:mad: Fuck gobal warming, the Ukraine, Al-Qaeda, immigration reform, the national debt, gay marriage. This needs to be top priority.
Quote
Cue the Freakout: 'Coffee Rust' Hitting Hard
$1B in damages so far, as US gets in on fungus fight
(Newser) – There is a fungus among us, and this little devil is threatening to mess with your morning joe: Dubbed "coffee rust," the fungus has wrought some $1 billion in damage to the Latin American coffee industry, and as the AP reports, could drag production down by 15% to 40%, cost a half-million jobs, and jack the price of your caffeine fix. So Uncle Sam, bless his soul, is stepping in tomorrow via a $5 million USAID partnership with Texas A&M's World Coffee Research center aimed squarely at eradicating the fungus. But Washington isn't exactly acting with your best interests at heart: The theory goes that if coffee farmers are hit hard by blight, poverty and hunger could spike in the region—leading to a spike in the drug trade.
And the coffee rust—which is especially deadly to arabica coffee, the bean in most higher-end coffees—doesn't look like it's going to magically go away. "We don't see an end in sight anytime soon," says a Texas A&M researcher. While most coffee companies have been able to thus far find enough supply, a rep for the Specialty Coffee Association of America says the worst case is one in which we pay "extraordinarily high prices for those coffees, if you can find them at all." Coffee companies themselves are getting in on the fight, notes the AP, and Starbucks has even bought a research farm in Costa Rica.
http://www.newser.com/story/187059/cue-the-freakout-coffee-rust-hits-producers-hard.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=united&utm_campaign=rss_topnews
Drink tea like a civilized person instead. :bowler:
Quote from: Tyr on May 19, 2014, 02:42:48 AM
Drink tea like a civilized person instead. :bowler:
I'm the second generation standing upright. Fuck your tea. :mad:
Quote from: 11B4V on May 19, 2014, 02:45:16 AM
Quote from: Tyr on May 19, 2014, 02:42:48 AM
Drink tea like a civilized person instead. :bowler:
I'm the second generation standing upright. Fuck your tea. :mad:
Your parents were the first in your family to climb down from the trees?
Quote from: jimmy olsen on May 19, 2014, 02:47:19 AM
Quote from: 11B4V on May 19, 2014, 02:45:16 AM
Quote from: Tyr on May 19, 2014, 02:42:48 AM
Drink tea like a civilized person instead. :bowler:
I'm the second generation standing upright. Fuck your tea. :mad:
Your parents were the first in your family to climb down from the trees?
That doesn't surprise me at all.
Quote from: 11B4V on May 19, 2014, 02:45:16 AM
Quote from: Tyr on May 19, 2014, 02:42:48 AM
Drink tea like a civilized person instead. :bowler:
I'm the second generation standing upright. Fuck your tea. :mad:
:lol:
You know, you're alright.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on May 19, 2014, 02:47:19 AM
Quote from: 11B4V on May 19, 2014, 02:45:16 AM
Quote from: Tyr on May 19, 2014, 02:42:48 AM
Drink tea like a civilized person instead. :bowler:
I'm the second generation standing upright. Fuck your tea. :mad:
Your parents were the first in your family to climb down from the trees?
At least he knows who his parents are....
Prices are still stable for the coffee products I consume, so no problem here yet.
Shit coffee will always be shit coffee, Phil.
The best part of waking up is shit coffee in your cup.
Where will Ed Anger now get the coffee cans to burying his money in?
Maybe they'll just sell him empty cans at the old price? :unsure:
He'll use Crisco cans. Duh.
Quote from: Phillip V on May 19, 2014, 08:24:40 AM
Prices are still stable for the coffee products I consume, so no problem here yet.
Same here, still zero.
Quote from: 11B4V on May 19, 2014, 02:40:47 AM
:mad: Fuck gobal warming, the Ukraine, Al-Qaeda, immigration reform, the national debt, gay marriage. This needs to be top priority.
Don't worry, we have out top Aggies on it. At least we will, after we get them off their cows.
It's sheep they've been getting all boozed up lately:
http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Watchdog-group-A-M-researchers-are-doing-strange-5466137.php
Looks like I'll have to add a coffee crop to my backyard garden. In between the corn and potatoes should work nicely. :sleep:
Quote from: KRonn on May 20, 2014, 12:51:48 PM
Looks like I'll have to add a coffee crop to my backyard garden. In between the corn and potatoes should work nicely. :sleep:
:cool:
Really?
Does it require much effort; I know there's a enthusiasm here for some people to grow wheat in their own gardens and it's a shed-load of work for not much reward.
