exploring ideas and views on all aspects of the seed industry
“We knew that $7.00 corn was too high; it wasn’t sustainable on our end,” says Ron Litterer, Chairman of the National Corn Growers Association. “Users couldn’t buy it and make a profit in their businesses so the question is ‘where do these prices come out at? Where do they stabilize’? That is the big unknown.”
Price Plateau?
“We pump water like there’s no end, and that’s not going to last forever,” said Nebraska farmer Tom Schuele in an International Herald Tribune article. Water shortages are expected to hold back farming in the future, so there’s a push for crops that can thrive with little or no water. For companies that manage to get “more crop per drop”, the payoff could be huge. Monsanto says its first drought-tolerant corn will reach farmers in only four years and will provide a 10% increase in yields. It could be the biotech breakthrough that finally wins people over. “Drought tolerance to me is the most critical entry point,” says Calestous Juma, a professor of international development at Harvard University who has advised African governments on biotechnology. However, critics accuse the biotech industry of exploiting the recent global food crisis to push a technology that has not yet been proven. “I want to see more, I guess, from the Monsanto work before I’d be convinced they’ve got it,” says John Boyer, an emeritus professor at the University of Delaware.
Is Your Bird Feeder a Weed Seeder?
New research points to bird seed as the most likely source of those pesky weeds growing beneath your backyard feeder. “Once a weed seed drops from the feeder to the ground and sprouts, it has the potential to flower and spread,” says Jed Colquhoun, associate professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. “In fact, when we informally questioned landowners and farmers to investigate the spread of a relatively new weed in the Pacific Northwest – velvetleaf – we found it is growing in the soil beneath backyard bird feeders.” Researchers say the type of feed you use may be to blame. Scientists examined ten brands of wild bird feed commonly sold in retailer stores and each contained seeds from more than 50 weed species including 10 ranked among Oregon’s most noxious weeds.
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