In his farming conference speech at Oxford, Mark Lynas opens with an apology to the crowd for being anti-GM and working against all of the GM company’s hard work. He goes on to say as a politician he went more in-depth into the science behind many topics like oceanography and climate, and eventually GM crops. His viewpoints of being anti-GM before were all due to his lack of knowledge. Now armed with knowledge he comes to say he believes in the future of GM crops and continues to go on stating why GM crops will be vital. One of his main points was about land use; without GM crops it would take about the same landmass as two Africa’s worth just to produce food for India’s population; one could only imagine how much resources would be needed for the rest of the world’s population. This statement then segways into the amount of pesticides and herbicides needed to maintain that enormous crop size or even our crops today. To have a technology which would allow plants the ability to genome switch to help fend off disease and pests and not use it would be wasteful. Thus, going into why organic farming should allow GM products to be considered organic. The amount of organic pesticides, time, and money people could save from GM crops being organic is also too significant to ignore. Finally, a harsh reality point Mark used was how without the world accepting GM crops, we are no longer moving forward. Since many of the higher income populations support farming practices stuck in the 1950s, the market for GMs have been in decline and rejected. For example, Ireland completely turned away a GM potato with genes from a wild potato with the ability to fight blight. A country that suffered a massive population loss due to a potato famine because of a fungus refused a new option. Without GM technology we could start to see a whole new potato famine and other famines across the globe.
Category Archives: Topics for Discussion
Mark Lynas on GMO’s
I personally believe that GMO’s are helpful for our economy in food production to feed all the people that live on this earth. I don’t think that Mark Lynas makes a good case for his change of opinion on GMO’s. I think that he is in a tough position in the money making standpoint. Mark Lynas talks about how he used to tear up genetically modified plants but now he is saying that they use less pesticides which aren’t good for our food. Lynas also now realizes that millions of people are going to bed hungry each night and now thinks that GMO’s are benefical for people because it produces more food. I have always thought they were beneficial because they haven’t been proven to be bad but now Lynas changes his mind. I don’t think he is sincere about his change in opinion.
Mark Lynas 180 Degree Change
I think Mark is very brave to admit his mistakes and be able to embrace them and come forward to such a large crowd. I think it was almost better for him to start out the way he did because it gave him a better understanding of why GMOs were good and it also showed him why people think they are bad. So now he can help inform those people and people around the world the right way and explain it to them how he learned about it and why he changed. He makes his case by saying when he thought about GMOs he just thought about evil scientists working in a lab making up these food concoctions. He didn’t trust them because they were marketed by big corporations and had really not looked into it more than that. But, finally when he did look more into it and got more of an academic understanding of what GMOs really do and their health benefits his Anti-GMO views started to fall apart. Another point he talks about is how he thought they would need more chemicals to take care of these GMO crops when really it would take less chemicals because the plants were meant to deal with it better. He hits beautifully on how GMOs genetics aren’t really as unnatural as everyone thinks and how this type of genome mix happens in nature and its called a gene flow. Mark Lynas states his case well and does a great job at saying why he was wrong and exactly why he was by using facts.
Mark Lynas
In 2013, Mark Lynas, an activist who currently protested the use of GM and pesticides on crops, approached the Oxford Farming Conference. His intent is to apologized for the 10 years of demonizing the Agriculture community, even though he was doing it in defense of the environment. Lynas being a political activist, he mostly spoke based on what he thought was ethically correct, and less based on what actually went down in the agriculture community. The exact thing that he had been protesting about for so many years, in turn ended up hurting the environment as a result. Because he hard been spreading misinformation about the agriculture community to the public, it ended up affecting how people perceived farms and other jobs in that field. What made him change his mind, was the fact that he decided to hear from the farmers side and realized how much damage he had done.
