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COVID-19 Crisis Has Led to Food Crisis, Says Italy's Draghi
The world must ensure access to food supplies as forcefully as it moved to ensure access to vaccines, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said at the opening of the United Nations Food Systems Pre-Summit in Rome.
By Maytaal Angel
July 26, 2021
LONDON (Reuters) - The world must ensure access to food supplies as forcefully as it moved to ensure access to vaccines, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said at the opening of the United Nations Food Systems Pre-Summit in Rome.
"The health crisis (COVID-19) has led to a food crisis," he said, citing data showing malnutrition in all its forms has become the leading cause of ill health and death in the world.
The U.N.'s first ever Food Systems Summit will take place in September, with the aim of delivering progress on the body's 2030 sustainable development goals (SDGs).
According to the latest U.N. data, the world's food system, which involves cutting down forests to plant crops, is responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it a leading cause of climate change.
"We are off track to achieve the SDGs," said U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, who first announced his plan to convene the Food Systems Summit in October 2019, before COVID-19 dramatically slowed progress towards SDGs like zero hunger.
After remaining virtually unchanged for five years, world hunger and malnutrition rose last year by around 118 million people to 768 million, with most of the increase likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a major U.N. report. read more
On internationally traded markets, world food prices were up 33.9% year-on-year in June, according to the U.N food agency's price index, which measures a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar. read more
There is increased diplomatic momentum to tackle hunger, malnutrition and the climate crisis this year with summits like the current one, but the challenge is huge.
Guterres said the pre-summit will assess progress towards achieving the SDGs by transforming global food systems, which, he noted, are also responsible for 80% of the world's biodiversity loss.
Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi gestures as he speaks at a news conference where he is expected to map out the country's next moves in loosening coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions, in Rome, Italy, April 16, 2021. REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Lead Photo: Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi arrives for the virtual G20 summit on the global health crisis, at Villa Pamphilj in Rome, Italy, May 21, 2021. REUTERS/Yara Nardi
PinDuoDuo: Building A More Resilient Food System With Technology - July 14 -15
Join us virtually for our inaugural Food Systems Forum, which will convene experts from around the world to share their insights and spark further connections and potential collaborations
The pandemic has shone a light on how fragile and intertwined our global agri-food supply chain is, making it even more pressing to push for food systems innovation and change. Can we leverage technology to build a more resilient food system that feeds more people and feeds them better?
Join us virtually for our inaugural Food Systems Forum, which will convene experts from around the world to share their insights and spark further connections and potential collaborations.
Register To Join The Conversation
PinDuoDuo: Building A More Resilient Food System With Technology - July 14 -15
Join us virtually for our inaugural Food Systems Forum, which will convene experts from around the world to share their insights and spark further connections and potential collaborations
The pandemic has shone a light on how fragile and intertwined our global agri-food supply chain is, making it even more pressing to push for food systems innovation and change. Can we leverage technology to build a more resilient food system that feeds more people and feeds them better?
Join us virtually for our inaugural Food Systems Forum, which will convene experts from around the world to share their insights and spark further connections and potential collaborations.
Register To Join The Conversation
VIDEO: California Farmers Leave Fields Fallow As Drought Grows More Dire In West
Northern California reservoirs contain only half the water they normally do in late spring.
Both the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project have announced they intend to deliver only 5% of requested supplies this year
By TYNE MORGAN May 28, 2021
As rains drop needed moisture for areas of the country dealing with drought and in need of relief, the situation is growing more dire in the West.
The latest U.S. Drought Monitor shows improvement in the Plains, especially in the Southern Plains. Heavy rains also falling across western portions of the High Plains this week, lessening the drought conditions in the western Dakotas. Those moisture improvements also pilling over into western Nebraska and Kansas.
The drought has become a mainstay in California. The Drought Monitor released Thursday shows exceptional drought growing, including Kern County, one of the top ranked counties for ag production in the nation.
