Month: June 2011

June 7, 2011 General Ag News and Notes, Vegtables Post a Comment

E coli: European commissioner suggests £135m payout for farmers

The European agriculture commissioner has proposed spending €150m (£135m) to compensate farmers affected by the E coli outbreak by paying them a proportion of the cost of unsold products.

Dacian Ciolos, speaking before emergency talks between EU agriculture ministers, said farmers could receive around 30% of the cost of vegetables they have been unable to sell due to fears over the outbreak in Germany, which has killed 22 people and made more than 2,200 ill.

“We propose €150m. We will obviously see what we get,” Ciolos said.

The plan was immediately rejected as insufficient by Spain, which has suffered disproportionately from the economic impact of the outbreak, in part because it grows a significant share of Europe’s salad produce but also because cucumbers from the country were initially blamed.

“No, Spain does not see it as sufficient,” the country’s agriculture minister, Rosa Aguilar, said. Spain and some other EU countries had drawn up an alternative plan under which farmers would be compensated for between 90% and 100% of market price losses, she said.

Her French counterpart, Bruno Le Maire, has backed the Spanish plan.

The ministers are expected to reach an agreement in principle later on Tuesday. They are coming under intense pressure from the EU farming lobby, which argues that Spanish farmers alone are losing €200m a week due to the outbreak, with weekly €100m losses in Italy.

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June 6, 2011 General Ag News and Notes, Vegtables Post a Comment

E coli outbreak: bean sprouts may not be to blame

An investigation into a deadly outbreak of E coli has been thrown into chaos after laboratory tests showed that bean sprouts grown near Hamburg, which had been identified as the likely source, are possibly not to blame.

German officials had said they were confident that sprouts from the organic Gärtenhof farm in Lower Saxony were behind the spread of a particularly virulent strain of the bacterium. There were “strong and clear indications” that the farm was involved, the federal health minister, Daniel Bahr, said.

However, Lower Saxony’s agriculture ministry said 23 of 40 samples from the farm had now tested negative for the E coli, with 17 more tests still being done.

“The search for the outbreak’s cause is very difficult as several weeks have passed since its suspected start,” the ministry said in a statement, while warning that the negative tests did not conclusively prove the sprouts had not been contaminated. The ministry said it may be some time before Europe’s shoppers know for sure what foodstuffs are safe: “A conclusion of the investigations and a clarification of the contamination’s origin is not expected in the short term.”

Mounting suspicions that the outbreak originated in Germany caused outrage in Spain, which has seen a slump in demand for its vegetables after Spanish-grown cucumbers were initially blamed.

The EU is to hold an emergency meeting to consider ways to compensate Spanish farmers for their losses.

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June 5, 2011 General Ag News and Notes, Vegtables Post a Comment

E coli outbreak: German hospitals struggling to cope

German hospitals are struggling to cope with the surge in patients caused by the E coli outbreak, as the death toll from the virus rose to 22.

The health minister, Daniel Bahr, said hospitals in northern Germany were finding it difficult to provide enough beds and treatment for patients, with the total number of cases increasing to 2,200.

“We’re facing a tense situation with patient care,” Bahr said, “but we will manage it.”

Agriculture officials said that bean sprouts grown in one organic farm between Hamburg and Hanover were the likely cause of the illness.

Hospital authorities said blood supplies were running low and staff were exhausted and working round-the-clock, with the northern cities of Hamburg and Bremen the worst affected.

“They [the doctors] voluntarily come in on weekends and even sleep here,” Oliver Grieve, a spokesman for the Kiel University hospital in northern Germany told Spiegel Online.

Hamburg’s health minister, Cornelia Prüfer-Storcks, told a news conference the city was considering bringing doctors out of retirement. “We want to discuss with doctors about whether those who recently retired can be reactivated,” she said.

Patients with less serious illnesses are now being moved to nearby hospitals and operations for non-threatening diseases are being postponed.

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June 4, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

China drought fuels food price increases

SHANGHAI – THE impacts of China’s worst drought in 50 years have been served up on the nation’s dining tables as the price of rice and vegetables from drought-hit provinces have skyrocketed.

The average price of staple foods in 50 cities has increased significantly, and the price of some leaf vegetables has jumped 16 per cent in one month, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Decreased production because of the drought has been cited as the major reason for price increases, and the prices of rice and vegetables may not drop soon, according to a report by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Statistics from the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters show that an area of nearly 7 million hectares of arable land has been affected by the drought, with Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces most seriously affected.

‘I didn’t buy many leaf vegetables in the last week because the price is getting crazy,’ said Zhang Weirong, a 67-year-old Shanghai resident. ‘Cabbage used to be as cheap as paper, and for 5 yuan (95 cents) you would get too many cabbages to carry home,’ she said.

