Check out the article, Risky Agri-Business, on local Buncombe County farmer, Jeff Frisbee! Jeff and the rest of the Frisbee family have been hard at work for the past few years planting their labor of love, Addison Farms Vineyard in Leicester.
Congratulations Addison Farms Vineyard!
Addison Farms Vineyard also received a WNC AgOptions Grant (A project of NC Cooperative Extension) in 2011.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Pest News April 27, 2012
The latest edition of NC Pest News in now available.
In this edition you will find the following articles related to Fruits and Vegetables:
In this edition you will find the following articles related to Fruits and Vegetables:
- What causes misshapen strawberries?
- Be on the look-out! Garden diseases to watch for in May and June.
Certified Organic Recordkeeping Tool
COG Pro - Recordkeeping system for organic certification provides an online solution to the detailed record-keeping required to be a certified organic producer.
The website is organized like a logbook with tabbed dividers, so users can easily enter their activities in a wide variety of categories. A simple click on a tab brings up the appropriate entry form and a view of previously entered records.
It also has a Good Agricultural Practices or GAPs record keeping function.
You can log in as a guest to take a look at the system and try it out - go to
http://cog-pro.com/
The website is organized like a logbook with tabbed dividers, so users can easily enter their activities in a wide variety of categories. A simple click on a tab brings up the appropriate entry form and a view of previously entered records.
It also has a Good Agricultural Practices or GAPs record keeping function.
You can log in as a guest to take a look at the system and try it out - go to
http://cog-pro.com/
Senate Agriculture Committee Invests in Fruit and Vegetable Industry
Report from United Fresh Produce
April 26, 2012
Yesterday, the Senate Agriculture Committee voted 16-5 to pass the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012. This marks the beginning of efforts to reauthorize the 2012 Farm Bill, which is set to expire on September 30, 2012. For the fresh fruit and vegetable industry and United Fresh members, this bill answers the call over the last year to continue to build on the investments made in the 2008 Farm Bill.
“While this is just the 'first inning' of a long and difficult Farm Bill process, it is extremely important that the Senate Agriculture Committee has confirmed what our members have been saying for quite a long time: investments in fruit and vegetable producers translate into a healthy industry – from field to table – while creating job opportunities and improved nutrition for consumers,” said Robert Guenther, senior vice president of public policy for United Fresh.
The Farm Bill proposal includes the following fruit and vegetable programs:
• Funding of $150 million annually for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable program
• Annual funding at $50 million per year for DoD Fresh program to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to schools and service institutions
• Investment of $70 million annually for the Specialty Crop Block Grant program
• The Specialty Crop Research Initiative was funded at $25 million per year ramping up to $50 million by 2017
• Increased funding of $60 million in 2013 up to $65 million 2017 for pest and disease management programs
• The Market Access Program ($200 million per year) and Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops ($9 million per year) were fully funded
• Hunger-Free Communities Grant Program for fruit and vegetable SNAP incentives was funded at $100 million over 5 years
• Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program was funded at $100 million over 5 years
• Section 32 specialty crop purchases funded at $406 million per year in mandatory purchases
As a member of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, United Fresh worked closely with key policymakers on the Committee and those with significant produce industry interests to secure support for several programs of particular importance to the fresh fruit and vegetable industry. This culminated on April 2 when 32 U.S. Senators sent a letter to the Senate Agriculture Committee
demanding funding investments in specialty crops when the 2012 Farm Bill come up for consideration before the Committee.
“We applaud Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Roberts for listening to their Senate colleagues and industry stakeholders by making important policy investments in the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012,” stated Guenther.
The legislation must now go to the full Senate for debate and votes, and then on to the House of Representatives for consideration, which is currently expected sometime this summer.
April 26, 2012
Yesterday, the Senate Agriculture Committee voted 16-5 to pass the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012. This marks the beginning of efforts to reauthorize the 2012 Farm Bill, which is set to expire on September 30, 2012. For the fresh fruit and vegetable industry and United Fresh members, this bill answers the call over the last year to continue to build on the investments made in the 2008 Farm Bill.
“While this is just the 'first inning' of a long and difficult Farm Bill process, it is extremely important that the Senate Agriculture Committee has confirmed what our members have been saying for quite a long time: investments in fruit and vegetable producers translate into a healthy industry – from field to table – while creating job opportunities and improved nutrition for consumers,” said Robert Guenther, senior vice president of public policy for United Fresh.