Northern California reservoirs contain only half the water they normally do in late spring.
Both the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project have announced they intend to deliver only 5% of requested supplies this year.
As California farmers rely on Mother Nature and ground water this year, one farmer says it won't be enough to even grow a crop, with some farmers choosing to not plant at all. Some producers are even pulling out trees.
"There are land areas out here that are going to get one acre foot of water from the ground. That's what they're allocated," says Tyler Ribeiro, a dairy farmer in Tulare, California. "Good luck growing cactus on one acre foot. You're not going to be able to feed with that you can't grow trees out there. And we align with a lot of these tree guys in a sense of we feed their byproduct, I need those all almond hulls, I need those orange peels. I need a lot of those things. That's how we stay efficient [as a day farmer]."
USDA meteorologists telling AgDay there's not much relief in sight for California and the West. Forecasters expect the drought west of the Rockies to only get worse.
Vertical Farming Startup Oishii Raises $50m In Series A Funding
“We aim to be the largest strawberry producer in the world, and this capital allows us to bring the best-tasting, healthiest berry to everyone.”
By Sian Yates
03/11/2021
Oishii, a vertical farming startup based in New Jersey, has raised $50 million during a Series A funding round led by Sparx Group’s Mirai Creation Fund II.
The funds will enable Oishii to open vertical strawberry farms in new markets, expand its flagship farm outside of Manhattan, and accelerate its investment in R&D.
“Our mission is to change the way we grow food. We set out to deliver exceptionally delicious and sustainable produce,” said Oishii CEO Hiroki Koga. “We started with the strawberry – a fruit that routinely tops the dirty dozen of most pesticide-riddled crops – as it has long been considered the ‘holy grail’ of vertical farming.”
“We aim to be the largest strawberry producer in the world, and this capital allows us to bring the best-tasting, healthiest berry to everyone. From there, we’ll quickly expand into new fruits and produce,” he added.
Oishii is already known for its innovative farming techniques that have enabled the company to “perfect the strawberry,” while its proprietary and first-of-its-kind pollination method is conducted naturally with bees.
The company’s vertical farms feature zero pesticides and produce ripe fruit all year round, using less water and land than traditional agricultural methods.
“Oishii is the farm of the future,” said Sparx Group president and Group CEO Shuhei Abe. “The cultivation and pollination techniques the company has developed set them well apart from the industry, positioning Oishii to quickly revolutionise agriculture as we know it.”
The company has raised a total of $55 million since its founding in 2016.
Securing Food Supply For The Long Term
While officially classified by the United Nations as ‘food secure’, its arid climate and widespread desert conditions, mean that the GCC is heavily dependent on food imports to meet local demand. In the UAE for instance, nearly 90 percent of demand is met through imports.
The region’s dependence on imports is a significant food security risk to the region. The Covid-19 pandemic has further exposed the vulnerabilities of the global food supply chain, making it clear that any long-term disruptions to global food networks could have catastrophic consequences.
Investing in food security
Even before Covid-19, the region’s food industry was undergoing radical transformation as governments implemented new strategies in response to population growth and climate change, while producers were reacting to rapidly changing consumer behavior, and the need for greater efficiency and sustainability.
To counter the effects of the region’s arid climate, the UAE, along with other governments in the region, has invested in cutting-edge food production and distribution techniques such as hydroponics and vertical farming, smart irrigation, and aquaponics. And it is clear that advanced technologies such as robotics and AI offer exciting new opportunities for the food F&B sector.
Building food security
Countries that have steadily worked towards strengthening their internal production capabilities and logistics networks over recent years find themselves much better placed to ride out the crisis. This is evidenced by the relative ease with which GCC governments were able to manage food demand during the pandemic.
Securing Supply, the latest briefing paper produced by MEED in partnership with Dubai-based Mashreq Bank, discusses the food security strategies underway in the GCC and Egypt, including the shifting focus on self-sufficiency in sectors such as fisheries, dairy, and poultry; enhancing in-country reserves; and growing investments in agricultural technology.
