Story from Gourmet.com
Faced with budget cuts, NASA plant researchers are turning their attention to this planet—and they could be shaping the future of agriculture. Plus, see the evolution of space food through the years.
Forty years ago this month, Apollo 10 astronauts spread “meat salad” on slices of white bread for a cosmic-cuisine “first”: the first sandwiches made in space. Up until that moment, food on NASA missions meant either dehydrated (freeze-dried) meals or bite-size, ready-to-eat foods that were consumed directly from their plastic packaging. None of it bore much resemblance to earthbound food, so fresh bread (which had made an illegal appearance in space once before, when astronaut John Young smuggled a corned-beef deli sandwich aboard the Gemini 3 mission in the ’60s) was a real treat.
Space snacking has come a long way since those days, to be sure. Astronauts now eat foods as varied as kimchi, beef enchiladas, and the occasional meal from Alain Ducasse, Emeril Lagasse, or Rachael Ray. But fresh produce is scarce and is limited to sturdy items like oranges and apples.
That all could change in coming years, as researchers perfect methods for what they hope will be the future of space food: cosmic gardening. The thinking is that fresh crops would sustain astronauts on long-term missions to the Moon and Mars, creating variety in their diets, helping reduce the high cost of replenishing food supplies, and providing both nutritional and psychological benefits (anecdotal evidence indicates that a diet of healthy, tasty foods and the presence of plants both help to decrease the stress of long missions). NASA’s plant growth experiments began in earnest during the 1990s, and gearing up for missions to the Moon and Mars was a NASA priority under President Bush, so the agency has put effort and funding behind horticultural research for the past two decades, with impressive results: Astronauts have successfully grown plants—including soybeans, potatoes, tomatoes, wheat, peas, and more—in space (though they haven’t made them a regular part of their diet yet), and earthbound researchers have experimented with growing additional species including peppers, strawberries, onions, and herbs in conditions that mimic those in space.
Now, due at least partially to funding cuts, many researchers are shifting their focus toward ways of making agriculture more sustainable here on earth—and their work has the potential to revolutionize farming worldwide, from major urban centers to remote desert and mountain villages.
Growing plants in space presents unique problems: The absence of wind and insects means some crops need to be pollinated by hand; natural light isn’t available inside space bases; crops can’t be too labor- or energy-intensive, as bases have limited manpower and natural resources; and of course there is no naturally available water source, so water efficiency is extremely important. According to Ray Wheeler, a plant physiologist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, scientists have been largely successful in tackling these challenges. “Over the years of testing, NASA-sponsored research has shown that you can push the yields of many crops beyond what people thought was possible—beyond world records,” he says, explaining that this increase in yield has been accomplished mainly by using high-intensity lighting, creating optimal CO2 environments for the plants, and growing them in hydroponic cultures.
Wheeler has done extensive research on lighting, specifically looking at LED lights (like the ones pictured above), which “are very convenient for little space chambers,” he says. “They don’t have mercury or vapor in them, and the high-quality ones last a long time,” which helps bring down the overall cost of crop production. LEDs are also cool to the touch, says Cary Mitchell, director of the NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training for Advanced Life Support at Purdue University—so unlike most conventional lights, LEDs can be placed very close to (or even touching) plants, providing a concentrated light source with minimal wasted light. Mitchell and colleagues have developed LEDs that can stand right next to plants and shed light under and around the leaves, instead of just lighting from above (he calls these LEDs “lightsicles” because of their vertical, icicle-like shape). “We’re able to run the LEDs at fairly low power, because it doesn’t take a lot of power to get the light levels we need to grow the crops,” Mitchell explains. He adds that different species of plants have slightly different light preferences, so “you could actually custom-develop a lighting array for plants that emits the colors that the pigments in those leaves prefer,” he says.
The hydroponic systems being developed for space can also be tailored to specific plants, which are grown in a soil-free, recirculating stream of nutrients housed within a growth chamber (the process is called nutrient-film technique, or NFT). And these crops could pull double duty as water purifiers: Research has shown that plants in NFT hydroponic cultures can process soap-containing water with minimal effects on plant growth. “You can take waste water and regenerate that into potable drinking water, as opposed to doing it with chemical means,” says Gene Giacomelli, director of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Program at the University of Arizona. If the system can also harness the oxygen generated by the plants and the CO2 generated by humans, it moves toward the “closed loop” that is the holy grail of space-life-support research. Giacomelli and Wheeler have found that in such a system, 50 square meters of plant-growth space per astronaut (about 538 square feet, roughly the size of a standard American hotel room) could provide half that person’s daily calorie requirements (the remainder would come from stored food), plus 100 percent of his or her fresh water needs and about twice the oxygen.
