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Levi’s Stadium LEEDs the Way
Levi’s Stadium LEEDs the Way
Story and photos by Diane Andrews
Nine stories up, atop the roof of the SAP Tower of Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, is a thriving 7,000-square-foot organic vegetable and herb garden now going on two years old. Called the Faithful Farm, it is located on the tower’s 27,000-square-foot NRG Solar Terrace, high above the scrambles and scrimmages of the San Francisco 49ers football team on the field below.
Established in July of 2016, the rooftop garden is a first for a National Football League (NFL) stadium. It was the inspiration of Danielle York, wife of 49ers CEO Jed York, who thought vegetables would be a tasty addition to the grasses and succulents already planted on the roof to help reduce heating and cooling requirements for the tower suites below.
“The garden wasn’t cheap, but it’s beyond that. It’s more about being a leader, a pioneer of sustainability. That means more to the York family than saving dollars,” said Jim Mercurio, 49ers Vice President of Stadium Operations and General Manager. “The York family gives us the resources to make a difference.”
Consider the logistics. Everything must be hauled up to the roof—soil, flats of plants, fertilizer, gardening tools, the drip watering system using reclaimed water—everything. Then once grown, the produce must be hauled down to the kitchen.
“We get everything more intensely up here. Wind rips things out. The sun is very intense without much shade, so the crops get nuked,” said Lara Hermanson, principal of Farmscape LLC, which manages the Faithful Farm and is the largest urban farming venture in California (www.farmscapegardens.com).
The farm is tended by three gardeners working three days a week. Annuals such as cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, kale, lettuce, pumpkins, edible flowers and fine-leafed herbs are part of the fall harvest. In all, about 40 different vegetables and herbs are rotated over the year.
“We plant off-beat varieties. The chef can get regular things,” said Hermanson. “We plant hard-to-source specialties, varieties you can’t find through traditional ordering.”
The farm, expanded from 4,000-square-feet, has yielded over 7,000 pounds of produce, and Hermanson works a month ahead with yield predictions. She creates weekly spread sheets for Executive Chef Dinari Brown of Centerplate, the stadium’s food hospitality partner, who plans menus around the produce available. Food that isn’t served in club spaces during games and at private events hosted at the stadium, is donated.
“I was shocked when I looked at tonnage and how fast things grow,” said Mercurio. “What an amazing kind of transformation.”
“You feel proud. The team feels as if we’re working with pioneers here, in some cases being pioneers,” said Mercurio. “We’re opening up possibilities to people in the industry.”
Indeed, other NFL stadiums are following suit in the growing trend for edible gardens tucked into unexpected urban places. Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home to the Falcons, opened in August of this year with a street-level garden.
However, it was San Francisco’s AT&T Park, home to the Giants baseball team, that led the way as the first pro sports franchise with an edible garden. In June of 2014, raised boxes of vegetables (also tended by Farmscape) were installed behind the centerfield wall, just under the scoreboard.
LEED, standing for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices, and Levi’s Stadium prides itself on achieving LEED Gold certification in two categories.
It was the first NFL stadium to open—in August 2014—with LEED Gold certification for new construction. Then in 2016, it received LEED Gold certification for operations and maintenance of an existing building, making it the first NFL stadium to receive LEED Gold certifications from the U.S. Green Building Council in both categories.
And with the success of the Faithful Farm, Levi’s Stadium further LEEDs the way for the 49ers and the City of Santa Clara.
Winter Doesn't Faze 87,000-Square-Foot Aquaponics Farm in St. Paul
Winter Doesn't Faze 87,000-Square-Foot Aquaponics Farm in St. Paul
Three-plus months after debuting in its new, vastly larger location, Urban Organics continues to expand.
By Amelia Rayno Star Tribune | NOVEMBER 22, 2017
ELIZABETH FLORES • LIZ.FLORES@STARTRIBUNE.COM
Pentair and Urban Organics are partners in this 87,000-square-foot indoor fish and produce farm in the old Schmidt brewery that provides greens and seafood for grocery stores, co-ops and restaurants.
“There’s no seasonal affective disorder in here,” said Dave Haider, who founded Urban Organics along with his wife, Kristen Koontz Haider, and with Chris Ames and Fred Haberman. “It just makes sense — not just from an environmental standpoint but also from a food safety standpoint. It’s sustainable, it’s consistent and it’s a local option.”
Three-plus months after debuting in its new, vastly larger location, Urban Organics continues to expand its operation — with the capacity to churn out 7,000 pounds of fish a week (up from a mere 100 pounds per week at its first location) along with about 10,000 pounds of produce (up from 250 pounds).
And with a warehouse full of 25,000-gallon tanks and skyward-reaching trays of lettuce, kale, Swiss chard, arugula, basil and parsley, Urban Organics — which the WateReuse Association just named 2017 agricultural project of the year, a national award — is doing so in a very green way.
Here’s how it works: The fish provide the nutrients necessary to grow the plants. The plants, in turn, act as a filter to improve the water quality for the fish. Reusing the water over and over again allows Urban Organics to use just a fraction of what conventional farming would require.
As for the finished products? The fish is mostly nabbed by restaurateurs — Fish Guys handles the distribution, to places like Birchwood Cafe and Spoon and Stable. And the greens are boxed up into nine different salad blends and sold to various grocery stores and co-ops. Even with the great increase in production, Haider said, they’re struggling to fill the overwhelming number of requests.
“We’re cautiously optimistic,” he said. “But we’ve had so much support from the local community. Right now we can’t even come close to keeping up with the demand.”
NOSB Votes Not To Ban Hydroponics From Organic Certification
A longtime organic tomato farmer believes this could effectively be the beginning of “divorce proceedings” between the organic movement and the USDA’s National Organic Program.
The U.S. National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) has controversially voted against banning hydroponic and aquaponic crops being eligible for organic certification, in a move that has provoked strong opinions from the sector’s stakeholders.
The vote took place last week as part of the advisory board’s fall meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, which was open to the public and involved a range of testimonies given to the 15-member board.
The board voted to prohibit aeroponic agriculture – which grows plants suspended in the air with their roots exposed – but did not pass motions to ban hydroponics, a method that cultivates plants in water-based nutrient solutions, or aquaponics which combines hydroponic systems with farmed fish operations.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) spokesperson told Fresh Fruit Portal the NOSB had heard two days of testimony that were mostly focused on the three production systems.
“The Board did not come to an agreement on any recommendations about the certification of hydroponic or aquaponic production systems. Both systems remain eligible for Organic Certification,” she said.
“The Board passed a proposal to recommend prohibition of aeroponics systems in organic production. Certification of aeroponic operations also remains allowed while USDA considers the Board’s work on this topic.”
Organic pioneers have typically argued that including hydroponic crops in the National Organic Program (NOP) undermines the integrity of the label and that nurturing the fertility of the soil is a fundamental aspect of the farming method.
Meanwhile, those on the other side of the debate have held that there should be no issue including hydroponics as long as farming inputs are organic.
Maintaining the status quo
Organic Trade Association (OTA) farm policy director Nate Lewis said that this vote essentially maintained the status quo for the vast majority of the industry.
“All these systems have been allowed in organic since 2002, so I think the outcome – with the exception of aeroponics – shouldn’t really change the reality for many producers,” he said, explaining that organic aeroponics represented a tiny proportion of the sector.
He said the OTA would have supported the motion to ban hydroponics – as it did in 2010 when the NOSB recommended prohibiting the production method – if the definition of the production system had remained unchanged.
However, he said that as the Crops Subcommittee had revised the definition and coupled it with proposed standards for organic container production – which involves raising plants in containers filled with a mixture of organic matter, water and nutrients – the association, therefore, did not support it this time around.
It should be noted that despite the NOSB previously voting to recommend hydroponics be banned from organic certification – albeit at a time when the hydroponic industry was far less developed than today – the advice was not upheld by regulator the NOP.
Lewis also commented that among the OTA’s members were those who strongly supported organic certifications for hydroponics and those who strongly opposed them, but said there was a “significant segment” of membership in the middle who thought entirely water-based systems shouldn’t be allowed but container production should be, with appropriate guidelines and standards.
Banning would have been “irresponsible”
United Natural Foods vice president of policy and industry relations Melody Meyer said it was positive to see so many members of the organic community come out to participate in last week’s event, but believed the decision left the sector “deeply divided”.
“I was present in Jacksonville to witness one of the most divided NOSB meetings to date.I believe they made the right decision not to prohibit these out-of-soil production methods,” she said.
“It would have put hundreds of growers out of business, taken valuable supply away from organic consumers and squelched innovation in our movement.”
Meanwhile, the head of the Recirculating Farms Commission, which represents hydroponic and aquaponic growers, also believed the NOSB had made the right decision in not prohibiting the two production methods.
The entity’s executive director Marianne Cufone said that as many products from these farms already carried a USDA Organic label, it would have been “irresponsible and confusing” for consumers and farmers to withdraw it now.
“By siding with current science and recognizing that existing law purposely leaves the door open for various farming methods, the NOSB is sending a critical message that sustainability and innovation are valuable in U.S. agriculture,” she said in a statement.
“These goals are at the center of the nationwide local food movement and spur growth of urban and rural farms alike, by a wide range of people. Inclusiveness is important in our food system.
“The Board did vote to prohibit use of aeroponics in USDA Organic production and indicated they would discuss what type of label hydroponic and aquaponic USDA Organic certified products would display.”
The financial factor?
In support of the motions to ban the three production methods, Mark Kastel of farm policy watchdog group the Cornucopia Institute said the industry had effectively created “two organic labels”.
“One label is all about integrity and production and that impacts the nutritional flavor and quality of the food (found at farmers’ markets, CSAs, co-ops and other local retailers). The other is all about profit,” he said.
“What has made the organic industry financially attractive is the fact that consumers are willing to pay a premium for food produced to a different environmental and animal husbandry model.”
He also believed that part of the “organic story” had been about economic justice for family farmers, and that industrial-scale hydroponic production is a stark disconnect from that.
“The industry, in throwing their weight around the regulatory arena at the USDA, in appealing to Congress when that doesn’t work, is poised to kill the golden goose. A loss of consumer goodwill will impact all players, large and small – growers, distributors and retailers.”
The Cornucopia Institute is now engaging with its outside legal counsel to investigate filing a federal lawsuit, he said.
Dave Chapman, a longtime organic tomato grower with a farm in Vermont, said he was “dismayed” by the result of the vote and that it was a “great disappointment”.
“The fact that it was a close vote is a sign of how much the whole process of the National Organic Program has been compromised. It should have been consensus that hydroponics should not be certified as organic,” he said.
“That was the last vote of the same body seven years earlier when there was just one descending vote. What happened in seven years that suddenly reversed the definition of organic? I would say what happened was a lot of money.
“There was no new scientific evidence. I think the market was invaded by some large companies that were making hundreds of millions of dollars and that is what changed the conversation.”