Download the paper here.
29 Mar 2021
Improved Product Consistency
Introducing Travaglini FarmTech, a new business division that has been established by Travaglini S.p.a., the world leader in meat, cheese, and fish processing equipment. Travaglini FarmTech will deliver turnkey vertical farm solutions to food processors to help them improve product consistency and simplify their supply chain dynamics
12-03-2021 Philips Lighting
ITALY, Milan- Introducing Travaglini FarmTech, a new business division that has been established by Travaglini S.p.a., the world leader in meat, cheese, and fish processing equipment. Travaglini FarmTech will deliver turnkey vertical farm solutions to food processors to help them improve product consistency and simplify their supply chain dynamics.
“With vertical farming
we can grow and process consistent, high-quality produce in one location that can be close to retailers and consumers. We have full control over the entire process.”
- Luca Travaglini, leader Travaglini FarmTech
The challenge
Travaglini S.p.a. builds on 68 years of expertise in developing extremely accurate climate control, industrial automation, processing, and packaging equipment. The company is partnering with Philips Lighting, the world leader in lighting, to establish Italy’s first vertical farm research lab in Milan. This facility will be used to develop a state-of-the-art model for vertical farming growth strategies and technologies. The Italian vertical farm research lab will focus primarily on the production of leafy greens.
The right lighting
Vertical farming is a reply to the environmental problem that exists today in horticulture – how to provide fresh food to urban environments in a way that’s efficient and sustainable. “With vertical farming we are looking to answer many of the questions that the food industry is facing today and that will only become clearer and more pressing in the coming years,” said Travaglini. We can grow and process consistent, high-quality produce in one location in a vertical farm that can be close to retailers and consumers. Plus, we can fully control the entire supply chain, from seed to packaging.”
Luca Travaglini, leader of Travaglini FarmTech division said, “We chose to work with Philips Lighting because they have the strongest expertise in this field, and we trust them to help us expand our skillset and knowledge base over the long-term.
Photos Courtesy of Philips Lighting
Click here for more information.
Bringing The Future To life In Abu Dhabi
A cluster of shipping containers in a city centre is about the last place you’d expect to find salad growing. Yet for the past year, vertical farming startup Madar Farms has been using this site in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, to grow leafy green vegetables using 95 per cent less water than traditional agriculture
Amid the deserts of Abu Dhabi, a new wave of entrepreneurs and innovators are sowing the seeds of a more sustainable future.
Image from: Wired
A cluster of shipping containers in a city centre is about the last place you’d expect to find salad growing. Yet for the past year, vertical farming startup Madar Farms has been using this site in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, to grow leafy green vegetables using 95 per cent less water than traditional agriculture.
Madar Farms is one of a number of agtech startups benefitting from a package of incentives from the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) aimed at spurring the development of innovative solutions for sustainable desert farming. The partnership is part of ADIO’s $545 million Innovation Programme dedicated to supporting companies in high-growth areas.
“Abu Dhabi is pressing ahead with our mission to ‘turn the desert green’,” explained H.E. Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi, Director General of ADIO, in November 2020. “We have created an environment where innovative ideas can flourish and the companies we partnered with earlier this year are already propelling the growth of Abu Dhabi’s 24,000 farms.”
The pandemic has made food supply a critical concern across the entire world, combined with the effects of population growth and climate change, which are stretching the capacity of less efficient traditional farming methods. Abu Dhabi’s pioneering efforts to drive agricultural innovation have been gathering pace and look set to produce cutting-edge solutions addressing food security challenges.
Beyond work supporting the application of novel agricultural technologies, Abu Dhabi is also investing in foundational research and development to tackle this growing problem.
