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How to Grow Vine Crops With LEDs
How To Grow Vine Crops With LEDs
Join our Webinar to Explore Findings from the LED Growers' Guide for Vine Crops
LumiGrow, a smart horticultural lighting company, would like to invite you to join our webinar to discover applications of our most recent LED Growers' Guide for Vine Crops. The guide is intended to instruct vine crop growers how to use LED lighting strategies to maximize profits, boost yields, increase crop quality, and elicit desired plant characteristics. Those that watch the webinar will learn:
- Lighting requirements for tomato, cucumber, and pepper crops
- How light intensity, quality, and photoperiod can be used to direct vine crop growth
- How to use light to control crop characteristics across growth stages
- What leading researchers are learning about light’s interaction with vine crops
Watch Webinar
As always, please feel free to reach out to me if you would like one-on-one assistance in learning how to apply these lighting strategies to your own crop production.
Whether you grow vine crops or anything else, our in-house research team and horticultural lighting specialists can assist you with developing an optimal lighting strategy for your goals.
If you haven't yet, take a look at our LED Growers' Guide for Vine Crops - Download Here
About LumiGrow Inc.
LumiGrow, Inc., the leader in smart horticultural lighting, empowers growers and scientists with the ability to improve plant growth, boost crop yields, and achieve cost-saving operational efficiencies. LumiGrow offers a range of proven grow light solutions for use in greenhouses, controlled environment agriculture and research chambers. LumiGrow solutions are eligible for energy-efficiency subsidies from utilities across North America.
LumiGrow has the largest horticultural LED install-base in the United States, with installations in over 30 countries. Our customers range from top global agribusinesses, many of the world’s top 100 produce and flower growers, enterprise cannabis cultivators, leading universities, and the USDA. Headquartered in Emeryville, California, LumiGrow is privately owned and operated. For more information, call (800) 514-0487 or visit www.lumigrow.com.
Enoch Ashley's Analysis of The Indoor AG Industry
The indoor agricultural revolution continued to make waves around the world beyond the United States. China, recently approved new types of genetically modified corn to be imported into the country.
Enoch Ashley's Analysis of The Indoor AG Industry
September 2017 Volume 1
Introduction
Following a summer of explosive growth, many investors, engineers, and farmers are asking themselves “What is next?” in the indoor ag industry. There is a predicted 31.6% compound annual growth rate for the vertical farming market for 2017-2025. Although there has been much speculation about the long-term industry growth, it is fitting to first look at what exactly unfolded during the summer of 2017, and why so many industry professionals are acknowledging that the momentum is irreversible.
Domestic Trends (US)
The story dominating most headlines was the massive $200 million investment into the commercial indoor farming startup, Plenty backed by the SoftBank Vision Fund and Amazon Founder, Jeff Bezos among others. Bezo’s investments didn’t stop with Plenty after Amazon purchased Whole foods for $13.7 billion. This is consistent with Bezo’s strategy of streamlining the monopolization of retail marketplaces in the United States by consolidating the supply chain infrastructure from indoor farms directly to the grocery stores to bring unbeatable prices to the market. This was made evident by Amazon reducing Whole Food’s prices by 43% on its first day. Food retailers and meal kit companies such as Blue Apron are expected to continue downsizing in response to Bezo’s aggressive entrance into a industry. Blue Apron’s fledgling IPO saw a stock drop of 12% after Amazon filed for a trademark application for meal kits. On the East Coast in Brooklyn, Kimbal Musk, brother of Elon Musk raised over $5 million seed funding for Square Roots, the Brooklyn-based indoor farmer training program and container farm.
International Trends
The indoor agricultural revolution continued to make waves around the world beyond the United States. China, recently approved new types of genetically modified corn to be imported into the country. This marks a major cultural shift as the population is slowly accepting these technologies to address their food needs of their growing population. This trend is expected to thrust investment funding into the Asian superpower as indoor agricultural is looked upon as a viable solution. The middle East felt shockwaves after the UAE banned much of the produce grown in their neighboring countries. Former US National Security Council Director for N. Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and now consultant for Middle East governments, David Scott, commented, “In the event of a global food crisis, those kinds of locations would be just as likely to stop the export of food as any other." South Korea is now building a $10 billion agriculture city in Egypt. The countries investing in indoor agriculture now are not just being sustainable, but are making defensive investments as the water wars continue to ravage the Middle East.
Reflection
The Forbes Agtech summit in Salinas, California highlighted major trends in the agricultural industry. Computer vision startups utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence are experiencing impressive funding rounds that automate the historically haphazard process of diagnosing plant health. Consumers have an insatiable desire for transparency after the recent exposure of fraudulent practices of business’ accredited as being USDA certified as Organic.
42nd Annual Acres Conference & Trade Show | 2017 Eco-Ag | Columbus, Ohio
About | Agenda | Registration | Eco-Ag University | Speakers | Exhibitors | Lodging | FAQs | Sponsors | Sponsorship Opportunities | Volunteer
Registration Is Now Open!
The Acres U.S.A. Eco-Ag Conference & Trade Show is a one-of-a-kind event for commercial-scale sustainable and organic agriculture. Well over a thousand people from around the world gather together to tap the knowledge of some of agriculture’s brightest minds. Join us for the most useful event you’ll attend all year!
Come explore new on-farm strategies and tools while engaging with the leading minds in modern eco-agriculture. This year's event will feature all-day advanced learning workshops, a trade show full of innovative ideas and products you can apply to your operation, diverse expert sessions, consultant hours, book signings, film screenings, and much more. Don't miss this valuable opportunity to expand your eco-agriculture world!
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Interested in sponsoring? Learn more here. Interested in exhibiting? Download the Acres U.S.A. Eco-Ag Exhibitor and Sponsor Kit.
Agri Dynamics | Bay Shore Sales, LLC | Environotics Unlimited | Midwestern BioAg | MidWest Labs | Neptune's Harvest | Organic Consumers Association | Regeneration International | Tainio | Tunnel Vision Hoops
Achievements of the Ag Innovation Showcase Community
Achievements of the Ag Innovation Showcase Community
BY AG SHOWCASE • AUGUST 27, 2017 • SPEAKERS, UPDATES
As we approach this year’s Ag Innovation Showcase, we at Larta are proud to launch regular postings that celebrate and acknowledge the achievements of our community.
Here are several community members who will be speaking at this year’s Ag Innovation Showcase that you won’t want to miss: Nicola Kerslake, Pete Nelson, and Vonnie Estes.
The Ag Innovation Showcase will take place in St. Louis, MO at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center on September 11th-13th, 2017. Visit our website at www.AgShowcase.com
Nicola Kerslake, founder of Newbean Capital, Reno, Nevada and an Ag Innovation Showcase Advisory Committee member will be speaking on “Data and Machine Learning Inside the Bubble”. Nicola and her colleagues at Newbean Capital focus on filling capital and technical gaps to accelerate the growth of indoor agriculture. In late 2016, she co-founded an alternate finance business, Contain Inc., to improve access to capital for indoor growers, those farming in hydroponic, aquaponics, and aeroponic systems in warehouses, greenhouses, and containers. Contain arranged their first lease of indoor agriculture equipment in May 2017. Read more
Pete Nelson, president and executive director of AgLaunch, Memphis Tennessee, will be moderating a disruptive dialogue (panel discussion) on “Soil Health and Input Management”. Pete and his colleagues launched AgLaunch, as a vehicle to develop programs and investment deals to continue their development of a farmer-centric model for bringing agriculture solutions from innovation to full commercialization. In Pete’s words: “We believe (that changing the) role for the farmer as a partner in innovation, not just a first customer will change the entire agricultural investment thesis. (and).. bring forward solutions that more efficiently address real-world agricultural problems.” Read more
Vonnie Estes, an ag biotech industry veteran, will be joining our closing keynote panel to “Showcase Highlights Trends to Watch”. Vonnie has held leadership roles at big Ag companies along with startups and venture funds. She was awarded the 2017 Rosalind Franklin Award for Leadership in Industrial Biotechnology.
As a member of the ag innovation community, if you have a recent achievement you would like to share through our Ag Innovation Showcase blog, we invite you to send them to ckinlaw@larta.org.
Harlem Grown’s Tony Hillery: “Education Is The Way Out"
Harlem Grown’s Tony Hillery: “Education Is The Way Out”
Tony Hillery, Founder and Executive Director of Harlem Grown, will be speaking at the inaugural New York City Food Tank Summit, “Focusing on Food Loss and Food Waste,” which will be held in partnership with Rethink Food Waste Through Economics and Data (ReFED) and with support from The Rockefeller Foundation and The Fink Family Foundation on September 13, 2017.
Hillery founded Harlem Grown to address the health and academic challenges facing public elementary school students in Harlem. In 2011, he began volunteering at a local elementary school and witnessed first-hand the lack of resources allocated to the schools and the poor nutrition of students. He transformed an abandoned garden, essentially a junkyard, into a thriving community garden. Hillery worked with community members to clean up the garbage, purchase soil, and purchase 400 seedlings for 400 students. As the students’ plants grew, their eating habits were also transformed, and the students developed leadership and teamwork skills. That first season, they grew 38 pounds of produce.
Tony Hillery, Founder and Executive Director of Harlem Grown, will be speaking at Food Tank’s NYC Summit on September 13, 2017.
By 2016, Harlem Grown expanded to partner with six local Harlem schools, reach more than 4,800 youth, and grow more than 2,200 pounds of fruits and vegetables that are then distributed to families-in-need throughout the community. This year, Harlem Grown will open a brand-new farm on 127th Street to continue to reach more youth in Harlem and inspire them to lead healthy and ambitious lives.
Food Tank talked with Hillery about the collective impact these gardens have on the communities of Harlem.
Food Tank (FT): What originally inspired you to get involved in your work?
Tony Hillery (TH): One of my personal passions is education. I truly believe that education is the way out of a lot of situations. Once you have your education, it cannot be taken from you regardless of your socioeconomic position. Education is the way out. I kept reading about schools in the city, and I didn’t understand what I was reading. It didn’t make sense to me that we were living in one of the richest cities in the country, and we had such a disparity in education. I really didn’t understand it. I’m a show-me kind of guy, so I started volunteering at an elementary school in Harlem. That’s what did it. That’s what prompted everything else.
FT: What makes you continue to want to be involved in this kind of work?
