Lesson 1

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report. (MUSIC) Country singer and songwriter Adrienne Young brings together music and agricultural activism. (MUSIC) She even included seeds in the album cover of her first CD.

Adrienne Young wants people to know that she supports the movement in America to increase local farming. She offers information about agricultural issues on her Web site. And now part of the money from her third and newest release, "Room to Grow," will be donated to help support community gardens. Adrienne Young's family has lived in Florida for seven generations. Her ancestors helped develop the agriculture industry there. The state of Florida is the nation's second largest producer of fruits and vegetables, after California. Adrienne Young has said that her interest in nature was shaped by the fact that she did not grow up on a farm. She grew up in a house her grandfather built on what had been farmland two generations ago. But the land was developed and was now partly a large highway. Adrienne Young has teamed up with two organizations that support local farming and gardening efforts. One is the American Community Gardening Association. The other is FoodRoutes, a group she has represented for several years. FoodRoutes says buying locally grown food is not only about taste and freshness. The group says buying locally also helps to strengthen local economies and protect the environment. Experts say food in the United States travels an average of more than three thousand kilometers from farm to store. We leave you with Adrienne Young and the title song from her new CD, "Room to Grow." (MUSIC) And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Dana Demange. You can learn more about American agriculture at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Katherine Cole.

Lesson 2
Lesson 2: Growing Rice and a Cholera Vaccine at the Same Time

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

Someday, rice plants might not only provide food but also a way to prevent cholera and other diseases. Cholera is a bacterial infection of the intestines. Today it is found mostly in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Current vaccines to protect against cholera must be kept in cold storage. The need for refrigeration limits use in poor countries.

But research in Japan may lead to rice plants that contain a cholera vaccine that does not need to be kept cold. So far, the research has been carried out only on mice. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States published the study earlier this month.

Hiroshi Kiyono of the University of Tokyo and his team experimented with genetic material from the bacterium responsible for cholera. They placed it into the Kitaake rice plant.

Mice ate the genetically changed rice seeds as a powder. The report says the vaccine was not destroyed by stomach acid; instead, the animals developed antibodies against the cholera toxin. The scientists say the vaccine remained active even after being stored at room temperature for more than a year and a half.

People would take the vaccine as a drug that contains the powder.

Cholera is usually spread through water or food, in places where conditions are dirty and drinking water supplies are unsafe. Cholera infections are often mild. But some people develop severe cases. The World Health Organization says half of them will die if they are not treated.

The researchers say the experimental cholera vaccine produced reactions in the immune system and in areas of mucosal tissue. Mucosal surfaces include the mouth, nose and reproductive organs. Cholera as well as viruses like those that cause influenza and AIDS infect these areas.

The scientists have great hopes for rice-based vaccines as a way to protect large populations against mucosal infections. There would be no need for injection, since the vaccine would be taken by mouth.

Yet scientists have tried for some time to make plant-based vaccines. Researchers in the United States have developed one for Newcastle disease in chickens, but so far there are no products for humans. At the same time, scientists have to deal with concerns about genetically engineered plants accidentally mixing with food crops.

And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson.

Lesson 3: California Growers Face Unwelcome Import: Light Brown Apple Moth
This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

California is trying to control an invasion of the light brown apple moth. The insect is native to Australia and is now found widely in New Zealand, Britain, Ireland and New Caledonia. Hawaii had them in the late eighteen hundreds, but this is the first discovery on the mainland United States.

Officials say it could cause more than one hundred thirty million dollars in crop damage and control costs if the moth spreads to agricultural production areas. California is the nation's leading agricultural state. The industry is valued at thirty-two billion dollars. The light brown apple moth can attack more than two hundred fifty kinds of plants and trees. It causes damage by feeding on leaves, new growth and fruit, including grapes -bad news for California's wine industry.

More than thirty thousand traps have been deployed as part of the effort to fight the invasion. As of last week the traps had caught almost five thousand light brown apple moths. The insects have been found in several counties but mostly in Santa Cruz and Monterey along the Central Coast. The others have mostly been found in the San Francisco Bay Area, to the north.

