Genetically modified corn losing resistance to major pest
Bt corn, one of the nation’s most widely produced crops, is thought to be losing its natural resistance to the western corn rootworm, a pest that feeds on the roots of corn and could potentially wreak economic havoc if it continues to spread.
Currently the infestations remain isolated, but concerns have been growing ever since Bt corn infestations have been discovered in four Midwestern states, a sign that the repeated planting of the corn strain – instead of being rotated with other crops – is enabling the insects’ resistance to the crop’s pest-fighting powers. Many farmers are foregoing rotation in order to cash in on the high corn prices.
Bt corn was introduced to farmers in 2003 and allowed growers to bring in bountiful harvests using fewer chemicals because the corn naturally produces a toxin that poisons the common pest.
Because of the corn farmers’ current – and most likely ongoing – practices, some scientists fear it could already be too late to prevent the rise of resistance. In addition, they’re also concerned about the problem becoming more widespread due to the rootworm larvae growing into adult beetles that can fly and migrate into new areas.
If rootworms do become resistant to Bt corn, it “could become the most economically damaging example of insect resistance to a genetically modified crop in the U.S.,” said Bruce Tabashnik, an entomologist at the University of Arizona. “It’s a pest of great economic significance — a billion-dollar pest.”
The next agricultural revolution may be sparked by fungi
The use of fungi on crops may help to greatly increase food production for the growing needs of the planet without the need for massive amounts of fertilizers.
Mycorrhizal fungi, a type of fungus that can live in symbiosis with plant roots, help plants grow larger by acquiring the essential nutrient phosphate, a key component of fertilizers, for the plant.
“The United Nations conservatively estimates that by the year 2050 the global human population is expected to reach over 9 billion. Feeding such a population represents an unprecedented challenge since this goes greatly beyond current global food production capacity,” says Ian Sanders of the University of Lusanne, Switzerland.
Sanders spoke at the 111th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans yesterday and told the audience that phosphate levels in the soil are rapidly being depleted and that in most tropical soils, plants have enormous difficulty in obtaining phosphate.
Increasing demand for the nutrient is driving up prices and farmers are having to spend a huge amount of money on phosphate fertilizer. Some countries are now stockpiling phosphate to feed their populations in the future, according to Sanders.
Recent biotechnological breakthroughs now allow scientists to produce massive quantities of the fungus that can be suspended in high concentrations in a gel for easy transportation.
Sanders and his colleagues are currently testing the effectiveness of this gel on crops in the country of Colombia where they have discovered that with the gel they can produce the same yield of potato crop with less than half the amount of phosphate fertilizers.
“While our applied research is focused on Colombia it could be applied in many other tropical regions of the world,” says Sanders.
One-third of world’s food lost or wasted
Approximately 1.3 billion tons – or about one-third – of all the world’s food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, according to a new report compiled by The Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology (SIK) for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Important facts about global food waste from the report include:
- Food waste is a much bigger problem in industrialized countries, where a significant amount of food is thrown away by households and retailers, usually still fit for consumption.
- In developing countries, food waste is attributed to financial, managerial and technical limitations in harvesting techniques, storage and cooling facilities in difficult climatic conditions, infrastructure, packaging and marketing systems.
- Fruits and vegetables have the highest rates of wastage.
To reduce food loss, the report recommends improving harvesting techniques and post-harvest logistics; re-thinking quality standards that over-emphasize appearance; and changing consumers’ attitudes to buy only within their means, instead of falling prey to the popular “2-for-1″ marketing promotions. Specifically, consumers fail to properly plan their food purchases and tend to discard food because it wasn’t consumed before the expiration date.
U.S. corn belt experiencing rapidly depleting topsoil
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) reports that Iowa farms are rapidly losing topsoil, up to 12 times faster than government estimates. Their report is based on data accumulated by Iowa State University (ISU), whose methods provide an unprecedented degree of precision in monitoring soil erosion.
