Wal-Mart joins agriculture sustainability group

By Michael Hirtzer

(Reuters) - The world's largest retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc has joined an alliance of other Fortune 500 companies, including Cargill and Kellogg Co, seeking to make agriculture more sustainable.

The Field to Market alliance was started three years ago by the non-profit Keystone Center to improve agricultural productivity and reduce the use of natural resources. It includes farm groups, grain handlers and food makers but Wal-Mart is the first retailer in the group and now its largest member.

"We have pretty ambitious goals to sell products that are sustainable and this is directly within that framework," Rob Kaplan, Wal-Mart's senior manager of sustainability, said of the new partnership.

The group studies major crops and works with farmers to make agriculture more environmentally friendly. A report released earlier this summer highlighted how six crops -- corn, cotton, potatoes, rice, soybeans and wheat -- are now being produced more efficiently than they were in the last three decades.

On one project sponsored by Field to Market, General Mills Inc worked with 25 wheat growers in Idaho to learn how to maximize the use of fertilizer and other products used in farming, such as seed, insecticides and herbicides.

Wal-Mart is seeking to eliminate 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from its global supply chain by the end of 2015. Last year, the company said it turned 1.2 million pounds of cooking oil recovered from its stores into biodiesel, soap and a supplement for cattle feed.

Other members of the alliance include Bunge Ltd, Coca-Cola Co and the National Corn Growers Association.

(Reporting by Michael Hirtzer in Chicago. Additional reporting by Jessica Wohl; editing by Carol Bishopric)

ICAR to focus on retaining rural youth in agriculture

B. S. SATISH KUMAR 

Large-scale migration of rural youth from farming to urban areas has caused concern among the country’s agricultural policy makers as such a trend, if not checked, is likely to affect agricultural activities in the future.

In a bid to address this trend, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has constituted a seven-member expert committee, headed by University of Agricultural Sciences-Bangalore Vice-Chancellor and Agricultural Extension expert K. Narayana Gowda, to suggest ways of attracting youth to agriculture. What inspired the ICAR to constitute such a panel was the recent initiative by the UAS-B to encourage youth to take up farming.

Dr. Gowda told The Hindu that the committee with a theme — Attracting and Retention of Youth in Agriculture (ARYA) — will come out with region-wise recommendations in November regarding the measures to be taken to attract the youth.

He said the recommendations would lead to formulation of a national policy as the ICAR would take up these recommendations before the Planning Commission. He said the committee was not trying to retain all the youth in rural areas. “Our concern is mainly about the school and college dropouts who migrate to cities in search of menial jobs. It has become a social problem as most of these youth find it difficult to sustain their families with the pittance they earn in cities. We want to convince them, through concrete examples, that they can earn much more than they earn in cities if they continue in farming,” he said.

The committee will address issues such as providing training on innovative and sustainable agricultural practices to help make agriculture a profitable venture. This would involve a series of activities, including creation of infrastructure facilities in various aspects of farming and providing marketing linkages, and in exploring opportunities in secondary agricultural operations such as value addition of crops and hiring, and servicing of mechanised farm implements, he said.

To begin with, the committee is thinking of conducting a sample survey to find out the quantum of migration of rural youth. At present, the indications are that the migration of rural youth to cities is around 45 per cent in the country.

He said youth shun agriculture as society looks down upon farming. Families of prospective brides do not prefer farming youth, Dr. Gowda said. The committee would also look into providing social recognition for them.

Original Article Here

A broader vision on agriculture

As a long time advocate for small business and local entrepreneurs, I felt compelled to respond to an article I read in the Business Section of the Monday, August 13, 2012 edition of the The Nassau Guardian with the heading, "Landscapers outraged by 'reckless' policy."

Since my wife is in the floral business and I know that she has to secure an import permit each and every time she brings flowers into the country, I immediately became curious as to what this outcry was all about.

I contacted the Ministry of Agriculture to find out whether the policy had changed and was told that it had not, which leaves me to conclude that someone had imported plants into the country improperly and was now attempting to demonize the minister for trying to protect local growers.

How can $500,00 worth of plants be imported into our country without first securing from the relevant government agency prior permission to do so?

What am I missing here?

