Tag: cows

Curbing Nitrogen Pollution

Across the country, forests, streams and coastlines are getting extra doses of nutrients containing the element nitrogen. Researchers say the long-term impact of these unwanted compounds on the environment could be serious. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Daniel Grossman reports on some efforts to reduce nitrogen pollution:

Transcript

Across the country, forests, streams and coastlines are getting extra doses of nutrients
containing the element nitrogen. Researchers say the long-term impact of these unwanted compounds on the environment could be serious. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Daniel Grossman reports on some efforts to reduce nitrogen pollution:


A thunderstorm soaks the land and lights the sky. The electric jolts of the lightning change nitrogen in the air into compounds needed for plants to grow. Lightning, as well as microbes in the soil, converts annually nearly 100 million tons of atmospheric nitrogen into plant nutrients. Humans make the same compounds in factories and call them fertilizer, a mainstay of agriculture. Between these synthetic chemicals and a smaller quantity of related compounds produced when fossil fuels are burned, humans produce more nitrogen-rich nutrients than nature makes on the seven continents. University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman says such extra nutrients are a concern.


“Right now half or more of the nitrogen we put on a farm field just washes through the soil and down into the groundwater into lakes, rivers, streams and into the ocean.”


This wasted nitrogen often travels great distances causing widespread damage. Tilman says on land, the nutrients cause exotic weeds to outgrow native plants. In the ocean, the nutrients cripple critical habitats. The ecologist says nitrogen pollution must be cut. One place to start is on the farm.


“We have to find some way to grow crops where the crops take up much more of the nutrients that we apply.”


(Sound of walking through grass. Quiet bird calls in background.)


Near Chesapeake Bay, farmer and agricultural scientist Russ Brinsfield walks across a patch of tall dry grass.


We’re on the edge of a field, about a sixty-acre field of corn, on the beautiful Eastern Shore of Maryland.


This field is a research plot at the Maryland Center for Agro-Ecology. Here Brinsfield is studying agriculture’s environmental impact. Chesapeake Bay’s waters have high concentrations of farmer’s nutrients, causing blooms of the toxic algae Pfiesteria. The pollution has also caused declines in sea grass beds. Brinsfield says solutions to the problem fall into two categories.


“The first series of practices are those practices that we’ve been able to demonstrate that by a farmer implementing them he can reduce his inputs without affecting his outputs… that at the end of the year have added profit to his bottom line.”


For instance, testing the soil’s nitrogen level before fertilizing. And splitting fertilizer applications into two doses rather than one so that nutrients are added only when plants need them. Such simple measures are good for environment and the bottom line. Brinsfield says in the last 10 years most farmers on the Eastern Shore of Maryland have cut fertilizer use this way. Then there’s the other category of improvements.


“We’re going to have to do some things-ask some farmers to do some things-that may cost them more to do than what they are going to get in return from that investment.”


For example, in the winter, many fields here are fallow and bare. That means top soil erodes when it rains, taking with it residual fertilizer. It wasn’t always this way.


“I can remember my dad saying to me, ‘every field has to be green going into the winter, Son.’ So all of our fields were planted with rye or wheat or barley. It served two purposes. First, the animals grazed it. And second, it held the soil intact.”


And intact soil retains its fertilizer. Such winter cover crops also prevent fertilizer loss by storing nutrients in plant leaves and stalks. This used to be dairy country and cover crops grazed by cows made economic sense. Now farmers mostly grow grains. Planting a cover crop could cut nitrogen flow from farms by 40 percent but it costs farmers about $20/acre and provides no economic benefit to them. Brinsfield says farmers need an incentive.


“For the most part, farmers are willing to participate and to do those things that need to be done, as long as they can still squeak out a living.”