Chapman also emphasized that the organic movement and the NOP were two different things, and believed last week’s vote may result in some profound changes in the future.
“I think that this vote was basically the beginning of divorce proceedings. The NOP is of course going to continue, and the organic movement is going to continue, but I think they’re not going to continue together.
“If consumers become aware that most of the tomatoes – and soon I suspect most of the berries, cucumbers, pepper, lettuce and basil – they’re buying in the store that’s certified organic is in fact hydroponic, they’re going to become further disheartened and stop using organic certification for the basis of how they find good food to buy.
“I think that most likely we will see the creation of one or many alternative labels to the USDA, because the USDA is failing. Of course, this is going to be a lot of work and very confusing, but I really don’t know what other choice there is.”
Pioneers of Organic Farming Are Threatening to Leave The Program They Helped Create
Pioneers of Organic Farming Are Threatening to Leave The Program They Helped Create
By Caitlin Dewey November 2 at 11:48 AM
(iStockPhoto)
The pioneers of the sustainable farming movement are mourning what they call the downfall of the organic program, following a Wednesday night vote by a group of government farming advisers that could determine the future of the $50 billion organic industry.
At issue was whether a booming generation of hydroponic, aquaponic and aeroponic farms — which grow plants in nutrients without using soil, frequently indoors — could continue to sell their produce under the “organic” label.
In a series of narrow votes, an advisory board to the U.S. Department of Agriculture voted to allow the majority of these operators to remain a part of the organic program, dealing a blow to the movement's early leaders.
[‘Uncertainty and dysfunction’ have overtaken USDA program for organic foods, key lawmaker says]
Organic pioneers have argued that including hydroponic produce under the label has undermined the integrity of the program they fought decades to establish, and at a time when it is already under intense scrutiny. Some have said they will consider leaving the USDA-regulated program entirely.
“This was the Hail Mary pass to save the National Organic Program, and they didn't catch it,” said Dave Chapman, a longtime organic tomato farmer who lobbied to have hydroponics banned from the organics label. “They did incalculable damage to the seal tonight. It's just going to take them a while to realize it.”
Wednesday's recommendation, issued by the National Organic Standards Board, came in four parts.
The board voted to keep out aeroponic farming, which grows plants — typically herbs and leafy greens — suspended in the air with their roots exposed. But it voted to allow hydroponics, which grow plants in water-based nutrient solutions, and aquaponics, which combine hydroponic systems with farmed fish operations.
The board also declined to tighten its restrictions on container growing, a variation on hydroponics that involves raising plants in containers filled with a mixture of organic matter, water and nutrients. That system has been adopted by a number of major organic berry growers, such as Driscoll’s and Wholesum Harvest.
Since 2000, the National Organic Program has strictly regulated which foods can be called organic, and how organic foods are grown and raised. Those standards are typically based on the recommendations of the NOSB, an advisory body composed of farmers, environmentalists and representatives from the organic industry.
In a 2010 vote, NOSB recommended a ban on virtually all types of soilless growing. But in an unusual departure, the USDA continued to certify hydroponic and aquaponic farms, claiming that NOSB had not adequately considered the breadth of the industry.
Now that the board and the department are in agreement, the future of hydroponics in the organic program is much more certain, said Marianne Cufone, the executive director of the Recirculating Farms Coalition, which represents hydroponic and aquaponic growers.
“I think this sends a powerful message that they're embracing change in agriculture,” Cufone said. “That the [organic program] wants to be inclusive, not exclusive.”
This approach has pained old-school organic farmers, who have spent the past seven years arguing that soilless systems undermine the main principles of that program. When that movement emerged in the first half of the 20th century, they argue, it promised a version of agriculture that not only reduced the use of certain fertilizers and pesticides, but that contributed to the health of the soil and the rest of the environment.
During NOSB testimony Tuesday, several organic farmers protested the certification of hydroponic farms, wearing T-shirts that said “Save the Organic Label.” At recent rallies in Hanover, N.H., and Burlington, Vt., protesters held signs with slogans such as “keep the soil in organic.”
“This notion that organic farmers are stuck in the past, or that they’re a bunch of Luddites hanging on to the way things used to be — that’s a misnomer,” said Cameron Harsh, the senior manager for organic and animal policy at the Center for Food Safety. “Soilless systems are just incompatible with the organic program and its regulations.”
But in a series of close 8-7 votes Wednesday, the NOSB appeared to disagree. Instead, it sided with hydroponic growers, many of whom have spent several years and several thousand dollars acquiring their organic certification.
Their advocates have argued that soilless farming is consistent with the goals of the organic program: It utilizes organic fertilizers and cuts down on pesticide and water use — often to levels much lower than those on land-based organic operations. Because hydroponic farms are frequently built indoors, they are said to provide opportunity to urban growers who could not otherwise access agricultural land.
“Don’t get me wrong — I love going to the farmers market,” said Matt Barnard, the chief executive of the indoor farming start-up. Plenty, which grows organically certified greens and herbs. “It’s just that the farmers market supplies something like half of one percent of the fresh fruits and vegetables in the U.S.”
“What we are doing,” Barnard added, “is just as organic as anyone else.”
The early leaders of the organic movement say they aren't sure what “organic” means anymore, however.
The hydroponics debate comes at a moment when the organics program has been rocked by high-profile scandals, from fraudulent imports to suspect dairy feedlots, and after a period of sustained growth.
Organic sales topped $47 billion in 2016, according to the Organic Trade Association, representing 5 percent of all U.S. food sales. That growth has not been driven by idyllic family farms, either. Increasingly, the organic market is dominated by industrial brands that look little different from their conventional counterparts.
Chapman likens his struggle now to that of a parent confronting a rowdy teenager. He spent years growing the movement, he said, and loves it despite its flaws. On Wednesday night, he left the NOSB meeting with a group of other old-school organic farmers, determined to discuss how, and if, they could still support their problem child.
“The question is, do we abandon the National Organic Program and find a new way to identify ourselves?” Chapman asked. “It’s a genuine question. I don’t know. We feel powerless.”
Read more:
How millions of cartons of 'organic' milk contain an oil brewed in industrial vats of algae
The labels said ‘organic.’ But these massive imports of corn and soybeans weren’t.
NOSB Votes to Keep Organic Certification For hydroponic And Aquaponic Product
NOSB Votes to Keep Organic Certification For hydroponic And Aquaponic Product
NOVEMBER 02, 2017
The National Organic Standards Board rejected a series of proposals that would have revoked the organic certifications of growers who incorporate container, hydroponic and aquaponic production tools in their farms and production locations.
Lee Frankel, executive director of the Coalition of Sustainable Organics, applauded the ruling, saying, “The ultimate impact of the proposals would have removed significant supplies of currently certified organic fresh vegetables and fruits from the market. We need more product that meets the high standards of the USDA Organic Program, not less. The most viable option to achieve this goal is to use all certified systems and scales of production, not to kick certain growing practices out of the industry. The organic industry should embrace and promote diversity rather than stifle it.”
The members of the NOSB voted Nov. 1 by a margin of 8 to 7 to reject the proposals to make hydroponic and aquaponic production methods prohibited practices under the USDA organic standards. In addition, the NOSB rejected the proposal by a vote of 8 to 7 to create prescriptive nitrogen ratios in other container production systems.
The proposed definition of hydroponics was any system in a container (roots of a plant not in the outer crust of the Earth) that does not have at least 50 percent of the nitrogen needs of the plant in the container before planting and that no more than 20 percent of nitrogen needs are delivered through the irrigation system, watering cans or in a liquid form.
The NOSB did vote to make aeroponics a prohibited practice by a vote of 14 in favor of the ban with one member abstaining from the vote. This recommendation will now go to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Given that the NOSB is technically a Federal Advisory Committee, the staff of the National Organic Program and other USDA officials will determine if the USDA will begin formal rulemaking to modify the existing USDA organic standards. The USDA typically will move forward with rule making or return the proposal for additional clarification. Only after a public comment period and regulatory review would the proposal convert into a regulation.
“I am happy that enough members of the NOSB saw the wisdom of ensuring that organic rules do not arbitrarily discriminate against production in urban, desert, or tropical areas, nor should they exclude other systems that use containers and greenhouses,” said Frankel. “We should trust growers to make their own determination to know when growing in the soil or in containers make the most sense for the protection of the consumer and the ecology we all share.”
Organic Board Decides Hydroponic Can Be Certified Organic
Organic Board Decides Hydroponic Can Be Certified Organic
National Organic Standards Board votes on whether to change federal organic standards to allow for hydroponically produced products.
Jacqui Fatka 1 | Nov 03, 2017
At the semi-annual meeting of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), front and center was the debate about whether to change the federal organic standards to allow organic produce grown hydroponically.
In a series of 8-7 votes, the NOSB voted that hydroponic and aquaponic growers can continue to market certified organic products.
The action is a recommendation from the NOSB to USDA. The National Organic Standards Board voted on four separate proposals related to soil-less production in organic:
A motion to prohibit aeroponics in organic passed 14 yes, 1 abstention.
· A motion to prohibit aquaponics in organic did not pass, with a majority voting against the motion.
· A motion to restrict how and when nitrogen can be introduced to organic container production did not pass, with a majority voting against the motion.
· A motion to prohibit hydroponics, which was defined as any container system that didn't meet the proposed requirements for organic container system did not pass, with a majority voting against the motion. However the vote was 7 in favor and 8 against.
The practice of growing fruits and vegetables in inert mediums that depend on liquid fertilizers, rather than in rich organically managed soil, has been intensely controversial. The Organic Trade Assn. actually opposes aeroponics in organic, and supports the board recommendation to prohibit this in organic.
OTA does not support a system that is entirely water-based and believes it should be prohibited in organic, but OTA did not support the recommendation as written because the Crops Subcommittee had revised the definition for hydroponics by coupling it with proposed production standards for organic container production. OTA would have supported a motion to prohibit hydroponics had NOSB retained the previously accepted definition for hydroponics.
OTA said it supports container production in organic with clear, meaningful standards, but OTA did not support the recommendation as written before the board, because it did not meet the bar for a clear consensus-based recommendation for the Agriculture Secretary.
NewFoodEconomy said when the federal government first began to explore codifying organic standards into law, soil was an important focus of their efforts.
NewFoodEconomy reported that Fred Kirschenmann, a longtime leader in sustainable agriculture, distinguished fellow at Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and president of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, New York, said, “Several of us on the board felt that soil health should be part of the requirement for certification. We had a lot of debates about that, but finally the board became convinced that this was an important part of the future of organic certification, and we made that recommendation to the National Organic Standards Board.”
The news source said attorneys at USDA pushed back, according to Kirschenmann.
“They threw it out,” they reported Kirschenmann saying . “In the report they gave back to us, they said that regulations have to be answered with a yes or a no, and requiring soil health is too complex an issue.”
As such USDA insisted on an input-oriented system certification and requires that a farmer use only fertilizers on the approved list, and avoid completely any chemical on the banned list.
