Tag Archive for: sustainability

Regenerative Organic Certification Wants To Be The Ethical Standard To Rule Them All

The new standard combines the best of all the usual players–fair trade, humane, non-GMO–into one label that aims to set a new bar for sustainable, ethical agricultural production.

Author: Eillie Anzilotti | Published: March 14, 2018

Fair Trade Certified. Certified Organic. Non-GMO. Certified Humane–we’re used to seeing these labels scattered over products touting their ethical and environmental backgrounds.

But the brands and farmers meeting these standards often feel “like scouts with a sash full of merit badges,” says Jeff Moyer, president of the Rodale Institute, which advocates for organic farming practices.

Rodale is one of a handful of organizations working with the natural soap brand Dr. Bronner’s and Patagonia to roll out a new sustainability standard, which Dr. Bronner’s president Mike Bronner calls “one standard to rule them all,” because it will incorporate best practices from pre-existing standards–as well as new criteria–into one certification.

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This Revolution Will Be Farmed

With roots in the Occupy Movement, the Experimental Farm Network seeks participatory plant breeding on a massive scale.

Author: Lela Nargi | Published: March 7, 2018

A long-bearded, bespectacled Nathan Kleinman is standing inside a hoophouse in Southern New Jersey he proudly announces he got for free from a local farmer. Excitedly, he holds up plastic baggies containing his latest accessions of seeds. “These are Chinquapin chestnuts—they’re sweet and small,” he says, pouring what look like dark brown cap-less acorns into his palm. Back into their bag they go so he can show off the rest of his prizes: “Korean stone pines—they’re really rare. Bittenfelder apples, which are good to use for rootstock. Oh, these are cool; they’re from monkey puzzle trees, which are native to Chile.”

The tree seeds are all part of Kleinman’s ever-growing collection of perennials—plants that grow for more than two years and, critical for Kleinman’s purposes, have the ability to combat the effects of climate change. Later today, he will mix these and others with soil, vermiculite, and water, then set them in his fridge to germinate.

Outside, it’s a brutally windy winter’s day, with nothing in the frost-crusted fields beyond the hoophouse except a sprinkling of miraculously still-green sedum and moss, and the barren, woody stalks of a beheaded sorghum crop. But Kleinman is already thinking of spring and the potential it affords for a new season of agricultural activism.

Kleinman is co-founder of the Experimental Farm Network (EFN), a five-year-old nonprofit that aims to start what he calls a farming revolution. On the one hand, EFN is an open-source seed company, with about 80 hardy varietals of tomatoes, beans, squash, and peppers currently for sale on its website. More broadly, it’s a sustainable farming community with a mission to identify and breed carbon-sequestering perennials, relying for labor on a volunteer army of experienced and newbie agriculturists across the country.

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Agroecology to the Rescue: 7 Ways Ecologists are Working Toward Healthier Food Systems

Author: Marcia DeLonge | Published: August 2, 2017

A lot has been written about agroecology, and a new special issue of the journal Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems takes it to the next level.

The new issue, entitled Agroecology: building an ecological knowledge-base for food system sustainability, expands the conversation by outlining recent progress in ecology relevant for tackling food system challenges ranging from disappearing diversity to water woes to climate catastrophes. Together, the eight included articles demonstrate a range of emerging science-based opportunities that can help farmers and ranchers achieve the triple bottom line: social, environmental, and financial sustainability.  Here are just the highlights of what some farm-focused ecologists have been up to:

  1. Making sense out of complexity: Agroecosystems are complex, and as Vandermeer and Perfecto (2017) explain, “the fundamental rules of natural systems should be used as guidelines for planning and management of agricultural systems.” Fortunately, ecologists have developed some great tools (tools in topics like Turing patterns, chaotic dynamics, and more) that are up to the otherwise daunting task, and agroecologists are busy beginning to put them to work.
  2. Linking biodiversity to farming benefits: Decisions about how land is used at a regional scale can affect farming conditions at a surprisingly smaller scale, influencing even the pollinators and insect pests that are too small to spot unless you’re actually strolling through a field. As Liere et al. (2017) describe, understanding the connections between biodiversity at these different scales is essential to sustaining healthy, multi-functional agricultural systems. Agroecologists have just scratched the surface of investigating these “cascading” effects, and the subject is ripe for more discoveries.
  3. Keeping nutrients where we need them: It’s hard work keeping enough nutrients in some places (such as soils and plants) and reducing them in others (like in lakes and the atmosphere), but getting this right is a key to growing enough food while protecting the environment. Agroecologists tackle these problems with a bird’s eye view, measuring and evaluating everything from study plots to farm fields to watersheds. As Tully & Ryals (2017)note, this approach is critical to finding ways to optimize solutions (such as agroforestry, cover cropping, and organic amendments, just to name a few).
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Corporations Need Nature’s Regenerative Service