In December, the emirate’s recently created Advanced Technology Research Council [ATRC], responsible for defining Abu Dhabi’s R&D strategy and establishing the emirate and the wider UAE as a desired home for advanced technology talent, announced a four-year competition with a $15 million prize for food security research. Launched through ATRC’s project management arm, ASPIRE, in partnership with the XPRIZE Foundation, the award will support the development of environmentally-friendly protein alternatives with the aim to "feed the next billion".
Image from: Madar Farms
Global Challenges, Local Solutions
Food security is far from the only global challenge on the emirate’s R&D menu. In November 2020, the ATRC announced the launch of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), created to support applied research on the key priorities of quantum research, autonomous robotics, cryptography, advanced materials, digital security, directed energy and secure systems.
“The technologies under development at TII are not randomly selected,” explains the centre’s secretary general Faisal Al Bannai. “This research will complement fields that are of national importance. Quantum technologies and cryptography are crucial for protecting critical infrastructure, for example, while directed energy research has use-cases in healthcare. But beyond this, the technologies and research of TII will have global impact.”
Future research directions will be developed by the ATRC’s ASPIRE pillar, in collaboration with stakeholders from across a diverse range of industry sectors.
“ASPIRE defines the problem, sets milestones, and monitors the progress of the projects,” Al Bannai says. “It will also make impactful decisions related to the selection of research partners and the allocation of funding, to ensure that their R&D priorities align with Abu Dhabi and the UAE's broader development goals.”
Image from: Agritecture
Nurturing Next-Generation Talent
To address these challenges, ATRC’s first initiative is a talent development programme, NexTech, which has begun the recruitment of 125 local researchers, who will work across 31 projects in collaboration with 23 world-leading research centres.
Alongside universities and research institutes from across the US, the UK, Europe and South America, these partners include Abu Dhabi’s own Khalifa University, and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s first graduate-level institute focused on artificial intelligence.
“Our aim is to up skill the researchers by allowing them to work across various disciplines in collaboration with world-renowned experts,” Al Bannai says.
Beyond academic collaborators, TII is also working with a number of industry partners, such as hyperloop technology company, Virgin Hyperloop. Such industry collaborations, Al Bannai points out, are essential to ensuring that TII research directly tackles relevant problems and has a smooth path to commercial impact in order to fuel job creation across the UAE.
“By engaging with top global talent, universities and research institutions and industry players, TII connects an intellectual community,” he says. “This reinforces Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s status as a global hub for innovation and contributes to the broader development of the knowledge-based economy.”
Forget Politics, Danny Ayalon Wants to Effect Change on The Ground
Having transitioned from politics to agriculture, Danny Ayalon shares how vertical farming, which provides fresh fruits and vegetables all year round, and lab-grown meat can rehabilitate the environment and dramatically reduce household expenditures
Having transitioned from politics to agriculture, Danny Ayalon shares how vertical farming, which provides fresh fruits and vegetables all year round, and lab-grown meat can rehabilitate the environment and dramatically reduce household expenditures.
Image from: Yehoshua Yosef
The coronavirus pandemic has drawn attention to humankind's carbon footprint. More than ever before we ask ourselves, how can we become more sustainable? Can we prevent pollution? How can we minimize waste? What about lowering emission levels? Will there be enough food for everyone in the future?
Danny Ayalon, a former ambassador and foreign policy adviser to three prime ministers-turned entrepreneur, believes that the answer to many of the world's problems lies in modern agriculture.
Having transitioned from politics to agriculture, he works with Future Crops, an Amsterdam-based company focused on vertical farming – the practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers that often incorporates controlled-environment agriculture, which aims to optimize plant growth – and MeaTech, a company that creates lab-grown meat.
"Ever since the coronavirus came into our lives, we realized that man is not in charge of the universe," Ayalon told Israel Hayom.
"Our control over the forces of nature, of Earth, of our future is more limited than we had thought. And when we are no longer in charge of the world, only three things guarantee our lives here: food, water, and energy security. Food, water, and energy are three resources that can be depleted and therefore literally cast a cloud on our world.
