Organic goes to court
It was inevitable that when organic agriculture reached enough sales volume, the industry would begin to organize according to scale. No movement is immune to the market. And now, in a scandal ensnaring some of the nation’s leading retailers, a series of lawsuits have been filed accusing Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, Safeway and Wild Oats of consumer fraud for marketing suspect organic milk.

The legal filings come on the heels of class-action lawsuits against Aurora Dairy Corporation, based in Boulder, Colo. The suits against Aurora and the grocery chains allege consumer fraud, negligence and unjust enrichment concerning the sale of organic milk.

The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based organic watchdog, is leading the charge. “Aurora was taking advantage of the consumer’s good will in the marketplace toward organics, and the USDA has allowed this scofflaw-corporation to continue to operate,” said Cornucopia’s Mark Kastel.

Attorneys seek damages to reimburse consumers harmed by the company’s actions. Some of the lawsuits request that the U.S. District Courts put an injunction in place to halt the ongoing sale of Aurora’s organic milk in stores until it can be demonstrated that the company is complying with federal organic regulations.

Mark Pepperzak, Aurora CEO, said the allegations are based on false information and completely unfounded. Aurora officials figure their business has yet to be affected by the high-profile controversy.

Stay tuned. Big money in organics is anathema to many of who hold organic agriculture as a philosophy rather than a market. If you like a bit of drama with your organic wheat flakes, 2008 shall be a joy.

That otter help
Pond owners might see river otters in a better light now that a longer trapping season has pulled down otter numbers. Since 1982, when the Missouri Department of Conservation launched its restoration efforts for otters, the wily critters have proved adaptable to much of the aquatic habitat in the state, including stocked fishponds and fishing lakes.
And while the reintroduction has been dubbed a success, rocketing otter populations offered MDC a new problem. Landowners don’t like poachers, regardless of how furry and cute they might be.

In response, MDC adjusted the trapping season to better manage the state’s otter population by zones. Based on population estimates, biologists calculate that trappers are taking between 16 and 40 percent of the otters annually in a north study area and 30 to 50 percent in an Ozark study area. Otter numbers seem to be declining slowly in some Ozark streams as a result of trapping.

Meanwhile, down on the Roubidoux Creek in Texas and Pulaski Counties, MDC has recorded dramatic otter decline through trapping and, in result, fish populations showed an increase.

“Fish in small Ozark streams face other problems, such as gravel burying their habitat, low stream flows and pollution,” said MDC Private Land Field Programs Supervisor Rex Martensen. “Yes, otters do impact fish populations, especially in smaller headwater streams. However, in larger streams with sufficient habitat, otters’ effect seems to be minimal.
We still have a lot to learn about how the presence of otters, and other factors, such as gravelling in, water quality and changes in seasonal stream flows, interact to affect fish.” He said the Conservation Department will continue to work toward management strategies that allow river otters to coexist with people.

Ag indicators
What would FMD cost in the feedlots of Kansas?
An outbreak of foot and mouth in the feedlots of Kansas would cost the state in excess of $200 million. Livestock sales and movement would be stopped. Meat sales would halt. K-State researchers say that a scenario in which 20,000 head of cattle were exposed to the disease in a large feedlot would require some 407,000 animals to be destroyed. The researches estimate the outbreak would last 39 days and cost $140 million in regional economic damage and $199 million statewide. In a scenario that involved intentional release of FMD at several large feed lots, those costs go up to $685 million for the region and about $1 billion for the state.

Digging through soybeans of the past
For all the crop’s versatility, soybeans sit atop a narrow genetic base that some researchers contend could leave it vulnerable to exotic new diseases or insect pests such as the Asian aphid, which was first detected in Wisconsin in 2000.

Researchers at the ARS Soybean Genomics and Improvement Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, are looking for efficient ways to uncork this so-called genetic bottleneck in today’s soybean crop by using genetic resources preserved at another ARS facility in Urbana, Ill.

Two events in soybean’s history are thought to have caused the genetic bottleneck: use of only a few introduced precursor beans, called “landraces,” to form the genetic base of the American soybean crop in the mid-20th Century, and a focus on selectively breeding soybeans for pest resistance, seed-quality traits and productivity above all else.
One way to widen the genetic base of U.S. soybeans is to use many more landraces in hopes that they would contain genes to ward off future new diseases or insect pests.

A more modern approach, said the scientists, is to anticipate an exotic pest’s or pathogen’s arrival by going to the region where it is problematic and seeking out protective genes in tolerant varieties.

This is where the USDA soybean germplasm collection at Urbana comes in. The collection includes more than 17,000 landraces from Asia and other locations as well as the wild soybean, Glycine soja, which is the progenitor of the modern soybean, Glycine max. The team’s research confirms the value of these critical genetic resources but also shows the importance of being highly selective in their use.

After examining variations in the DNA sequences and in alternate gene forms called “alleles,” the researchers concluded that the difference in genetic diversity between today’s beans and their landrace founders was statistically insignificant. But the U.S. beans lacked many of the alleles found in the wild soybeans, which suggests that a significant genetic bottleneck occurred when Asia’s first farmers began domesticating the legume thousands of years ago.

Numerous published reports document searches for new genes offering pest resistance in soybean. In almost all cases, such protective genes occur in less than 1 percent of USDA’s Asian landrace collection. The beauty of the USDA collection is that it may hold accessions from the pest’s area of origin that harbor genes for resistance not found in the U.S. crop.

Premise ID on the rise
U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has recorded 429,600 premises registered nationwide—with substantial increases this year in the number of premises registered as part of the National Animal Identification System. Recently, Nebraska became the tenth state to register at least 50 percent of its total estimated production agriculture premises under this system.

Nebraska officials attribute the increased registrations in part to a significant number of visits to its Locate in 48 Web site (www.locatein48.com). While Locate in 48 is built for a select few states, it explains the main goal of NAIS, which is to retrieve trace back data within a 48-hour window to contain the spread of animal disease.

Other states that have topped the 50-percent mark include Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Utah and Wisconsin. West Virginia is approaching the 50 percent mark.

Other states, including Delaware, Iowa and Massachusetts, have reached the 40 percent mark and double-digit registration gains have occurred this year in a number of states.

The United Kingdom’s most recent outbreak of FMD was curbed by an up-to-date trace system and clearly outlined protocol for animal movement in the event of an outbreak. Still, some 250,000 animals were culled due to FMD in 2007.
The NAIS is a streamlined information system that helps producers respond quickly to animal disease events. There are an estimated 1.4 million production premises in the United States.

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