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SHORT TAKESNose-numbing technology from PhiladelphiaIf you can't get the objectionable odours out of manure, then knock out the nose that smells them. Monell Chemical Senses Center, based near Philadelphia, has patented a method for doing just that. It is based on a phenomenon known as olfactory adaptation, which refers to the nose's loss of sensitivity to an odour when constantly exposed to it. The technology depends upon another process also taking place: olfactory cross-adaptation. This takes place when the nose adapts to one odour and also becomes less sensitive to a second odour.Working with a grant from the livestock-heavy state of Pennsylvania, Monell organic chemist George Preti and olfactory neuroscientist Charles Wysocki chemically identified the compounds responsible for unpleasant smells in livestock manure, mostly organic acids, and then counteracted them with a cross-adapting compound that isn't unpleasant. The cross-adapting agent is used in low concentrations to reduce the intensity and unpleasantness of organic acids and sulphur-containing elements in the bouquet.
This technology is touted as saving farmers millions of dollars in litigation costs. There's no indication what the manure treatment itself will cost. BF
Forget ethanol and bring out the corn stoveMost farmers are familiar with the concept of going to the bush to cut fuel for the winter. What if they went to the corn field for fuel instead? Amid the controversy over whether ethanol production takes out more energy than it delivers, Better Farming decided to go one step closer to the farm in search of a cheap energy source.We went looking on the Internet for information about the heating value in shelled grain corn and found it in a November, 2001, newsletter from the University of Illinois. Paul Mariman, University of Illinois extension, and Doug Crolus, energy use manager for Illinois Power (retired), wrote that a pound of shelled corn contains 6,300 British Thermal Units (BTUs) of energy. A bushel of corn has almost the same energy potential as four gallons of propane, 3.5 times as much as a therm of natural gas, 2.7 times as much as a gallon of kerosene, 103 kWh of electricity or 2.52 gallons of oil. One cord of hardwood contains energy equivalent to 59 bushels of corn. How well corn matches up economically depends on the cost of traditional fuels, and the efficiency of the furnaces and stoves used, Mariman and Crolus wrote. With $2-a-bushel corn firing a burner with a 70 per cent efficiency rating, propane burned in a furnace rated at 90 per cent efficiency would have to be priced at 67 cents per gallon to match it. An older propane furnace operating at 65 per cent efficiency would have to be using propane costing 48 cents a gallon in order to be cost-competitive. Why aren't there more corn stoves around? Maybe it's that eternal optimism built into farmers. "Operating cost comparisons for burning corn look less favourable at a $2.40-a-bushel corn price," the newsletter says. That was before energy costs started going through the roof, however.
This corn is pretty good stuff for heating. Funny how the price of it hasn't gone up while the price of propane, fuel oil and even firewood certainly has.BF
Eating a doughnut can help fight obesitySugar is good, believe it or not, because it fights stress. That's the conclusion of neuroscientist Yvonne Ulrich-Lai at the University of Cincinnati. Sugar, in modest amounts, reduces the stress hormones that lead to weaker immune systems and increased abdominal fat.Sugar makes even public speaking easier and also reduces stress caused by injury, illness and even prolonged exposure to cold. Artificial flavours, such as aspartame, don't work nearly as well.
If new research that shows the much-maligned doughnut to be good for you, can science that proves smoking a cigarette is healthy be far away? BF
The corn import numbers quandaryWhen the Canadian International Trade Tribunal announced in mid-November that it would allow anti-dumping and countervailing duty issues to continue, Animal Industry Corn Users, a group made up of pork and beef producers and feed-making companies opposed to the countervail, was quick to react."We made strong arguments to the tribunal that the facts do not support continuing the investigation into trade injury," said Kathleen Sullivan, general manager of the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada. "U.S. subsidies do not increase corn imports. In fact, corn imports are declining." Really? In September, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada asserted that corn imports were on the rise and forecast to increase more. Better Farming asked Sullivan where she obtained her figures. The Web site of the Ontario Corn Producers' Association (OCPA), she replied. So we asked OCPA general manager (and economist) Brian Doidge about this. He says her figures are old and don't represent imports into Ontario, where producers are hurt worst by American corn imports. "She's talking Canadian (figures) and she's going back and comparing them to when the Prairies had a significant shortfall in barley and wheat and there was a huge surge in U.S. imports. It has tailed off since then in the West, but Ontario is actually up from a year ago." "It depends what you want to quote. To be fair, we give everything. The most recent Web site posting actually shows that, for all of Canada, imports are up as well. She (Sullivan) is judiciously picking her data, I guess."
Taking on the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada is a David versus Goliath effort for the corn producers. The association represents the interests of at least 72 manufacturers of feed and feed supplies, including giants such as Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland and also, ironically, farmer-owned mills such as Hensall District Co-operative and Co-opérative Fédérée de Québec. BF
Is this a case of theft or Japanese protectionism?Tasmanian fruit farmer Tim Reid faces two choices -- cut down all of his cherry trees or face criminal charges in Japan that might result in a jail sentence as well as a massive fine, according to a report in the The Australian newspaper.Reid says that when he visited a Yamagato orchard 350 kilometres north of Tokyo in 1999, growers gave him a branch of benishuho cherries and two branches of satonishiki cherry varieties. Reid says he got Japanese government clearance, followed all Australian quarantine laws and international variety regulations and has nurseries with 25,000 Japanese cherry trees derived from stock cleared through quarantine. This year, he planned to export 120 tonnes of Fuji apples to Japan, along with some satonishiki cherries.
Japanese officials charge that there is no record of a meeting that Reid claims took place with Yamagata prefectural agriculture and technology departments nearly six years ago, and accused him of spiriting the stock out of the country, propagating trees illegally in Tasmania, and offering the high-priced fruit for sale in Japan. The penalty is a jail sentence of as long as three years and a fine of up to 100 million yen. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported in late November that Reid had not been charged and that diplomatic channels were being followed deal with the issue.BF
Beef export markets are lucrativeTake heart, beef farmers. And maybe some tongue, too. After a nearly three-year-long ban because a cow was found here with BSE, lucrative export markets in Asia look like they are finally going to open up to Canadian producers. Packers expect to profit from more than just increased throughput in their plants.Packers can expect to get $6 a pound for strip loin steaks in export markets, compared to $4.75 here in Canada, says Canadian Beef Export Federation communications manager Lotte Elsgaard. With 12 pounds of strip loins to a carcass, the difference is an additional $15 per head. The thin muscle that Japanese use to makea particular plate called Yoshinoya plate bring $2.97 a pound in Japan, compared to 90 cents here. The biggest difference, though, is likely in expected returns for a beef tongue -- 35 cents a pound here in Canada versus $6.26 a pound in Asia. At an average of three pounds per animal, an exported tongue is worth an additional $17.73 per carcass. Offal (organs) is worth $112 per carcass in Canada and $305 when exported. Even head and cheek meat that sells here for 30 cents a pound, well below hamburger prices, brings 89 cents overseas. That's $4.72 more per animal.
And then there's oxtail which brings $1.10 here and $2.45 in export markets. At three pounds a head, that's an additional $2.45 per animal. Now, if only there was a guarantee that some of the predicted additional income would trickle down to hard-pressed producers.BF
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