Ms. Michele WALFRED on Professional Leadership for Agriculture in the Social Media Era
On September 11, 2019 Ms. Michele Walfred spoke to us about managing social media. She began with a bit of history about herself and her educational background. She was also a UD alum who wanted to major in art but switched to creative writing because the writing classes were offered later in the day and she felt she would be able to sleep.
Through a series of events that occurred while she was pursuing her education, she ended up altering her plans once again, pursuing a ‘real job’ instead of the Bohemian-style artist life she had envisioned. She ended up at the UD Agricultural Extension office with no what the 4H program was, believing she might be working with children or seeing eye dogs. She managed to land a position and earned her Associates and Masters, but along the way she stated, she always tried to take jobs for, ‘what she wanted to do, not what she was good at.’
It was at this point she mentioned Professor Isaacs, a professor who recognized her strengths and directed or recommended her to tasks accordingly. Ms. Walfred also took the opportunity to go to weekend and evening events on her own volition, looking to increase her skills whenever possible.
After the brief bio, Ms. Walfred showed the class screenshots of the homepages of three of her own websites on different platforms. She noted that across all platforms, her image or headshot was the same. She recommend we all try something similar to ‘brand ourselves’, expressing creativity through banners, but keeping our message clear on our own ‘search-able’ public sites. She recommended any potentially controversial images or writings go on separate private accounts, but reminded us that the internet is forever and we must behave and conduct ourselves in a professional manner when putting information and images out into the great wide Web.
Ms. Walfred also stated that complete absence of any digital platform can hurt and then championed Twitter as the platform of choice. She told us that by sharing on our social media we can also champion causes and issues that we care about- an example she used was an article about the highest U.S. suicide rates occurring among veterinarians. She then showed us a YouTube clip from a movie called, ‘A Bronx Tale’to illustrate a point about how all the ‘little’ actions matter and first impressions count.
Ms. Walfredconcluded by telling us how important social media can be for us in agriculture and to agriculture in general. First, she stressed the importance of being an, ‘Ag-vocate’ helping the environment in different ways, such as participating in, ‘Meatless Mondays’. She also mentioned ‘Delaware Ag Week’ and the impressive salaries of Social Media Managers at around ≈$75, 000. She also touched on the controversy that farmers often face- citing back to Ms. Cartanza’s presentation, namely the damage farming causes to the environment. A crowd of young males with SmartPhones will not post to their social media about how they are actively learning how not to pollute, the very thing a consumer might accuse them of.
Ms. Walfred ended on a quote that essentially said, ‘“To tell someone they’re wrong, 1st tell them how they’re right” – Blaise Pacal (Paraphrase)’She encourage us to stand up to mis-information while combatting misinformation with facts.
Field Trip #1- Ms. Georgie CARTANZA’s Organic Poultry Farm
On September 7, 2019 the entire class took a trip to Dover, Delaware to visit a poultry farm. Though I grew up not too far from this farm, I never new of it’s existence. The farm is owned by a Ms. Georgie Cartanza, a Nuffield Scholar and the current University of DE Poultry Extension Agent. Ms. Cartanza began the trip by introducing herself and sharing a bit of backstory. She told this to us while we sat on a makeshift amphitheater of sorts made up of packages of pine shavings set up on the concrete heavy-use pad in the shadow of a barn used for storage.
After the presentation, we were presented with Personal Protective Equipment- intended more for the chickens safety than our own- in the form of rubber booties, coveralls, and hairnets.
Looking quite stylish and now rendered unable to sneak-up on anyone, we loudly rustled and awkwardly shuffled around the other side of the barn where we saw the EcoDrum and the product of it’s ‘in-vessel composting process’.
Opposite the barn, we could see behind up an identical structure with a manual composting drum.
After marveling at the innovative composting technology we walked over to the actual chicken houses themselves. We got to hear about the technology used to run the chicken houses, namely the Environmental Controller- revolutionary device that allows a single farm to take care of 37, 000 chickens. A prominent part of that technology, displayed broadly on the sides of all the houses, are the large fans to bring the temperature of the chicken house down when necessary.