To help them squeak out a living, the state pays some farmers to sow cover crops. The state also pays them to plant buffers of grass and trees that suck up nutrients before they leave the farm. Today farms in six states that are part of the Chesapeake’s huge watershed contribute about 54 million pounds of nitrogen to the bay. The goal is to cut this figure approximately in half by two thousand and ten. Robert Howarth, a marine biologist and expert on nitrogen pollution at Cornell University, says though ambitious, this target can be achieved.


“I think most of the problems from nitrogen pollution have relatively straightforward technical fixes. So the real trick is to get the political will to institute these.”


Howarth says much of the nitrogen problem could be eliminated with a blend of government subsidies and regulations. But more will be needed as well… solutions of a more personal nature.


(sound of Redbones Barbeque)


There’s a pungent, smoky aroma in the air at Redbones Barbeque in Somerville, Massachusetts. The crowded bistro serves up a variety of ribs, chicken, sausage and other meats, dripping with savory sauces. University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman says when someone eats a meal they are responsible for the little share of fertilizer a farmer somewhere had to apply to grow a crop. If the meal is from farm-raised animals, like the heaping plates of meat served here, the amount of fertilizer is much greater than if it’s from plants.


“It takes from three to ten kilograms of grain to produce a single kilogram of meat.”


Tilman says if Americans ate less meat, they could dramatically reduce fertilizer usage. However, per capita consumption is rising. Meat consumption is on the rise globally as well. David Tilman would like that to change. He says if current trends continue, human production of nitrogen nutrients will grow to triple or quadruple what nature makes on all Earth’s lands. Professor Tilman says that in many places the impact on the environment would be catastrophic.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Daniel Grossman.

Benefits and Risks of Cloned Cows

Milk production is big business in the upper Midwest. Now, the president of a biotech company in Wisconsin is milking a herd of cloned cows that he says could give the Great Lakes dairy industry a boost, but there are still questions about the health of cloned cows, and whether the milk they produce is safe for human consumption. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Gil Halsted has the story:

Transcript

Milk production is big business in the upper Midwest. Now the president of a biotech company in Wisconsin is milking a herd of cloned cows that he says could give the Great Lakes dairy industry a boost. But there are still questions about the health of cloned cows and whether the milk they produce is safe for human consumption. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Gil Halsted reports:

(Sound of milk splashing into a sink)

Just outside the milking parlor at the Infigen Dairy a steady stream of milk is flowing from a pipe into a sink. It gurgles down the drain into another pipe that leads to a holding tank. Infigen president Michael Bishop says the milk is perfectly safe and nutritious but when the day’s milking is done he’ll get rid of it.

“Right now that milk is worth 15, 16 dollars a hundredweight and we’re dumpin’ it.”

The milk Bishop is dumping comes from 23 cloned cows. He produced them by removing the genetic material from an unfertilized cow egg and then inserting the DNA from the ear of a cow he wanted to reproduce. The result is a herd of cows that looks uncannily identical. There are no regulations requiring Bishop to dump the milk from his herd. But the FDA has asked all owners of cloned livestock to keep food products from their animals off the market until the agency decides whether or not to regulate them. The FDA is waiting for a National Academy of Sciences report on animal cloning due out later this spring before it makes a decision.

FDA spokesperson Stephen Sundlof says even if the report includes no red flags on food products from clones, the agency may require tests on the milk from cloned cows before it goes on the market.

“That would be to look compositionally at milk from cloned animals and compare that to milk from non-cloned animals to see if there was any substantial differences. But other than that we would likely find that those products were in fact identical to normal milk produced by uncloned animals.”

Michael Bishop is confident the milk his cloned cows are producing is perfectly safe for human consumption. In fact he says he’s already run the kind of test Sundlof is talking about comparing the milk of his cloned cows with the milk from cows at a neighboring dairy.

“Nothing new in the cloned cows… but there were variants in the bulk tank of a neighbor dairy, so it really turns out that the food product is more predictable. It’s gonna be the same in a cloned animal.”

