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Regenerative Organic Certification Label Takes Root
Rodale Institute
PEA-PICKING SUSTAINABILITY: ROC certification aims to generate living wages for farmers and workers.
Regenerative Organic Certification Label Takes Root
The goals of certification include growing soil organic matter and alleviating climate change effects.
John Vogel | March 8, 2018
Move over, USDA Organic Program. Regenerative Organic Certification has higher standards. Years of organic labeling fraud and more recent Organic Trade Industry opposition to the National Organic Program’s approval of soil-less (hydroponic, aquaponic and aeroponic) growing systems and organic poultry production has seemingly accelerated development of ROC.
The ROC program was unveiled at this week’s Natural Products Expo West trade show. It’s owned by the Regenerative Organic Alliance, a nonprofit coalition of farmers, ranchers, scientists, and brands. Its standards will be administered and audited by NSF International.
The alliance is led by Jeff Moyer, executive director of Rodale Institute as board chair, and spearheaded by Patagonia and Dr. Bronner’s. Other founding members include Compassion in World Farming, Demeter, Fair World Project, Grain Place Foods, Maple Hill Creamery and White Oak Pastures.
“Farming can either create some of the world’s greatest challenges or solve them,” Moyer says. “Regenerative organic agriculture is our opportunity to solve them. It’s farming where more than yields and profit matter. Healthy soil, clean air and water are just as important. It’s farming where people and communities matter. It’s farming so we don’t just need to feed people for the next 100 years, but forever.”
Patagonia and Dr. Bronner’s teamed up with Rodale to create what the alliance calls an unprecedented effort to shake up and impact the sustainable food movements, even industrial agriculture, in profound ways. In brief, ROC’s core objectives are to:
• Increase soil organic matter over time.
• Sequester atmospheric carbon in soil, which at a global scale can help mitigate climate change.
• Model pasture-based animal welfare.
• Provide fair pricing standards plus a living wage for farmers, ranchers and workers.
• Create resilient regional ecosystems and communities.
Only products certified under USDA’s organic program are eligible to meet ROC’s criteria. Using that as a baseline, ROC standards address next-level soil health plus requirements for animal welfare and farm labor.
The social fairness pillar of the new label is entirely missing from USDA organic standards, Moyer says. It draws on international Fair Trade standards that protect growers in developing countries who are often exploited with harsh working conditions and meager compensation by big corporations.
ROC certification is open to any industry, brand and even certain manufacturing facilities. The plan is to have products on shelves within two years.
For more details, see Regenerative Organic Certification requirements or contact Jessica Evans at jevans@nsf.org.
New Certification Goes Beyond Organic
New Certification Goes Beyond Organic
The Regenerative Organic Certification is open to organic producers certified by USDA, but it sets a higher bar for soil health and animal welfare and adds standards for social fairness for farmers and workers.
Carol Ryan Dumas Capital Press
March 15, 2018
The Regenerative Organic Alliance, led by the Rodale Institute, is launching a certification program focused on holistic agriculture that its sponsors say goes beyond simple sustainability.
The Regenerative Organic Certification will stand on the shoulders of the National Organic Program, and only products certified organic by USDA are eligible.
But ROC will raise those standards and fill in the gaps of that program that evolved by either design or default, said Jeff Moyer, executive director of the Rodale Institute.
ROC will address the standards consumers perceive to be part of NOP through its three pillars of soil health, animal welfare and social fairness, he said.
“It’s important to think about what it really means to be regenerative; it’s more than just a word,” he said.
Rodale’s work to support and strengthen organic standards has always been based on a standard of continuous improvement to resources. But that concept was given up in the National Organic Program, or NOP, which allows the use of chemicals, he said.
The ROC will address continuous improvement in soil health and also go further than NOP in addressing animal welfare. It will also include social fairness for producers and workers, which isn’t an aspect of the NOP conversation, he said.
Rodale’s founder, J.I. Rodale, was the first to link healthy soil to healthy food to healthy humans, he said.
“Too often we don’t pay attention to that,” he said.
Rodale’s son, Robert Rodale, later recognized that farming by organic principles could mitigate climate change, he said.
“Farming can either create some of the world’s greatest challenges or solve them. Regenerative organic agriculture is our opportunity to solve them,” he said.
Healthy soil, clean air and clean water are just as important as yield and profit, and people and communities matter, he said.
ROC will link together all the values that matter to consumers to improve the health of the planet and people around the world, he said.
Spearheading the effort along with Rodale are Dr. Bronner’s — a major brand of natural soap worldwide committed to social justice and environmental sustainability — and Patagonia, an outdoor company committed to environmental activism.
ROC was created with the intent for the standard to become adopted by companies and producers on a broad scale and has already gotten a lot of attention from other brands, Moyer said.
Some brands will use the ROC logo and label, and others will use it as an internal control that food, fiber and other products are produced in accordance with their values and the values of their customers, he said.
The alliance will be launching pilot audits, working with accredited certifiers and producers to understand how the standards can be implemented on farms and ranches.
“We built the boat and want to see if it will float,” he said.
Hopefully, certification will begin in early 2019, with the goal of having ROC products appearing on store shelves within the next two years, he said.
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Mobile Farmers Market Offers Affordable, Accessible Produce To Gainesville, Florida Residents
Fresh Wagon is a United States Department of Agriculture-funded project that provides fresh produce to Gainesville residents at a low cost. The wagon has been in business for two years, according to Bruce Waite, executive director of Common Thread Alliance
Bruce Waite, executive director of Common Thread Alliance, in front of the Fresh Wagon. The Fresh Wagon, a project of Common Thread Alliance, delivers fresh produce to low-food-access areas. (Audrey Alonso/WUFT News)
Home / Health and Science / Mobile Farmers Market Offers Affordable, Accessible Produce To Gainesville Residents
Mobile Farmers Market Offers Affordable, Accessible Produce To Gainesville, Florida Residents
March 1, 2018 Health and Science
The smell of fresh produce filled the air of the parking lot on the north side of Nationwide Insurance Thursday morning. A white trailer with bold, green letters that read “Fresh Wagon” across the side, displayed a variety of fruits and vegetables for Nationwide employees to choose from.
Fresh Wagon is a United States Department of an Agriculture-funded project that provides fresh produce to Gainesville residents at a low cost. The wagon has been in business for two years, according to Bruce Waite, executive director of Common Thread Alliance.
Fresh Wagon is a service of the Food Oasis Project, which is a program of Common Thread Alliance. The alliance is a nonprofit organization and is a farmer-producer that operates in Melrose, FL. The workers of Common Thread go out weekly and aggregate produce from nine partner farms, Waite explained.
The Fresh Wagon facilitates a relationship between local farmers by making it available for small family farms to have the opportunity to build sustainable revenue, according to Waite.
On Thursdays, the wagon goes to a number of companies and employers, such as CH2M Hill, Nationwide Insurance, UF’s College of Public Health and Health Professions and the Malcolm Randall VA Medical Center.
On Fridays, the wagon goes to numerous Housing and Urban Development-sponsored locations in East Gainesville, from housing that focuses on people with disabilities to the elderly to families, Waite explained.
“Part of our research is trying to connect the issues associated with state, federal and corporate employees that may be struggling to make ends meet,” Waite said. “And [they] may be deferring their utilization of fresh food, because it’s expensive.”
“So even though they (employees) come here (Nationwide Insurance) every day to work, [the question is]: Do they go home to a neighborhood that doesn’t have a supermarket for them?”
Students and employees walk along the circle drive of the College of Public Health and Health Professions, located at 1225 Center Drive, as the Fresh Wagon trailer pulls up and parks around noon Thursday. The farmers open the doors on the side of the trailer and pull out the shelves of produce.
Within five minutes, a crowd of people lined up to begin picking their produce, a green basket in hand. Students walking by stop to observe the wagon, eventually picking up a basket or plastic bag to start picking.
“It’s easy to come by and get fresh food while at work,” Anne Bogar, a UF Health Shands Hospital employee, said. “I don’t have to deal with the insanity of the local market by where I live.”
The farms listed on the Fresh Wagon Website are as follows: Barnes Farm located in Hastings; Blue Sky Farm and Brubaker Farms located in Elkton; Brown’s Family Farm and Frog Song Organics located in Hawthorne; Full Circle Farm located in Melrose.
“We load about 32 to 34 different fresh fruits and vegetables by Wednesday of every week,” Waite said.
He explained that Common Thread received an inquiry from the City of Gainesville around six months ago about positioning the wagon in locations where more people can access it.
He mentioned that so far there has been no update on the inquiry but assured that the alliance is willing to discuss expanding.
The idea of Fresh Wagon came from a concern about food proximity in neighborhoods where people lacked the access, according to Waite.
“Over time, it has also grown to encompass a strong interest in working people and their lack of proximity and inconvenience of getting fresh food while working,” Waite said.
