Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center

DHARWAD, STAFF CORRESPONDENT – June 5, 2014

The State government has announced funding to set up two international standard institutes to boost research and development in the field of agriculture, food and health sciences.

The proposed institutes will come up in Dharwad and Bangalore.

The International Centre for Agriculture Development would be set up in Dharwad and be administered by the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad.

The other institute — Karnataka Centre of Excellence in Foods for Health — would be set up in Bangalore and be administered by the University of Horticultural Sciences (UHS), Bagalkot, stated a release by Rajendra Poddar, Head, Project Planning & Monitoring Cell, UAS, Dharwad.

Both institutes will be set up in collaboration with the Texas A&M University’s Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Centre’s (VFIC) Foods for Health Initiative, and the Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture. The proposed institutes will be interdisciplinary centres and they will collaborate with other agricultural and horticultural universities, institutes and centres related to medical sciences, food, and nutrition sciences in the State and beyond.

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Dharwad: As per a Memorandum of Understsanding signed with Texas A&M University in USA years ago, the State Government declared the opening of centres of excellence — one each at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad (USAD) and the University of Horticulture Sciences, Bagalkot (UHSB) to promote agriculture and horticulture in the State.

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Dharwad: The State government will fund the establishment of two new centres at the University of Horticultural Sciences at Bagalkot (UHSB) and the International Centre for Agriculture at the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) in Dharwad.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has announced that the state government will fund the setting up of these centres. The declaration comes in the wake of a meeting the CM had with the delegates of Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University (TAMU), USA, at Bangalore earlier this week.

TAMU delegates Mark Hussey, interim president, and Bhimu Patil, director, Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Centre, met Siddaramaiah, along with D P Biradar, vice-chancellor of UAS, Dharwad.

Patil had initiated collaboration between TAMU and UAS-Dharwad (UAS-D) 12 years ago with a memorandum of understanding, under the guidance of Dr. Norman Borlaug, Nobel laureate.

Based on the over a decade-long exchange activities among students and faculty, and reciprocal visits of administrators between the two institutes, the CM declared that Karnataka will immediately provide funding to start two new centres.

The Foods for Health initiative of Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University’s Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Centre and Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture will play key roles as strategic partners for these new centres and will provide training opportunities for scientists and students from University of Agricultural Sciences in Dharwad and University of horticultural Sciences at Bagalkot.

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The state government will fund a centre each at the University of Horticultural Sciences in Bagalkot and International Centre for Agriculture at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Dharwad respectively.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced this after he met delegates from the Texas Agricultural and Management University, USA in Bangalore early last week.

Delegates from Texas A and M University, Mark Hussey, Interim President, and  Bhimu Patil, director, Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center, met chief minister Siddaramaiah along with vice-chancellor of UAS, Dharwad, D P Biradar.  Bhimu Patil initiated the tieup between Texas A&M University (TAMU) and UAS-Dharwad (UASD) 12 years ago with the signing of an MoU under the guidance of Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug.

The Centre will leverage the research conducted at the VFIC using the “Consumer to Farm” approach, including pre and post-harvest aspects of retaining health-promoting compounds, examining their role in human health to reduce risk from chronic diseases, and increasing food and nutritional security using commercial crops and unexplored vegetables and fruits.

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The University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad, has chosen eminent water conservationist Rajendra Sigh and Texas A&M University interim president Mark A. Hussey for this year’s honorary doctorate.

Vice-Chancellor D.P. Biradar told presspersons in Dharwad on Monday that the university would confer the honourary doctorate degrees on these eminent persons at the 27th annual convocation on the varsity campus on Thursday.

Mr. Singh had played a key role in popularising community- based water harvesting and water management in India. His efforts have provided safe water for 1,000 villages in Rajasthan. He had been honoured with the Ramon Magsaysay award in 2005, Mr. Biradar said.

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Mark Hussey, agricultural scientist, and interim president of Texas Agricultural and Medical University, has stressed the need for coordinated efforts by the global community of scholars to tackle food insecurity.

Addressing graduates, postgraduates and Ph.D. awardees at the 27th annual convocation of the University of Agricultural Sciences here on Thursday, he said the exponential growth in global population was a major challenge.

As a result, food insecurity, malnutrition and hunger had become rampant throughout the globe. One sixth of the world’s population suffered from chronic hunger and at least 3.5 million children died each year due to undernutrition.

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On February 22, Jose Luis Perez took a trip that helped him meet professionals in his chosen career and reinforced his feeling that he was headed in the right direction.

Perez says he got “the feel of how stuff works in Washington.” For example, he unexpectedly found himself being filmed for television while asking a question during a panel discussion.

“I got up and suddenly see cameras pointed at me,” Perez says. “I came up on CSPAN.”

Perez asked the panel about the future of agricultural research. In recent years the United States has seen cuts in agricultural research funding.

“What does the future look like for young professionals such as me?” Perez asked. “Will the money and opportunities keep on shrinking?”

