US corn’s gravy train faces derailment

Kieran Cooke in Climate News Network: ...One-third of cropland in the US is devoted to corn. It produces nearly 40% of the world’s corn, and a record harvest last year was valued at nearly $70 billion. But now there are warnings that this mighty agricultural edifice – which supports not only farmers, but a legion of food and animal feed, transport and other companies, big and small − could be seriously damaged by a changing climate.

To make matters worse, increasingly scarce water supplies could also have an adverse effect, and so too could the intensification of growing techniques − in particular, the overuse of  fertilizers and pesticides. A study by Ceres, a US not-for-profit group that lobbies for more environmental sustainability in the business sector, looks at the risks facing one of the country’s main industries.

States in the American Midwest and the Great Plains region – known as the Corn Belt − account for the bulk of corn production. But the study warns: “Record-breaking weather events – including prolonged drought, intense precipitation and high temperatures – are increasingly common in the Corn Belt and are negatively impacting corn yields and corporate profits.”

Floods in 2010/11 caused millions of dollars worth of crop losses in many areas. Lands were also degraded, and erosion increased. The following year there was drought, when the rains didn’t arrive and temperatures soared. “The 2012/13 drought exemplified the vulnerability of the US corn supply chain to extreme weather,” the study says.

The bulk of US corn output goes either to animal feed or to the production of ethanol fuels, with only 10% going to food processing. According to the report: “The 2012/13 drought had unusually severe financial impacts for many companies in the US corn value chain, hitting the meat and grain trading sectors particularly hard."....

USDA photo of cornfield residue in Kansas

French court says ‘non’ to genetically modified corn

France 24: France on Monday definitively banned the growing of genetically modified corn in the European Union's top grain producer, where a majority of people remain strongly opposed to foods based on genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

France’s left-wing majority senate approved a standing ban on MON810, a type of GM corn produced by agribusiness giant Monsanto, even though it has been cleared at European Union level, saying it poses a risk to the environment. The law had already been adopted by the lower house of parliament last month.

"This law aims to give a legal framework to our country, to ensure that a ban is applied," the French agriculture minister, Stéphane Le Foll, told the Senate at the start of the debate. France’s General Association of Corn Producers had asked the Council of State to weigh in on the parliament’s restrictions on GM corn, but the court also rejected their case on Monday.

The council said that the current ban on MON810 had not brought about an urgent economic crisis for the corn growers, as they had alleged. France adopted a decree in March halting the sowing of Monsanto's insect-resistant MON810 corn, the sole GM crop allowed for cultivation in the European Union.

The law also applies to any strain adopted at EU level in future, including the GM variety Pioneer 1507, developed jointly by DuPont and Dow Chemical. That product might be approved by the EU executive later this year, after 19 of the 28 member states failed to gather enough votes to block it....

Winslow Homer, "Corn Husking"

Increased drought portends lower future crop yields in US midwest

Newswise via North Carolina State University: Increasingly harsh drought conditions in the U.S. Midwest’s Corn Belt may take a serious toll on corn and soybean yields over the next half-century, according to research published today in the journal Science. Corn yields could drop by 15 to 30 percent, according to the paper’s estimates; soybean yield losses would be less severe.

North Carolina State University’s Roderick Rejesus, associate professor of agricultural and resource economics and a co-author of the Science paper, says that corn and soybean yields show increasing sensitivity to drought, with yields struggling in dry conditions in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana during the 1995 to 2012 study period.

“Yield increases are getting smaller in bad conditions,” Rejesus said. “Agronomic and genetic crop improvements over the years help a lot when growing conditions are good, but have little effect when growing conditions are poor, like during droughts.” U.S. corn and soybeans account for approximately 40 and 35 percent of global production, respectively, making the results important to the world’s food supply.

Using field data over an 18-year period, the researchers point to the effects of vapor pressure deficit (VPD) on corn and soybean yields. VPD includes
temperature and humidity measures; extremes at either end of this variable signify drought or too much water for crops. Akin to the sweet spot on a baseball bat, the best VPD condition is a value in its middle range.