But critics of cloning food say there are still lots of unanswered questions. Infigen isn’t the only company cloning dairy cows and several consumer groups are lobbying the FDA to put some strong regulations in place before milk from any of the diaries using the procedure is allowed on supermarket shelves. Joseph Mendelsen is with the Washington-based Center for Food Safety. He says there are a number of potential health problems for cloned cows. For instance they may be more susceptible to mastitis, and may require more use of antibiotics.

“Are there possibly subtle genetic differences that may affect the nutritional quality of the milk? I don’t think those issues have been looked at and they’re certainly not gonna be looked at with the scrutiny I think that consumers expect if we don’t have a mandatory regulatory system looking at cloned animals and the products derived from them.”

Infigen’s Michael Bishop agrees that regulations to insure the quality of the milk may be necessary, and he’s in favor of labeling the milk from cloned cows so consumers can make an informed choice.

“Americans are used to having choices and I believe they should have this choice. Let’s let science prove one way or the other if there’s a difference and then let’s let the marketplace decide if that product is going to be acceptable.”

Critics of cloning all say labeling should be required for food from cloned animals. But they’re even more concerned about the affect clones will have on genetic diversity. John Peck is the executive director of the Wisconsin-based Family Farm Defenders. He says an increase in the number of cows with identical genes will reduce the range of genetic diversity. And that means, he says, that herds of cloned cattle will be even more likely to face problems from disease and viruses.

“If you’re basically engineering in this uniformity, you’re also engineering susceptibility to catastrophic events, which we’ve seen that with other crops that are genetically engineered or hybrids that are vulnerable to one form of blight or rust or something that comes in from afar. The big question then is, who’s gonna pay for that? You know are the consumers gonna foot the bill when a factory farm of two thousand dairy cows all gets wiped out by one virus?”

But Michael Bishop says his cloned cows will not be any more at risk for disease than the original healthy cows they were cloned from. He predicts that once cloning catches on, farmers running large commercial dairies will begin adding clones to their herds to increase their efficiency.

“Because they’ll actually be able to create a more uniform consistent product from cow to cow to cow, and be able to predict how much hay, how much feed, and exactly what the outcome’s gonna be. Is it gonna be thirty thousand, thirty one thousand, thirty two thousand pounds of milk from the inputs they put in.”

Just
how quickly large dairies turn to cloning for economic advantage though depends a lot on whether the FDA decides to impose restrictions on the milk the cloned cows produce.

For Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Gil Halsted.

Tracking Livestock to Limit Diseases

Those worried about food safety say it’s time for a uniform animal identification system – one that could rapidly isolate animals suspected of carrying contagious diseases. Wisconsin agriculture officials have taken the lead on this type of preventative action but will need the help of all the Great Lakes states to make it work. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Jo Wagner has more:

Transcript

Those worried about food safety say it’s time for a uniform animal identification system, one that could rapidly isolate animals suspected of carrying contagious diseases. Wisconsin AG officials have taken the lead on this type of preventive action but will need the help of all the Great Lakes States to make it work. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Jo Wagner has more.


There’s growing consensus among agricultural officials that some type of universal animal identifier is needed to trace animals from birth to the marketplace. Especially in light of recent occurrences of “mad cow” and “foot and mouth” diseases in live animals overseas and the nasty form of e coli in meat products here. Wisconsin secretary of agriculture, Jim Harsdorf says the ID system started in Europe. Now it’s moved to Canada, where it’s mandatory, and Harsdorf says Holland has a central database containing information on all the nation’s animals.


“It’s housed in one location and the producers within 48 hours have an animal ID’d after it’s born and that animal ID stays with it for life.”


Federal officials in the United States have been slow to implement such a system though, so Harsdorf says state officials are working to come up with one. It might be tied to different identification networks that farmers already use to keep production and reproduction records, herd health, vaccinations and the location of cattle that are sold, or it could be a totally new system that keeps some or all of those records on one central computer database managed by state, private or non-profit organizations.


