06.21.11
Castor seed agricultural funnies
The rest of the world doesn’t give a shit what America thinks about castor seeds and ricin.
So it continued running castor mills all through the war on terror.
And this is because they were not WMD plants and allowed export of a commodity, castor oil, back into the US — which quit the business long ago because it wasn’t competitive against petroleum-based lubricants.
Now, the fly in the ointment in getting US firms back into castor oil production is price. It’s done cheaper overseas.
But the biggest headache is homeland security.
LUBBOCK – Castagra, a Canadian bioproducts company, has entered into an agreement with Texas AgriLife Research, part of the Texas A&M University System, to test production of a new castor bean with less ricin.
The West Texas project will investigate production potential and sustainable production practices that do not conflict with other commodities grown in the state, according to officials.
Castor oil and gypsum are the two main ingredients in the vegetable plastic and castor beans were farmed in Texas back in the 1970s, officials said. Approximately three acres of low-ricin Brigham castor will be seeded at the AgriLife Research Station in Pecos. The produced seed will be used for crushing and processing trials to determine yield and quality with the remainder dedicated to potential 2012 castor production as planting seed.
Dr. Travis Miller, AgriLife Extension program leader and associate department head for soil and crop sciences at Texas A&M University, said castor previously had a bad reputation because of its potential to contaminate grain crops.
[We] are creating jobs and bringing jobs to America that moved offshore several years ago when castor production was discontinued in Texas in the 1970s. AgriLife ( Research ) has done excellent work recently in improving oil yields while greatly reducing the amount of ricin toxin found in castor beans by as much as 90 percent.???
Dr. David Baltensperger, head of the department of soil and crop sciences at Texas A&M, said new castor varieties have increased salt tolerance and are more drought resistant, “so lands in the Pecos area may once again become productive.???
“Additionally, castor can now be fully mechanized unlike in other castor-producing countries, such that we can now effectively compete against countries like India that export millions of tons of castor oil each year to other countries, including the U.S.???
In terms of “new jobs” for three acres of university-sponsored castor production, estimate this means about five people.
As elliptically referenced by the press release, the rest of the world simply didn’t care what the US thought of castor seeds. “Low ricin” castor seed is an invention nobody cares about, except, possibly — here.
Since “low-ricin” castor plants will not be competing alongside castor plants and seed peddled by garden centers, the invention has virtually no meaning for the usual US white survivalist kooks who buy packets of seeds for fighting off their many imagined enemies.
Expect this to silently piss out and disappear — or be permanently consigned to only very marginal supply — by 2012.