I happen to have been engaged as a consultant by the owner of a major landscaping and nursery local company which owns millions of dollars worth of landscaping and earth moving equipment and acres upon acres of plants of many varieties (fruit and ornamental trees).

When I visited the farm on Eleuthera earlier this year, it took us hours to drive through the farms which has literally over 50,000 mature trees ready for market which, incidentally, are exactly like the ones that I am told are regularly imported for major landscaping jobs on the island.

What madness; at a time when the government is advocating "Bahamians first."

It would seem to me that the president of the landscapers association should be examining why the trees were brought into the country without the proper permits and further he should be promoting the concept of import substitution which has been a rallying cry throughout the Caribbean for decades instead of accusing the minister of being "reckless."

How else are we going to diversify our economy, lower imports thereby simultaneously improving our balance of payments and foreign reserves, reduce the staggering unemployment statistics and tangibly support the expansion and Bahamian ownership of our industries?

This is agriculture for crying out loud, which is high on everyone's list when the discussion of economic diversification comes up.

How is it then that we can have Bahamians in high places who seem to be blatantly militating and advocating against the very initiatives that are designed to stimulate national development and motivate and arouse the entrepreneurial spirit among our people?

If indeed we are committed to Bahamianization and the development of local entrepreneurs then we must begin to demonstrate that through our actions and support the government in enforcing policies that encourage those stated objectives, and this should apply across all industries.

So, I conclude by saying to the president of the Bahamas Landscapers Association, broaden the discussion, don't just seek to maintain the status quo, but rather equally apply your energy to defending and promoting those Bahamians who are prepared to invest in The Bahamas by providing inputs into your industry.

In economics we call this "backward integration" which is when vertical integration is employed that allows a company to produce more of the inputs into final products.

That is how an economy and by extension a country grows its primary economic base.

The minister should be congratulated for his efforts to protect the local growers and move past the lip service that has been so prevalent to date.

Paul D. Major

Original Article Here

China, ASEAN to strengthen cooperation in agriculture

China and ASEAN countries will bring high-quality agricultural products to south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region from Sep. 21 to 25 to deepen exchange and cooperation in agricultural technologies.

China and ASEAN countries will promote cooperation in agricultural technologies, including those related to cultivation, manufacture, research and development, seeding, pesticide and fertilizer, said the secretariat of the ninth China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO), which will start on Sept. 21 in the regional capital of Nanning.

The secretariat said 600 booths will be set up for the expo to display modern agricultural technologies, as well as livestock and food products from China and ASEAN countries.

So far, 360 enterprises from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as ten ASEAN countries, have applied for the booths, up 26 percent from a year earlier.

The expo is expected to attract more than 110,000 businessmen and customers, the secretariat said.

CAEXPO, hosted by the trade and economic organizations and departments of China and ASEAN countries, has been held annually since 2004.

Palm oil climbs to six-week peak

Malaysian crude palm oil futures rose to a 6-week high on Monday, as traders continued to bet on tight global edible oil supplies with no sign of the drought easing in the soya-producing US Midwest. US new-crop soyabeans hit a contract high on Monday after farm newsletter Pro Farmer estimated US soyabean production would be worse than forecasts by the US Department of Agriculture. 

A smaller supply of soyabeans to be crushed into soyabean oil had widened palm oil's discount to soyabean oil to above $250 per tonne, shifting more demand to the cheaper tropical oil. "There's a lot more upside for crude palm oil prices because so far palm oil has been lagging behind soyabean oil," said James Ratnam, an analyst with TA Securities in Malaysia. "The second thing is that there could be new stimulus measures coming out from China and the US that could boost sentiment." 

The benchmark November 2012 contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange gained 0.7 percent to close at 3,091 ringgit ($994) per tonne after touching an intraday high at 3,122 ringgit, a level last seen since July 17. Total traded volumes stood at 25,999 lots of 25 tonnes each, just slightly higher than the usual 25,000 lots. Palm oil will consolidate further in the range of 3,044-3,097 ringgit per tonne before climbing up towards 3,183 ringgit, Reuters market analyst Wang Tao said. 

Demand appears to be picking up with Malaysia's exports rising 5.7 percent for the August 1-25 period from a month ago, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said on Saturday. Traders will be watching for further indications on export trends as another cargo surveyor, Societe Generale de Surveillance, releases its August 1-20 data together with August 1-25 data later in the day. 