Wisconsin state veterinarian Clarence Siroky says public feedback surprised them. State officials were expecting farmers to want only a voluntary system but what they found at public meetings was that producers want a more comprehensive mandatory system nationwide


“We move cattle all over the United States rapidly…we can have one cow at least touch 27 other states within a week…one pig can touch 19 other states within 24 hours.”


For those reasons, Siroky says, all animals will have to be included, not only cows, but sheep, horses and pigs. In England for example, cows are identified, but sheep are not, and he says sheep were implicated in the rapid spread of foot and mouth disease there.


That concerns Ted Johnson. He’s a Wisconsin dairy farmer who likes the idea of a universal identification system because it would quickly pinpoint the location of animals that might have come in contact with a disease.


“If in the event of an outbreak of some highly contagious disease, it could be stopped very quickly and we wouldn’t have to have wholesale slaughtering of cattle.”


Still Johnson says many farmers are concerned about how much the ID would cost, who would maintain the records, and who would have access to them.


“The worst case scenario would be if that information is released and there is some doubt about the information or if the information is used in an incorrect manner, the perception can be there’s a problem on individual farms.”


State veterinarian Clarence Siroky says that’s why input from farmers, processors, privacy advocates and consumers is important as the technology is developing.


Still to be decided is the type of animal ID that would be used. Siroky says it could be a tag placed on the animal’s ear. However, some animals already have so many different ear tags, he says one ear can look like a Christmas tree. Other possibilities include a computer chip or other type of recyclables monitor placed inside an animal.


Meanwhile, AG secretary Harsdorf says the records included in a computerized type of system could be very beneficial to consumers at the supermarket.


“At some point in time, you’re gonna have the ability to go through a grocery store and see up on a screen when you buy that package where it came from, a picture of the operation — it’s almost mind boggling to see what could happen down the road.”


Still, farmer Ted Johnson worries all the talk right now about the need for animal identification might create a consumer backlash.


“I feel as a producer our food supply is very safe. I don’t want the perception to be that an animal ID program is being instituted because we have a problem.”


But a potential problem without plans to deal with it could create havoc for the agricultural industry, and so far veterinarian Siroky doesn’t know when a system with wide support might be in place. He does say animal health officials are on high alert for the appearance of any contagious diseases. At the same time, he says even if Wisconsin comes up with a proactive plan, unless other states adopt a similar identification method, any tracking system would have limited effectiveness. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Jo Wagner.

Eco-Cows Munch on Invasive Plants

  • Researchers are finding that Scottish Highland Cattle, such as these Rockhill Red Cows, have an appetite for many types of invasive plants. Photo courtesy of Marv & Ann Rockhill.

Cattle that love to eat thorny shrubs and nasty weeds are proving they can clean up areas infested with invasive plant species. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Jo Wagner has this report:

Transcript

Cattle that love to eat thorny shrubs and nasty weeds are proving they can clean up areas infested with invasive plant species. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Jo Wagner reports.


For years, land managers have been trying to find better ways to control particularly troublesome plants. Invasive species such as multi-flora rose, prickly ash and wild parsnip used to be held in check by natural fires, or grazing by bison and elk. But ever since wildfires have been mostly controlled, and elk and bison populations have plummeted, many invasive species in the Great Lakes region have been growing out of control. So researchers have been looking for other ways to fight these invaders. At the University of Wisconsin, researchers have been testing Scottish Highland cattle on some fields containing invasive species. Consultant Martha Rosemeyer says the preliminary results look promising…


“One of the things we’ve found out by following the cattle is they really like wild parsnip when it’s young. Out of a field of grass they’ll identify and hone in on the wild parsnip and eat the whole patch of it.”


One of two farms testing the cattle’s weed eating potential is owned by Peter Rathbun. He says on one of the test plots, the parsnip was so high and thick, biologists wouldn’t go in to take samples.