To locate the areas where additional access to fresh produce is needed, the program employs Neighborhood Deprivation Indexing. It looks at 17 different socioeconomic measures and enables Common Thread to map those measures in four quadrants of health risks, Waite explained.
“People lack access to transportation. Even though there is bus service available, it’s a challenge [to grocery shop],” Waite said. “We’re trying to strengthen those communities. We’re trying to foster independence.”
Tags AGRICULTURE ALACHUA ALACHUA COUNTY BUSINESS CITY OF GAINESVILLE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE EAST GAINESVILLE FLORIDA FOOD DESERT FRESH WAGON GAINESVILLE HAWTHORNE SHANDS HOSPITAL TRANSPORTATION UF UF HEALTH UF HEALTH SHANDS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA USDA
The Multiple Benefits of Aqua4D
The Multiple Benefits of Aqua4D
Month by month, year by year, Aqua-4D Water Solutions has achieved consistently impressive results across the globe, enabling farmers to increase yields and profits while overcoming poor soil and water conditions.
Almonds and vegetables in California. Tomatoes in Italy, Spain, and Tunisia. Grapes in Ethiopia. Olives in India. Melons and other fruits in Brazil. According to the company growers of any kind, who invested in Aqua-4D Water Solutions, register better yields in an environmentally friendly, chemical-free and sustainable fashion. "Better yet, the benefits continue to accrue as long as the system is in continuous operation. Salts and other harmful elements are leached from the soil, nematodes are repelled from root zones, and reductions in water and fertilizer usage become permanent."
In most situations, the ROI – a key metric for savvy agribusiness operators – can be realized in two years or less. It is one of the primary reasons why growers in more than 40 countries have turned to Aqua-4D.
International results
The Aqua-4D system relies on a combination of proven Swiss technology and empirical data collected over more than a decade from orchards, vineyards and fields around the world.
The system uses a finely calibrated electromagnetic signal to treat irrigation water before it is applied to crops. The system dissolves minerals and other organic material in the water into smaller elements, immediately improving any plant’s ability to better absorb what it needs in the proper proportions.
Yields increase from 6% to as much as 40% or more across all crop types. Consistent improvements in the size and quality of the fruit or vegetable, leaf structure, and root development have been measured.
“Thanks to the Aqua-4D system, we have improved the overall quality of our fruits and have noted an increase in production to the m2, all while still irrigating with a highly charged water,” said Richard August Muller, Chief Financial Officer of Agricola Famosa, one of the largest growers in Brazil. (For more, please see this video interview.)
In Ethiopia, the general manager of an influential French wine company growing premium grapes in Ethiopia credits Aqua-4D for a 35% reduction in water use and 20% increase in yield.
“With the installation of the Aqua-4D system on a 7-hectare plot, we observed important water savings, a significant production increase as well as improved foliage,” said Bernard Coulais of Castel Group. “We are very satisfied with these results, which responded to our needs.”
U.S. farmers turning to Aqua-4D
American farmers are quickly coming to realize what their peers in other parts of the world already know – the Aqua-4D system is for real and can provide tangible results within weeks of installation.
In the past two years, more than 20 large-scale farming operations have agreed to test the Aqua-4D system, a process the company calls “validation.” A key part of the company’s strategy to show growers the system works is to require side-by-side comparisons so key data can be measured and analyzed.
All factors are controlled so that one field, orchard or vineyard receives water treated with the Aqua-4D system while the other section does not. The water comes from the same source, and the crop types and soil profiles are identical.
Growers in the San Joaquin and Salinas valleys in California have signed up. Many have doubled down on their investment because of positive validation results. Coming off a five-year drought that stretched already thin water supplies in the valley – and facing the prospect of another dry winter this year – farmers know they must again be frugal with every drop. Aqua-4D allows them to do that, easily adapting to almost all micro-drip and high-efficiency delivery systems.
Apple farmers in Washington are the latest to join the team. They are turning to Aqua-4D to help them successfully deal with chronically high salinity levels in their irrigation water and soil.
Strawberry and vegetable growers in Florida, a cotton grower in Arizona and greenhouses in Canada also have achieved remarkable results with the Aqua-4D system. They join a base of satisfied ag customers that spans the globe – from Brazil to Italy, Africa and the Middle East all the way to India.
The water treated by the Aqua-4D system is permanently transformed. Like an electric wire connected to a live power source, the water emerging from the Aqua-4D tubes will retain its new characteristics as long as it remains in contact (via irrigation lines) with a system that is turned on. Distance away from the system does not make a difference.
The system is eco-friendly and completely sustainable. There are no magnets or filters to change, dangerous chemicals to handle or toxic elements to dispose of, making maintenance simple and convenient. Even better, the system requires little power and adapts easily to small solar panel arrays.
For more information:
Aqua-4D Water Solutions
Technopole 5, 3960 Sierre, Switzerland
Javier Meyer, Marketing & Sales Manager
M: +41 78 624 07 17
T: +41 27 552 03 35
E: meyer@aqua4d.com
www.aqua4d.com
Publication date: 3/12/2018
Meters Every Grower Should Own
Meters Every Grower Should Own
March 8, 2018
Everyone agrees that growing your food is good. It boosts your health, brightens your day, calms your mind, and allows you to do more with your life. These are the meters every grower should own and use inside a grow room.
Dissolved Oxygen Meter
The Milwaukee MW600 is a portable dissolved oxygen (DO) meter for educational, aquaculture, water analysis, and environmental analysis applications, with an LCD screen and polarographic probe with 3m cable and screw-on cap membrane. The meter has two-point manual calibration and automatic temperature compensation from 0 to 30°C. It runs on one 9V alkaline battery (included). DO meters are commonly used in water-quality testing applications.
Dissolved oxygen (DO) meters measure the amount of dissolved oxygen present in water. The amount of DO helps to determine, for example, drinking water quality, the health of lakes or streams, and aquatic organism sustainability. A probe, also called a sensor or electrode, is inserted into the sample to perform the measurement, and the results appear on the meter display. Applications include sewage and water treatment plants, pollution control, fish farms, and various types of manufacturing.
Dosing Kit
The dosing kit can control the pH of your tank/reservoir automatically! The MC122 pH controller and dosing pump (MP810). It provides fully automated pH control of aqueous solutions in hydroponic systems. It has been specifically designed to control the pH in mixing tanks for fertilization. The small and precise flow of the peristaltic pump allows you to maintain ideal pH values in your tank. After selecting the desired pH setting from 5.5 to 9.5 pH, the pH controller measures the pH value of the solution and automatically adds pH adjustment (acid or alkaline) to change the liquid's pH to the selected level.
Waterproof Portable pH/EC/TDS/Temperature Meter
Slim, lightweight, and waterproof portable meter that measures pH, conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS) and temperature with a single amplified probe. Displayed with a 0.01 resolution and an accuracy of +/-0.05 pH while the EC and TDS readings are displayed with a 0.01 mS/cm and 10 ppm (mg/L) resolution and 2% full-scale accuracy.
Pocket Colorimeter
Nitrogen/Nitrate Meter
The new Pocket Colorimeter™ II Filter Photometer is a true go-anywhere instrument. It's lightweight and battery operated, suitable for extended field work or quick, on-the-spot process monitoring. The instrument has two channels in which measurements can be made.Each channel will accept a user-defined calibration curve. Up to 10 standards can be used to determine the calibration. The curve is generated by a point-to-point straight line segment between each standard used. Linear and non-linear positive or negative slope calibrations can be performed. A calibration curve may also be manually entered from the keypad if a previously determined curve has been made on the Colorimeter. At least two data pairs (concentration and absorbance) are required.
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dissolvedoxygenmeter DO dosingkit dosersystem pHmeter TDSmeter
BioLumic Raises $5 million Series A to Commercialize UV-based Crop Enhancement Tech
New Zealand agtech startup BioLumic has raised a $5 million Series A round to commercialize its ultraviolet light-based seed and seedling treatments. The round was led by agtech VC Finistere Ventures And Radicle Growth Acceleration Fund.
BioLumic Raises $5 million Series A to Commercialize UV-based Crop Enhancement Tech
New Zealand agtech startup BioLumic has raised a $5 million Series A round to commercialize its ultraviolet light-based seed and seedling treatments. The round was led by agtech VC Finistere Ventures And Radicle Growth Acceleration Fund.
Also participating were Rabobank Food and Agri Innovation Fund and existing investors.
BioLumic has created a seedling treatment using UV light that it says boosts the yield of specialty crops by up to 22% while also making plants heartier and more pest resistant.
“Light is an extremely powerful biological tool that can safely manipulate plants without the concerns often associated with genetic modification, chemical usage, and other unnatural treatments,” said BioLumic CEO Warren Bebb. “BioLumic is the only company using light as an Ag treatment at the beginning of a plant’s life. Exposure to a short-duration treatment of UV-enriched light at a critical stage in a plant’s development turns on characteristics to help the seed or seedling more effectively defend itself against disease or pest attacks and more efficiently use water and nutrients from the soil for its entire lifespan.”