It’s The End of “Organic” As We Know It
It’s The End of “Organic” As We Know It
After a bitterly divisive battle, the USDA has ruled that hydroponic growers can continue to be certified organic. Some say it marks the end of a still-young movement. For others, it's a new beginning.
November 2nd, 2017
by Joe Fassler Kate Cox
In Jacksonville, Florida on Wednesday, a two-decade long controversy that has the potential to change organic food production hinged on a single vote: whether or not to keep the “soil” in certified “organic.” In a series of 8-7 votes, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) voted that hydroponic and aquaponic growers can continue to market certified organic products.
Most Americans probably don’t think about hydroponic farms (which grow plants inside soilless greenhouses in trays of nutrient solution), and aquaponic farms (which marry hydroponics and aquaculture—or farmed fish and other aquatic organisms—to produce plants and fish crops) when they envision an organic farm. That’s because we often associate the word “organic” with a more traditional, pastoral vision of crops grown under the open air, perhaps accompanied by a red farmhouse and some cows grazing in the background.
The vote was a clear signal that the “organic” label—one with a strong public reputation and powerful market clout—is going to continue to get more inclusive.
And while that vision is far from what organic—now a more than $50 billion industry in the United States alone—has become, many organic farmers, especially the older, more traditional sort, who pioneered and advocated for the certification in the first place, want to make sure that certification extends only to this more traditional interaction with a plot of land. They feel their business—and the very value of the word “organic” itself—depends on it.
For them, Wednesday’s decision was a deeply emotional blow.
“The vibe was not mellow,” says Phil LaRocca, an organic winemaker from Forest Ranch, California, who attended the proceedings in Jacksonville.
Meanwhile, outside, a coalition of traditional, soil-based organic farmers—including Eliot Coleman, founder of Four Season Farm, who many consider to be one of the fathers of the modern organic movement—protested, brandishing “Keep the Soil in Organic” signs. LaRocca says the atmosphere at times grew “hostile” as various organic stakeholders pressed their cases. And some of those stakeholders admitted that they themselves were deeply conflicted.
“It was actually—as a long-term, 45-year organic farmer—it was a little disturbing to see a bit of hostility in the room,” LaRocca says. “And I’m not putting a judgment on that. I understand the issue and I have friends with both sides of the argument and understood both sides of the argument. So it made it very difficult for me personally to have to go through it all.”
It’s not that this decision signals any kind of immediate change. Aquaponic and hydroponic growers were already selling certified organic products, and have been doing so for years. The vote was an attempt to stop them from doing just that. But it was also a clear signal that the “organic” label—one with a strong public reputation and powerful market clout—is going to continue to get more inclusive. For some, that’s a big step in the right direction. For others, it’s a betrayal of the very values that launched a movement.
Eliot Coleman, founder of Four Season Farm, who many consider to be one of the fathers of the modern organic movement
Nearly 80 years ago, a global movement coalesced in opposition to the rapid, post-war evolution of farming practices, from traditional methods used for millennia, to commercialized, industrial-scale manufacturing methods that required less manual and animal labor and more machinery, herbicides, and fertilizer.
That movement was termed “organic farming” and the basic concept was this: Nature does it better. The farmers like Coleman who helped launch organic farming into the mainstream drew on the writings of farmer-philosophers like Liberty Hyde Baily, Rudolph Steiner, John Muir, Sir Albert Howard, and Aldo Leopold, who felt that the small, diversified farm was a “closed loop”—a managed ecosystem, even a self-sustaining organism, that produced everything it needed to consume. Animals fertilized the plants with their manure, and the plants fed the animals, and the farmer reaped the excess. Nothing was brought in from outside. Nothing was wasted. The idea was that nature already provided farmers with everything they needed, if they were just willing to be resourceful and do a little extra work.
This ancient—but increasingly unfashionable—method was posited as an alternative to what organic-minded critics called “substitution agriculture”: namely, a system that brought in what it needed from outside the farm. Petroleum-based synthetic fertilizers nourished the plants. Chemical pesticides kept bugs away. Animals, if there were any, were fed with corn and soy grown elsewhere.
What happens when an organic grower uses all the right inputs, just without any soil?
For the organic-minded, soil quality—outside the quasi-religious belief in farming as a calling and the farm as a self-enclosed cosmos—was the chief argument against substitution agriculture. Rather than using chemicals to artificially nourish plants, and keep pests at bay, organic farmers focused first and foremost on building soil health. For them, the dirt was the beginning and the end: It was why they kept animals, why they cover-cropped, why they worked so hard to diversify crops that kept balanced nutrients in the soil.
Which is why, when the federal government first began to explore codifying organic standards into law, soil was an important focus of their efforts. Some would say it was the focus.
“Several of us on the board felt that soil health should be part of the requirement for certification,” says Fred Kirschenmann, a longtime leader in sustainable agriculture, distinguished fellow at Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and president of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, New York. “We had a lot of debates about that, but finally the board became convinced that this was an important part of the future of organic certification, and we made that recommendation to the National Organic Standards Board.”
But the attorneys at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) pushed back, according to Kirschenmann.
“They threw it out,” he says. “In the report they gave back to us, they said that regulations have to be answered with a yes or a no, and requiring soil health is too complex an issue.”
The soil-first ethos requires a leap of faith: to proponents, the benefits are tangible, but they’re in the eye of the beholder
Instead, USDA insisted on an input-oriented system: Regulation would be focused on what went into the soil or not, but not on the more nebulous idea of soil “health.” While the final organic standard does stipulate that “the producer must select and implement tillage and cultivation practices that maintain or improve the physical, chemical, and biological condition of soil,” certification requires that a farmer use only fertilizers on the approved list, and avoid completely any chemical on the banned list.
Which brings us to the confused system we have today, and the argument that finally came to a head this week: Organic is supposed to promote soil health, but the terms that the stipulation uses focus on the list of chemicals used (or not). What happens when an organic grower uses all the right inputs, just without any soil?
Karen Archipley thinks the suggestion that hydroponic farming is a newfangled interloper is just wrong. In an interview with New Food Economy on Thursday by phone, she cited some impressive—and ancient—precedents: the floating Aztec gardens and the hanging gardens of Babylon.
“Our methods are not new,” she says. “Our methods date back to 600 B.C.”
“It has outcompeted soil because it’s so cheap to do.”
Despite this distinguished ancestry, Archipley—who runs Archi’s Acreage, a small hydroponic farm in Escondido, California, with her husband Colin—says she’s long felt excluded from the organic movement’s soil-worshiping sector. In her view, the reason is simple: “This whole issue has been about market share,” she says.
It’s not hard to understand why the organic vanguard would feel threatened by hydroponics. According to organic winemaker Phil LaRocca, hydroponic operations are “quicker and easier” to set up than new soil-based operations; at the same time, they can skip the onerous three-year transition period required for soil-based conventional farmers who want to start selling organic.
Soil-based advocates don’t necessarily deny this. Organic tomato grower Dave Chapman of Long Wind Farm in Vermont notes that in Europe certain crops are virtually all grown hydroponically, a massive transformation that’s taken place over the last twenty years. “It has outcompeted soil because it’s so cheap to do,” he says. According to Chapman, the real eye-opening moment for many soil-based farmers was the fact that Driscoll’s, one of the country’s biggest producers of organic berries, had switched to hydroponic.
“That was a game-changer,” he says. “Before that we thought it was a relatively minor problem.”
But that “minor problem” is now a quickly growing industry—one that, according to critics, is antithetical to the very idea of organic.
According to California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), a trade group representing organic growers within the state, “hydroponic systems are not inherently better or worse than in-ground systems”
“Organic has always been about the apparently magical things that happen as a result of building and maintaining the fertility of the soil. It’s not magic—it’s mother nature at her finest. But that is the belief of the organic movement: that you get plant health and animal health and human health that is unobtainable any other way if you can work with those ecosystems,” says Chapman. “Of course, hydroponic production is the opposite of this philosophy. Which is that you give the plant what it needs, and you get great plant growth. But the downside is that nutrition is inferior and the health is inferior, the system is more vulnerable to insects and diseases so you need more pesticides and fungicides. You end up in a downward spiral. It’s like eating a bad diet for a human, so you need more medicine, but the medicine is damaging to you so you get sicker. On and on it goes.”
Coleman puts it even more bluntly:
“They are growing in the spirit of greed,” he says. “The only reason these guys want organic certification is because these guys have known for a long time that hydroponic doesn’t make people’s mouths water and no one is lining up outside their grocery stores protesting for hydroponic vegetables. These guys know the organic label is the label people want. They want to illegally become part of it.”
For all its cultural success, the organic industry is still in its economic infancy.
It’s easy to see the reverence with which traditional organic farmers speak about the soil, and their way of thinking is powerful and compelling. The problem is that not everyone agrees they’re right. The soil-first ethos requires a leap of faith: to proponents, the benefits are tangible, but they’re in the eye of the beholder. The difference they describe can be observed, even tasted, in spite of the fact that it’s not necessarily measurable by the scientific methods currently in use.
The trouble is that not everyone agrees that this advantage exists. According to California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), a trade group representing organic growers within the state, “hydroponic systems are not inherently better or worse than in-ground systems.” For CCOF, it’s the more, the merrier—each approach has its pros and cons, but they’re all essentially the same thing.
Coleman has a response to that: “The whole process of certifying organics is a scam to begin with,” he says, “because the certifiers only get paid if they certify something.” In other words, in his view, the certifiers themselves have an incentive to establish a big tent.
But hydroponic growers like Karen Archipley argue that attempts to keep the soil in “organic” are not an attempt to spread the wealth, but to hoard it. In her view, the old guard’s stance is inherently undemocratic, an attitude that confines organic—and the economic benefit it confers—to a group of people who have access to farmland (increasingly an expensive luxury) in the first place.
Hydroponics, according to Colin, make “it more financially feasible for small-scale growers to make a business…. [C]ommunities in the urban environment, who have been disenfranchised from the agriculture community, can now participate.”
For his part, Coleman says that’s a stretch.
For some, a multi-pronged, diversified approach to organic is the only feasible way forward
“How does a million dollar greenhouse allow people entry?” he says. “You can do what I do with a hoe, rake, seeds. All you need is a little piece of land. Talk about ‘allowing people entry’! Imagine all the peasant farmers being told ‘you’d have better access to food if only you built this million dollar greenhouse.’”
Part of what was surely painful about the vote in Jacksonville was the sense of how far the organic community—regardless of approach—still has to go to reach mainstream acceptance. Even as the word “organic” itself has proven to have demonstrable marketing power, the fact is thatonly 1 percent of U.S. farmland is certified organic. For all its cultural success, the organic industry is still in its economic infancy.
And for some, that means a multi-pronged, diversified approach to organic is the only feasible way forward. LaRocca says that one of CCOF’s slogans has been “Make Organics the Norm”—and he feels that the only way to do that is to proceed by any means necessary, as long as the essential spirit of the movement is kept intact.
