|
|
|
Flooded farmers press case: Northeast Sask. still waits for promised disaster relief The StarPhoenix | by Sarah MacDonald | May 31, 2006 About 400 farmers from the northeastern grainbelt will gather today at a farmyard in the RM of Porcupine to tell the rest of the province about their struggles with flooded fields and inadequate government disaster relief. "Some farmers are not going to recover from it. They're going to be down the drain because we have no governmental support," said Leo Howse, a thirdgeneration farmer from Porcupine. He said six farmers south of him are giving up their farms because they can't afford to farm any longer. The region was hit with heavy rain last fall, followed by flooding this spring. Representatives of the provincial and federal governments have visited the area, but Black said the farmers are still waiting for disaster relief. Australia's Wool Industry Squeezed by Drought, China Planet Ark | by Michael Byrnes | May 29, 2006 Australia's eastern grazing lands have turned scrubby brown as drought strikes yet again, adding to deepening woes for wool growers suffering a long, slow decline from changing fashions and soft prices. Barely a year after the end of Australia's worst drought in 100 years, autumn rains in the southern hemisphere are already late and farmers can barely believe their bad luck. It's yet another blow for the industry, which is struggling to compete with cheaper synthetic fibres and cotton. Drought has already depressed wool prices by burning off ground cover and producing fleece contaminated with burrs and dust and of poor tensile strength. Farmers dread what might be to come. Drought, disease cost farmers in 2005, Statistics Canada reports Canadian Press | May 27, 2006 Realized net income for Canadian farmers fell in 2005 to its lowest level since 2003, following two years of drought and more than two years of battling trade restrictions because of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or madcow disease. Statistics Canada says realized net income - the difference between a farmer's cash receipts and operating expenses minus depreciation, plus income in kind - declined 7.7 per cent to $2.1 billion. That's eight per cent below the previous five-year average (2000 to 2004). In Alberta, realized net income dropped to half of the previous year's level, and in Manitoba it declined by almost 40 per cent. Chile develops drought-tolerant eucalyptus varieties CropBiotech Update | May 26, 2006 Scientists successfully identified and propagated valuable genetic material with increased drought tolerance and improved yield through the selection and micropropagation of genetic stocks of eucalyptus. The initiative is part of a national policy aimed at modernizing and increasing the competitiveness of the Chilean agricultural sector through the use of modern biotechnology tools. The main objective was to obtain improved eucalyptus varieties to increase productivity of forest plantations in the arid and semi-arid regions of Chile. More rain adds insult to injury The Leader-Post | Angela Hall | May 25, 2006 In the hours after Ottawa announced $50 million in flood assistance to farmers, rain continued to pelt an already water-logged area in Saskatchewan's northeast grainbelt. Many producers in the Rural Municipality of Porcupine awoke Wednesday to even wetter fields, with more showers in the forecast. It's estimated 25 to 40 per cent of the acres won't be seeded due to flooding. The interim program is meant to help farmers hurt by flooding this spring and last, while the government finalizes a program for future flooding situations. Eligible farmers can get a payment of $15 per acre of flooded land. Farmers to get federal flood relief The StarPhoenix | Murray Lyons | May 24, 2006 Farmers in the Porcupine Plain area of Saskatchewan are unlikely to seed about 25 per cent of their cultivated acres this spring because of April floods, and this week's rain could push that number higher, says a farm input supplier. These farmers will be eligible for federal assistance announced Tuesday in Manitoba's hard hit Red River Valley by Chuck Strahl, the federal agriculture minister. Farmers dealing with "the restoration costs" of an estimated 2.9 million acres of flooded fields that couldn't be seeded will be eligible for a one-time, $15-an-acre payment. Althouse says farmers can't use their direct seeding equipment in ground that has been made hard and lumpy by the floodwaters. Australian State Slips Back Towards Drought Planet Ark | May 23, 2006 Drought is increasing across the key Australian cropping state of New South Wales as farmers wait for winter rains, a senior government minister said on Monday. Some 62 percent of the state was now drought declared, up from 18 percent in December 2005, with drought spreading from inland areas towards the coast, Ian Macdonald, the state's Primary Industries Minister, said in a statement. Australia was affected by severe drought in 2002/03, which left 91 percent of New South Wales officially in drought by last June. The state, one of the hardest hit by the recent drought, generally produces between a quarter and a third of Australia's winter crops, mainly wheat. Macdonald said many farmers had again dry sown their crops, hoping for late rains as in 2005. Last year the autumn rain break did not arrive until the middle of June, the last possible time for the major winter grains crops of wheat and barley. Global Warming Hurts Spain's Vineyards, Forces Vintners to Move Climate Wire | May 22, 2006 Global warming is killing vineyards in southern Spain, threatening a 2 billion-euro ($2.4 billion) wine industry and forcing grape growers to move to cooler climes of the Pyrenees. Winemakers from Europe's largest grape-growing nation are shading vineyards, developing heat-resistance crops and moving to mountainside locations. Temperatures may rise 7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, said Jose Manuel Moreno, professor of climatology. Any increase in temperature in Spain may make it impossible to