Eideard

Xi Jinping talks with local people in the home of Roger and Sarah Lande in Muscatine, Iowa
Kevin E. Schmidt / Pool via AFP – Getty Images

A young, blue-eyed Sarah Lande never thought the polite young man from China, Xi Jinping, sitting at her dining room table in 1985 would go on to become the next president of China. She simply thought of him as a gentle soul with genuine interest in her family’s Iowa roots, sharing a home-cooked meal of pork, beef and locally grown corn.

Wednesday afternoon 27 years later – he returned to the same three-story home on Muscatine’s 2nd Street and walked through the same door, but this time as China’s next president.

“Coming here is really like coming back to home,” Xi told a packed living room of familiar faces he met on his 1985 visit. “You can’t even imagine what a deep impression I had from my visit 27 years ago … because you were the first group of Americans that I came into contact with…”

Xi first visited Muscatine as a provincial official from Iowa’s sister state of Hebei almost three decades ago. Leading a delegation of four other local officials on an educational trip primarily focused on agriculture, Xi and his colleagues toured local farms and businesses as part of an exchange that began with Iowans going to Hebei in 1984. He met then-and current Iowa governor Terry Branstad and more than a dozen other Iowans in Muscatine he now calls his “old friends…”

Clearly, Muscatine also left an indelible impression on Xi. Upon invitation back to Iowa by Governor Branstad, he requested to reunite with each person he met in Muscatine.

Muscatine is the perfect, if coincidental, background to counterbalance Xi’s highly-scripted meetings in Washington. Aesthetically frozen in the 1950s, the town oozes both old-fashioned small-town charm and the harsh reality of post-industrial American economy. Many storefronts and warehouses stand empty in a place that once called itself the “pearl button capital of the world.” Meanwhile, China has opened and expanded exponentially since 1985, into a roaring economy.

RTFA. There is so much real farm country folksiness in the article I won’t do an editorial job on it. The point for me – perhaps because of my decades dealing with Asian businesses bringing products to sell in the United States – is that commerce sets an appropriate stage for individuals and cultures to get to know each other, affect each other in social ways, in business, in study and friendship.

There was a time in American history when some portions of this nation lived as neighbors to the world – by preference. Better we learn to learn from each other – instead of following the night-riders of bigotry into their pride in conquest and conflict.

Wen Jiabao, Naoto Kan and Lee Myung-bak at evacuation center in Fukishima City
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea publicly munched on farm produce grown near the stricken Japanese nuclear plant on Saturday in a show of solidarity with Japan’s recovery efforts.

Premier Wen Jiabao of China and President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea arrived in Japan on Saturday for a two-day meeting that was expected to focus on resolving differences over Japan’s handling of the nuclear crisis.

China and South Korea have criticized Japan for spilling radiation into the air and sea, and have banned imports of farm products from areas near the plant, citing what they call inadequate checks for radiation. Japan says the restrictions are unjustified.

Before the meeting began in Tokyo on Saturday night, the Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan, took the leaders to visit a refugee shelter in Fukushima, 40 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Before entering the shelter, a converted gymnasium, Mr. Kan steered the group to a table displaying strawberries, cucumbers and other produce grown in Fukushima Prefecture.

The leaders, who did not appear to have been surprised by the photo op, smiled and nibbled gamely. “Very delicious,” Mr. Wen said…

Before meeting Mr. Kan, the two visiting leaders also paid separate visits to the city of Natori, which was devastated by the tsunami.

“The warm feelings of the two leaders came through in their visits to disaster areas and an evacuation center,” Mr. Kan told reporters. “I’m glad they came.”

No doubt import restrictions to China and South Korea will be reduced following this meeting. The interesting bits will be – what else is resolved over the weekend?

The earthbound disaster has pushed Japan’s economy into an artificial recession. Individual Japanese corporations have started working their way out of the context of parts suppliers and individual enterprises both being handicapped by the damage to physical plant and infrastructure. Collective effort will be welcomed – no doubt – to aid Japan’s recovery.

The federal government plans to unveil new dietary guidelines…that urge people to eat less salt…

The guidelines, which are updated every five years, recommended that those over age 51, African-Americans and people with a history of hypertension, diabetes or kidney problems limit their salt intake to a little over a half-teaspoon. For everyone else, the daily recommendation remains at 2,300 milligrams — about one teaspoon of salt.

The guidelines form the basis for the food pyramid, which [supposedly] guides Americans in their daily eating habits.

The guidelines also recommended that Americans consume less than 10% of calories from saturated fatty acids, replacing them with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. And they also suggested people limit their dietary cholesterol to 300 mg or less.

