Organic soybean producers competing with Chinese

U.S. organic soybean producers have been hit with the same kind of competition that, so far, has crippled catfish farmers in the South and garlic growers in California.

Namely, cheap Chinese imports.

The charge was made this week in a report issued by The Cornucopia Foundation, an organization that promotes organic agriculture. The report is titled, Beyond the Bean: The Heroes and Charlatans of the Natural and Organic Soy Foods Industry.

In a press release about the report, the foundation cites Dean Foods, the leading U.S. marketer of organic soy milk, as a major company that has brought in organic soybeans from Chinese sources.

"White Wave (Dean's marketing division for Silk and Horizon organic milk) had the opportunity to push organic and sustainable agriculture to incredible heights of production by working with North American farmers and traders to get more land in organic production," said Merle Kramer, a marketer for the Midwestern Organic Farmers Cooperative. "But what they did was pit cheap foreign soybeans against the U.S. organic farmer, taking away any attraction for conventional farmers to make the move into sustainable agriculture."

-- Owen Taylor

Being a Good Neighbor, For a While

I heard a story about this fellow John. It seems John was trying to get started farming during those hard times following World War II. He had been able to get the down payment on a small farm at the edge of the hills of Mississippi. Both his wife and he had jobs in town and they farmed on the weekend. They were having a hard time keeping everything going.

Now it seems another fellow, George, lived just a little piece down the road. George, it was widely agreed, had no love for hard work.

Now John always made sure that there was enough wood for the week’s fires. Enough for the cook stove and the fireplace. He kept it stacked neatly in the barn so it would stay dry.

But it seems John was having trouble with the wood pile. It looked as though he was cutting more wood than they were burning. And he just happened to notice that George always had a nice fire, but he never cut much wood. So John finally ran out of patience and decided to take action. That Saturday afternoon he got a nice stick of wood, drilled a small hole in it and whittled a wooden plug to fit the hole. From a shotgun shell, he got a few grains of powder and poured them into the hole. Next, he carefully pushed the plug into the wood. Then he laid that stick right on top of the pile.

A few days later, way over in the middle of the night, John and his wife heard a small explosion. George was not hurt, but there was no glass left in his windows. And John never missed any more wood.

I was in the coffee shop one morning when the real “John” was asked about this episode. He just smiled and sipped his coffee.

--Tom Crumby

California's Water Situation: A Primer

When I try to explain the water situation in California to people in the South, they almost act like I'm making all this up. In many ways, it just doesn't sound logical.

Here's the short version:

Drought over the last 3 years led to a shortage of snow in the Sierra Mountains and water in lower-elevation reservoirs, both of which provide irrigation water as the farming season gets underway. Plus, less rain has fallen in the prime farming areas in the state's Central Valley, which includes both the San Joaquin Valley (SJV) and Sacramento Valley.

That, in part, led to mounting restrictions on how much water would be released for farmers by way of water districts.

This year, a huge chunk of the SJV was denied water altogether (though later a 10% allotment was announced by federal regulators). Remember, these are arid regions by most any standard. A year with 20 inches of rain would be considered wet.

In past years there still would have been enough water to supply at least a portion of allotments to SJV irrigation district. But, environmentalists won court rulings that ensure a certain amount of water reaches the Pacific for estuaries that act as spawning grounds for saltwater fish. Essentially, water needed for cotton, tomatoes and a host of permanent crops flows through farmlands via canals and ends up in San Francisco Bay.

No water, no crops. The struggle is to pump enough groundwater (often salty) or buy enough water from other sources (usually expensive) to keep permanent crops like almond trees and grape vines from dying.

All this has led to hardships, both for farmers and farm workers, including many who now live in California year-round and, in some cases, have gained citizenship. This has made for strange bedfellows, with Latino farm workers and activists rallying -- literally and figuratively -- with mostly-Republican farmers and agri-business interests. Hardly a business in the SJV, in fact, isn't seeing a decline in sales, over and above what owners could have expected when 2008 ended with a distressed economy.

The worst-hit area for a number of reasons is the Westlands Water District on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. It's allocation of irrigation water initially was zero for 2009, then bumped up to 10%. Because it's the newest of the SJV's water districts -- dating, actually, to the 1950s -- it was the first to be cut. Productive land that might have been in tomatoes or Pima cotton this year was left unplanted. Farmers in extreme cases are destroying orchards because, without water, they will likely die before this summer is over. Unemployment rates have soared in once-bustling farm communities.

The following is a link to a balanced overview on the situation. Sara Savary, a friend who works as a professional crop advisor in the SJV, forward this to me:

Drought, Politics Trouble Farmers In California

-- Owen Taylor

Palmer pigweed: start your engines

Palmer pigweed -- now highly resistant to glyphosate in a troubling number of areas -- already has a head start on cotton in parts of Georgia this season, according to an advisory from Stanley Culpepper, Extension weed specialist and a key figure in bringing glyphosate resistance issues into th epublic view.

"Palmer amaranth has emerged and is growing rapidly in many fields across the state," Culpepper noted in Monday's Georgia Cotton News. "It is essential that growers control this pest prior to or at planting."

He included application tips, product options and rates.

Click here for Culpepper's report.

Louisiana Rice: Grape Colaspis Advisory Issued

Johnny Saichuk, Louisiana Extension Rice Specialist, issued a special advisory Monday regarding grape colaspis, which appear to be turning up in some south Louisiana rice fields.

Saichuk showed photos of a field thinned by the pest and said grape colaspis was suspected in several other locations.

"It is a common pest of rice in Arkansas and was found in Louisiana around 25 years ago by Dr. Steve Linscombe," Saichuk noted. "At that time each case Dr. Linscombe found was an isolated case. This time we think this field (in the photos) is one of several that all started
showing similar symptoms late last week. While we have not confirmed it in all cases we are certain that is the problem in this field."

Click here for the full advisory (PDF file).

-- Owen Taylor