"Experts have come to a conclusion that one of the most important fields to focus on is agriculture, and indeed we are currently witnessing the most significant agricultural revolution ever since the first agricultural revolution that took place about 10,00 years ago."
Q: Back then, in the first agricultural revolution, there was a need for a lot of land.
"But today we have technology. The name of the game is to reach maximum output with minimum input in the smallest space possible. This is the holy grail of the new revolution. And that is how technology enters the picture. To grow fruits, vegetables and spices today requires lots of space. The technology we developed at Future Crops allows us to minimize the space, increase production and redefine the food supply chain."
Q: How exactly?
"We have a nine-story hangar in Amsterdam to grow crops like coriander, basil, dill, and parsley. It has LED lights, and each plant gets exactly the amount of light it needs. We are the plant psychologists, [we] listen to all its needs and do everything to make sure the plant grows in the most optimal way.
Image from: Future Crops
"If it lacks something, it immediately receives water. Everything is done without a human's touch. We use algorithms and big data in collaboration with world-class researchers from the Weizmann Institute. It is essentially the application of vertical farming, growing various crops in vertically stacked layers, in enclosed structures, on soil platforms.
"For example, if it takes a month to grow lettuce in an open field, in a vertical farm, it takes two weeks, half that time. There's also a significant reduction in water consumption, and no pesticides or sprays are used at all. Also, the produce is available in all seasons; it does not depend on the temperature. Whoever likes mangos and strawberries, for example, will be able to enjoy them all year round."
Q: So if produce is grown faster and within a smaller space, is it going to cost less?
"The prices might be a bit higher today because this technology and the various infrastructures require an economic return of the initial investment in them. With time, the process will become more efficient, and the investments will be repaid, so in the end, the prices that the consumer will need to pay will be lower than today.
"Let me give you a simple example. Do you know how much a kilogram [2.2 pounds] of basil costs in Europe today? €90 ($108). In Israel, the price is €20 ($24). In the [United Arab] Emirates, where almost everything connected to food is imported – the prices go accordingly as well. Once you have more innovative vertical farms, consumers will pay much less."
Q: Should we expect vertical farm skyscrapers to pop up all over?
"I'm not sure that we will need skyscrapers, as with time the facilities will become smaller. Imagine that in every supermarket there will be a vertical produce stand with all the vegetables and spices, and later also fruits which you pick on the spot, without the need to move the produce from place to place. That is why vertical farming is also called urban farming, meaning there is no need for fields; you can grow [produce] on the rooftop. No resource limits you."
Q: What about the taste?
"Ours is a fresher and tastier product. I ought to give credit to the Weizmann Institute here. The challenge for them wasn't the quality of the vitamins but the taste, and they managed to achieve a great taste. In the Netherlands, Future Crops already sells parsley, and it tastes outstanding."
Q: Regular parsley lasts for about two weeks in the fridge. What about Future Crops parsley?
"Our parsley has a two-month shelf life, and it does not oxidize within a week or two."
Q: If every country will be self-reliant in terms of agriculture, do you think it will affect relations between countries?
"Economies will become self-sufficient eventually, which will ensure security with far fewer conflicts. There is less and less water in the Middle East, which might someday lead to tensions. We hope technology will reduce the tensions between countries, and territory will be less critical. Our world faces crucial challenges. Food and water security have the potential to either divide or bring us together and ensure our long-term existence.
"By the way, in every developed Western country, like the United States, Australia, and also in Europe, issues of food security, climate, and greenhouse emissions are on the top of the political agenda. We are not talking about it [in Israel,] as security and foreign affairs take the central stage, but Israel does have a lot to offer here."
Q: Do we have the potential to become the Silicon Valley of advanced agriculture?
"Israel takes tremendous pride in its actions that help save the world. Will we become the Silicon Valley of agriculture? There is no doubt about it. We can already see foreign investors who come here to look for opportunities, including my business partner Lior Maimon, co-founder and CEO of Silver Road Capital, and Steven Levin, one of the leaders of the US food industry. Silver Road Capital is a holdings and financial advisory firm with a broad portfolio of high-tech companies, as well as agricultural and food technologies, and represents international companies and funds in investments in Israel and the world.