The method was discovered at Massey University in New Zealand when Dr. Jason Wargent (now BioLumic chief science officer) was studying how increased exposure to UV spectrum of light would effect plants — research at the time which was linked to climate change and the shrinking ozone layer.
Researchers discovered that limited exposure to UV spectrum at a particular time in the life cycle of a seedling could pull certain levers within the plant genetics and lead to a heartier plant in a process called UV photomorphogenesis.
“By upping the UV dose to react in a certain way, the plant is reapportioning resources towards areas that we’re targeting and stimulating secondary metabolism and hormone signaling,” said CEO Warren Bebb to AgFunderNews.
Bebb explained that with a few days of UV treatment, plants which are sprouted in a greenhouse fare better when transplanted to the field and benefit from more efficient photosynthesis. Bebb says that the treatment an also be designed to influence traits like color and flavor.
“In indoor growing systems we’ve been able to improve color and also flavor profiles with a late-stage treatment,” said Bebb.
“I fully expect this technology will have applications in vertical farming because you can get better uniformity,” added Arama Kukutai of Finister Ventures, which is also invested in indoor farming company Plenty. Kukutai also believes that this technology could be helpful in converting growers to automated harvesting because BioLumic says that it can contribute to more consistent plant size — a pre-requisite when considering robotic harvesting of any crop.
BioLumic has been conducting two pilot studies on its seedling treatment: one with Taylor Farms Mexico and one with a European grower. These pilots have focused on lettuce, broccoli, strawberry and tomato seedlings.
“We’re coming to the end of those trials and have a seedling treatment system that we’ll be able to scale,” said Bebb.
This funding round will be put to use commercializing the seedling treatment process (which is administered by a thin metal arm equipped with UV lights passing over tables of seedlings). The company will also be looking to develop a seed treatment process using the same concepts that would expand its reach beyond horticulture to broad acre crops.
“Some of the most valuable technologies to date in our space have been seed treatments,” said Kukutai.
Both Kukutai and Radicle’s Richard Haney will join BioLumic’s board.
photo: BioLumic
Second Farmory Location Opens In Area High School
Second Farmory Location Opens In Area High School
March 8, 2018 FOX 11 News
The Farmory built a soil-based aquaponics system in West De Pere High School's greenhouse. The organization held a ribbon cutting ceremony, March 8, 2018. (WLUK)
DE PERE (WLUK) -- Another local indoor farm has been built thanks to The Farmory.
The urban farming project built a second soil-based aquaponics system in West De Pere High School's greenhouse.
The greenhouse was built by Farmory volunteers and local Green Bay residents.
A ribbon cutting was held Thursday.
The Farmory built a soil-based aquaponics system in West De Pere High School's greenhouse. The organization held a ribbon cutting ceremony, March 8, 2018. (WLUK)
The Farmory will work with school staff to train students in how to operate and care for the fish and plants as part of their curriculum.
"Students are actually going to be able to learn to grow food. They're going to learn about a sustainable farming methods, aquaponics and then they're going to be introduced to this as a career opportunity, which is something that's really different and creative for agriculture," said Farmory program director, Alex Smith.
The Farmory is a campaign to bring local and sustainable indoor agriculture to Northeast Wisconsin.
The Farmory built a soil-based aquaponics system in West De Pere High School's greenhouse. The organization held a ribbon cutting ceremony, March 8, 2018. (WLUK)
As The Organic Movement Fractures, Farmers And Food Companies Are Redefining The Standard They Built
As The Organic Movement Fractures, Farmers And Food Companies Are Redefining The Standard They Built
Meet the new "organic-plus" certifications developed by a movement's discontents, from Patagonia to Dr. Bronner's. But how many certifications are too many—and will anyone be able to understand the difference?
March 15th, 2018
by Stephanie Strom
Frustrated by what they see as a continued watering down of the standards that define what foods may be labeled “organic,” Patagonia Provisions—the food business offshoot of the outdoor apparel company—organic body care and food products company Dr. Bronner’s, and the research-based Rodale Institute will begin offering a new organic certification program.
Related: USDA withdraws organic animal welfare rules.
Companies seeking the new certification, called Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC), will first have to secure the federal organic seal through the National Organic Program, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) agency that controls organic regulation. Then they’ll have to meet additional requirements to protect workers and guarantee a higher standard of animal welfare, among other things.
At the same time, several founders of the organic movement in the United States have started the Real Organic Project, which will offer a seal of approval to organic farmers who meet higher standards that it is setting for organic farming.
“The industrial organic machine has been using real organic farmers as a sort of smokescreen.”
“In its origins, the organic movement encompassed fair labor practices, a greater level of compassion for animals, and a mandate to improve soil health, but much of that got lost when the federal organic regulations were set,” says David Bronner, the “cosmic engagement officer” (or CEO) of Dr. Bronner’s. “Our new seal recognizes and celebrates that next level of organics, which goes further than the federal program.”
These new certification programs have brought to light a schism that has been growing for more than a decade in the organic business, creating a quietly expanding divide between companies and farms that do just enough to win the federal organic seal and those with practices that go far beyond the requirements set by the Department of Agriculture.
That the rift has now become public has raised concerns among organic champions, who fear that it will reduce the value of “organic” as a marketing and advocacy tool and confuse eaters who invest in products bearing the seal.
Related: It’s the end of organic as we know it.
Mark Kastel, co-founder of the Cornucopia Institute, a non-profit organic advocacy group, says that while diehard organic eaters may devote time to understanding the nuances of three different organic labels, many more may just throw up their hands and decide it’s too hard to suss out their varied meanings.
A long-time adversary of the Organic Trade Association (OTA), Mr. Kastel has, somewhat uncomfortably, found himself on the industry trade group’s side in the debate over the new certification programs. “There’s a real risk that the new seals will turn products that just have the federal seal into second-class citizens, unable to command the premium prices needed for even the most basic organic production,” Kastel says.
In comments submitted to Regenerative Organic Alliance—the body overseeing the new Regenerative Organic Certification, OTA warned that another organic seal posed “a serious risk” to the federal label—which first went on packaging in the early 2000s. “As awareness of this standard spreads, so may the misconception that the USDA organic standards do not include requirements for soil health, biodiversity and animal welfare,” the group wrote. “Although not intended, this could present an unfortunate disservice to the livelihood of the organic sector and organic farmers across America.”
Regenerative Organic Certified
New certification programs have brought to light a schism that has been growing for more than a decade in the organic business
But David Chapman, an organic farmer in Vermont who is the spokesman for the Real Organic Project, says the standards in federal law and regulation are the bare minimum for organic farming and that USDA does little to enforce them.
Over the last decade, the department has revoked less than a dozen organic certifications in the U.S. and more than 80 in foreign countries, according to its Organic Integrity Database. It suspended more than 1,700 certifications during that time.
Chapman says large companies hoping to cash in on the premium prices organic products command were doing as little as they could to stay in compliance with federal regulation. At the same time, they were counting on media coverage of small organic farming operations with shinier stories to convey a narrative about organic that doesn’t reflect the vast majority of farming federally certified as such.
“This is not creating divisions that don’t exist already,” Chapman says. “The industrial organic machine has been using real organic farmers as a sort of smokescreen, allowing consumers to think that farming the way I do it, say, is the same as the farming they’re doing—and it isn’t.”
These new certification programs have brought to light a schism that has been growing for more than a decade in the organic business.
Like ROC, Real Organic will require at a minimum federal organic certification. But it will not offer its additional certification to companies making processed foods; rather, its certification is for farmers who go well beyond the federal requirements. Mr. Chapman said about 20 farmers will participate in a pilot program this year, with a goal of putting the first seal on produce next year.
The project grew out of a decision last fall by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) that allowed companies growing fruits, vegetables, herbs and other produce using hydroponic and aquaponic systems to continue to use the federal organic seal. New technologies have greatly expanded the use of such systems, but organic traditionalists object to allowing produce grown that way to be labeled organic because it isn’t grown in soil.
The Organic Food Production Act of 1990 states that an organic plan, which is required for organic certification, “shall contain provisions designed to foster soil fertility, primarily through the management of the organic content of the soil through proper tillage, crop rotation, and manuring.”
Related: What are hydroponics, anyway?
Depletion of the nation’s soils has become a hot-button issue across farming at large after decades of pesticide application, tillage, and other practices that diminish soil health. Farmers are looking to crop rotation, reduced tillage, manure and other techniques to try to increase nitrogen stores in soil and enhance carbon sequestration.
“The problem is—and I hate it—the USDA has given up any claim that organic might have to do with leadership in soil health,” says Chapman. “I have friends who are not organic farmers, but they are definitely regenerative farmers doing pioneering stuff and doing a better job of protecting the soil.”