TH: To be completely honest, I didn’t have a plan when I started this—it all, excuse the pun, came organically. My original mission was to work with parents on the importance of education in breaking the cycle of poverty, but my focus quickly turned to children. As I spent more time in the schools, the conditions of the underserved communities in this country became crystal clear. As a youth, I used to come to Harlem all the time. We would come to Harlem; we would party in Harlem, but then go home. You see it, but you don’t see it. That’s a lot of us in this country. We’re aware, but we’re not aware. The more time I spent here, the more obvious the problems became. And very quickly it shifted to nutrition, food access, and food justice. I’m convinced that poverty is just lack of access and lack of opportunity. In the schools where we work, there are no services. There’s no extracurriculars. There’s no art. Some of the schools don’t even have gyms or music. The children we serve come to school for reading, writing, and arithmetic as well as breakfast, lunch, and supper. They’re having their three meals in school, and yet they can’t even identify simple vegetables. It’s a huge disconnect. And that’s how this whole thing came to be.
FT: Do you think that working with kids is one of the biggest opportunities to fix the food system?
TH: Absolutely. Early on when I first started this, I did like a lot of people did. I started working in the school, and as fate would have it, across the street was an abandoned community garden. I got the garden and made it a farm. After the first crop, I was sending the kids home with some kale and some chard, and the next day I would ask the children, ‘so how do you like that chard?’ They said, ‘I don’t know, my mother threw it away.’ So mom doesn’t know what it is or how to prepare it. This is part of the problem. A lot of us nonprofits miss the mark. We come into the community to teach that community or to show the community. If you think about how I started this conversation, that’s exactly what I did. I came into this community to teach parents the importance of education. Who am I to come into a community? I’m not from here, and I don’t live here. And if you think about it, that’s insulting on its face. I mean, I’m telling you basically, ‘you’re living wrong, I’m living right. Listen to me, I know better.’
FT: Did you have push back on that from community members?
TH: No, not directly push back, but the delivery was disingenuous. It wasn’t what you would think. It wasn’t what I thought. I thought people would be so welcoming—’Oh yes, tell me, tell me.’ No, no, it’s not that. People will come, they will sit there, and they will listen. But they don’t hear you. People will come to these workshops and things for the endgame. What’s the endgame? Is it a bag of groceries? Is it a gift card? They don’t hear, they’re not taking in what’s being provided. So quickly I pivoted; I focused on the children. We don’t come into the community. We become the community. We’re here seven days a week. We see these children every day, in school, after school, and on the weekends. And from that, through that consistency, we build relationships and trust that is unbelievable. And that’s our method. We went from showing children vegetables, and they’re like ‘what’s that?’ and ‘ew, ew, ew.’ To whatever we pick up and say ‘check this out, taste this,’ they’ll put it right in their mouth without questions and no apprehension at all. And if they do it, their peers do it. There’s a whole ring of trust we’ve created with our children. And it is like the ripple effect, they bring their siblings, they bring their mothers, they bring their friends. And that’s how we’re growing it from the bottom-up—literally grassroots, a bottom-up approach.
FT: So by working with the kids, you have been able to impact the community at large?
TH: Absolutely. The population we serve is very, very challenged. The numbers move up and down, but overall, 80 percent of the children I serve are living in single parent households. Over 90 percent of my children live below the poverty line, 98 percent of our families are on food stamps, and 40 percent of the children we serve are homeless. That’s my population. So if you take a step back, nutrition is low on the list of priorities, if it’s on the list at all. We embrace the whole child. You can’t give a kid kale to take home when he doesn’t have a home or place to eat it.
FT: The work you’re doing is incredibly inspiring. What is the most inspiring experience you’ve had?
TH: Oh my god, there’s so many every day. That’s the beauty of working with children. Children are so genuine. There’s no agenda, and there’s no faking it. You get the unfiltered truth every day from these children. That is what keeps us on our toes. When we first started, we were working with children who not only didn’t eat anything green but couldn’t even identify vegetables other than a tomato and carrot. They got fuzzy on broccoli, and everything else is salad. And they didn’t eat salad. Today, they won’t have a meal without salad. And don’t give them iceberg or romaine; they want other leafy greens. They love chard. They love arugula. They love spinach. To see the change in the children that started with me six years ago is just amazing.
FT: What is one small thing that everyone can do to help make this big difference?
TH: Realize that we are the change. The average person wants to do something tends to get stuck in neutral; they don’t know how to proceed, they don’t know how to take the next step. I just say, take the step. There’s nothing holding you back but you. If you see an injustice, if you see a problem, try to fix it. It’s as simple as that. A lot of us just sit back and wrestle with it. Just get involved, and see where it goes. It’s not a job; it’s a passion, to do something you love is not working. It’s not a talent to make money. Anybody can make money. But who can change a life for the better? That’s what we have to ask ourselves. Who can do that? And that’s what we do here. And oh my goodness, it is so rewarding. Each day is better than the next.
FT: Do you have anything else you want like to share with us?
TH: I must say, the name of my organization is Harlem Grown, but this problem is not unique to Harlem; this is not black, white, or brown. This is poor. This is a poverty issue. I’m all over the country speaking. I see poverty that makes my kids look rich. You see the same landscape. You see miles of fast-food restaurants. The closest supermarket is nine, ten miles away and nobody has a car. It is the same landscape as here in Harlem, as it is in the bayou in Louisiana or in West Virginia. You see the same exact thing: lack of access, lack of opportunity, and lack of education. Our children eat badly because it’s close, it’s cheap, and it’s convenient. In six years of doing this work, I have yet to meet a mother who would not want three organic meals of healthy, fresh vegetables and food for their kids. But you can’t afford it, and you can’t get it. Food is not optional. You have to eat. And if there’s a bodega on every corner selling cheap, processed food, that’s where they go. We have these catch phrases. We always say, ‘children are our future,’ and if that’s true, we really have to do something for these children.
Hillery recently received a CNN Hero award. Read about it HERE.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The NYC Food Tank Summit is now sold out. Register HERE to watch the livestream on Facebook. A few tickets remain for the Summit Dinner at Blue Hill Restaurant with a special menu from Chef Dan Barber. Apply to attend HERE. If you live in New York City, join us on September 14 for our FREE outdoor dance workout led by Broadway performers called Garjana featuring many great speakers raising awareness about food waste issues. Register HERE.
INDOOR AG-CON PHILLY
INDOOR AG-CON PHILLY
ABOUT INDOOR AG-CON PHILLY
After two successful years in New York, Indoor Ag-Con is relocating its East coast event to Philadelphia for its inaugural Indoor Ag-Con Philly on October 16, 2017. Our venue is the modern gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and our agenda will include 12 industry-leading keynotes covering topical “big picture” subjects such as the use of artificial intelligence in indoor agriculture. As for other Indoor Ag-Con events, our agenda for Indoor Ag-Con Philly will be tech-focused and crop-agnostic. With extended Q&A sessions and networking breaks, there will be plenty of opportunity to network with the growers, produce buyers, entrepreneurs, tech geeks and investors we expect to join us. Participation will be capped at 120 to keep the conversation flowing and maximize networking opportunities.
On October 17, the day after Indoor Ag-Con Philly, our Nextbean Ambassador sponsors at Kennett Township, PA – one hour’s drive outside of Philadelphia – will be hosting tours, free to Indoor Ag-Con Philly participants, of the extensive indoor agriculture production and distribution facilities which support their world-class mushroom industry. Every day Kennett produces, packs and ships 1.5M lbs of fresh mushrooms, single-handedly supplying ~50% of the US market, an amazing feat that’s been going on year-round for over 100 years! This is a truly unusual opportunity to get an insider’s view of what’s involved in producing and distributing a large-scale agriculture commodity grown entirely indoors. In addition, the event will start from world-famous Longwood Gardens, home to more than 1,000 acres of formal gardens, conservatories, woodlands and meadows, and includes a custom tour of Longwood’s own indoor production horticultural facilities, plus a complimentary farm-to-table lunch and free admission to the public gardens. You’ll be asked if you would like to join the Kennett event – at no extra charge – as you purchase your Indoor Ag-Con Philly admission.
Mobile Greenhouse Showcases Ontario's Indoor Crops
Mobile Greenhouse Showcases Ontario's Indoor Crops
By Andrew Coppolino, CBC News Posted: Aug 26, 2017 7:00 AM ET Last Updated: Aug 26, 2017 7:00 AM ET
NatureFresh Farms mobile greenhouse travels the U.S. and Canada promoting the commercial greenhouse crops industry. (NatureFresh Farms)
Andrew Coppolino
Food columnist, CBC Kitchener-Waterloo
Andrew Coppolino is a food columnist for CBC Radio in Waterloo Region. He was formerly restaurant reviewer with The Waterloo Region Record. He also contributes to Culinary Trends and Restaurant Report magazines in the U.S. and is the co-author of Cooking with Shakespeare. A couple of years of cooking as an apprentice chef in a restaurant kitchen helped him decide he wanted to work with food from the other side of the stove.
This summer, a mobile squad of cucumbers, tomatoes and green peppers have been travelling throughout Ontario and the United States with the objective of teaching the general public about greenhouse produce.
The one-of-a-kind roaming Greenhouse Education Centre is an initiative of NatureFresh, a Leamington, Ont., produce company that started in the greenhouse growing business in 1999.
Travelling from April to September, the educational unit – a 38-ft. trailer towed by a truck – is essentially a miniature version of a regular greenhouse. It's got a busy schedule of over 100 dates that showcase how produce is grown.
Though you've likely eaten more greenhouse produce than you might know, the balance of produce in Ontario is still grown outside.
For example, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, in total in Ontario there are about 14,000 acres of tomatoes grown in fields, compared to approximately 1,000 acres of tomatoes grown in greenhouses.
Industry is growing
Greenhouse produce is, however, a growing industry, says Herman Fehr, manager of the NatureFresh mobile greenhouse.
"A lot of produce in grocery stores is greenhouse-grown, especially in the winter. It's an efficient way to grow. With the mobile education centre, people can see the full process of greenhouse growing from start to finish," Fehr said.
The mobile greenhouse has been in operation for three years and visits retail food outlets, summer camps and schools.
The company grows varieties of bell peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes in about 130 acres of greenhouses in Leamington, with 45 acres of tomato greenhouses in Delta, Ohio. The company is one of the largest greenhouse bell pepper growers in North America.
Sunset Produce, located in Kingsville, Ont., is another major greenhouse grower and has been around for six decades. In Waterloo region, Elmira's Own grows vine-ripened greenhouse tomatoes.
