Via the RFF Library Blog.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
http://unhq-appspub-01.un.org/lib/dhlrefweblog.nsf/dx/05112009021657PMCEMQMZ.htm

[Press release] A new report, Food Security and Agricultural Mitigation in Developing Countries:  Options for Capturing Synergies, examines how strategies for climate change mitigation can benefit agriculture, food security, and development.

Agriculture not only suffers the impacts of climate change, it is also responsible for 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. But agriculture has the potential to be an important part of the solution, through mitigation—reducing and/or removing—a significant  amount of global emissions, FAO says. Some 70 percent of this mitigation potential could be realized in developing countries.

Via Docuticker.

What Happened to the Seasons?
Source: Oxfam, UK

The timing of rain, and intra-seasonal rainfall patterns are critical to smallholder farmers in developing countries. Seasonality influences farmers’ decisions about when to cultivate and sow and harvest. It ultimately contributes to the success or failure of their crops. Worryingly, therefore, farmers are reporting that both the timing of rainy seasons and the pattern of rains within seasons are changing. These perceptions of change are striking in that they are geographically widespread and because the changes are described in remarkably consistent terms. In this paper, we relate the perceptions of farmers from several regions (East Asia, South Asia, Southern and East Africa, and Latin America) of how seasons are changing, and in some cases, how once distinct seasons appear to be disappearing altogether, and the impacts that these changes are having. We then go on to ask two critical questions. Firstly, do meteorological observations support farmers’ perceptions of changing seasonality? Secondly, to what extent are these changes consistent with predictions from climate models? We conclude that changing seasonality may be one of the major impacts of climate change faced by smallholder farmers in developing countries over the next few decades. Indeed, this may already be the case. Yet it is relatively unexplored in the literature. We also suggest some of the key adaptation responses that might help farmers cope with these changes.

+ Direct link to document (PDF; 221 KB)

Read the full story in the Washington Post.

Many savvy consumers are familiar with the color codes that marine conservationists bestow on fish and shellfish, depending on how they’re faring in the environment: red for avoid, yellow for consume sparingly and green for eat without guilt.

Now, super green has arrived.

On Tuesday the influential Monterey Bay Aquarium is releasing a new set of rankings that identifies fish that are not only fished sustainably but are also rich in long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, a key dietary component in reducing the risk of heart disease. Farmed mussels and oysters make the list, along with line- or pole-caught albacore tuna, wild-caught Alaskan salmon and Pacific sardines.

Read the full story at Mother Nature Network.

In today’s world of complex supply chains, international supermarkets and big agribusiness, it has become more and more difficult for small farms to sell their produce directly to local consumers at a reasonable price. But one farm in Germany, Peter-und-Paul-Hof, thinks they may have found a solution: set up vending machines which distribute produce instead of junk food.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture requests proposals for the Solid Waste Management Grant Program. This program supports projects that assist communities through free technical assistance and/or training geared towards reducing or eliminating pollution of water resources in rural areas, and improve planning and management of solid waste sites in rural areas. $3.4 million expected to be available, up to 40 awards anticipated. Responses due 12/31/09. For more info, contact LaVonda Pernell at lavonda.pernell@wdc.usda.gov or go to: http://www.usda.gov/rus/water/SWMG.htm. Refer to Sol# RDUP-SWMGRANT-093009-FY20.

Read the full story at Domestic Fuel.

A study commissioned by the National Corn Growers Association finds that proposed regulations by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement the expanded Renewable Fuel Standard would cost the ethanol industry as much as $420 million a year.

The study found that the up-front cost to the ethanol industry for compliance with the new regulations could total $30 million, with annually recurring compliance costs reaching up to $420 million.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

Farm waste, the biggest polluter of American rivers, is largely unregulated by many of the laws designed to prevent pollution and protect drinking water.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said that it would draft a national policy on fish farming in federal waters but in the meantime would allow aquaculture rules for the Gulf of Mexico to go into effect.