NASA sponsorship for plant-research projects has fallen away recently, and the agency could face further changes as a new administrator steps in and an independent committee begins to review NASA’s human space-flight plans; but some researchers are securing other funding sources and looking at how their work could be applied to Earth-based agriculture. For example, Mitchell—whose initial goal was to design a self-sustaining, closed-loop system for future space colonies on the Moon and Mars—has started to work on a project that would harness a wide variety of the NASA researchers’ achievements, and it could have a significant impact on earthbound agriculture. He is working with a Purdue colleague, Gioia Massa, to harness “waste heat” from industrial sites to warm the soil in cold climates, making it possible to grow crops year-round (see drawing below). At the coal-fired power plant on the Purdue campus, the team’s test site, hot wastewater is a byproduct of electricity generation; Mitchell and Massa are working to channel that water through underground pipes beneath a farm site to heat the soil. The field will be covered with “high tunnels” (cheap, bottomless plastic greenhouses that cost only about 15 percent of the price of a commercial plastic greenhouse) to trap the heat. If all goes well (the team is in the process of securing funds to finish the project and expect to test it with fruits and vegetables this winter), the project could be expanded to future applications at sewage-treatment plants and landfills, where CO2 and methane are additional byproducts. At those sites, Mitchell says, “We could inject both the heat and the carbon dioxide into the high tunnels to stimulate crop growth” and generate electricity from the methane to power LED lighting. “We intend to use the loop-closure principles that we've learned working with NASA so that we can have affordable, local production of fruits and vegetables,” he says. “We could produce food locally [in the winter] in New York, Indiana, Minnesota—because waste is produced everywhere.”
It’s an exciting prospect, and it points to a common thread in all of the NASA-sponsored plant research: controlled environments. As Mitchell explains, “The reason plants are so much more productive in a greenhouse—or better yet in a growth chamber, or better still with hydroponics in the growth chamber—[is because in those environments] they come much closer to their genetic potential for productivity.” While some commercial growers do use controlled environments, it’s a relatively small industry in this country. “The USDA hasn't historically had areas that cover controlled-environment agriculture,” says Wheeler. “The field growers of corn and soybeans have been very efficient at lobbying their case. But if you add up the [whole] greenhouse industry, it’s not insignificant—they just haven’t been as effective in lobbying the USDA.”
There’s a possibility that this could all change if these researchers get together with others in the field of controlled-environment agriculture, particularly urban farmers. Strange as it sounds, it just may be that for the local-food movement, space really is the final frontier.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Come On, Let's Go Space Farming
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Georgia Farmers: Swine Flu Hurt Pork Sales
Story from AJC.com
Georgia’s hog farmers feel the H1N1 virus, which was quickly labeled “swine flu,” slung a lot of mud on their industry.
Even though experts said immediately that people couldn’t catch the virus from eating pork, consumers cut back anyway because of a fluke in the naming of the flu. The virus is a combination of human, avian and swine flus, but it became known as “swine flu.”
Despite the federal government’s attempt to rename the flu, some markets saw a halt in pork sales as recently as last week.
It all spelled bad news for Georgia’s pork farmers.
Bill Smith of Smith-Healy Farms Inc. in Statesboro, which produces about 40,000 pigs a year, said prices for his hogs have fallen about 25 percent since the outbreak.
Smith and other hog farmers already were suffering because of higher feed costs driven by a surge in oil prices last year. When higher oil costs spurred an interest in ethanol as a fuel source, hog farmers saw their feed costs more than double as ethanol producers started gobbling up corn and soybeans to make fuel.
“When someone comes out and arbitrarily names something ‘swine flu’ when we’re already in a losing situation to begin with, it makes it extremely difficult,” Smith said.
Smith’s woes are playing out across Georgia’s $90.4 million pork industry, said John McKissick, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development.
Consumers, however, seem to have regained their taste for pork. Glynn Jenkins, a spokesman for Kroger’s Atlanta division, said the grocery chain’s pork sales have stabilized after a dip at “the height of initial media reports about the H1N1 virus.”
McKissick said it’s too soon to tell what the long-term impact of H1N1 will be. But he said several factors will determine the pork producers’ future: ongoing consumer response to the flu, grain prices and reaction from countries that buy U.S. pork. About 20 percent of U.S.-grown pork is exported. More than a dozen nations banned U.S. pork after the flu outbreak.