For Karen Archipley, putting limits on organic amounts to a larger failure of imagination about what the label can do and be, a way of squelching upstarts who may actually have some pretty good ideas—if only the old guys would listen.
And there you have it, the two sides of this debate.
“Why wouldn’t we encourage innovation in farming, and especially as old as this innovation is?” says Karen. “Can you imagine if Timex tried to fight the Rolex coming out, or if Timex and Rolex could try to fight the iPhone or any smartphone from having time? That’s the difference. [They’re] really trying to stop the current and I don’t understand why anyone would do that. Why wouldn’t we try to encourage this next generation of growers and say, ‘let us show you good practices?’”
Last year, at the New York Times’ “Food for Tomorrow” conference, two unlikely antagonists sat beside each other on the stage. On one side was Dan Barber, the Blue Hill chef who, perhaps more than other modern culinary master, has promoted a vision for agriculture that mimics and mirrors nature. His book The Third Plate celebrates farmers who don’t merely grow food but “grow nature”—harnessing the power of dynamic, diversified ecosystems in the pursuit of maximum health, sustainability, and taste.
On the other side, you had Kimbal Musk, the cowboy-hatted, denim-clad brother of Elon, a venture capitalist with a sustainable food fetish—and a major investor in Square Roots, a vertical farm startup launching miniature vertical farms inside low-cost, portable shipping containers. After he finished enumerating the economic and sustainability benefits, Barber answered with a simple rejoinder:
Stories related to the National Organic Standards Board:
As no-soil systems take root, “organic” reckons with its earthbound past
Can soil-free farms ever be organic?
Organic industry watchdog calls for independent investigation of USDA organic program
Carrageenan: The missing ingredient
“It’s not making me hungry,” he said.
And there you have it, the two sides of this debate. One approach is rooted in place, and tradition, and terroir—in the belief that old-school farming, based in soil, not only tastes better but satisfies deeper human appetites, a form of stewardship that transcends the pursuit of profit. On the other hand are those who have tired of the old approaches to that, who feel that existing approaches to sustainable agriculture, for their virtues, have failed to become the norm. They’re united in a desire to bring better farming to as many people as possible, and make some money at it—even if it means fundamentally reorganizing our relationship with the land, and cloistering much of agricultural production behind closed doors.
This drama is going to continue to play out. But it’s a reminder that this argument—the fact that people care, and care so deeply—is a sign of organic’s ascent, one indication that the revolution started by what Coleman calls “a bunch of old hippies” has made a lasting impression on the culture. Maybe the current tangle, involving the pioneers who built the organic movement now threatening to abandon it, is a very natural—if also very painful—by-product of that. It’s the growing pains that inevitably come alongside success. The revolution after the revolution, perhaps.
On and on it goes, indeed.
FARMHYDROPONICSNATIONAL ORGANIC STANDARDS BOARDORGANICORGANIPONICUSDA
Joe Fassler is New Food Economy's senior editor. His food safety and public health reporting has been a finalist for the James Beard Foundation Award in Journalism. Follow him @joefassler.
Kate Cox is editor of the New Food Economy. In her former life, she was a freelance health policy reporter for radio and text. Follow her @thekatecox
FreshBox Farms’ CEO Welcomes Organic Ruling, but...
FreshBox Farms’ CEO Welcomes Organic Ruling, but...
Vertical farm innovator says that more consumers are looking “beyond organic” and choosing crops grown without soil
This week, the National Organic Standards Board finally made a decision on one of the most divisive issues in the organic world: should crops grown in water, containers, or otherwise not in the ground be allowed to call themselves organic?
The decision: hydroponic and container gardens will remain eligible for organic certification.
Sonia Lo, CEO of FreshBox Farms, the nation’s largest modular vertical farm, welcomes the new ruling, but notes that consumers already are moving “beyond organic.”
FreshBox Farms uses sustainable growing enclosures that use no soil, very little water, a rigorously-tested nutrient mix and LED lighting to produce the freshest, cleanest, tastiest produce possible. FreshBox Farms’ non-GMO certified products go from harvest to the grocer’s produce section in hours, rather than days.
Lo notes that FreshBox Farms yields are better without organic nutrient use, so the Millis-based farm is not impacted by the ruling. “As organic nutrients for hydroponics become more developed, we will, of course, consider using them.”
She points out, however, that consumers are quickly learning a distinction between organic field-grown greens and non-organic indoor-grown greens, what the industry calls Beyond Organic. “And we see that consumers ARE making the Beyond Organic choice.”
“We predict three categories will move forward - field grown organic, Beyond Organic hydroponic, and organic hydroponic."
Sonia can explain why consumers are choosing greens grown indoors, why this field is growing (*no pun intended) and how FreshBox Farms' template farm is among the nation's most efficient.
Organic Hydroponics At The Grocery Store. What Are Those, Anyway?
While proponents of vertical farming rejoice, organic farmers who pioneered the movement are crestfallen (just see this eulogy from Radiance Dairy founder Francis Thicke). People are split on whether or not the decision a good idea, but pretty much everyone who cares agrees it’s a big deal.
Organic Hydroponics At The Grocery Store. What Are Those, Anyway?
November 8th, 2017
by New Food Economy
Last week, we published what felt like a 2,700-word magnum opus on the contentious vote that capped decades of debate: the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) decision to continue granting organic certification to hydroponic and aquaponic farms. It’s a story some have followed with intense interest, judging from the comments we received and the ongoing conversations we’ve seen on various ag-interested message boards.
While proponents of vertical farming rejoice, organic farmers who pioneered the movement are crestfallen (just see this eulogy from Radiance Dairy founder Francis Thicke). People are split on whether or note the decision a good idea, but pretty much everyone who cares agrees it’s a big deal.
If you didn’t read the piece, we get it. Not everyone’s down for a #longread on the finer points of ag policy, especially one with a decades-long backstory and lots of technical lingo. But make no mistake, the vote is going to shape the perception of that famous, green organic seal, and that has implications for consumer choice, the environment, and the prices we pay at the supermarket.
So, to shorthand what exactly went down at the National Organic Standards Board last week, and what it means for the future of organic certification, we’ve created this handy, pocket-sized primer.
FARM
Making The Case for Hydroponics and Aquaponics as USDA Organic Certified
Making The Case for Hydroponics and Aquaponics as USDA Organic Certified
A look back at how the Coalition for Sustainable Organics has worked to keep hydroponics and aquaponics as USDA organic-certified production methods.
Originally published in Issue 14, July 2016
Organic hydroponic and aquaponic growers are waiting for the results of a National Organic Program task force report which is scheduled for release this month. Members of the NOP Organic Hydroponic and Aquaponic Task Force were appointed last fall to examine hydroponic and aquaponic production practices and their alignment with USDA organic regulations. The task force includes members who are USDA organically-certified hydroponic growers.
Hydroponic and aquaponic growers are concerned that the report may contribute to the overturning of the long-standing USDA policy to certify their operations. The reason for this concern is that there is an effort by some field growers to stop the organic certification of hydroponic and aquaponic growers by USDA.
Photos courtesy of Coalition for Sustainable Organics
Lee Frankel, executive director of Coalition for Sustainable Organics, said the organization was formed in March 2016 to give growers a platform to preserve their ability to choose the most appropriate growing method, including those where the plant is not grown in the outer crust of the Earth, to meet their site-specific conditions when producing organically.
“The coalition members believe that sustainability and using natural inputs are the pillars of the organic philosophy and movement,” he said. “For instance, some of the initial members are from Arizona and southern California, where water availability is a major issue. Being able to grow hydroponically helps these growers use up to 10 times less water to be more sustainable.”
The coalition currently has 35 members and includes growers from the United States, Mexico and Canada. Some of these organic growers produce in the field as well as hydroponically.
Frankel said the supply of organic products is becoming more international.
“Nearly one-third of all USDA-certified operations are now outside the United States,” he said. “USDA sets the standards and determines what inputs can and cannot be used, regardless of country or method of production. USDA then accredits certifiers to inspect operations around the world.
“Opponents have cited the fact that there are a number of other countries that have a ban on hydroponic organic products. But if you examine the matter more closely, the issue is often a question of semantics. For example, growers in Canada and even in some of the Nordic countries in the European Union can grow organically in containers despite a ban on hydroponics in their regulations.”
Opposition to hydroponic, aquaponic production
Frankel said one of the main opposition groups pushing for the changes in USDA organic rules is Keep the Soil in Organic. The spokesperson for the group is David Chapman, who operates Long Wind Farmin Vermont. Chapman is a member of the NOP Organic Hydroponic and Aquaponic Task Force.
“Other groups that have spoken out against hydroponic organic production include many of the organic trade associations and organic certifiers in the northeastern part of the United States,” said Frankel. “Some of the certifiers have been working with field growers for a long time so they feel it is in their best interest to support their current customers.”
Using hydroponic production methods has allowed some organic growers to use up to 10 times less water and to be more sustainable.
While there is a philosophical debate as to what organic growing does or does not mean, Frankel said there is also an economic component.
“Retailers and consumers are voting with their pocketbooks,” he said. “They appreciate a variety of flavorful and available hydroponic and aquaponic organic products on a consistent basis that meet their expectations for produce grown without synthetic pesticides.
“Sustainability and economics go hand in hand. As inputs are reduced, seasons are extended and yields are increased, enabling growers to reduce their costs.”
Frankel said another benefit to growing in containers is that it is really scale neutral.
“It allows for people who are just getting started, who were not fortunate enough to inherit a family farm or are in urban areas with high land costs, to be able to grow organically,” he said.
Changes to current standards
Frankel said USDA selected members for the NOP task force from a cross-section of people in the organic industry. They represent a broad range of technical expertise, knowledge and philosophies to examine the current regulations.
“These people were tasked with helping clarify the regulatory issues and to describe the current technologies in use,” he said. “I expect that the task force will describe how container, hydroponic and aquaponic production systems operate, how they meet the current standards and identify different interpretations of the regulations.
“The task force is not technically supposed to make recommendations. The task force is analyzing whether the production technologies used today meet current USDA regulations, standards and laws. The task force will also determine whether any areas within those regulations may need to be updated, revised or defined based on their findings.”
The Coalition for Sustainable Organics includes growers from the United States, Mexico and Canada. Some of these organic growers produce in the field as well as hydroponically in greenhouses.
Frankel said once the report is released, the National Organics Standards Board will study the document and determine if it would like to recommend changes to the current regulations. NOSB has traditionally sought input and testimony from the organic industry prior to making recommendations on any proposed changes or modifications.
“If NOSB votes to forward recommendations to USDA, USDA would then translate those recommendations into formal proposed regulations and open them up to public comment,” he said. “USDA would then respond and would incorporate meaningful comments into the final rule.”