High yields, more energy, short distance
As a farming method, greenhouse production can yield as much as 14 times more tomatoes than conventional farming.
The closed-loop growing system of greenhouse facilities (demonstrated in the NatureFresh mobile greenhouse) saves water and requires less fertilizer and pesticides. They grow produce in a modified hydroponic system of recycled coconut fibre, and the mobile facility also has a bumblebee ecosystem, pollinators being an important – and at-risk – component to the growing cycle.
Compared to the five-month growing season of conventional farming, greenhouses have a stable environment that allows the producer to control the temperature and protect plants from harsh precipitation and damaging insects. It is a labour and energy intense process; however, the yields and quality of produce are also high, and transportation to local markets are shorter – much shorter than produce that travels here from the Central Valley of California.
More and more "indoor farms" are popping up in Europe and North America as communities face increasing numbers of retiring farmers, shrinking farmland, increasing costs, depleting soil and changing weather patterns. In Newark, New Jersey, AeroFarms, a "vertical farm," opened in an abandoned urban steel mill in 2015 and produces more than 1,000 tons of greens annually from its 70,000 sq.-ft. operation.
Food security
Whether greenhouse goods are the result of farming or "manufacturing," the reality is that we need to produce a lot of food as securely and inexpensively as possible, as populations continue to grow around the world.
Consumers get the benefit of a year-long supply of local produce grown by Ontario companies. Some of the input costs aside, the greenhouse environment is "a much more efficient way to grow," that gives customers good quality produce and minimizes the variables of what conventional farming faces, said Fehr.
"In a field, you're exposed to disease and pests and general environmental factors that a greenhouse grower really doesn't have to worry about."
You can visit the NatureFresh mobile greenhouse at Zehrs at 450 Erb Street West, Waterloo on Saturday, August 26, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. There's more information available at www.naturefresh.ca.
Check Out What Aeroasis Has Been Up To This Month
THE AUGUST NEWSLETTER!
Check Out What Aeroasis Has Been Up To This Month
Aeroasis has been hard at work reaching schools, school districts, & international partners in the AgTech industry to develop educational initiatives and social impact projects around the world.
We are currently talking to 2 new school districts about implementing our curriculum, and we hope to install a custom Smart Farm in over a dozen schools this semester alone!
BEYOND THE EXCITING PROGRESSIONS IN OUR EDUCATIONAL WORK, AEROASIS IS TALKING TO SEVERAL INTERESTED INVESTORS/PARTNERS ABOUT HELPING US LAUNCH OASIS MINI NEXT YEAR!
WE ARE ALSO WORKING ON SOMETHING REALLY BIG WITH A FEW STRATEGIC PARTNERS IN ASIA! MORE ON THAT SOON.
WE ARE HAPPY TO TALK TO ANYONE INTERESTED IN SHARING THEIR TIME, RESOURCES, OR NETWORK WITH US!
That's all for now, but thank you so much for your involvement and support in the growth of Aeroasis, and expect many more amazing things from us this year.
Let's Grow Together.
From Diane’s Desk: The New Food Movement
From Diane’s Desk: The New Food Movement
by Diane Hatz ~ July 17, 2017
(This is the first of several articles about the food movement – where it’s been, where it’s at, and where it’s going. Join the Change Food community so you don’t miss any of this exciting series.)
Over the past five years, huge changes have happened with food and the food system. What was once seen as an issue between the activist/advocate/granola-crunching hippie vs. the corporate/suited/industrial food system has radically changed. Lines are blurring, and this has the potential for an even bigger food revolution than was first imagined, but caution and a dose of skepticism is still prudent.
For more than 40 years, food advocates and activists have been leading a trend toward healthier, more wholesome food. In the 1970s, they were on the fringe; some were pot-smoking hippies on commune farms or renegade restaurant owners who grew ingredients for their dishes in their own vegetable garden. These people were outliers, and as the food industry moved toward more processed and more industrially-produced food, these idealistic activists were discounted and thought to be anything from irrelevant to crackpots.
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser was published in 2001.
But through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, an underground food revolution had quietly begun. A smattering of concerned citizens started raising their voices and undertook more concerted efforts to educate consumers about problems with food. Renegade groups like a team of farmers around the U.S. started helping rural towns (when invited by the residents) to hold factory farms that were breaking the law accountable and worked to keep out new industrial animal factories.
The food movement got its first big push in 2001 with the release of Eric Schlosser’s bestseller Fast Food Nation. The book explored the rise and influence of the fast food industry and our industrial food supply. The publication was followed in 2003 by the launch of The Meatrix, an online animation that brought the issue of industrial food — factory-farmed animals in this case — to the general consumer. The short film was released when email was mainstream; the movie was shared inbox to inbox, email by email, to tens of millions of individuals. (The Meatrix was released before YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social media existed.)
The tipping point for the food revolution was in 2006 with the publication of Michael Pollan’s book Omnivore’s Dilemma. Millions more individuals were brought to the food movement by Pollan’s excellent nonfiction book that asked the seemingly straightforward question: what should we have for dinner? It explored the industrialization of the U.S. food system and the impact of subsidized corn on the country.
Sealing the influence of the growing food movement was Robert Kenner’s 2009 movie Food, Inc. from Participant Media. The film exposed the control of the corporate food industry and how these companies put profit before farmers, safety, health, nutrition, water safety and the environment.
The Meatrix, the online flash animation about factory farming, was released in 2003.
The impact of these two books and two films, along with the hard work of a growing number of nonprofits and food advocates, contributed to what has become the largest shift in food since the industrialization of our food supply. And the exciting thing is that we’re still in the middle of this shift today.
Throughout the 2000s, consumers were beginning to understand the problems with food and began asking for – and buying – healthier, more wholesome, products. Farmers markets exploded. According the the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of U.S. farmers markets increased 123 percent — from 3,706 in 2004 to 8,268 in 2014. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) became more popular. Farm to Table restaurants began to open around the country.
The biggest shift in food is still happening – and no one is sure exactly where it will lead us. But one thing is for certain – Millennials (born approximately 1982-2004) are having a huge impact on shaping our new food system. They grew up being exposed to the truth about the food supply and were educated by the work of the advocates before them, so they have local, healthy, delicious food in their veins. It’s not something they need to learn – it’s simply what they want. And as they are becoming a more powerful force in the marketplace, that desire is wreaking havoc with Big Food.
An often overlooked sector of this new food movement are the entrepreneurs — generally in their 20s and 30s, with some creeping into their 40s — who have learned the lessons taught by the food advocates before them. These forward thinkers are launching companies that not only include healthy, whole ingredients, they are also launching companies that believe in social good beyond just the food label. Mix in the collapse of the dot-com bubble around 2000-2001, prompting the need for investors and venture capitalists to find “the next big thing” for their money, and you have a real food revolution. For as idealistic as we would all like to be, the food revolution really started when money became the leading force for change, when business people began to see the potential profit and long-lasting change happening in the marketplace. And this change is not just for increased profit; there is a much bigger shift happening (which we will explore in a future article).
Since around 2012, venture capitalists started investing heavily in food technology and start up food companies. According to the AgTech Investing Report, over $4.6 billion was invested in food and agriculture tech startups in 2015; that’s nearly double the amount invested in 2014.
In addition, major food brands have acknowledged the change in the marketplace.Their sales and profits have started to decrease because of the demand for healthier food and the fact that new companies are launching to fill that demand. They are now scrambling — as fast as a large corporation can — to reinvent themselves and their products. They have finally realized the downward trend in profits is not changing, and they know they are losing marketshare to much, much smaller, nimbler companies that are satisfying consumer desires.
Michael Pollan’s 2006 book Omnivore’s Dilemma was the tipping point for the food movement.
How are these larger food corporations handling this shift? Currently, they are starting their own venture funds and food accelerators to find new food startups, and they are buying up organic and smaller successful brands. They are also trying to reformulate their products to include healthier ingredients while keeping the same taste.
These large companies are also beginning to realize that their savvy marketing campaigns and misleading ads aren’t as convincing as they used to seem. More and more consumers are starting to understand that a 25 percent reduction in sugar could still be too much sugar in a product. High fructose corn syrup has essentially disappeared from the shelves. More and more consumers are looking for the Verified GMO Free label on their food. Companies are beginning to understand that the new food movement requires truth and transparency, not glossy, slick marketing campaigns that are more about money than the truth.
Misleading jargon and creative talking points no longer work; today, the truth does.
Where is this all taking us? No one knows for sure. Venture capitalists will tell you one thing; food startups will tell you another; big food companies will also have an opinion. And coming from the nonprofit consumer awareness side, we at Change Food have our own views about where things are and where things might be going. We will explore this in future articles in this series.
History is being made now, so there’s no better time to join the food revolution and have your voice heard!
Diane Hatz is the Founder & Executive Director of Change Food. She strives to create a healthy food system for all by developing programs, events and resources for individuals and groups changing food from the ground up. Become a Patron of food on Patreon and help Change Food help others.
Change Food is a grassroots movement creating a healthy, equitable food system. To learn more, visit ChangeFood.org. Follow and support us on Patreon.
The Trump Administration’s False Promise to Rural America
The Administration claims that GMOs should be accepted on scientific grounds. And it says that its motivation for this policy is to provide large benefits to rural economies that grow these crops, and sustainability. This is undoubtedly aimed at currying favor with an important Trump constituency. But on balance, science does not support the value of GMOs for rural society or sustainability in the U.S.—just the opposite. Several recent research studies have added to the mounting record of GMOs contributing to harmful industrial agriculture in the U.S.
The Trump Administration’s False Promise to Rural America
According to a recent article, the Trump Administration intends to increase pressure on Europe and China to accept food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). An Administration task force has been set up to advance these goals, despite a history of European resistance and caution in China.
The Administration claims that GMOs should be accepted on scientific grounds. And it says that its motivation for this policy is to provide large benefits to rural economies that grow these crops, and sustainability. This is undoubtedly aimed at currying favor with an important Trump constituency. But on balance, science does not support the value of GMOs for rural society or sustainability in the U.S.—just the opposite. Several recent research studies have added to the mounting record of GMOs contributing to harmful industrial agriculture in the U.S.
So far, GMOs have largely been the handmaiden of corporate seed and pesticide companies. The vast majority of acres are planted to herbicide-resistant and Bt insect-resistant crops like corn, soybeans, and cotton owned by these companies under patents that prevent seed saving by farmers. Engineered crops in the U.S. are used overwhelmingly in the predominant industrial agriculture system, which causes extensive environmental harm. Since the advent of engineered crops, this trend toward industrialization has only increased, with increasing monocultures of one or two crops that are more vulnerable to pests and other problems.
