Isagro: acquista 22% Arterra Bioscience -2-
MILANO (MF-DJ)--Isagro ha acquisito, con un investimento marginale, il 22% del capitale di Arterra Bioscience srl, società di ricerca attiva nel settore della biologia e genetica molecolare con sede a Napoli, attraverso la sottoscrizione di un aumento di capitale con sovrapprezzo.
Isagro, si legge in una nota, ha siglato con Arterra Bioscience un accordo quadro di collaborazione commerciale della durata di cinque anni in base al quale Arterra svolgerà attività di ricerca per l'individuazione di nuovi agrofarmaci. Com/glm
DJ INTERVIEW: US Must Learn From Brazil On Combating Soy Rust
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By Tanner Ehmke
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
CHICAGO (Dow Jones)--U.S. farmers will not quickly adapt to the new threat
of Asian soybean rust but instead will have to learn over time how to combat
the yield-snatching fungus as Brazilian farmers have done over the past three
years, said soybean specialist Dr. Michael Cordonnier, president of Soybean
and Corn Advisor, an ag consulting firm in Hinsdale, Ill.
Getting farmers accustomed to budgeting to fight the disease every year and
learning how to swiftly respond once it is discovered in a field will be the
initial hurdles for the U.S. this year in the battle against Asian rust, he
said. If farmers are proactive and spray fungicides on their fields when the
disease has been found in their area, or spray within three days of finding
it in their own field, the spread of the disease can be controlled.
But like the Brazilians, U.S. farmers will have their own learning curve on
dealing with a threat they have never experienced, which means that the U.S.
is going to experience losses as it learns to adapt, he said.
"With herbicides, you can take your time. You can spread the task out over
a few days. But if you have rust, you have to spray today. It can drop all
the leaves in seven days. It looks like a blow torch went through your
field," he said.
Compounding the problem for the U.S. is an infrastructure that has yet to
adapt to the new threat. If the fungus is discovered in a specific county in
the Midwest, for instance, each farmer in the area must be pre-emptive and
spray immediately.
"But we don't have the equipment to spray all these acres in the right
amount of time," he said.
In Brazil, sentinel fields - or early warning fields planted very early in
the season with early maturing beans - are used for early discovery of the
fungus. That strategy has given Brazilian farmers a head start against a rust
invasion.
Local chemical dealerships could also quickly run out of chemicals if there
is a run on supplies, leaving some U.S. farmers unarmed when the disease is
discovered. To counteract that problem, he said, each farmer must have at
least one application of fungicide in their shed every year.
"That means farmers have to commit to the expense of $15 to $30 an acre
every year. It's just a part of doing business," Cordonnier said.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research
Service, the net economic losses from an outbreak of Asian rust in the U.S.
would range from $640 million to $1.3 billion "for the first year of the
pathogen's establishment in this country." Analysts figure about 1 million
acres of soybeans in the southern U.S. could be switched over to cotton
because of the expense.
And making things more confusing for the markets is the fact that weather
ideal for soybeans is also ideal for the disease.
"The market's going to have to sort out what is good weather and bad
weather. People will be throwing numbers all over the place," he said.
But despite the learning curve, U.S. farmers still have ample advantages
over their South American counterparts.
First, the warm, moist conditions the fungus loves are much more prevalent
in Brazil. In the U.S., the harsh winters that kill the vegetation it
survives on means the fungus must reintroduced every year by southerly winds.
Already, the winter cold has contained the disease in the far southern U.S.
After first being discovered in Louisiana in November, rust has only been
confirmed in eight other states across the southern U.S. Its arrival at the
tail-end of harvest meant only minimal damage on the 2004-05 U.S. soybean
crop. Agronomists suspect the fungus was spread by hurricane winds.
Also, there is only one other host plant in the U.S. that harbors the
fungus - kudzu, which is a weed found all across the southern U.S. But in
Brazil, there are well over 100 such plants that can provide a home for the
disease, and they grow right up to the sides of the fields.
The U.S. also has the added benefit of watching someone else learn to
combat the disease, allowing the U.S. to learn from their mistakes.
"We're lucky. Brazil had to go through it first," he said.