Time for growers to respond
Frankel said release of the task force report will be another opportunity for hydroponic growers to tell their story to prevent NOSB from starting the process to push the growers out of the organic market.
“Organic-certified hydroponic and aquaponic growers need to make a case about the validity of what they are doing,” he said. “In addition to their production methods being thousands of years old, USDA has long recognized the legitimacy of these systems. The systems have helped to grow demand for organics while reducing inputs and opening the market for new growers.
“Most critically from a philosophical perspective, these production systems use the same biological processes as those of organic field growers.”
Frankel said growers have a number of ways of bringing attention to their rightful place in the organic industry.
“Growers need to participate in the all-important public comment periods in the rulemaking process,” he said. “Growers can have their retail customers share their stories through company newsletters. Highlighting growing operations with CSAs (community supported agriculture) or reaching out to the local press can help spread a common message while building a grower’s own business. Hosting farm visits is often the easiest way to directly show how a grower’s operation is following the organic principles of cycling nutrients, eliminating synthetic pesticides and conserving resources such as land and water.”
Frankel said these farm visits for fellow growers, certifiers, elected officials, trade association staff, USDA officials and even NOSB members have proven to be an effective method to dispel any misconceptions spread by opponents of these organic production systems.
“From the coalition’s point of view, everyone deserves organics,” he said. “Containers are an integral part of a more resilient production system that allows for growers of all sizes and economic backgrounds to produce organic products that an increasing number of consumers are demanding.”
For more: Coalition for Sustainable Organics,
(619) 587 45341
info@coalitionforsustainableorganics.org; http://coalitionforsustainableorganics.org.
David Kuack is a freelance technical writer in Fort Worth, Texas; dkuack@gmail.com.
NOSB Votes To Continue to Allow Hydroponics Under US National Organic Program
NOSB VOTES TO CONTINUE TO ALLOW HYDROPONICS UNDER US NATIONAL ORGANIC PROGRAM
November 4, 2017 JIM MANSON
The National Organic Standards Board, the industry body that advises the US Secretary of Agriculture on organic standards, has voted to allow some crops grown hydroponically to continue to be labeled organic under the National Organic Program (NOP).
The controversial decision follows two lengthy consultations on the subject and is set against a backdrop of nationwide protests against the inclusion of hydroponics and other non-soil growing techniques in organic standards.
Many organic farmers in America argue that managing soil biology and protecting soil health are founding principles of organic systems, and that hydroponics – which uses mineral nutrient solutions in place of soil – should be entirely excluded from organic systems.
But supporters of hydroponics say that soil-less systems allow for the production of ‘clean foods’ – they exclude the use of pesticides and herbicides – in environmentally sustainable ways. And they say that by embracing innovative technologies hydroponics makes organic food available to more people.
At this week’s highly anticipated NOSB meeting, the board voted to prohibit aeroponic farming – where plants are suspended in the air with their roots exposed – but allow hydroponic and aquaponic systems to continue to labeled organic under the NOP.
There were passionate submissions from both sides of the argument during the 13 hour session, and angry reactions from some farmers – the group Keep The Soil Organic, which recently held a series of nationwide rallies ahead of the meeting, had a strong presence in the room.
One stakeholder said: “We are tricking and deceiving consumers with organic hydroponics, and large corporations are just chasing and riding the coattails of the organic label. Hydroponic is a shortcut, and these methods have been wrongly certified. Container and hydroponics don’t have to wait three years to be certified.” Another noted dryly that “conventional farmers are beginning to talk about soil health and now organic is talking about growing without the soil.”
A report by US industry website newhope360.com recorded that a representative of IFOAM EU had “traveled 20 hours to submit evidence give a three-minute comment to rally against soilless organic production” and “suggested their inclusion could encourage IFOAM to urge renegotiation of the equivalency agreement between the EU and US.”
FEATURED, HYDROPONICS, NOSB, ORGANIC, US
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jim Manson
Writer & Editor
Jim Manson is editor-in-chief of Diversified Communications UK‘s natural and organic publishing portfolio. He’s written widely on environment and development issues for specialist magazines and national media, including the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, and World Bank Urban Age
No Changes to Organic Standards For Containers, Hydroponics and Aquaponics
No Changes to Organic Standards For Containers, Hydroponics and Aquaponics
NOVEMBER 2, 2017 URBAN AG NEWS
National Organic Standards Board Rejects Recommendation to Remove Container, Hydroponic and Aquaponic Production Methods from Eligibility for USDA Organic Certification.
The members of the NOSB voted on Wednesday by a margin of 8 to 7 to reject the proposals to make Hydroponic and Aquaponic production methods prohibited practices under the USDA organic standards. In addition, the NOSB rejected the proposal by a vote of 8 to 7 to create prescriptive nitrogen ratio requirements and to limit delivery of nutrients through irrigation systems in other container production systems. The proposed definition of hydroponics was any system in a container (roots of a plant not in the outer crust of the Earth) that does not have at least 50 percent of the nitrogen needs of the plant in the container before planting and that no more than 20 percent of nitrogen needs are delivered through the irrigation system, watering cans or in a liquid form.
The NOSB did vote to make aeroponics a prohibited practice by a vote of 14 in favor of the ban with 1 member abstaining from the vote. This recommendation will now go to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Given that the NOSB is technically a Federal Advisory Committee, the staff of the National Organic Program and other USDA officials will determine if the USDA will begin formal rulemaking to modify the existing USDA organic standards. The USDA typically will move forward with rule making or return the proposal for additional clarification. Only after a public comment period and regulatory review would the proposal convert into a regulation.
Greenhouse production practices to be discussed on Thursday by NOSB
The NOSB will begin discussions on the need to create modifications to the standards regarding the use of artificial light, the composting and disposal of green waste and substrate after a production cycle, requirements to recycle containers, and the use of plastic mulches and weed cloth in greenhouse and container operations. No votes are scheduled for these topics.
CSO thanks all growers who contributed their views through written or oral testimony
The CSO wishes to express its gratitude to the roughly 70 producers from all sides of the issue who delivered oral comments and the hundreds of individuals that submitted written comments. The Coalition especially appreciates the time of the many growers who volunteered their time to help educate members of the NOSB and the organic community. Ultimately, both the quantity and quality of the voices explaining the importance of preserving the rights of growers to determine the most appropriate growing method for their site-specific conditions led to this mostly positive outcome.
What happens next?
The vote did not resolve the long-standing issue of the lack of consistency in how accredited auditors review the farms and production facilities of growers that incorporate containers in their systems. The members of the NOSB and the USDA NOP staff will determine in the coming hours, days and weeks if there is value in continuing work on proposed regulations that would impact other aspects of greenhouse and container production systems. The CSO will be there to protect your interests.
Everyone deserves organics
The most viable option to achieve this goal is to use all certified systems and scales of production, not to kick certain growing practices out of the industry. The organic industry should embrace and promote diversity rather than stifle it. Organic production should not be limited to annual crops grown in temperate climates with high rainfall and killing freezes in the winter. The NOSB should be ensuring that organic rules do not arbitrarily discriminate against production in urban, desert, or tropical areas, nor should they exclude other systems that use containers and greenhouses. We should trust growers to make their own determination to know when growing in the soil or in containers make the most sense for the protection of the consumer and the ecology we all share.
What Do Indoor Farming CEOs Think of Hydroponics Organic Approval?
Last week the National Organic Safety Board (NOSB), the body tasked with making recommendations to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) around its organic certification, rejected a proposal that would disallow hydroponic and aquaponic farms from being certified organic.
What Do Indoor Farming CEOs Think of Hydroponics Organic Approval?
NOVEMBER 8, 2017 EMMA COSGROVE
Last week the National Organic Safety Board (NOSB), the body tasked with making recommendations to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) around its organic certification, rejected a proposal that would disallow hydroponic and aquaponic farms from being certified organic.
Hydroponic farms grow fruit and vegetables in a growing medium submerged in water, through which farmers provide nutrients. Aquaponic farmers use connected aquaculture operations to provide these nutrients.
In 2010 the NOSB voted to exclude “soilless” forms of growing, but the USDA decided not to take the recommendation, continuing to allow hydroponic farms to be certified and leading to a period of uncertainty on the subject.
Some 100 hydroponic farms have been certified over the years inside and out of the United States (there are USDA organic approved certifiers all over the world). But the ambivalence on the part of the USDA and according to one certifier, often true belief in a soil-based standard, led many certifiers to stay out of that game.
Ryan Brouillard, crop and livestock certification manager at Quality Certification Services (QCS) in Florida, which does certify hydroponic and aquaponic farms told AgFunderNews in August, “We see it as a useful and productive agricultural system and there is a lot of demand for organic hydroponics. Other certifiers look at the rules as written and see that it is a soil-based standard so I can see where they are coming from too.”
This ruling offers some clarity on the matter, but the NOSB’s recommendations do not automatically change the USDA’s rules as past events have proven. Last year the Cornucopia Institute filed a complaint with the USDA for allowing USDA Organic certifications to be granted to farms despite the NOSB’s 2010 recommendation. The Cornucopia Institute also lodged a petition to exclude hydroponics from USDA organic standards in just one of many actions to avoid the November 1 result.
From one angle, this ruling is simply bringing the NOSB in line with what the USDA has already been practicing. In fact, the farm policy director of the Organic Trade Association said that the decision was maintaining the status quo. But, the reaction from the originators of the quite young National Organic Program, which was finalized only in 2000, has been heated.
Objectors to including hydroponics in the organic certification argue that the standard was created to maintain the health of the soil, which is harmed by conventional pesticides. They feel that soilless growing systems are incompatible with this purpose and should, therefore, be disqualified from the certification.
Notably, the NOSB is made up of 15 members appointed to a five-year term by the Secretary of Agriculture. Of the 15, four are organic farmers, two are organic processors and packers, one operates an organic retailer, three are environmental conservation experts, three represent consumer interest groups one is a toxicologist, and one is a USDA accredited certifier.
One outgoing member of the board wrote on The Cornucopia Insitute’s website that the organic industry had begun to wield more influence that organic farmers over the board’s actions and makeup.
What do Indoor Farmers think?
Indoor farmers argue that growing hydroponically is decreasing the amount of pesticides, even organic-approved pesticides, going into the soil, along with drastically decreasing water use compared to organic field farming – and is therefore congruous with the intent of the original National Organic Program.
Irving Fain, CEO of Bowery Farming, a high-tech indoor farming operation in Kearny, New Jersey says that the NOSB’s previous standards were simply out of date with modern agriculture.
“The NOSB’s previous definition of organic was written at a time when the technology that is available today simply did not exist, so it is appropriate to recognize that today’s produce does not have to be grown in a field to meet the highest quality standards,” he said.
Fain’s company frequently uses the term “post-organic” in its marketing, claiming that because Bowery’s process requires no pesticides, it is superior to the organic standard, which allows approved pesticides.