Engineered crops require less labor per acre, reducing the need for workers and jobs on farms. On the other hand, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) found in a major report last year that genetically engineered (GE) crops do not increase productivity or reduce tillage, which has often argued to be a major sustainability benefit of these crops. As pointed out by the NAS, most of the gains in conservation tillage preceded the introduction of herbicide-resistant GMOs.
The trend toward reduced labor and industrialization has not led to wellbeing in rural communities. Studies by sociologists have long found that by many measures, rural areas dominated by industrial agriculture faired poorly compared to areas with more diverse farming systems.
With increasing adoption of newer industrial farming technologies—corresponding to the growth and dominance of GMOs in major commodity crops—net farm profits are now as low as any time since 2000. In the meantime, the cost of growing these crops has risen dramatically over this same time period. In other words, proportionately more farm revenue is going to pay for land, increasingly expensive corporate seed and other industrial inputs, not to farmers. It is hard to see this as a formula for prosperity in farm country, as farmers are squeezed more and more by economically powerful corporate interests.
Less, Not More Sustainable
GMOs have also facilitated the consolidation of the seed industry, through patents and contracts. This has led to bundled seed products like GMO traits and pesticide seed coatings. These increase exposure of the environment, farmers, and residents of rural communities to harmful pesticides, as well as increase costs to farmers.
The unsustainability of industrial agriculture is epitomized by increasingly dysfunctional weed control, aided and abetted by GMO herbicide-resistant crops. The skyrocketing increases in glyphosate herbicide use encouraged by these crops has resulted in an epidemic of weeds no longer controlled by this important herbicide. By now, this is widely known.
But mounting problems caused by industry’s “solution” of new GMO crops resistant to old herbicides like dicamba are just emerging. Harm to neighboring crops, especially non-GMO soybeans, from dicamba drift during and after spraying of the new engineered crops is pitting farmer against farmer. This led Arkansas to ban its use. By late July, reports of harm from dicamba drift topped 700 complaints, greatly exceeding previous years. High rates of crop damage are now reported by other states, with Missouri and Tennessee also restricting use. The result of dicamba harm is likely to be lower productivity for many damaged soybean fields. Actions by states to restrict the use of dicamba should be understood in the context of the desperation of many farmers to control glyphosate-resistant weeds, caused by the use of glyphosate-resistant GMO crops.
It is noteworthy that dicamba damage has occurred after EPA approved new forms of the herbicide intended to reduce its notorious volatilization and drift-damage potential. But as with glyphosate before it, large increases in the use of dicamba and 2,4-D are encouraged by these new GMO crops. And use later in the season when higher temperatures increase volatility at a time when susceptible crops are vulnerable, may overwhelm the reduced volatility of new forms of the herbicide.
Farmers may also have been blindsided due to restrictions on research by academic scientists on the volatilization and drift potential of the new herbicide formulations. Several academic weed scientists commented that they were not allowed to test these properties in a timely way. Alarming restrictions on the traditional roles of academic research, due to patents on GMO crops, were revealed several years ago. The industry and its supporters claimed that voluntary measures to allow research had addressed this problem. The current situation exposes the fallacy of those assurances.
It does not take a cynic to wonder whether Monsanto anticipates that many more soybean farmers will be forced to adopt this new menace simply to avoid harm from herbicide drift. That won’t save fruits and vegetables that are not engineered for herbicide resistance, harming thriving local food production.
And before long, these new crops will fail as have, increasingly, glyphosate-resistant crops. Weeds are already developing resistance to all of these herbicides, and many have resistance to multiple chemicals, making herbicides as a whole increasingly ineffective.
Meanwhile, agro-ecological methods that are not dependant on these herbicides are available for growing corn and soybeans and are practical, highly productive, as well as good for the environment.
Long-term research that demonstrates this also shows that these methods are as or more profitable than industrial farming but use far fewer synthetic chemicals. And, importantly, more profit goes to workers and farmers than to buy inputs like more expensive GMO seed, pesticides, and fertilizer. In other words, more of the profit stays with farmers and farm workers to spend in their own communities.
Insecticides That Harm Bees, Coupled with GMO Crops, Are Not Needed
A similar situation is unfolding with neonicotinoid insecticide seed coatings, which were supposedly safer than earlier insecticides. Years of research shows that “neonics” are harming bees and other helpful farm insects, and many other beneficial organisms. Pesticide and GMO companies have challenged this research by claiming that the evidence of harm from farm fields, rather than labs, is inadequate. This neglects the overall convincing weight of the evidence from many experiments, and also neglects convincing field data on harm of important wild pollinators like bumblebees.
But now, two research papers confirmed that neonics harm honeybees on the farm, including near crops such as corn. This is particularly important because corn is our most widely grown crop, at around 90 million acres.
I recently published, with Center for Food Safety, the most extensive analysis to date of the peer-reviewed science literature on neonic corn seed coating efficacy and alternatives. It documents dramatically increasing use of coated seed in parallel with Monsanto’s engineered gene to control rootworms.
Monopoly control allows corporations to apply the insecticide to corn seed without providing farmers a choice, so that now about 90 percent or more of this seed is coated with neonicotinoid insecticides. This contradicts the common claim that engineered Bt corn has dramatically reduced insecticide use on that crop. While the volume has decreased, the amount of land exposed has gone up dramatically. This allows many more pollinators and other beneficial organisms to be exposed—one of the basic measures of risk. Bt corn has been accompanied by an increase from about 30 percent of the corn cropland exposed to insecticide before the engineered trait to about 90 percent now—not a reduction to 18 percent of acres treated with insecticides due to Bt, as previously claimed.
The new report shows that harmful neonic insecticide seed coatings rarely increase productivity, are an unnecessary cost to farmers, and that alternatives using agro-ecology methods are productive and beneficial for the environment. This puts to rest the self-serving claims of the industry that these seed coatings are needed to protect corn productivity.
GMOs did not cause neonic seed coatings, and some of the remaining non-GMO corn may also be treated with neonics and other pesticides. But GMOs and neonics are part of the same industrial seed package. And as well, the use of neonics contradicts the claims that Bt has reduced insecticide use in corn as determined by the critically important measure of exposure, contrary to previous claims.
What About the Future?
Advocates for GMO crops suggest that the dominance of current engineered traits like herbicide resistance, or the problems they cause, are mere anomalies or coincidence. They like to focus on possible future crops that they feel would be more beneficial. Or they like to point to the few traits like virus-resistant papaya, commercialized 20 years ago and grown on a tiny percentage of GMO acres, to demonstrate the potential for benefit. But the dominance of the current crops is a fact that has remained for the 20-plus years of commercial GMO use, and the reasons for this need to be understood, not dismissed offhand.
Advocates of GMOs, perhaps scientists especially, also complain that those that are critical of the technology ignore similar issues with conventionally bred crops. That criticism may have some merit for some GMO critics, although many others understand that conventional breeding for industrial agriculture also leads to harm. Still, even if GMOs are a leading edge of industrial agriculture, rather than its sole embodiment, this does not reduce the harm they are causing.
If future GMO crops are to have a possibility of playing positive environmental and social roles, on balance, it will require that they are developed and deployed under policies and other conditions that favor and value agro-ecology, rural society, food sovereignty, and the environment over corporate control and excessive profit. For the most part, those conditions do not currently exist. That does not mean that some GMO traits won’t be developed which provide some benefits. But until there is fundamental change in food and farming systems, the technologies will be dominated by GMO crops designed to foster industrial agriculture. This is hardly a formula for either rural benefit or sustainability.
Atop a Parking Garage in a Staten Island Residential Development, an Urban Farm Builds Community and Thrives
Empress Green Inc. is an urban farming business specializing in organic food production, education, and consulting. Bates and her husband, Asher Landes, started the company in 2016, shortly after moving into the residential development Urby, a 500+ apartment complex that sits on the north shore of Staten Island, New York.
Atop a Parking Garage in a Staten Island Residential Development, an Urban Farm Builds Community and Thrives
August 14, 2017 | Charli Engelhorn
Empress Green Inc. co-founders Zaro Bates and Asher Landes at their farm stand. Photo courtesy of Empress Green Inc.
Sometimes, the best laid plans do not always work out, and for Zaro Bates, co-founder and proprietor of Empress Green Inc., this small deviation from her plan would come to encapsulate her life in every facet.
Empress Green Inc. is an urban farming business specializing in organic food production, education, and consulting. Bates and her husband, Asher Landes, started the company in 2016, shortly after moving into the residential development Urby, a 500+ apartment complex that sits on the north shore of Staten Island, New York. The couple built and now maintain a 4,500-square-foot urban farm on top of one of the complex’s parking garages between two of the main buildings.
“During a 3-year development consultancy, we evolved several green roof and urban farm concepts that would be attractive shared amenities for the residents,” Bates says. “We decided on an intensive green roof urban market garden with a Farmer-in-Residence to manage the farm and run workshops and events for the community.”
None of this, however, would have happened if Bates had followed through on plans to travel to South America following a brief employment on a traditional farm in Massachusetts. According to Bates, an opportunity to apprentice with Brooklyn Grange, an urban farming and green roof consulting agency that operates the largest soil-based rooftop farms in the United States, caused her to delay her intentions.
The chain of events that followed included training and mentorship regarding a rooftop urban farming operation, meeting her husband, and being introduced to the developers of Urby.
“The Brooklyn Grange was a big influence in the development of Urby Farm. Having apprenticed there, I liked the green roof intensive ag model and wanted to try it out in a residential context,” says Bates. “At the time that I met the developers behind Urby, there was an opening for me to share this residential urban farm proposal, and they were very excited about the concept.”
Bates says the developers wanted to create an environment where traditional values of community, such as relationships with neighbors and positive communal spaces, could be incorporated in an urban setting. The farm was seen as a possible way to accomplish those goals.
Not only has the farm at Urby helped create some strong community relationships, but the residents also enjoy being part of something natural and special.
“The residents are generally excited about the farm,” Bates says. “There aren’t many opportunities for urbanites to get close to food production, and having the farm in the complex lets [them] in on a very beautiful, primal dance that happens when sunshine and love turn seeds into food.”
Bates and Landes have sharpened their focus this year about what is best for the farm and community members. Beyond a management fee for keeping the farm in operation, the two generate income from farm products sold at the weekly community farmer’s market, CSA memberships, including both residents and non-residents, and a handful of accounts with local chefs. The farm mainly grows leafy greens such as arugula, baby kale, spinach, and mixed lettuces, and also offers herbs, roots, fruits, fruiting vegetables, and flowers.
