One initiative arising out of the U.S.-Africa Leaders' Summit this week in Washington is a commitment by the U.S. Agency for International Development to produce later this year an assessment on the ease of doing business and investing in Africa's agriculture. Runaway Runoff The so-called "Dead Zone" of eutrophication where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico is larger than expected this year, and Ohio is going to make farmers get a license to apply fertilizer after a half million people in Toledo could not drink water due to a nutrient runoff fed algae bloom into Lake Erie. Farmers make the logical argument that they would not over-apply fertilizer since it would be a waste of money, and that fault is difficult to assign when...

TAGS – Farm Inputs, Asia, North America