"Future Crops's goal is to raise 35 million shekels on the Israeli stock exchange to invest in enlarging the existing facilities and [set up] other production lines and facilities in Europe and other continents. We cooperate with the Albert Heijn supermarket chain [in the Netherlands] and a leading food chain in France."
Q: Vertical farming is estimated at $3 billion. Google and Amazon have invested hundreds of millions in the field as well. What is their goal?
"A simple answer would be profit. A longer answer is that they [large corporations] understand that food has the highest demand. People cannot live without food and water, and Google and Amazon understand that potential."
Q: US President Joe Biden took office with the largest team of climate experts ever. That ought to give the field momentum.
"Green energy and vertical farming will get a considerable boost. Climate change and green energy are well-rooted in the Democratic Party's ideology.
"It is also possible that large companies entered the agriculture fields precisely because of the Biden administration; they are worried about their future. They are afraid of a certain dismantling, so focusing on secondary fields is part of a security scenario for them."
Q: Biden also wants to address greenhouse emissions, which are the result of the food production industry, mainly meat. Are Amazon and Google's food counterparts - McDonald's and Burger King - looking for meat substitutes?
"Firstly, cultured [lab-grown] meat does not require grazing land, cows do not need to be fed, and so much land can instead be turned into forests that support the environment. This is an optimistic industry that leaves us with a better world.
"As for the meat alternatives market, there are two major companies in the US that produce plant-based protein, Beyond Meat, and Impossible Foods.
"Impossible's burgers are already at Burger King, McDonald's has partnered up with Beyond Meat, and last November, it announced that it would create its own plant-based burger.
"The problem is that pea protein [used in plant-based burgers,] does not have all the amino acids that animal protein contains. Also, they need to add additives to supplement for taste and smell.
"At MeaTech, where I'm a director, we are on our way to producing animal meat, cultured meat, real stakes: we take a cow's own stem cell from which meat can be produced in almost unlimited quantities. We also use 3D digital printing technology. And we also created a thin layer of meat, carpaccio. Needless to say, no cow was harmed in the process."
Image from: MeaTech
Q: Why do you use 3D printers?
"Because there is no need for a human being's involvement. It is relevant now during the coronavirus pandemic when the food supply chain is disrupted. With such printers, your production can continue without delays, whenever you want.
Also, it is theoretically possible to provide food for space flights. Astronauts who go out into space will not have to take food with them; rather, they will be able to produce it on the spot.
"People understand that crises like the coronavirus can disrupt the supply chain and are looking for alternatives. A 3D printer allows restaurants, supermarkets, and butcher shops to have meat without relying on the supply chain."
Q: The death rate from obesity is higher than the death rate from hunger. How will cultured meat affect these statistics?
"It is possible to create meat with much less fat and more protein in each portion and add various nutrients in the future to strengthen the immune system and prevent disease. This, of course, requires a lot of research and approvals. Just like there's talk about customized medicine, so it will be possible to produce food that suits a person's genetic structure and body in the most optimal way."
Q: Will the cost of this meat also be optimal?
"They will cost more in the beginning compared to regular meat because there are initial costs that have to be repaid. When it becomes a mass production, prices will drop over time."
Q: With your vast experience in politics, what do you think of Israeli politics these days? Do you ever consider a political comeback?
"No election campaign goes by without someone making me an offer [to return to politics] but I'm not interested. Unfortunately, the Israeli government, and all governments in the Western world, have not been able to run their countries properly in recent years.
"For example, more of the government's national taks are transitioning to the private market or the third sector. We see that associations [are the ones] who take care of the needy, establish settlements in the Negev and in the Galilee, bring immigrants to Israel and provide Israelis with information. All these things should be done by the government.