The gulf rules, the first in the nation for aquaculture in federal waters, were developed by the federal fishery management council with jurisdiction over the area. They would establish permit requirements, what species could be farmed and where, and other standards. In a telephone news conference, Jim Balsinger, the acting administrator of the agency’s Fisheries Service, said that in the absence of a federal policy for saltwater fish farms, the agency had no grounds to block the gulf plan.

Read/listen to the full story at NPR.

This month the Senate is set to take up the climate and energy bill that Congress began work on last spring. One provision will likely set up a system to pay farmers for something called “no-till farming.”

The concept: When crops are planted without tilling, the soil holds more carbon, which means less goes up into the atmosphere.

But scientists aren’t sure no-till really sequesters carbon any better than conventional farming.

Read the full story from Mother Nature Network.

Growing Home works with the homeless and low-income population in Chicago to provide organic agriculture training.

Watch the video at Vimeo.

Students at the University of Illinois are experimenting with ways to convert food waste into compost for their campus farm.

Todd Rusk of ISTC is working with this group.

Read the full post at Green, Inc.

Idaho has lately made a strong showing in energy efficiency: the state was rated “most improved” in a recent energy-efficiency survey, and also topped a Pew survey last month for fastest green job growth.

One innovative program that Idaho is pursuing is paying several hundred farmers to not water their crops on some late afternoons, when the demand for electricity is at its peak. The savings come from not using electric pumps, which consume a great deal of energy ferrying water from, say, a river to a plateau. The Idaho Power Company estimates that on a hot summer afternoon, it can save slightly more than 5 percent of its electric demand.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Two pesticides used in highly populated agricultural areas of California appear to be killing frogs that live and breed in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, according to results from a study published in the August 2009 issue of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

The study examined how chlorpyrifos and endosulfan used in the Central Valley of California affect amphibians that breed in the mountains to the east. Toxicity was measured to larval Pacific treefrogs (Pseudacris regilla) and foothill yellow-legged frogs (Rana boylii), which are among the amphibians with declining populations that often live and breed in meadows surrounding the Sierra Nevada. Winds blow insecticide residues into the mountains, and they fall as rain or snow. In these regions, insecticides have longer half-lives because of cooler temperatures and can be spread by melting snow to areas where amphibians live and breed.

As outlined in the article, “Toxicity of Two Insecticides to California, USA, Anurans and Its Relevance to Declining Amphibian Populations” by Donald W. Sparling and Gary M. Fellers, the study used laboratory testing to examine how the insecticides affected the two frogs at environmentally realistic concentrations. During testing, tadpoles were observed at various stages of development to see how the insecticides affected their growth and health.

Read/listen to the full story at NPR.

The desperate poverty in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, isn’t just a matter of economics. It’s also a matter of the environment.

Haiti is trapped in a classic downward spiral. Desperately poor people have stripped the mountainous land of its trees to use for cooking fuel. Rains then wash away the unprotected soil, destroying potential farmland and leaving people even poorer.

But several emerging programs hope to pull Haiti out of the predicament by planting trees too valued for their fruit to be destroyed, finding better crops to preserve the soil, and exploiting a new and plentiful source for fuel — garbage.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

“Roses are red….” They are also fragile and almost always flown to the U.S. from warmer climes in South America. In Europe, roses are most often imported from Africa. On either continent the flowers are hauled in temperature-controlled trucks and locked up overnight in cold boxes before their final journey to the local florist. According to Flowerpetal.com, which tries to limit the environmental impact of floral purchases, supplying the 100 million roses ordered for a typical Valentine’s Day produces 9,900 tons of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions. So what’s a lovesick but “green” beau to do?

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

The Vegetation Drought Response Index, or VegDRI, is a computer modeling and monitoring method that provides continuous drought information over large regions and supplies finer spatial detail than other commonly used drought indicators.