Workshops and events also help support the organization by increasing the visibility of the farm and educating the community about urban farming and local foods. These workshops offer a variety of topics of instruction, including learning how to grow your own microgreens, how to tend to a farm, and the basics of beekeeping, made possible with the apiary Landes built on one of the adjacent rooftops. Events include farm-to-table dinners and first Friday happy hours on the property, where guests have an opportunity to taste some of the crops and meet each other.
“We have a better idea of what works on the farming side and also on the workshops/events side, and we are constantly seeking new ways to improve our offerings and meet the demands of the community.
“We see our number one niche as urban farmers to raise awareness of agriculture and the food system, and eventually, we would like to serve as conduits for regional producers,” Bates says.
This motivation is part of what Empress Green found advantageous about the urban farming model over the traditional model of acreage farming.
“When we consider whether to operate in the urban landscape or go rural for more acreage, the consideration for us is about the opportunity for social impact, not simply financial solvency,” says Bates.
Bates and Landes already have made an impact with Empress Green, as evidenced by the number of residents who introduce themselves and explain that the farm was the main reason they moved to Urby. The pair hope to continue encouraging strong ties between the farm and the local community, as well as between society and locally grown foods. They hope to expand their operation in the future to meet the growing demand for fresh produce.
Indoor AG-Con Philly
Indoor AG-Con Philly
ABOUT INDOOR AG-CON PHILLY
After two successful years in New York, Indoor Ag-Con is relocating its East coast event to Philadelphia for its inaugural Indoor Ag-Con Philly on October 16, 2017. Our venue is the modern gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and our agenda will include 12 industry-leading keynotes covering topical “big picture” subjects such as the use of artificial intelligence in indoor agriculture. As for other Indoor Ag-Con events, our agenda for Indoor Ag-Con Philly will be tech-focused and crop-agnostic. With extended Q&A sessions and networking breaks, there will be plenty of opportunity to network with the growers, produce buyers, entrepreneurs, tech geeks and investors we expect to join us. Participation will be capped at 120 to keep the conversation flowing and maximize networking opportunities.
On October 17, the day after Indoor Ag-Con Philly, our Nextbean Ambassador sponsors at Kennett Township, PA – one hour’s drive outside of Philadelphia – will be hosting tours, free to Indoor Ag-Con Philly participants, of the extensive indoor agriculture production and distribution facilities which support their world-class mushroom industry. Every day Kennett produces, packs and ships 1.5M lbs of fresh mushrooms, single-handedly supplying ~50% of the US market, an amazing feat that’s been going on year-round for over 100 years! This is a truly unusual opportunity to get an insider’s view of what’s involved in producing and distributing a large-scale agriculture commodity grown entirely indoors. In addition, the event will start from world-famous Longwood Gardens, home to more than 1,000 acres of formal gardens, conservatories, woodlands and meadows, and includes a custom tour of Longwood’s own indoor production horticultural facilities, plus a complimentary farm-to-table lunch and free admission to the public gardens. You’ll be asked if you would like to join the Kennett event – at no extra charge – as you purchase your Indoor Ag-Con Philly admission.
REGISTER FOR PASSES
Passes are available at the early bird rate of $399 through August 31 or until the event is sold out, a 25% discount to the standard rate of $499.
This rate includes access to all sessions, light breakfast and lunch, drinks party and a gift bag with an exclusive hard copy of our newest white paper.
SPONSORING & EXHIBITING
As it is a one day event, we will not have an exhibition hall at Indoor Ag-Con Philly, but we do have plentiful sponsorship opportunities to allow you to engage your brand with our farming, equipment supply, tech, investor, academic and government participants.
OUR AGENDA & SPEAKERS
Our one day event will be split into four themed sessions that look at the “big picture” of indoor agriculture with presentations from its thought leaders. Each consists of three keynote speakers, with an extended Q&A at the end of each session. We’ll be adding speakers here as they are confirmed, and the agenda may change a little as we confirm speaker availability.
8:30 AM9:15 AM Registration & Light Breakfast
9:15 AM9:20 AM Welcome & Introduction
9:20 AM10:05 AM Session One: How indoor agriculture can develop local communities
Three Keynote Speakers, including:
10:05 AM10:30 AM Extended Q&A and Discussion
10:30 AM11:00 AM Networking Break
11:00 AM11:45 AM Session Two: Artificial intelligence in indoor agriculture
Three Keynote Speakers, including:
Dr. April Agee Carroll, VP of R&D, AeroFarms
11:45 AM12:15 PM Extended Q&A and Discussion
12:15 PM1:45 PM Lunch, with Curated Discussion Tables
1:45 PM2:30 PM Session Three: The coming impact of LED lighting
Three Keynote Speakers, including:
Dr. AJ Both, Associate Extension Specialist, Rutgers University
2:30 PM3:00 PM Extended Q&A and Discussion
3:00 PM3:30 PM Networking Break
3:30 PM4:15 PM Session Four: How technology changes indoor agriculture business models
Three Keynote Speakers, including:
Jack Griffin, President, Metropolis Farms
4:15 PM4:45 PM Extended Q&A and Discussion
4:45 PM4:50 PM Closing Remarks
5:00 PM After Party
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- ASIA | JAN 2018
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- VEGAS | MAY 2018
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JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST | HELLO@INDOOR.AG | US: +1.775.623.7116 | SG: +65.3159.1305
USDA and SCORE Launch Innovative Mentorship Effort to Support New Farmers and Ranchers
USDA and SCORE Launch Innovative Mentorship Effort to Support New Farmers and Ranchers
August 8, 2017 | USDA
News Release – DES MOINES, Iowa – U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue today signed a Memorandum of Understanding with officials from SCORE, the nation’s largest volunteer network of expert business mentors, to support new and beginning farmers. Today’s agreement provides new help resources for beginning ranchers, veterans, women, socially disadvantaged Americans and others, providing new tools to help them both grow and thrive in agri-business.
“Shepherding one generation to the next is our responsibility. We want to help new farmers, veterans, and people transitioning from other industries to agriculture,” said Secretary Perdue. “They need land, equipment, and access to capital, but they also need advice and guidance. That’s what SCORE is all about.”
SCORE matches business professionals and entrepreneurs with new business owners to mentor them through the process of starting-up and maintaining a new business. USDA and its partners across rural America are working with SCORE to support new farming and ranching operations, and identify and recruit mentors with a wealth of agricultural experience.
Secretary Perdue announced the new partnership in Des Moines during the Iowa Agriculture Summit. Perdue was joined by Steve Records, Vice-President of Field Operations for SCORE in signing a Memorandum of Understanding that will guide USDA and SCORE as they partner in the mentorship effort, which will soon expand to other states.
“SCORE’s mission to help people start and grow vibrant small businesses is boosted by this new partnership with USDA. America’s farmers, ranchers and agri-businesses will benefit from the business knowledge and expertise SCORE can offer,” said Records. “The partnership allows both SCORE and USDA to serve more people while providing America’s farmers added support to lead to more sound business operations, create profitable farms with sustainable growth and create new jobs. We are excited at the opportunity to extend SCORE’s impact to our farmers and the agriculture industry.”
SCORE mentors will partner with USDA and a wide array of groups already hard at work serving new and beginning farmers and ranchers, such as the FFA, 4-H, cooperative extension and land grant universities, nonprofits, legal aid groups, banks, technical and farm advisors. These partnerships will expand and integrate outreach and technical assistance between current and retired farmers and agri-business experts and new farmers.
This joint initiative leverages SCORE’s 10,000 existing volunteer mentors and USDA’s expertise and presence in agricultural communities to bring no-cost business mentoring to rural and agricultural entrepreneurs. This initiative will also be another tool to empower the work of many community-based organizations, cooperative extension and land grant universities working with beginning farmers in their communities. SCORE mentorship will also be available to current farmers and ranchers. Anyone interested in being a mentor can get more information and sign up on the USDA New Farmers’ website at https://newfarmers.usda.gov/mentorship.
Brian Wansink: “It Is Easier To Change Your Environment Than It Is To Change Your Mind”
Brian Wansink: “It Is Easier To Change Your Environment Than It Is To Change Your Mind”
Brian Wansink, PhD, is speaking at the inaugural New York City Food Tank Summit, “Focusing on Food Loss and Waste,” which will be held in partnership with Rethink Food Waste Through Economics and Data (ReFED) and with support from The Rockefeller Foundation on September 13, 2017.
Wansink is the John Dyson Professor of Marketing, the Director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, and Co-Director of the Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs. He is also co-founder of the Smarter Lunchrooms Movement at the Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management at Cornell.
Since earning his PhD in marketing at Stanford, Wansink has been a marketing professor at Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College, the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also the Julian Simon Faculty Scholar and Professor of Marketing, Nutritional Sciences, and Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He is the author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and of the best-selling books Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think (2006) and Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life (2014). More of his on where food habits and behavior science intersect can be found on Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab.
Food Tank had the opportunity to speak with Wansink about his work and his passion for improving the daily choices people make about their food.
Brian Wansink, PhD, John Dyson Professor of Marketing and co-founder of the Smarter Lunchroom Movement will be speaking at the Inaugural NYC Food Tank Summit.
Food Tank (FT): What originally inspired you to get involved in your work?
Brian Wansink (BW): I have come to realize that small changes can make a huge difference in our eating habits. You can talk to the smartest friend you have and ask them why they ate what they ate for breakfast, why they didn’t finish their dinner last night, what they are going to have for a snack. They may be able to come up with an answer, but they really have no idea. It is realizing what influences us in these ways and being able to provide solutions about how to improve what we eat. To improve what people eat when they go to restaurants. To improve what kids eat when they go to school lunchrooms.
FT: What makes you continue to want to be involved in this kind of work?
BW: The unexpected discoveries that we have come up with related to behavior have had these marked influences on what people do. A small discovery ends up changing the kids meals that fast food restaurants offer. Another discovery ends up changing the way grocery stores set up their produce lines. Seeing these really simple discoveries having a big difference is tremendously encouraging.
FT: Can you give an example of one of those discoveries you made?
BW: One of the things that we discovered was that simply changing the size of dinner plates can reduce the amount of food people take by about 20 percent, while they don’t believe that they have eaten any less. All it takes is using a smaller, 9 to 10-inch dinner plate, instead of using an 11 or 12-inch dinner plate like most of us use. In the first chapter of my book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think (2006), I talk about starting the Small Plate Movement. This movement has been rolled out in Scandinavia and has changed the size of plates that are used in hotel chains and buffets in there. It is starting to make its way over to America.
