Farmers hiring legal migrant workers often deal with visa application delays, report says

Farmers who expect to face a shortage of agricultural workers during a season can apply for federal H-2A visas, which allow migrant workers from other countries to live and work legally in the U.S. Recently released Government Accountability Office data shows there are major flaws with the application process. While 90 percent of applications were approved in 2011, 37 percent were processed after the deadline, including 7 percent that were approved less than 15 days before workers were needed. (Good Fruit Grower photo: H-2A worker picks apples)

Delays in processing gives employers little time to complete the second phase of application and for workers to get visas. They can apply for visas online, but most of the H-2A process requires paper handling, which contributes to delays, the GAO said. Employers who need workers at different times during the season must repeat the entire application process for each set of workers. Farm employers say new rules implemented last year are causing the delay, even though the agencies in charge of it say they can't pinpoint why delays happen.

The GAO was asked to examine the program by the Departments of Labor, Homeland Security and State for aspects that create problems for employers, and how federal agencies have addressed those challenges. GAO found that federal agencies are trying to improve the application process through electronic systems, but those improvements have been delayed. It recommends the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security implement their electronic application systems and use them to collect data about the delays. It says the agencies should use that information to streamline the process. (Read more)

Lots of money spent on agriculture research, but not very much on rural community development

The amount spent on agricultural biotechnology research has exploded over the past 30 years, but very little is spent on understanding how rural people and communities can survive, according to new research from the Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.

"We spend billions of dollars trying to understand how crops and animals live, but only a smidgen on how humans and their communities can grow and develop," Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder writes. It's understandable, he writes, that private businesses invest money in research and development that will earn high private returns, according to the economists who wrote the report, at least. However, a 2001 survey found that three-quarters of private crop breeding investments went to just three commodities: corn, soybeans and cotton, Bishop reports.

From 1980 to 2010, research spending by seed and biotech companies increased to more than $2 billion from $100 million. There was no increase in spending on social and community development research. "And that may be one reason why we know a heck of a lot about how to grow corn in a drought but not so much about how to develop rural communities that thrive," Bishop writes. "No wonder we have bountiful harvests and troubled towns." (Read more)

Bees develop proteins that fight colony collapse

Bees have evolved proteins that help them fight an insect known to contribute to colony collapse disorder, concludes research published in Genome Biology. The Varroa mite sucks the blood of bees, weakening their immune systems and contributing to deaths of entire hives. (Science Daily photo by Queenie Chan)

The proteins prompt removal of diseased bee larvae and reproductive mites, Science Daily reports. After researchers scanned 1,200 proteins, they found several associated with this behavior. A protein involved in blood clotting was unused in damaged larvae, and this appeared to spur the adult bees' removal of them.

"Bee keepers have previously focused on selecting bees with traits such as enhanced honey production, gentleness and winter survival," University of British Columbia lead researcher Leonard Foster said. "We have found a set of proteins which could be used to select colonies on their ability to resist Varroa mite infestation and can be used to find individuals with increased hygienic behavior. Given the increasing resistance of Varroa to available drugs this would provide a natural way of ensuring honey farming and potentially survival of the species." (Read more)

Rural people more likely to die from colon cancer

Rural people with colon cancer are more likely to be diagnosed late and receive inferior treatment than their urban counterparts, according to a new University of Minnesota study. Rural colon cancer sufferers are also more likely to die from the disease. This is the first study of its kind to show that outcomes in colon cancer are affected by where a person lives, Tiffany Chao reports for ABC News.

The study focussed on more than 100,000 patients diagnosed with colon cancer from 1996 to 2008, with rural people making up 15 percent of the total. Rural patients were 4 percent more likely to get a late diagnosis, had 17 percent lower odds of receiving chemotherapy and had an 18 percent lower chance of getting lymph nodes removed during cancer-removal surgery, indicating that their treatment was most likely inadequate. Overall, rural patients were 5 percent more likely to die from colon cancer. (Read more)

Three of eight Americans don't believe in science of climate change; debate more cultural than scientific

There is no denying that a strong scientific consensus about the existence of climate change exists, especially since scientists have documented a build-up of greenhouse gases and their findings have been endorsed by a large body of domestic and international scientific agencies. But what doesn't exist in the U.S. is a social consensus about climate change. Studies have shown that Americans' belief in the scientific findings of climate change has mostly declined over the last five years.

Between April 2008 and October 2009, belief in climate science dropped to 57 percent from 71, according to the Pew Research Center. This February, it had risen to 62 percent, which means 38 percent of Americans still do not trust it. "Such a significant number of dissenters tells us that we do not have a set of socially accepted beliefs on climate change," Andrew Hoffman, right, the Holcim Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan, writes for the Stanford Social Innovation Review. He says the debate is not so much about science as about culture, worldviews and ideology.