The index is now available at two-week intervals across the conterminous 48 states of the United States.

Read the full post at Green, Inc.

Conventional farmers, organic farmers, giant agribusiness companies, environmentalists — all have varying views on what “sustainable agriculture” really means.

Perhaps not for long.

The Leonardo Academy, an environmental think tank in Madison, Wis., is busy refereeing a debate over a new “National Sustainable Agriculture Standard,” under the guidelines of the American National Standards Institute.

Read the press release.

Leonardo Academy is now accepting applications for membership on the National Sustainable Agriculture Standard Subcommittees. The subcommittees, which will play a key role in the standards development process, are open to membership by all interested parties.

The subcommittees that have been established to move the next phase of the Sustainable Agriculture Standard development process forward are: 1) Criteria Development – Economic Sustainability, 2) Criteria Development – Social Sustainability, 3) Criteria Development – Environmental Sustainability, 4) Reference Library and Information, 5) Structure and Process of Standard Development, 6) Fundraising and Communications.

Specifically, these subcommittees will be exploring a range of key issues, engaging additional stakeholders, crafting draft criteria and developing recommendations and guidance to the Standards Committee, the body charged with identifying, deliberating and building consensus around issues relevant to the standard under development, and determining the criteria that will be included in the framework of the final standard.

Read the full story from the Associated Press.

One contributor to global warming — bigger than coal mines, landfills and sewage treatment plants — is being left out of efforts by the Obama administration and House Democrats to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Cow burps.

Belching from the nation’s 170 million cattle, sheep and pigs produces about one-quarter of the methane released in the U.S. each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That makes the hoofed critters the largest source of the heat-trapping gas.

In part because of an adept farm lobby campaign that equates government regulation with a cow tax, the gas that farm animals pass is exempt from legislation being considered by Congress to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

For the first time, results from the Census of Agriculture have been published at the watershed level by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Participants in the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) recently agreed to implement a pilot program of voluntary production standards aimed at reducing the negative impacts of soy production on the environment and people, particularly in South America.

The interim standards require producers to take certain measures to protect the environment. Those include prohibitions on the conversion of areas with high conservation value—such as forests and savannahs—reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and eliminating the most hazardous pesticides in soy farming.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture requests proposals for the New Era Rural Technology Competitive Grants Program (RTP). This program supports technology development, applied research, and/or training, with a focus on rural communities, to aid in the development of a workforce for bioenergy, pulp and paper manufacturing, or agriculture-based renewable energy. $750K expected to be available, up to 25 awards anticipated. Responses due 7/20/09. For more info, contact RTP@csrees.usda.gov or go to: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/rfas/new_era.html. Refer to Sol# USDA-CSREES-RTP-002295.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture requests proposals for the Critical Agricultural Materials Program. This program supports the development and demonstration of novel, environmentally friendly technologies for use in paints, coatings, and adhesives for composites. Priority will be given to proposals that include a life cycle analysis, comparing biobased products with a fossil-based counterparts, using the Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability model (BEES) developed by the NIST. $1 million expected to be available, up to 2 awards anticipated. Responses due 7/7/09. For more info, contact Carmela Bailey at cbailey@csrees.usda.gov or go to: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/rfas/cam.html. Refer to Sol# USDA-CSREES-OP-002325.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture requests proposals for the Small Business Innovation Research Program – Phase I. SBIR supports U.S. owned, small business R&D projects that address important problems facing American agriculture and have the potential to lead to significant public benefit if the research is successful. Research areas include, but are not limited to: Biofuels and Biobased Products; Air, Water, and Soils; Rural Development; Aquaculture; and Animal Manure Management. $18.5 million expected to be available, individual awards NTE $90K. Responses due 9/3/09. For more info, contact sbir@csrees.usda.gov or go to: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/rfas/sbir_rfa.html. Refer to Sol# USDA-CSREES-SBIR-002363.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture requests proposals for Renewable Energy Feasibility Grants. This program will provide support to agricultural producers and rural small businesses to conduct feasibility studies for renewable energy systems. $6 million expected to be available, up to 150 awards anticipated. Responses due 7/31/09. For more info, including state specific contacts, go to: http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?oppId=47628&mode=VIEW. Refer to Sol# RDBCP-09-REAP-FEASIBILITY.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture requests proposals for Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements. This program will provide support to agricultural producers and rural small businesses to purchase and install renewable energy systems and make energy efficiency improvements. $51.6 million expected to be available, up to 1,100 awards anticipated. Responses due 7/31/09. For more info, including Regional contacts, go to: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-12178.pdf. Refer to Sol# RDBCP-09-REAP-RES-EEI.