Refiners in Malaysia's top oil palm growing state of Sabah will pay millers less for edible oil from next month to preserve margins and better compete with Indonesia, the Business Times reported on Monday, in a move likely to hit planters' revenues. Planters are also concerned by a possible return of El Nino to South East Asia as the hot and dry weather pattern can deal serious damage to palm oil production in Indonesia and Malaysia. 

Other vegetable oil markets also traded higher on an oilseed supply squeeze due to the US dry weather. By 1005 GMT, the most active US soyaoil contract for December delivery gained 1 percent and the most active January 2013 soyaoil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange rose 1.4 percent. 

Copyright Reuters, 2012

Monsanto: Precision agriculture system set for '14

By Owen Fletcher

--Monsanto to offer FieldScripts service in four states in 2014

--Service analyzes fields to recommend a corn hybrid for planting and a varying number of seeds per acre for each part of the field

--Next year Monsanto also plans to test product meant to ensure seed planting at a uniform depth in varying soil conditions

HUXLEY, Iowa--Monsanto Co. MON +0.69% said Monday that in 2014 it will start offering a service for farmers that analyzes their fields to determine how densely corn seed should be planted in each part of it to maximize yields.

The service, called FieldScripts, will also generate a recommendation on what type of corn hybrid would best suit the field in question, Monsanto officials said. It will deliver the recommendations via an application for Apple Inc.'s iPad tablet computer so farmers can buy the seed and use a control system to plant it at the recommended number of seeds per acre, which will vary throughout a field.

Monsanto will test the service in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana next year and start offering it on a limited basis in those four states in 2014, John Raines, commercial lead for integrated farming systems at Monsanto, said.

The service is part of Monsanto's foray into a growing field called "precision agriculture," which refers to the use of computer technology and global-positioning systems to help farmers efficiently use seeds, fertilizer and chemicals.

Monsanto is also working on a way to allow farmers to mechanically plant multiple different hybrids in a single field, although that will also require new planter equipment to become available, Mr. Raines said.

Next year, Monsanto will also test a product called Delta Force that will allow a planter to automatically adjust movements based on varying soil conditions, such as the degree of softness in each part of a field, so that all seeds are planted at a uniform depth, Mr. Raines said.

In January, the company unveiled its Integrated Farming Systems unit, which is focused on precision agriculture. FieldScripts is the unit's first product.

This year, it also acquired Precision Planting Inc., a maker of computer displays and other electronic systems used to tailor planting.

Original Article Here

Farmer promotes sustainable agriculture in Sweden

A large portion of the world's available fresh water is used in agriculture. In water-rich Sweden, some farmers are employing sustainable practices with their livestock in order to conserve their resources.

Elisabeth Gauffin, wearing heavy-duty rubber boots and a quickly thrown-on work jacket, tends to 180 dairy cows. Since 1986, she has run the Stabby Gard farm near the city of Uppsala, which lies just north of the Sweden's capital, Stockholm.

Gauffin discusses her philosophy as she pets one her cows while it feeds at its trough. The Swedish farmer says that the sustainable use of resources is tremendously important on her farm.

"For example, we use less energy when the cows stand outside," says Gauffin, adding that the cows take shelter under the heated roof only for a short period during the winter.

"The animals are currently resting," she continues. "Two months out the year they can't give milk. Then they start producing again, and we milk them for eight to 10 months out of the year."

Sustainable farming

Stabby Gard uses all sources of energy available at the farm, from the body heat of the cows to the use of their manure for field fertilizer. Gauffin also cultivates grain in a sustainable fashion. She avoids monoculture farming, which means cultivating just one crop. Instead, she rotates the use of peas and rapeseed.

Water resources are also becoming a growing issue, according to the farmer.

"Sweden is a water-rich country," Gauffin says. "We're doing well here in that regard, because we're surrounded by water. But when there are heat waves during the summer, we also notice that water becomes scarcer."

Up until now, she has not had to think about how much water she uses to produce a single liter of milk.

"But if climate change continues, that will become an issue in all of Sweden," Gauffin says.

Original Article Here