Lugar-Stutzman bill would eliminate several farm programs.

Senator Dick Lugar, R-Ind., and Representative Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., have introduced the Rural Economic Farm and Ranch Sustainability and Hunger Act or REFRESH. The bill targets $40 billion in USDA cuts to help meet federal deficit reduction goals. Roughly two-thirds of the savings would come from farm and conservation programs, and a third from nutrition programs, which represent three-fourths of the USDA budget.

Under the bill, funding for farm programs would be cut $16 billion, a 24.5% reduction. Conservation programs would be updated and streamlined for a savings of $11.3 billion, a 17.6% reduction. And nutrition program eligibility loopholes would be closed saving $13.9 billion, only a 2% reduction.

The Lugar-Stutzman bill would end current farm programs including direct payments to farmers, counter-cyclical payments, the ACRE program and marketing assistance/loan deficiency payments. The REFRESH bill would establish an aggregate risk and revenue management program that allows producers to protect between 90% and 75% of their expected crop revenue. All farmers would be able to purchase supplemental revenue insurance that is underwritten by the USDA Risk Management Agency.

To read the entire article, visit: MissouriRuralist.com>>

INDIANAPOLIS

Two Taiwanese trade groups have agreed to buy as much as $5 billion worth of corn and soybeans from Indiana and states in 2012 and 2013.

Representatives of Taiwan’s Feed Industry Association and its Vegetable Oil Manufacturers Association signed letters of intent for the purchases Monday in Indianapolis with Indiana Agriculture Director Joe Kelsay.

To read the entire article, visit: Businessweek.com>>

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, Secretary of Agriculture Dale Rodman and beef producers from across the state are traveling to Russia and Kazakhstan Oct. 6 to17 to promote agriculture trade with those countries.

“Agriculture is our state’s largest industry and a cornerstone of the Kansas economy,” Brownback said. “I’m looking forward to this opportunity to further expand what the Kansas cattle industry has to offer beyond our state and national borders.”

Steve Irsik of Irsik Equities in Garden City, Mark Brunner of Cow Camp Ranch in Ramona and Thad Geiger of Geiger Farms in Troy are the beef producers traveling to Russia and Kazakhstan to market Kansas purebred beef cattle on behalf of Kansas ranchers. Irsik, Brunner and Geiger, along with counterparts from Colorado and Montana, were selected to travel on a 12-day mission led jointly by the Kansas, Colorado and Montana Departments of Agriculture.

To read the entire article, visit: the High Plains Journal online>>

SAGINAW — Michigan cherries, blueberries, cranberries and other “high-value” agriculture products could be headed to Asia by the crate or in concentrate if Gov. Rick Snyder’s trade trip overseas has the desired effect, a top state agricultural official said.

The Michigan fruits were the homegrown products most in demand in conversations about expanding farm trade opportunities, said Keith Creagh, director of the state Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

“There’s demand for the product, and we’ll have to figure out capacity issues and getting it into the marketplace,” Creagh said in a phone interview from Seoul, South Korea, on Friday, the final stop of the eight-day trip.

State officials and business leaders also traveled to Japan and Beijing and Shanghai, China. The three countries rank among Michigan’s top 10 foreign export markets for goods and services, state trade statistics show.

To read the entire article, visit: MLive.com; by: Barrie Barber | The Saginaw News >>

France and Germany went head-to-head at a meeting of European Union agriculture ministers Tuesday over food aid for the poor, hampering a decision over an extension of the programme, reported dpa.

The food aid, which has been funded through the EU’s agriculture budget since 1987, was started to funnel overproduced goods to the poor with help from charitable organizations.

“As a basic principle, the help for the needy is good … But now we don’t have any surpluses anymore,” German Agriculture Secretary Robert Kloos noted as he arrived for the meeting in Brussels.

He argued that the task of supplying the poor with food should now fall to national governments instead of the EU, with funds coming from their social care budgets.

That didn’t sit well with France’s agriculture minister, Bruno Le Maire.

“What do I hope to do? Bang my fist on the table and say that we cannot accept a Europe that doesn’t help the poorest of the poor,” he said ahead of the meeting. “Renationalizing this assistance is out of the question.”