Read the full post from the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Buildings & Grounds blog.

Given all the recent discussion on this blog about agriculture, horticulture, and sustainability, it seems fitting to recommend a little film that is touring the country right now: Fresh, a movie about sustainable agriculture. The movie stars people like Joel Salatin, who has become something of a farmer-celebrity since his appearance in The Omnivore’s Dilemma; Will Allen, an urban farmer from Milwaukee who recently won a MacArthur Foundation fellowship; and John E. Ikerd, a professor emeritus of agricultural economics at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Read the full story in The Scientist.

The key to fighting the ravages of termites and other insect pests could lie in the ubiquitous glucose molecule, tweaked to weaken insect immune systems, say researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The scientists have shown that the glucose relative, D-δ-gluconolactone (GDL), can disrupt the activity of a termite protein crucial for sensing and killing invading microbes, making the pests susceptible to pathogenic bacteria or fungi that routinely buffet them, they report in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read the full story at SustainableBusiness.com.

Innovations in food production and land use that are ready to be scaled-up today could reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to roughly 25% of global fossil fuel emissions and present the best opportunity to remove greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, according to a new report by the Worldwatch Institute and Ecoagriculture Partners.

Read the full story at Inside Higher Education.

In recent years, a number of majors, minors and concentrations with names like sustainable food systems, organic agriculture, and agroecology have cropped up in colleges of agriculture nationwide. Not simply synonymous with “organic,” but incorporating that aspect under its umbrella, sustainable agriculture programs are often interdisciplinary in nature.

Read the full post at Treehugger.

TreeHugger has covered the issue of ocean dead zones, in particular the annual 8,000 square mile one in the Gulf of Mexico, a number of times. Now, the US Geological Survey has released new maps which pinpoint the watersheds within the Mississippi River Basin which most contribute to the problem.

The short version is that commercial fertilizer and animal manure in nine states—Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi—causes 70% of the problem. But when you look at the maps the USGS has put out you can see that it’s a bit more complicated than that. Those bright red areas show areas with the greatest contribution; it’s really specific places within these states.

Read the full post at Treehugger.

On a damp and dreary afternoon, about 15 people are gathered on a windswept hill overlooking the Bosphorus, standing in a tiny patch of green surrounded by Istanbul’s endless urban sprawl. They intently examine a muddy mound of dirt, covered with cardboard and weeds–the inauspicious-looking start to what participants hope will be a gardening revolution in Turkey.

Earlier in the day, the group, led by Steve Read, one of the founders of the French Permaculture Association, had scoped out the small plot of land, observing its soil conditions and its slope, where it got sun and what was already growing there before developing a garden design. This preparatory work is an essential part of permaculture (short for “permanent agriculture“), a way of designing and maintaining “agriculturally productive ecosystems that have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems” (in the words of workshop organizers) that emphasizes working with the land rather than fighting against it.

Read the full post at Treehugger.

In Japan, they don’t just let factories rust away. Matt Frei of the BBC visits one where they used to make steel cable, but with demand down, they have converted much of it to grow hydroponic lettuce, with the former steelworkers tending the tender shoots. “The company expects the solution will save the business and help it survive the downturn.”