The Farm Bill proposal includes the following fruit and vegetable programs:
• Funding of $150 million annually for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable program
• Annual funding at $50 million per year for DoD Fresh program to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to schools and service institutions
• Investment of $70 million annually for the Specialty Crop Block Grant program
• The Specialty Crop Research Initiative was funded at $25 million per year ramping up to $50 million by 2017
• Increased funding of $60 million in 2013 up to $65 million 2017 for pest and disease management programs
• The Market Access Program ($200 million per year) and Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops ($9 million per year) were fully funded
• Hunger-Free Communities Grant Program for fruit and vegetable SNAP incentives was funded at $100 million over 5 years
• Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program was funded at $100 million over 5 years
• Section 32 specialty crop purchases funded at $406 million per year in mandatory purchases
As a member of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, United Fresh worked closely with key policymakers on the Committee and those with significant produce industry interests to secure support for several programs of particular importance to the fresh fruit and vegetable industry. This culminated on April 2 when 32 U.S. Senators sent a letter to the Senate Agriculture Committee
demanding funding investments in specialty crops when the 2012 Farm Bill come up for consideration before the Committee.
“We applaud Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Roberts for listening to their Senate colleagues and industry stakeholders by making important policy investments in the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012,” stated Guenther.
The legislation must now go to the full Senate for debate and votes, and then on to the House of Representatives for consideration, which is currently expected sometime this summer.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Study Points to Roles for Industry and Organics in Agriculture
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The New York Times
APRIL 25, 2012
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.
industry-and-organics-in-
A paper in this week’s issue of Nature reinforces the argument that a hybrid path in agriculture — incorporating both industrial-style production and organic practices where they make sense — gives the best chance of feeding some 9 billion people by midcentury with the fewest regrets.
The paper, “Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture,” is by a doctoral student, Verena Seufert, and the geography professor Navin Ramankutty, both of McGill University, and Jonathan Foley, the director of the Institute on the Environment of the University of Minnesota. They found that, over all, conventional farming methods produced 25 percent higher yields than organic techniques, but organic came close for certain crops in certain soils. The authors’ core conclusion?
[T]here are no simple ways to determine a clear ‘winner’ for all possible farming situations. However, instead of continuing the ideologically charged ‘organic versus conventional’ debate, we should systematically evaluate the costs and benefits of different management options. In the end, to achieve sustainable food security we will probably need many different techniques — including organic, conventional, and possible ‘hybrid’ systems —to produce more food at affordable prices, ensure livelihoods for farmers, and reduce the environmental costs of agriculture….
To establish organic agriculture as an important tool in sustainable food production, the factors limiting organic yields need to be more fully understood, alongside assessments of the many social, environmental and economic benefits of organic farming systems.
I caught up with Foley by e-mail, saying that the paper appeared to paint a picture in which cereals, particularly, benefit from fertilizer and the other inputs favored in large-scale farming, while specialty crops can offer smaller farming operations sustainable levels of income. Here’s his reaction:
We really need new “hybrid” approaches, taking the best of the conventional and organic paradigms, and deploying them when and where they make the most sense.
In this study we found that organic systems can compete very well with conventional farms when it comes to fruits and many kinds of vegetables. And they do very well (understandably) with legumes. That’s the good news for organic farming.
Where organic has a lot of ground to make up is in the major grains, especially staples like wheat and rice. There we found that organic farms have significantly lower yields than their conventional counterparts.. And since most of the world’s bulk calories come from these cereals, this is a really big deal.
Organic practices, as we know them today, just cannot produce the same volume of grain calories that conventional farms do on the same land base. That assumes, of course, that our goal is to grow calories — which is only one measure of food production and only one aspect of food security.
The bottom line? Today’s organic farming practices are probably best deployed in fruit and vegetable farms, where growing nutrition (not just bulk calories) is the primary goal. But for delivering sheer calories, especially in our staple crops of wheat, rice, maize, soybeans and so on, conventional farms have the advantage right now.
Looking forward, I think we will need to deploy different kinds of practices (especially new, mixed approaches that take the best of organic and conventional farming systems) where they are best suited — geographically, economically, socially, etc.
The New York Times
APRIL 25, 2012
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.
industry-and-organics-in-
A paper in this week’s issue of Nature reinforces the argument that a hybrid path in agriculture — incorporating both industrial-style production and organic practices where they make sense — gives the best chance of feeding some 9 billion people by midcentury with the fewest regrets.