Some 29 climate estimates modeled in the paper suggest that VPD will rise significantly over the next 40 years, bringing on more severe drought conditions. The researchers ran the same tests using the Palmer Drought Severity Index, another widely used measure capturing nationwide temperature and humidity, and reported similar results. They also ran the same tests for a broader group of Corn Belt states to include South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas. Those tests confirmed the results found in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana....

NASA image of crops growing in Kansas. Healthy, growing crops are green. Corn would be growing into leafy stalks by late June (when this photo was taken). Sorghum, which resembles corn, grows more slowly and would be much smaller and therefore, possibly paler. 

Study casts doubt on climate benefit of biofuels from corn residue

A press release from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Using corn crop residue to make ethanol and other biofuels reduces soil carbon and can generate more greenhouse gases than gasoline, according to a study published today in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The findings by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln team of researchers cast doubt on whether corn residue can be used to meet federal mandates to ramp up ethanol production and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Corn stover – the stalks, leaves and cobs in cornfields after harvest – has been considered a ready resource for cellulosic ethanol production. The U.S. Department of Energy has provided more than $1 billion in federal funds to support research to develop cellulosic biofuels, including ethanol made from corn stover. While the cellulosic biofuel production process has yet to be extensively commercialized, several private companies are developing specialized biorefineries capable of converting tough corn fibers into fuel.

The researchers, led by assistant professor Adam Liska, used a supercomputer model at UNL’s Holland Computing Center to estimate the effect of residue removal on 128 million acres across 12 Corn Belt states. The team found that removing crop residue from cornfields generates an additional 50 to 70 grams of carbon dioxide per megajoule of biofuel energy
produced. Total annual production emissions, averaged over five years, would equal about 100 grams of carbon dioxide per megajoule – which is 7 percent greater than gasoline emissions and 62 grams above the 60 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as required by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act.

Importantly, they found the rate of carbon emissions is constant whether a small amount of stover is removed or nearly all of it is stripped, the study found. “If less residue is removed, there is less decrease in soil carbon, but it results in a smaller biofuel energy yield,” Liska said.

To mitigate increased carbon dioxide emissions and reduced soil carbon, the study suggests planting cover crops to fix more carbon in the soil. Cellulosic ethanol producers also could turn to alternative feedstocks, such as perennial grasses or wood residue, or export electricity from biofuel production facilities to offset emissions from coal-fueled power plants. Another possible alternative is to develop more fuel-efficient automobiles and significantly reduce the nation’s demand for fuel, as required by the 2012 CAFE standards....

Corn stover in Calumet County, Wisconsin, shot by Royalbroil, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Brazil soy, corn production overcome drought

Seed Daily via AFP: Weeks of drought and heat have hit Brazil's soy and corn production, but the agriculture ministry on Tuesday still predicted a record 2014 harvest. Corn production is set to total 75.5 million metric tons, down from a January estimate of 79 million, state food supply agency Conab said in its monthly report.

Soy production will be 90 million tons, just off a January forecast of 90.3 million, and still 10.4 percent higher than last year, Conab said. For soy, grain and rice combined, Conab now expects 2013 to show a 3.6 percent increase overall, to 193.6 million tons.

Last month it had forecast a combined total of 196.7 million tons -- but January saw very low rainfall in much of the giant country. Brazil's Institute of Geography and Statistics gave its own 2014 forecast of 193.9 million tons, three percent up on last year's 188.2 million tons, which was, itself, the best return on record....

Soybean photo from the US Department of Agriculture

Understanding the continuous corn yield penalty

Seed Daily via SPX: As escalating corn prices have encouraged many farmers to switch to growing corn continuously, they wonder why they have been seeing unusually high yield reductions over the past several years. The University of Illinois conducted a six-year study that identified three key factors affecting yield in continuous corn (CC) systems.

"Prior to this study, the most common management recommendations for continuous corn production were to apply an additional 45 pounds of nitrogen per acre and reserve your best crop land for it," said U of I soil scientist and lead author Laura Gentry. "Very little was known about the agents or mechanisms causing reduced yields in continuous corn systems."