A USDA spokesman pointed to notes provided to the House Appropriations Committee, explaining a request for an additional $3 million for enhanced enforcement of organic regulations. “With respect to goals, National Organic Program activities will have a strong emphasis on strengthening enforcement in order to protect the integrity of the label and allow for the industry to continue to grow,” wrote USDA.
“There’s a real risk that the new seals will turn products that just have the federal seal into second-class citizens.”
Soil regeneration and enhancement are required in order to qualify to use the seals of the Real Organic Project and ROC, and so produce like hydroponically grown strawberries and aquaponically grown herbs will not qualify.
“Under the existing organic standards, you can be an organic farmer and not do everything to the best of your ability to continue to improve soil health over time,” says Jeff Moyer, executive director of the Rodale Institute.
ROC will, for instance, require farmers to reduce tillage, one area where conventional farming has outpaced organic farming. (One of the selling points of genetically engineered crops is that they require little tillage.) “Particularly in organic vegetable operations, there may be too much tilling,” Moyer says. “If you’re an earthworm, doing your work to enrich the soil, those are pretty rough days.”
Rodale will oversee the ROC standards for soil health, while standards for worker welfare have been compiled by the Fair World Project, a fair trade group born out of the Organic Consumers Association. Compassion in World Farming helped draft the animal welfare standards.
Dr. Bronner’s and Patagonia Provisions are among 10 or so companies that will participate in a pilot program, but mammoth food companies like Danone, the French dairy business, and Kashi, owned by the Kellogg Company, have also expressed interest in the new seal. Roughly 20 companies applied to be part of the pilot, which will run for the next nine months or so.
“ROC brings everything together under one cohesive seal that signifies a product was grown in a way that’s good for the soil and good for the workers and animals involved,” says Justin Gold, the founder of Justin’s, the nut butters and snacks brand now owned by Hormel.
Organic traditionalists object to allowing produce grown that way to be labeled organic because it isn’t grown in soil
Danone’s chief executive, Emmanuel Faber, has long been a proponent of better care for earth and animal, and the company’s Happy Family, Horizon Organic, and Vega One brands are helping the development of ROC certification. “We have always been a strong supporter of the USDA organic standard,” says Michael Neuwirth, a company spokesman. “DanoneWave looks forward to concretely exploring and understanding how this proposed new certification will further benefit our planet through soil health, animal welfare, farming communities and more choices for our consumers and our business.”
Over the past several years, many of the oldest organic food companies and the farmers and stores that support them have become increasingly disenchanted with the National Organic Program, contending that it has loosened standards to accommodate big food businesses seeking to cash in on burgeoning consumer demand for organic products.
Sales of organic foods have grown strongly over the last decade, rising 8.4 percent in 2016, while sales of food overall conventional foods grew a meager 0.6 percent. Organic products, including clothing and health and beauty products, accounted for $47 billion in sales that year, according to the OTA.
“The USDA has given up any claim that organic might have to do with leadership in soil health.”
Recently, two things, in particular, have rankled those who consider themselves the keepers of the organic flame. First, the Trump administration shelved more stringent animal welfare requirements that were slated to go into effect for organic producers. Currently, some private animal welfare certification programs have more stringent requirements for animal care than the federal organic program, which some in the organic world consider an embarrassment.
And then there was the brouhaha over hydroponic and aquaponic production, or what its practitioners prefer to call “container growing.”
“While it is very convenient to blame both the Trump and Obama administrations, neither of which has been a friend to organic, the industry itself is culpable as well,” says Max Goldberg, founder and publisher of Organic Insider, a newsletter that broke the story of the ROC program. “There are organic companies who have representatives on the National Organic Standards Board, and these individuals voted for hydroponics. In my mind, this is a complete betrayal of the American organic consumer, who is under the impression that her strawberries and tomatoes have been grown in soil.”
Goldberg says he regards ROC as a kind of “gold standard for organics” but that establishing the new seal would not be easy. For one thing, he says, there is not yet an abundant supply of commodity ingredients like corn and wheat that will meet the higher standards. For another, explaining what the ROC seal means to eaters already confused by the proliferation of seals on food packaging will be a challenge.
Related: Welcome to certification nation.
And ROC’s founders agree that, at least in the beginning, products bearing the new seal are likely to be more expensive because of the higher standards it requires for production. “We know that there are consumers out there who want more transparency about the food they eat and are willing to pay for it,” says Rose Marcario, chief executive of Patagonia.
Marcario also contends that the new seal may, in fact, reduce confusion caused by the proliferation of seals on packaging because it implicitly covers practices policed by, say, fair trade or animal welfare certification groups.
“The ROC seal will mean that not only has the product received the approval of the federal organic program, it has also met requirements for regenerating and improving soil quality, treating workers fairly and with justice and treating animals with a high level of compassion,” Marcario says.
Related: Who certifies the certifiers?
NSF International, the company behind one of the largest organic certification agencies, will act as the certifier for ROC during the pilot program, though Marcario says the aim is for other organic certifiers to join once the kinks are worked out. The seal should start showing up on grocery shelves early next year.
“We want to continue to support the work of the National Organic Program, but we believe there is an option for farmers who have been doing more than the program requires for decades to showcase the extra things they do,” she says. “Think of ROC as organic-plus.”
Stephanie Strom was a reporter for The New York Times for 30 year. During that time, she covered Wall Street, nonprofits, Japan and retail, but her favorite assignment by far was covering the food business and the people in it. She lives in New York City with her husband and a feisty French bulldog.
ENVIRONMENT, FARM, NEWS, POLICY, SHELF, SYSTEMSORGANICOTAREAL ORGANIC PROJECTREGENERATIVE ORGANIC CERTIFICATIONSOILUSDA
Keeping Plant-Cell Motors On Track
Keeping Plant-Cell Motors On Track
Molecular brakemen keep transporter proteins in check until it’s their turn to move
By Talia Ogliore March 13, 2018
Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered the molecular brakeman that holds kinesins in check until it’s their turn to move. (From left:) Ram Dixit, Anindya Ganguly, Graham Burkart and Yuanwei Fan. (Photo: Joe Angeles/Washington University).
Fluorescent dyes light up the areas of activity for regulator IMB4 (red) along green microtubules in a growing plant cell. (Image: Dixit lab)
Within both plant and animal cells, motor proteins act like the engines in a busy train system. They shuttle material in the cell from one location to another. And just as commuter trains travel a predictable route in a defined direction, their volume of transport is commensurate with need. At rush hour, more trains are in operation. At midnight, there’s no point in running trains every 10 minutes.
In a growing plant cell, motor proteins called kinesins work as transporters that haul materials built in one part of the cell to the place where they are needed. Kinesins travel along tracks of polymers known as microtubules to get where they are going. Moving cargo costs the cell energy and resources, and this process is closely controlled to prevent waste.
Now biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered the molecular brakeman that holds kinesins in check until their cargo is needed.
Ram Dixit (right), with postdoctoral fellow Anindya Ganguly. (Photo: Joe Angeles/Washington University)
The importin IMB4 is a regulator that controls a kinesin specifically involved with building the plant cell wall. It works by physically binding to the kinesin, said Ram Dixit, associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences. IMB4 holds the kinesin in an inactive state — protecting it from degrading while it waits — and prevents the kinesin from traveling along a microtubule until its cargo is needed. The new research is published in the journal Developmental Cell.
“The cell wall is like the plant’s exoskeleton, and building it is one of the growing plant’s most important functions. We have identified a key molecular regulator that closely controls cell wall deposition by physically binding to a kinesin,” Dixit said. “We still don’t know what signals cause IMB4 to release the brakes, but we now understand how it holds kinesins back until they are needed.”
Ready movers
A rigid cell wall is an essential and energetically expensive investment for a plant. The cell wall confers strength and enables the cell to withstand the turgor pressure that is necessary for growth.
In Arabidopsis plants, cell wall deposition depends on a kinesin-4, called Fragile Fiber 1 or FRA1. FRA1 was identified more than a decade ago, but a 2015 study in Dixit’s lab confirmed that its motility and abundance were correlated with cellular growth rates.
Postdoctoral fellow Anindya Ganguly, lead author of the paper, was intrigued by what the research team had seen. In rapidly growing cells of seedling stems, they saw lots of FRA1 kinesins moving along microtubules. But further down the stem, where the cells had ceased to elongate, the motor proteins were gone.
“Similar to rush hours, when plants are rapidly growing, you need to deliver a lot of cell wall material to keep up with growth,” Ganguly said. “Efficient, high-volume transport depends on having a lot of motor proteins. The regulator we discovered keeps a surplus of these transporter proteins around during times of rapid growth.”
Postdoctoral fellow Anindya Ganguly hand-pollinates Arabidopsis plants. (Photo: Joe Angeles/Washington University)
Ganguly and co-authors discovered that the importin IMB4 binds directly to the motor domain of the FRA1 kinesin. Then, using a combination of mutant analysis, microscopy of FRA1 within living cells and protein biochemistry, the team showed that this interaction inhibits the movement of FRA1.