To read the entire article, visit: en.trend.az>>

Gov. Sam Brownback stepped into the livestock arena Wednesday to explore options for expanding by hundreds of millions of dollars investment in beef, dairy and pork industries in Kansas.

The subject struck at the heart of the administration’s seventh economic development summit in Garden City. The objective was to define strategy for broadening Kansas’ share of animal agriculture production in the United States.

“I just want to see us put that on steroids and grow it,” the governor said.

Brownback, a Topeka Republican serving his first year as governor, said reform of the state’s regulatory and legal framework for the agriculture industry and the availability of land and water resources could attract new investment to Kansas.

He said recent expansion of dairying in western Kansas could be replicated by redevelopment of poultry production in the state.

Animal production decisions made in Kansas increasingly will reflect demands of export markets rather than domestic consumers, he said.

To read the entire article, visit: The Topeka-Capital Journal.com>>

With disastrous volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and extreme storms, El Salvador is widely regarded as one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to natural disasters. With the effects of climate change complicating social and economic crises, the El Salvadorian government has recognised that national security considerations must include discussion of environmental factors, leading to the Minister of the Environment Herman Chavez to proclaim Climate Change as “our number-one priority” in February 2011.

However, as Salvadorians well know, when it comes to natural disasters, some things are simply out of their control. The demise of the country’s mangrove forests is one of these things.

El Salvador’s Pacific Mangrove forest, the largest of its kind in Central America, covers over 20,000 hectares in and around the Jiquilisco Bay. Mangroves are traditionally considered to be a natural protection from extreme flooding and rising tides, acting as an invaluable buffer zone during extreme weather events.

Several years ago, however, local communities began noticing a strange phenomenon: The mangroves at the edge of the ocean were dying.

A threatened ecosystem

The mangrove forest is a unique ecosystem found in tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions in the Americas, Middle East, Asia and Oceania. Often found where fresh water and salt water mix, the mangrove creates specific ecological conditions that support a wide variety of flora and fauna.

The trees have a series of stilt-like supports that extend from the trunk for increased stability and resilience. The mangrove trees have evolved to be able to withstand change in water level caused by normally occurring tidal cycles and mild flooding, helping protect coastal areas from damage from extreme storms and tsunamis. In recent years, however, a rise in sea level has brought the ocean waves intruding further inland than ever before, wreaking havoc on the trees and the entire ecosystem.

According to Dr Ricardo Navarro, director of the Centre for Appropriate Technologies in El Salvador (CESTA), over 30 metres of mangrove forest has been completely destroyed by this phenomenon in the last six years. “With the increase in global sea level, the ocean waves are entering further and further into the mangroves. What happens is the waves wash away the soil nutrients, leaving the trees in pure sand. So the trees die, and then all of the animals leave the area.”

All along the central coast of El Salvador there is a dead zone stretching along the beach, measuring between 10 and 50 metres. The cause? Climate change, says Dr Navarro.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that global sea level rose 21 centimetres in the last century. This rise is reportedly caused by a combination of glacial melting, melting of the polar caps, and the physical expansion of the oceans with a rise in water temperature, all thought to be consequences of human-caused global warming.

To read the entire article, visit: AlJazerra.com

SUVA - China and Pacific island countries stressed importance of agriculture cooperation between them to boost the islanders’ food security, Fiji’s Ministry of Information said here Friday.

The two sides made the remarks at the Third China-Pacific Island Countries Forum on Agriculture Cooperation currently underway in Fiji’s western tourist city of Nadi, the ministry said in a media release.

Xu Shiguo, a Chinese top diplomat in charge of North American and Oceania Affairs, was quoted as saying that the Chinese government would honor commitments it already made and assist the Pacific island nations to improve agricultural productivity.

China will create favorable conditions through measures of tariff cancellations and relief for Pacific island nations, Xu said, adding “we shall make use of such multilateral mechanisms in the agriculture cooperation forum.”

Fiji’s Minister for Agriculture Joketani Cokanasiga said there is a need to bring Chinese officials here to the Pacific for them to see for themselves the reality as “the issues highlighted show the difficulties and aspirations of the communities in the Pacific. ”

Colonel Mason Smith, Fiji’s Agriculture Permanent Secretary, said there are focus areas for discussion with the Chinese side, including agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries.

“An area that we are interested in is joint venture partnership between us and China,” he added.

