pennings policy


supply management pro- grams that utilize gov- ernment programs that reign in the production of major storable row crops by reducing the number of acres in active produc- tion in order to provide a price that covers a signif- icant portion of the full cost of production for those crops. To achieve this reduction, we advo- cate the withdrawal of marginal or environmen- tally significant


W land


from production. In light of our support


for this kind of program, we were interested to see two recent articles evalu- ating the effects of supply management programs posted on the farmdocs- daily


website


(https://farmdocdaily.illi nois.edu/) maintained by the Department of Agri- cultural and Consumer Economics at the Univer- sity of Illinois Cham- paign-Urbana. The articles are “Pro-


duction Controls and & Set Aside Acres, Part 1:


e have long advo- cated farm poli- cies that include


∆ Contact Dr. Harwood D. Schaffer or Dr. Daryll E. Ray at the UTʼs Agricultural Policy Analysis Center by calling (865) 974-7407,faxing (865) 974-7298, or emailing hdschaffer@utk.edu or dray@utk.edu. For more info, visit: www.agpolicy.org


Agriculture Likes To Produce, Which Is Great During The Good Times, But Disastrous When Production Exceeds What Is Needed


Reviewing History” by Jonathan Coppess, Gary Schnitkey, Nick Paulson, Krista Swanson, and Carl


purchase are very weak. We need to recognize


Zulauf


(https://tinyurl.com/yd 7gv7qc) and “Land Re- tirement - Part II: US Role in World Crop Mar- kets and Effectiveness of Retiring US Land” by Carl Zulauf, Nick Paul- son, Jonathan Coppess, Gary Schnitkey, and Krista


Swanson


(https://tinyurl.com/yct prcfo). Before we respond to


the conclusions reached in these two papers, we think it is important to lay out our understand- ing of agricultural mar- kets. Most, if not all, agricultural economists recognize that agricul- tural markets, particu- larly the markets for storable row crops, are characterized by a low price elasticity of supply and a low price elasticity of demand. That means that the effect of price signals—particularly low prices—on how much farmers produce and how much consumers


that food is not like most other consumer prod- ucts. It is a requirement for life. As a result, when the price is high people will do almost anything to obtain the amount of food they and their fami- lies need to survive. This describes a coercive mar- ket, not a free market where the buyer can walk away with no con- sequences if they can’t afford the price. For some in our world


economy even unprof- itably low prices for the agricultural


products


they need are too high and though they might depend on public feeding programs, they often suf- fer from undernutrition and death. Relatively high prices


that result from produc- tion problems or signifi- cant


unemployment


situations like we see today can rapidly in- crease the number of people dependent on pro- grams that enable them to obtain some of the food they need. Even


then they may suffer from malnutrition or death. For us this means the


price signals that make the markets for most consumer products work reasonably well do not have the same results for agricultural markets, thus the need for public farm and food programs. In this column we will


review the first paper. It is a relatively conven- tional analysis of the changes in agriculture and agricultural policies between 1933 and today. We would, however,


quibble with way they constructed their graphs for the paper. Three of the graphs use the 1933- 2019/20 period for the horizontal axis while one uses a period beginning in 1919. It would be more helpful to readers and other analysts if the data covered the same years. Otherwise, we need to go and pull the data and make the graphs for ourselves, which most lay readers will not do. More significant than


DR. DARYLL E. RAY


Emeritus Professor, Institute of Agriculture, University


of Tennessee and Retired


Director, Agricultural Policy Analysis Center


that is the failure of the authors to use a zero ori- gin for one of the four graphs; they do for the other three. This failure to use a zero origin over emphasizes the relative changes in the graph for “Total Cropland Used for Crops.” This could give some readers the impres- sion that the change in total acres has been more dramatic than it actually has been. It also does not let


them accurately visualize the change in acres de- voted to other feed grains to the decline in total crop acres. The paper also fails to note that the decline in other feed grains is, in part, related to the long-term techno- logical change from ani- mal-powered agriculture to fossil


fuel-powered


agriculture and thus the change in total cropland. We do find Figure 3,


“Acres Planted to Major Commodities” to be valu- able in illustrating the flexibility needed in de- signing farm programs.