Bowery Farming, which has raised a total of $27.5 million from tech VCs General Catalyst and GGV Capital, and GV (Google Ventures), is unique in that it does not commit to one growing technology. The company uses multiple hydroponic configurations in their Kearny farm, the common link between them being a smart monitoring and controls system called “Bowery OS” developed in-house.
Though Bowery is eligible for organic certification, Fain says that he won’t be seeking it soon.
“Organic certification is not a priority for us right now as we’re currently growing fully traceable, post-organic produce,” he said.
High-tech hydroponic grower Plenty, which raised a record-breaking $200 million this past summer from Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund among other investors, is taking the opposite tack.
Though Plenty’s South San Francisco farm is not selling produce yet, the facility is already certified organic and the plan is to certify each new facility – the company just announced its second farm will be outside of Seattle.
“Organic farmers are diverse in our production systems, but we are united in our values, priorities, and practices. We are pleased that the NOSB has put this debate to rest and confirmed that hydroponic systems have been and will continue to be excellent suppliers of USDA certified organic products,” said Plenty CEO Matt Barnard.
Hydroponics is in… What’s Out?
In addition to formally ruling hydroponics and aquaponics in, the board also ruled aeroponics, growing plants with the roots dangling in a mist environment from which they receive water and nutrition, out. Technically aeroponics is a form of hydroponics since water is the primary delivery system for the plants’ nutrition, but the NOSB makes a clear distinction.
New Jersey-based AeroFarms, which recently closed its Series D round at $40 million, is an aeroponic farm and CEO David Rosenberg is dissatisfied with the way the NOSB has framed this decision.
“Regulators and standard-makers should be performance-based and not prescription-based. The performance standards should look at what goes into the plants and what ends up on the plants… Making a distinction between aeroponics and hydroponics discredits the process of making standards around organics and highlights how commercially-driven decisions are made. If a party can deliver to a standard of performance, it should not matter if the nutrients were delivered as a spray versus a pool of water,” said Rosenberg.
The CEO said that AeroFarms has not and is not seeking organic certification, but that he would like to see “a fair set of standards and would like to have confidence in a process. I would hope that the bodies that make these decisions appreciate how commercially driven decisions hurt credibility and ultimately drive people away from the organic certification.“
Of course, the USDA could choose to go its own way on this standard too and act against the NOSB’s recommendation to disqualify farms like AeroFarms, but with zero aeroponic farms certified to date and more than 100 hydroponic farms certified, another departure by the USDA from NOSB recommendations is perhaps less likely.
Big Win For Indoor Farming: Hydroponics Can Be Certified Organic
Big Win For Indoor Farming: Hydroponics Can Be Certified Organic
November 2, 2017
Statement of Jack Griffin, President, Metropolis Farms on Action by the National Organic Standards Board.
I want to congratulate the National Organic Standards Board for reaching the correct decision to continue to allow produce from hydroponic farms to be certified organic.
The bottom line is, indoor hydroponic agriculture is good for the environment; it’s good for consumers, and it’s good for farmers.
Yesterday, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) rejected a proposal developed by the organization’s Crop Subcommittee that would exclude hydroponics from organic certification. The vote was held during NOSB’s semiannual meeting in Jacksonville, Florida. The NOSB typically meets twice per year in various locations around the United States.
In comments filed with the NOSB and the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), Griffin cited report language provided by the FY2018 House Agricultural Appropriations bill, H.R. 3268, which recognized urban hydroponic farms among the non-traditional methods of agricultural production (which) have the potential to reduce the use of water and pesticides, improve yields for particular crops, serve lower-income populations, and provide year-round crops at the local level.
About Metropolis Farms Metropolis Farms is a technology company changing the vertical farming industry. Metropolis Farms has created affordable outdoor and indoor vertical farming systems that can grow anything and empowers farmers to start a profitable year-round local farm, regardless of location. The system lowers costs with dramatically reduced use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, water, machinery, and energy.
For more information, contact Dave Juday (202) 251-6320
About NOSB The NOSB is a Federal Advisory Board which considers and makes recommendations on a wide range of issues involving the production, handling, and processing of organic products. The Board’s role is to assist the USDA in the development of standards and advise the Secretary of Agriculture on any other aspects of the implementation of Organic Foods Production Act of 1990. www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/organic/nosb
A Growing Battle in The $47 Billion Organic Food Industry Could Fundamentally Change The Program — And Some Farmers Are Worried
A Growing Battle in The $47 Billion Organic Food Industry Could Fundamentally Change The Program — And Some Farmers Are Worried
A display of WindowFarms hydroponic growing system. AMNH\R. Mickens
The National Organic Standards Board, an advisory committee to the US Department of Agriculture, voted to allow some crops grown hydroponically and aquaponically to have organic labels.
- Organic food sales totaled $47 billion in the US in 2016.
- Some traditional organic farmers are threatening to leave the NOSB, the program they helped create, over the controversial vote.
The United States organic industry — whose 2016 sales totaled around $47 billion — is facing a battle between traditional farmers and high-tech producers.
In recent years, hydroponic, aquaponic, and aeroponic farms — which grow produce in nutrient-rich solution without soil, often indoors — have boomed. Some of these businesses have been granted the organic label for their products.
But that trend has dismayed some traditional farmers, who argue that allowing non-soil producers to label their food organic weakens the integrity of the program. True organic farming, they say, requires nurturing, natural soil.
But in a series of close votes on Wednesday night, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), an advisory committee to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), voted to allow the majority of these high-tech operators to stay in the National Organic Program. The decision creates an organics standard for non-soil farming, which did not exist previously.
Dave Chapman, a longtime organic tomato farmer in Vermont, is not happy with the decision, which he calls a "tragic failure."
"The National Organic Program has failed at the very thing it was created to do: creating trust and transparency between organic farmers and eaters," he told Business Insider in a statement. "After a publicized series of failures in defending organic integrity, the Organic Program's Advisory Board decision to embrace hydroponic production as the 'new organic' is the final straw."
Chapman said he is considering leaving the program. He and other critics of the board's decision say that hydroponic farming does not meet the USDA's definition of organic due to its lack of soil.
Organic traditionalists point to the ideas of Albert Howard, an English botanist who inspired the organic farming movement. In 1940, Howard wrote that "the health of soil, plant, animal and man is one and indivisible."
Inside Plenty, a Silicon Valley-based urban farming startup that scored the largest ag-tech investment in history. Plenty
Lisa Stokke, cofounder of farmer advocacy group Food Democracy Now said in a statement that the USDA's definition "reflects the beliefs of the international organic movement."
"To suggest calling hydroponic 'organic' is to completely misunderstand the meaning of organic," she addd.
But hydroponig growers argue that they're growing what consumers expect from the organic label: crops produced without synthetic pesticides.
Plenty, a California-based hydroponic farming company, gained organic certification earlier this year. Matt Barnard, the company's CEO, told Business Insider that he was pleased with the NOSB's vote.
"We are growing fresh fruits and vegetables that are as organic as any other method," he said. "People have spent 35 years understanding what 'organic' is, which is a long time. We, as a business, did not feel it would've been fair or equitable to cause a just-as-organic farming operation to have to explain to people something as convoluted as 'Oh, it's just as organic as ... but not organic.' That would've cost us an amount of money and years that we don't have the budget for."
Organic farmers who grow their crops in soil participate in a protest in Stowe, Vermont, in 2015. AP Images
The NOSB issued its recommendation in four parts. It voted to allow hydroponic systems, which grow plants in water-based nutrients, as well as aquaponics, which combine hydroponic systems with fish farms, to remain in the Organics Program.
The committee chose not to tighten its rules on container growing, a type of hydroponic agriculture that grows crops in a solution made of water, nutrients, and organic matter. Several large organic berry growers, including Driscoll’s and Wholesum Harvest, have implemented container growing.
But aeroponic farming — which grows plants suspended in the air with exposed roots — will be kicked out.
Overall, the decision may signal a new direction for the organic industry, since it will include farmers who don't produce crops in fields.
But some pioneers of the sustainable farming movement believe the vote could splinter the organics industry.
"At the very time that we most need the leadership of the organic community, the corporations have completed a hostile takeover of the National Organic Program," Chapman said. "We will have to start again."
NOW WATCH: A nutritionist explains which foods you should buy organically
National Organic Standards Board Decrees That Hydroponic Can Be Organic
National Organic Standards Board Decrees That Hydroponic Can Be Organic
By Dan Nosowitz on November 2, 2017
A row of hydroponic greens | Aqua Mechanical onFlickr
On November 1st, the National Organic Standards Board finally made a decision on one of the most divisive issues in the organic world: should crops grown in water, containers, or otherwise not in the ground be allowed to call themselves organic?
The decision is thus: hydroponic and container gardens will remain eligible for organic certification.
This is a debate that’s much more complicated than it seems. Hydroponics and other types of high-tech farming get a lot of attention, most of it positive, for utilizing spaces that previously couldn’t house farms (abandoned factories, shipping containers, that kind of thing). They can potentially be very energy-efficient and reduce water usage. And there’s rarely a need for pesticides at all, since many of these operations are indoors.
Among those pleased with the decision is the Recirculating Farms Coalition, a group of eco-conscious high-tech farmers and innovators. “By siding with current science and recognizing that existing law purposely leaves the door open for various farming methods, the NOSB is sending a critical message that sustainability and innovation are valuable in U.S. agriculture,” wrote RFC executive director Marianne Cufone in a release.
But many of the farmers who were behind the original push for an organic certification program are vehemently opposed, and it’s not because of groups like the RFC. Two main groups benefit from hydroponic farms being able to get organic certification (and thus charge much more for their wares): techie farmers, like those Cufone represents, and large agribusiness firms. Those firms, which include Driscoll’s and Wholesum Harvest, operate gigantic hydroponic operations for their organic food, and many organic activists, like the Cornucopia Institute, see those as a cheap and easy way to charge a premium without actually doing any of the stuff the organic program is really about.
At its core, say those activists, organic food is about an entire ecosystem: taking care of the soil, recharging nutrients with crop rotation, providing for natural pollinators and pest control. It is a way for farming, which can often be ecologically destructive, to work with the planet. And massive hydroponic and container operations like Driscoll’s do not do that: they are willfully separate from the environment. They do not contribute to soil health (partly because they don’t use soil) nor to the overall health of the natural world. For their part, those companies say that they follow the rules in terms of pesticide use and therefore should be allowed to use the label. Organic activists say this is a loophole—a way to get the big bucks an organic label can secure by following the letter, rather than the spirit, of the law.
In some ways, it’s an unfortunate debate, because it pits people against each other who have many of the same goals in mind. Organic activists and small hydroponic farmers both want to grow food sustainably, at their core. But, as with most of the agricultural developments during the current administration, this decision isn’t about small farmers.
It may seem like a small thing, allowing hydroponics to call themselves organic. But to many organic farmers, this is a total perversion of what the term is supposed to mean and achieve. What’s the point of following all of these expensive and difficult planet-saving rules if a huge corporation can just build a factory and undercut your prices with a product that doesn’t work toward the same goals?