We also learned about the pasture areas between the houses and the advantages and disadvantages of allowing chickens to roam in the yard. Not yet in use with the young chickens were ramps, hanging water dispensers, bully boxes, ramps, and shade structures. Along with the man-made shade structures were natural shade structures of cattails running down the center.
The culmination of the trip was the experience of holding baby chickens- these particular chicks were a mere two days old, still bearing the pink streaks of the tinted spray vaccine they received before arriving.
The class, joined by Ms. Cartanza, didn’t leave Dover before stopping for lunch at Chik-fil-A- paid for by the Professor. We parted ways with our host after lunch to return to the Newark campus.
The Newark class section would see Ms. Cartanza again, albeit remotely, for Monday’s first class guest lecture.
Ms. Georgie CARTANZA – Evolution of the Delmarva Poultry Industry
Graced by Ms. CARTANZA’s presence yet again, she both repeated and elaborated on some of the finer points she had made on the field trip.
Having had extensive experience in the poultry industry as a field supervisor, waking up anywhere from 4-7am and working 50 hours a week minimum, to working as an employee at Mountaire teaching people how to build two times bigger, better chicken houses, Ms. Cartanza still had a wealth of knowledge to impart.
Working as an organic poultry contract farmer, for Perdue’s organic Division Coleman, Ms. Cartanza shared some of the logistic and political issues surrounding the operation of her farm and organic poultry farms in general.
Because contract farmers compete for their contracts with different companies, growing their chicken competitively. Ms. Cartanza’s in a smaller 20acre farm, one of many strewn about the state and the peninsula, but with ¼ of the U.S. population within eight hours of her location, she maintains an edge on the competition. Delaware is not the leader in broiler production, but it does have the most broilers per square mile, with the largest organic processing plant in the country.
The poultry not only has to generate income for the company, but also pay for the capital involved in producing it- the cost of four chicken houses is much more expensive that the land they’re placed on, coming in at over $1.5mil whereas the acreage was just $20, 000. The biggest expense Ms. Cartanza said she faced after chicken feed was her mortgage and electric.
She, as a Nuffield scholar having spent time in Brazil as well as Mexico, Cornell, Ireland, & France, had not just a local Delmarva or U.S. perspective on poultry farming, but a global one.
Ms. Cartanza said a lot of the expenses and adjustments she must make around her farm don’t necessarily come from government agencies as a result of scientific study, but from the uniformed masses and their personal feelings on what makes chickens, ‘happy’.
For example, Ms. Cartanza said she has a manual composter that’s worth $12, 000 and is capable of processing 1.5 flocks, while her Canada-made EcoDrum, with it’s inverse-composting can process 5 flocks with less time and effort from the farmer. The new equipment isn’t really necessary, but it looked good to environmentalists. Chickens purportedly need 4-8hrs of darkness for melatonin production, but that may not actually help the birds at all.
Another example would be the way chicken houses have been restructured over the years. Ms. Cartanza pointed out while we were at her farm, that the window sizes on the building had to be upped due to evolving public sentiment around the amount of light chickens require to be, ‘happy’, but not necessarily healthier. The larger windows decrease the R-value of the overall house, while the transition from curtain-sided to solid-sidewall houses increase the R-value.
Outside the houses, in the pasture area, Ms. Cartanza must provide shade-areas, buffers, and enrichments that can take the form of patches of warm season grasses, like cattails and miscanthus, trees, like hybrid willows, and toys, like ‘bully boxes’ and ramps. Some of these additions, like the buffers, can help remove harmful particulates from the air, appeasing nearby neighbors, but the grasses can also add to the difficult of managing the chickens environment, creating dense growth that chickens can hide and be lost to the farmer in.
