after the last ice age, and the study is shedding light on modern planetary thermodynamics.

Some climate scientists believe global warming could eventually disturb the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic, creating colder temperatures in Europe and elsewhere.

University of Hawaii professor Axel Timmermann said the study confirms his research and that of other scientists that used climate models to predict that a weakening of certain North Atlantic currents would produce more westerly winds and intensified storms in Hawaii.

The Associated Press: Wheat futures soar after Russia ends exports

NEW YORK — Wheat prices are soaring their maximum allowed amount on the Chicago Board of Trade after Russia banned grain exports for the rest of the year.

Prices shot up 60 cents, or 8 percent, to $7.8575 immediately after the open of trading on Thursday. It’s the highest price since August 2008.

CBOT rules stipulate that prices can rise a maximum of 60 cents in one day, although they are allowed to rise more the following day if the 60-cent limit is hit.

The price of wheat has been soaring since early June, and notched its biggest monthly gain in July in at least 51 years.

Russia, one of the world’s biggest grain exporters, cut off wheat exports because a severe drought has already destroyed one-fifth of that country’s crop.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The Associated Press: Wheat futures soar after Russia ends exports

Coral reefs, invasive species on meeting agenda

Scholars, environmentalists and government officials are due to discuss issues like protecting coral reefs and controlling invasive species at the Hawaii Conservation Conference this week.

The three day meeting begins Wednesday at the Hawaii Convention Center.

The Hawaii Conservation Alliance says this year’s meeting is due to highlight conservation management success stories from Hawaii, New Zealand, Micronesia, and other Pacific islands.

American Samoa Gov. Togiola Tulafono is due to deliver the keynote address on Friday.

Coral reefs, invasive species on meeting agenda – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

Flower Arranging Finds a Younger Audience – NYTimes.com

Flower Arranging Finds a Younger Audience
By EMILY WEINSTEIN

THE first time I bought flowers for myself was about five years ago at the Greenmarket in Union Square, in the midst of the hottest, dullest days of summer. Feeling very alone that afternoon for a reason now forgotten, I stood admiring some tulips. For $8 they could be mine. I was in my mid-20s and it seemed like such a luxury to buy myself flowers for no reason, no occasion. But that day I had the money in my wallet, and soon I was carrying the tulips home. I stuck them in a glass pitcher and watched them bloom, until their stems bowed and swept the tabletop and the petals all dropped off.

Over time, I became a regular flower buyer, at farmers’ markets on weekends or at the bodega on the way home from work. The bodega tulips were often the color of margarine and just as engineered. I loved them anyway.

Yet arranging flowers was something I avoided. As with baking sourdough bread or building bookshelves, I was too intimidated to try, especially since buying individual stems can be expensive. Easier to buy a bunch of the same flower, or two or three kinds at most, snip their stems and plop them in water, all while handling them as little as possible.

It turns out that I am not alone in wanting instruction: flower-arranging classes are on the upswing. Established institutions have long offered programs in traditional arranging, but newer schools, with a natural, free-form aesthetic, have begun popping up across the country, part of a swell of enthusiasm for things homemade.

‘It’s dry, dry, dry’

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The first six months of 2010 were the driest in the 90 years that Ulupalakua Ranch has been measuring rainfall.

Rancher Sumner Erdman, president of Ulupalakua Ranch, said Tuesday that the total rainfall for the year is 37 percent of normal. He’s been selling stock and moving cattle off the Upcountry Ranch to other ranches.

The ranch might be eligible for some drought disaster relief loans from the Department of Agriculture, but he’s been too busy to start to apply. “We’re in complete disaster-control mode,” he said.

Erdman said the dry weather has cost his business “pretty good into six digits” this year.

Drought Strains Russian Wheat Supplies

Wheat prices in Europe reached a two-year high this week after Russian officials announced that extreme heat and drought had decimated roughly 20 percent of the country’s winter crop. Prices retreated slightly after the country’s Agriculture Ministry said that Russia, the world’s third-largest wheat exporter, would use its stocks to maintain exports.

Despite the reassurances, financial markets remained concerned that the wheat losses could be higher than projected, The Financial Times reported. Meteorological reports indicate that hot, dry weather in Russia will continue until mid-August.

Poor growing weather has also stunted wheat harvests in other countries, including Canada, where unusually heavy rains will reduce yields by about 17 percent. Ukraine faces an even more severe grain shortage after a growing season marked by drought and floods, leading government officials to impose a wheat export ban. Meanwhile, hot, dry weather in Western Europe is expected to reduce production of a wide swath of food commodities.