USDA 2010 Outlook Forum

[curiousgeorge]

This was a recently wrapped up 2 day event held by USDA. Theme was "Sustainable Agriculture: The Key to Health & Prosperity". A lot of it dwelt on things of interest regarding climate change, water, population, etc. Quite a few presentations, webcasts, transcripts, etc. are available here: www.usda.gov/oce/forum/ . I won't go into all of them since they are listed on the site, but a couple cought my attention:


Biomass for Energy & Conservation: Can We Do both?
Moderator: Mike Hubbs, Division Director, Ecological Sciences Division, Natural Resources Conservation Service, USDA, Washington, DC

Myths and Facts About Biofuels and Crop Residues
Speaker: Rattan Lal, Professor of Soil Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Presentation

Biofuel vs. Bioinvasion: Seeding Policy Priorities
Speaker: Joe DiTomaso, Assistant Extension Non-Crop Weed Ecologist, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA
Presentation

Sustainability of Woody Biomass: From Slash to Hybrid Plantations
Speaker: Carlos Rodriguez-Franco, Director, Forest Management Science, Forest Service, USDA, Rosslyn, VA
Presentation

An Integrated Landscape Vision for Sustainable Feedstock Supplies
Speaker: Douglas L. Karlen, Research Leader, Soil, Water, and Air Resources Research Unit,
Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Ames, IA
Presentation

Climate Change Track

Water, Drought & Climate
Moderator: Ann Mills, Deputy Under Secretary, Natural Resources and Environment, USDA, Washington, DC

Water Use for Irrigation: Trends and Conditions
Speaker: Robert Bass, Director of Census and
Survey Division, National Agricultural Statistics
Service, USDA, Washington, DC
Presentation

Water Supplies in a Changing Climate World
Speaker: Michael J. Hayes, Director,
National Drought Mitigation Center, University of
Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
Presentation

Causes and Response to Water Shortfalls:
The California Experience
Speaker: Betsy Cody, Natural Resources Policy
Specialist, Congressional Research Service, Library
of Congress, Washington, DC
Presentation

Should Water Institutions Respond to
Changing Water Supplies?
Speaker: Leonard Shabman, Resident Scholar,
Resources for the Future, Washington, DC


Rethinking Agriculture in a Warming Climate
Nina Fedoroff
Science & Technology Advisor to
U.S. Secretary of State and to
USAID Administrator
Webcast

[sigurdur]

Most of the lectures concering water were pretty bogus.

[curiousgeorge]

Feb 21, 2010 0:28:26 GMT sigurdur said:

Most of the lectures concering water were pretty bogus.

Yep. There was also another presentation that made extensive use of the infamous "hocky stick" or variations thereof. And Nina Federoff even dredged up Malthus. It seems that USDA hasn't been paying much attention to recent developments re: climategate, etc.

[sigurdur]

I am getting rather tired of this administrations infatuation with rotten things.

Rotten science, rotten spending.....a lot of rot surrounds President Obama.

[scpg02]

Feb 21, 2010 1:41:18 GMT sigurdur said:

I am getting rather tired of this administrations infatuation with rotten things.

Rotten science, rotten spending.....a lot of rot surrounds President Obama.

Wouldn't be any better with McCain in charge. Who is it around here that says the boat tacks left the boat tacks right but it is always moving in the same direction.

The powers that be keep the right v left paradigm going to keep people from seeing the real problems. Until people stop buying into the lesser of two evils argument, we will always have evil.

[sigurdur]

I agree fully. I do hope that the next Pres Candidate from both parties has a mind and is patriotic......rather than the goofballs so far.

Ron Paul is still the best man that was running in 2008.

[scpg02]

Ron Paul Wins Presidential Straw Poll at CPAC

Boos as Ron Paul wins CPAC straw poll

By JONATHAN MARTIN & JESSICA TAYLOR | 2/20/10 10:30 PM EST

I didn't post the second page of that. Notice the attempt to marginalize the results right away.