The first discovery came in February. A private citizen captured two suspicious moths in a blacklight trap on his property near Berkeley. A laboratory confirmed their identity in March. Then, in May, the United States Department of Agriculture ordered action to prevent the spread of the insect.

It restricted the movement of products including nursery plants, cut flowers and greenery from several counties in California and all of Hawaii. Shipments must be inspected and declared insect-free before they can be transported to other states.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture says growers have the choice to destroy affected plants or treat them with a chemical, chlorpyrifos. Another substance, Bt, is a natural organism used as a biological control. In June, weekly ground treatments with Bt began on more than two hundred properties in two counties, Contra Costa and Napa. Napa is famous for its wine grapes.

Control plans are being developed for the wider area, based in part on the advice of experts from Australia and New Zealand.

Mexico has suspended imports of some products from the affected areas. It also is requiring more inspection of products from outside the affected counties.

And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Faith Lapidus.

Lesson 4: Many US Farmers Struggle With Hot, Dry Weather

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

Heat and drought are threatening some of America's most productive farmland.

The Department of Agriculture says an early summer heat wave across the West has increased demand for water to save dry crops. But in many areas, water supplies are limited. Water is also needed to fight wildfires in western states like California, Nevada and Washington.

Temperatures have reached about thirty-eight degrees Celsius recently in parts of Colorado, Montana and Wyoming. The Agriculture Department says temperatures averaged several degrees above normal.

Some people in the West say they cannot remember a time with less rain in half a century. But drought conditions have been most severe in the South. The northern part of Alabama is described as the driest in about one hundred years. With grasslands damaged, many farmers in Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee have no hay to feed their cows. So they have sold up to half of their cattle early.

In southern Alabama and northern Tennessee, farmers also suffered through a dry period last year. Some were hoping for a big corn crop this year to sell for ethanol fuel. But the government says most of their crop is in poor or very poor condition.

Experts say soybeans and cotton look better -- but not very much. Federal officials have declared all counties in Alabama a drought disaster area. That means farmers can get low-cost emergency loans. But they are asking Congress for an additional seventeen million dollars in aid.

Ten million would go to drilling for water and regrowing pasture lands. The other money would go to cattle producers to help them recover their losses from selling early.

But drought is not the only weather problem right now for American agriculture. Recently, too much rain fell for some crops in the southeastern Plains. Heavy rain and flooding in the lowlands damaged wheat planted in the winter.

To the east, rains of twenty-five centimeters or more in areas struck the western Gulf of Mexico. The rains washed out fields and flooded lowlands.

But farmers welcomed heavy rainfall in early July from the Mississippi River Delta to the southern Atlantic coastal area. Farmers have also received some welcome rains along the Corn Belt. This area includes the Ohio Valley and parts of the Upper Midwest.

Summer crops in the Midwest have been mainly free of the drought suffered in other areas this summer. And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Steve Ember.

Lesson 5: Congress Honors Norman Borlaug, Father of 'Green Revolution'

His work helped fight starvation in India and Pakistan in the nineteen sixties. He won the nineteen seventy Nobel Peace Prize.

President Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid presented him with his latest honor last week. The scientist is ninety-three years old. He still works as an adviser at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico.

In accepting the medal, he urged Congress and the administration to increase development assistance for agriculture. He said the world needs better and more technology to deal with hunger. In his words:

"Hunger and poverty and misery are very fertile soils into which to plant all kinds of 'isms,' including terrorism."

In the nineteen forties, Norman Borlaug and a team developed highly productive and disease-resistant wheat for farmers in Mexico. About twenty years later, millions of people in India and Pakistan were in danger from grain shortages.

The improved wheat from Mexico also grew well in South Asia, combined with changes in growing methods. Norman Borlaug persuaded farmers to use more fertilizers and pesticide chemicals and to water their crops with irrigation systems. The results were big production gains that many believe saved as many as a billion lives.

President Bush noted that hunger still affects much of the developing world. He said the most fitting honor for Norman Borlaug is to lead a second Green Revolution that feeds the world.

Yet his support for new agricultural technologies has been criticized at times over the years. Some researchers worry about the effects of industrial methods of modern farming. Some have argued that Earth's resources are limited and not able to feed everyone.