"Acceptance of the scientific consensus is now seen as an alignment with liberal views consistent with other 'cultural' issues that divide the country -- abortion, gun control, health care, and evolution," Hoffman writes. This partisan divide on the issue is a recent phenomenon, something that wasn't seen during the 1990s. Hoffman examined "the climate change debate through the lens of the social sciences," because he says "we need to understand the social and psychological processes by which people receive and understand the science of global warming."

He writes there are two "overriding conclusions" about the climate change debate: Climate change is not a "pollution" issue, and it is an existential challenge to our contemporary world views. He outlines three possible ways in which the ideological debate will manifest: the "Optimistic Form," in which "people do not have to change their values at all," the "Pessimistic Form," in which "people fight to protect their values," and the "Consensus-Based Form," in which "a reasoned societal debate, focused on the full scope of technical and social dimensions of the problem and the feasibility and desirability of multiple solutions," are discussed. (Read more)

White children exposed to high level of chemical BPA five times more likely to be obese, study finds

White children exposed to high levels of bisphenol A, better known as BPA, are five times more likely to be obese than children with low levels, according to a study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study by the New York University School of Medicine is the first to link the chemical to obesity in children, which is more prevalent in rural areas.

Environment Health News reporter Brien Bienkowski reports that scientists found traces of BPA, which are used in some canned food and beverages, paper receipts and dental sealants, "are found in virtually every U.S. adult and child. In the study of body mass and BPA data from 2,838 youths aged 6 to 19, only white children were found to have significant increases in obesity prevalence as their BPA levels increased. Those with the highest concentrations in their urine were five times more likely to be obese than children with the lowest levels. Black children with higher BPA levels were 1.25 times more likely to be obese than those with lower levels, which the scientists said is not statistically significant. Hispanic children had the same rates of obesity at the highest and lowest levels."

Bienkowski reports that "representatives from the chemical industry said the study had too many weaknesses to prove any connection. Steven Hentges, from the American Chemistry Council's Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group, said that attempts 'to link our national obesity problem to minute exposures to chemicals found in common, everyday products are a distraction from the real efforts underway to address this important national health issue.' "

One study of preschoolers in North Carolina and Ohio found that 99 percent of BPA exposure was through food. But since the chemical is in many plastics and other products, this is difficult for scientists to pin down. “People are always told if you just stop eating or exercise more, you will lose weight. But there may be more to it … and I think there is,” said Retha Newbold, a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, who specializes in BPA and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals.  (Read more)

The grass that took the West may have a tiny but potent enemy: a fungus with a scary name

Ecologist Susan Meyer stands in cheatgrass in
Utah's Skull Valley. (NYT photo by Michael Friberg)

Called "the black fingers of death," the tiniest fringe, the barest wisps of darkness on white wheat-colored grass may, in fact, save an iconic American landscape from perhaps the most disruptive invasive plant in the country.

"Black fingers, the fungus with the horror-movie handle, is the new artillery that wildland biologists are firing at cheatgrass, a weed that has remade the landscape of the Intermountain West," writes Felicity Barringer of The New York Times. The fingers, "no longer than a baby’s eyelashes," are like "little marching armies of toothpicks." Fungus armies, that is.

Mike Styler, head of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, said of cheatgrass: “It’s changed the entire ecology of the West.” Creatures that depend on the sagebrush habitat, from butterflies to the greater sage grouse, which is being considered for protections under the Endangered Species Act, are severely stressed by its proliferation. And because cheatgrass and development are moving closer together, a few years ago a cheatgrass-fueled fire near Boise unfortunately burned down homes.

Dr. Susan Meyer is a U.S. Forest Service ecologist based in Provo, Utah, and her work these days is centered on figuring out how this fungus, which looks like a miniature mohawk haircut, does its lethal work, and how, exactly, to get the tiny spears do more of it. Barringer writes, "The black fingers of death, Pyrenophora semeniperda, may help restoration ecologists like Meyer reclaim some beachheads in the vast swath of land already conquered by cheatgrass," Barringer writes. "For decades, scientists have been trying to stop its advance, to little effect."

Lately, the effort has gotten attention from all sorts of places, and the pressure to control cheatgrass is increasing. Financial support for the fungus research has come from the Joint Fire Science Program of the National Interagency Fire Center.  (Read more)

Study: Rural people more likely to get Alzheimer's

Rural residents are twice as likely to get Alzheimer's, according to a University of Edinburgh study that collected "all over the world and spanned several decades," Nikki Tucker of Medical Daily reports. Researchers say limited access to health care, exposure to unknown substances, and socioeconomic factors may lead to the increased risk.

