A New Way to Grow Your Breakfast

  • Brook Wilke and his son, Charlie, visit a test farm at The Kellogg Biological Research Station. Wilke and other researchers are testing how well perennial versions of popular grain crops, such as wheat, will grow in Michigan. The test farm isn't too far from Battle Creek, the home of the commercial breakfast cereal industry. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

If you had a bowl of cereal or maybe a muffin this morning, you ate flour from an annual crop. They grow one season, they die, then get re-planted again the next year. Sounds as natural as could be, but repetitive planting can wear out farmland. It can cause soil erosion and cause more water pollution. Now, some scientists are trying to coax grain crops into growing for years at a time. Shawn Allee visited researchers who are testing perennial wheat in the heart of cereal country:

Transcript

If you had a bowl of cereal or maybe a muffin this morning, you ate flour from an annual crop. They grow one season, they die, then get re-planted again the next year. Sounds as natural as could be, but repetitive planting can wear out farmland. It can cause soil erosion and cause more water pollution. Now, some scientists are trying to coax grain crops into growing for years at a time. Shawn Allee visited researchers who are testing perennial wheat in the heart of cereal country:

I’ve headed to a test farm run by Michigan State University. It’s not that
far from Battle Creek,
Michigan where cereal companies like Kelloggs got started.

Dr. Sieg Snapp shows me grain that might make into our cereal bowls
someday.

Allee: “What are we looking at on this side?”

Snapp: “We have 6 varieties of perennial wheat.”

Right now, they kinda look like spindly blades of grass. But in some ways,
this is miraculous; regular
wheat dies after harvest. These have been harvested, and now they’re
popping back up.

“We’ll harvest these this summer, and then in the fall, they’ll re-grow.
They build a deep root
system, and they’re able to come back. So, at first, they start off very
similar, but they keep
growing longer, and they re-grow after harvest. That’s the real
difference.”

Actually, that’s just the start of the difference between annual grains
like wheat and perennial
varieties.

Dr. Snapp says when farmers plant most annual grain crops, soil gets torn
up again and again from
planting and replanting. Rain can wash away exposed top-soil.

Perennial crops get planted once every few years, so they might hold soil
and they might need less
fertilizer that runs off into streams and rivers.

Snapp: “So, the roots of traditional crops including annual wheat are
usually 1-2 feet. These
root systems might be down 6 feet. They can use fertilizers more
efficiently, so they can pick
it up from deep and then move it up where we want it, into the grain.”

Allee: “And if the roots are deep enough, you might need less herbicide
to kill weeds, right?
If that perennial wheat comes up strong enough, it’s already out-competing
the weeds that
are next to it?”

Snapp: “Right, and each year it should do it better for a couple years at
least, we don’t know
how long.”

Dr. Snapp and her colleagues use the word “maybe” a lot when they talk
about perennial grains. It’s
mostly because testing these crops is slow work. That’s one reason they’re
letting some farmers run
their own small tests.

She introduces me to one farmer.

“Hi John! Come on over!”

Part-time farmer and teacher John Edgerton says he checked his test batches
recently.

“I didn’t know what to expect and I went out there and low and behold,
it’s greening up
beautifully. In fact, now, it may be a little too thick. We’ll see.”

Edgerton wants to know whether sheep can get cheap feed from leftover wheat
grass, or whether
farmers could save on tractor fuel.

“One farmer said to me, you know, if I could get three or four years of a
decent crop of
perennial wheat without having to plow, there’d be enormous savings.”

Pretty soon, another perennial wheat researcher joins us in the test field.
He’s Brook Wilke.

He tells me, all this work on perennial wheat and other grains will work
best if the final product, the
grain, tastes like what we’re used to.

Allee: “I hear you baked some chocolate chip cookies with perennial
wheat.”

Wilke: “Yeah. A big component of this work is, “’will people eat the
perennial wheat?’”

Dr. Snapp tasted Wilke’s cookies. She says the wheat tasted kinda nutty,
but good.

Dr. Snapp says maybe one day, she and other researchers will prove
perennial grain plants can thrive.
After that, maybe bread or cereal companies, like Kellogs, will run
taste-tests of their own.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Wheat Farmers Reconsider Biotech

  • Wheat farmers are re-considering the genetically modified seed question (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

You’ve probably noticed the price of
bread is a lot higher than just a year ago.
A big reason is higher wheat prices. Bakeries
are trying to figure how to keep costs down,
and farmers think they have an answer: develop
genetically modified wheat seeds. Julie Grant
reports:

Transcript

You’ve probably noticed the price of
bread is a lot higher than just a year ago.
A big reason is higher wheat prices. Bakeries
are trying to figure how to keep costs down,
and farmers think they have an answer: develop
genetically modified wheat seeds. Julie Grant
reports:

Nearly every major US crop is grown with genetically modified seeds – corn,
soybeans, cotton.

Biotech companies take genes from other organisms and put
them into corn and soybean seeds. This alters the behavior
of crops. One of the most used alters crops to withstand
herbicides. So, when an herbicide is sprayed, it kills the
weeds, but the crops survive.

But wheat producers said thank you, but no, to those genetically altered seeds.

Daren Coppock is chief of the National Wheat Growers Association. He says a
lot of wheat farmers didn’t need the genetically altered traits being offered.

First, weeds just aren’t a big problem in some types of wheat.

And second, Coppock says wheat growers were worried about the export market
in Europe and Japan. In those countries, they call genetically altered crops
‘Frankenfoods’.

“And so, it was something where some of our members would get the benefit, but
everybody faced potential risk of having customers say, ‘we don’t want this in
wheat.’”

Since the farmers didn’t want it, Coppock says Monsanto and the other big seed
companies dropped research into biotech wheat. That was five years ago.
Coppock says turning down biotech has since proven to be a bad move for
wheat growers.

Now, the big biotech companies don’t do as much research on how to improve
wheat, including breeding drought resistant varieties. Drought in Australia and
Canada is part of the reason there’s a wheat shortage now, making prices
higher.

“And so the conclusion that the industry basically has come to is, we have to do
something to change the competitiveness equation or we will end up, wheat will
end up, being a minor crop.”

And that could mean wheat shortages in the future.

So wheat farmers are re-considering the genetically modified seed question.
They think asking for new biotech wheat strains might kick start research on
wheat.

Bakers say something needs to be done – wheat prices are way high. And the
people who bake breads, muffins, cookies, and cakes are concerned.

Lee Sanders is with the American Bakers Association, which represents
Pepperidge Farms, Sara Lee, and many smaller bakeries.

“When wheat prices go up 173% in one year, it certainly effects how bakers can
do business. And how smaller bakers, in particular, if they can keep their doors
open.”

Those rising wheat prices are being passed on to consumers. A loaf of bread
that cost $2.50 last year has jumped to $2.85.

But bakers aren’t convinced biotech seeds will lower wheat prices. They’re more
concerned about how their customers will respond to the idea of genetically
modified wheat.

(supermarket sound)

Shoppers in the bread aisle at this Ohio supermarket have mixed views.

“We buy the cheapest bread we can find, so it wouldn’t make much difference.”

(laughs) “If it’s bread and it’s 70 cents, I buy it. It doesn’t bother me at all.”

“I don’t know, it just doesn’t sound good. I mean, I don’t mind paying a little bit
more for bread. Everything else is more expensive now too.”

“If it would keep prices down, I’d probably actually go with genetically altered
wheat.”

You might not realize it, but you’re already eating lots of genetically modified
foods. They’re added to all kinds of processed foods, from frozen foods to juices
and cereals.

The US government says they’re safe – so they’re not labeled.

But people in many other countries are more aware – and a lot more concerned
about biotech foods.

Doug Gurian Sherman is a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned
Scientists. If American wheat goes biotech, he says farmers will probably lose
their export markets.

“They can go elsewhere and they will go elsewhere. They really are trying to
avoid it for any kind of human food use.”

Even if wheat growers can persuade Monsanto and the others to start
researching genetically modified wheat, it will take at least five to ten years
before anything is in the field.

By then, farmers say, climate change may make
some places so dry that people will need biotech wheat whether they like it or
not.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Food Prices on the Rise

  • Produce section of a supermarket in VA. (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)

Food prices are going up worldwide. A new survey
by the American Farm Bureau Federation finds supermarket
checkout costs have risen nearly 8% this year.
Julie Grant has more:

Transcript

Food prices are going up worldwide. A new survey
by the American Farm Bureau Federation finds supermarket
checkout costs have risen nearly 8% this year.
Julie Grant has more:

Retail food prices usually increase 3% per year. But over the last year the
cost of flour, cheese, bread, meat, oil, and produce is up – by more than
double the average.

The United Nations has predicted prices will stabilize in the long term. But
that consumers worldwide will face at least 10 more years of rapidly rising
food prices.

Commodity prices for corn, wheat, soybeans and other staples have been
skyrocketing over the past year – to more than double 2006 prices.
The higher costs are due in part to weather affecting crops, and growing
demand in China and India.

Economists also point toward the increased use of grains for ethanol and
other biofuels, putting pressure on food prices.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Food to Fuel Drives Wheat Prices

  • Mary Morran at Avalon International Breads in Detroit (Photo by Sarah Hulett)

Short supply and high demand for wheat means
prices are at record levels, and rising. But the high
cost of wheat is bad news for people who buy it. And
in North America, where most people’s diets are based
on wheat, that means just about everyone. Sarah Hulett
has this look at what’s behind the run-up in prices:

Transcript

Short supply and high demand for wheat means
prices are at record levels, and rising. But the high
cost of wheat is bad news for people who buy it. And
in North America, where most people’s diets are based
on wheat, that means just about everyone. Sarah Hulett
has this look at what’s behind the run-up in prices:

Jackie Victor is sitting on a stack of 50-pound bags of organic wheat flour inside the
bakery she co-owns. And these days, it’s a pretty expensive seat.

Victor says in the last year, what she pays for those bags of flour has doubled.

“So it’s a very scary time, and I don’t think just – really for the industry, although it is
scary for us – it should be a warning sign for the country that something here is amiss.”

In the fall, Victor raised her retail prices at Avalon International Breads in Detroit.

So a loaf of bread that comes out of this batch getting mixed by baker Kevin Boyer will
cost you 50 to 75 cents more today.

“This is the multigrain bread. This is our Motown Multigrain.”

Soon, one of those loaves will probably cost even more, because the price of flour keeps going up.

(forklift sound)

Avalon Bakery buys its flour from Dawn Food Products. Inside one of its central
warehouses, forklift operators move pallets of baking ingredients into tractor-trailors. It smells like a kitchen pantry. And that’s basically what this is: a gigantic
pantry full of baking ingredients that will be shipped all over the world.

Miles Jones points out a pallet full of wheat gluten, which is used in most commercially-produced baked goods.

“That’s vital wheat gluten there. The price of that vital wheat gluten, just as an example,
has about tripled here in the last six months.”

Jones is co-chairman of the board at Dawn Foods. He’s been in the baking industry for close to four decades, and he says he’s never seen prices so high.

There are several reasons for the spike in wheat prices. Drought and other bad weather
wiped out a lot of the global wheat crop over the past two years. And fast-developing countries like China
and India are consuming more food made from wheat.

And then there’s the ethanol factor. More farmers are planting corn to sell to ethanol
refineries. Jones says that’s gobbling up land that used to be planted with wheat and other
crops. And he says it’s put us on a dangerous path.

“The end results are in the paper every day. You can see the skyrocketing food prices. And when you start trading food for energy, that’s not a good trade long-term.”

With wheat prices at record levels, more farmers might decide to plant it this year. That would boost supply and bring prices down.

Bruce Babcock is an economist, and he heads the center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University. He says the test for that theory will be the amount of spring wheat that gets planted in April and May.

“The problem of course, for farmers, it’s not really a problem, it’s a great thing for farmers, is that they can pick wheat or soybeans or canola or any crop and the price is out of this world. So because the price of everything else is up so high, I don’t think we’ll see wheat increase as much as we would hope.”

Babcock says there is some good news on the global supply front. Australia and Argentina are expected to harvest a normal amount of wheat this year. Those are two major wheat producers that had a couple of years of terrible crops.

A big question will be whether farmers in the US and Canada will get the kind of weather they need and a bumper wheat crop this year.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sarah Hulett.

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Co2 Crops Not Tops

  • Theories that crops, such as the corn in Illinois, will benefit from increases in CO2 might not be as good as predicted. (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

Carbon dioxide emissions from our cars and factories are the number one
cause of global warming. Scientists have long theorized that more of
the gas in the atmosphere could actually help farmers grow bigger
plants. But new research from America’s Breadbasket is challenging
that assumption. David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Carbon dioxide emissions from our cars and factories are the number one
cause of global warming. Scientists have long theorized that more of
the gas in the atmosphere could actually help farmers grow bigger
plants. But new research from America’s Breadbasket is challenging
that assumption. David Sommerstein reports:


Lin Warfel’s a fourth generation farmer in east-central Illinois. His
fields are flat and endless, the soil chunky and black and just about
the best in the world. An Interstate highway groans on one side of his
cornfield:


“In my career, early on, there was no Interstate past my farm.”


As traffic increased over the years, Warfel noticed a strange
phenomenon. The crops closer to the Interstate grew bigger than those
further away:


“They respond to the carbon dioxide. They can stay greener longer than
plants out into the field.”


OK… so, here’s a high school biology reminder: carbon dioxide, along
with water and sun, is an ingredient in photosynthesis, which makes
plants grow.


Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is also the biggest cause
of global warming. So scientists thought, huh, more carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere, bigger crops. They even coined a term: the “carbon
dioxide fertilization effect:”


“The effects of CO2 on crop yields are fairly well-understood.”


The Department of Energy’s Jeff Amthor has studied this stuff since the
1980s:


“We would expect that by the year 2050, that the increase in CO2 alone
would probably increase yields by about 10 to 15% in soybean, wheat and
rice relative to today’s yield, with nothing else changing.”


Other things are changing, like hotter temperatures and more drought.
But the predominant thinking has been that the increased carbon dioxide
will moderate those negative factors, maybe even outweigh them. A
recent study by the American Economic Review concluded U.S. agriculture
profits will grow by more than a billion dollars over the next century,
due to global warming. Most of this is based on experiments done in
controlled, greenhouse conditions, but new research done in real fields
is challenging the assumptions:


“Where you’re standing is what we refer to as our global change
research facility on the south farms of the University of Illinois.”


That’s biologist Steve Long. He runs what’s called the SoyFACE project
at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. Here, Long can
actually pipe carbon dioxide gas out to the fields, and grow real crops
in an atmosphere of the future.


Long strolls out to one of 16 test plots and stop at a white pipe
sticking out of the ground:


“This is one of the pipes where the carbon dioxide actually comes up
and then it will go out into the field here.”


The carbon dioxide pipes circle a plot about the size of a tennis
court. They release the gas over the crops. Computers monitor the air
to keep the concentrations steady:


“And the current atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is about
380 parts per million. We’re raising that to the level which is
expected for the year 2050, which is about 550 parts per million.”


Long has grown the crops of 2050 for 5 years now. His results
shocked him. The plants did grow bigger. They survived longer
into the fall, but the yields were 50% lower than expected. And
pests thrived. The Western corn rootworm, for example, laid
twice as many eggs:


“Japanese beetle, which eats quite a lot of the leaves of soybeans, do
twice as well under these elevated CO2 conditions. They live longer. They
produce many more young. The yield increases we’ve seen could start to be
counteracted by those increased pest problems.”


Long’s results found supporters and critics when published in
Science magazine last summer. Some researchers say extra CO2
could hurt agriculture more than it helps because weeds become more
aggressive.


The Department of Energy’s Jeff Amthor co-wrote a paper challenging the
interpretation of Long’s data. But he agrees more work needs to be
done in real-life conditions:


“The bigger questions that are now before us are the interactions of CO2 with
warming and change in precip, changes in weed communities, changes in
insect communities, changes in disease outbreak. There are a lot more
questions there than there are answers.”


Amthor says what’s at stake is our future food supply.


For The Environment Report, I’m David Sommerstein.

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Rekindling Corn Stoves

Fuel prices are higher this winter… but corn prices are down. That’s kindling a demand for corn stoves in some parts of the country. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shamane Mills reports:

Transcript

Fuel prices are higher this winter, but corn prices are down. That’s kindling a demand for corn
stoves in some parts of the country. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shamane Mills reports:


I always thought corn was something you ate. But I’m watching as my brother-in-law is stoking
his stove with golden kernels…


“In my case I use five gallon pails of corn, then just pour in slowly…”


(sound of kernels spilling into hopper)


I’d never seen a corn stove and my brother-in-law, Steve Springer, says he never thought he’d use
one. Once he did, he was hooked.


