News

IRDA inaugurates organic agriculture research site in Québec

The Research and Development Institute for the Agri-Environment (IRDA) has inaugurated the Organic Agriculture Innovation Platform (OAIP). Located on a 90-ha piece of land, it is the biggest organic agriculture research site in Québec and Canada.

The Deputy Premier, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and Minister responsible for the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region, Mr. François Gendron and the Minister of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology, Mr. Pierre Duchesne spoke at the event.

The OAIP brings together 34 partners who will have access to the site’s high-tech infrastructure for carrying out research and development, transfer, training and public awareness activities related to organic crop production.

As Pierre Lemieux, president of IRDA’s Board of Directors, explains, the OAIP was developed in response to repeated calls from Québec’s agricultural community. “Québec imports 70 percent of the organic products it consumes. If we want to reverse this trend, we will have to come up with strategic tools to improve crop production practices. The results of the research conducted by the Organic Agriculture Innovation Platform will serve as a springboard for increasing production of local organic products.”

At a time of climate change, new challenges lie ahead for organic farmers, such as the emergence of insects previously unable to survive winter. Thanks to the OAIP, Québec researchers now have access to specialized equipment and services for conducting crucial research on these new realities.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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Cornell breeder develops disease-resistant tomatoes

In the battle against thrips, Cornell breeder Martha Mutschler-Chu has developed a new weapon: a tomato that packs a powerful one-two punch to deter the pests and counter the killer viruses they transmit.

The “dual resistant” insect and virus varieties may reduce or even eliminate the need for pesticides in several regions.

Thrips are tiny insects that pierce and suck fluids from hundreds of species of plants, including tomatoes, grapes, strawberries and soybeans. They also transmit such diseases as the tomato spotted wilt virus, causing millions of dollars in damage to U.S. agricultural crops each year.

Adapting a novel form of insect resistance discovered in a wild plant native to Peru, Mutschler-Chu, professor of plant breeding and genetics, first isolated the resistance. She found that it was mediated by droplets of sugar esters, called acylsugars, that are produced and exuded from hairs (trichomes) that cover the plants. The acylsugars don’t kill the insects, but deter them from feeding or laying eggs on the plants. The process does not require genetic modification and is completely safe.

Source: Cornell Chronicle

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LEDs reduce costs for greenhouse tomato growers, study shows

Tomatoes grown around LED lights in the winter can significantly reduce greenhouse energy costs without sacrificing yield, according to a Purdue University study.

Cary Mitchell, a professor of horticulture, said the average tomato is shipped about 1,500 miles from warmer climates where they’re grown to cooler climates that cannot produce the fruit cost-effectively in the winter. That journey is costly, however, because tomatoes are picked green and ripen during shipping, decreasing quality and flavor. The lengthy shipping distance also adds to the industry’s carbon footprint.

“It makes it really hard for the greenhouse industry to grow tomatoes well in the offseason. We’re trying to change that and make it affordable,” Mitchell said.

Energy costs drive up prices for producers who might want to grow tomatoes in greenhouses in states that have winters inhospitable to growing food. Greenhouses must be heated, and shorter, overcast days require costly lighting.

Mitchell and doctoral student Celina Gómez experimented with light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which are cooler and require far less energy than traditional high-pressure sodium lamps used in greenhouses. They got the same yield — size and number of fruit — with high-pressure sodium lamps and LED towers, but the LEDs used about 25 percent of the energy of traditional lamps.

The scientists think that the method could have other advantages because the cooler LEDs can be placed much closer and along the sides of plants, lighting not only the top, but also the understory.

“The leaves are photosynthesizing on the lower parts of the plants, and that may be helping with the plant’s energy,” Gómez said. “We’re getting the high intensity of the LEDs close to the plants because they’re not hot like a high-pressure sodium lamp. If you put one of those close to the plants, you’d scorch it.”

Source: Purdue Agriculture News

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SGS Canada Inc. to certify CanadaGAP food safety program participants

CanadaGAP, the national food safety certification program for fresh fruit and vegetable operations, has added a new certification body for the program, SGS Canada Inc. 

SGS joins QMI-SAI Global, NSF-GFTC and Bureau de normalisation du Québec (BNQ) in the list of available certification bodies for CanadaGAP. 

Third-party certification bodies are licensed by CanadaGAP to provide audit and certification services for fresh fruit and vegetable operations enrolled in the program. Program participants must comply with food safety standards outlined by the program and undergo and successfully complete on-site audits in order to become CanadaGAP-certified. Several Canadian buyers, including Loblaw Companies Limited, McCain Foods Canada, Simplot Canada and Lamb-Weston, are requiring that growers become certified under the CanadaGAP Program.

New participants to CanadaGAP are asked to indicate their chosen certification body on the program enrollment form. Companies that are already CanadaGAP-certified may transfer to a different certification body, subject to certain restrictions.

Source: CanadaGAP

For moe information about enrolling in CanadaGAP, visit the CanadaGAP website at www.canadagap.ca.
 