Prior studies have analyzed the difference in what effects rural and urban areas might have on the disease, but because of debate about what constitutes "rural" and "urban," results have been deemed inconclusive. (Read more) The study was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Study says Roundup Ready corn causes health problems in rats; some scientists question research

A long-term diet of herbicide-resistant corn caused tumors, organ damage and premature death in rats, according to French researchers who have conducted the first animal feeding test to determine effects of eating genetically modified food over a lifetime, Clive Cookson of The Financial Times reports. The study focused on the most widely planted herbicide-resistant corn, Monsanto's Roundup Ready.

The study, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, divided 200 rats into groups of 10. Some were fed Roundup Ready corn, some Roundup-laced drinking water and some Roundup Ready corn that had been sprayed with Roundup. Researchers concluded that not only is eating GM corn harmful, but Roundup itself causes health effects even at concentrations below the legal limit for residues in water supplies.

Other scientists have criticized the study's methodology, saying tumor-prone rats were used, there were too few control groups of rats, and the study was also led by Gilles-Eric Seralini, a critic of genetically modified food. (Read more)

Seed companies develop drought-resistant corn

This summer's ravaging drought destroyed corn crops across the Midwest and Great Plains, creating a slew of problems for farmers, consumers and livestock producers. Agriculture biotechnology companies have been pouring millions into drought-resistant genetically modified corn seeds that can withstand an extended dry period. (Los Angeles Times photo by Ricardo Lopez: Researcher examines drought-resistant corn)

Monsanto recently got approval for its DroughtGard seed corn, and other seed makers, including Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. and Syngenta, have  begun selling drought-tolerant but conventionally bred corn varieties. Companies are also trying to develop drought-resistant soybean, cotton and wheat strains that can "thrive in a world that's getting hotter and drier," reports Richard Lopez of the Los Angeles Times.

The majority of seed corn is already genetically modified to repel pests and create higher yields, and there are public concerns arising about the "unforeseen consequences of this genetic tinkering," Lopez reports. But researchers say creating drought-tolerant or resistant seeds is a priority, especially in the wake of this year's oppressive and costly drought. "We don't need to stigmatize these approaches," Kent Bradford, head of the Seed Biotechnology Center at the University of California, Davis.  (Read more)

Researchers hope artificial bat cave will give clues to fight deadly white-nose syndrome

AP photo by Allison Smith

Conservationists have built an artificial cave near Clarksville, Tenn., in an effort to save bats from the fungus of white-nose syndrome, which has killed millions of bats across the U.S. The Nature Conservancy-built cave is thought to be the first man-made hibernating structure for bats in the wild, which control insects and help pollinate some crops.

The cave is built from concrete with textured ceilings so bats can cling to it, and is about the size of a single-wide mobile home. It was covered with 4 feet of soil, leaving only the air intake, right, that serves as the bat entrance visible from the surface, The Associated Press reports. It is located near a natural cave with an established hibernating population of gray bats, which are to be lured to the artificial cave by ultra-sonic bat calls emitted by loudspeakers.

White-nose syndrome has killed more than 5.7 million bats since it was first detected in 2006. It causes bats to wake from hibernation and search for food in the winter, eventually succumbing to weather or starvation. Scientists have been trying to determine its cause and how to prevent it. During its first two years in a cave, white-nose fungus develops slowly, but spikes in the third, making cleaning of the artificial cave essential so the disease doesn't reach lethal levels. It will be cleaned every spring with Formula 409 when hibernation stops. (Read more)

Study says almost 40 percent of rural Americans are obese, while only about a third of urbanites are

Getty Images photo via ABC News

Rural people are more likely to be obese, according to a new study, "the first in more than 30 years to use actual measurements of height and weight, rather than self-reported data, which can be unreliable," reports Mary McVean of the Los Angeles Times. The study "suggests rural obesity is a bigger problem than we realized," writes Dr. Julielynn Wong of the ABC News medical unit.

"People tend to overestimate how tall they are and underestimate how much they weigh," said the lead researcher, Christie Befort, assistant professor of preventive medicine and public health at the University of Kansas Medical Center. "The differences between rural and urban were most pronounced for younger adults between the ages of 20 and 39."

She said the rural-urban disparity could be a result of the "cultural diet" of rural people, which generally has more meat and fat, and isolation from better food sources and exercise facilities. The Times story also says "another factor could be the increased mechanization of farm work," but that presumes that a large percentage of rural Americans work on farms, which is not true.