“This importin essentially jams the motor, the engine of the kinesin,” Dixit said. “You inhibit mobility by virtue of prohibiting its association with its track.”
“The site where we think it binds, based on some analysis we did here, includes amino acids that are very conserved in other kinesin families in both plants and animals,” Dixit said. “So we think that there’s a good chance that this mechanism might be generally applicable.”
Twisted sister
With a handle on IMB4, researchers now have a better understanding of the mechanical workings of the engines of cell wall deposition. Another study published by the Dixit lab this month identifies a regulator involved in building the scaffold on which kinesins move.
In this study, the researchers examined a mutant Arabidopsis plant that exhibits a twisted growth pattern. Its leaves and stems swirl back in on themselves; its roots are tangled and skewed.
These so-called spiral mutants suffer from misaligned microtubules (the “tracks” that the kinesins walked along in the other study). In the mutant, severing proteins were thought to snip and shorten the microtubules at the points where they cross over each other.
Postdoctoral fellow Yuanwei Fan is lead author of a new study that discovered a protein that regulates the minus-end dynamics of microtubules. (Photo: Joe Angeles/Washington University)
But when Dixit and postdoctoral fellows Yuanwei Fan and Graham Burkart set out to parse intracellular activity in the spiral mutant, they uncovered a more interesting and nuanced mechanism. Importantly, they discovered that the plant-specific SPR2 protein regulates the minus-end dynamics of microtubules in the mutant.
Microtubules have a fast-growing and more dynamic end, identified as a “plus” end, and a slow-growing, less dynamic “minus” end. Microtubules grow and shrink from the plus side, while the minus side has generally been considered static in plants — until now.
Remarkably, in the spiral2 mutant, the minus-ends are extremely dynamic and shorten at much higher rates compared to wild-type plants.
Graham Burkart in the lab. (Photo: Joe Angeles/Washington University)
“Not only did we find that this protein localizes to the minus end, in plants, and regulates the minus-end dynamics, but we were able to recapitulate that behavior in vitro,” Dixit said. “We can say that this protein and this protein alone is sufficient to localize to the minus ends, track the minus ends, and stabilize them.”
Interestingly, the SPR2 plant protein shares some characteristics with mammalian proteins that stabilize the minus ends of microtubules in the tissues that line the surfaces of organs and in neurons.
This separate, microtubules work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, and is published online in advance of the March 19 issue of the journal Current Biology.
Keeping track of cell shapes and functions
Taken together, this new research on the regulators of motor proteins and microtubules helps explain the inner workings of plant cells that gives rise to their shape and enables them to alter their growth in response to developmental and environmental signals.
RELATED STORY
NSF announces new Science and Technology Center
The work on IMB4 and the FRA1 kinesin is part of Dixit’s effort with the Center for Engineering MechanoBiology (CEMB), a National Science Foundation-funded science and technology center jointly led by Washington University and the University of Pennsylvania. Within CEMB, Dixit leads a research cohort focused on determining how cells adapt to, and change, their mechanical environment.
“The center’s focus is really to uncover, understand and ultimately be able to control the role of mechanical forces writ large on biological systems,” Dixit said.
“One of the thing that’s unique about the center is that it brings together both plant and animal systems. That hasn’t been done before,” Dixit said. “The idea is that we will be able to uncover some universal principles that are applicable to both kingdoms.”
The Center for Engineering MechanoBiology (CEMB) is a multi-institutional Science and Technology Center funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to advance the study of mechanical forces in molecules, cells and tissues in plants and animals. Washington University partners with University of Pennsylvania to lead the CEMB; other partners include: the University of Maryland; the New Jersey Institute of Technology; Bryn Mawr College; Alabama State University; and Boston University.
Funding for this research was provided by: Current Biology publication: This work was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) (R01 GM114678) Developmental Cell publication: This work was supported by the Monsanto/Norman Borlaug Corporate Fellowship; the Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (DE–SC0001090); and the National Science Foundation (MCB–1121287) and the Center for Engineering MechanoBiology (CMMI-1548571).
ARTS & SCIENCESBIOLOGYCELL BIOLOGYCENTER FOR ENGINEERING MECHANOBIOLOGY (CEMB)MECHANOBIOLOGY
Media Contact: Talia Ogliore
Indigo Appoints Ann Simonds, Consumer Goods Industry Veteran, to Board of Directors
Indigo Appoints Ann Simonds, Consumer Goods Industry Veteran, to Board of Directors
- Accomplished leader responsible for driving growth at General Mills, one of the nation’s largest food production companies, joins Indigo’s board
- Simonds’ experience in the consumer goods space will support Indigo’s vision of meeting public demand for a healthy, transparent food supply
Boston, Massachusetts, March 15, 2018 – Indigo Ag, Inc., a company dedicated to harnessing nature to help farmers sustainably feed the planet, announces today the appointment of Ann Simonds, experienced consumer goods professional and former Chief Marketing Officer of General Mills, to its Board of Directors. With her deep expertise in marketing management, customer insight, consumer products, and integrated marketing, Simonds will strengthen the company’s commercial growth and brand recognition. Coupled with her marketing expertise, Simonds has broad operating experience in wheat, cocoa, and sugar from her roles as President of Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, and Immaculate Baking.
“What drew me to Indigo was the team’s desire to connect agricultural practices with consumer preferences,” said Simonds. “I see significant potential in the company’s model, dedicated to cultivating that connection. I look forward to helping Indigo establish the next frontier in the farm-to-table movement.”
During her twenty-year career at General Mills, Ann Simonds served as President of Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, and Immaculate Baking, and—most recently—as CMO. In this role, Simonds led the company’s marketing function and marketing services organization, Gcom.
Her leadership directly enabled philanthropic milestones, including the Cheerios Spoonfuls of Stories® literacy program, the Stirring Up Wishes campaign for the Make a Wish Foundation, and Bake the Change™, a Betty Crocker program that inspires people to make a difference in the world through baking. She also supervised General Mills community initiatives, including the United Way campaign and the Women’s Forum. Simonds was closely involved with Partners in Food Solutions, an initiative started by General Mills to strengthen food security, improve nutrition, and increase economic development across Africa by expanding and increasing the competitiveness of the food processing sector.
Before joining General Mills, Simonds spent five years in product management at Johnson & Johnson. She received her MBA at Harvard Business School. Currently, Simonds serves on the board of The Brand Lab and as the Chairman of the Board at the Hennepin Theater Trust.
“Ann brings extensive marketing and branding experience to our board,” said Robert Berendes, Indigo’s Chairman of the Board. “Her knowledge of both food and consumer goods will be invaluable as we drive towards our goal of creating a marketplace that responds to consumer demands for healthy, sustainable, and traceable food.”
Along with Berendes, Simonds joins industry leaders David Perry, John Gehring, Peter Innes, Mehmood Khan, and Ignacio Martinez on Indigo’s Board of Directors.
ABOUT INDIGO
Indigo is a company dedicated to harnessing nature to help farmers sustainably feed the planet.
With a vision of creating a world where farming is an economically desirable and accessible profession, Indigo works alongside its farmers to apply natural approaches, conserve resources for future generations, and grow healthy food for all. Utilizing beneficial plant microbes to improve crop health and productivity, Indigo’s portfolio is focused on cotton, wheat, corn, soybeans, and rice.
The company, founded by Flagship Pioneering, is headquartered in Boston, MA, with additional offices in Memphis, TN, Research Triangle Park, NC, Sydney, Australia, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and São Paulo, Brazil. www.indigoag.com
Cultivate Professionalism: "Recruiting and Staffing Services for the Modern Gardening Industry.”
Cultivate Professionalism:
"Recruiting and Staffing Services For The Modern Gardening Industry.”
Mac & Fulton Talent Partners are the premier recruiting service in the modern horticulture marketplace. As such, the M&F Talent team is constantly networking with some of the best and brightest professionals relating to Controlled Environment Agriculture, Hydroponics Equipment, Nutrient Lines, and Vertical Indoor Farming.
The breadth of knowledge, as well as the network at M&F Talent, extends into sales, management, engineering, chemistry, and horticulture.
The team at Mac & Fulton sees a real societal value in the burgeoning urban agriculture movement and are looking forward to networking with industry front-runners.
If you would like to learn more about Mac & Fulton, or would simply like to strike up a synergistic dialogue, please contact:
Kent Gruetzmacher
What is Blockchain Technology? A Beginner’s Guide
You may have heard the term “blockchain technology” before, in reference to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. For the uninitiated, the term might seem abstract with little real meaning on the surface. However, blockchain technology is a critical element of cryptocurrencies — without it, digital currencies like Bitcoin would not exist.
What is Blockchain Technology? A Beginner’s Guide
written by Chantelle Lafaille February 18, 2018
You may have heard the term “blockchain technology” before, in reference to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. For the uninitiated, the term might seem abstract with little real meaning on the surface. However, blockchain technology is a critical element of cryptocurrencies — without it, digital currencies like Bitcoin would not exist.
If you are new to cryptocurrencies, and new to blockchain technology, read this guide on the basics to get yourself started. If you are already a seasoned trader, maybe you’ll learn a thing or two you didn’t already know.
A Brief History of Blockchain
To start, let’s talk about the history of the blockchain. Before it was ever used in cryptocurrency, it had humble beginnings as a concept in computer science — particularly, in the domains of cryptography and data structures.
The very primitive form of the blockchain was the hash tree, also known as a Merkle tree. This data structure was patented by Ralph Merkle in 1979, and functioned by verifying and handling data between computer systems. In a peer-to-peer network of computers, validating data was important to make sure nothing was altered or changed during transfer. It also helped to ensure that false data was not sent. In essence, it is used to maintain and prove the integrity of data being shared.
In 1991, the Merkle tree was used to create a “secured chain of blocks” — a series of data records, each connected to the one before it. The newest record in this chain would contain the history of the entire chain. And thus, the blockchain was created.
In 2008, Satoshi Nakamato conceptualized the distributed blockchain. It would contain a secure history of data exchanges, utilize a peer-to-peer network to time stamp and verify each exchange, and could be managed autonomously without a central authority. This became the backbone of Bitcoin. And thus, the blockchain we know today was born, as well as the world of cryptocurrencies.
How Does Blockchain Work?
So, then, how does the blockchain work? Let’s recall a few key features before we get into the details:
1. Blockchain keeps a record of all data exchanges — this record is referred to as a “ledger” in the cryptocurrency world, and each data exchange is a “transaction“. Every verified transaction is added to the ledger as a “block”
2. It utilizes a distributed system to verify each transaction — a peer-to-peer network of nodes
3. Once signed and verified, the new transaction is added to the blockchain and can not be altered
To begin, we need to explore the concept of “keys”. With a set of cryptographic keys, you get a unique identity. Your keys are the Private Key and Public Key, and together they are combined to give you a digital signature. Your public key is how others are able to identify you. Your private key gives you the power to digitally sign and authorize different actions on behalf of this digital identity when used with your public key.
In the cryptocurrency world, this represents your wallet address (public key) and your private key is what let’s you authorize transfers, withdrawals, and other actions with your digital property like cryptocurrencies. As an aside, this is why it’s so important to keep your private key safe — anyone who has your private key can use it to access any of your digital assets associated with your public key and do what they want with it!
Everytime a transaction occurs, that transaction is signed by whoever is authorizing it. That transaction might be something like “Alice is sending Bob 0.4 BTC”, will include Bob’s address (public key), and will be signed by a digital signature using both Alice’s public key and private key. This gets added to the ledger of that blockchain that Alice sent Bob 0.4 BTC, and will also include a timestamp and a unique ID number. When this transaction occurs, it’s broadcasted to a peer-to-peer network of nodes — basically other digital entities that acknowledge that this transaction has occurred and adds it to the ledger.
Each transaction in that ledger will have the same data: a digital signature, a public key, a timestamp, and a unique ID. Each transaction will be connected, so if you move back one transaction in the ledger, you may see that Chuck sent Alice 0.8 BTC at some time. If you move back another transaction, you might see that Dan sent Chuck 0.2 BTC at some other time before that.
The anonymity of cryptocurrencies come from the fact that your public key is just a randomized sequence of numbers and letters — so you are not literally signing with your own name or some sort of handle. A public key doesn’t tell you the real identity of the person behind it. You are also more or less free to generate as many key pairs as you want and have multiple cryptocurrency wallets. Be warned though, there could be other ways someone can figure out your identity — for example, through your spending habits.
Why is Decentralization So Important?
For enthusiasts of blockchain, you will hear a lot about the decentralized aspect of it. What makes this so appealing is that it makes the blockchain impervious to censorship, tampering, or corruption.
Because it uses a peer-to-peer network, copies of the ledger are stored in many different locations, and unless you manage to track down every single one of them (Bitcoin is estimated to have over 35,000 nodes in its P2P network), you can’t destroy it. As well, because so many different, independent nodes are keeping track of the ledger, modifying it in an untrustworthy way won’t go very far because all the other nodes will disagree with that transaction and won’t add it to the ledger.
This is a huge part of why so many people believe blockchain technology is the future of currency, and why it is being adopted in industries other than cryptocurrency.
There’s Always a Downside
However, like any system created by humans, there are always downsides.
Blockchain technology has a pretty steep learning curve. Especially for the typical individual without a technical background, all the jargon and computer science concepts involved may intimidate and scare away otherwise would-be users. However, the rising popularity of cryptocurrency is resulting in the blockchain moving into the mainstream, with a lot more resources available to make the topic more approachable.
Transferring, trading, and buying cryptocurrencies usually involves a transaction fee, and is not usually instantaneous. The former can be costly, the latter inconvenient.
There is also a concept called the “51% attack” — if for some reason 51% of a peer-to-peer network validates an otherwise invalid transaction, it will still get approved and added to the ledger by nature of how the validation process works. Maybe right now it’s unlikely to happen, but it is a security flaw that might have potential for exploitation in the future.
However, there are a lot of developers, users, and enthusiasts who truly believe blockchain technology is the future. Many want to see the technology succeed, so stay tuned for new developments!
Related: What Exactly Is Blockchain, Anyway?
Chantelle is a computer engineering student with over three years of experience writing for science and technology outlets, and a cryptocurrency enthusiast. When she isn't busy keeping up with the latest news in the tech world, she is busy pursuing her space engineer ambitions.
Wefarm Raises $5m From Skype, WordPress Founders for Smallholder Farmer Network
Wefarm Raises $5m From Skype, WordPress Founders for Smallholder Farmer Network
MARCH 13, 2018 | EMMA COSGROVE
Wefarm, a peer-to-peer farmer network for smallholder farmers, has raised a $5 million second seed round led by True Ventures, which describes itself as a fund focused on “the democratization of innovation as a powerful force for global good,” and a handful of Silicon-valley angels.
Also participating in the round are Skype and Atomico Founder Niklas Zennström, WordPress Founder Matt Mullenweg, Blue Bottle Coffee CEO Bryan Meehan, and the Norrsken Foundation with follow-on investment from LocalGlobe and Accelerated Digital Ventures.
Wefarm uses AI technology to connect small-scale farmers to crowdsourced information by enabling them to share techniques and advice on anything from how to battle a disease to how to increase their income, through SMS or online in their own languages.
The platform helps farmers in eastern Africa access critical information regarding farming, weather, and crop yields using an SMS and online methodology. The UK-based company with offices in Kampala, Uganda and Nairobi, Kenya, closed a $2.9 million venture round in January 2016.
“Mission alignment is really important for us. Some of the earliest advice that I got is that there are a lot of people that can write a check, but there aren’t a lot of people with the right check,” said founder and CEO Kenny Ewan to AgFunderNews. “At a basic level our goal has been to build a platform that farmers want to use and trust, and everything else will come from that,” he continued.
Ewan saw that many agtech startups started with technology and then had trouble reaching farmers. He said that by starting by building a community of farmers, currently at the rate of 2,000 new users per day, he now has an audience of more than 660,000 farmers to which it can market any number of services.
Wefarm is now working to monetize its community by providing services that users have requested within the service. Ewan said that the initial focus will likely be on financial products and trading or marketplace capabilities.
“About 4% of all the content we get from farmers organically is looking to buy and sell — it’s trading and looking for customers and loans,” said Ewan.
Wefarm is also experimenting with commercializing data gathered from farmers’ requests, especially around common crop diseases: the most discussed topic among Wefarm users.
Ewan said that the social enterprise startup has already begun discussions with multinational ag corporates, governments, and NGOs.
Wefarm claims that its data models will be able to track and predict keys issues, such as disease, ripening periods, shortages, drought, soil conditions, farm characteristics and other supply chain issues. With this data, businesses can improve supply chain management and security, evaluate key trends and challenges, and increase sustainability and transparency, according to the company.
“We invested in Wefarm because their innovative solution helps to achieve the United Nation’s sustainable development goals,” said Anna Ryott, Deputy CEO of the Norrsken Foundation. “It enables small farmers to become more efficient, thereby directly contributing to the eradication of hunger and poverty.”