Although corn can be cropped continuously, it is widely accepted that there is a yield reduction compared to corn rotated with soybean (CS). This difference is referred to as the continuous corn yield penalty (CCYP), which is generally in the range of 20 to 30 bushels per acre. The 2012 growing season marked the third consecutive year of unusually high CCYP values in the U.S. Midwest, often with corn yields that were 30 to 50 bushels per acre less than corn following soybean.

…The researchers found that the best predictor of the CCYP was unfertilized CC yield. In years when unfertilized CC yields were relatively high, the yield penalty was low, and vice versa. Unfertilized CC yield is an indicator of how much N the soil is supplying to the corn crop, either from residual fertilizer N or from decomposition of previous crop residues and other organic matter (N mineralization)….

An Ohio corn field, shot by Graylight, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

Drought ready to deal another blow to US midwest corn, soy crops

Christopher Doering in the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader: After suffering through the worst drought in decades last year, farmers throughout South Dakota should brace for another round of hot and dry conditions in 2013, some weather forecasters warned.

However a new weather outlook will be released Thursday “which will have a little more indication of what the national folks are thinking,” says South Dakota Climatologist Dennis Todey. In the near term, “what we are seeing at this point indicates there will be some recovery in the spring, especially in the early spring, and more so in the eastern and northern parts of the state,” he says.

“As we get on into the summer, the message gets a little hazier. I will be curious to see what the outlook says,” Todey says.

As the spring planting season nears, forecasters have expressed concern that much of the Midwest could remain starved for moisture, though they caution it’s still too early to safely predict the weather several months out. The Midwest could see a late summer increase in rainfall, but the relief will be much too late to help farmers, according to one prediction from a University of Missouri researcher.

“The continuing conditions really look like they’re setting up for a very similar level of drought in the Midwest and West,” Roger Pulwarty, a director with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who focuses on drought, told lawmakers on the Senate Agriculture Committee....

From NASA, a satellite image of crops growing in Kansas in 2001, under better conditions than exist today

Preserving biodiversity can be compatible with intensive agriculture

Penn State Live: Preserving genetically diverse local crops in areas where small-scale farms are rapidly modernizing is possible, according to a Penn State geographer, who is part of an international research project investigating the biodiversity of maize, or corn, in hotspots of Bolivia, Peru and Mexico.

Hotspots are areas where cultivation of peaches and other non-traditional crops has exploded over the past decade, noted Karl Zimmerer, professor and head of the Department of Geography, and where small-scale farms are often female-run and have been previously regarded as marginal to mainstream agriculture.

"Peach-growing in central Bolivia is a vitally important income-generating strategy, even while farmers also desire and succeed in producing their Andean maize, both for eating and seed, as well as some sale," said Zimmerer, whose findings were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researcher analyzed small-scale farm, or smallholder, landscapes and their farming and livelihood practices, including labor migration and irrigation issues, from 2000 to 2010 over three areas within Bolivia's Valle Alto region. Farmers had low-to-moderate incomes by national standards.

Zimmerer and his colleagues surveyed land use among 174 smallholder households to assess production inputs and outputs of maize and peach crops. Among the factors they examined were farm-level management, varietal choices and water and soil management. Zimmerer designed this data collection and analysis to use with high-resolution satellite imagery and Geographic Information Systems. These techniques enabled him to create geographic models, maps and estimates of the areas devoted to intensified peach- and maize-growing.

Zimmerer also interviewed diverse groups of land users and officials to determine similarities and differences of perspectives on biodiversity in changing farming and food systems. In addition to determining the compatibility of traditional plants, or landrace, diversity and intensified agriculture, Zimmerer also addressed important links between migrant communities and smallholder farms.

"Many of these farmers rely on money sent back home from relatives abroad, primarily in the United States and Spain," he said. "This money is key to the farmers' ability to run successful smallholder farms and grow high agrobiodiversity maize."...

Terraced farms in Bolivia's Cordillera Central, shot by Christopher Walker, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Corn belt shifting north with climate change

Alan Bjerga in the Independent (UK) via the Washington Post: Joe Waldman is saying goodbye to corn after yet another hot and dry summer convinced him that rainfall won't be there when he needs it anymore.

