University of Gothenburg news release

 

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have developed several new varieties of wheat that tolerate soils with higher salt concentrations. After having mutated a wheat variety from Bangladesh, they now have a wheat with seeds that weigh three times more and that germinate almost twice as often as the original variety.

 

The wheat, which grows in fields near the coast in Bangladesh, has a certain tolerance to salt in soils, which is important when more and more farmland around the world is being exposed to saltwater.

 

By mutating the wheat seeds from these coastal fields, researchers at the University of Gothenburg were able to develop approximately 2,000 lines of wheat. The 35 lines that germinated the best at different field and lab experiments were planted in an automated greenhouse in Australia, where different saline concentrations were applied to the plants that were then weighed. They were photographed each day until the wheat had formed its ears.

 

The findings were striking. Genes for salt tolerance identified

 

“We developed wheat lines where the average weight of the seeds was three times higher and that germinated more often than the original wheat from Bangladesh,” says Johanna Lethin, a doctoral student at the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Gothenburg.

 

Using DNA analyses and studies of other research, the team was also able to identify what genes control salt tolerance in the wheat plant.

 

“This is a milestone in our research. Now we have a couple of genes we know are involved in salt tolerance. The next step is to test if these genes are also in our best wheat varieties that we have mutated into existence.”

 

2,000 hectares lost per day

 

The Earth’s population is growing and in 2050, there will be 10 billion people on the planet who all need to be fed. At the same time, climate changes are causing the Earth’s arable land to dry up and other areas to be flooded by rising seas. All this increases interest in a crop that can tolerate salt in soil.

 

“It is incredibly important to try to develop a salt-tolerant variety with good yields. Currently, we are losing approximately 2,000 hectares a day to rising seas and improper irrigation methods that increase soil salinisation.”

 

Global potential

 

Some experiments remain to do, but the potential in this discovery is global. Today, about 8 per cent of the world’s arable land is no longer usable for crops because of salt contamination and more than half of the world’s countries are affected. In Egypt, Kenya and Argentina, wheat cannot be grown on large areas and even low-lying areas of Europe, like the Netherlands, have these problems. Even in those parts of Asia where rice is currently the dominant crop, salt-tolerant wheat will become an important part of the future food supply since wheat farming requires much less water than rice.

 

“The next stage is to plant the salt-tolerant varieties in fields in Bangladesh. I would estimate that it will take about five years before we can have commercial production of salt-tolerant wheat, depending on how the field tests go.”

 

Thesis: Mutagenesis in wheat: An approach to make saline green!

Emory University news release

 

Climate change will make the U.S. Corn Belt unsuitable for cultivating corn by 2100 without major technological advances in agricultural practices, an Emory University study finds.

 

Environmental Research Letters published the research, which adds to the evidence that significant agricultural adaptation will be necessary and inevitable in the Central and Eastern United States. It is critical that this adaptation includes diversification beyond the major commodity crops that now make up the bulk of U.S. agriculture, says Emily Burchfield, author of the study and assistant professor in Emory’s Department of Environmental Sciences.

 

“Climate change is happening, and it will continue to shift U.S. cultivation geographies strongly north,” Burchfield says. “It’s not enough to simply depend on technological innovations to save the day. Now is the time to envision big shifts in what and how we grow our food to create more sustainable and resilient forms of agriculture.”

 

Burchfield’s research combines spatial-temporal social and environmental data to understand the future of food security in the United States, including the consequences of a changing climate.

 

More than two-thirds of the land in the U.S. mainland is currently devoted to growing food, fuel or fiber. And about 80 percent of these agricultural lands are cultivated with just five commodity crops: Corn, soy, wheat, hay and alfalfa.

 

Previous research based on biophysical data has established that climate change will adversely affect the yields of these crops. For the current paper, Burchfield wanted to investigate the potential impacts of climate change on cultivation geographies.

 

She focused on the six major U.S. crops that cover 80 percent of cultivated land in the United States: Alfalfa, corn, cotton, hay, soy and wheat. She drew from historical land-use data classifying where these crops are grown and publicly available data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Geographical Survey, the WorldClim Project, the Harmonized World Soil Database and other public sources.

 

Using these data, she built models to predict where each crop has been grown during the 20 years spanning 2008 to 2019. She first ran models using only climate and soil data. These models accurately predicted — by between 85 and 95 percent — of where these major crops are currently cultivated.

 

Burchfield ran a second set of models that incorporated indicators of human interventions — such as input use and crop insurance — that alter biophysical conditions to support cultivation. These models performed even better and highlighted the ways in which agricultural interventions expand and amplify the cultivation geographies supported only by climate and soil.

 

Burchfield then used these historical models to project biophysically driven shifts in cultivation to 2100 under low-, moderate- and high-emission scenarios. The results suggest that even under moderate-emission scenarios, the cultivation geographies of corn, soy, alfalfa and wheat will all shift strongly north, with the Corn Belt of the upper Midwest becoming unsuitable to the cultivation of corn by 2100. More severe emissions scenarios exacerbate these changes.