"The Israeli government lacks vision, ideologies, every matter is personal and is charged with negative sentiments. If I do return one day, it will only happen after we change the government system which will take its power from small [political] parties.
"In my opinion, we need to transition to a regional choice, by district. This will result in higher quality politicians. How so? Because whoever wants to be elected will need to run and convince the people who live in his area and district, and they are the ones who know his activities best. Also, closed primaries should be avoided because they make all kinds of deals possible. That needs to change."
How Space-Saving Retailers Can Bring Fresh Farming Indoors
Farm.One’s latest “mini-farm” in a Manhattan Whole Foods sets a precedent for other stores
SEP 23, 2020
Melissa Kvidahl Reilly | Sep 28, 2020
Retailers who pride themselves on using their own homegrown ingredients in foodservice operations previously looked to a rooftop or back lot for garden space. But New York’s Farm.One is changing the game, making it possible for even the most urban locations to optimize space and offer open, transparent, and clean food production.
Previously known for its restaurant partnerships, the brand recently opened a “mini-farm” at the new Whole Foods Market Manhattan West location. The custom-designed, 32-square-foot structure holds 150 plant sites on three growing levels. These plant sites provide the store’s food and beverage preparers with freshly grown and harvested blue spice basil. This type of structure will be a big part of Farm.One’s strategy going forward, and it’s currently on the hunt for new retail partners.
Farm.OneMini-farms can offer as many as 700 varieties of hydroponic-grown crops. “A display farm can have multiple crops, or just one as is the case in the Whole Foods Manhattan West farm,” says Michael Chin, the company’s vice president of corporate development. And, Farm.One can build, install, and train stores on using farms anywhere in the world.
The bottom line? This isn’t the indoor farming of decades past. “Indoor farming has come a long way, especially in the last few years,” says Chin. “We can now produce fresh, clean and healthy food and ingredients profitably, and in an environmentally responsible way. Developments in technology and new techniques will continue to help make onsite production even more accessible to retailers and other businesses in the years to come.”
TAGS: RETAILER AND DISTRIBUTOR
Unless We Change Course, The US Agricultural System Could Collapse
“There’s no great mystery about how to halt the withering away of California’s water or Iowa’s soil”
Opinion by: Tom Philpott
26 August 2020
Our Food Supply Comes From An Environmentally
Unsustainable System That Is Going To Unravel
Picture an ideal dinner plate. If you’re like most Americans, it features a hearty portion of meat, from animals fattened on midwestern corn and soybeans, and a helping of vegetables largely trucked in from California. The unique landscapes we rely on to deliver this bounty – the twin jewels of the US food system – are locked in a state of slow-motion ecological unraveling.
California’s agricultural sector has flourished from decades of easy access to water in one of the globe’s biggest swaths of Mediterranean climate. The Sierra Nevada, the spine of mountains that runs along California’s eastern flank, captures an annual cache of snow that, when it melts, cascades into a network of government-built dams, canals, and aqueducts that deliver irrigation water to farmers in the adjoining Central Valley. In light-snow years, farmers could tap aquifers that had built up over millennia to offset the shortfall.
But the Sierra snowpack has shown an overall declining trend for decades – most dramatically during the great California drought of 2012-2016 – and it will dwindle further over the next several decades as the climate warms, a growing body of research suggests. A 2018 paper by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers articulates the alarming consensus: a “future of consistent low-to-no snowpack” for the Sierra Nevada, the irrigation jewel of our vegetable patch.
Is the way cattle are grazed the key to saving America's threatened prairies?
Even as snowmelt gushing from the mountains dwindles, the Central Valley farming behemoth gets ever more ravenous for irrigation water, switching from annual crops that can be fallowed in dry years to almond and pistachio groves, which require huge upfront investments and need to be watered every year. As a result, farm operations are increasingly resorting to tapping the water beneath them. Between 2002 and 2017, a period including two massive droughts, farmers siphoned enough water from the valley’s aquifers to fill Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain three times.