“Well, one thing about it is, it’s a renewable resource. Being a farmer myself, it’s something we
grow ourselves. This was in our home when we purchased the home – never had any exposure to
it. Since then, I like it immensely. Kicks out lot of heat.”


Corn stoves first became popular in the 1970’s when corn prices plummeted. There were
problems with the early stoves. Hardened clumps of burned corn, called clinkers, had to be
cleaned up and the corn didn’t burn efficiently.


Today, the stoves are making a resurgence because corn prices are down. New corn stoves are
better than the ones back in the 70’s. The stoves now have an agitator to stir the corn for a more
even burn and fewer clinkers.


Ed Bossert sells corn stoves at a store near where the Springers live. He says business is brisk.


“A lot of people come in to save money, a lot of people come in because it’s a renewable
resource, a lot of people come in because the pollution factor is basically nothing.”


Corn stoves produce less carbon dioxide and soot than burning wood or coal, so they seem more
environmentally friendly. But critics point out that the farm machinery used to grow the corn
burns fuel and generates pollution, so any gain from a cleaner burning fuel may be lost during
planting and harvesting.


While the environmental argument simmers, sales of corn stoves continue to heat up. Bossert says
he now sells as many corn stoves as he does wood stoves.


In larger cities such as Madison, Wisconsin the corn stoves don’t sell as well. At Top
Hat Fireplace & Chimney, only three customers have purchased corn stoves despite the best
efforts of sales staff like Mark Gilligan. Showing off the store’s one and only corn stove model,
he says it’s easy to maintain….


“They actually locate down below an ash drawer. That actually sits down below. There isn’t a
whole lot of ash from these pellet and corn stoves because it uses most of it up.”


Most corn stove dealers say a bushel or two a day will keep the cold away. With corn about two
dollars a bushel, that can seem like a bargain compared to natural gas prices, which are 20%
higher this year. But the initial cost of residential corn stoves can be steep.


Craig Tawlowicz owns Countryside Heating in north-central Wisconsin. He says new corn
stoves can cost two thousand… on up to six thousand dollars.


“So this is a long term investment. Most of the time, turn around savings, usually five to six
years pays off your investment.”


Wood stoves are not only more traditional, but they’re generally cheaper. So, wood stoves are
more popular. At Hearth and Home Fireplaces, Claire Barton says despite that… more customers
are considering corn stoves.


“It certainly makes sense for someone who has grain available to them and many of them will
burn corn as well as oats, wheat, barley, cherry pits. Things like that.”


The National Corn Growers Association promotes a lot of corn products. You’d think corn stoves
might be one of them – but spokeswoman Mimi Ricketts says it’s not one of the 600 items the
group touts.


“The National Corn Growers Association determines its issues based on priorities of member
states. Corn stoves is not one that’s been put on our radar screen. We are aware of them but we
have not actively promoted corn stoves.”


That’s probably because compared to other buyers of corn, such as livestock farms, corn syrup
processors and ethanol makers, corn stoves just don’t use a lot of corn. It’s not considered a big
market for farmers.


Instead, the big sales are going to those who make or sell the corn stoves. And because farmers’
harvest was so large this fall, corn stove retailers have found their cash crop this winter.


For the GLRC, I’m Shamane Mills.

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Group Calls for U.S. Ban on Lindane Use

  • (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

An environmental group is calling for the United States to ban a pesticide used to treat head lice. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman reports:

Transcript

An environmental group is calling for the United States to ban a pesticide used
to treat head lice. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman reports:


Lindane is most commonly used as a pesticide for corn, wheat, and other grains.
It’s also used as a medication to kill lice and scabies. But the Food and Drug
Administration warns that lindane should only be used when all other treatment
options are exhausted. That’s because the FDA has found that in very isolated
cases, lindane can cause seizures or even death.


Kristin Schafer is the Program Coordinator for the Pesticide Action Network. The
group is seeking a ban on lindane in the United States.


“This is the type of chemical that there’s no reason not to get it off the market.
It’s dangerous, it builds up in our bodies. It’s particularly dangerous to children
and there are alternatives for all uses.”


Schafer says 52 countries and the state of California have already banned lindane.
Canada plans to eliminate agricultural uses of lindane by the end of the year.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris Lehman.

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