Day: November 1, 2023

Kansas State University to lead climate change food-strengthening initiative

Photo credit: Barn Owl Drone Services

by Rachel Mipro, Kansas Reflector
October 31, 2023

TOPEKA — Kansas researchers will turn their focus to wheat, millet and other crops in a federally funded attempt to tackle world hunger.

The U.S. Agency for International Development awarded Kansas State University $22 million to research how best to promote the growth of crops as climate change and global instability continues to derail the agricultural industry.

K-State will lead the Feed the Future Climate Resilient Cereals Innovational Lab, or CRCIL, focusing on sorghum, millet, wheat and rice as major world crops that need to be protected. The university will partner with several other state universities including Cornell University and Louisiana State University, along with international partners in South Asia, Eastern and Western Africa and Latin America.

Jagger Harvey, director of CRCIL and a research professor in the Plant Pathology Department at K-State, said the project will look at ways to make these crops more resilient, including researching seed modification to help double food production and crop durability as climate conditions worsen.

“Kansas farmers and researchers are no strangers to harsh climatic conditions impacting cereal production,” Harvey said. “This makes K-State the perfect home for this new initiative.”

The funding will support collaborative research, along with using plant-breeding technology, such as DNA sequencing and genotyping, crop modeling and quicker growth methods, with the end goal of providing hardier crops to farmers around the world.

Dina Esposito, USAID’s assistant to the administrator for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security, said the initiative would help tackle problems of hunger and poverty.

“Advancing this work is critical to generating a pipeline of climate-adapted crops so we can strengthen the resilience of small-scale farmers and meet their current and future needs,” Esposito said. 

Jared Crain, a K-State plant pathology department research assistant professor who will serve as the associate director of the innovation lab, estimated that more than 50% of the world’s caloric intake comes from cereal crops.

“With the exception of maize, CRCIL is dedicated to identifying and using genetic variation to improve farmers’ production and consumers’ acceptance of the top vital cereals,” Crain said.

The $22 million award is the fifth award that K-State has received through Feed the Future, a federal initiative attempting to combat world hunger. USAID has invested nearly $128 million in K-State innovation labs for research into agricultural areas such as post-harvest losses and increasing harvest yields.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

Report: Chemical Recycling: A Dangerous Deception — Beyond Plastics

Click the link to access the report from the Beyond Plastics website:

October 2023 | Beyond Plastics & International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN)

Chemical recycling — or what the industry likes to call “advanced recycling” — is increasingly touted as a solution to the plastic waste problem, but a landmark new report from Beyond Plastics and IPEN shows this technology hasn’t worked for decades, it’s still failing, and it threatens the environment, the climate, human health, and environmental justice. This comprehensive report features an investigation of all 11 constructed chemical recycling facilities in the United States, their output, their financial backing, and their contribution to environmental pollution.

The petrochemical and plastics industries have been aggressively working across America to pass state laws that reclassify chemical recycling facilities as manufacturing rather than waste facilities, which reduces regulation of these polluting plants and allows the companies to grab more public subsidies. As of this report’s release, 24 states have passed such laws. Just like mechanical recycling, chemical recycling is an industry marketing tactic to distract from the real solution to the plastic problem: reducing how much plastic is produced in the first place. 

Deregulating and incentivizing chemical recycling is a dangerous trend with environmental and human health repercussions, though it’s not surprising when you consider how little information is publicly available about what chemical recycling actually does, how it does it, who it affects, how little plastic it removes from the waste stream, and how little product is actually produced. 

This report unmasks chemical recycling’s history of failure, its lack of viability, and its harms so that others, especially lawmakers and regulators, can see this pseudo-solution for what it is: smoke and mirrors.

Drought-affected South, Southwest set heat, dryness records — National #Drought Mitigation Center #monsoon2023

Left: At the end of the third quarter, 32.1% of the U.S. and Puerto Rico was in moderate drought or worse. Drought steadily increased from the beginning of July through the end of September. (Map from droughtmonitor.unl.edu ) Right: Changes in U.S. Drought Monitor categories between July 4 and Oct. 4, 2023, showed improvement in the Northeast, as well as parts of the Midwest, High Plains and West. Degradations occurred in the South, Southwest and along the U.S.-Canadian border. (Map from the U.S. Drought Monitor, droughtmonitor.unl.edu )

From email from the National Drought Mitigation Center (Curtis Riganti):

Drought developed and expanded in parts of the Desert Southwest during an unusually hot and dry North American Monsoon. Maricopa County, Arizona, recorded a statewide average of 1.27 inches of rain (the second-lowest county average total in 43 years of data, according to the County’s  Flood Control District ).

Widespread extreme and exceptional drought developed from central and east Texas through Louisiana and southern Mississippi, leading to impacts including wildfires in Louisiana. All five long-term climate stations in south-central and southwest Louisiana had their hottest August on record, and three of the five sites had their driest August on record, according to the National Weather Service (NWS) Lake Charles 1 .

Drought also developed or intensified along the U.S.-Canada border from Minnesota to Washington. Hawaii was another area of drought development, with areas of extreme drought on the leeward sides of Maui.

Drought and abnormal dryness from a generally drier-than-normal spring mostly improved in the Northeast.

Aspinall Unit operations update: Bumping releases down to 800 cfs November 2, 2023 #GunnisonRiver #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification

Grand opening of the Gunnison Tunnel in Colorado 1909. Photo credit USBR.

From email from Reclamation (Erik Knight):

Releases from the Aspinall Unit will be decreased from 1100 cfs to 800 cfs on Thursday, November 2nd.  Releases are being decreased in response to a decrease in diversions at the Gunnison Tunnel.  Tunnel diversions will be reduced by 300 cfs on November 1st, so there will be a short period of higher flow in the Gunnison River through the Black Canyon before the release change at Crystal Dam. 

Flows in the lower Gunnison River are currently above the baseflow target of 1050 cfs. River flows are expected to remain above the baseflow target for the foreseeable future. 

Pursuant to the Aspinall Unit Operations Record of Decision (ROD), the baseflow target in the lower Gunnison River, as measured at the Whitewater gage, will be 1050 cfs for November through December. 

Currently, Gunnison Tunnel diversions are 800 cfs and flows in the Gunnison River through the Black Canyon are around 320 cfs. After this release change Gunnison Tunnel diversions will be 500 cfs and flows in the Gunnison River through the Black Canyon will still be near 320 cfs.  Gunnison Tunnel diversions are expected to stay near 500 cfs for the first 2 weeks of November for late season irrigation of the winter wheat crop. Current flow information is obtained from provisional data that may undergo revision subsequent to review. 

Topsoil Moisture % Short/Very Short from — @usda_oce

39% of the US is short/very short for the week ending 10/29. Much of the US saw improvement with snow & rainfall last week, but many southeastern states saw rapid drying. WA, NM, LA, MS & AL continue to see the driest topsoil.