 

“These projections may be pessimistic because they don’t account for all of the ways that technology may help farmers adapt and rise to the challenge,” Burchfield concedes. She notes that heavy investment is already going into studying the genetic modification of corn and soy plants to help them adapt to climate change.

 

“But relying on technology alone is a really risky way to approach the problem,” Burchfield adds. “If we continue to push against biophysical realities, we will eventually reach ecological collapse.”

 

She stresses the need for U.S. agricultural systems to diversify beyond the major commodity crops, most of which are processed into animal feed.

 

“One of the basic laws of ecology is that more diverse ecosystems are more resilient,” Burchfield says. “A landscape covered with a single plant is a fragile, brittle landscape. And there is also growing evidence that more diverse agricultural landscapes are more productive.”

 

U.S. agricultural systems incentivize “monoculture farming” of a handful of commodity crops, largely through crop insurance and government subsidies. These systems take an enormous toll on the environment, Burchfield says, while also supporting a meat-heavy U.S. diet that is not conducive to human health.

 

“We need to switch from incentivizing intensive cultivation of five or six crops to supporting farmers’ ability to experiment and adopt the crops that work best in their particular landscape,” she says. “It’s important to begin thinking about how to transition out of our current damaging monoculture paradigm toward systems that are environmentally sustainable, economically viable for farmers and climate-smart.”

 

Burchfield plans to expand the modeling in the current paper by integrating interviews with agricultural policy experts, agricultural extension agents and famers. “I’d especially like to better understand what a diverse range of farmers in different parts of the country envision for their operations over the long term, and any obstacles that they feel are preventing them from getting there,” she says.

Source: joint organization news release

 

Washington, D.C. - In a letter to President Biden, 54 agricultural groups expressed grave concern with a recent amicus brief submitted by the U.S. Solicitor General to the Supreme Court advising the court against taking up a case regarding pesticide labels.

 

The groups, including:

 

*American Farm Bureau Federation,

 

*American Soybean Association,

 

*National Corn Growers Association,

 

*National Association of Wheat Growers,

 

*National Cotton Council, and

 

*American Sugarbeet Growers Association,

 

They are listed in full here in the letter, called on the president to swiftly withdraw the brief. They warned the new policy would set a dangerous precedent that threatens the science-based regulatory process. The groups are worried this new policy, along with having environmental impacts, could ultimately hinder the ability of U.S. farmers to help meet growing global food needs intensified by the invasion of Ukraine.

 

In the May 10 brief, the Solicitor General advised the court against taking up a case concerning whether state pesticide labels can conflict with federal labels.

Brad Doyle, soy farmer from Arkansas and president of the American Soybean Association, stated, "Federal law is clear that pesticide labels cannot be false or misleading. Allowing states to require health warnings contrary to decades of sound science is beyond disturbing and obviously not in line with federal law. I and other farmers are concerned this new policy will open the floodgate to a patchwork of state labels that will undermine grower access to safe, effective pesticides needed to farm productively and sustainably."

 

At question is whether the state of California can require a cancer warning label for the popular herbicide glyphosate when thousands of studies, decades of robust scientific consensus, and numerous global regulatory bodies-including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-agree the herbicide is not a carcinogen.

 

The new position expressed by the Solicitor General is a stunning reversal from previous, bipartisan administrative policy. The brief asserts federal law and regulations do not prevent states from imposing their own labeling requirements, even if those labels run counter to federal findings.

 

"Supplying wheat to the world is more important than ever given the unprecedented times with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Together, Russia and Ukraine make up one-third of the world's wheat exports, and the disruptions we are seeing will certainly impact food supply," said National Association of Wheat Growers President and Washington wheat farmer, Nicole Berg. "Aside from the war, U.S. wheat growers are experiencing extreme weather conditions threatening the quality of their crops this year. 75% of the winter wheat production in the U.S. is in a severe drought. NAWG is concerned this new policy would undermine access to safe and effective crop protection tools that play a critical role in helping feed the world."

 

AFBF President Zippy Duval said, "Farmers utilize science-backed crop protection tools on their farms to produce safe, nutritious food. Allowing labels that conflict with existing conclusions and EPA studies will add to a greater misunderstanding of the crucial role pesticides play in enabling farmers to grow healthy, affordable food for America's families."

 

Nate Hultgren, sugarbeet farmer from Minnesota and president of the American Sugarbeet Growers Association said, "Farmers can't meet consumers' food security needs and help address climate change if the safe crop protection products we use and desperately need are undermined by the states. Allowing states to supersede federal pesticide labeling requirements will create massive uncertainty, confusion and add to significant supply chain disruptions."

 

"In the coming months, farmers will have to work even harder to address worldwide food shortages, and a patchwork of state regulations will jeopardize access to the critical farm supplies they need," said National Corn Growers Association President Chris Edgington. "We hope the Biden administration will reverse its position on this issue."

 

The groups call on President Biden to withdraw the brief. They also encourage the president to consult with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to better understand the implications of this decision for science-based regulation, as well as food security and environmental sustainability.