Month: May 2011

May 17, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Coffee drinking may cut prostate cancer risk

In case you needed one, here’s another possible reason to have that cup of coffee in the morning: Men who regularly drink coffee appear to be less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer, especially the most lethal kind, according to new research.

Lorelei Mucci of the Harvard School of Public Health and colleagues analyzed data collected from 47,911 U.S. men who participated in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, a large, ongoing examination of a variety of health issues for men. As part of the study, the men reported their coffee consumption every four years between 1986 and 2008. During that period, 5,035 cases of prostate cancer were reported, including 642 fatal cases.

The men who consumed the most coffee, which was defined as six or more cups every day, were nearly 20 percent less likely to develop any form of prostate cancer, the researchers reported in the May 17 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

But, most strikingly, the heavy coffee drinkers were also 60 percent less likely to be diagnosed with a lethal prostate tumor. Those who drank between one and three cups a day were 30 percent less likely to develop a lethal case.

The risk was cut regardless of whether the men drank decaffeinated or regular coffee, the researchers reported.

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May 17, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Exploding watermelons put spotlight on Chinese farming practices

The flying pips, shattered shells and wet shrapnel still haunt farmer Liu Mingsuo after an effort to chemically boost his fruit crop went spectacularly wrong.

Fields of watermelons exploded when he and other agricultural workers in eastern China mistakenly applied forchlorfenuron, a growth accelerator. The incident has become a focus of a Chinese media drive to expose the lax farming practices, shortcuts and excessive use of fertiliser behind a rash of food safety scandals.

It follows discoveries of the heavy metal cadmium in rice, toxic melamine in milk, arsenic in soy sauce, bleach in mushrooms, and the detergent borax in pork, added to make it resemble beef.

Compared to such cases of dangerous contamination, Liu’s transgression was minor, but it has gained notoriety after being picked up by the state broadcaster, CCTV. The broadcaster blamed the bursting of the fruit on the legal chemical forchlorfenuron, which stimulates cell separation but often leaves melons misshapen and turns the seeds white.

The report said the farmers sprayed the fruit too late in the season and during wet conditions, which caused the melons to explode like “landmines”. After losing three hectares (eight acres), Liu said he was unable to sleep because he could not shake the image of the fruit bursting.

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May 17, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

India struggles to perfect art of monsoon forecasting

For about 600 million Indians who are dependent on farming, there is a direct correlation between ample rains and their disposable incomes, explaining the host of superstitions that survive around bringing rains, such as women ploughing fields naked and frog ‘marriages’.

NEW DELHI – TECHNOLOGICAL wizardry may have improved forecasting of the crucial monsoon rains in India, but success still remains, at best, patchy, making it tough for farmers to plan crops and meet demand in the trillion-dollar economy.

This year, the country has forecast a normal monsoon. In theory, that should mean higher farm output, which could tame food prices and help persuade the government to ease curbs on rice and wheat exports, benefiting other Asian economies that are struggling with food shortages.

In reality, since 1994, India’s weather office has only managed to forecast the June-September monsoon outcome correctly five times, discounting an error band of +/-5 per cent, while on seven occasions the extent of error touched double digit, Deutsche Bank analysts said in a research report.

From the world’s top producer and consumer of a range of commodities like sugar and grains, such uncertainties have huge implications for global commodities markets.

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May 17, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Bangladesh rents African land to boost food output

Bangladesh has leased tens of thousands of hectares of farmland in Africa as part of a government drive to improve food security in the poverty-stricken South Asian nation, an official said on Tuesday. — PHOTO: REUTERS

DHAKA – BANGLADESH has leased tens of thousands of hectares of farmland in Africa as part of a government drive to improve food security in the poverty-stricken South Asian nation, an official said on Tuesday.

Two Bangladeshi companies have leased 40,000 hectares of land in Uganda and Tanzania and another firm will sign a deal for a further 10,000 hectares in Tanzania this week, foreign ministry director Farhadul Islam said.