If reaction to the flu drags out — or increases in the fall when it is expected to return — then “there would probably be further cuts in the industry,” McKissick said.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
New Lawn Mower? Wait For Your Tax Credit
Story from the Wall Street Journal
If you’re thinking of buying a new mower, trimmer or garden tiller, it might be worth waiting. Yesterday, three congressional delegates from Vermont introduced legislation that, if passed, would offer consumers a 25% tax credit up to $1,000 toward the purchase of environmentally-friendly lawn, garden or forestry power equipment.
The bill titled “Greener Gardens Act” (every pun intended presumably) is the brainchild of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and is designed to provide “immediate incentive for people to purchase clean, alternative fuel engines that…operate on little or no fossil fuel.” Qualifying equipment would include that powered by a motor drawing current from solar, electricity or rechargeable or replacement batteries, as well as equipment run off other alternatives to gasoline–such as propane or compressed natural gas. It would also include “hybrid” machines whose cutting systems are powered by a generator or electrical storage device combines with a small engine.
While such equipment is still not widely available compared to gas-operated machines, more well-known brands such as Troy-Bilt, Cub Cadet, Ariens, Husqvarna, and Black & Decker– among others–have been adding non-gasoline fueled products to their lineup in recent years. One notable constituent of the bill’s authors is Neuton Inc. of Vergennes, Vt., which makes battery-powered mowers (pictured here) and yard tools.
The bill was endorsed by the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, a trade association, which says it will push for any final legislation to include provisions for the commercial market as well as for homeowners.
Tax credits are gaining fast traction as a way to help fuel President Barack Obama’s clean energy agenda. Right now, there are lucrative incentives in place for making energy-efficient home improvements. They include up to $1,500 in tax credits for adding qualifying windows, doors, insulation, roofs, heating and cooling equipment, water heaters and even wood and pellet stoves to your house in 2009 and 2010. Perks for installing pricier solar technology, small wind-energy systems or a geothermal-well system include a tax credit of 30% of qualifying expenditures with no upper limit through 2016.
Readers, are you investing in any energy-efficient home improvements or environmentally-friendly lawn equipment this year? Do these tax credits make such upgrades more appealing?
Minnesota Moves To B5, Upping Standard, Benefit
Story from Biodiesel Magazine
Minnesota is again leading the nation in the charge to keep valuable jobs in the U.S., decrease dependence on foreign oil and lessen environmental impacts. The state is the first to require that diesel fuel contain a 5 percent blend of homegrown, renewable biodiesel.
“Increasing biodiesel in our diesel fuel allows us to take advantage of a renewable fuel made in Minnesota, which in addition to being environmentally responsible also adds to our state's bottom line,” said Ed Hegland, a Minnesota soybean farmer and chairman of the National Biodiesel Board. “I'm proud to live in a state that is leading energy innovations and taking part in valuable solutions like biodiesel.”
Biodiesel is a sustainable, renewable alternative to diesel fuel that reduces greenhouse gases and other emissions, and is nontoxic and biodegradable. Biodiesel contains no petroleum, but it can be blended at any level with petroleum diesel. Blends can be used in most diesel engines with few or no modifications.
“This standard empowers the citizens of the state to support Minnesota's economy and use less foreign oil,” said Joe Jobe, National Biodiesel Board CEO.
Blends of up to 5 percent biodiesel (B5) are legally categorized as diesel fuel, eliminating any operational or potential warranty concerns. B5 also boasts premium performance characteristics and when properly handled, will perform just like diesel.
The biodiesel industry works closely with the petroleum industry and offers many resources regarding biodiesel use in cold climates. Biodiesel’s cold weather performance is well documented. It is safe to use up to a 20 percent blend of high quality biodiesel year-round, in even the coldest of climates. Biodiesel will gel in cold weather, just like regular diesel fuel. But biodiesel blends can be treated for winter use in similar ways that No. 2 diesel is treated. Cold weather concerns are greatly diminished with lower blends like B5.
Some early concerns with the Minnesota B2 requirement were overcome through enhanced quality control, and the program has been a biodiesel success story ever since. Last winter, officials in the Bloomington school district wrongly blamed biodiesel for buses' cold weather operating problems. An independent study and the Minnesota Department of Commerce confirmed B2 did not cause the malfunction.
According to analysis from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, the state’s B2 Fuel Standard added an average of just 4/10 of a penny to the cost of a gallon of diesel during the last three years.