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Texas Researcher:
Peaches Inhibit Breat Cancer Metastasis in Mice

by KATHLEEN PHILLIPS on MARCH 24, 2014

COLLEGE STATION – Lab tests at Texas A&M AgriLife Research have shown that treatments with peach extract inhibit breast cancer metastasis in mice.
AgriLife Research scientists say that the mixture of phenolic compounds present in the peach extract are responsible for the inhibition of metastasis, according to the study, which was this month published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry.
“Cancer cells were implanted under the skin of mice with an aggressive type of breast cancer cells, the MDA-MB-435, and what we saw was an inhibition of a marker gene in the lungs after a few weeks indicating an inhibition of metastasis when the mice were consuming the peach extract,” said Dr. Luis Cisneros-Zevallos, a food scientist for AgriLife Research in College Station. “Furthermore, after determining the dose necessary to see the effects in mice, it was calculated that for humans it would be equivalent to consuming two to three peaches per day.”
This is very important because it can be translated into something that is also beneficial for people, he added.
This work builds upon previous work at AgriLife Research released a few years ago, which showed that peach and plum polyphenols selectively killed aggressive breast cancer cells and not the normal ones, Cisneros-Zavallos said.
The previous work as well as the present one was conducted by Cisneros-Zevallos, Dr. David Byrne, both with AgriLife Research; Dr. Weston Porter, Texas A&M University department of veterinary physiology and pharmacology; and then-graduate student Giuliana Noratto, who is now on the faculty at Washington State University.
In the western hemisphere, breast cancer is the most common malignant disease for women, he said. In the U.S. last year, the American Cancer Society estimated about 232,340 new cases of invasive breast cancer among women.
Most of the complications and high mortality associated with breast cancer are due to metastasis, Cisneros-Zevallos pointed out.
“The importance of our findings are very relevant, because it shows in vivo the effect that natural compounds, in this case the phenolic compounds in peach, have against breast cancer and metastasis. It gives opportunity to include in the diet an additional tool to prevent and fight this terrible disease that affects so many people,” he said.
The study was conducted using the peach variety Rich Lady. However, according to Cisneros-Zevallos, most peach fruit share similar polyphenolic compounds but might differ in content. The study also determined that the underlying mechanism by which peach polyphenols are inhibiting metastasis would be by targeting and modulating the gene expression of metalloproteinases.
“In general, peach fruit has chemical compounds that are responsible for killing cancer cells while not affecting normal cells as we reported previously, and now we are seeing that this mixture of compounds can inhibit metastasis,” said Cisneros-Zevallos. “We are enthusiastic about the idea that perhaps by consuming only two to three peaches a day we can obtain similar effects in humans. However, this will have to be the next step in the study for its confirmation.”
Cisneros-Zevallos continues testing these extracts and compounds in different types of cancer as well as in diabetes studies in vitro and in vivo to understand the molecular mechanisms involved.

The work documenting the health benefits of stone fruit has been supported by the Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center at Texas A&M, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California Tree Fruit Agreement.

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Managing Diabetes an Expensive Affair

by R. AVADHANI on MARCH 24, 2014 –

A few complications may be addressed by consuming vegetables

The economic burden of diagnosed diabetes in the US is $245 billion per year while in India it is $5 billion. Approximately, $12.5 billion is spent on diabetes among all age groups in Texas annually. Diabetes is increasing at rapid rate and it is expected that by 2030, India will have 100 million people with diabetes.

While diabetes may be treatable in future, currently there is no known cure. Among several treatments, dietary adjustments, exercise and blood glucose monitoring, is crucial. Hence, finding way to reduce risk from diabetes not only makes sense from a humanistic point of view but also economically.

Obesity leads to Diabetes

Participating in a two-day international conference on bitter gourd held at Icrisat, Dr. Bhimanagouda Patil, Director, Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center (VFIC), Texas A&M University, suggested a systems-wide approach which needs to be implemented by the interdisciplinary researchers involved from ‘farm to consumers’. Both obesity and diabetes are closely linked and led to investigations of obesity-associated insulin resistance to the development of type- 2 diabetes. To some extent, obesity led to diabetes and partially due to fast food and sedentary lifestyle, he added.

Stating that some complications may be addressed through approaches involving health promoting properties from vegetables, exercise, and lifestyle, Dr. Bhimangoda Patil said that currently Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center is using this approach for other vegetables and fruits to increase consumption and in turn reduce risk from chronic disease.

In order to accomplish the system-wide approach, scientists from production agriculture, breeding, nutrition, food science, medical sciences, natural product chemistry, pharmacology, micro-biota and extension educations have initiated a strategy to be involved in translational part to benefit the consumers.

“We are trying to have partnerships with several countries including Germany, Indian Universities, Taiwan, Phillipines and Tanzania as well as private sectors to develop strategy to enhance values of bitter gourd as vegetable to improve human health specifically reducing risk from diabetes,” Dr Bhimangouda Patil told The Hindu.

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Cool weather delays start of Texas deal, new Vidalia ship date could extend season.

Texas growers anticipate a good crop with promising markets and strong prices as season begins. 

March 10-24, 2014, by Chip Carter.

The Texas onion deal will be a little late out of the gate this season but growers will get some help extending that season with a new later start date for Vidalia onion growers. A cold winter by Texas standards — averaging about 10 degrees cooler than normal — will mean the Texas deal will not begin until about mid-March after harvest a week earlier. Mexico has also been behind this season due to cooler temperatures.

In late 2010, Texas onion growers appeared to be sitting pretty. They were coming off a year where their crop fetched as much as $40 a box — roughly a dollar a pound. Consumer demand had grown steadily for several years. Any past problems were squarely in the rearview mirror.

Then, as almost always happens, a few growers decided if some was good, more was better. Overplanting was rampant, production boomed. The predictable result of too much product on the market was a drop in pricing. Two years of struggle followed.

Read or download the rest of the The Produce News: Texas Onions article