USDA Advisory Panel Rejects Proposal To Bar Hydroponics in Organic Production
USDA Advisory Panel Rejects Proposal To Bar Hydroponics in Organic Production
11/02/17 12:11 AM By Daniel Enoch
KEYWORDS AEROPONICS AQUAPONICS CORNUCOPIA HYDROPONIC MOTION NOSB ORGANIC ORGANIC TRADE ASSOCIATION OTA SONNY PERDUE
WASHINGTON, Nov. 2, 2017 - The National Organic Standards Board on Wednesday rejected a proposal to prohibit hydroponics in organic production, as defined by the board’s subcommittee on crops, disappointing growers who want organic certification restricted to crops grown in soil.
The vote was held during NOSB’s semiannual meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, after two full days of stakeholder comment, mostly by supporters and opponents of hydroponic farming.
The 15-member board – an advisory panel to USDA -- also rejected a motion to prohibit aquaponics, a system for farming fish and plants together in a mutually beneficial cycle, while approving a proposal to withhold the organic label for aeroponics, or crops grown in an air-mist environment. Organic certification allows producers to sell their products at premium prices.
The recommendation that was approved – prohibiting aeroponics in organic production – now goes to USDA, where Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue could make a final decision. A source says the value of crops grown aeroponically is minimal.
Still, the results of the voting could further widen the divide between purists, like the Cornucopia Institute, which rejects any move to break the nexus between crops and soil, and the more mainstream organic community, as represented by the Organic Trade Association, which brags of organic food sales reaching $43 billion last year, the first time the market had topped the $40 billion mark.
In comments to the NOSB on Monday, Cornucopia’s co-founder, Mark Kastel, cited the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990. “OFPA is clear,” he said, according to a tweet on Cornucopia’s website. “Careful ‘fostering of soil fertility’ is required by the law. You can’t nurture soil fertility without … Soil! This is your chance to protect the true meaning of organics rather than making it a mere marketing slogan.”
Maggie McNeil, a spokeswoman for OTA, said the association would have no immediate comment on the results of the voting.
In comments provided to NOSB on Oct. 11, OTA said it disagrees with the crop subcommittee definition of hydroponics: “Any container production system that does not meet the standard of a limit of 20 percent of the plants’ nitrogen requirement being supplied by liquid feeding, and a limit 50 percent of the plants’ nitrogen requirement added to the container after the crop has been planted.”
OTA said it appreciates the challenge the board faced in “accurately defining types of operations along the soil-less growing spectrum,” while recognizing that the “inconsistent use of terms, due to a lack of final definitions, has led to confusion and further controversy in this discussion.
“However, we do not support defining a particular type of production by what it is NOT, particularly when NOSB is also proposing to prohibit that type of production. Instead, OTA suggests CS retain the definition accepted by NOSB in 2010: The production of normally terrestrial, vascular plants in nutrient rich solutions or in an inert, porous, solid matrix bathed in nutrient rich solutions.”
Meanwhile, the Recirculating Farms Coalition welcomed the results of the NOSB voting.
“We’re very pleased that the NOSB voted not to prohibit hydroponic and aquaponic farms from USDA Organic certification,” said Marianne Cufone, RCP’s executive director. “Many products from these farms already carry a USDA Organic label and to now withdraw that would be irresponsible and confusing for consumers and farmers.”
“By siding with current science and recognizing that existing law purposely leaves the door open for various farming methods, the NOSB is sending a critical message that sustainability and innovation are valuable in U.S. agriculture. These goals are at the center of the nationwide local food movement and spur growth of urban and rural farms alike, by a wide range of people. Inclusiveness is important in our food system.”
The Recirculating Farms Coalition is a collaborative group of farmers, educators, non-profit organizations and many others committed to building local sources of healthy, accessible food.
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Can Food Still Be Organic If It's Grown Without Soil?
Can Food Still Be Organic If It's Grown Without Soil?
'Dirt first' traditionalists are fighting with supporters of soil-less agriculture over the ‘organics’ label. Climate and sustainability are central to the debate.
NOV 1, 2017
Both sides of the debate argue that their methods of organic farming have an increasingly important role to play in protecting the climate and building sustainability. Credit: Valcenteau/CC-BY-SA-2.0
A crucial battle in a long-brewing conflict over organic farming could come Wednesday as an influential government panel meets to discuss whether soil is an essential element of organic farming.
On one side: "Dirt first" traditionalists who say that fruits and vegetables must, by definition, be grown in soil to qualify as organic.
On the other: Agri-technophiles who say "controlled environment" methods like hydroponics and aeroponics are just as deserving, dirt or no dirt.
The debate over who deserves the U.S. Department of Agriculture's lucrative organic label comes amid broader challenges over the best way to feed a growing population on a warming, resource-challenged planet where most of the arable land is already used for agriculture.
Both sides are making forceful arguments that organic farming, with its focus on using natural substances and eschewing synthetics, has an increasingly important role to play in protecting the climate. Though vegetables grown in soil may look and taste like those grown in controlled environments—with their roots bathed in liquid solutions or stacked in towers—they may have very different carbon footprints.
"You're farming in a smaller space and with less resources and reduced shipping and refrigeration," said Marianne Cufone, executive director of the Recirculating Farms Coalition, which represents hydroponic and aquaponic farmers. "It seems to me it's one of the best ways to improve our situation when it comes to climate change and agriculture. To consolidate and grow up is smart."
But for traditional organic farmers, shifting resources and research dollars to soil-less forms of agriculture ignores the carbon-storing potential of soil-based agriculture and the energy footprint of growing crops indoors.
"By changing the way we farm the soil, we can improve the sequestration potential of the soil," said Jeff Moyer, executive director of the Rodale Institute, which has long advocated organic farming methods. "We know, globally, as we look at climate change solutions, the soil plays a huge role. Going indoors is not the solution."
Since the launch of the National Organic Program in 2000, the Agriculture Department has allowed hydroponics and other forms of soil-less or container-based agriculture under the organic label. But in recent years, organic farmers have pushed the National Organic Standards Board—the body that decides what practices are permitted under the organic label—to make an official decision on whether these agri-tech approaches count as organic.
The board's crops subcommittee is scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon to discuss it, and the full board could vote soon after.
Investment Pours in for Novel Techniques
The debate, which has festered for years, has become increasingly bitter over the last 12 months as more investment and interest has centered on these novel farming techniques, including a $200 million investment in the San Francisco-based start-up Plenty by tech-investment firm SoftBank Vision Fund. Plenty plans to build indoor vertical farms, where produce is grown in stacks under artificial light, outside 500 cities around the world, using technologies including remote sensing to gage growing conditions and artificial intelligence experts to translate data from the plants.
"We've seen a lot of new money coming into this," said Katelyn McCullock, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, American agriculture's largest trade group. "There's a lot of interest in this area and not from the sources we're used to seeing it from."
According to AgFunder, a start-up funder that also tracks investments in agriculture, investors have committed $285 million so far this year—including the Plenty investment—dwarfing investment last year, which saw $70 million, and 2015, which saw $53 million.
Meanwhile, sales of organics are booming, reaching a record $47 billion in the U.S. last year, and demand for organics is outstripping supply.
"Organic is obviously super popular, but there's gaining traction in other clean methods of farming," said Louisa-Burwood Taylor, a spokesperson for AgFunder. "When these companies can price their produce cheaper than organic and offer pesticide-free and clean, then I think you've got an interesting dynamic and competition to organic."
Who's More Climate-Friendly?
Traditional, soil-based organic farmers say that the competition shouldn't be allowed in the first place, noting that soil-less agriculture isn't permitted under the organic label in other countries, including Mexico, one of the U.S.'s biggest agricultural trading partners.
At rallies across the county, pro-soil advocates have demonstrated, with farmers holding homemade signs reading "Don't Water Down Organics with Hydroponics" and "Real Farmers Do it in the Dirt."
"There will be no sign warning the customers that this fauxganic food was grown without soil," the Keep the Soil in Organics coalition said in an appeal to supporters on its website. "And so we are in a final battle for the soul of the organic label."
Critics of controlled agriculture systems point out that, in order to simulate the sun, indoor farms consume huge amounts of electricity, negating possible climate benefits.
Even supporters acknowledge the high electricity demand is a downside. "It is an issue," conceded Sally Rockey, executive director of the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, which recently gave a $2 million grant to New Jersey-based AeroFarms, the country's largest vertical farm operator. "When you use electricity the way you have to in controlled environments, you want to take a look at what that means as far as your carbon footprint."
But, Rockey said, there are some appealing trade-offs. "Oftentimes we don't use pesticides because plants aren't exposed to air," she said, "and generally we use a lot less water."
Controlled environment farms can also be constructed near cities, potentially cutting down on emissions connected to transportation.
The pro-soil growers say, however, that the climate benefits, to the extent that there are any currently, are being overplayed by tech interests with deep pockets.
"We can mitigate emissions. We know that," said Moyer, who is a former head of the standards board. "They're using the story of climate change, but that's not the reason for their existence."
The other side, meanwhile, accuses the pro-soil camp of slinging mud to protect their lucrative market.
"If you have a method of growing that reduces stress on resources—like water, like space, like energy—that can produce healthy, good-quality food, maybe in more abundance and with more efficiency, why wouldn't you support that?" Cufone said. "The only reason I can think of is money."
What Does the Research Say?
So far, studies suggest that indoor agriculture consumes more energy than traditional soil-based farms. Researchers at Cornell University have examined the carbon footprint of an indoor hydroponics farm, operated in New York state, and compared its energy use to an outdoor farm in California. Factoring in the energy used to transport the produce from California to the East Coast, they found that the hydroponics operation used twice the energy.
"At least from an energy or carbon footprint standpoint, growing these produce items in our northerly climate, where we use a lot of light and fossil fuel for heating, you use twice the energy inputs versus field-grown. But that was the status quo technology for 2008," said Neil Mattson of Cornell's School of Integrative Plant Science. "We feel there's the ability to improve that by producers adopting more energy-efficient lighting and using renewable energy systems."
Beyond Cornell's research, studies comparing the climate benefits of traditional farming systems and controlled environments remain pretty thin. But the climate impacts of various farming methods are a growing conversation within the organics industry, and more research is underway.
"We're starting to get concerned that an assumption's being made that if you're not growing in the outer crust of the earth, there's no way you can sequester carbon or mitigate climate change," said Nate Lewis, a farm policy director for the Organic Trade Association, the organic industry's largest trade group. "Those are assumptions. I haven't seen anyone compare the full life cycle of a tomato grown in one [system] versus the other. There are so many factors."