...While farmers nationwide planted the most corn this year since 1937, growers in Kansas sowed the fewest acres in three years, instead turning to less-thirsty crops such as wheat, sorghum and even triticale, a wheat-rye mix popular in Poland. Meanwhile, corn acreage in Manitoba, a Canadian province about 700 miles north of Kansas, has nearly doubled over the past decade due to weather changes and higher prices.

Shifts such as these reflect a view among food producers that this summer's drought in the United States — the worst in half a century — isn't a random disaster. It's a glimpse of a future altered by climate change that will affect worldwide production.

"These changes are happening faster than plants can adapt, so we will see substantial impacts on global growing patterns," said Axel Schmidt, a former senior scientist for the International Center for Tropical Agriculture now with Catholic Relief Services. While there is still debate about how human activity is altering the climate, agriculture is already adapting to shifting weather patterns.

Agribusiness giant Cargill is investing in northern U.S. facilities, anticipating increased grain production in that part of the country, said Greg Page, the chief executive officer of the Minneapolis-based company. "The number of rail cars, the number of silos, the amount of loading capacity" all change, Page said in an interview in New York. "You can see capital go to where there is ability to produce more tons per acre."...

A 1941 shot by Irving Rusinow of Haskell County, Kansas. Loading shelled corn into an empty granary.

Midwest drought: how engineered corn saved some farmers from disaster

Richard Mertens in the Christian Science Monitor: ...Across the Corn Belt, farmers have expressed surprise that their corn endured drought as well as it did – much better, they say, than the varieties they planted just a decade or two ago. In Illinois, for example, one estimate suggests that corn farmers will lose one-quarter less of their crop than they did during the 1988 drought – in large part because of the seeds they planted.

Farmers are benefiting from decades of research in plant breeding combined with a growing interest in crops that can better tolerate drought and other stress. Indeed, research has shown that vulnerability to drought is one of the chief limits to crop production around the world. Meanwhile, gene mapping and other innovations have enabled scientists to develop new varieties with much greater speed and precision than before.

The results are startling, and have implications far beyond the the survival of one year’s harvest in the Midwest. In a world of rising temperatures and population, improvements in drought tolerance are especially urgent.

“We’re heading for 9 billion people in the future,” says Mitch Tuinstra, a researcher at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., who has worked on drought tolerance in corn and sorghum. “If climate change is important, and we have to double the amount of grains we produce, we have to think about how we’re going to adopt to conditions like those we had in the United States this year.”

The improvements are not a cure, say experts. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that farmers this year will harvest 13 percent less corn than last year, despite planting 4 percent more acres. “Drought can wreak a lot of havoc on crops, even today,” says Emerson Nafziger, a crop specialist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign....

This illustration is from "The Home and School Reference Work, Volume II" by The Home and School Education Society, H. M. Dixon, President and Managing Editor. The book was published in 1917 by The Home and School Education Society.

Portraits of drought: Corn growers hit hardest

Judy Keen in USA Today: The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated last week that U.S. farmers will harvest 10.7 billion bushels of corn this year, the smallest crop in six years and down 13% from 2011. Forty-one percent of the Illinois corn crop is rated very poor, and 34% is in poor condition. Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota and Indiana are the top-producing corn states.

Paul Bertels of the National Corn Growers Association says farmers are at a crucial moment. "They are going to start making planting decisions (for next year) when they step off the combine," he says, and they could face seed shortages.

Rain from Hurricane Irene last month "was about a month to six weeks late for us," Harvey says. The corn crop was already too far gone to be helped. But Irene's moisture and rain that has fallen since then did help the soybean crop, which hasn't been harvested here yet.

The rain revived the green in pastures, ditches and yards, Harvey says, but looks can be deceiving. "The scary thing with this drought is the implications are in the future," he says. Everyone hopes for a wet winter....