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Transplant Decision Tool now available for growers

As demand for local and organic produce rises, vegetable growers face the challenge of scaling up the size of their operations. A new online tool provides information to growers in the Upper Midwest about the methods and equipment available for transplant production.

The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture awarded a grant to the Iowa Organic Association in 2010 to compile the online tool. Chris Blanchard, organic farmer and consultant at Flying Rutabaga Works (www.flyingrutabagaworks.com), visited nine organic and conventional operations of different sizes to interview growers about their transplant systems.

Producing transplants is one way for a farm to mitigate risk and extend the growing season. Transplants are germinated and grown in a controlled environment and then replanted in the field. The online tool provides information about options, challenges and costs for every step of this process, from choosing a growing tray to designing an irrigation system to ‘hardening’ the plants for field conditions.

“I’ve noticed that as vegetable growers scale up their production, they often move through several different transplant production systems, and the components of their old systems often aren’t compatible with their new systems,” Blanchard said. “I hope that this tool helps expanding produce growers in Iowa and other states to forecast the transplant system they want to end up with, so that they can make the appropriate investments.”

Amber Mba, executive director of the Iowa Organic Association, said the tool will help its members meet the needs of expanding markets for local foods. “We hope this tool will help their growing farms to be more productive and profitable,” she said.

The tool includes profiles of six vegetable farms in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, as well as photo galleries of infrastructure, equipment and crops. A one-page matrix summarizes the costs, skill level, benefits and drawbacks of various options for transplant equipment

Blanchard has presented the tool to vegetable growers at several conferences, including the Iowa Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, the Great Plains Growers Conference in St. Joseph, Missouri, and the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) conference in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

The Transplant Production Decision Tool can be found on the Leopold Center website as well as the Iowa Organic Association website at www.iowaorganic.org/transplant-decision-tool.
 

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Florida tomato growers file lawsuit

Although the Department of Commerce and Mexican tomato growers agreed on an updated suspension agreement for imported tomatoes in March, Florida tomato farmers are now contesting the deal.

The suspension agreement, which suspends an anti-dumping duty investigation by the U.S. government, raised the floor prices on tomatoes imported from Mexico. There has been a suspension agreement in place since 1996. Florida growers don’t think the floor prices are high enough.

“Farming is one of America’s most important industries and most enduring ways of life,” said Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange. “Tomato farmers in Florida and across America can compete favorably in a market that is both free and fair.”

The Florida Tomato Farmers’ lawsuit with the US. Court of International Trade argues that the agreement does not comply “with federal laws designed to ensure fair trade on imported goods.”

“Since day one, we have simply been seeking to have any suspension agreement negotiated by the Commerce Department with the Mexican exporters comply with the very specific provisions of U.S. law. We don’t believe that the recently concluded suspension agreement does,” said Brown.

Source: supermarketnews.com.

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USDA suggests new fees at Canada-U.S. border

Canadian manufacturers fear even more fees may be looming at the Canada-U.S. border as the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends revenue-generating measures that could result in higher costs.

In a presentation to stakeholders in the U.S. capital this week, the department suggested new border fees because some federal agencies, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection, are currently providing free services at America’s borders.

CPB works in collaboration with the USDA’s agriculture quarantine and inspection program, which provides checks of imported agricultural goods and commercial aircraft, rail cars, ships and even passenger baggage to prevent harmful pests, diseases and materials from entering the U.S.

“Approximately $191 million in CPB costs are associated with services for which no fee is currently charged,” the department’s presentation stated.

U.S. federal agencies “need to recover all costs associated with fee services and have fee revenue from each fee service cover the associated costs.”

In conclusion, it said: “Consider establishing new fees.”

Source: globalpost

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Freight Farms introduces scalable farming platform for growing leafy greens

A new product out of of Boston could soon blur the lines between what’s considered in season and what isn’t. Freight Farms has introduced a scalable farming platform that can produce food at a commercial volume, all locally. It is a “turnkey system for sustainable commercial farming,” according to the company.

Freight Farms founders Jon Friedman and Brad McNamara have worked together since 2005, both with a desire to eliminate unnecessary costs in food production. They started working with rooftop greenhouses using hydroponics but soon realized these systems weren’t very viable for business owners.

“The greenhouses weren’t as efficient,” Friedman says. Many people questioned the greenhouses because of the unused headspace. So they started looking at different, more efficient ways for businesses and individuals to do local agriculture.

Friedman and McNamara got the idea for Freight Farms from Puma City, a retail shop made of 24 shipping containers that travels to different cities and can be disassembled and reassembled.

“The more we looked into it, we put the pieces together and saw it as a way to grow plants,” Friedman says.

The Freight Farms containers are made using recycled, insulated freight containers sized 40 feet long by eight feet wide and 12 feet tall. The containers are used to build an infrastructure that includes hanging and bracketing.

Read the rest of the story at bit.ly/10inu03.