The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) will host its 62nd Annual Meeting on 18-19 May 2009 at The Westin Gateway, Arlington, Virginia. The theme of the 2009 meeting is “Sustainable Agriculture: Greening the Global Food Supply.” The National Council for Science and the Environment are cosponsors.

The meeting program and links to speaker websites are available at:
www.aibs.org/annual-meeting/annual_meeting_2009.html

Read the full post at Civil Eats.

Brian Hartman of ABC News has a report today that confirms that there will be a veggie garden on the White House Lawn.

Mr. Hartman seems to have sent his fellow ABC reporters Sunlen Miller and Ann Compton, who cover insider White House activity, literally into the field to track down a Park Service employee to dish on the dirt project, and they were very successful. A NPS worker who requested anonymity told the two reporters that a veggie garden will be planted on the South Lawn, near the fountain, out of the sight-line of the White House. The anonymous source assured Ms. Compton and Ms. Miller that the White House Residence Staff will be handling all details of the garden, rather than Park Service workers, who oversee the rest of the sixteen-acre campus. This indicates that First Lady Michelle Obama will be overseeing the project, because she’s “the decider” for the Residence Staff.

Read the press release.

Cadbury today unveiled its Cadbury Dairy Strategy, a unique partnership with dairy farmers in Selkley Vale designed to help reduce the environmental impact of dairy farming.

U.S. supermarkets and restaurants sell fresh fruit and vegetables from all over the world. This resource shows common origins of more than 95 different produce commodities that are shipped into or across the United States each year. Use it to find the:

• volume of shipments each year
• leading state that produces it
• regions or countries where shipments originate
• percent (by volume) of total shipments each month, one indication of when a fruit or vegetable crop may be in season.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is extending the compliance dates for all facilities and establishing new compliance dates for farms subject to the Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) rule as part of the agency’s multi-phased strategy to address concerns with the current regulation.

The first ever PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP WORKSHOP focusing on agricultural films and other “ag” plastics will be held as part of the annual conference of The Pesticide Stewardship Alliance (TPSA), Feb 22-24 2009, at the Hotel Albuquerque in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

You belong around the table if you:

• manufacture or distribute agricultural plastic products
• manufacture products that currently or potentially use recycled ag plastics as feedstock
• represent an agricultural trade or commodity group, or
• re otherwise involved with (or interested in) ag plastic/film recycling.

Monday, Feb 23

Session I:  Ag Film Product Stewardship: Learning from Other Industries
What lessons can we learn from the voluntary stewardship agreements developed by other industries, e.g.,  paint, electronics, carpet, and pesticide containers?     Moderator: Wayne Gjerde, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Session II:  Ag Film Product Stewardship: Manufacturers’ Perspectives
Manufacturers of ag film products—bunker silo covers, mulch and fumigation films, bale wrap, etc.—are the anchors of any stewardship strategy. What constraints do they face? What opportunities do they see? Panel discussion with ag plastic product manufacturers.  Moderator: Roger Springman, Wisconsin Department of Agriculture

Session III:  Ag Film Product Stewardship: Role of Standards in Facilitating Stewardship
Product standards affect recycle-ability, usability, environment, and environmental health. What should be the focus of ag film standards? What process should we follow? Moderator: Wayne Gjerde, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Tuesday, Feb 24

Session VI:  Emerging Markets for Used Ag Plastics
Learn about products that can be made from less-than-perfectly clean used ag plastics:  e.g., sweet crude, roofing material, binder for wood fuels, lumber. Moderator: Roger Springman, Wisconsin Department of Agriculture

Session VII:  Moving Ag Film Stewardship to the Next Level
Roundtable wrap-up to set the stage for TPSA’s ag film product stewardship initiative, led off by a reality check on the global economy and recycling markets. Moderator: Lois Levitan, Cornell University

The Pesticide Stewardship Alliance (TPSA) conference objectives:
To serve as a forum to facilitate networking and cooperation among parties from around the world to improve stewardship program efforts: increasing effectiveness and efficiency through pesticide labeling, judicious application, container containment, waste minimization, and proper handling of empty containers and other agricultural plastics. TPSA seeks individuals with pertinent information from private companies, public entities and organizations who are willing to share their stories, findings, and challenges. Network during the evening festivities, opening reception, and grand reception.