Author: Frank Hajek | Published: February 2, 2018

We heard the chainsaws first, like the buzz of a bee on amphetamines, interspersed with the crash of falling giants, then the toiling drone of bulldozers. We were approaching the edge of the Salvación-Boca Manu-Colorado road. Our Matsigenka guide, Feliciano, from Pankotsi Lodge in the nearby village of Shipetiari, led us expertly through the forest. Suddenly, we emerged onto the road clearing, precisely at the spot where a Caterpillar was digging up the roots of a recently felled tree.

The foreman at the road front was at first jovial and friendly, but when he noticed we were taking pictures, he began a speech about tourism and conservation not creating enough local jobs. He went on to say that the local district council had recently secured a large cacao project, which the road would support. I asked where he was from.

He replied he was from the Andean highlands of Puno, but that he had lived for 20 years in Madre de Dios and that he was a selvatico, a jungle man. We spoke for over an hour, and he showed us another Caterpillar that had broken down as a result of the grueling work. He was a nice guy. But in my mind the fact remained: He was helping to build a road, with illegal loggers hot on his tracks, already extracting precious woods from Manu National Park’s border, one of Peru’s last great wilderness areas.

So I decided to ask him directly: Did he not feel bad about all the forest they were felling?

His answer was also direct: “No. El bosque no me da trabajo.” No. The forest doesn’t give me a job.

And that is the problem: Many people do not perceive the value of wilderness areas, even though we receive life-sustaining services from them every day. These services include natural cycles that we take for granted such as climate regulation, water purification and maintaining biodiversity.

These services are, in theory, worth trillions of dollars to the world economy (PDF). But you cannot eat theory, and so we are losing millions of hectares of forests, countless animal and plant species, and many unique ecosystems every year, especially in the emerging economies of the developing world. The need for new tools and systems to make this loss and its value tangible to people long has been acknowledged, but successful models of how to do this are still thin on the ground.

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Kuli Kuli: A Superstar of Superfoods

Author: Marilyn Waite | Published: January 10, 2018

Nestled in downtown Oakland, California, sustainable food and agriculture startup Kuli Kuli has roots more than 7,000 miles away.

Founder Lisa Curtis was introduced to the moringa tree while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in a small town in Niger. A vegetarian whose local diet consisted mainly of millet and rice, Curtis was able to curb her malnourishment, a lack of protein and key vitamins by adding moringa to her daily regime. Her health turnaround sparked an interest in introducing the benefit of the moringa plant to North American eaters.

When Curtis returned from Niger, she and her co-founders began creating food products from sustainably sourced moringa leaves. They started producing health bars in small batches and selling the goods at farmer’s markets. Today, the product line — which includes teas, powders for shakes, health bars and energy shots — is available in more than 6,000 stores.

Moringa is not your come-and-go food fad. It’s difficult to directly compare to any one plant. Like kale, it’s a green superfood, yet richer in nutrients; the taste profile is similar to matcha, which comes from specially grown and processed green tea leaves, with an earthy, mild flavor. On the shelf, you likely will find it next to other superfoods such as goji berries.

Moringa contains a wide range of nutrients and attractive attributes, including iron, calcium, vitamins A and C, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory phytochemicals, highly digestible protein and all nine essential amino acids. Also, it’s vegan and free of soy, gluten, dairy and genetically modified organisms.

Agriculture, food and related industries represent about 5.5 percent of U.S. GDP, contributing around $992 billion each year. Transforming this industry to be sustainable and regenerative is one of the biggest opportunities to address climate change while creating economic opportunity.

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Mexico's Prickly Pear Cactus: Energy Source of the Future?

Author: Yemeli Ortega | Published: August 17, 2017

The prickly pear cactus is such a powerful symbol in Mexico that they put it smack in the middle of the national flag.

It was considered sacred by the ancient Aztecs, and modern-day Mexicans eat it, drink it, and even use it in medicines and shampoos.

Now scientists have come up with a new use for the bright green plant: producing renewable energy.

Instantly recognizable with its jumble of spiny discs—its bright red fruit protruding like fat fingers from each one—the prickly pear cactus is farmed on a massive scale in Mexico.

Its soft inner flesh plays a starring role in a plethora of favorite national dishes: tacos, soups, salads, jams and even candies.

Believed by some to have healing powers, the cactus is also used in blood pressure medications, anti-hair loss shampoos, skin creams and diet juices.

“Since before the Spanish conquistadors arrived, we have eaten prickly pear cactus. It’s our tradition and our culture,” said Israel Vazquez, who has farmed the cactus for the past 20 years on a small plot in Milpa Alta, a neighborhood on Mexico City’s south side.

The cactus’s thick outer layer, with all those spines, has always been a waste product—until researchers developed a biogas generator to turn it into electricity.

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Mexico’s Prickly Pear Cactus: Energy Source of the Future?

Author: Yemeli Ortega | Published: August 17, 2017

The prickly pear cactus is such a powerful symbol in Mexico that they put it smack in the middle of the national flag.

It was considered sacred by the ancient Aztecs, and modern-day Mexicans eat it, drink it, and even use it in medicines and shampoos.

Now scientists have come up with a new use for the bright green plant: producing renewable energy.

Instantly recognizable with its jumble of spiny discs—its bright red fruit protruding like fat fingers from each one—the prickly pear cactus is farmed on a massive scale in Mexico.

Its soft inner flesh plays a starring role in a plethora of favorite national dishes: tacos, soups, salads, jams and even candies.

Believed by some to have healing powers, the cactus is also used in blood pressure medications, anti-hair loss shampoos, skin creams and diet juices.

“Since before the Spanish conquistadors arrived, we have eaten prickly pear cactus. It’s our tradition and our culture,” said Israel Vazquez, who has farmed the cactus for the past 20 years on a small plot in Milpa Alta, a neighborhood on Mexico City’s south side.

The cactus’s thick outer layer, with all those spines, has always been a waste product—until researchers developed a biogas generator to turn it into electricity.

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In a Hard Year for Sustainability, Here Are Some of the Bright Spots for 2017

Despite the U.S.’s Paris Accord exit and plenty of negatives for the environment there are reasons to hope.

Author: Mary Pols | Published: December 24, 2017

When it comes to protecting the planet and fighting to turn back the ticking clock on climate change, 2017 has not been pretty. In fact, if we listed everything that happened that will likely harm the environment, you’d get depressed. But around Maine in the course of this year, there were many positive actions and events in the world of sustainability.

This is not to downplay the impacts of the United States leaving the Paris Accord, the agreement by pretty much the entire rest of the globe to reduce emissions and fight climate change together. Or what it means to have a person like Scott Pruitt, a lawyer with an extensive history of suing the Environmental Protection Agency to halt federal regulations, heading an agency designed to protect the environment (it’s right there in the name).

But given the bad news rampant in 2017, we wanted to emphasize some tidings of good cheer on Christmas Eve.

OUT OF THE WOODS

It was a nail biter of a year for the new Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. In June, the new U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, charged by the Trump administration with reviewing 27 national monuments designated since 1996, toured the monument. Designated as a national monument in August 2016 by President Barack Obama after years of debate over its future, Katahdin Woods and Waters represents an 87,500-acre gift from the family of Roxanne Quimby, the co-founder of Burt’s Bees. It’s been controversial. Gov. Paul LePage dislikes it intensely; he once dismissed the region the monument is in as Maine’s “mosquito area.”

In August, leaks of a draft report suggested that Zinke would support the brand-new monument, but some speculated that he might push for logging beyond forest management. Earlier this month, with the release of Zinke’s final report, that speculation was put to rest: He supports the monument and no logging will be allowed.

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How You Can Help Fix the Global Water Crisis

Humans may be depleting our water supply, but innovative methods say there’s a way to replenish it.

Author: Elaina Zachos | Published: December 27, 2017

The average American directly uses about 2,000 gallons of water each day. Your morning shower takes 17 gallons of water and growing the coffee beans for your cup of joe took upwards of 34 gallons. It takes 13 gallons of water to generate one gallon of gas, which adds up on your commute to work or school. The desktop computer you’ll sit at for a good portion of the day took about 7,300 gallons of water to make.

Before lunch, you’ve used up thousands of gallons of water. (Use this calculator to figure out your water footprint.)

Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project and former National Geographic Society Freshwater Fellow, demystifies humanity’s obsession with water in her new book Replenish. When National Geographic caught up with her in New Mexico, she explained how people are coming up with innovative ways to conserve water before we run dry.

The book begins in a Colorado canyon. Can you describe the scene?

The opening of the book describes a trip up through a canyon known as the Cache la Poudre. There had been a fire in this canyon the previous year, so you could see the blackened trees. I was heading to a family wedding, an outdoor wedding, and it looked like it was going to just start to pour at any minute. I was contemplating the sky. The wedding happened OK, but this was the beginning of a deluge that produced an enormous amount of flooding. Because the trees had been burned so recently, there was just a lot of erosion and a lot of tree trunks moving down through that canyon.

I opened the book with this story because I was there to see the canyon right before this happened but also to indicate that the combination of wildfires and flooding and drought is coming together. We’re moving into a very different period where the past is not going to be a very good guide for the future.

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Changing Consumers Ignite Food Revolution

It’s transforming Minnesota’s food companies and economy.

Author: Kristen Leigh Painter | Published: December 17, 2017

Elke Richards drives two hours to Maple Grove every month to shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, both of which offer more organic groceries or minimally processed food than she can find near her home in Alexandria. In the summer, she goes to farmers markets for locally grown produce. For meat, she visits a local family farm that raises sheep and cattle using environmentally friendly land management practices.

Richards, a 34-year-old mother of two young children, first took interest in how and where food is grown more than a decade ago, when she was in college.

“I started looking at the footprints of how we get food to our plate in America,” she said. “It is really discouraging.”

Today, Richards is convinced that making healthier food choices for her own family is essential.

Millions of consumers around the world are making similar choices — to buy and eat food that is more pure and produced in ways less harmful to the environment. Those decisions in the grocery aisle are transforming the agricultural economy of Minnesota and the Midwest.

Farmers are under pressure from consumers and food companies to adopt new techniques that take less of a toll on the environment, and to take better care of animals they raise. Sales of grocery shelf staples such as Wheaties, Betty Crocker cake mixes and some packaged meat products are flat or in decline, forcing food industry giants such as Minnesota’s Cargill, General Mills and Hormel to rethink the kinds of products they sell.

Figuring this out “is the challenge of our time for the food and agriculture industries,” said David MacLennan, chief executive of Minnetonka-based Cargill. “You need a lot of other companies and governments and … local farmers to come along with you.”

Much of the food industry has rallied around the idea of “sustainability,” which in the most precise definition refers to the ability of a food system to last over time. But the word has become a broad banner for issues like animal welfare, soil management, fair farm wages or climate change.

In 2015, nearly three quarters of consumers said they sometimes or usually had such concerns in mind at the grocery store, according to the food research firm the Hartman Group. Sales of organic food, the most recognizable segment, have doubled in the past decade to about $47 billion in 2016, according to the Organic Trade Association. While organic represents only 5 percent of total U.S. food sales, it is growing much more rapidly than overall food sales.

With sales of the packaged food staples that dominate American grocery aisles stagnant or sinking, the food industry has no choice but to adapt. Doing so will require re-engineering complex production chains developed over decades to provide massive amounts of food at the lowest possible price.

“Big food companies that dominate the food world are really having to move faster,” said Kent Solberg of the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota. “But the billion dollar question is if it can be fast enough and big enough of a change that the consumer will be responsive to it.”

Many of the changes start with how individual farmers treat the earth itself.

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