The study found that 39.6 percent of rural Americans are obese, while 33.4 percent of urban residents were, but the story does not give the study's time period or how it defined "rural."

The study appears in the latest issue of the subscription-only quarterly Journal of Rural Health, which is subscription-only; the journal's site says abstracts of its articles are available from the National Library of Medicine's PubMed service, but the article has not been posted at this writing. for the Times story, click here.

Genetically modified corn may be leading to pesticide-resistant corn worms

The Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing one of seed-giant Monsanto's genetically modified corn strains for fear that it might be creating a pesticide-resistant worm that eats corn. The action is a response to a scientific study released last week that found western rootworms on two Illinois farms that had developed resistance to insecticide produced by the seed corn. (ThinkProgress photo)

The worm hinders corn's ability to draw water and nutrients from the soil, and caused about $1 billion a year in damages and pesticide bills before Monsanto's seed was developed about a decade ago. Pesticide-resistant worms were first documented last year, Jack Kaskey of Bloomberg reports. Monsanto spokeswoman Kelly Clauss said studies in Iowa and Illinois don't confirm resistance in the field, and that more data is needed to prove resistance. (Read more)

Researchers look to make farm labor safer for kids

With the help of a tractor-driving simulator, researchers at the University of Iowa and the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin hope to prevent young people from dying in tractor accidents by determining when they can safely operate farm equipment. Results of the study could eventually be used to revise voluntary guidelines for parents and employers about when youth are ready to use certain equipment. (Associated Press photo by Nati Harnik: Mark Gregoricka, 12, operates simulator)

There was much national debate earlier this year about the safety of children working on farms after the Obama administration proposed child farm labor rules that would have restricted the kinds of work children under 18 and 16 could do on non-family farms and adopted a narrower definition of "family farm" that had been used informally for a decade. The proposal was dropped, but the fact remains that teenagers are four times more likely to die on a farm than in any other workplace.

Researchers are studying cognitive development skills in youth while they drive tractors, because children of different ages process information and make decisions differently, The Associated Press reports. Eighty-eight children, aged 10 to 17, will perform a variety of simulated tasks while their speeds, use of brakes, accelerations and eye movements are recorded. The hope is that the simulator can pinpoint differences in the children's performance. (Read more)

Researcher says nanomaterials could have 'profound' negative effect on food crops

Nanomaterials, which are created by manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale, may be harming the quality and yield of food crops, University of California researchers concluded in a report released in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The materials are being used in many consumer products,which  including shampoos, gels, hair dyes and sunscreens, which are washed into the environment. Researcher John Priester told Bobbie Mixon of the National Science Foundation that as their uses increase, the likelihood of nanomaterials contaminating food crops rises. "Conventionally treated wastewater is a primary source of normally nutrient-rich organic materials applied to agricultural soil, and farmers beneficially use this treated water and the biosolids from it as fertilizer," Mixon reports. "As nanomaterials become more prevalent, there is concern about nanomaterials buildup in soils and possible nanomaterials entry into the food supply."

There had been no previous study of the affects of nanomaterials on a soil-based crop, so researchers grew soybeans, a major global commodity, in soil containing high amounts of nanomaterials. They found that two nanomaterials -- cerium oxide powder and zinc oxide -- "could profoundly alter soil-based food crop quality and yield," Mixon reports. (Read more)

Study: Stress of poverty hurts kids' learning ability

A new theory, based on studies matching stress-hormone levels to behavioral and school readiness among children living in poverty, holds that such children have impaired learning abilities partly because of the "stresses of poverty," including crowded conditions, financial worry and lack of adequate child care. The theory is discussed in the September/October issue of Scientific American Mind.

New York University researcher Clancy Blair found that high levels of stress hormones "influence the developing circuity of children's brains, inhibiting such higher cognitive functions such as planning, impulse and emotional control and attention." Those abilities are "important for academic success." Finding ways to reduce poverty stressors in home and school environments could improve children's well being and help them be more academically successful, Blair says in a press release issued by the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study.

Heavily obese states have large rural populations

At least 30 percent of adults in 12 states are considered obese, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Previously, only nine states had such high obesity rates. More than one third of adults, and almost 17 percent of youth, were obese in 2010.

Most of the states have relatively large rural populations. Mississippi had the highest rate at almost 36 percent. (Read more)

Crop scientists are breeding – and farmers are raising – plants and animals more tolerant of drought

Texas rancher Ron Gill puts out cottonseed
feed for cattle bred for heat. (AP photo)

Across American agriculture, farmers and crop scientists have concluded that it’s too late to fight climate change, writes David Pitt of The Associated Press. They are responding with a new generation of hardier animals and plants specially engineered to survive, and even thrive, in intense heat with less rain. Cattle, Pitt reports, "are being bred with genes from their African cousins who are accustomed to hot weather. New corn varieties are emerging with larger roots for gathering water in a drought. Someday, the plants may even be able to "resurrect" themselves after a long dry spell, recovering quickly when rain returns."