Unraveling The Mystery Of Wheat Herbicide Tolerance G


URBANA, ILL.


enetically speaking, the loaf of bread you stress-baked during


the COVID-19 shutdown is more complex than you think. Wheat’s 16 billion genes, organized in not one but three s emi - i n d e p e n d e n t genomes, can overlap or substitute for one an- other, making things ex- tremely


tricky for


geneticists trying to en- hance desirable traits in the world’s most widely grown crop. One of those traits is tolerance.


herbicide


Many cereal crops, in- cluding wheat, have a natural ability to detoxify certain herbicides ap- plied to weeds in their midst. Under optimal conditions, weeds die, but the crops stand tall. If scientists can identify the genes involved, they


could potentially amplify expression of those genes to make the detoxifica- tion process more effec- tive under a range of environmental


condi-


tions. In a new University of


Illinois study published in Scientific Reports, sci- entists take advantage of wheat’s flexible genetic makeup to identify chro- mosomal regions that help detoxify synthetic auxin herbicides. “In the 1950s, scien-


tists came up with a process called ‘alien sub- stitution’ where you can replace


chromosomes


from one of the three wheat genomes with chromosomes from a wheat relative, such as Aegilops searsii. The chromosomes are similar enough that the plant can still grow and still looks pretty much like


2• MidAmerica Farmer Grower www.mafg.net / July 17, 2020


wheat,” explains Dean Riechers, professor in the Department of Crop Sci- ences at Illinois and co- author on the study. “The benefit is that the relative might not have the same traits as wheat, so the alien substitution line will help pinpoint where genes of interest are located.” The method is now so


commonplace in wheat research that scientists can simply obtain seeds for wheat plants with Aegilops searsii chromo- somes, denoted as the S genome, subbing in for each of the seven wheat chromosomes across all three of its genomes (A, B, and D). These are known as alien substitu- tion lines, and Riechers and doctoral student Olivia Obenland used them to determine that synthetic auxin tolerance


in wheat likely resides somewhere on chromo- some 5A. “Although the method


is common for finding genes for pathogen re- sistance and other useful genes in wheat, ours is the only research group to have used this method to search for herbicide tolerance,”


Riechers


says. “We've basically shortened the list from 21 chromosomes down to one, so now we know where to focus our future gene discovery efforts.” Obenland grew


all 21 alien sub- stitution lines in the greenhouse, along with wheat cultivar ‘Chinese Spring’


and


Aegilops searsii, and


sprayed


them all with high rates of the


Photo by Lauren D. Quinn


DR. DARYLL E. RAY


Emeritus Professor, Institute of Agriculture, University


of Tennessee and Retired


Director, Agricultural Policy Analysis Center


The needs for different crops has changed over time and future policies need to take that into ac- count. Otherwise, estab- lishing base acres for each of the crops has the tendency to distort the planting decisions of farmers. In addition, re- search in crop genetics has allowed for the plant- ing of various crops in areas previously not pos- sible. Future policies need to take total crop- land into account. Next week we will share


our impressions of the second paper.


∆ DR. HARWOOD D.


SCHAFFER: Adjunct Re- search Assistant Profes- sor,


Sociology


Department, University of Tennessee and Director, Agricultural Policy Analy- sis Center DR. DARYLL E. RAY:


Emeritus Professor, Insti- tute of Agriculture, Uni- versity of Tennessee and Retired Director, Agricul- tural Policy Analysis Cen- ter


synthetic auxin herbicide halauxifen-methyl. She then compared the bio- mass of


the treated


plants to untreated con- trols. The researchers ex-


pected and observed minimal injury in ‘Chi- nese Spring,’ thanks to its ability to naturally detoxify the chemical. But Aegilops searsii turned out to be highly sensitive to halauxifen- methyl, as were wheat


plants with alien substi- tutions at chromosome 5A. “By subbing 5A with


the 5S chromosome of the alien species, we took away wheat’s natural ha- lauxifen-methyl


toler-


ance and made it sensitive,” Obenland says. Plants with the substi-


tution at chromosome 5B also showed some sensi- tivity, but only when the


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