Conference details at http://www.tpsalliance.org/conference/Introduction.htm.

For more information about the Ag Film Product Stewardship Workshop and related sessions, contact organizers Roger Springman (Roger.Springman@Wisconsin.gov), Lois Levitan (LCL3@cornell.edu), or Wayne Gjerde (Wayne.Gjerde@state.mn.us).

Read the full story in the New York Times.

Farm emissions are being discussed during international talks on a new treaty to combat global warming.

Read the press release from the American Society for Horticultural Science.

To combat parasites like root-knot nematodes without the use of chemical pesticides, scientists are focusing more research on developing new, parasite-resistant varieties of vegetables. Dr. Judy Thies, a research plant pathologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, was part of a team of scientists who developed the Charleston Belle variety of bell pepper, the first nematode-resistant bell pepper.

In a study published in the February issue of the American Society for Horticultural Science’s journal HortScience, Dr. Thies and her colleagues tested the stability of two types of bell peppers, Charleston Belle and Carolina Wonder. Thies explained, “These two types of pepper cultivars are the only nematode-resistant varieties available to commercial growers and home gardeners. Since a large percentage of bell pepper production in the U.S. occurs in the Southeastern U.S., and in particular Florida, we tested the peppers for resistance to nematodes in sub-tropical climates to determine if the cultivars were stable when grown in Florida under high soil temperatures. It is important to know whether the peppers’ resistance to parasites breaks down when peppers are grown in hot climates.”

Read the full story in Grist.

In her new book Green Inc., Christine MacDonald argues that that large environmental NGOs have compromised their agendas in exchange for corporate cash. (See Mark Pawlosky’s recent review of Green Inc. for Grist.)

I haven’t read the entire book yet, but I did catch an excerpt published by Multinational Monitor. In it, MacDonald makes a pretty convincing case for Big Green lameness with regard to the ever-expanding agricultural frontier in Brazil.

She details collaborations between Conservation International and Bunge to “sustainably” expand soy production in Brazil’s vast savanna region; and between the Nature Conservancy and Cargill to promote “responsible” soy farming in the Amazon region.

According to a recent Reuters piece, Cargill and Bunge are the world’s largest and third-largest agribusiness companies, respectively, by revenue. Bunge concerns itself mostly with grain-trading and processing; Cargill maintains a global empire with interests in grain trading and processing, meat production, biofuels, fertilizer, livestock feed, and more.

Read the full post at Triple Pundit.

Environmentalists have long derided the methods that have come to be standard practice for American ranchers and farmers. Over-reliant on water, fossil fuels, large equipment, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides — many of them fossil fuel intensive in their own right — livestock and crop production contributes a surprisingly large portion of our greenhouse gas emissions, and are also large contributors to water pollution, land degradation and habitat destruction.

As populations and urban areas have grown and spread, and debates over land and water rights, usage, volume and quality become increasingly contentious, growing numbers of farmers and ranchers are looking to more sustainable, organic farming and ranching supported by community supported agriculture and environmentally and socially conscious consumers.

Read the full notice.

SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is proposing to amend the Guidelines for Designating Biobased Products for Federal Procurement, by adding nine sections to designate the following nine items within which biobased products would be afforded Federal procurement preference: Chain and cable lubricants; corrosion preventatives; food cleaners; forming lubricants; gear lubricants; general purpose household cleaners; industrial cleaners; multipurpose cleaners; and parts wash solutions. USDA also is proposing minimum biobased content for each of these items.

DATES: USDA will accept public comments on this proposed rule until December 22, 2008.