“I was a little concerned, well are the cows going to go in and eat it and get sick, but they went in and ate it and they loved it.”


Rathbun has various weed and brush problems or “junk” as he calls it on 120 acres, including prickly ash, hawthorn, gooseberries and other plants that produce large thickets. He was one of the first farmers in Wisconsin to start raising the highland cattle several years ago and now has around forty animals eating weeds on half his farm. His goal is to return some o the land to its original oak savannah status. So far on his fifteen test plots with and without cattle, the results of grazing Scottish cattle are positive.


“It’s so wonderfully obvious what’s happening because here’s three strands of electric fence. On one side you can walk right through the woods…its no problem – you can see everything there. On the other side it’s dense, you don’t even want to think about walking through it. And this is only after 2 rotations.”


Rotating means moving groups of up to nine cattle around on once-acre test plots. The cattle spend two or three days on select plots each month throughout the summer. Martha Rosemeyer says researchers were interested in the breed of cattle because in Europe, they’re referred to as “eco-cows.” That’s because of their unique ability to eat plants that have inch-long thorns.


“They’ve got really tough tongues – they wrap them around these and pull – so they pull these things up like prickly ash leaves off and aren’t really bothered by thorns. They actually like thorns to rub and scratch…they’ll lean on things and scratch and they’ll break them and change the vegetation in that way too.”


Peter Rathbun says it didn’t take long for his cattle to tackle a patch of prickly ash after the gate into one test plot was opened.


“They ran over to it and started eating the actual bush. And I loved to see the reaction of some of the graduate students who’ve been working on this for a very long time. In their heart of hearts they really had some doubts whether the animals were really going to like to eat the junk.”


Once results are in by the summer of 2003, consultant Martha Rosemeyer says researchers may have a better idea of how effective the cattle will be at permanent eradication of unwanted plants.


“Certainly if you knock down a plant by taking off it’s above ground vegetation a number of times, it weakens the plant and it eventually will die. That’s what we’re hoping will happen but we’re not sure we need to test this and see the results…it’s speculation at this point.”


By comparison, Rosemeyer says on Department of Natural Resources land, a few test pilots were grazed and burned earlier this year to compare the weed control with the Highland cattle. It turned out that combination was too destructive and the burning was discontinued.


Meanwhile, not only do these animals eat through the bad stuff, but they also provide great hamburgers. Rathbun sells the meat as a low fat, very tasty source of protein.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Jo Wagner.

Commentary – Giving Farmers Their Due

In late March, Canadian farmer
Nick Parsons drove his tractor over 3,000 miles across the country. His
goal was to reach the nation’s capital in Ottawa to ask for financial
support for Canada’s farmers. Great Lakes Radio Consortium
commentator Suzanne Elston thinks we should be giving farmers a whole
lot more:

Powerline Generates Controversy

No one likes the idea of a major powerline running through their
backyard. But a proposed bulk transmission line in Wisconsin is
generating more than the usual amount of controversy. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

No one likes the idea of a major power line running through their backyard.
But a proposed bulk transmission line in Wisconsin is generating more than
the usual amount of controversy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:


Steve Olson will never forget the night of June 25, 1998. He was working
the overnight shift at Minnesota power’s control center when something went
very wrong.


“I really didn’t know exactly what was going on at the time but I knew it was
serious. I knew it was something bigger than Minnesota power. It’s within
a matter of a minute or two we had half a dozen lines opening.”


The open lines meant the electric grid was breaking apart. The grid
connects Minnesota power to eight states and three Canadian provinces.
lightning strikes in Wisconsin – 200 miles away – caused the breakup. Over
40,000 people lost power.


John Heino is a spokesman for Minnesota power. He says that kind of
situation is one step away from a regional blackout.


“Normally this system is designed to work together so neighboring states and
systems can support each other, but in that situation, it just breaks up
into pieces and there’s no guarantee the power plants in that area are
enough to supply the load that’s left.”


