New Agriculture in Oregon, US
A Onion growers in eastern Oregon are adopting a system that saves water and
keeps topsoil in place while producing the highest quality “super-colossal” onions. Pear growers in
southern Oregon have reduced their use of some of the most toxic pesticides by up to two-thirds, and are
still producing top-quality pear. Range managers throughout the state have controlled the poisonous weed
tansy ragwort with insect predators and saved the Oregon livestock industry up to $4.8 million a year.
B These are some of the results Oregon growers have achieved in collaboration
with Oregon State University (OSU) researchers as they test new farming methods including integrated
pest management (IPM). Nationwide, however, IPM has not delivered results comparable to those in Oregon.
A recent U.S General Accounting Office (GAO) report indicates that while integrated pest management can
result in dramatically reduced pesticide use, the federal government has been lacking in effectively
promoting that goal and implementing IPM. Farmers also blame the government for not making the new
options of pest management attractive. “Wholesale changes in the way that farmers control the pests on
their farms is an expensive business.” Tony Brown, of the National Farmers Association, says. “If the
farmers are given tax breaks to offset the expenditure, then they would willingly accept the new
practices.” The report goes on to note that even though the use of the riskiest pesticides has declined
nationwide, they still make up more than 40 percent of all pesticides used today; and national pesticide
use has risen by 40 million kilograms since 1992. “Our food supply remains the safest and highest
quality on Earth but we continue to overdose our farmland with powerful and toxic pesticides and to
under-use the safe and effective alternatives,” charged Patrick Leahy, who commissioned the report.
Green action groups disagree about the safety issue. “There is no way that habitual consumption of
foodstuffs grown using toxic chemical of the nature found on today’s farms can be healthy for
consumers,” noted Bill Bowler, spokesman for Green Action, one of many lobbyists interested in this
issue.
C The GAO report singles out Oregon’s apple and pear producers who have used
the new IPM techniques with growing success. Although Oregon is clearly ahead of the nation, scientists
at OSU are taking the Government Accounting Office criticisms seriously. “We must continue to develop
effective alternative practices that will reduce environmental hazards and produce high-quality
products,” said Paul Jepson, a professor of entomology at OSU and new director of
D OSU’s Integrated Plant Protection Centre (IPPC). The IPPC brings together
scientists from OSU’s Agricultural Experiment Station, OSU Extension service, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and Oregon farmers to help develop agricultural systems that will save water and soil, and
reduce pesticides. In response to the GAO report, the Centre is putting even more emphasis on
integrating research and farming practices to improve Oregon agriculture environmentally and
economically.
E “The GAO report criticizes agencies for not clearly communicating the goals
of IPM,” said Jepson. “Our challenge is to greatly improve the communication to and from growers, to
learn what works and what doesn’t. the work coming from OSU researchers must be adopted in the field and
not simply languish in scientific journals.”
F In Oregon, growers and scientists are working together to instigate new
practices. For example, a few years ago scientists at OSU’s Malheur Experiment Station began testing a
new drip irrigation system to replace old ditches that wasted water and washed soil and fertilizer into
streams. The new system cut water and fertilizer use by half kept topsoil in place and protected water
quality.
G In addition, the new system produced crops of very large onions, rated
“super-colossal” and highly valued by the restaurant industry and food processors. Art Pimms, one of the
researchers at Malheur comments: “Growers are finding that when they adopt more environmentally benign
practices, they can have excellent results. The new practices benefit the environment and give the
growers their success.”
H OSU researcher in Malheur next tested straw mulch and found that it
successfully held soil in place and kept the ground moist with less irrigation. In addition, and
unexpectedly, the scientists found that the mulched soil created a home for beneficial beetles and
spiders that prey on onion thrips – a notorious pest in commercial onion fields – a discovery that could
reduce the need for pesticides. “I would never have believed that we could replace the artificial pest
controls that we had before and still keep our good results,” commented Steve Black, a commercial onion
farmer in Oregon, “but instead we have actually surpassed expectations.”
I OSU researchers throughout the state have been working to reduce dependence
on broad-spectrum chemical spays that are toxic to many kinds of organisms, including humans. “Consumers
are rightly putting more and more pressure on the industry to change its reliance on chemical
pesticides, but they still want a picture-perfect product,” said Rick Hilton, an entomologist at OSU’s
Southern Oregon Research and Extension Centre, where researches help pear growers reduce the need for
highly toxic pesticides. Picture perfect pears are an important product in Oregon and traditionally they
have required lots of chemicals. In recent years, the industry has faced stiff competition from overseas
producers, so any new methods that growers adopt must make sense economically as well as
environmentally. Hilton is testing a growth regulator that interferes with the molting of codling moth
larvae. Another study used pheromone dispensers to disrupt codling moth mating. These and other methods
of integrated pest management have allowed pear growers to reduce their use of organophosphates by
two-thirds and reduce all other synthetic pesticides by even more and still produce top-quality pears.