The New Fresh Paradigm
The New Fresh Paradigm
For Additional Information, please contact:
Gregory G. Smith - (863) 581-7279
Gregory@ChillProduce.com - ColdPick
Missouri: Urban Agriculture — Best Practices and Possibilities
Missouri: Urban Agriculture - Best Practices And Possibilities
Linked by Michael Levenston
Report developed for the Urban Sustainability Directors in the cities of Columbia, Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri, through the financial assistance of the Urban Sustainability Directors Network
By Mary K. Hendrickson and Mark Porth
Division of Applied Social Sciences
Univ of Missouri Extension
June 2012
At the request of the cities of Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis, we seek to provide research-based guidance that can help these cities to realize the potential of regional food systems as an entrepreneurial strategy for urban economic development, paying special attention to urban agriculture. In particular, these cities were interested in seeing how regional food systems can be developed to bring together the interests of municipalities, advocates, and practitioners.
Our specific objective was to assess and compile best practices and policies to promote urban agriculture, working with members of the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) and urban agriculture advocates and practitioners in the cities of Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis.
This report joins several other major guides and assessments that have been published recently in the constantly changing world of urban agriculture. The results of this project are presented in several different formats. First, this written report helps to define and describe urban agriculture and local food system efforts within Missouri’s metropolitan areas and other cities across the nation. A report is a static document that is good only at the time of writing.
Thus, a second output of this project is a dedicated web page created within University of Missouri Extension’s website to provide information and resources on urban agriculture as part of larger food system efforts. The third output, a searchable database housed on the website, contains links to existing resources that cities can use to support and encourage urban agriculture and local food system strategies.
This database also affords access to existing ordinances concerning urban agriculture as well as educational and promotional efforts made by cities to help advocates and practitioners of urban agriculture.
This database is meant to be a dynamic tool that can help cities share information and resources with each other and the general public in the rapidly emerging eld of urban agriculture.
Read The Report Here
Israeli Technology is Helping Grow More Tomatoes In Tamil Nadu & Mangoes in Maharashtra
From increasing tomato yields in Tamil Nadu to helping farmers grow crops in the deserts of Rajasthan, the Indo-Israel Agriculture Project over the last decade has been a fruitful one.
Israeli Technology is Helping Grow More Tomatoes In Tamil Nadu & Mangoes in Maharashtra
SWAPNA MERLIN 7 March, 2018
Drip irrigation in tomato cultivation | MASHAV, Israel embassy in India
Israel has set up 23 centres across India to share its unique knowledge on agriculture using less water and other innovative techniques.
New Delhi: From increasing tomato yields in Tamil Nadu to helping farmers grow crops in the deserts of Rajasthan, the Indo-Israel Agriculture Project over the last decade has been a fruitful one. And there’s no bigger sign of the successful partnership than Israel’s 23rd agricultural center of excellence was inaugurated Wednesday at Mizoram.
“We along with the Indian government are planning to spread to other states in the region, but as of now the Mizoram centre will be catering to the northeast region as a whole,” said Dan Alluf, Agriculture Counsellor of Agriculture at MASHAV (Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation).
Alluf said MASHAV’s biggest agricultural projects are in India, and the nation has been at the focus of their work.
The Indo-Israel Agriculture Project was initiated in 2006 as a result of an agreement signed between the two nations. Under this project, 22 agricultural centers of excellence have been set up in 16 states so far and have helped in transferring Israeli agricultural technologies and knowledge to Indian farmers.
The centre in Mizoram will focus on citrus fruits, but over the years the initiative has helped in regions across India. Among the major contributions of the initiative include protected cultivation, where crops like vegetables are grown in controlled conditions in polyhouses.
In Haryana, the use of Israeli techniques has resulted in higher yields of tomato, cucumber and capsicum. In Tamil Nadu, the use of plastic mulching has boosted yields of tomato farms by almost four times.
Mulching in tomato cultivation under polyhouse, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu
“Generally, 15-17 tonnes of tomatoes are harvested per acre. After implementing mulching, combined with drip irrigation, we have harvested up to 54 tonnes per acre,” said Srinivasan K, who heads the implementation of the project’s initiatives in Tamil Nadu’s Dindigul district.
In plastic mulching, the soil is covered using a special plastic sheet imported from Israel to retain moisture, improve microbial activity in the soil and control the growth of weeds.
“It is also economical; one acre requires Rs 30,000 for mulching. This imported sheet from Israel can be used up to two years” Srinivasan said.
Tomato cultivation in polyhouse, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu
In Maharashtra, experiments to combine Israeli mango varieties with local ones has helped reduce the height of the trees from 40 feet to 15 feet.
“By this the deficiency of labour has been tackled greatly. Field operations like spraying and harvesting is made very easy” said Dr. Mahesh Kulkarni, who implements projects of the centre in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district.
Ridge-bed system in citrus, Kota
Six centres that were set up in Rajasthan help farmers in arid areas with drip irrigation technology. A centre working on citrus crops has adopted a ridge-bed system over about 45,000 hectares in Kota district. This has helped farmers save their crop from water stagnation and grow multiple crops like coriander and fenugreek, alongside the citrus trees.
Apart from the agriculture project between the two nations, there’s now a three-year joint agriculture programme till 2020, which will also focus on the use of recycled water.
“We want to introduce more post-harvest solutions, increase pollination techniques that can make changes in protected cultivation, improve irrigation practices, introduce recycled water usage and extend the shelf life of agricultural products” Alluf said.
Perspectives On Organic Standards
Perspectives On Organic Standards
I seem to view organic standards a bit differently from most people involved in the organic movement. I see standardization as a requisite for industrialization. Standards tend to simplify production processes, but complex standards can be accommodated with computers and robots. Regardless, production processes must be replicable and scalable to allow the specialization and consolidation characteristic of industrial organizations. That’s the reason uniform national standards were required to allow organic foods to move into the mainstream, industrial food system.
New sets of uniform national organic standards will simply create additional options for industrializing organic food production. The new “Regenerative Organic Certification” (ROC) and “Real Organic Program” (ROP) would certainly represent improvements over current USDA standards, which appear to ensure little more than adherence to an approved list of organic inputs and materials. The ROC proposal includes standards for social equity and animal welfare, which are essential for “sustainable” organic production. The ROP proposal appears to be an attempt to redefine and enforce standards that many organic farmers thought were ensured by current USDA standards. Regardless, the goal of both proposals is to provide a new and better set of uniform national standards for organic production.
I personally see no inherent problem with having a variety of organic standards or standards for other agri-food production processes. Ultimately, discriminating consumers will have to accept responsibility for their individual food choices. Anyone who simply relies on labels—such as organic, natural, grass-fed, or cage-free—is going to end up eating foods that are produced by large, agri-food corporations. Such corporations are purely economic entities. At best, they will meet the minimum enforceable requirements for the label, and labels simply cannot ensure the ecological or social integrity of an agricultural production process.
Once these large agri-food corporations gain positions of influence they will quite naturally attempt to remove any existing impediments to further industrialization. In addition, they will attempt to eliminate competition by creating complex regulatory requirements that smaller producers cannot meet—or can’t meet as efficiently. This is nothing new. Adam Smith wrote in the Wealth of Nations, “The usual corporation spirit, wherever the law does not restrain it, prevails in all regulated companies. When they have been allowed to act according to their natural genius, they have always, in order to confine the competition to as small a number of persons as possible, endeavoured to subject the trade to many burdensome regulations.”
We see this tactic most clearly in the new FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. The new standards make it very difficult for farmers who are large enough to represent a competitive threat to the large agri-food corporations to compete. The paperwork burden in the current USDA organic program is another example. We can expect this tactic to be embedded in or emerge from any new organic certification program proposed or promoted by the large “organic” agri-food corporations. New standards that are developed and promoted by grass-roots organic farmers have a much better chance of increasing the overall integrity of organics, as well as increasing the difficulty of organic industrialization. Their priority is more likely to be organic integrity than economic efficiency.
I personally would prefer national organic standards that included only those practices that are appropriate, meaningful, and enforceable at the national level—such as allowable and non-allowable inputs and materials. This would allow elimination of paperwork associated with the unenforceable portions of current USDA standards—making the program more accessible to smaller organic farming operations. I would also prefer organic “add-ons” or “real organic” programs that are defined, organized, monitored, and enforced at the local or bio-regional level. The organic bioregions should be small enough to allow the integrity of the bioregional labels to be ensured through personal relationships. These bioregional organic programs could be administered by cooperative organizations with memberships that include the certified organic producer and boards of directors with representatives of local consumer and citizens groups as well as producers.
Additional standards regarding authentic organic production practices—such as employee working conditions and wages, animal welfare, and relationships with the local community—could be designed to fit the specific ecological, social, and cultural environment of the bioregions. Standards defining the social and ecological integrity of the bioregional organic labels could be enforced through peer evaluations during periodic visits to organic farms by other organic farmers and community members chosen by the cooperatives. Organic farms could also be required to be open to the public for visits by local customers or anyone in the surrounding communities. Requirements for organic certification could be clearly posted on the farm. Employees and visitors could be encouraged to talk with the farmer about any concerns and to report potential unresolved violations to the cooperative.