A cornfield near Penn Yann, New York, shot by Jlantzy (Jamie Lantzy), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

US farmers urge Obama administration to suspend ethanol quota amid drought

Suzanne Goldenberg in the Guardian (UK): The Obama administration was urged on Monday to stop diverting grain to gas amid warnings of an "imminent food crisis" caused by America's drought. US government forecasts of a 4% rise in food prices for US consumers because of the drought have sharpened criticism of supports for producing fuel from corn-based ethanol.

Meanwhile, research published last week by the New England Complex Systems Institute warned of an "imminent food crisis" because of the diversion of corn stocks to ethanol. "Necsi has warned for months that misguided food-to-ethanol conversion programs and rampant commodity speculation have created a food price bubble, leading to an inevitable spike in prices by 2013. Now it appears the "crop shock" will arrive even sooner due to drought, unless measures to curb ethanol production and rein in speculators are adopted immediately," the researchers warned.

In the latest move, the country's meat, dairy and poultry producers called on the Environmental Protection Agency to suspend this year's quotas for corn ethanol production.

"The extraordinary and disastrous circumstances created for livestock and poultry producers by the ongoing drought in the heart of our grain growing regions requires that all relevant measures of relief be explored," said the petition to the EPA's administrator Lisa Jackson.

It went on to warn that the requirement for corn ethanol production was further beating up corn prices, which were already at record levels because of the drought in the mid-west. "We are worried about having enough corn, soybean and other crops at any price to feed our animals," Randy Spronk, the president of the National Pork Producers Association told a conference call with reporters....

New Energy Corporation's ethanol plant in South Bend, Indiana, shot by cassini83, public domain

The world is closer to a food crisis than most people realise

Lester Brown in the Guardian (UK): In the early spring this year, US farmers were on their way to planting some 96m acres in corn, the most in 75 years. A warm early spring got the crop off to a great start. Analysts were predicting the largest corn harvest on record.

The United States is the leading producer and exporter of corn, the world's feedgrain. At home, corn accounts for four-fifths of the US grain harvest. Internationally, the US corn crop exceeds China's rice and wheat harvests combined. Among the big three grains – corn, wheat, and rice – corn is now the leader, with production well above that of wheat and nearly double that of rice.

The corn plant is as sensitive as it is productive. Thirsty and fast-growing, it is vulnerable to both extreme heat and drought. At elevated temperatures, the corn plant, which is normally so productive, goes into thermal shock.

... Not only is the current food situation deteriorating, but so is the global food system itself. We saw early signs of the unraveling in 2008 following an abrupt doubling of world grain prices. As world food prices climbed, exporting countries began restricting grain exports to keep their domestic food prices down. In response, governments of importing countries panicked. Some of them turned to buying or leasing land in other countries on which to produce food for themselves.

Welcome to the new geopolitics of food scarcity. As food supplies tighten, we are moving into a new food era, one in which it is every country for itself....

Irving Rusinow, Photographer (NARA record: 5307166), National Archives and Records Administration

Record heat wave devastates US corn and soy crops, drives food prices higher

Jaelithe Judy in Care 2: As a record heat wave baked the earth across the Midwestern United States this month, farmers in America’s bread basket looked on their bone dry fields and wilting crops with growing dread. This past June was the tenth driest on record in the U.S., creating severe drought conditions across several states, and the 10-day spell of unusual, unrelenting heat from the end of June through the first week of July significantly increased the stress on food crops already damaged by drought, including much of the nation’s corn and soy supply.

The United States is the world’s foremost producer of corn, one of the world’s most important food crops. Originally domesticated in Mexico, corn thrives in ordinary summer heat, and it can withstand occasional high daytime temperatures. But the temperatures during this heat wave were anything but ordinary for North America at this time of the year. With temperatures 10-20 degrees above average, the heat wave toppled more than 3,800 all-time records nationwide. Many areas experienced more than a week straight of daytime temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) and nighttime temperatures that failed to fall below the 80s.

...As a consequence of weeks of serious drought followed by severe high temperatures, U.S. corn farmers may be facing one of the worst crop losses in history. Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that heat and drought have significantly damaged the corn crop in 18 states, and nearly a third of the corn in those states is now rated in poor or very poor condition. Nationwide, only 40 percent of the corn crop is considered by the USDA to be in good condition.