These and other studies around the state are part of the effort of the IPPC to find alternative farming
practices that benefit both the economy and the environment.
The evolutional mystery: Crocodile survives
Crocodiles have been around for 200 million years, but they’re certainly not primitive. The early forms
of crocodiles are known as Crocodilian. Since they spent most of their life beneath water, accordingly
their body adapted to aquatic lifestyle. Due to the changes formed within their body shape and tendency
to adapt according to the climate they were able to survive when most of the reptiles of their period
are just a part of history. In their tenure on Earth, they’ve endured the impacts of meteors, planetary
refrigeration, extreme upheavals of the Earth’s tectonic surface and profound climate change. They were
around for the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, and even 65 million years of supposed mammalian dominance
has failed to loosen their grip on the environments they inhabit. Today’s crocodiles and alligators are
little changed from their prehistoric ancestors, a telling clue that these reptiles were (and remain)
extremely well adapted to their environment.
The first crocodile-like ancestors appeared about 230 million years ago, with many of the features that
make crocs such successful stealth hunters already in place: streamlined body, long tail, protective
armour and long jaws. They have long head and a long tail that helps them to change their direction in
water while moving. They have four legs which are short and are webbed. Never underestimate their
ability to move on ground. When they move they can move at such a speed that won’t give you a second
chance to make a mistake by going close to them especially when hungry. They can lift their whole body
within seconds from ground. The fastest way by which most species can move is a sort of “belly run”,
where the body moves like a snake, members huddled to the side paddling away frenetically while the tail
whips back and forth. When “belly running” Crocodiles can reach speeds up to 10 or 11 km/h (about 7mph),
and often faster if they are sliding down muddy banks. Other form of movement is their “high walk”,
where the body is elevated above the ground.
Crocodilians have no lips. When submerged in their classic ‘sit and wait’ position, their mouths fill
with water. The nostrils on the tip of the elongated snout lead into canals that run through bone to
open behind the valve – allowing the crocodilian to breathe through its nostrils even though its mouth
is under water. When the animal is totally submerged, another valve seals the nostrils, so the
crocodilian can open its mouth to catch prey with no fear of drowning. The thin skin on the crocodilian
head and face is covered with tiny, pigmented domes, forming a network of neural pressure receptors that
can detect barely perceptible vibrations in the water. This enables a crocodile lying in silent darkness
to suddenly throw its head sideways and grasp with deadly accuracy small prey moving close by.
Like other reptiles, crocodiles are endothermic animals (cold-blooded, or whose body temperature varies
with the temperature of the surrounding environment) and, therefore, need to sunbathe, to raise the
temperature of the body. On the contrary, if it is too hot, they prefer being in water or in the shade.
Being a cold-blooded species, the crocodilian heart is unique in having an actively controlled valve
that can redirect, at will, blood flow away from the lungs and recirculate it around the body, taking
oxygen to where it’s needed most. In addition, their metabolism is a very slow one, so, they can survive
for long periods without feeding. Crocodiles are capable of slowing their metabolism even further
allowing them to survive for a full year without feeding. Compared to mammals and birds, crocodilians
have slow metabolisms that burn much less fuel, and are ideally suited to relatively unstable
environments that would defeat mammals with their high food demands.
Crocodiles use a very effective technique to catch the prey. The prey remains almost unaware of the fact
that there can be any crocodile beneath water. It is due to the fact that when the crocodile sees its
prey it moves under water without making any noise and significant movement. It keeps only its eyes
above water surface. When it feels it has reached sufficiently close to the target it whistles out of
water with wide open jaws. 80 percent of their attempts are successful. They have very powerful jaws.
Once the prey trapped in its jaws they swallow it. Their power can be judged from the fact they can kill
the wild zebras which come to watery areas in search of water. They do not chew their food. They
normally feed on small animals, big fish, birds and even human flesh. As like some water creatures that
interact by making sounds crocodiles also use many sounds to communicate with other crocodiles. They
exist where conditions have remained the same and they are free of human interference. The crocodile is
successful because it switches its feeding methods. It hunts fish, grabs birds at the surface, hides
among the water edge vegetation to wait for a gazelle to come by, and when there is a chance for an
ambush, the crocodile lunges forward, knocks the animal with its powerful tail and then drags it to
water where it quickly drowns. Another way is to wait motionless for an animal to come to the water’s
edge and grabs it by its nose where it is held to drown.
In many places inhabited by crocodilians, the hot season brings drought that dries up their hunting
grounds and takes away the means to regulate their body temperature. They allowed reptiles to dominate
the terrestrial environment. Furthermore, many crocs protect themselves from this by digging burrows and
entombing themselves in mud, waiting for months without access to food or water, until the rains arrive.
To do this, they sink into a quiescent state called aestivation.