Gao Jinghong from China’s Ministry of Agriculture told the forum that regular meetings of agencies dealing with agriculture and fisheries would be encouraged. “Both will explore co-operation projects on investment and trade in agriculture and fisheries, and guide co-operation for bilateral enterprises under the framework of inter-government co-operation.”

China have sent agricultural specialists to various Pacific countries including Fiji to help establish agro technology centres and demonstration farms with the aim of increasing production capacities in the islands.

China says it will persist with the training of locals and continue with the dispatch of experts to boost the production of agriculture in the region.

Pacific island countries are facing many challenges which include insufficient resources, looming food insecurity, uncertainty over climate change, constant unrest in the global financial markets and soaring energy and food process.

This and political instability affects the economy in these islands which are always grateful to technical assistance especially for countries that have made commitments like China, say local media.

Source: ChinaDaily.com>>

DAKAR, 26 September 2011 (IRIN) – Agriculture is about food production, but often projects ultimately hurt communities’ health and nutrition. When the focus is tons and dollars, experts say, getting people the nutrients they need can be lost.

Aid agencies and governments are increasingly looking at ways to ensure that agricultural investments support proper nutrition, including one methodology being developed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and NGOs.

The “nutritional impact assessment tool”, was developed by USAID’s Infant and Young Child Nutrition Project (IYCN), led by PATH, CARE, the Manoff Group, and University Research Co., LLC.

“The tool would be a way for organizations designing or reviewing agricultural programmes to mitigate any risks or potential negative effects on nutrition – in other words a ‘do no harm’ approach,” said Michael Zeilinger, head of the nutrition division with USAID’s office of health, infectious disease and nutrition.

USAID is working with NGO partners to test the tool — a template for listing project objectives, food insecure groups, people’s nutritional status and possible impact of an agricultural project on each group. “As we start to design major agriculture programmes around value chains and increasing production (such as Feed the Future and Global Agriculture and Food Security Program), we should really remember that there are some practices in agriculture that may have potential negative effects on nutrition, and this is just to make sure that they’re thought through,” Zeilinger told IRIN.

For example, smallholders might not benefit from projects requiring new technologies they can’t afford, so ultimately they and their families are hit economically, according to IYCN; malaria could spike in rice-producing areas that make a breeding grounds for mosquitoes; and agricultural work requiring women to spend more time away from home could harm children’s nutritional status.

“The agriculture sector needs to be accountable – contributing to improved diets and not creating any harm to health and nutrition,” said Charlotte Dufour, food security, nutrition and livelihoods officer with the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) nutrition and consumer protection division.

But measuring impact is complicated, she said. Some projects can have positive and negative impacts within one community.

Developing a tool to get it right points up a number of challenges, she said. “Information on malnutrition rates of any kind is seldom available by ‘food insecure group’,” she said. “And data on women’s nutritional status is rare.”

Dufour said it is critical to note that one agricultural activity could have different effects on different populations, and that a wide range of socio-economic factors affect nutritional status. “Maximizing the nutritional impact of agricultural programmes requires a good analysis of local livelihoods and causes of malnutrition by population group,” she said, adding that for now the IYCN tool does not yet provide for such analysis.

To read the entire article, visit: IRINnews.org>>

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines and Jilin province in China have committed to strengthen bilateral cooperation and trade, particularly in agriculture and fisheries.

Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala bared this meeting of minds after talking with former Chinese minister of agriculture Sun Zhengcai, also the secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Jilin, on September 22 in Manila.

Jilin, a major agro-forest-mineral province in northeast China, has a gross domestic product (GDP) of more than $120 billion.

Sun heads a 15-man delegation that arrived here to explore investment and trade opportunities.

Alcala said they discussed possible agricultural and fishery technical cooperation and trade opportunities that will contribute to increasing trade between the two countries to $60 billion in the next five years.

He said agriculture is one of the priority areas that President Aquino has discussed with Chinese President Hu Jintao during President Aquino’s China state visit last month.

Being an agricultural country, 63 percent of Pakistan’s total population is directly or indirectly engaged in the agricultural sector. According to a rough estimate, 45 percent of the total labour force of the country is employed by this sector. Hence, economic analysts commonly assume that whether it is a positive variation in agricultural productivity or negative, it directly affects the State’s economy and its people.

Since the Green Revolution, Pakistan has been continuously facing a downtrend in the sector’s growth, which is mainly due to poor management and the implementation of ineffective policies. It is also a fact that this sector has been completely ignored by the concerned authorities. This criminal negligence has not only affected the economic progress, but also the living standard of the masses. Hence, to improve the agriculture sector all issues, from farm water management to disbursement of loans, mechanisation, availability of quality inputs, etc, are required to be tackled to reap once again the full benefits of its potential.

Thus, there is a need to inject new investments in this sector to boost productivity for the uplift of economy. It is crystal clear that without money Pakistan would not be able to tackle emerging challenges like water shortage, flood risks, infrastructure development, as well as endogenous and exogenous factors that are commonly faced by the agricultural sector.

Thus, there is a need to inject new investments in this sector to boost productivity for the uplift of economy. It is crystal clear that without money Pakistan would not be able to tackle emerging challenges like water shortage, flood risks, infrastructure development, as well as endogenous and exogenous factors that are commonly faced by the agricultural sector.
More so, productive investments in hybrid seeds, biotechnology, modern farming techniques, latest farm machinery and water infrastructure development have not been made. To boost the agricultural economy, therefore, it is essential to adopt such policies and procedures that work efficiently. Three core factors that significantly affect agricultural growth are the well calculated use of inputs, technological change and technical efficiency.

To read the entire article, visit:  Nation.com.pk  | By: Yasir Mehmood, Muhammad Bahzad Anjum and Mukhtar Ahmad >>

Can organic farming produce enough food to feed the world? Yes, according to a new book by a German agricultural expert. But many skeptics, including Germany’s development minister, aren’t convinced.

The question of whether organic food can help tackle world hunger is a subject of heated debate. It’s also the topic of a new provocatively-named book in German “Food Crash – We will Subsist Organically or Not all” by Felix Prinz zu Löwenstein, the head of Germany’s Association for Organic Food (BÖLW).

As the title suggests, the book makes the case for organic farming free from pesticides, chemical fertilizers and genetically engineered crops as the only way to feed the world in the long-term.

It disputes the often-cited claim by advocates of modern intensive farming that “going organic” will not produce enough food to feed large populations.

“The fact is that organic farming only produces significantly lower yields than conventional farming in our high-intensity farms in the West – mainly in central Europe,” zu Löwenstein said at a recent book presentation in Berlin.

To read the entire article, visit: DW-World.de | By: Sonia Phalnikar /Alexandra Scherle>>

Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says that while it is important to respond to urgent food crises, it is imperative that the international community stay focused on the long-term goal of strengthening global agriculture to reduce hunger and malnutrition.

“The United Nations estimates that we need to increase global food production by 70 percent by the year 2050 in order to meet growing demand,” Clinton said at a September 19 forum on women and agriculture in New York.

One way of addressing that need is by investing more in women, who make up the majority of the agricultural workforce in many developing nations, Clinton said. Women are involved in every aspect of food production, from planting seeds to weeding fields to harvesting crops, but women farmers are 30 percent less productive than male farmers because they have access to fewer resources.

“These women have less fertilizer, fewer tools, poorer quality seeds, less access to training and the ownership of land,” Clinton said.

The consequence is that women farmers grow fewer crops, which means less food is available at markets and more people go hungry, Clinton said. Farmers earn less money, and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

To read the entire article, visit: AllAfrica.com | by: Merle David Kellerhals Jr.

Agricultural losses from wildfires in Texas this year are approaching $200 million, increasing the toll for the state’s worst year of drought and fires, the Texas AgriLife Extension Service at Texas A&M University said Monday.

The service reported that losses topped $150 million but updated that figure later in the day after new data on timber losses came in, said Andy Vestal, a specialist with the service. Timber losses, earlier estimated at $48.1 million, were increased to $97 million.

The weekend rains were welcome, “but we’re so far behind,” Vestal said. “And without a change in the local weather pattern, they’re still projecting a very dry, ongoing winter. That doesn’t look too prosperous for any of us.”

Extension economist David Anderson’s estimates include destroyed fences and agricultural buildings, the lost value of grazing, lost livestock and the stumpage value of destroyed timber.

To read the entire article, visit: Star-Telegram.com | By: Scott Nishimura