Another change we made was to create the Smarter Lunchroom Movement. The Smarter Lunchroom Movement is now in 29,000 schools in the United States. It looks at making healthier food more attractive to students and more normal to take, by using techniques like changing the item’s position in line. It is portrayed even before people even get to the lunchroom and has changed the way kids eat without having to change the food itself. It is about guiding kids to apples instead of cookies.
FT: Who inspired you as a kid?
BW: Herbert Hoover. Growing up in Iowa (which is the state he grew up in), I heard the story that he had pretty much saved much of western Europe after World War One because of the food relief program he set up. I remember saying that if I could do a fraction of what he did to help people become happier and healthier, I would be the luckiest person in the world. Interestingly, during my interview in Washington, D.C., to be in charge of the dietary guidelines for 2007 through 2009, I actually said that and it surprised many people. I felt really grateful to have had the chance to impact the dietary guidelines and now for the strides we are able make toward more positive eating behavior.
FT: What do you see as the biggest opportunity to fix the food system?
BW: For almost 30 years, people have been told it is not their fault—. That it is the fault of fast food companies or the fault of government, or that it is the fault of the food industry. As this has gone on the person and the consumer, can resign themselves to thinking that there is nothing they can do about their food choices. It has lead to people thinking there is nothing they can do to improve their kids diet. Having designed that sort of structure can have a huge impact on what our families eat and can very easily have been behind many of the dietary problems we have seen over the last 10 to 15 years.
We find that nutritional gatekeepers, (the person in the family that buys and prepares most of the food), end up influencing about 72 percent of all the food eaten by the family. This can be for the better or for the worse. For instance, having a fruit bowl on the table instead of a cookie jar has a positive effect. So does choosing to go to a restaurant that actually serves salad, not just fried foods. Being able to empower people to say, ‘wait a minute, there is a ton of stuff that I can do.’ Fast food companies don’t have to be to blame, neither do multinational companies, or the government. There is stuff we can all do right away. That is where the action is at.
FT: Can you share a story about a food hero that has inspired you?
BW: Herbert Hoover graduated as part of the first class of civil engineers at Stanford before World War One. At that time, he was one of the highest paid people in the mining industry in South America, but he gave up that incredibly lucrative career to help address the many problems in the logistics of supplying all the food aid that was needed in the aftermath of World War One. He set it all aside, essentially, to prevent a lot of Western Europe from starving. Many people may question what a mine engineer knows about food systems. Much of the problem was in the logistics, so he was able to use many of the tools he had as an engineer to set up a food relief system that worked in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Russia.
FT: What would you say is the most pressing issue in food and agriculture that you would like to see solved?
BW: I would like people to not believe that the solution to everything food related is to ask and rely on the government to solve it through passing new laws. I think what we learn is that most laws and most regulations related to the food industry have really strange, unintended consequences. I would like to see changes in the very low hanging fruit. Changes to things that can be done quickly that are able to show people and institutions just how quickly positive changes can be made. Whether that be things like the Smarter Lunchroom Movement or whether it be programs that we have started in grocery stores or community stores.
Our program called Healthy Profits explains, why in many food deserts, you can now see fruit right next to the checkout. You can buy bananas the same place you buy gas. That didn’t take legislation, it didn’t take huge grants. All it took was showing convenience stores that this is a great way to make more money.
All of these systems that have been set up in the past, have been so huge and so amorphous that they have done nothing more than discourage all the players because they try to change the intergalactic food system. First, there is no agreement on how to do it. Second, after two or three attempts to get people together to talk about it people just throw their hands up and say, ‘forget it, nothing is working here.’ Instead, we should be starting in a place where you are able to accomplish small win-win changes because those are going to create all the changes that down the road we will all eventually agree with.
FT: What would be an example of one of those bigger changes that ended up falling flat?
BW: A great one is the Smarter Lunchroom Movement. The view about eight years ago was that there should only be healthy options in the lunchroom. That there should not be foods like cookies, chocolate milk, and hamburgers. The sentiment was that if only healthy options were provided, kids would be forced to choose those foods, but that didn’t work. Instead, kids brought cheetos and pizza from home. Many school lunchrooms already had healthy options available, so the challenge was to figure out how to get kids to take that instead of the cookie or the chocolate milk. All the while keeping that stuff there, so that if they want it they can eventually have it. There is no need to revolt against the system because they can have what they want.
FT: What is one small change a person can make in their daily lives to make a big difference?
BW: Use a smaller dinner plate. Our research has shown that on a day-to-day basis simply using a plate that is between 9 to 10 inches is leading people to serve less on average by about 15 to 20 percent. This has the effect of ends making people believe they are just as full, because in their mind they ate a whole plate of food. Also, putting a fruit bowl on your counter ends up influencing how much fruit people eat. One of the findings we highlighted in Slim By Design was that the average person who has a fruit bowl on their counter weighs about 13 pounds less than their neighbor that doesn’t.
Twenty-five years of research has shown me that when it comes to food it is easier to change your environment than change your mind. If you want to eat more fruit it is easier to put a fruit bowl on the table than it is to develop a checklist for eating fruit. If you want to end up serving less food it is easier to use a smaller plate than it is to remind yourself to eat 20-percent less. Our environment has a large impact on us, so it is up to each of us to engineer an environment that has a positive effect. If people believe that food desserts do not allow people to eat enough healthy food, then one simple change is to encourage the places that do sell food to place bananas or apples next to the registers, all of the sudden they see themselves making a lot of extra money. Now, something that was seen as a contributing factor the problem is able to be part of the solution rather than being legislated. These are very easy changes that have marked impacts on us.
The NYC Food Tank Summit is now SOLD OUT. You can still apply to the wait list or watch the event live on the Food Tank Facebook page on September 13, 2017.
Mouser Electronics “Vertical Farming” E-Book
In this EBook, entitled “Vertical Farming,” Mouser and suppliers Analog Devices, Intel, Microchip and Molex explore how urban farming could help smart cities meet the challenge of feeding their growing population.
Mouser Electronics “Vertical Farming” E-Book
August 2017
Tying into the first EBook from Mouser Electronics’ Empowering Innovation Together initiative, Mouser and Grant Imahara of MythBusters’ fame now explore the up-and-coming realm of urban farming. As previously mentioned, the Empowering Innovation Together initiative takes readers on a quest for new knowledge where they can see a direct connection between ideas and products, and how it’s all applied into a working solution.
In this EBook, entitled “Vertical Farming,” Mouser and suppliers Analog Devices, Intel, Microchip and Molex explore how urban farming could help smart cities meet the challenge of feeding their growing populations.
From precision agriculture and indoor farming to energy efficiency and connectivity, this E-Book examines the aspects of smart agriculture, and the implications these advances may have on our future.
Soil Testing: The Need for Total Testing
Soil Testing: The Need for Total Testing
July 28, 2017 in Eco-Farming, Farm Management, Soil Fertility, Soil Life, Soils, Uncategorized, Weeds
What many farmers probably don’t know about soil testing is that most soil tests only tell us what is soluble in the soil. They do not tell us what is actually there in the soil, no matter what fertilizer salesmen might like to imply. To find out what is actually there requires a total acid digest similar to what is used for plant tissue analysis. Mining labs run these total acid digests on ore samples which are crushed, ground and extracted with concentrated nitric and hydrochloric acid solutions, but a mining assay does not determine total carbon, nitrogen and sulfur as a plant tissue analysis would. These elements need a separate procedure essential for evaluating soil humic reserves.
Total soil testing is key to understanding your soils’ needs.
Most soil tests measure total carbon, which then is multiplied by 1.72 to calculate soil organic matter. This assumes that most of the carbon in the soil is humus of one form or another. While this may or may not be true, determining the carbon to nitrogen, nitrogen to sulfur, and nitrogen to phosphorus ratios is a good guide for evaluating organic matter, and this requires testing total nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus as well as carbon.
While carbon in almost any form is a benefit to the soil, it helps enormously if it is accompanied by the right ratios of nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus. Though these ratios are not set in stone, a target for carbon to nitrogen is 10:1, for nitrogen to sulfur is 5.5:1 and for nitrogen to phosphorus is 4:1. This works out to an ideal carbon to sulfur ratio of 55:1, and a carbon to phosphorus ratio of 40:1. Because soil biology is very adjustable these targets are not exact, but achieving them in soil total tests is a good indication of humus reserves that will supply the required amounts of amino acids, sulfates and phosphates whenever the soil food web draws on them.
Humus as Vague Science
Humus formation and utilization is a fuzzy subject that has long been poorly understood. Humification may result from long-term geological processes as with the formation of peat, brown coal and leonardite. But humification can also result from humus-forming activity by mycorrhizal fungi, actinomycetes or any microbial species that can add to or withdraw, somewhat like bees storing honey in the hive from the soil’s storehouse of humic acids. The precise carbon structures of humic acids are enormously difficult to characterize, which means carbon structures end up classified as humic acids whenever they are too large to pass through bacterial cell walls. This pretty much limits humic acids to consumption by fungi, actinomycetes or protozoa. This vague but useful rule draws the dividing line between humic and fulvic acids at somewhere around 2,000 atomic weight units — above is humic acid, and below is fulvic.
It is not much easier to determine the precise structures of fulvic acids. Though fulvic acids can also be extracted from peat, brown coal or leonardite, generally fulvic acids are low molecular weight residues from the breakdown of plant and animal wastes. However, much of the carbon chemistry that plants give off around their roots as root exudates could be classified as fulvic acids based on molecular weight. This low molecular weight fulvic chemistry is very versatile and may be taken up by plants, consumed by soil bacteria, or used by humus building microorganisms to assemble stable, high molecular weight humic acids.
Many of these humus-forming microbes form symbiotic relationships with crop roots and capitalize on the fact that virtually all plants that are growing well also give off some of their sap as an energy-rich bonanza of root exudates. When photosynthesis is abundant these microbes convert surplus root exudates into humic acids and store them in the soil as clay/humus complexes. Then when there is rain or photosynthetic conditions are not ideal they tap into these stores, much like bees do in the hive. This evens out plant and soil food web interactions and keeps things going on a fairly even keel.