Quote from: MadBurgerMaker on May 19, 2014, 09:32:09 PM
It's sheep they've been getting all boozed up lately:
http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Watchdog-group-A-M-researchers-are-doing-strange-5466137.php
QuoteWatchdog group: A&M researchers are doing strange things to sheep
Pffft A&M has been doing strange things to sheep for over a century.
Quote from: mongers on May 20, 2014, 01:05:14 PM
Quote from: KRonn on May 20, 2014, 12:51:48 PM
Looks like I'll have to add a coffee crop to my backyard garden. In between the corn and potatoes should work nicely. :sleep:
:cool:
Really?
Does it require much effort; I know there's a enthusiasm here for some people to grow wheat in their own gardens and it's a shed-load of work for not much reward.
Corn grows very nicely, one of the better crops I grow and I love the way it looks in my garden. :) I have about a hundred plants that I just planted last weekend. I love picking an ear or two off the plant for lunch or dinner to have it fresh off the stalk! I usually get enough to freeze some to eat over the winter. I boil it for a couple minutes, then douse it in ice water, let it dry a bit and freeze it. That keeps most of the taste in and it still tastes great in mid-winter. Wheat sounds interesting and fun to grow but I would think that requires some processing to get the food from it.
The biggest problem I've had is varmints raiding the corn, mainly woodchucks and squirrels. Woodchucks will eat a half dozen or more ears of corn in a day. A squirrel will take one by shaking the stalk until the ear comes off, then run to a tree to eat it. Racoons are tough but fortunately I haven't had any raccoons around.
I and a neighbor trapped the resident woodchuck that lived under the neighbor's shed two years ago so for now that threat is gone. And last year I trapped the two squirrels that were raiding. So we'll see for this year. So far no woodchucks and squirrels are pretty easy to trap. Woodchucks not so easy.
Quote from: KRonn on May 20, 2014, 01:29:01 PM
Quote from: mongers on May 20, 2014, 01:05:14 PM
Quote from: KRonn on May 20, 2014, 12:51:48 PM
Looks like I'll have to add a coffee crop to my backyard garden. In between the corn and potatoes should work nicely. :sleep:
:cool:
Really?
Does it require much effort; I know there's a enthusiasm here for some people to grow wheat in their own gardens and it's a shed-load of work for not much reward.
Corn grows very nicely, one of the better crops I grow and I love the way it looks in my garden. :) I have about a hundred plants that I just planted last weekend. I love picking an ear or two off the plant for lunch or dinner to have it fresh off the stalk! I usually get enough to freeze some to eat over the winter. I boil it for a couple minutes, then douse it in ice water, let it dry a bit and freeze it. That keeps most of the taste in and it still tastes great in mid-winter. Wheat sounds interesting and fun to grow but I would think that requires some processing to get the food from it.
The biggest problem I've had is varmints raiding the corn, mainly woodchucks and squirrels. Woodchucks will eat a half dozen or more ears of corn in a day. A squirrel will take one by shaking the stalk until the ear comes off, then run to a tree to eat it. Racoons are tough but fortunately I haven't had any raccoons around.
I and a neighbor trapped the resident woodchuck that lived under the neighbor's shed two years ago so for now that threat is gone. And last year I trapped the two squirrels that were raiding. So we'll see for this year. So far no woodchucks and squirrels are pretty easy to trap. Woodchucks not so easy.
Excellent, rather nice setup you've got there. :cool:
Yeah, wheat doesn't take way too much effort, especially compared with farmers who can get around 10 tons an acre.
I wonder what people who do this garden wheat growing think they're gonna get from their 6ftx7ft patch*?
edit:doing some maths and assuming their organic wheat gets half the yield of top farmers, that'll be about 6.5kgs of grain, assuming no losses in process or to crittes, so maybe 4 standard bags of wholemeal flour. :hmm:
Corn's pretty different though, mongers, since I'm sure we're talking about sweet corn -- a vegetable for practical purposes, ready to eat right away alongside any other garden vegetable. Not the kind of corn that would have to be milled into flour, a la wheat. Which is a pretty odd garden crop, I agree.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on May 20, 2014, 01:40:02 PM
Corn's pretty different though, mongers, since I'm sure we're talking about sweet corn -- a vegetable for practical purposes, ready to eat right away alongside any other garden vegetable. Not the kind of corn that would have to be milled into flour, a la wheat. Which is a pretty odd garden crop, I agree.
Oh I know the difference between US and English usage of corn. :bowler:
Seems like a nice idea, we may be warming up enough here for it to feasible in gardens. Not that we don't grow it here in the 'far south' on a few farms, but it often looks pretty pitiful in the fields and probably requires a lot of inputs.
So your farmers don't grow much corn? It doesn't grow well? I figured it was pretty adaptable. I'm in New England and this is also a temperate climate but summer is long enough and warm/hot enough for corn. I'd think the same would be for England.