The near miss convinced Minnesota power to do something to shore up the weak
link in the regional electric grid.


The Duluth-based company joined with Wisconsin Public Service to propose a
345-kilovolt transmission line from Duluth Minnesota to Wausau Wisconsin.
It would tap into cheap coal and hydro power from western Minnesota and
Manitoba. Heino says the new link would lighten the load on existing lines
and make service more reliable.


“With all these sources to the north and the west, and you have the Twin
Cities, Milwaukee and Chicago, to the south and the east, so there’s this
general day in and day out tendency for the power to flow to the south and
the east.”


The plan has attracted a lot of opposition along the proposed route. Eight
counties and over fifty local governments have gone on record against it.

Opponents worry about property values, loss of farmland, and health issues.


(sound of meeting)


At a recent meeting in superior Wisconsin, nearly 200 angry people showed up
to confront Minnesota power officials.


Person 1: “Both of these proposed routes would go through our property. We sunk our
life savings into it and we thought we could protect it. Lo and behold,
what did we know?”


Person 2: “As far as I’m concerned, this is a dinosaur. We’re looking at smaller
leading edge technologies that are more adapted to local generation.


Person 3: “I have a very nice neighbor and the power line is going across his land

and
he said to me, if it comes across my land, I’ll shoot’em.


Some Wisconsin farmers oppose the line because of problems they’re having
with other electric lines. Debbie Beyrl says ground currents have made her
cows sick. That’s reduced milk production and made it harder to keep the
business going. She’s also worried about her family’s health.


“I worry about my kids because they’re in the barn helping us. And I think
it’ll put us out of business, not that we’d want to quit but I think it
would finish us off, yeah.”


Power company officials say ground currents are caused by improper wiring or
local distribution lines, not large transmission lines.


But environmentalists question the need for the line. Chris Laforge sells
wind and solar electric generating systems. He says utilities could avoid
building expensive power lines by using alternative systems.


“It’s a perfect match. Distributed photovoltaic generation on rooftops of
large buildings can meet peak air conditioning demand because electricity
gets made right when you need it.”


Power companies say there’s great potential in alternative technologies, but
the current need is acute. Jim Loock is the chief electrical engineer
at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. That agency has the authority
to approve the line.


“Our electrical system is growing at 2-3% a year, so we need 200-300
megawatts of additional supply every year. That’s why we say part of the
equation is energy conservation and demand side management, we feel strongly
that the consumer needs to conserve energy and use it as wisely as possible.”


Hearings are scheduled this month in Minnesota and this summer in Wisconsin.
if approved, construction could start in September 2001.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Farm Management Mimics the Past

Increasing numbers of American farmers are going "back to the
future" – moving away from the high-investment, high-energy farming
methods of the last fifty years, and experimenting with modern versions
of more traditional techniques. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Market Testing Irradiated Beef

Early next year, the nation’s two largest meat-packers will test market
a new product—ground beef that’s been irradiated to kill harmful
bacteria. The Federal Food and Drug Administration approved irradiation
for red meat in 1997, but the meat industry has been moving cautiously.
Companies are unsure whether consumers will accept irradiated meat. The
product got a major test recently in Minnesota. Minnesota Public Radio’s
Mary Losure reports:

Warning Labels for French Wine?

Warning labels on cigarettes and alcohol alert consumers to
potential health effects… Now a bill is being considered in Congress
to
label French wine, which some people think might transmit mad cow
disease. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy Nelson reports:

Dairy Farm Endangers Trout Stream

In the tiny town of Martell in western Wisconsin, residents are trying
to stop a big new dairy farm they fear will pollute one of the best
trout streams in the Midwest — the Rush River, about an hour’s drive
east of the Twin Cities. Its the same kind of battle small towns and
rural residents are fighting across the Midwest, as large-scale
livestock operations continue to expand. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mary Losure reports: