[GoghGoner]

I have been meaning to see how much propane was used this past October when compared to historical records... Yield stats do not factor in corn not actually being available, AFAIK.

Impact of late, wet harvest might be felt well into 2010

Corn and soybeans aren’t rotting on the ground or in bins. But there is a possibility some of last fall’s crop will still be drying when the fall 2010 harvest comes in, said Robert Ramsey, one of the family owners of Ramsey Grain in Berry.

“These last two years have been a bear,” Ramsey said Friday, as he fired up two propane-fueled dyers attached to concrete silos. “We’re usually not running dryers this time of year, but last year we were drying corn all summer,”
...
The prolonged demand also contributed to a temporary propane shortage, because farmers, homeowners and commercial customers were all trying to purchase the fuel at the same time last fall.

[GoghGoner]

Saw this story on the ABC national news last night -- didn't know that 80% of Florida tomato crop was ruined this winter. Usually strong La Nina years are worse than strong El Nino years on crop production, however, with the most negative Arctic oscillation in history, I wonder...

Freeze in crops leaves fast-food chains in a major bind

Burger King restaurants across the country have been running out of tomatoes sporadically for the past week, and that’s likely to continue in the wake of the freeze that devastated Florida’s tomato crop last month. The freeze hit growers at a time when the state normally would be supplying tomatoes for the majority of the Eastern seaboard.

Older statistics for context:

U.S. Tomato Production Trends

While Florida is the single largest producer of fresh-market tomatoes (1.45 billion pounds in 2007), the state has lost market share to other U.S. producers, who increased their production by 305.6 million pounds since 1991. Imports, however, have taken a far greater share of the market from Florida producers, increasing by 1.565 billion pounds since 1991.

The Florida tomato industry produced 1.455 billion pounds of fresh tomatoes in 2007 on 38,200 acres, with a total value of $464.24 million. An estimated 90% of Florida tomatoes are shipped out of state. Because of multiplier effects from these sales, the total output impacts were estimated at $997 million. Direct employment in the industry was estimated at 2,987 full-time and part-time jobs, and total employment impacts were estimated at 8,231 jobs. The labor (earned) income impact of employee wages and benefits and business proprietor income was estimated to be $299 million. Indirect business tax affects to local, state, and federal governments were $30 million.

[hillsidedigger]

Even with favorable weather it's a safe bet that world food production will plummet over the next several decades.

[GoghGoner]

India’s Monsoon May Have a ‘Better’ Start This Year (Update1)

“We expect the favorable onset to benefit early-season development, which is important, so the Indian crop is expected to come in higher than last year,” Ferrari said. “But we are not expecting a return to the 22-23 million tons range until the following year.”

Sugar had its biggest annual advance since 1974 last year as heavy rains and drought pared harvests in Brazil and India, the largest growers, and forced buyers from Egypt to Mexico to seek supplies from overseas. Futures reached 30.4 cents on Feb. 1, the highest since January 1981.

The El Nino weather phenomenon, which caused dry weather from Philippines to India last year, may fade and its impact on monsoon showers may wane, Weather Trends’ Ferrari said.

[GoghGoner]

One of my metrics on judging the effect of peak oil on civilization is the price of cotton. I figure with declining inputs to make plastics from oil then that would put a lot of pressure on cotton growers. It seems a warmer climate would be good for increased production, however, this winter has proved we can have hot global temperatures averages and very cold weather in certain regions like the southern United States. Weather extremes are dangerous for crops. Anyway, cotton is at record highs.

This numbers are unverified (doesn't matter replacing plastic is a huge hurdle to overcome, perhaps, bigger than the transportation problem):
Plastic bags and oil consumption

Plastic bags are made from oil: it takes about 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million plastic bags, and the U.S. goes through 380 billion of them a year.

A statistics class at Indiana U did the math: more than 1.6 billion gallons of oil are used each year for plastic bags alone. The more we use plastic bags, the more we waste oil.

Nicosia: 10.1 million cotton acres not enough

The foreign production deficit for 2009-10, which is the difference between foreign production and consumption outside the United States, is expected to be 13.3 million bales, Nicosia said. “In a perfect world, this would be what the U.S. export number is.

In 2008-09, the number was 22 million bales, but instead of that being the export potential for the United States, China and India liquidated their excess stocks to fill the deficit. “They can’t do that this year. And if China or India has a poor crop, the impact on the United States and our price will be substantial.

“It’s time to make a deal,” Nicosia said. “Cotton has the smallest world crop in six years, the lowest stocks in six years, a major recovery is taking place in world demand and the carryout has no room for error going forward.”

[GoghGoner]

Australia farmers fight miners for fertile soils

The miners, including the world's biggest, BHP Billiton, and China's state-owned Shenhua Corp, are pushing into prime farmland northwest of Sydney in search of coal to meet burgeoning demand from Chinese steel mills and power stations.

Their inexorable advance has doubled land prices in the region over the last five years, a price jump that threatens to tighten global supplies of high quality wheat, including the durum variety used to make pasta, as farmers accept high offers from miners and quit their land.

[GoghGoner]

India has been blessed this winter and SE Asia has been cursed with the El Nino setup.

India to Decide on Ending Wheat Export Ban Next Week

India, the second-biggest grower of wheat and rice, will next week discuss lifting a ban on exports of the grains to pare growing stockpiles, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said.

Drought in Southeast Asia impacting millions, costing billions

The drought affects five provinces in China, as well as the countries of Myanmar, Thailand, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Viet Nam. Rainfall has been well below normal, devastating crops and fires are a growing problem. The rainy season is anticipated to begin in May, and officials hope that will spell the end to the drought. The drought has been so severe that river water levels are at lows not seen for 50 years, possibly longer. Higher than normal temperatures have been sending people to hospitals, and there has been an increase in insect predation of the region's major food crop, rice.

[GoghGoner]

Brazil has the second highest output of soybeans behind the USA.

Rains prompt Brazil to lift soy estimate - again

"When you combine all the costs associated with transporting soybeans out of Mato Grosso to export facilities, it accounts for nearly 50% the total cost of producing soybeans," consultancy Soybean & Corn Advisor said.

"For every 10 bushels of soybeans produced, five bushels goes to just covering transportation costs."

[eXpat]

The coming famine: risks and solutions for global food security

Most of us have by now heard the forecast there will be 9.2 billion people in the world of 2050. But current projections suggest human numbers will not stop there – but will keep on climbing, to at least 11.4 billion, by the mid 2060s.

Equally, the world economy will continue to grow – and China, India and other advancing economies will require more protein food.

Thus, global demand for food will more than double over the coming half-century, as we add another 4.7 billion people. By then we will eat around 600 quadrillion calories a day, which is the equivalent of feeding 14 billion people at today’s nutritional levels.

The central issue in the human destiny in the coming half century is not climate change or the global financial crisis.
It is whether humanity can achieve and sustain such an enormous harvest.

The world food production system today faces critical constraints. Not just one or two, but a whole constellation of them, playing into one another – and serious ones.

This is the great difference from the global food scarcity of the 1960s. Then the constraints were around skills and technology – and the generous sharing of modern agricultural knowledge and technology in the Green Revolution was able to overcome them.
Today the world faces looming scarcities of just about everything necessary to produce high yields of food – water, land, nutrients, oil, technology, skills, fish and stable climates, each one playing into and compounding the others.

So this isn’t a simple problem, susceptible to technofixes or national policy changes.

It is a wicked problem.

The first of these issues is the looming global scarcity of fresh water.

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features/20101804-20862.html

[Ludi]

the generous sharing of modern agricultural knowledge and technology in the Green Revolution was able to overcome them.

Which led to a population boom which may be impossible to feed by any means.

[dohboi]

Good points. It should have been a Family Planning Revolution, a Female Education Revolution, and a Lowering Per-capita Consumption Revolution (especially in the developed world).

Have you read any Vindana Shiva? Her new book "Food and Oil" covers some of this, and she's been a long-time critic of the Green Revolution (and lots else about Western industrial agriculture).

[Ludi]

Vandana Shiva is one of my heroes.



http://www.vandanashiva.org/

[GoghGoner]

Hell, this guy must of got his reasoning from Phil Flynn. China has been suffering a drought that is predicted to leave at least 8 million hungry in the country. Nothing to do with supply and demand, though.

China Won’t Tolerate Corn Price ‘Surge,’ Grain Official Says

The country has “ more than enough” corn to meet demand, with just a third of stockpiles ample to cover current consumption, said Zeng, without elaborating. Price gains have been caused by market speculation and do not reflect the fundamental supply and demand situation, said Zeng,

[timmac]

Is it toxic rain from the oil or what ??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXlC7gvvJZw

[sparky]

.
hard to say , there is new pests ,diseases or what not all the time .
some of the old curses are still around and mutate resistant strains
it's like TB or malaria , get on top of it and some new ones appears
It's a fully natural phenomena of survival selection

[timmac]

Oil Spill in the Apocalypse ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGqc-uABits

[jbrovont]

True...however, if the news cast is correct this doesn't sound like a typical "pest." Usually when a new pest or parasite moves in, it affects a narrow range of species that it favors as easy hosta. Plants have a wide variety of biochemistries between species that tend to afford them different resistance levels to different types of attack.

I'm inclined to look into wind and precipitation maps for the last few days and cross-reference with where this is being reported.

.
hard to say , there is new pests ,diseases or what not all the time .
some of the old curses are still around and mutate resistant strains
it's like TB or malaria , get on top of it and some new ones appears
It's a fully natural phenomena of survival selection

[jbrovont]

I've been looking over various radar and satellite loops and what history I can find, but I haven't seen anything conclusive that points to direct precipitation of Corexit or other VOC rain having caused this.

That said, that may be the case, however I have two objections:

1) This appears to be an isolated incident. The area is significantly inland, and there appears to have been precipitation between this point and the gulf. Since there haven't been other reports in the precipitation areas, it seems, again, isolated where I would expect any area having precipitation from systems drawing from the gulf to have some effects.

2) Since the well has been flowing over two months, the effected area of contamination is very large, and this is the first report we're seeing, it is very hard to determine where a system would be drawing contaminated air from in order to rain these chemicals down on this area. The air contamination is also not homogeneous, or contained directly over the spill area. It would be helpful to be able to see historical loops and wind maps starting with the date of the destruction of the DWH, but I'm having trouble finding anything that goes back that far.

Neither of these arguments can disprove the Corexit or other VOC rain theory, however I think to make a positive correlation we need to address both. Unfortunately for the first, all we can do is wait.

[pup55]

(sigh)

The TV station that did the report is in Memphis, which is 350 miles away from the GOM.....

There are plenty of nasty operations in the bottomlands along the Mississippi in that part of the country that could have caused this mess....Paper mills, a refinery, I think, chemical operations.....

http://www.scorecard.org/env-releases/land/county.tcl?fips_county_code=47157#rankings

According to this resource this place is on the bad end for land pollution.

Crop dusting, i.e. spraying pesticides and herbicides from airplanes is still common in that part of the country. This could easily be the result of some dimwit leaving the cap off of the tank of Roundup when he took off....

I hope someone checks back on this story when the analysis comes back from the USDA and it is found to be the work of stupidity, rather than eco disaster.

Not that there won't be an eco disaster at some point in this tragedy, but it is unlikely that this is it. Probably better not panic yet.

[timmac]

UPDATE :

FedEx Plane Possibly Behind Mystery Crop Damage

That's what they are saying, does it sound correct or is there a cover up ??

"I don't know what the precise altitude was when the fuel was released, but we believe it was about 5-thousand feet, where almost all of the fuel should have evaporated before making ground contact," said Lane.

Experts agree, it should have evaporated, but obviously something happened. The Dept. Of Agriculture does not think there'll be any long-term damage, however after our investigation FedEx said it plans to address the issue in a "responsible and fair manner".

http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-crop-dama ... 2601.story