Minnesota was the first among what is now a roster of states that also recognize the countless benefits of biodiesel and have introduced usage requirements of cleaner burning, domestically produced biodiesel. Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, New Mexico and Massachusetts have also passed biodiesel requirements.
Minnesota is already home to excellent fuel quality enforcement requirements, proven and tested under the state's B2 standard. The National Biodiesel Board vigorously supports enforcement of quality standards. The NBB has an aggressive fuel quality outreach and enforcement program, funded primarily by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the United Soybean Board.
Last year U.S. biodiesel production approached 700 million gallons, supported 51,893 jobs in all sectors of the economy, added $4.287 billion to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product and reduced greenhouse gas emissions the equivalent of removing 980,000 vehicles from U.S. roads.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Statement From The AFB
Statement by Bob Stallman, President, American Farm Bureau Federation, Regarding Earth Day 2009
Story from Voice for Agriculture
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 17, 2009 – “America’s farm and ranch families are dedicated to caring for our planet. They are ethical caretakers of the land and water resources that help make our nation’s bounty possible. On this Earth Day, more and more farmers are joining the conversation about environmental stewardship, and with good reason. Through modern conservation and tillage practices, farmers and ranchers are reducing the loss of soil through erosion, protecting the quality of our lakes and rivers and in the process enriching the earth.
“Today, it is possible for farmers and ranchers to produce more food than ever before on fewer acres with fewer inputs. These things are possible through the use of modern farming tools, such as global positioning satellites, biotechnology and conservation tillage. Thanks to a successful partnership with our government, as of January 2009, farmers had enrolled 33.6 million acres of their land in the Conservation Reserve Program to protect the environment and provide habitat for wildlife. In fact, more than half of America's agricultural producers intentionally provide habitat for wildlife, which has significantly increased many populations.
“Farmers are planting trees at record rates. And renewable fuels that they grow, such as ethanol and biodiesel made from corn, soybeans and other crops, are not only beneficial to the environment but are poised to play a significant role in promoting a greater degree of energy security for the United States. The American Farm Bureau Federation is proud of our nation’s farmers and ranchers for their dedication to caring for the planet as they engage in the hard work of helping provide food, fiber, shelter and renewable energy for our nation and the world.”
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Tobacco Growers Consider Nationwide Checkoff
Story from the Southeast Farm Press
A farmer-operated organization with the mission of promoting the export of American leaf of all types may be just a few steps from becoming a reality.
First, a formal proposal to the United States Secretary of Agriculture must be prepared, describing a strategy to provide the funds needed to aggressively target high-potential markets for U.S. tobacco overseas.
Once developed, the proposal will go to the secretary. If he approves, tobacco growers will get a chance to vote in a referendum to indicate it they want to generate funding through a checkoff.
An initial amount of 20 cents per 100 pounds has been suggested for the checkoff, and “U.S. Tobacco Export Council” has been suggested as a name of the organization.
The president of the North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation told farmers in March the referendum could perhaps be held late in 2009 but more likely in 2010.
Larry Wooten said at the annual meeting of Tobacco Associates, an export promotion group for flue-cured growers, that the secretary’s approval is no sure thing. And of course, farmer approval of the referendum is no sure thing either.
A working committee of economists has been formed to flesh out the proposal to the secretary, he said.
“They are taking the points of consensus that farmers have arrived at and putting ‘meat on bones of the skeleton’,” said Wooten.
Participating are Dan Stevens, retired U.S. Department of Agriculture economist; Blake Brown, North Carolina Extension economist; Will Snell, Kentucky Extension economist, and Daniel Green, chief operating officer for Burley Stabilization Corporation and formerly an economist at the University of Tennessee.
If this initiative gets to the point of a referendum, Wooten thinks it might be carried out through Farm Service Agency offices.
He thinks the expense wouldn’t be too much of an obstacle to growers.
“We aren’t talking about much,” Wooten said in a subsequent interview. “At 20 cents per 100 pounds and at a yield of 3,000 pounds per acre, that would come out to about $6 an acre. That isn’t much for a crop that is grossing $4,000 an acre. I believe this export promotion assessment is good value for dollars spent.”
Promoting the quality of American tobacco to potential customers could be a great help to farmers, considering that 60 percent of flue-cured tobacco and 80 percent of burley is exported, he said.
Wooten is cautiously optimistic about the eventual fate of the checkoff. “If leaf tobacco export is going to continue as it has for the last 50 years, we are going to need a joint effort among the different types of tobacco,” he said. “I think the chances are better the farther we go in this direction.