Once the 2-day-old chicks we interacted with reach three weeks old, they will have the option to go outside the chicken house. Allowing chickens to go outside makes them more at risk for predation and contamination from other birds and their droppings in the pasture that could carry Avian Flu virus. The chickens will instinctively stay inside at high noon when they are most visible from overhead, but they also seem to be most comfortable in the artificial, but regulated environment of the houses. The houses are kept at 92degrees F° via large tunnel ventilators that suck out the 8btus of heat that each chicken produces and also blows cool air through the chicken houses, protecting the birds from heat exhaustion by extracting body heat
The organic process also has restrictions on how it maintains the physical health and the environment of the chickens. Ms. Cartanza is permitted to use substances such as oregano, apple cider vinegar, copper sulfate, boric acid, and liquefied citric acid to care for the chickens.
Technology allows Ms. Cartanza to care for 37, 000 chickens more or less independently, but years ago that would have been impossible. That relative ease allows Ms. Cartanza to theoretically fed 780, 000 families from the output of her farm.
People who don’t like the poultry industry might be hard-pressed to find fault with the jobs it creates or how it helps the local economy- for every 1 jobs in poultry, 7 are created in the wider community. Labels in marketing are also used to sway public opinion- ABF or ‘Antibiotic Free’ chickens applies to any U.S. chicken, as the chickens must be cut off of any antibiotics 2 weeks before processing; NAE or ‘No Antibiotics Ever’ sounds good in theory and may appease animal welfare groups, but allowing chickens to potentially suffer for the sake of the label is debatable; and Organic chicken means a chicken is free-range and feed only GMO free feed from organic certified ground, which means additional organic corn and soybeans must be sourced from foreign countries like Argentina and Turkey, increasing the carbon footprint of the organic. The Global Animal Partnership (GAP), a coalition of vegetarians formed by Whole Foods that can threaten chain restaurants and businesses that don’t sell the type of meat they sign-off on, and other political figures with specifics leanings
Genetics, nutrition, housing, and technology have contributed to increasingly larger chickens. In 1957 chickens took 56 days to grow 2lbs,- today a modern chicken can reach 9lbs in the same amount of time. No steroids used- selective breeding makes larger chickens. Maturing in about 20 days, they are able to evolve faster.
Ms. Cartanza stresses the importance of environmental stewardship, saying poultry farmers don’t want their farms to be unhealthy or toxic places- they raise their families on the farm. They also don’t want suffering or dying birds- lost birds means a loss of money. At the sound of an alarm, a farmer may have to wake up very early, climb a grain bin, run to restore power, or confront a predator or pest- they may have as little as 20minutes to save a flock in the wake of natural disaster of power failure. She mentioned CO2stunning used in a Milford poultry plant to put chickens to sleep before processing- must be alive to process.
Ms. Cartanza says the next big issue facing poultry farmers after the nutrient pollution of waterways will be air quality, though the sustainably of poultry farming itself, whether from an economic or environmental standpoint will be debated as well. A big part of farming in general is the effect it has on the environment. Farmers can be easy targets, when only 2% of the U.S. voters farm and of that number most face more strict regulations on how they farm than a golf course owner or someone with a residential property applying a myriad of various chemicals to their properties.
For Ms. Cartanza herself and her farm, her next big challenge might just be eliminating some of her power costs, one of her biggest expenses as previously mentioned, at $5, 000 a month. With a housing unit for an off-grid 20,000V power generator, Ms. Cartanza may consider going solar next. A solar power system would take 15 years to pay off an might last for 25-35years. A part of the farming process is weigh risks, and Ms. Cartanza deemed the risk too great.
Regardless of an individuals approach to poultry farming, or working in general, Ms. Cartanza reminds the class of the importance of maintaining humility and, ‘doing little things well’. She also reiterates the importance of vetting the news and the science and not discounting another person’s views. Even though she grows organic, she did it to follow the market and industry’s trajectory towards increasingly organic foods. Ms. Cartanza did say she will buy and eat conventional chicken and has noticed no difference in quality. She also states it is impossible to feed the world organically- in 2050, 9bilion people are projected to inhabit the world.