The guidelines also recommended that people should reduce their intake of calories from solid fats and added sugars and cut down on foods that contain refined grains, especially refined grain foods that contain solid fats, added sugars, and sodium.

And if people drink, the guidelines state that alcohol should be kept to one drink a day [disagree]…

“The policy document assists policy makers, nutrition professionals, food-assistance program administrators, the food industry, scientists and academics and the nutrition-focused media with a consistent, science-based foundation for their nutrition efforts.”

It is ignored by virtually all American citizens other than that small portion of parents of young children who read English above a 6th-grade level. The parents, that is.

Bees do it, humans do it – move genes among crop plants, that is. But until now, researchers and growers had a hard time getting a grip on the factors that determine how much of this gene flow happens in an agricultural landscape.

A new data-driven statistical model that incorporates the surrounding landscape in unprecedented detail describes the transfer of an inserted bacterial gene via pollen and seed dispersal in cotton plants more accurately than previously available methods…

The transfer of genes from genetically modified crop plants is a hotly debated issue. Many consumers are concerned about the possibility of genetic material from transgenic plants mixing with non-transgenic plants on nearby fields. Producers, on the other side, have a strong interest in knowing whether the varieties they are growing are free from unwanted genetic traits.

Up until now, realistic models were lacking that could help growers and legislators assess and predict gene flow between genetically modified and non-genetically modified crops with satisfactory detail.

This study is the first to analyze gene flow of a genetically modified trait at such a comprehensive level. The new approach is likely to improve assessment of the transfer of genes between plants other than cotton as well.

“The most important finding was that gene flow in an agricultural landscape is complex and influenced by many factors that previous field studies have not measured,” said Heuberger. “Our goal was to put a tool in the hands of growers, managers and legislators that allows them to realistically assess the factors that affect gene flow rates and then be able to extrapolate from that and decide how they can manage gene flow.”

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People in seven European countries have positive attitudes toward a new eco-friendly toilet that could substantially reduce pollution problems and conserve water and nutrients, scientists in Switzerland are reporting. Their article, which calls on authorities to give wider support for the innovative toilet technology, is in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology.

Judit Lienert and Tove Larsen note in the article that the so-called NoMix toilet collects urine separately instead of mixing it together with feces as in conventional toilets. Urine contains 80 percent of the nitrogen and 50 percent of the phosphorus arriving at wastewater treatment plants. Separating it in advance could have a number of advantages. This includes a reduction in the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous nutrients that trigger algae blooms and in pharmaceutical residues, which can enter waterways and pose a threat to fish. Separating urine also allows its use as an agricultural fertilizer, the scientists note. However, scientists have not widely explored public attitudes about using this promising technology until now.

The scientists reviewed surveys on acceptance and use of NoMix toilets among seven European countries with responses from 2700 people. Those countries were Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark. The researchers found that the technology is well-accepted, with about 80 percent of users expressing support of the idea, with many willing to use it at work or at home.

Between 75 to 85 percent of the users found that the design, hygiene, smell and seating comfort of the NoMix toilets equals that of conventional toilets. About 85 percent of users were open to the idea of using stored urine as fertilizer. “No Mix-technology deserves more support by authorities and mainstream research,” the article notes.

In terms of technology, this is no more difficult than the plumbing in large modern trailers. Most have three tanks: one for gray water from showers and sinks, one for urine, one for solid waste.

That and the ten years needed to get American building codes up to match the European standards who will do this, first.

Bee researchers in California
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

The U.S. Agriculture Department announced it has joined 18 other countries in a global alliance focused on curbing greenhouse gas emissions while increasing world access to food.

The USDA will increase its spending on agricultural climate change mitigation research by $90 million to more than $130 million during the next four years. USDA will contribute its findings to the Global Research Alliance.

The group, which also includes Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India and Britain, will focus on finding ways to grow more food without increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture produces 14 percent of global greenhouse gases.

“No single nation has all the resources it needs to tackle agricultural greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time enhancing food production and food security,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who is attending U.N. climate discussions in Copenhagen, said in a statement.

The global partnership is expected to work on cheaper and more accurate methods of measuring greenhouse gas emissions and carbon stored in soil; new farming practices that reduce emissions and increase carbon storage in farmland in different countries; and farming methods that sustain yields while helping to mitigate climate change.

Overdue – which isn’t surprising. We’ve hardly ever had an administration which offered progressive leadership in agriculture.

It’s been considered sufficient to bend over for the corporate giants of agribusiness.