EWG provided additional data in their report based on aerial surveys they conducted over the affected regions, along with information gathered from interviews with Corn Belt experts, that indicate soil erosion and polluted runoff are likely far worse than even the disturbing ISU numbers suggest.
“What is happening on Iowa farm fields is shocking but goes largely unnoticed,” said Craig Cox, who manages EWG’s agriculture programs from its Ames, Iowa office. Cox is the lead author of Losing Ground.
“We’ve grown complacent thinking we have the soil erosion problem under control, but instead it looks as if we are losing ground in our decades-old fight against this most fundamental and damaging problem in agriculture,” Cox said.
See the full report here: “Losing Ground” by Environmental Working Group
Green companies have greater morale among employees
New research points to greater satisfaction among employees of environmentally-friendly companies. However, employee happiness does not correlate with a firm’s financial performance.
Based on the results of the study, it is believed that the marked satisfaction occurs when a company’s environmental policies are aligned with an employee’s sustainability-based beliefs and lifestyle practices.
“The results of the analysis indicate a significant positive relationship between employee satisfaction and level of perceived environmental performance,” the research team says. “This study does not find a significant relationship between employee satisfaction and firm financial value.”
The team, which includes Cassandra Walsh and Adam Sulkowski, both of the Charlton College of Business at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, suggests those companies who engage in environmentally practices can help improve company-wide morale by increasing communication about their environmental performance and implementing regular sustainability, or corporate social responsibility, reporting.
Vertical farming grows high and cheap
The future of food production can be witnessed at an England’s Paignton Zoo, where the fodder to feed the animals is grown right on the premises in hydroponic vertical structures. The growing space is equivalent to 12 times the land area it occupies. It consumes 1/6 the amount of water in comparison to typical gardening methods. Large food companies and governments around the world have been visiting and exploring the methods used at Paignton Zoo, to see if there is a sustainable business model that can be adapted from the zoo’s growing system.
The Story of Electronics: 25 million tons of e-waste
storyofstuff.org: In the style of The Story of Stuff, host Annie Leonard shows us where our w5 million tons of disposed electronic gadgets and other e-waste end up, how it affects our environment and public health, and what we can do to improve conditions in the long term.
Oil may run dry before substitutes roll out
University of California – Davis: At the current pace of research and development, global oil will run out 90 years before replacement technologies are ready, says a new University of California, Davis, study based on stock market expectations.
The forecast was published online Monday (Nov. 
in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. It is based on the theory that long-term investors are good predictors of whether and when new energy technologies will become commonplace.
“Our results suggest it will take a long time before renewable replacement fuels can be self-sustaining, at least from a market perspective,” said study author Debbie Niemeier, a UC Davis professor of civil and environmental engineering.
Niemeier and co-author Nataliya Malyshkina, a UC Davis postdoctoral researcher, set out to create a new tool that would help policymakers set realistic targets for environmental sustainability and evaluate the progress made toward those goals.
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If GMO genes escape, how will the hybrids do?
American Journal of Botany: GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms, may raise concerns of genes escaping from crops and having unknown effects on natural, wild species. But what is the real risk that traits associated with GMOs will actually migrate to and persist in their wild relatives? Interest in plant ecology, crop production and weed management led John Lindquist and his colleagues from the University of Nebraska and USDA-ARS to investigate how gene flow from a cultivated crop to a weedy relative would influence the ecological fitness of a cropwild hybrid offspring. They published their findings in the recent October issue of the American Journal of Botany.
Grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor subsp. bicolor) is an important food and feed crop throughout the world. The reduced digestibility of sorghum seed relative to other grains makes it a less efficient resource, even though it is highly adapted to growth in semiarid environments common to Africa, India, and the Southern and Western Great Plains of the United States. There has been considerable interest in modifying the quality traits of grain sorghum using GMO technology to enhance its nutritional value to both humans and animals raised for human consumption.
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