Soybeans, too, have suffered during this season’s prolonged high temperatures. Monday fears of a significantly damaged 2012 crop pushed soy prices to an all-time record high.

Because the U.S. exports staple food crops to many other countries, the consequences of this year’s record-breaking hot dry summer will almost certainly push food prices higher not just within the country, but worldwide, for the rest of the year....

A scorched corn field near Jonesville, Louisiana, this one from August 2008, shot by Billy Hathorn, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Drought hits Argentine corn and soy crops

Seed Daily via UPI: Drought is claiming a heavy toll on Argentina's corn and soy crops, creating new problems for the economy amid an increasingly fraught confrontation between farmer groups and the government. Drought isn't a new threat to Argentine agriculture and has affected crops with varying severity over the past three years but officials said this year's yields could be the worst in 15 years.

Dry, hot weather conditions are blamed on La Nina, the weather phenomenon that is the opposite of El Nino. The last major La Nina phase began in mid-2007 and lasted through 2009 but its adverse effects returned in parts of Latin America in 2010 and in other parts in 2011.

Venezuela is another regional country affected by La Nina's vagaries. Drought-related yield reports from across the country earlier led the Agriculture Ministry in Buenos Aires to slash soy output forecast to 42.9 million tons. Economists from Argentina's Rosario grain exchange said they were revising the soy harvest estimates further downward -- from 40.9 million tons to 40.5 million tons for soy planted in the last season.

Rosario's latest figures represented a sharp revision of yield forecasts issued as recently as May and a drastic departure from earlier estimates that predicted soy yields of 52 million-53 million tons. Analysts said that continued drought conditions made it likely the yield forecasts could be revised again....

A soy field in Argentina, shot by Maggilautaro, public domain

Scientists complete most comprehensive genetic analysis of corn

National Science Foundation: An interdisciplinary team, led by researchers at Cornell University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), today published the most comprehensive analysis to date of the corn genome.

The team expects the achievement to speed up development of improved varieties of one of the world's most important agricultural commodities. The results should boost international efforts to increase yields, expand areas where corn can be cultivated and produce varieties better equipped to resist pests and disease.

Funded in the United States by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the USDA, the work was a collaborative effort by scientists at 17 U.S. and foreign institutions that include the University of Wisconsin-Madison; University of Missouri-Columbia; North Carolina State University; Beijing Genome Institute; University of California, Davis and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Mexico City, Mexico.

...The analysis could also help those who develop corn yields as a source of fuel, who manage crops in the face of changing climates and who are concerned about the diminishing supply of arable land and growing populations, he said.

...It is anticipated that the tools and approaches generated in this project will enable scientists to look at genetic differences in other organisms as they respond to global climate change, human disturbance and invasive species, Wingfield explained....

Analysis of corn genome could speed up efforts to produce varieties better equipped to resist pests and disease. Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation

Lime improves Kenya's maize harvest

Isaiah Esipisu in IPS: As the world’s worst food security crisis continues across the Horn of Africa, including in Kenya, some smallholder farmers in the western part of the country are still feeding their families with last year’s abundant harvest. This is thanks to an agricultural programme focusing on reviving the fertility of the soil in the region.

According to David Mbakaya, a soil scientist at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), early findings from on going research established that the soil in Western Province was too acidic for maize production due to climatic factors and the overuse of nitrogenous fertilisers. "From field trials we have discovered that the average Potential of Hydrogen (pH) levels in soil within the region stands at 4.5 – meaning that such soil can hardly support growing maize," said Mbakaya.

Scientifically, the neutral pH level, where it is neither acidic nor alkaline, is seven. Anything below seven is acidic, and above that is alkaline. However, maize can withstand mild acidity ranging from 5.5 to 6.5. Research scientists at KARI – Kakamega branch, with funding from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, encouraged farmers to neutralise their soil using lime - a soil additive made from pulverised limestone or chalk. It is cheaply available in Kenya.