Analysis of ancient DNA from skeletons suggests that Europe’s first farmers were not the descendants of the people who settled in the area after the retreat of the ice sheets…

Humans arrived in Europe 45,000 years ago and replaced the Neandertals. From that period on, European hunter-gatherers experienced lots of climatic changes, including the last Ice Age. After the end of the Ice Age, some 11,000 years ago, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle survived for a couple of thousand years, but was then gradually replaced by agriculture. The question was whether this change in lifestyle from hunter-gatherer to farmer was brought to Europe by new people, or whether only the idea of farming had spread. The new results from the Mainz-led team seem to resolve much of this long standing debate.

“Our analysis shows that there is no direct continuity between hunter-gatherers and farmers in Central Europe,” says Prof Joachim Burger. “As the hunter-gatherers were there first, the farmers must have immigrated into the area.”

The study identifies the Carpathian Basin as the origin for early Central European farmers. “It seems that farmers of the Linearbandkeramik culture immigrated from what is modern day Hungary around 7,500 years ago into Central Europe, initially without mixing with local hunter gatherers,” says Barbara Bramanti, first author of the study. “This is surprising, because there were cultural contacts between the locals and the immigrants, but, it appears, no genetic exchange of women.”

Paleo-anthropology is having a veritable feast of confirmation and denial of theory – now being able to get so much more exact with DNA information. It must be exciting.

Almost half of the world’s farmland has at least 10 percent tree cover, according to a study on Monday indicating that farmers are far less destructive to carbon-storing forests than previously believed.

“The area revealed in this study is twice the size of the Amazon, and shows that farmers are protecting and planting trees spontaneously,” Dennis Garrity, Director General of the World Agroforestry Center in Nairobi, said in a statement.

The Centre’s report, based on satellite images and the first to estimate tree cover on the world’s farms, showed tree canopies exceeded 10 percent on farmland of 10 million square kms (3.9 million sq miles) — 46 percent of all agricultural land and an area the size of Canada or China…

Previous estimates of the area of farmland used in agroforestry had ranged up to only about 3 million sq kms…

“We’re pleasantly surprised — it quantifies an under-appreciated resource,” Tony Simons, deputy director general of the World Agroforestry Center, told Reuters.

The report found that trees were integral to agricultural landscapes in all parts of the world, with the exceptions of arid North Africa and West Asia.

Simons said the report indicated a new front for fighting climate change. Farmers would do more to preserve trees if they got credits under a new U.N. climate pact due to be agreed at a meeting in Copenhagen in December…

“This study offers convincing evidence that farms and forests are in no way mutually exclusive,” said Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist who won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for a tree-planting campaign across Africa.

Many of my kin in North America are farmers up on PEI. A typical farm might be 100 acres with only 40-50% cleared for planting.

The rest is kept as woodlot for heating and cooking. Been that way for a couple of centuries. Makes good sense to me.

Gaping gaps in weather and climate data across Africa may be filled by a partnership between humanitarian groups and mobile phone companies.

The project aims to deploy 5,000 automatic weather stations across the continent mounted on phone masts. They will gather data on aspects of weather such as rainfall and wind, and send it to national weather agencies.

Former UN chief Kofi Annan says the project could help save lives of people on the frontlines of climate change. “The world’s poorest are also the world’s most vulnerable when it comes to the impact of climate change, and the least equipped to deal with its consequences,” he said…

More than 70% of Africans make a living from farming, and the vast majority of the continent’s agriculture is rain-fed, making it highly vulnerable to variability in weather and climate.

Yet report after report has concluded that weather data – needed to make accurate projections of climate change – is in woefully short supply.

Africa has less than 200 weather stations meeting World Meteorological Organization (WMO) standards. Europe, by comparison, has several thousand…

So far the project’s pilot phase has seen 19 stations established around Lake Victoria in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

Sounds like a win-win. Data and information for farmers. Good will for the wireless service providers. If they can keep the lawyers and politicians out of the way.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

The Afghan government has said that the bumper wheat harvest expected this year can be attributed in part to its successful poppy eradication programme. Officials say the success of the scheme – especially in Nangarhar province – has helped the country to reap its biggest wheat harvest in 30 years…

An official in the ministry of counter-narcotics told the BBC that increased demand for wheat meant that it was selling for a higher price, in contrast to the the relatively low prices currently being paid for opium.

The minister also predicted improved yields of rice and corn.

The main reason for the bumper harvest is increased rainfall, but other factors were responsible including the more farmland devoted to wheat, which comes after last year’s high prices for the crop. Improved provision of seeds and fertilisers to farmers was also cited as a factor.

The BBC’s Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says that the government’s poppy eradication programme has also contributed to better harvests, even if its writ does not extend to areas of the country where the Taliban are active – such as Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

Our correspondent says the construction of better roads has also helped farmers, by them to sell their produce more speedily.

Commerce always rules. Someday the ideologues of the world will take their crusades off to an honest job somewhere – and leave people to get on with earning a living.