Population researcher Paul Ehrlich, for example, wrote a nineteen sixty-eight book called "The Population Bomb." He predicted that population growth would cause widespread harm to the planet. But now, some people are saying there should be greater attention and respect for Norman Borlaug. A major theme of his work is that people can deal with difficulties and that technology can improve their lives.

And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Jim Tedder.

Lesson 6: Goats Employed in Fight Against Kudzu in US South

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

Once upon a time, people in the southern United States enjoyed kudzu for its beauty. Kudzu is a climbing woody vine native to Asia. It produces big green leaves and sweetsmelling purple flowers. The Japanese brought it to the United States in eighteen seventy-six. It grew well in the warm, wet climate of the southeastern states. People planted kudzu around their homes to hide things like fences. In the nineteen thirties, during the Great Depression, the government put people to work planting kudzu for soil protection. Between nineteen thirty-five and the nineteen fifties, the government even paid farmers to plant it. The kudzu also provided cattle feed.

But kudzu kills other growth as it spreads. Finally, in the fifties, the Agriculture Department no longer suggested it as a cover crop. Then, in nineteen seventy, officials declared it a weed. Today it is known as "the plant that ate the South."

Kudzu now covers an estimated three million hectares of land. Over time, much of whatever was nearby died.

People are always looking for better ways to stop the invasive plant. Since last year, the public works department in Chattanooga, Tennessee, has been using goats.

This song by Randy Mitchell tells the story of the kudzu-eating goats:

(MUSIC) It was the end of August in Tennessee's Chattanooga town The weather had been hot and humid, summer was a hangin round The vines had been growing long and steady all season long I knew it was time for me to write another kudzu song That stuff is growing everywhere even choking out a railroad bridge But now there's kudzu eating goats out on Missionary Ridge

The tunnels got to where it was a danger to try to drive through They tried poison and herbicides and chopped it up where it grew But nothing seems to work very long and the city was at wits end They discovered that goats like kudzu and would eat all up and then The 3.4 acres would be clear and free of kudzu up to the tunnel's ledge Cause now there's kudzu eating goats out on Missionary Ridge Yet even kudzu has fans. Artisans form the twisting vines into baskets. Others use kudzu in food, clothing and herbal medicines. And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Steve Ember.

Lesson 7: Working Magic in the Garden With Beans

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

Beans are a popular choice for home gardens. The University of Illinois Extension service says bush bean plants need the least amount of work. They stand without support.

Green bush beans used to be called string beans because of fiber material along the pods containing the seeds. Now green beans are called snap beans because plant breeding reduced the fibers.

Unlike bush bean plants, pole beans need supports to climb. But they need less space than bush beans because they twist around poles or sticks. Because the plants are tall, a person can stand while harvesting the beans.

The University of Illinois Extension says beans should not be planted until all danger of a freeze has passed in the spring. Cold weather could damage them. Planting beans every two to four weeks until early August will provide a continuous harvest.

Small weeds and grasses around beans plants need to be controlled, but be careful not to harm the plants. The root systems are not very strong or deep. Seeds should be planted at a depth of two and one-half centimeters. Make sure the soil is not too wet or the seeds could develop poorly.

Bush beans should be planted five to ten centimeters apart. And there should be at least forty-five to sixty centimeters between the rows.

Pole beans should be planted ten to fifteen centimeters apart in rows that are about seventy-six to ninety centimeters apart. Or you could plant them in hills with four to six seeds per hill.

The hills should be seventy-six centimeters apart and with seventy-six centimeters between rows. The University of Illinois specialists say to harvest beans when the pods are firm and have reached their full length. Do not wait until the seeds inside are fully developed. Bean plants produce more beans if pods are continually removed before the seeds are mature.

But wait until the plants are completely dry before picking beans. Picking beans from wet plants can spread bean bacterial blight, a disease that damages the plants.

The specialists at the University of Illinois Extension say beans should be moved to different areas of the garden each year. This is because diseases that affect beans can stay in the soil and infect the next bean crop.

Not only are beans a healthy food, they are also good for the soil. Other plants take nitrogen out of the soil, but beans and other legumes replace it.

And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. To learn more about agriculture, go to voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.