"I tried liming my land for two seasons, and the results are astounding," said Isaac Ochieng Okwanyi, a 29-year-old father of two who began farming after he was evicted from Nairobi’s Mathare slum in 2008 following the country’s post election violence….

Maize on a Mount Kenya farm, shot by CIAT, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

GM corn being developed for fuel instead of food

Suzanne Goldenberg in the Guardian (UK): US farmers are growing the first corn plants genetically modified for the specific purpose of putting more ethanol in gas tanks rather than producing more food. Aid organisations warn the new GM corn could worsen a global food crisis exposed by the famine in Somalia by diverting more corn into energy production.

The food industry also opposes the new GM product because, although not inedible, it is unsuitable for use in the manufacture of food products that commonly use corn. Farmers growing corn for human consumption are also concerned about cross-contamination. The corn, developed by a branch of the Swiss pesticide firm Syngenta, contains an added gene for an enzyme (amylase) that speeds the breakdown of starches into ethanol. Ethanol plants normally have to add the enzyme to corn when making ethanol.

The Enogen-branded corn is being grown for the first time commercially on about 5,000 acres on the edge of America's corn belt in Kansas, following its approval by the US Department of Agriculture last February. In its promotional material Syngenta says it will allow farmers to produce more ethanol from the corn while using less energy and water.

Meanwhile, campaigners say the corn will heap pressure on global food supplies and contribute to environmental degradation. They argue Enogen will lead to an increase in the amount of food crops going to fuel, leaving less for human consumption and leading to food price rises. That will lead to food price rises on the global market. "The temptation to look at food as another form of fuel to use for the energy crisis will exacerbate the food crisis," said Todd Post of Bread for the World, a Christian anti-hunger organisation....

From the pre-GMO era, over time, selective breeding modifies teosinte's few fruitcases (left) into modern corn's rows of exposed kernels (right). Shot by John Doebley, from a PLoS One Journal, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license

Global warming puts Africa's maize crop at risk

Daily Mail (UK): A rise in temperature of just 1C during drought conditions could cut yields from three-quarters of Africa's entire maize crop by at least 20 per cent. Even with adequate rainfall, 65 per cent of the crop would suffer losses, scientists have warned. The research shows that maize, a staple food crop in many parts of the world, is far more vulnerable to global warming than had previously been thought.

Researchers combined data from 20,000 trials in sub-Saharan Africa with information from weather stations across the continent. 'The pronounced effect of heat on maize was surprising because we assumed maize to be among the more heat-tolerant crops,' said Dr Marianne Banziger, from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre based in El Batan, Mexico.

'Essentially, the longer a maize crop is exposed to temperatures above 30C, or 86F, the more the yield declines. 'The effect is even larger if drought and heat come together, which is expected to happen more frequently with climate change in Africa, Asia, or Central America, and will pose an added challenge to meeting the increasing demand for staple crops on our planet.'…

An ear of corn rendered by Spedona, Wikimedia Commons, under the Attribution-Share Alike Creative Commons3.0 Unported

Zanzibar study on drought-resistant maize seeds gets underway

Mwinye Sadallah in IPP Media via the Guardian: The government of Zanzibar has said that a research project on better maize seeds being conducted by scientists from five African countries will help to overcome drought and food shortages in the respective countries.

The remarks were made on Monday by Minister of State in the Second Vice-President’s Office Mohamed Aboud when opening a third meeting of scientists convened to assess the project, which focuses on getting better maize seeds that will withstand drought, known as Water-Efficient Maize for Africa (Wema).

He said since maize is being consumed in many African countries, obtaining drought-resistant seeds will help to increase production and overcome the problem of food shortages facing most countries in the continent.

“The government supports efforts being made by agricultural scientists in helping farmers to obtain better seeds, which would overcome climate change impacts, especially drought,” Aboud said.
He said the Isles government has started conducting research on getting better seeds for banana, coconut and fighting pests.

Aboud said in implementing the second phase of the Zanzibar strategy for growth and poverty reduction, agriculture has been given priority, including providing loans for farm implements to small-scale farmers to achieve the goal of strengthening agriculture….