"The single largest limitation for agriculture worldwide is drought," said Andrew Wood, a professor of plant physiology and molecular biology at Southern Illinois University. Kansas farmer Clay Scott is testing a new kind of corn called Droughtguard as his region suffers through a second consecutive growing season with painfully scarce precipitation.

The urgency also is evident in Texas, where rainfall has been below normal since 1996. Crops and pastures were decimated in 2011 by a searing drought, and some got hit again this year. Ranchers have sold off many animals they couldn’t graze or afford to feed. Cattle inventory, at 97.8 million head as of July 1, is the smallest since the U.S. Department of Agriculture began a July count in 1973. At least one rancher is now breeding cattle with genes that trace to animals from Africa and India, where their ancestors developed natural tolerance to heat and drought. (Read more)

Europeans designing robots to harvest delicate fruits; Japan already has a strawberry picker

What would happen if human weren't in the field any more to pick the most delicate of crops -- fruits in orchards or the grapes for premium wine? You know, the high-value stuff. And, let's go one more, what if humans were removed one more step: What if something could target the protective pesticide spray so it only touched the foliage and never once touched the fruit? That's be kind of amazing. No, that'd be a robot. And it's a new project that’s part of the European Union Seventh Framework Program (FP7) called Clever Robots for Crops, or "cRops."

According to Forbes magazine contributing writer Jennifer Hicks, these robots will be able to detect the fruit's ripeness, then grasp and softly detach only ripe fruit. The robots would also be able to reliably detect and classify obstacles and other objects to enable successful navigation and operation in plantations and forests. "Projects like cRrops are significant because they can accelerate sustainable development of agriculture," said Catherine Simon, founder and organizer of Innorobo, a robotics conference set for 2013.

Hicks' sources say it will take at least five more years before the whole thing could be commercialized. So why is Europe moving so slowly? “One of the main reasons is simply because robotics is still in an early stage of maturity and we continue to see projects coming out of academia, government or EU commissions,” said Simon,“Europe needs to make the shift from projects to product faster like the United States if we want to remain a leader in the the field of robotics."

There are fruit-picking robots already. In Japan in 2010, the Institute of Agricultural Machinery’s Bio-oriented Technology Research Advancement Institution created a strawberry picking robot with a stereo camera system that images the strawberries in 3D and, with fancy math, determines their ripeness. "If a strawberry is at least 80 percent red, the machine snips it at the stem and puts it in a padded bin. It can harvest 60 percent of the strawberry crop, taking only nine seconds to pick a strawberry," writes Hicks. Used to be this was all academic -- funding, that is, but "times are changing," she reports, and things could go a lot faster. "We are starting to see a true shift in the ecosystem surrounding robotics." Think Google money. Think big. (Read more)

Amish one of U.S.'s fastest-growing religious groups

A new Amish community is established about every three and a half weeks in the U.S. and more than 60 percent of all existing Amish communities have been founded since 1990, according to a new census of the Amish population by Ohio State University researchers. They say this suggests that the Amish are growing more rapidly than most other religions in the U.S. The growth can be linked to large families and high baptism rates, while growth in other religions would more likely be linked to conversion. The study restricted its count to "Old Order" Amish and others who limit their use of most modern technologies. (Fotosearch image)

There are now 456 Amish settlements, compared to just 179 in 1990, according to the census, Science Daily reports. If the growth continues at its current rate, there could be more than 1 million Amish people living in more than 1,000 settlements across the U.S. by 2050, which would "bring economic, cultural, social and religious change to the rural areas that attract Amish settlement." Researchers predict Amish will buy land vacated by farmers, but "the availability of farmland might not keep pace with population growth," forcing many Amish men to seek non-farm work, including woodworking and construction, which could increase land prices and enhance local economies.

The Amish should not be confused with Mennonites, who are similar and share common backgrounds, but are more "assimilated into mainstream culture and are more likely to live in urban and suburban settings," according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, whose senior fellow is Amish scholar and expert Donald Kraybill. The Ohio State census found that Amish live in 29 states, mostly in the Midwest and Great Lakes region, but as far south as Florida and Texas, as far northeast as Maine and as far west as Montana. Ohio contains the most Amish, Pennsylvania is second and Indiana is third. New York has seen the most recent growth in settlements, with 15 founded since 2010. (Read more)