produce wine in lower areas. Wine makers must plan for longer to protect their grapes, because vines can keep producing wine for as many as 80 years and will be exposed to several generations of warming temperatures. Weather-Hit Crops Tighten European Wheat Supply Planet Ark | David Evans | May 22, 2006 Flooded fields in central Europe, a harsh Black Sea winter and low rainfall in France have dimmed the prospects for this summer's wheat crop, adding to tightening world supplies next season. French new crop wheat futures have rallied strongly this month as the supply/demand outlook for next season has tightened. French analyst Strategie Grains this week cut its forecast for European Union grain output next season by two million tonnes to just under 265 million, three percent up on 2005. "In central Europe, wheat yields have been revised down to take account of the impact of excess water levels in the soil caused by melting snow and high precipitation levels this spring," it said in its monthly report for May. Key grower Hungary has been one of the worst hit. Drought and no Cash to Cut Zambia's Coffee Output Planet Ark | Shapi Shacinda | May 22, 2006 The ripening coffee is a healthy blood-red at Zambia's Mubuyu Farms, but national coffee output will decline because of drought, a strong local currency and slow expansions. Farmers say that Zambia's plans to diversify its economy from copper and cobalt mining to agriculture may be hit by problems ranging from capricious weather to lack of cash, in growing export crops such as coffee. The Zambia Coffee Growers Association (ZCGA) says national coffee output will decline to 6,100 tonnes in the 2005/06 season from 6,500 tonnes in 2004/05 partly due to drought last year. Root engineering: a strategy for agriculture in marginal areas of cultivation Information Systems for Biotechnology News Report | by Roberto A. Gaxiola | May 16, 2006 Water availability is a major concern for agriculture in both developed and developing countries. Global water strategies focus on reducing overall agricultural use and increasing availability for human consumption. However, population growth and global warming are driving regional shifts in production and increased demand for irrigation. Improvement of plant water utilization is therefore critical. Some drought resistant plants develop deep and dense root systems. These natural adaptations suggest that manipulation of developmental mechanisms to enhance lateral root proliferation can be an effective strategy to engineer drought resistant plants. We concluded that more robust root systems allowed transgenic tomato plants to take up greater amounts of water during the imposed water deficit stress, resulting in a more favorable plant water status and less injury. Children in East Africa risk death from drought: UN Climate Wire | May 15, 2006 Rainfall has come too late to reverse the devastation from a six-month drought in East Africa, where thousands of weakened children could die without immediate assistance, the United Nations said on Monday. The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said 8 million people in the Horn of Africa, a region spanning Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eriteria and Djibouti, were in urgent need after the drought that killed livestock and crops. They include 1.6 million children under the age of 5, UNICEF said in an appeal for money, water, sanitation, vaccines, protection, education and feeding programs for drought-affected children. No Weather Relief for Drought and Flood-Hit China Planet Ark | May 15, 2006 Drought and floods in China are threatening millions of people in cities and on farms and the weather outlook offers little prospect of relief, state media reported on Friday. Beijing -- already plagued by spring sandstorms and the worst pollution in six years -- was in its 7th successive year of drought, Xinhua news agency said. Only 17 millimetres (less than an inch) of rain had fallen in the capital in the past four months, down 63 percent on the same period last year. Xinhua said drought in the north, northeast and southwestern regions was affecting 16.3 million hectares (41 million acres) of farm land and threatening supplies of drinking water to more than 14 million people and 11.55 million livestock. World Bank seeks new crops in global warming Planet Ark | May 15, 2006 The world should do more to develop drought-resistant crops or new flood controls as part of a drive to ease the damaging impact of climate change, the Head of Environment at the World Bank said. "As a development institution we have to focus on the fact that millions of people will suffer from climate change," Warren Evans told Reuters on the fringes of a carbon markets trade fair in Cologne, Germany. He said that countries had so far put most emphasis on trying to slow global warming without focusing enough on how to help societies adapt to the likely changes, such as more floods, droughts and rising sea levels. New schemes could include planning for water shortages and extreme weather -- such as developing drought-resistant crops and improved flood controls, he said. Plant genetics are changing the landscape of Midwest agriculture Agnet | by Tom Webb | May 2, 2006 Iowa and Minnesota are still "Field of Dreams" territory for corn, but now, according to this story, so is a good chunk of North Dakota, which was once considered too chilly for raising corn and soybeans. Ditto Minnesota's Red River Valley. And Kansas, which features wheat on its license plates, now grows more corn than wheat, despite its hot and dry summers. What's changing the Midwest is, the story says, plant genetics. High-tech varieties of corn and soybeans are letting farmers reliably grow row crops where they never could before, and the results are confounding the grain trade. The change has been building for several years, but the magnitude of the shift finally hit home last fall, when a severe summer drought wracked the eastern Corn Belt, yet the crop flourished, to the astonishment of many. |
||||||||||
|