Where we really see the benefits of this plant/microbe/humus interaction is where we see root exudate overlap, which will be dealt with later. The important bit here is the organisms that consume humic acids also store them as clay/humus complexes. This is a good reason to use 10 percent soil in making compost to ensure adequate soil surfaces for humus complexes to form. The large molecular weight carbon compounds in the resulting clay/humus complexes will incorporate amino acids, sulfates and phosphates along with silicates and various cations. Only a small portion of these materials show up on soluble soil tests even though they are available to the mycorrhizae, actinomycetes and/or protozoa.
Charcoal & Fossil Humates
Carbon is the basis of life, and in almost any form carbon benefits the soil by attracting life. Biochar is a very beneficial carbon source. But just because something is a carbon source does not mean it has sufficient other elements associated with it. The process of making biochar pretty much guarantees that most of the nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus are driven off; and since these elements are anions, the char that results — while bio-active — will have a high pH because it will still contain most of its original calcium, magnesium, potassium and silicon.
Fossil humates, such as are mined or extracted from brown coal or leonardite, also tend to be deficient in nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus. Even composts, which tend to be better balanced, may be deficient in certain elements. Chars, fossil humates and composts will increase soil life, but will that soil life scavenge the soil for such things as nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus and tie them up so they aren’t soluble? We only need small amounts to be soluble on a steady basis.
If we want to achieve the best results we should test and adjust our ratios of carbon to nitrogen, nitrogen to sulfur and nitrogen to phosphorus, not only in our soils but also in the chars, humates or composts we apply — and this requires total testing. The significance of these ratios is huge in developing a long-range plan for thriving, robust growth, efficient photosynthesis and biological nitrogen fixation without resort to nitrogen fertilizers.
Just suppose the ratio of C to N in the soil reserve is 15:1 or even 20:1 and there’s not enough amino acid nitrogen in the soil’s humus reserve. In cloudy weather when photosynthesis is reduced, root exudation and nitrogen fixation are low and the microbial symbiosis with crop roots mines the humus flywheel — then it comes up short in amino acids.
Or suppose the N:S or N:P ratios don’t deliver enough S or P. Will there be enough free in the soil or will the plant come up short? Deficiencies may also include silicon or boron, or any macro- or micronutrients that might be stored in the soil’s clay/ humus complexes. What can the soil’s humus flywheel deliver? Total tests are our best clue.
Keep in mind that we do not want more than a steady trickle of soluble nutrients. For the most part we want our nutrients to be insoluble but available. We should also keep in mind Liebig’s law of the minimum. The great 19th century chemist, Justus von Liebig, pointed out that plants can only grow to the extent of their most deficient element, and it won’t matter how much other stuff they have. This implies that whenever there is a shortage of something in the soil’s humus flywheel, the plant may have to slow down and limp along.
Building N, S & P
Truly amino acids are of first importance for protein development, but as long as nitrogen fixation supplies a steady stream of amino acids from the microbial symbiosis around crop roots there is no other element closer to hand in greater abundance than nitrogen.
A more urgent deficiency to remedy is sulfur. Sulfur works at surfaces and boundaries making things accessible. As such it is the catalyst for most of plant and soil chemistry. For example, sulfur is what peels the sticky, miserly magnesium loose from its bonding sites in the soil. Without sufficient sulfur the plant may not take up enough magnesium even if it is abundant in the soil. This deprives the plant of sufficient chlorophyll to make efficient use of sunshine, and then there is a shortage of sugary root exudates to feed nitrogen fixation — which requires 10 units of sugar to produce one amino acid. Considering how common magnesium deficiency is in plants growing on magnesium-rich soils, we shouldn’t ignore sulfur deficiencies in the soil reserves. Many soils are abundant with magnesium, but without the 55:1 carbon to sulfur ratio needed for optimum growth, plants can easily be magnesium deficient, poor in photosynthesis — and when they don’t make enough sugar they won’t have good nitrogen fixation.
One can amend sulfur in the soil in various ways. With chars or raw humates, both of which are deficient in nitrogen and sulfur, small amounts of ammonium sulfate (30 to 80 pounds per acre depending on the case) can be helpful. But keep in mind this is a soluble chemical and only so much can be absorbed by the soil’s carbon complexes and the microbial life they support.
Potassium sulfate might also be of use, but total soil testing often indicates an abundance of total potassium and more in soluble form interferes with magnesium uptake, which usually is counterproductive. Gypsum (calcium sulfate) is most commonly used for corrections, though only about 50 ppm of sulfur (0.4 to 0.6 tons per acre) can be absorbed by the soil in one application.
The problem here is sulfate tends to leach if there’s too much. That might be good if all it carried with it was magnesium as most soils are high in magnesium. But, what if the sulfate carries copper, zinc, manganese or even potassium along with it? Can we afford such losses?
If we try to keep soluble sulfur topped up at 50 ppm (Morgan test) by using gypsum mixed with compost or raw humates, gypsum will probably work beautifully and not acidify the soil. It may take a few years to build sulfur levels into the soil totals, but patience is a virtue. However, when the soil pH is already 7.0 or above, elemental sulfur becomes the input of choice. Elemental sulfur pulls oxygen out of the atmosphere as it oxidizes to sulfate and this lowers pH — which for alkaline soils is desirable. Again, try to keep the soluble sulfur level around 50 ppm and gradually build this element into the soil reserves as humic reactions or interactions progress.
Visual Signs
Sometimes we can see a field that had water standing in a streak, puddle or blanket for a day or two, which leached some of the sulfur and left a meandering, light-color streak or area where the water was. Often such events are repeated, which can make the area of leaching stand out rather clearly. This is sulfur deficiency, which leads to magnesium deficiency in plant growth on what is probably a high mag soil — which would explain not draining fast enough in the first place. Usually on such soils the calcium leaches leaving the magnesium behind. Fixing such problems takes careful applications to the deficient area rather than just making a simple recommendation for an entire field. It may be possible to remedy such a deficiency by eye by following the lighter colored area with one or more sulfur applications — most likely gypsum — along with compost, fossil humates or biochar.
Phosphorus may also be deficient, though sometimes total phosphate is surprisingly high without sufficient phosphorus availability. If a total test shows the N:P ratio is too high, add enough rock phosphate to compensate for the deficiency and apply this with compost, raw humates or char inputs. As with sulfur, calculate the amounts once the inputs are spread and don’t go overboard. Adding too much can be like having a soup with too much salt in it.
Keep in mind it is not rare for total tests to show 10 to 100 times as much total P as shows up on soluble tests. Although sulfur deficiency limits phosphorus availability, the key deficiency that often must be remedied to make phosphorus available from soil totals is copper. Phosphorus is useless without copper. Though 2 ppm soluble copper is generally considered adequate, 5 ppm gives more margin and 10 is not harmful unless the soil is extremely light with poor humus reserves.
Zinc deficiency can also keep phosphorus tied up, and a 10:1 phosphorus to zinc ratio is a desirable target in total tests. Total tests of rock phosphates generally show the desired amount of zinc. Usually trace mineral deficiencies such as copper and zinc show up most clearly in winter where these elements work 1/100th less efficiently at 30 or 40°F as they do at 70 or 80°F. The signs of these deficiencies are quite obvious in winter, and if the deficiencies are remedied, growth in cool periods of spring or autumn will be much better.
Silicon & Boron
Even though silicon is secondary in importance to sulfur, silicon accounts for all transport in plants. It is the basis of capillary action. As a co-factor, boron works with silicon to provide sap pressure and often is found in appropriate amounts in siliceous rock formations. Boron has an affinity for silicon in the capillary linings where borate molecules take the place of silicate molecules. However, boron forms three electron bonds where silicon forms four. Boron’s inability to form the fourth bond creates a hunger in the surrounding silicate molecules, which causes them to draw water and electrolytes from the roots through the capillary system to the transpiration sites in the canopy. Without sufficient boron, plants with high boron requirements like legumes, crucifers, vines, etc., will have too little sap pressure to feed their canopy. Then they may wilt at mid-day or not have enough root exudation at night. Where plants have high brix in the early morning, boron is deficient.
Lest we forget, however, the key role of sulfur is in the soil biology around plant roots where sulfates and sulfur-containing amino acids interact with the surfaces of soil particles, most of which are siliceous. Actinomycetes and mycorrhizal fungi in particular need sulfur to peel silicon and boron away from the surfaces of clay and sand particles in the soil. This is a gradual process because it only works at surfaces. It is the nitrogen to sulfur ratio in soil total tests that lets us know whether the soil food web can do an adequate job of silicon and boron access — and this makes a huge difference with how well alfalfa, tomatoes, grapes, wheat or other crops can transport things.
Most importantly, since photosynthesis is hugely dependent upon the efficiency of transport, silicon and boron are essential for efficient photosynthesis. Energy has to travel in chemical form from the chloroplasts, which capture sunlight, to where sugars are made. Also any newly made sugars have to get out of the way of the next sugars being made, and so forth. Anything that slows down transport slows down photosynthesis and will ultimately slow down the nitrogen fixation that chlorophyll formation depends on.
Sugars & Nitrogen Fixation
Usually sugar is the most limiting factor in nitrogen fixation. This shows up in root exudate overlap. Where garlic, ginger, corn, beans, bananas, etc., double their root density in the soil and have root exudate overlap between plants, they grow more vigorously.
Ever notice where corn is planted too thickly so that five or six seeds sprout in just a few inches? Always the corn sprouts in the middle grow fastest. Later if the corn isn’t thinned there may be competition for nutrients and moisture; but if nutrient and moisture competition was all that was going on the middle corn seedlings wouldn’t be the most robust.
Native Americans used to plant corn — without fertilizer — as a soil-building crop by planting their seeds in triangle shaped groups or hills to maximize root exudation, nitrogen fixation, and amino acid uptake. They grew big, tall, long-season corns that built carbon into their soils. In some cases they bundled the stover for winter fuel, which they burned, sprinkling the ashes back on their fields. They did this for hundreds and even thousands of years without recourse to nitrogen fertilizers. In terms of efficiency, agriculture took some giant steps backward in the 20th century.
If we had corn planters that perfectly singulated seed and we could plant with double drills that alternated seeds from left and right drills with 10-inch spacing in each drill and 5 inches in between drills, the seeds would come up in a zigzag pattern that maximizes root exudate overlap in high population corn plantings. This would minimize the need for nitrogen fertilizers.
