New farm bill must chart a new course, not go with the flow

World population is swelling like a slow-moving tidal wave. In the past decade, the world’s population increased by almost 1 billion. Within the next four decades, experts expect the wave to grow by 50 percent, increasing to 9.4 billion people.

At the same time, food prices have risen, investment in food production has fallen and available land for growing food has dwindled. The wave of population growth and the ebb in available food has eaten away at food security, stirring concern for how we will meet future demand.

Last year, 1 billion people across the globe went hungry. The United Nations projects an additional 100 million will go hungry this year. Population growth is on track to outpace food production, if we don’t stem the tide.

And, we can. We have.

Between 1970 and 1990, the number of our neighbors going hungry decreased in large part due to U.S.-driven innovations in food production, particularly those put in place in Southeast Asia and Africa.

Visionary policy needed

We can turn the storm if we ramp up food production now. The southeastern U.S. is the ideal place to chart a brighter, secure future. But we must have visionary policy in the 2012 Farm Bill.

The five-year federal farm policy laid out in a farm bill influences areas of agriculture including farm payments, supplemental nutrition assistance programs (food stamps), international trade, conservation programs, rural community development, food safety and agricultural research.

Improving federal investment is more important to the survival of the nation’s agricultural research and education system as state support is quickly evaporating. As we explore new ways to increase food production, ensure safety and improve storage and delivery, investment in the proven U.S. system of agricultural innovation is as important as your next meal.

Many areas of the world simply will be unable to respond to this challenge.

Asia has poor soils and limited rainfall and will be hard-pressed to increase food production. Africa remains hopeful, but until political instability is resolved, the continent will never be able to feed itself.

South and Central America, while blessed with good soils and rainfall, will not likely cut down rainforests for enhanced production. And Europe, also with good soil and rainfall, will likely produce less food due to a variety of social policies that are causing the continent to stagnate.

This leaves North America as the world’s hope for expanded food production. But even here, production patterns are changing. Available water in the West is declining. A decade from now there will be less food produced west of the Rockies than is produced there today. In the northern U.S., temperature and sunlight limit the amount of new food that will be produced.

Southeast in perfect position

U.S. food production must increase, and the Southeast can lead the way. It’s an obligation and opportunity. In 2009, the U.S. imported $72 billion of agricultural products while we exported $98 billion of the same. We can widen the surplus even more.

But past federal policies haven’t always focused on agriculture in the Southeast. This farm bill should.
Congress is now holding listening sessions for the new farm bill that will see us through the next five years. Federal farm policy can either promote production in the Southeast, meeting the need, or limit production, putting more of the world’s poor in peril. We must explore every avenue for increasing production to keep more people fed.

The only way the Southeast can increase food production to the region’s full potential is through science and technology. They aren’t making any more land. We must efficiently use what we have. U.S. agriculture is largely dependent on federal funding for research, development and training that leads to higher production. Yet, many agriculture funding streams are shrinking or drying up.

More research needed

More research is needed to find ways to reduce production costs and increase farm profitability. While some research is generated from private companies, the private sector has no incentive to reduce inputs, which reduces their profits. No private business will invest in technologies that have limited economic return, but are vital to increasing food production.

Reduced pesticide and fertilizer use, integrated pest management, water-use efficiency and natural resource conservation are important for the public good. We need these research and outreach programs. Only local, state and federal governments will support them.

The land-grant university system was established to fill this void. Our federal, state and local partnership is the envy of the world. Many studies credit much of the success in American agriculture to the land-grant system.

Our country has come a long way since the Great Depression, when nearly four out of every 10 Americans worked in food production. Today, less than 2 percent of the country’s population works on the farm.

In the U.S. today, we spend much less on food than when 40 percent of Americans worked on farms. Many of the improvements that help farmers produce abundant, affordable food for exponentially more people came through technology developed at land-grant institutions.

The land-grant system is ready to meet the challenges ahead. But the system requires commitment and funding to continue research into new technologies and to get them into the marketplace to improve the livelihoods of farmers around the world and to produce enough food to alleviate hunger.

U.S. agriculture has a bright future. Strategic security needs for the U.S., pressing economic need for a positive trade balance and the humanitarian need to feed the world are coming together in a way that makes agriculture more important today than ever. Policies set forth in the next farm bill will dictate the direction we take.

By J Scott Angle
University of Georgia

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Right Variety, Timing Key to Backyard Pecans

Many people fail to realize the potential problems facing the successful production of pecans in home or backyard orchards. They think that all pecan trees are alike.

The backbone of any backyard orchard should be the selection of varieties. All of them have good and bad qualities. For a low-input producer, like most home pecan growers, in the Southeast, disease resistance should be top priority. Our climate is favorable for the development of a disease called pecan scab, which can annihilate a crop, especially during wet summer weather.

There are no controls available to fight scab for the backyard pecan grower. Resistant varieties such as Excel, Elliott, Sumner, Gloria Grande, Gafford, Jenkins and Amling should be planted to escape this devastating disease. Pecan scab is minimized by dry weather, which can benefit scab-susceptible varieties.

Fertilizing pecans can be a complicated matter. Because pecan trees are a perennial crop, which means they produce a heavy crop every other year, there is often considerable carry-over of nutrients from a year with a light crop into one with a heavy crop. Trees that are well managed can actually go for several years without fertilizer before any reduction in yield or tree health is noticed.

When bearing a light crop, the trees don’t use a lot of energy. If adequate fertility is provided, the excess energy from these nutrients is stored. This helps produce a larger crop the following year. For this reason, pecan trees require less fertilizer in “off” years, or years with a light crop.

For a backyard tree, apply 4 pounds of 10-10-10 fertilizer for every inch of trunk diameter up to a maximum of 25 pounds in years when a heavy crop is expected. When a light crop is expected, this rate can be cut in half.

Apply the fertilizer in March or April by broadcasting over the area beneath the tips of the branches. The roots often extend out to twice the width of the canopy. Avoid applying fertilizer near the base of the trunk. An excessive concentration there can damage feeder roots.

Pecan trees can use a lot of water, particularly in late summer. Water mature trees during the first two weeks of September. Too much water from May to mid-August can lead to large nuts, which will make it difficult to develop high quality kernels for harvest in fall. If the tree bears a light crop, the water requirements for that tree will be less.

The pecans on a tree that is bearing a heavy crop can develop problems, too, such as undeveloped or fuzzy kernels or shuck deterioration late in the season. This results from the lack of access to adequate water and nutrients for the large crop the tree is bearing. Aside from proper water management, little can be done to correct this problem.

A variety of insects can attack pecan trees. The most problematic for the home grower is the pecan weevil. It chews through the shuck to lay its eggs inside the pecan nut. The larvae eat the nut.

When the nut falls to the ground, the immature insect emerges and burrows into the ground where it develops into an adult. The adult weevils emerge from the soil with late summer rains and crawl up trees in search of more nuts. Spray Sevin on the ground and at the base of the trunk to control them.

Backyard pecan production requires the producer to be wise and efficient with when, where and how they provide inputs for their trees. This can be of economic and environmental benefit.

By Lenny Wells
University of Georgia

Lenny Wells is the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension state pecan specialist with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.