Overall, I enjoyed the trip and the lecture. Some memorable events include:
- One chick slated to be euthanized later by ethical/humane cervical dislocation, i.e., ‘wringing it’s neck’, possibly due to an error in the in-egg fertilization process where a needle is placed through the egg shell 3days before the chicks birth which may have caused ‘Star-gaze syndrome’, piercing the birds’ spinal cord
- Holding a 2 day old chick in my bare hands that could barely stay awake
- Learning that, contrary to what I had read previously, chickens are still caught by hand and live-hungèmachines were not as successful as hoped
- Perdue tried for 1yr, but the results still were not as good as the 7man team that can take up to 4 6.5lb birds in each hand & can earn up to $30,00 a year catching poultry 6days a weekèEurope is often a few years ahead of the U.S. as far as tech
- The Chik-fil-A lunch that followed where I saw a WW2 vet
UD Building Sustainable Agriculture Seminar
On November thirteenth, Bill Cowser and Bill Northey visited the University of Delaware to discuss biofuels and modern agriculture. Bill Cowser produces corn, beef, soybeans, and ethanol in Nevada Iowa. Cowser’s farm has grown from accommodating 50 beef cattle in the early 1900s to accommodating a couple thousand beef cattle. Cowser has worked with the EPA to accommodate the high levels of rainfall in Iowa through a multi-step filtration and reuse program on his farm. Cowser also raises his beef cattle on concrete so he is able to retain and use the manure produced on his farm. Agriculturalists are also looking at the way that they are affecting the environment through water management and nutrient management. A variety of cover crops are utilized to protect the soil from erosion as well as absorb excess nutrients in the soil. There is also research and development occurring to reduce nutrients that wind up in rivers and other bodies of water. Currently there is an issue with hypoxic zones in bodies of water that wind up killing aquatic life. Thanks to technology, crop fields are no longer blanketed with fertilizer or pesticides. Technological advancements have allowed farmers to tailor the application of sprays and other materials based on the needs of different areas of a field. This technological advancement has also saved farmers money. Corn is the crop that allows processing plants to produce ethanol. There are 42 ethanol plants in Iowa presently and these plants produce 4 billion gallons of ethanol a year. Half of the corn being produced in Iowa goes to the production of ethanol. Ethanol is produced for less than traditional gasoline. Agriculturalists are finding a way to utilize all components of the corn plant. Husks and other components can be used as feed, fertilizer, and the production of charcoal and other products. It was interesting to learn about aspects of modern agriculture and biofuels from Bill Cowser and Bill Northey.
Current GMO Crops
There are currently ten genetically modified crops available for purchase in today’s society. They are listed below:
- Apples
- Alfalfa
- Cotton
- Corn
- Canola
- Potatoes
- Papaya
- Sugar Beets
- Soybeans
- Squash
Identify GMO Crops
Most people don’t know but there are only 10 genetically modified crops. The 10 genetically modified crops available today are alfalfa, apples, canola, corn, cotton, papaya, potatoes, soybeans, squash and sugar beets. The efforts to genetically modify these crops focus on expressing positive traits that support the quality of the crop and improving resistance to pests and weather conditions.
The list below shows the year the GMO crop was launched
- Squash, 1995
- Cotton, 1996
- Soybean, 1995
- Corn, 1996
- Papaya, 1997
- Alfalfa, 2006
- Sugar beets, 2006
- Canola, 1999
- Potato, 2016
- Apples, 2017
So the next time you are in a grocery store and are distraught over which pasta to purchase because the labels are overwhelming remember there isn’t a GMO wheat crop.
Delaware’s Green Industry
What is the Green Industry?