Via Docuticker.

Agriculture as a Source of Fuel: Prospects and Impacts, 2007 to 2017 (PDF; 61 KB)
Source: Conference on Biofuels, Food & Feed Tradeoffs; Sponsored by Farm Foundation, USDA’s Office of Energy Policy and New Uses

For most of the period since 1978 when the first federal legislation to encourage ethanol production was enacted, U.S. agriculture served in a relatively minor role as a source of renewable fuels. Starting with the federal Clean Air Act of 1990 which mandated oxygenated gasoline in certain cities to improve air quality, ethanol and its petroleum alternative, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), provided the needed additive until MTBE came into disfavor for contaminating groundwater. In the past five years, ethanol production has nearly tripled, and biodiesel production has increased ten fold although at a much lower level than ethanol. As a result, this growth has recently elevated the prices of the major feedstocks of corn and soybean oil. Federal and state policies have encouraged this acceleration, prompted by a combination of (1) sharply rising energy prices, (2) increased dependence on supplies of crude oil from nations hostile to the U.S. or with unstable political structures, (3) growing environmental concerns including global warming, (4) issues related to balance of payments, (5) depressed farm prices and high farm program costs and (6) ongoing efforts to promote rural development.

The Helpful Gardener web site has excellent information on all aspects of gardening, including organic gardening and gardening with native plants. You can also ask questions in the Garden Forum.

Read the full post at Biopact.

Even closely related plants produce their own natural chemical cocktails, each set uniquely adapted to the individual plant’s specific habitat. Comparing anti-fungals produced by tobacco and henbane, an international team of researchers discovered that only a few mutations in a key enzyme are enough to shift the whole output to an entirely new product mixture. Making fewer changes led to a mixture of henbane and tobacco-specific molecules and even so-called “chemical hybrids,” explaining how plants can tinker with their natural chemical factories and adjust their product line to a changing environment without shutting down intracellular chemical factories completely.

Read the full story from ABC News.

Should we be worried about pesticides in groundwater contaminating the water we drink and the food we eat?

According to many public health and environment officials nationwide, the answer is yes.

In the last year and a half, public interest law firm Earthjustice has filed four federal lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency concerning the use of pesticides.

Many of the pesticides at the center of those legal battles are the same pesticides that recently surfaced as cause for concern in the state of Oregon. Of seven pesticides highlighted as contaminating groundwater in Oregon — three of which are listed as possibly or likely to cause cancer by the EPA — only two are are not subjects of Earthjustice’s pending lawsuits.

Read the full story in ES&T.

The only antibiotic approved for use in milk cows shows up in groundwater near dairy operations, entering the environment from farm waste lagoons and other possible sources. In a study published this month in a special issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality (2008, 37, S-78–S-85), researchers have documented for the first time just how far the drug monensin can travel in the environment. But questions remain about the veterinary pharmaceutical’s environmental impacts as well as its breakdown products.

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations:  EPA Needs More Information and a Clearly Defined Strategy to Protect Air and Water Quality from Pollutants of Concern.  GAO-08-944, September 4.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-944
Highlights – http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08944high.pdf

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations:  EPA Needs More Information and a Clearly Defined Strategy to Protect Air and Water Quality, by Anu K. Mittal, director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials, House Committee on Energy and Commerce.  GAO-08-1177T, September 24.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-1177T
Highlights – http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d081177thigh.pdf

Wildlife Refuges: Changes in Funding, Staffing, and Other Factors Create Concerns about Future Sustainability.  GAO-08-797, September 22.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-797
Highlights – http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08797high.pdf

Wildlife Refuges: Trends in Funding, Staffing, Habitat Management, and Visitor Services for Fiscal Years 2002 through 2007, by Robin M. Nazzaro, director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans, House Committee on Natural Resources.  GAO-08-1179T, September 24.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-1179T
Highlights – http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d081179thigh.pdf