Soil Testing: An Eye-Opener
As an agricultural consultant in far northern Queensland, Australia, I grew $2,000-$3,000 of culinary ginger in my garden as well as an aloe vera nursery without nitrogen fertilizers. Both were high-silicon crops. At nearby Mt. Garnet we had a diatomaceous earth mine that sold diatomaceous earth (DE) at $300/ton — somewhat pricey, but an excellent silicon fertilizer. When I sprinkled this DE on my ginger it grew beautifully and was twice as robust wherever I spilled a liberal amount. The same was true for my aloe vera. What was clear was that nitrogen fixation and amino acid uptake by both ginger and aloe was far more abundant with high-silicon availability. On a nearby banana farm using the same diatomaceous earth at a rate of 1 ton per hectare (2.5 acres) there were 1.28 more new leaves per month, a sure sign of quality nitrogen availability and robust growth. This meant silicon was a huge influence in nitrogen fixation.
One of the most common problems is too much soluble nitrogen at any given time. A little nitrogen on a steady basis is good, but it is easy to go overboard. Nitrogen availability is a double-edged sword because too much soluble N leads to the nitrification of amino acids, which strips silicon and boron from the soil while shutting down nitrogen fixation. The result is insufficient transport in following crops. We have to be observant and intelligent in our management of soil nitrogen, as ignorance is hardly bliss.
Grasses usually are the best silicon accumulators, which makes maintaining them in our soil cover along with legumes a good idea. Bare soil is always a dead loss and a sure way to ensure silicon and boron leaching — which easily results from too much cultivation, and this welcomes weeds. Weeds love soluble nutrients, which is one of the reasons we don’t want soluble nutrients. What we want is insoluble but available nutrients, and we want to get all our nitrogen from the air where it is abundant.
My target on pastures is to keep soluble silicon levels above 80 ppm with totals above 1,000 ppm — not so hard without nitrogen fertilizer abuse. For tomatoes I like 100 ppm soluble silicon which is more difficult; and for cherries — a really silicon-sensitive crop — I aim for 120 ppm. This really takes good management though it pays off handsomely. Hopefully American soil laboratories will take total soil testing on board like my Australian lab, Environmental Analysis Laboratories (EAL).
Though growers can send samples to EAL, I’d prefer a quicker, more responsive domestic approach. So far Texas Plant and Soil Lab in Edinburg, Texas, and Midwest Laboratories in Omaha, Nebraska, have indicated interest. I’m not sure how they do with the Mehlich III analysis, my preference, but I’d like to think they can perform adequate total soil testing including totals for C, N and S.
By Hugh Lovel. This article was published in the April 2013 issue of Acres U.S.A.magazine.
How Change Happens: Inspiring Examples from Urban Food Policy
How Change Happens: Inspiring Examples from Urban Food Policy
Many of us in the world of food policy are excited by what is happening in cities. Hundreds of municipalities are developing and delivering policies to improve the food system. Fortunately, extensive efforts to document them means we know a considerable amount about what they are doing—a whole host of activities, including improving public procurement, building greenbelts to address climate change, training organic gardeners, enabling rooftop gardens, innovating strategies to reduce food waste and improve food safety, cutting down on trans fats, introducing soda taxes, eliminating marketing in sports stadiums, and tackling food insecurity.
We know a lot less, though, about how cities are managing to do all this. When change—especially policy change—can be so extraordinarily difficult, how have cities actually made it happen?
This was the question behind a new report released this week from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food). Looking in depth at four cities—Nairobi (Kenya), Belo Horizonte (Brazil), Detroit (USA), Amsterdam (the Netherlands)—and one city-region, the Golden Horseshoe (Canada), the report explores the nuts and bolts of policy making. Based on interviews, it shares the insights of people who have made urban food policies happen, so that others can make food policy happen in their cities, too.
Our findings? Cities are undoubtedly innovators in food policy but that this innovation happens through often quite mundane processes. It’s not always exciting; it happens mainly behind the scenes, but it matters a great deal for getting stuff done.
In Nairobi, for instance, we uncovered the fascinating story of how urban agriculture went from being perceived as a blight on the city to an asset that is positively promoted by the Nairobi Urban Agriculture Promotion and Regulation Act 2015. What brought about this U-turn was the sustained efforts of civil society to unify and amplify the voices of urban farmers and to build supportive relationships with national civil servants.
In Detroit, we found that, through the 2013 Urban Agriculture Ordinance, the city had moved to regulate and support burgeoning urban agriculture activity, which has been putting vacant land to use and bringing fresh food to many neighborhoods. It did this through an inclusive process involving the urban farming community as well as planning professionals, and negotiations with state-level farm interests overcame a major legislative barrier.
In the city region of the Golden Horseshoe around Toronto, Canada, we found a healthy alliance of people from across the food system implementing the ten-year Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Plan to support the economic viability of the sector. How did they manage to agree on a common plan between many different actors, professions, and potentially conflicting interests? The key was a drawn-out drafting process with skilled mediators going back and forth to reach consensus-wording that meant the same to everyone.
In Belo Horizonte, we found a policy to tackle food insecurity that has been in place for more than 20 years. What lay behind the longevity of this policy was undoubtedly its early institutionalization within city government, while civil servants have worked behind the scenes to uphold the core principles, particularly through changes in municipal government.
In Amsterdam, we found a relatively new policy that promotes integrated working between city departments to address the structural causes of obesity. What enabled this integrated working was requiring each department to identify ways to address obesity through its day-to-day work. Moreover, to demonstrate that obesity is not just a public health matter, initial responsibility for the program was given not to the Public Health Department but to Social Development, instead.
Cities are doing a lot. They are identifying, leveraging, and growing their powers where necessary. They are engaging across government, involving communities, civil society, and food system actors, finding innovative ways to fund themselves and working hard to gain the political commitment needed for them to last. What we now need far more of is monitoring, evaluation, and learning. Cities are aiming to transform their food systems, no less. To do so, we need to know more about where they are having an impact, what the impact is, and what can be done better. A better understanding of the pathways to positive change will help show, even more, what urban food policy can do to change the food system and where it can have the most impact.
Click Here To View The Full Report
Why A Peanut Farmer From South Carolina Created A Facebook For Farmers
Why A Peanut Farmer From South Carolina Created A Facebook For Farmers
OCTOBER 2, 2015 LAUREN MANNING
As a nasty nor’easter hammers the Southeast, hurricane Joaquin lingers just off the Atlantic coast guaranteeing many more days of torrential downpour. For Pat Rogers, a fifth-generation peanut farmer running a 550-acre operation in the small town of Blenheim, South Carolina, the rain is unwelcome.
Peanuts, which grow underneath the topsoil, have to be dug up and flipped over to lie on the soil for a week so they can dry out. The last thing any peanut farmer wants to happen after a “dig up” is rain—let alone the one-two punch of a massive storm and a hurricane.
In prior years, Rogers would have been short on opportunities to commiserate with his farming colleagues about the cruel hand Mother Nature doled out. Thanks to a spark of inspiration and a whole lot of hard work, however, Rogers is hoping to change that for himself and other farmers in the business—and he’s using technology to do it.
“I was at the InfoAg conference in St. Louis during 2014. It’s just a whole bunch of farm tech and I was sitting there in the earliest session, looking around, and thinking, ‘This is great!’” says Rogers tells AgFunderNews. “But, the thing about farming is that so much of it is very rural. It’s not like we can all get together and network very often.”
Rogers returned to Blenheim and quickly set to work creating a way to make invaluable coffee shop chatter, tailgate talk, and barnyard business exchanges a lot more accessible for farmers far and wide. What was one of the first sources Rogers tapped to shape his plan? Entrepreneur Eric Ries’ famous book, The Lean Startup.
Over the summer, Rogers and a team of web developers soft-launched a website called AgFuse, a social media platform dedicated to farmers, and designed to help professionals across the agriculture world connect, share tips, show off their crops, pitch products, and keep in touch. Operating in a similar way to Facebook, with a healthy dose of LinkedIn’s business networking savvy, users can create a profile page, join groups, post messages, and peruse their news feeds to see what’s happening with other farmers in their network.
Building AgFuse’s website from the ground up enabled Rogers and the web development team to create algorithms that help members see the information that’s most relevant to their interests, operations, and needs.
While farm-focused message boards provide a flood of information, AgFuse is calibrated so that users only see postings and information from other members with whom they’ve connected.
For now, the crew is satisfied with its current algorithms, perfecting them is a routine objective. “We have a pretty good system that we are rolling out over the next week or two,” says Rogers.
After observing the soft-launch site and getting feedback from initial users, Rogers, and the AgFuse team, officially launched the site on July 22, 2015. While the platform became an instant hit with Rogers’ local community in South Carolina, he quickly saw users join from around the country and engage with other members.
AgFuse, which Rogers has fully funded himself, has even caught the attention of some venture capital investors. “In the future, that’s hopefully not only a possibility but a reality. Right now we are just focused on building a good product and building our user base,” he says. He also hasn’t ruled out the possibility of monetizing the site to provide members with carefully curated advertisements.
Rogers’ current priorities include site enhancements and building up its user base. They also have some big projects in the works, including a mobile app that is in the final stages of development, and additional AgFuse platforms focused on consolidating farmers’ knowledge around the globe.
According to Rogers, AgFuse is the first farm-centric social media platform of its kind. Although there are a number of message boards dedicated to farming and agriculture topics, he felt they weren’t cutting it when it came to helping farmers make real connections.
“If I sign in from South Carolina and they are talking about crop conditions in Illinois, that doesn’t really pertain to me,” explains Rogers. “You can still learn a lot of general things, but AgFuse’s specific niche is helping farmers find a specific audience.”
Traditional social media platforms haven’t provided a good solution either, tending to involve more talk about play and less talk about business. AgFuse, according to Rogers, is strictly a business affair.
“The content can range anywhere from somebody wanting to show off a good series of coverage crops, to showing a scouting report or weather reports. Somebody just showed a picture of armyworms they found in their soybeans to let everyone know they’ve shown up,” says Rogers.
Although the rain may have dampened Rogers’ hopes for a timely peanut harvest, it’s given him time to work on AgFuse and check in with some of his connections on AgFuse. Today’s news feed was full of reports from other farmers in the region lamenting the weather, with one farmer posting a few pictures of cotton sprouts popping through his plants’ bright white cotton lint—a sure sign that the crop has become oversaturated. Although the news may be a downer, knowing you aren’t the only frustrated farmer in the region has its value.
While agtech is making incredible headway toward helping farmers produce food more efficiently and sustainably, AgFuse is a good reminder not only of the infinite possibilities for technology’s role in agriculture but of how technology can go a long way towards bringing people together.