The green industry 2014 Horticulture Product sales were $21,774,000 alone in DE cash receipts of greenhouse/nurseries. Sales are very dependent on consumers wants and needs. Although that isn’t a major difference from other industries the difference lies in the time needed to grow and produce plants that can take years. This is important for the horticulture industry to stay on top of current and future trends. The people that make up the industry are producers, retailers, landscapers, land managers, golf courses, and other suppliers. Retailers help bridge the gap between people and horticulture plants with the displays of plants and shrubs placed together at stores. Consumers then have a visual of how to place the plants within their own homes and are more intrigued to purchase the plants. Landscapers have deep knowledge of plants and their needs and of land maintenance and design.
Nursery production is categorized into six main production types, which include containerized, B&B, bare root, field grow bag, balled and potted, and in-ground containers. The nurseries are producing two types of crop groups. One of the crop groups is Floriculture crops. These are your bedding and garden plants. The other is Nursery crops, such as broadleaf evergreens and deciduous shrubs.
To be able to contribute to the green industry our land has to be healthy. To ensure that, Delaware Livable Lawns, is a voluntary certification program, that certifies homeowners and lawn care companies that follow environmentally friendly fertilizer application practices and teach homeowners on the best practices to use.
Genetically Modified Crops
There are 10 genetically modified crops commercially sold in The United States. These crops include alfalfa, apples, canola, corn, cotton, papaya, potatoes, soybeans, squash, and sugar beets. The reason that these crops are genetically modified are varied. These reasons include to prevent crops from browning, herbicide tolerance, blight resistance, drought tolerance, disease resistance, insect resistance, and low acrylamide. What really surprised me was that fact that most of these crops were genetically modified in the 90s and early 2000s. I did not realize that we had the technology to genetically modify crops at that time. Although there are only 10 crops genetically modified sold commercially in the Untied States these crops are used in order to make many other foods. I am very glad that I looked closer in to genetically modified crops and what specific crops are genetically modified. To be honest I thought there were than 10 crops that were genetically modified. None the less, I am very interested in furthering my knowledge on this topic.
Which GM crops are commercially available?
According to Monsanto’s website, there are 10 commercially available crops in US grocery stores today.
- Squash/Zucchini
- Cotton
- Soybean
- Corn
- Papaya
- Alfalfa
- Sugar Beets
- Canola
- Potato
- Apples
I liked how Monsanto provides info on a few other crops that may be commonly misconceived to be GM. Seedless watermelon, grape tomatoes, and baby carrots are a few examples that have evolved by traditional selective breeding.
Also, GM Salmon has been on the shelves in Canada for a while now, but is still being debated for use in the US.
https://monsanto.com/innovations/biotech-gmos/
Dan Severson and GMO crops
After Dan Severson’s guest lecture on the Livestock Industry in Delaware, he wanted us to find out how many crops are made with GMO’s. I find out that there are actually ten crops that are grown with GMO’s. The ten crops are alfalfa, apples, canola, corn (field and sweet), cotton, papaya, potatoes, soybeans, squash and sugar beets. Honestly, I didn’t know this was possible but am glad I do now. I will think more about the crops I will possibly buy the next time I go to a supermarket or farmers market.
Genetically Modified Crops
Genetically Modified Crops have been controversial among some people and groups who are unaware of the science involved and how it will affect them when they eat the crops. In 2014, 181.5 million hectares are planted with GMO crops in 28 countries. Half of the hectares are genetically modified soybeans, 30% is maize, 14% is cotton, and 5% is canola. The crops that are modified to be herbicide tolerant are alfalfa, canola, cotton, maize, soybean and sugar beet. Crops that are insect resistant are cotton, eggplants, maize, and poplar. Other crops are modified to be more nutritious, different colors, longer lasting, or drought resistant are canola, carnation, maize, papaya, petunia, potato, rose, soybean, squash, sugar cane, and tobacco. Crops can have several traits that are modified together to make the crop more resistant against a wider variety of herbicides and insecticides. The majority of GMO crops are only four crops which are soybeans, maize, cotton, and canola while the other crops are only grown in very small numbers comparatively and only encompass 1% of the GMO crops planted.