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Georgina Gustin
Georgina Gustin is a Washington-based reporter who has covered food policy, farming and the environment for more than a decade. She started her journalism career at The Day in New London, Conn., then moved to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where she launched the "food beat," covering agriculture, biotech giant Monsanto and the growing "good food" movement. At CQ Roll Call, she covered food, farm and drug policy and the intersections between federal regulatory agencies and Congress. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post and National Geographic's The Plate, among others.
Industrial/Organic Raises $1.3 Million to Ferment Your Food Waste Into Sellable Stuff
The latest is Industrial/Organic, a Brooklyn and soon-to-be Newark-based company which just raised a seed round of $1.3 million led by hometown venture firm Brooklyn Bridge Ventures.
Industrial/Organic Raises $1.3 Million to Ferment Your Food Waste Into Sellable Stuff
The Brooklyn startup's raise is backed by hometown VC Brooklyn Bridge Ventures.
By Tyler Woods / REPORTER
Urban farming. (Image via Smart Cities NYC)
Nature, man. It’s a powerful force.
We don’t get too much contact with it here in Brooklyn, but that hasn’t stopped a host of city startups from trying to rethink our relationship with the soil.
The latest is Industrial/Organic, a Brooklyn and soon-to-be Newark-based company which just raised a seed round of $1.3 million led by hometown venture firm Brooklyn Bridge Ventures.
“When I funded the company, it was little more than a science project in a garage in Brooklyn and soon, they’ll open up a waste processing facility in Newark—one that didn’t require tens of millions of dollars to setup and also won’t pollute the local neighborhood with odor,” wrote Brooklyn Bridge Ventures founder Charlie O’Donnell in a post last week. “It won’t throw off dangerous gases, and yes, the process will make a profit.”
According to O’Donnell, the company’s main products will be organic fertilizers and cleaning products.
Industrial/Organic works by a process of rapid fermentation of food waste, the stuff you scrape off your plate before washing it or the eggshells you toss in the trash can.
“Food waste is 75% moisture, which we draw out in a multi-step process following a rapid biological digestion that sterilizes and preserves organic matter,” according to the company. “This byproduct is first used for energy generation and then cleaned for reuse. We see a future where this reclaimed water is substituted for agricultural and industrial use. The leftover solids are processed into an organic fertilizer that is microbially active, providing nutrients, probiotics and organic matter to soils.”
Pretty neat.
3 Reasons Soilless Farming Practices Should Retain Organic Certification
3 Reasons Soilless Farming Practices Should Retain Organic Certification
by Jason Arnold | Sep 7, 2017
3 Reasons Modern Farming Practices Should Be Certified Organic
Did you know that the National Organic Standards Board (a Federal Advisory Board within the USDA) is considering a ban of modern farming techniques like hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics from being certified organic?
That means that modern farmers like yourself who are investing in systems that conserve resources and allow you to grow healthier, locally grown crops closer to where people live, could soon lose the opportunity to be certified organic.
We here at Upstart University think that’s absurd and we’re taking action to ensure modern farmers like you have the ability to put an organic label on your product packaging!
In this post, we’ll look at 3 reasons why modern, soilless farming techniques should be certified organic.
(Did you know that you can submit a comment directly to the NOSB in opposition to this proposed ban?Here are some helpful talking points. )
1) Soilless grown produce is safe, nutritious and grown locally, just like consumers deserve!
The Organic label was created to signify safety, sustainability, and responsibility in food. Consumers depend on the organic label to help them identify food that is:
- Free of unsafe or unhealthy pesticides and fertilizers
- Resource efficient with effective cycling and recycling of inputs through the farm
- Free from harmful impacts to the air, water, and surrounding land.
- Created in humane and healthy conditions
And, as you know, modern farming techniques like hydroponic and aquaponic production can fit right into these criteria, yet they’re on the chopping block!
One great example of how hydroponics and aquaponics support responsible resource use and nutritious food is the decrease in food miles. Hydroponic and aquaponic systems can be built indoors or in greenhouses in/near cities, enabling fresh produce to be grown close to the consumer all year round, eliminating hundreds or thousands of miles of transportation.
This is different than most conventional soil farms, whether they’re certified organic or not.
Conventional soil farms need a lot of space, a lot of resources like water and labor, and healthy, unpolluted soil – all of which are difficult to find near or even in cities where people live!
That means they typically have to truck in their produce from much further than modern, soilless farms do – which increases the time between harvest and consumption. And as the Harvard T.H. Chan Center for Public Health reports:
“Even when the highest post-harvest handling standards are met, foods grown far away spend significant time on the road, and therefore have more time to lose nutrients before reaching the marketplace.” (1)
When food is grown regionally or locally using indoor hydroponics and aquaponics, the consumer gets a richer nutritional profile, and the environment benefits from a shorter supply chain.
The bottom line: hydroponics and aquaponics (i.e. soilless growing techniques) can actually deliver a better crop to market because of their proximity to where people live and their sustainable use of resources.
2) Soilless farming contributes positively to the economy and strengthens food security by bringing farms closer to where people live!
Modern farmers, empowered with appropriate tools and technology, are able to grow food in areas where fresh, local food has never been possible before (and bring jobs and opportunities along with them).
Doing so gives more people better access to nutritious food in previously unthinkable, ungrowable locations, like:
1) Urban food deserts like cities where land prices are high and areas with good soil are scarce.
2) Northern latitudes with harsh climates (e.g. Alaska) where the vast majority of food is shipped in and therefore lacks freshness.
3) Areas that lack abundant ground and surface water where conventional produce farms don’t stand a chance.
Modern growing techniques not only help grow food closer to where people live, they also help a new generation of farmers make a living doing what they love – growing good food!
Whether in an urban or rural location, farmers today face difficult growing conditions and even more difficult economics, and they need an edge to be successful. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) – growing in greenhouses or indoor environments with resource-conscious techniques – allows more people to grow food and access markets.(3)
Even the former Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, understands the power of fostering stronger local food economies saying:
“Urban agriculture helps strengthen the health and social fabric of communities while creating economic opportunities for farmers and neighborhoods.”
As part of the Upstart University community, you know this better than most. That’s because modern growers like you are helping to bring better food to those who want it and need it, regardless of where they live!
The bottom line: Evolved agricultural methods like hydroponics and aquaponics make farming more accessible, strengthen local economies, and supply fresher food to those who deserve it.
3) Conventional soil-based farming doesn’t have a monopoly on microbiology and healthy food.
Many anti-hydroponic and anti-aquaponic activists cite the lack of sun and soil as a major defect of the growing methods. After all, the soil is alive, and science has shown that plants grow better with the rich communities of microbes that give it life. If hydroponics uses rocks or coconuts husks or recycled plastic to grow, then it must be sterile, right?
Wrong.
What traditionalists fail to acknowledge is that microbes can thrive anywhere there is water, habitat, and nutrition for them. And unfortunately, the anti-hydroponic activists take advantage of the fact that most members of the general public do not have a degree in microbiology.
By using words like “unnatural, sterile, Robo-crops,” they deliberately try to confuse the public about the realities of evolved farming technics like hydroponic or aquaponic production methods.
That’s why it’s up to all of us who see the promise of modern technology that’s helping feed more people better food to set the record straight!
Much to the dismay of traditionalists, aquaponic and hydroponic systems are actually their own ecosystems teeming with life. In fact, studies show that Organic aquaponic and hydroponic production relies on a robust microflora in the root zone – made of the same types and numbers of bacteria and fungi that thrive in soil. These interactions and economies of microorganisms and plants are what makes them work so well.
The bottom line: While amazing in their own right, the soil and the sun hold no mystical powers and are not required to grow healthy, delicious food for our growing population. And, soilless systems take a deep understanding of microbiology (as well as other plant/physical sciences) and weave it into something that can grow organic food better.
But is it organic?
Lots of pixels have been spent in trying to define what organic means. The truth is that a narrow definition of organic is not helping us meet the challenge for fresh, healthy crops, grown close to the markets they are serving without the use of synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.
I agree with Mark Mordasky, owner of Whipple Hollow Organic Farm, when he says that “If we had all of our nutrients organic, all of our pesticides and herbicides — whatever we’re doing to control disease was organic, and the medium itself that the roots are growing in is also organic, all the inputs are organic. The outcome, it seems to me, would be organic.”
WARNING: Modern farming might be banned from being certified organic unless you take action.
The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) is a group of 14 people that make recommendations to the USDA regarding the organic standards – what they should be and how they should change.
Currently, the NOSB is considering a recommendation that the USDA bans hydroponic, aquaponic, aeroponic, and other container-based growing methods from the organic standards. (Right now, growers using these methods are able to receive organic certification under the USDA’s National Organic Program, but that opportunity might soon be eliminated.)
If the USDA were to take such a recommendation, modern farmers using resource-conscious growing techniques will no longer be allowed to use the organic label and therefore be at a disadvantage when communicating the value of their produce to customers.
The option would be completely off the table – probably forever.
This would put the hydroponic and aquaponic industries at a disadvantage and will likely negatively impact organic-loving consumers by deleting a significant portion of the organic food supply.
The data shows that organic food sales continue to climb and more consumers want organic food. Are we willing to reduce the amount of organic food available by banning modern farmers from helping increase the supply?
To protect the business opportunities of today’s modern farmers and those of future soilless growers, it is critical that members of the hydroponic, aquaponic, and aeroponic community make their voices heard by the NOSB.
We believe that to provide consumers the reasonably priced organic fresh produce they want, we need as many organic producers as we can get!
(And we hate knowing that opportunities for modern farmers like you are being taken away!)
“Okay, I’m ready to fight back! How do I get involved?”
There’s a lack of unbiased information regarding how hydro-, aqua-, and aeroponics work and how changed standards would impact farmers, and that means those with the loudest megaphones have great power in this debate.
The NOSB needs to hear that there is an entire industry of modern, resource-smart growers using appropriate techniques to grow better food for people who need it.
It’s critical that you, as one of these modern farmers, make your voice heard and help even out this historically one-sided debate!
The best way to make sure your voice is heard is to tell the NOSB how this decision will affect you and your farming business. The NOSB will take your comments into account as they prepare for a vote on October 31st.
Here are 4 easy ways to take action TODAY:
1) [RECOMMENDED] Go to the NOSB Organic Comments page and write a message telling the NOSB that you believe your growing methods should remain organic. (Need some talking points? Here you go.)
2) Sign up to give a three-minute testimony at the October 24 and 26 webinars.
3) Sign up to attend the Fall Meeting in person and provide in-person three-minute testimony.
4) Contact your federal congressional representatives and tell them you want the NOSB to retain the organic eligibility of sustainable growing methods like aquaponics, hydroponics, and aeroponics. Click here to enter your zip code and find your representatives.
Should Organic evolve or stay stagnant? You decide.
If the goal of the Organic label is to empower more consumers with organically grown produce, then hydroponics and aquaponics have a lot to offer. It doesn’t make sense to restrict or exclude these methods from the Organic label.
However, this ban is what will happen if farmers like you stay quiet.
Click here to tell the NOSB you want to see the Organic label evolve!