“The organizations that are involved in this are trying to put a package out there and let the growers decide.”
He said he expects tobacco manufacturers and leaf dealers will be solidly behind this. The assessment would probably be collected at the first point of sale which would be the leaf receiving stations.
He expects that growers of all tobacco types — from flue-cured in Florida to cigar leaf in Massachusetts and all in between — will have the opportunity to benefit from promotion efforts if they approve the checkoff.
In another presentation at the Tobacco Associates meeting, leaf dealer Rick Smith of Wilson, N.C., said that this year, the domestic demand has dropped much more dramatically than anticipated by the trade.
“I expect that even though the export buyers may increase a little, the decline in domestic off-take will be more than the increase in exports can absorb,” said Smith, owner of Independent Leaf Tobacco Company, among thriving Wilson real estate. “I look for a net reduction in pounds of perhaps 15 percent instead of the 3 percent or 4 percednt we have been seeing.”
He predicted that 2009 leaf prices will be lower than — but still very close to — last year’s.
“I expect no more than five cents a pound less,” he said. “I believe the 2009 prices are high enough to attract as much production as last year. But the companies don’t seem to want or need (that much),” he said.
There definitely haven’t been enough contract pounds offered to make flue-cured farmers happy this year, said Smith.
As a result, Smith suggests more uncontracted tobacco may be planted this year than in any year since deregulation.
“There might be more flue–cured grown off contract this year than in the past, as farmers bet the companies didn’t contract enough to meet their needs,” he said. “This might also apply to burley, whose growers are much more accustomed to off-contract production.”
The biggest news at the Tobacco Associates meeting was its location: For the first time ever, the annual meeting of Tobacco Associates was held outside of Raleigh, N.C. That’s because the bylaws of the organization had required the meeting be held in the state’s capital.
But those bylaws were recently amended to allow more flexibility in choosing a meeting venue. The Wilson County Agricultural Center was the choice this year, and the results were good.
“Having our meeting in the growing area gave more growers the opportunity to get a chance to participate,” said Charles King, director of state affairs for Tobacco Associates. “It made it more attractive and easy for growers to attend, and getting the farmers there is our objective.”
King said it is a definite possibility the next meeting might be held again in some city in the growing area, either in Wilson or some other location.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Farm Workers' Rights, 70 Years Overdue
As Posted to the New York Times
It is more than bank failures and rising unemployment that give these troubled times echoes of the 1930s. An unfinished labor battle from the New Deal is being waged again.
The goal is to win basic rights that farm and domestic workers were denied more than 70 years ago, when the Roosevelt administration won major reforms protecting other workers in areas like overtime law and disability pay, days of rest and union organizing.
That inequality is a perverse holdover from the Jim Crow era. Segregationist Southern Democrats in Congress could not abide giving African-Americans, who then made up most of the farm and domestic labor force, an equal footing in the workplace with whites. President Roosevelt’s compromise simply wrote workers in those industries out of the New Deal.
They were thus sidelined from the labor movement, with predictable results. Though the Dixiecrats have all long since died or repented, the injustice they spawned has never been corrected. Poverty, brutal working conditions and legally sanctioned discrimination persist for new generations of laborers, who are now mostly Latino immigrants.
In New York, advocates are pressing for passage of the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act, which would give these workers the rights that others have long taken for granted, as well as seek badly needed improvements in safety and sanitary conditions in the fields. Domestic workers, meanwhile, are seeking a “Bill of Rights” in Albany covering things like overtime pay, cost-of-living raises and health benefits.
A separate effort begun last week seeks to end these stubbornly lingering injustices for workers in all states by fixing federal law. It was announced on Cesar Chavez’s birthday by old lions of his movement, including Jerry Cohen, who as general counsel of the United Farm Workers helped win passage of a landmark 1975 California law that secured unprecedented rights for the state’s farm workers. The campaign has been joined by a growing number of labor groups and immigrant advocates, like Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, which represents migrant workers in the Midwest and North Carolina.
In both campaigns, advocates are counting on a changed political landscape to help their cause. But even with Democrats controlling the New York Legislature, the farm worker bill has languished. It faces fierce opposition from growers and has been eclipsed by the entropy and fiscal crises of Gov. David Paterson’s Albany. In Washington, labor advocates are preoccupied by different battles, like the fight for the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act. Other long-sought immigration reforms have taken a back seat to the budget and health care.