Most of (At least nine species of) crocodilian are thought to aestivate during dry periods. Kennett and
Christian’s six-year study of Australian freshwater crocodiles – Crocodylus johnstoni (the King
Crocodiles). The crocodiles spent almost four months a year underground without access to water. Doubly
labeled water was used to measure field metabolic rates and water flux, and plasma (and cloacal fluid
samples were taken at approximately monthly intervals during some years to monitor the effects of
aestivation with respect to the accumulation of nitrogenous wastes and electrolyte concentrations.
Double found that the crocodiles’ metabolic engines tick over, producing waste and using up water and
fat reserves. Waste products are stored in the urine, which gets increasingly concentrated as the months
pass. However, the concentration of waste products in the blood changes very little, allowing the
crocodiles to function normally. Furthermore, though the animals lost water and body mass (just over
one-tenth of their initial mass) while underground, the losses were proportional: on emergence, the
aestivating crocodiles were not dehydrated and exhibited no other detrimental effects such as a
decreased growth rate. Kennett and Christian believe this ability of individuals to sit out the bad
times and endure long periods of enforced starvation must surely be key to the survival of the
crocodilian line through time.
Learning lessons from the past
A Many past societies collapsed or vanished, leaving behind monumental ruins
such as those that the poet Shelley imagined in his sonnet, Ozymandias. By collapse, I mean a drastic
decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable, for
an extended time. By those standards, most people would consider the following past societies to have
been famous victims of full-fledged collapses rather than of just minor declines: the Anasazi and
Cahokia within the boundaries of the modem US, the Maya cities in Central American, Moche and Tiwanaku
societies in South America, Norse Greenland, Mycenean Greece and Minoan Crete in Europe, Great Zimbabwe
in Africa, Angkor Wat and the Harappan Indus Valley cities in Asia, and Easter Island in the Pacific
Ocean.
B The monumental ruins left behind by those past societies hold a fascination
for all of us. We marvel at them when as children we first learn of them through pictures. When we grow
up, many of us plan vacations in order to experience them at first hand. We feel drawn to their often
spectacular and haunting beauty, and also to the mysteries that they pose. The scales of the ruins
testify to the former wealth and power of their builders. Yet these builders vanished, abandoning the
great structures that they had created at such effort. How could a society that was once so mighty end
up collapsing?
C It has long been suspected that many of those mysterious abandonments were
at least partly triggered by ecological problems: people inadvertently destroying the environmental
resources on which their societies depended. This suspicion of unintended ecological suicide (ecocide)
has been confirmed by discoveries made in recent decades by archaeologists, climatologists, historians,
palaeontologists, and palynologists (pollen scientists). The processes through which past societies have
undermined themselves by damaging their environments fall into eight categories, whose relative
importance differs from case to case: deforestation and habitat destruction, soil problems, water
management problems, overhunting, overfishing, effects of introduced species on native species, human
population growth, and increased impact of people.
D Those past collapses tended to follow somewhat similar courses constituting
variations on a theme. Writers find it tempting to draw analogies between the course of human societies
and the course of individual human lives – to talk of a society’s birth, growth, peak, old age and
eventual death. But that metaphor proves erroneous for many past societies: they declined rapidly after
reaching peak numbers and power, and those rapid declines must have come as a surprise and shock to
their citizens. Obviously, too, this trajectory is not one that all past societies followed unvaryingly
to completion: different societies collapsed to different degrees and in somewhat different ways, while
many societies did not collapse at all.
E Today many people feel that environmental problems overshadow all the other
threats to global civilisation. These environmental problems include the same eight that undermined past
societies, plus four new ones: human-caused climate change, the build-up of toxic chemicals in the
environment, energy shortages, and full human utilisation of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity. But
the seriousness of these current environmental problems is vigorously debated. Are the risks greatly
exaggerated, or conversely are they underestimated? Will modem technology solve our problems, or is it
creating new problems faster than it solves old ones? When we deplete one resource (eg wood, oil, or
ocean fish), can we count on being able to substitute some new resource (eg plastics, wind and solar
energy, or farmed fish)? Isn’t the rate of human population growth declining, such that we’re already on
course for the world’s population to level off at home manageable number of people?
F Questions like this illustrate why those famous collapses of past
civilisations have taken on more meaning than just that of a romantic mystery. Perhaps there are some
practical lessons that we could learn from all those past collapses. But there are also differences
between the modem world and its problems, and those past societies and their problems. We shouldn’t be
so naive as to think that the study of the past will yield simple solutions, directly transferable to
our societies today. We differ from past societies in some respects that put us at lower risk than them;
some of those respects often mentioned include our powerful technology (ie its beneficial effects),
globalisation, modem medicine, and greater knowledge of past societies and of distant modem societies.
We also differ from past societies in some respects that put us at greater risk than them: again, our
potent technology (ie its unintended destructive effects), globalisation (such that now a problem in one
part of the world affects all the rest), the dependence of millions of us on modern medicine for our
survival, and our much larger human population. Perhaps we can still learn from the past, but only if we
think carefully about its lessons.