Quote from: KRonn on May 20, 2014, 02:02:59 PM
So your farmers don't grow much corn? It doesn't grow well? I figured it was pretty adaptable. I'm in New England and this is also a temperate climate but summer is long enough and warm/hot enough for corn. I'd think the same would be for England.
It's not a huge amount, but I'll check.
Incidentally I think much of it is animal feed, rather than humans.
edit:
Yeah, it's not a great deal, according to this article it's around 100,000 hectares, so just 1/4 million acres as opposed to the tens of million in the US.
http://www.ukagriculture.com/crops/forage_maize.cfm (http://www.ukagriculture.com/crops/forage_maize.cfm)
QuoteHere it has become an important crop being the most important forage after grass with around 100,000 hectares grown annually, mainly in the south of the country
.
edit 2:
And as the article mentions we're so far north here, we don't have the strong summer sun to bring the crop along, just as why we have to mix in Canadian and US wheat into our flour to give it the necessary strength to make good bread.
Interesting, and yeah, England is much further north than here in New England so even though it may be warm the sun isn't so strong. I hadn't thought of that; makes sense.
In the US also a lot of corn is grown for animal feed and also for ethanol. I'm guessing those two uses probably rival the amount of corn grown for human consumption.
Pretty sure only a tiny fraction of the US corn crop is consumed by humans.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on May 20, 2014, 02:24:00 PM
Pretty sure only a tiny fraction of the US corn crop is consumed by humans.
That may be. I saw a map, not sure where, of corn grown and it seemed to show a lot of areas for non-human consumption as opposed to fewer for human use. Hmm... good thing I grow my own! But of course there's still an abundance of corn for various human uses.
Quote from: KRonn on May 20, 2014, 02:02:59 PM
So your farmers don't grow much corn? It doesn't grow well? I figured it was pretty adaptable. I'm in New England and this is also a temperate climate but summer is long enough and warm/hot enough for corn. I'd think the same would be for England.
Indeed the one field of maize I recall passing last year looked pretty pathetic as compared to what you seen in films of the US or no doubt your home grown.
edit:reading more of that website I linked to, only 2,500 hectares is grown for human consumption, compared to the 100,000 for forage.
Corn. :mmm:
Quote from: Admiral Yi on May 20, 2014, 02:24:00 PM
Pretty sure only a tiny fraction of the US corn crop is consumed by humans.
It's greater than 10%, also not sure how you'd divide up Export in terms of human consumption or what residuals means.
There's a somewhat confusing table here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_production_in_the_United_States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_production_in_the_United_States)
QuoteProduction
The total production of corn in the US for the year 2013-14 is reported to be 13.016 billion bushels of which the major use is for manufacture of ethanol and its co-product (Distillers' Dried Grains with Solubles) accounting for 37% (27% + 10%) or 4,845 million bushels (3,552 + 1,293). The other uses are given in the table.[10]Uses of Corn/Maize
Type Production (Million Bushels) Percentage
Ethanol 3552 27
DDGS 1293 10
Other processing* 1420 11
Exports 1450 11
Residual use 1055 8
Dairy 823 6
Beef cattle 1213 9
Hogs 1004 8
Poultry 1205 9
Other animals 100 1
Total 13016 100
Million Bushels & Percenatge.[10]
'Other processing' includes the production of High Fructose Corn Syrup, sweeteners, starch, beverage alcohol, and
cereals.[11]
Quote from: mongers on May 20, 2014, 01:54:28 PM
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on May 20, 2014, 01:40:02 PM
Corn's pretty different though, mongers, since I'm sure we're talking about sweet corn -- a vegetable for practical purposes, ready to eat right away alongside any other garden vegetable. Not the kind of corn that would have to be milled into flour, a la wheat. Which is a pretty odd garden crop, I agree.
Oh I know the difference between US and English usage of corn. :bowler:.
I assumed you did. :alberta: Just noting that there are other types of corn/maize that do need to be processed to be edible, unlike sweet corn.
I don't see sweet corn that much in household gardens, but it is an extremely popular crop for smallish farmers to sell as a sideline at farmstands and whatnot. Especially dairy farmers, since I believe they are using the same or similar variety for silage purposes.
Quote from: Valmy on May 20, 2014, 01:07:26 PM
Pffft A&M has been doing strange things to sheep for over a century.
I saw an Aggie shirt Saturday that had a picture of a cow on the back with the caption, "You call it a mascot. We call it a hamburger.". I thought it should be, "You call it a mascot. We call it a fun Saturday night.".
I hear a triple stacker is one hell of a Saturday night.
Quote from: The Brain on May 20, 2014, 03:37:46 PM
I hear a triple stacker is one hell of a Saturday night.
In the emergency room.