‘The government strongly supports companies leasing farmland in Africa. The aim is to bring most of the farms’ output back to Bangladesh to ease food shortages,’ he told AFP.

Bangladesh’s 150 million citizens have been hit hard by sharp increases in the price of rice, the staple grain, which was up by an average 50 per cent year-on-year in April, according to official figures.

The country was once self-sufficient in rice, but industrial expansion and population growth mean farmland has been eaten up by factories and new residential areas.

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May 17, 2011 Agriculture Grants, General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Conservation group to provide $4.5 million to protect Big Island and Oahu land

The state’s Legacy Lands Conservation program is providing $4.5 million in grants for the purchase and protection of culturally and agriculturally important lands on the Big Island and Oahu.

The money is expected to be matched by $7.6 million in federal, county, and private funding.

The grants are supported by revenue from the state’s land conveyance tax. Ten percent of the tax proceeds each year go to the Legacy Land Conservation Fund, where the grant money is taken from.

The state said Friday the commission overseeing the program selected four projects for funding this year.

They include agricultural land at Kaiholena in North Kohala, agricultural land near Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu’s North Shore, and the Hawea Heiau Complex and the Keawawa Wetland site in Hawaii Kai.

Conservation group to provide $4.5 million to protect Big Island and Oahu land – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

May 16, 2011 Agriculture Grants, General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Small Farmers Are the Answer

Small Farmers Are the Answer – Bill Gates | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

On May 24, I’ll be giving a speech in Washington, D.C . to draw attention to farming families in the developing world and the important role they play in cutting hunger and poverty. I need your help in making the case about why small farmers are so important – in fact, I want you to share your best ideas and help spread the word.

Small Farmers Are the Answer

Why farming? Many people don’t realize it, but most of the world’s poorest people are small farmers. They get their food and income farming small plots of land. These farming families often don’t have good seeds, equipment, reliable markets, or money to invest that helps them get the most out of their land. So they work hard, but they get no traction, and more often than not, they stay hungry and poor.

We know that smart investments in farming families help them become self-sufficient. We know that increasing productivity while preserving the environment leads to higher incomes and better lives over the long-term. But governments are not living up to their pledges to provide this kind of support to small farmers.

Solving hunger and poverty is both an urgent problem and long-term challenge. But what gives me hope is that we know that investments are working.

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May 14, 2011 General Ag News and Notes, Globel Warming Post a Comment

8.5 million trees planted in campaign

PETALING JAYA – MORE than 8.5 million trees have been planted in Malaysia as of March, said Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Douglas Uggah Embas.

The planting was part of a nationwide Green the Earth: One Citizen, One Tree campaign that was launched in April last year to fight global warming and to mitigate climate change.

A total of 26 million trees are expected to be planted by 2014.

On Saturday, Douglas Uggah joined about 200 volunteers including university students to plant 1,800 seedlings at the Ayer Hitam Forest reserve in Puchong.

The campaign carried out under the ExxonMobil’s 2011 Community Projects programme started two years ago and its goal is to plant a total of 5,000 trees at the forest reserve by 2012. — THE STAR/ANN

8.5 million trees planted in campaign

May 14, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Malaysian pigs get IDs to protect pork eaters

KUALA LUMPUR – MALAYSIA will give locally-reared pigs embedded identity discs in a bid to stop the illegal slaughter and distribution of meat that is unfit for human consumption, reports said on Sunday.

This follows the revelation by Malaysian pork sellers association chief Goh Chui Lai over the weekend that unhealthy pigs were being slaughtered at illegal abattoirs, resulting in unhygienic meat being distributed nationwide.

Malaysian veterinary services department chief Abdul Aziz Jamaluddin told the New Straits Times daily that radio-frequency identification (RFID) disc would now be placed beneath the skin of each pig in order to track it.

‘Any mismatch between the number of pigs reared in each farm and the number slaughtered at licensed abattoirs will be considered suspicious,’ he told the paper.

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