The paper, “Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture,” is by a doctoral student, Verena Seufert, and the geography professor Navin Ramankutty, both of McGill University, and Jonathan Foley, the director of the Institute on the Environment of the University of Minnesota. They found that, over all, conventional farming methods produced 25 percent higher yields than organic techniques, but organic came close for certain crops in certain soils. The authors’ core conclusion?
[T]here are no simple ways to determine a clear ‘winner’ for all possible farming situations. However, instead of continuing the ideologically charged ‘organic versus conventional’ debate, we should systematically evaluate the costs and benefits of different management options. In the end, to achieve sustainable food security we will probably need many different techniques — including organic, conventional, and possible ‘hybrid’ systems —to produce more food at affordable prices, ensure livelihoods for farmers, and reduce the environmental costs of agriculture….
To establish organic agriculture as an important tool in sustainable food production, the factors limiting organic yields need to be more fully understood, alongside assessments of the many social, environmental and economic benefits of organic farming systems.
I caught up with Foley by e-mail, saying that the paper appeared to paint a picture in which cereals, particularly, benefit from fertilizer and the other inputs favored in large-scale farming, while specialty crops can offer smaller farming operations sustainable levels of income. Here’s his reaction:
We really need new “hybrid” approaches, taking the best of the conventional and organic paradigms, and deploying them when and where they make the most sense.
In this study we found that organic systems can compete very well with conventional farms when it comes to fruits and many kinds of vegetables. And they do very well (understandably) with legumes. That’s the good news for organic farming.
Where organic has a lot of ground to make up is in the major grains, especially staples like wheat and rice. There we found that organic farms have significantly lower yields than their conventional counterparts.. And since most of the world’s bulk calories come from these cereals, this is a really big deal.
Organic practices, as we know them today, just cannot produce the same volume of grain calories that conventional farms do on the same land base. That assumes, of course, that our goal is to grow calories — which is only one measure of food production and only one aspect of food security.
The bottom line? Today’s organic farming practices are probably best deployed in fruit and vegetable farms, where growing nutrition (not just bulk calories) is the primary goal. But for delivering sheer calories, especially in our staple crops of wheat, rice, maize, soybeans and so on, conventional farms have the advantage right now.
Looking forward, I think we will need to deploy different kinds of practices (especially new, mixed approaches that take the best of organic and conventional farming systems) where they are best suited — geographically, economically, socially, etc.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Blackberry Cold Damage?
Check Dr. Gina Fernandez's blogpost on the potential cold damage to blackberries tonight:
http://teamrubus.blogspot.com/2012/04/cold-weather-and-blackberry-and.html
http://teamrubus.blogspot.com/2012/04/cold-weather-and-blackberry-and.html
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Biopesticides and Resistance Management Webinar
This looks like a great webinar and one that I am sure many of you will find useful.
Biopesticides and Resistance Management
Used in partnership with traditional chemicals in an IPM program, biopesticides can prolong the efficacy of important crop protection products. Because of their unique modes of action, it is difficult for pests and pathogens to develop resistance to most biopesticides. Including biopesticides in the rotation of crop protection products can prevent or delay the development of resistance to all the products used.
When: April 26, 2012
2:00 - 3:00 pm EST
Speakers include:
Margaret Tuttle McGrath
Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology
Cornell University
Long Island Horticultural Research & Extension Center
Frank Sances
Founder and Director
Pacific Ag Research
Dr. Lerry Lacey
(Retired) USDA, ARS, Yakima Agricultural Research Laboratory
Wapato, WA
To register for the webinar go to: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/711422897
Biopesticides and Resistance Management
Used in partnership with traditional chemicals in an IPM program, biopesticides can prolong the efficacy of important crop protection products. Because of their unique modes of action, it is difficult for pests and pathogens to develop resistance to most biopesticides. Including biopesticides in the rotation of crop protection products can prevent or delay the development of resistance to all the products used.
When: April 26, 2012
2:00 - 3:00 pm EST
Speakers include:
Margaret Tuttle McGrath
Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology
Cornell University
Long Island Horticultural Research & Extension Center
Frank Sances
Founder and Director
Pacific Ag Research
Dr. Lerry Lacey
(Retired) USDA, ARS, Yakima Agricultural Research Laboratory
Wapato, WA
To register for the webinar go to: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/711422897
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