Obviously, a bioregional organic certification program would result in a proliferation of organic labels. In fact, that would be the primary intent of the program. Authentic organic production should reflect the ecological and social diversity of the environment within which the farms function. The nation is not uniform or standard, and thus, any set of uniform standards cannot define a system that is truly organic. As with basic human rights, advocates of organic food production should work to define a common set of minimum enforceable standards that apply nationally—perhaps internationally. Again as with human rights, individual farmers and bioregional groups of farmers should be encouraged to raise their organic standards well above the national minimums. The resulting organic food markets might not be as economically efficient, at least in terms of costs of production, but they would have the ecological, social, and economic integrity of authentic organics.
John Ikerd
Arctic Seed Vault Turning 10 Faces 'Unprecedented' Agricultural Challenges
Arctic Seed Vault Turning 10 Faces 'Unprecedented' Agricultural Challenges
FILE - An armed guard walks through the Svalbard Global Seed Vault Monday Feb. 25, 2008 in Longyearbyen, Norway.
February 27, 2018
A cavernous bunker on a remote island above the Arctic Circle, where polar bears roam, holds the key to 12,000 years of agriculture but also to food supplies for future generations with countries urged to deposit seed samples there.
Welcome to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which turned 10 on Monday. It holds nearly one million seed samples from the world's gene banks - an agricultural back-up in the event of disasters ranging from nuclear war to climate change.
"It's fair to say that agriculture has never, ever faced bigger challenges than today," Marie Haga, executive director of The Crop Trust, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The Crop Trust, an international group working to protect crop diversity, runs the vault in collaboration with the Norwegian government and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center
(NordGen).
Among the challenges facing agriculture, experts have said, are rising hunger, population growth, and greater climate pressures.
That means the world needs to produce more food that is more nutritious and to do so "on less land, with less water, less pesticides, less fertilizer to keep within what the planet can stand", Haga said.
The answer could lie in a modest room in the vault, measuring 12 meters (40 ft) by 27 metres, where nations have deposited seed samples of food crops for safekeeping, she said.
Shelves of boxes, stacked in neat rows at minus 18 degrees Celsius (0F), hold seeds from the United States and Russia, Australia and North Korea, and Nigeria and Colombia to name just a few.
In the decade since the vault was founded, 73 institutions have deposited crop-seeds at this so-called Bank of Last Resort.
The Crop Trust is urging other gene banks around the world to follow suit. China is the notable omission, it said, although discussions are ongoing.
Haga's concerns are echoed by Carly Fowler, a renowned American agriculturalist who helped to found the seed vault.
"Agriculture faces a historically unprecedented combination of challenges. At the top of the list is climate change," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"We're looking at climates in the near future that haven't existed in the entire history of agriculture ... We have to be proactive to make sure that agriculture does get ready for climate change."
'The Bank of Last Resort'
To do that the world needs a diverse set of crops in its arsenal, but that is exactly what it has been losing, experts said.
"Our food system is extremely vulnerable. We are basing ourselves now on 12 plants and five animal species for 75 percent of the food we eat," said Haga, a former Norwegian politician.
Historically, farmers cultivated at least 7,000 different plants to eat. Today, 60 percent of global calorie intake comes from wheat, rice and maize, said Haga.
This loss is partly due to a focus on "productivity, appearance and taste" at the expense of other aspects such as nutrition, said Kent Nnadozie at the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Nnadozie, who is secretary of the FAO's International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, said one consequence is that a major disease or virus "could wipe out the entire crop."
To combat that risk, the Treaty - which was brokered by the United Nations - facilitates seed exchanges between global gene banks to research and develop new crop varieties. Currently, 144 countries have ratified the Treaty.
Worldwide, the FAO said, more than 1,700 gene banks of varying sizes hold collections of food crops.
But many are exposed to disasters and conflict; some have to deal with more mundane problems such as a lack of funding, poor management, malfunctioning equipment or erratic power supplies.
The loss of a crop variety is irreversible.
Ahmed Amri, from Morocco's International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), knows those threats well.
In October 2015, ICARDA became the first to withdraw seeds from Svalbard after Syria's civil war had damaged a seed bank near the city of Aleppo.
The gene bank was relocated to Morocco and Lebanon, the seeds have been grown, and re-depositing began last year. On Monday, ICARDA deposited more than 8,600 seed samples. It was one of 23 institutions to hand over 77,000 samples on the day.
"These samples include wheat, barley, durum wheat and bread wheat, lentils, chickpeas, fava beans and wild relatives of these species ... So this is a big achievement," Amri told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The FAO's Nnadozie said the Syria example showed how well the vault could work.
"It's almost like you put your money in a long-term savings account. Once you are in a desperate situation and you need to, (you) take some money, and then you can put it back again."
"This is the final backup, should anything go wrong - natural disasters, crisis, war, nuclear, whatever - you can always go back there."
Climate pressures
The Svalbard archipelago, the furthest north reachable on a scheduled flight, was chosen for the vault's location because it is remote, there are no volcanoes or earthquakes, and the permafrost keeps the seeds in deep-freeze.
Yet the vault, built 120 meters (400 feet) into the rock, is facing its own climate pressures.
An unexpected thaw of permafrost meant water flowed into the entrance of the vault's tunnel in late 2016. The seeds were not in danger, but Norway said on Friday it would spend 100 million krone ($13 million) to upgrade the vault.
"When I came up here the first time in 1985 ... there was always ice on the fjord. Now you never see complete ice on the fjord," Haga said.
Scientists have warned that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free much sooner than previous predictions, which forecast sea ice would first disappear completely during summer months between 2040 and 2050.
Fowler said he was confident the seeds were safe but welcomed Norway's decision to strengthen the vault.
"We'll be tight and dry and we'll deal with whatever climate change gives us," he said.
Urban Agriculture Could Provide Billions in Ecosystem Services
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, a figure that the United Nations expects to increase to 67% by 2050
Urban Agriculture Could Provide Billions in Ecosystem Services
Expanding agriculture efforts in cities could improve food security, ecosystem health, and more.
SOURCE: Earth's Future
Urban agriculture in Cleveland, Ohio. Credit: USDA
By Sarah Witman March 2, 2018
Rooftop gardens. Seedlings sprouting on windowsills. The clucking of chickens in a metropolitan backyard. These and more are small harbingers of the expansion of urban agriculture around the world.
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, a figure that the United Nations expects to increase to 67% by 2050—yet urbanized land makes up just 1% of the Earth’s surface. Because of this, urban planners are working to make cities more resilient, habitable, and adaptable to change.
In a new paper, Clinton et al. have developed a framework to estimate the environmental benefits of urban agriculture on a global scale—current and future. The team envisions a scenario in which over the next few decades, cities around the world adopt intensive efforts to expand urban agriculture.
Using Google Earth Engine, a free platform for processing global satellite data, the researchers analyzed data sets on population, urban landscapes, meteorology, terrain, and food and agriculture. They developed national estimates for the entire globe of ecosystem services provided by urban agriculture, finding that existing vegetation in urban areas provides the equivalent of about $33 billion each year.
In more specific terms, the team estimates that urban agriculture, if deployed across all available vacant land, rooftops, and building façades, could produce 100–180 million tons of food, save about 14–15 billion kilowatt hours of energy, sequester 100,000–170,000 tons of nitrogen, and offset roughly 2 trillion cubic feet of storm runoff each year.
Projected out, the researchers estimate that dramatically increasing urban agriculture efforts around the globe has the potential to positively influence food production, nitrogen fixation, energy savings, pollination, climate regulation, soil formation, and the biological control of pests, services that are worth, as a whole, as much as $160 billion.
The team’s findings show that urban agriculture has the ability to improve food security and ecosystem health on a global scale. Although its impacts vary from country to country, the results are promising. This study is a thorough look at the importance of urban agriculture, especially in the face of global climate change and unsustainable urban development practices around the world. (Earth’s Future, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017EF000536, 2018)
—Sarah Witman, Freelance Writer
Citation: Witman, S. (2018), Urban agriculture could provide billions in ecosystem services, Eos, 99, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EO093671. Published on 02 March 2018.
© 2018. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Zero Pesticide Residue Label In France
Zero Pesticide Residue Label In France
Fruit and vegetable producers across France have announced a new label guaranteeing fruit and vegetables with "zero pesticide residues".
The logo will be stuck on all fruit and vegetables that contain no more than 0.01mg pesticide/kilo. The tests will be carried out by Capinov laboratories and certified Cofrac.
The process began last year with Paysan de Rougeline's tomatoes and strawberries. Six other companies have joined them : Blue Whale (apples) based in Montauban, Océane (tomatoes, cucumbers, lamb's lettuce, leeks) in the Nantes region, Pomme Alliance (potatoes) in Orly, Larrère (carrots) in the Landes, Fruits et Compagnie (stone and pip fruit) in the Gard and Lindor (golden apples) in the Limousin.
Publication date: 2/14/2018