But farm workers are used to long, hard slogs and pitiless heat and cold, with justice as their distant but inevitable destination. The advocates see President Obama and Governor Paterson as ideal candidates to take them there, and are not about to give up. “Any just national labor law reform must include farm workers and domestics,” Mr. Cohen wrote to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, stating an obvious and compelling truth. “If not now, when?”Saturday, April 4, 2009
Barney Frank And Ron Paul Find Common Ground: HR 1866
As Originally Posted to SFGate.com
Liberal Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who made a fine show in the GOP presidential primaries last year, find common ground today on hemp farming:
Their new bill, "The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009 otherwise known as HR 1866, would remove restrictions on the cultivation of non-psychoactive industrial hemp. They claim nine other sponsors, nearly equally divided between the parties.
"It is unfortunate that the federal government has stood in the way of American farmers, including many who are struggling to make ends meet, from competing in the global industrial hemp market," said Paul, adding that some of the Founding Fathers who grew hemp themselves "would surely find that federal restrictions on farmers growing a safe and profitable crop on their own land are inconsistent with the constitutional guarantee of a limited, restrained federal government."
Eric Steenstra, president of the group "Vote Hemp" added that with all the recent discussion about Mexican drug wars, "it is surprising that the tragedy of American hemp farming hasn't come up as a no-brainer for reform," calling the plant "a versatile, environmentally-friendly crop that has not been grown here for over 50 years because of a politicized interpretation of the nation's drug laws by the Drug Enforcement Administration. President Obama should direct the DEA to stop confusing industrial hemp with its genetically distinct cousin, marijuana." He said jobs "would be created overnight, as there are numerous U.S. companies that now have no choice but to import hemp raw materials worth many millions of dollars per year."
According to Vote Hemp, U.S. companies that manufacture or sell products made with hemp "include Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a California company who manufactures the number-one-selling natural soap, and FlexForm Technologies, an Indiana company whose natural fiber materials are used in over two million cars on the road today. Hemp food manufacturers, such as French Meadow Bakery, Hempzels, Living Harvest, Nature's Path and Nutiva, now make their products from Canadian hemp. Although hemp now grows wild across the U.S., a vestige of centuries of hemp farming here, the hemp for these products must be imported. Hemp clothing is made around the world by well-known brands such as Patagonia, Bono's Edun and Giorgio Armani."
Under current drug policy, industrial hemp can be imported, but U.S. farmers are not allowed to grow it. "The DEA has taken the Controlled Substances Act's antiquated definition of marijuana out of context and used it as an excuse to ban industrial hemp farming," Steenstra said.
Recession, Layoffs Hit John Deere
As Posted at the Ottumwa Courier The layoffs will impact production workers with the least seniority and are effective April 20. “It is all about attempting to manage the cost of the business and we are committed to producing the number of products the market place is demanding,” said Ken Golden, company spokesman based in Moline, Ill. The reduction comes because of “reduced market conditions for the factory’s products,” the company said in a news release. Employees at the factory were told of the indefinite layoffs Tuesday afternoon. “We’re not in a position to determine whether or not more layoffs at any plant are going to be made or whether or not conditions improve and we call people back,” Golden said. “We are hopeful that conditions improve.” John Deere Ottumwa Works produces balers, mower conditions, windrowers and harvesters used by hay and livestock producers. There are about 1,000 total employees, 730 of them are production workers, Golden said. Last month the company said the Ottumwa plant could be shut down for up to 10 weeks this summer. The plant shuts down for at least two weeks during the summer, but the shutdown often gets extended based on inventory adjustments. The company shuts plants temporarily based on market demand for the products they produce. Golden said extended summer shut down is typical at the Ottumwa plant because they produce a seasonal product. The amount of time the Ottumwa plant will be closed this summer has not been determined and will not be effected by the layoffs, Golden said. He does not know when that will be decided. Deere & Company announced 325 layoffs last month in the construction and forestry division, which includes plants in Dubuque and Davenport.
OTTUMWA — Deere & Company announced Tuesday that 40 employees at the John Deere Ottumwa Works will be laid off.
Whole Foods Successful During Economic Downturn
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Whole Foods Market Inc. have skyrocketed more than 90% so far this year, as investors have cheered moves taken by the organic-grocery chain to cut expenses and improve sales during this current downdraft in consumer spending.
As Originally Posted to Market Watch
Analyst Scott Mushkin said the upscale grocer may face sales headwinds from a tax-rate hike on the upper-middle class in California and from ones proposed in New York and New Jersey. California raised its sales tax Wednesday by 1%, applicable to ready-to-eat hot foods.