She has had to switch to melons and pumpkins, which are getting cheaper this year. She also changed from eating porridge for breakfast to noodles. ‘My grandson said he doesn’t like the dishes I cook these days, but what else can I do?’ she said. — CHINA DAILY/ANN

China drought fuels food price increases

June 3, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

New MRSA strain appears in cows

A new strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as MRSA, has been discovered in cows and humans in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, researchers reported Thursday. The new strain disturbs researchers because it evades one of the most commonly used tests to detect MRSA, which could lead physicians to prescribe the wrong antibiotics to treat the infection. The new strain of the bacterium is still relatively rare and, so far, no deaths have been attributed to it, the team reported in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases. Its discovery in cows raises a new question about the origin of MRSA outbreaks, however: Are cows a natural reservoir for the infections or are they infected by humans who come into contact with them?

The presence of the bacteria in cows does not present a threat to the food supply because it is killed during the pasteurization process. But the infection can be transmitted to humans who come into close contact with the animals, and these workers can then pass the bacteria into the general population.

Although MRSA infections may be declining in the United States, they still represent a serious healthcare problem, with an estimated 90,000 new infections linked to healthcare facilities each year and about 15,000 deaths, mostly in older people or those with underlying health problems.

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June 3, 2011 General Ag News and Notes, Vegtables Post a Comment

E coli infections spread around world as Germany reports 200 new cases

Cases of infection by the deadly E coli bacterium have continued to spread around the world from its source in northern Germany, reaching a dozen countries by Friday evening as the German chancellor and Spanish prime minister moved to calm a diplomatic row over the source of the infection.

The Czech Republic and the US have joined the list of those dealing with cases amid concern that some of those infected had not visited Germany and so must have been infected elsewhere.

Angela Merkel has said she would push for EU help for farmers in Spain – whose cucumbers were wrongly blamed by German authorities for the outbreak.

Germany reported a further 200 cases diagnosed on the first two days of the month as the total number of people infected worldwide rose above 1,800. The total number of reported deaths in Germany is 19. Just 11 cases have been confirmed in England.

“All these cases except two are in people who reside in or had recently visited northern Germany during the incubation period for the infection … or, in one case, had contact with a visitor from northern Germany,” said the World Health Organisation in a statement.

The spread of cases in Germany has begun to slow, however, raising hopes that the outbreak might be controlled as Germans heed warnings to wash and prepare vegetables carefully and avoid raw cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce.

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June 3, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Fences protect 8,000 acres of Kaua‘i wilderness

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Endangered species hotspot now guarded against goats, pigs
A new pair of fences in the remote wilderness of Kaua‘i will reportedly protect the island’s primary source of water and one of the most important biological diversity hotspots in the Hawaiian archipelago.

These strong barriers, developed by The Nature Conservancy for the benefit of the Kaua‘i Watershed Alliance, will shelter 8,000 acres of the state’s most pristine wildland from the onslaught of invading feral animals, a news release states.

“These are just amazing areas. Everywhere you look, you are surrounded by incredible native Hawaiian birds, plants and insects. There is nowhere in the state like quite like it,” said Jeff Schlueter, Kaua‘i natural resource manager for The Nature Conservancy.

Ken Wood, a prominent biologist with the National Tropical Botanical Garden, which is a key partner in the Kaua‘i Alliance, said the biological diversity of the region is remarkable. He calls the area “one of the most important conservation sites in the entire archipelago.”

This land is also the core of the island’s watershed, a place where abundant rains and mists are soaked up and then feed the island’s rivers and its aquifer.

“These fences were conceived to protect the primary source of the island’s water supply.

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June 3, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Queensland’s sugar takes a foreign flavour in big industry shake-up

TWO of the biggest and most established sugar mills in north Queensland are set to pass into foreign ownership.

Proserpine was sold yesterday to a Singapore company and Tully looks as though it will be sold to Chinese interests.

Both mills have been owned by growers since they were established and the ownership change represents one of the biggest shake-ups in the sugar industry since it was deregulated in 2006.

Sugar mills are highly capital-intensive, and grower-owned mills have been stretched financially in the past year as cyclones have battered north Queensland and the sugar crop.

In these circumstances, large international companies have the capacity to gain synergies by combining sugar mills in a way that smaller individual mills cannot.

The Chinese government-owned China Oil & Food company increased its takeover bid for Tully Sugar yesterday to $44 a share, valuing the mill at $136 million, and the Tully Sugar board recommended it be accepted.

But the recommendation was made “in the absence of a superior proposal”, leaving the way open for either US agribusiness Bunge or French-backed Mackay Sugar to increase their offers.

But the endorsement is still significant, as previously the board has recommended to its shareholders that no action be taken.

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June 3, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Book Excerpt: ‘Intelligent Tinkering’ By Robert Cabin | Audubon Magazine Blog

Book Excerpt: ‘Intelligent Tinkering’ By Robert Cabin
Categories:

* Animals * Birds * Nature * Plants * Reviews * Travel * Wildlife

By Alisa Opar
05/31/2011

Hawaii is home to one of the world’s last dry tropical forests. In their prime, these magnificent ecosystems were bastions of biodiversity. Now, only 10 percent of the state’s original dry forests survive. In Intelligent Tinkering, Robin Cabin, an associate professor of ecology and environmental science at Brevard College and a former restoration ecologist for the U.S. Forest Service, draws on his own experience in doing restoration work in the few remaining Hawai’ian dry forests.

Below is the excerpted first chapter from Intelligent Tinkering, by Robert Cabin. August 2011, Island Press.

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