As the water vanishes, the ground settles and sinks in uneven and unpredictable ways, a phenomenon known as subsidence. By 2017, large sections of the Central Valley were sinking by as much as 2 ft a year. In addition to damaging roads, bridges, houses, sewage pipes, and pretty much all built infrastructure, subsidence snarls up the canals that carry snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada. Thus we have a vicious circle: reduced snowmelt means less water flowing through government-run irrigation channels, which pushes farmers to pump more water from underground, causing more subsidence that damages those channels and reduces their flow capacity, pushing farmers to accelerate the cycle by pumping more water from underground.
“There’s no great mystery about how to halt the withering away of California’s water or Iowa’s soil”
Seventeen hundred miles to the east, the prevailing agriculture system consumes a different but equally precious resource: soil. When white settlers seized what we now call the corn belt from indigenous inhabitants in the 19th century, they found thousands of miles of prairies and marshlands, with hundreds of species of perennial wild grasses, legumes and flowers that towered over their heads, with roots plunging just as deep into the earth, burying carbon from the atmosphere and feeding a teeming web of micro-organisms that break down and cycle nutrients. Aboveground, vast herds of bison ate their way through fields, stimulating new plant growth and recycling nutrients through their manure.
Interactions between Native Americans, plants, animals, microbes, and climate left behind a majestic store of fertile topsoil that scientists call mollisol. Even today, the US midwest boasts the largest of four major mollisol stores on the planet. Mollisols develop over millennia yet can be squandered in decades. US colonial-settler agriculture transformed this ecological niche, a landmass 1.5 times the size of California, into a factory churning out just two crops – corn and soybeans.
This kind of agriculture fouls water as a matter of course. Since corn and soybeans are planted in the spring and harvested in the fall, the vast majority of corn-belt farmland lies bare for the winter months, leaving the ground naked when storms hit. These deluges pummel bare topsoil and send it – and the agrochemicals and manure farmers apply to it – cascading off farms and into streams and creeks that flow into rivers, lakes, and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico. But there’s another problem with subjecting the land to the same two crops every year: loss of the region’s precious black topsoil. According to research by the soil scientist Rick Cruse, Iowa – and much of the surrounding corn belt – is losing soil at a rate 16 times the pace of natural replenishment.
Again, climate change is a driver. Today’s farmers encounter a weather regime radically different from that of their grandparents: more intense off-season storms, and thus ever-heavier pressure on the soil. If global greenhouse gases continue rising, the region faces a 40% increase in precipitation by the late 21st century, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment. The soil that makes one of the globe’s most important growing regions so productive is vanishing before our eyes, degrading a crucial food production region at the very time when climate change and global population growth call for building resilience.
Extreme weather just devastated 10m acres in the midwest. Expect more of this | Art Cullen
There’s no great mystery about how to halt the withering away of California’s water or Iowa’s soil. California needs to shrink its agricultural footprint to match the scale of its water resources, which means other regions of the US should ramp up their own fruit and vegetable production to make up the difference. In the corn belt, US federal farm policy should stop paying farmers to overproduce corn and soybeans, and instead push them to diversify their plantings and keep their land covered all winter – practices known to maintain high levels of production while also preserving soil, decreasing water pollution and slashing the need for pesticides and fertilizers.
Reduced demand for agrichemicals, however, pinches the bottom line of the agrichemical behemoths, and a turn from corn-and-soybean dominance will dent profits for the meat companies that rely on cheap, overproduced feed. These companies divert a share of their income into lobbying and campaign finance, and their interests shape US farm policy. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Just as creating a sane climate policy requires the rise of a social movement to negate the power of the fossil fuel lobby, a better agricultural regime will require a direct political challenge to big agribusiness.
Climate justice and food justice are, in fact, the same fight – the struggle to beat back corporate dominance and make the world livable for everyone.
Tom Philpott is the agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones and the author of Perilous Bounty: