Community Food & Water and Farm Bill
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Pawnee Corn Coming Back Strong
/by Regeneration InternationalAuthor: Shay Burk | Published: March 26, 2018
For the second time in 143 years, Pawnee people are returning to the land of their ancestors where today their native corn has come back to life in a new way.
Pawnee corn has been growing and is now again thriving in the Nebraska after 15 years of work by both past and present Nebraskans.
Ronnie O’Brien, an instructor at Central Community College-Hastings, and Pawnee member Deb Echo-Hawk started their relationship in 2003 with the Pawnee Seed Preservation Project.
Prior to the start of that project, the Pawnees’ sacred corn, which was once used for everything from daily nutrition to religious ceremonies, had dwindled to a few precious seeds in jars stored in Oklahoma.
Through years of study and hard work on the part of O’Brien, Echo-Hawk and a dozen farmers across central Nebraska, the seed and the corn has returned.
That corn, the cultural significance and the importance of sustaining the land for future generations will all be highlighted at a special event in conjunction with Earth Day on the CCC-Hastings campus April 28.
“The more we learned about the corn, the more interested we got,” said CCC student Cecie Packard.
KEEP READING ON HASTINGS TRIBUNE
Supporting Local Ag Could Fight Climate Change
/by Regeneration InternationalAuthor: Kelly Lively | Published: March 21, 2018
Agriculture is Michigan’s second largest industry, making it a major contributor to the state’s economy. Agriculture also contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions, roughly 25 percent according the USDA. Include storage and transportation and agriculture could account for nearly a third.
Agriculture is also directly affected by global warming. Local farmers used to call total fruit crop loss a “once in a lifetime” event. When total loss happened in 2002, a new generation of Michigan farmers chalked it up to be their once-in-a-lifetime event. However, 2012 delivered a second blow when unseasonably warm weather set tree buds that were again killed by a late frost. It doesn’t take much to figure out that two such events in 10 years can no longer be described as “once in a lifetime.” Severe weather has diminished crop yields to varying degrees in subsequent years as well. Extreme weather makes farm life difficult: soggy springs, summer droughts and hailstorms. Climate change increases the likelihood and severity of these events and threatens food system stability.
Thankfully, agriculture can also be a major part of the solution. Eliminating emissions alone won’t get us out of this mess. Sequestering carbon from the atmosphere is also necessary — and healthy soils can capture a lot! Transitioning to regenerative practices needs to be the norm. One effective method is intensive rotational grazing, which builds soil and produces high quality protein from animals humanely raised on pasture, feeding off the sun’s energy. Combine this with no-till farming, cover cropping and proper crop rotation and we move toward carbon neutrality, because healthy soil sequesters carbon. Some models suggest that agricultural lands have the capacity to store as much carbon as the equivalent of annual worldwide GHG emissions, or 36 gigatons. Presently the earth’s farmland only stores 1/1000 of that, or .03 gigatons. Healthy soil has other benefits. It protects against flooding by absorbing more water, which in turn increases drought resistance. By reducing the need for fertilizer and growing disease and insect resistant plants, healthy soil not only produces healthy food, it supports a healthy ecosystem — a win for us all.
KEEP READING ON RECORD EAGLE
How the Natural Products Industry Is Building a Climate Movement
/by Regeneration InternationalAuthor: Erin Callahan | Published: March 23, 2018
What I witnessed at Climate Day 2018 at Expo West two weeks ago filled me with inspiration and hope — two emotions that are not always easy to come by for those of us working on climate change. The natural products industry is building a climate change movement and has no intention of staying quiet about it.
The Climate Collaborative, a project of OSC2 and SFTA launched a year ago at Expo West 2017, in hopes we could bring together 100 companies making proactive, public commitments around key climate issue areas. (GreenBiz Executive Editor Joel Makower emceed the event.)
It’s a year later, and we’ve burned past our original goal — 203 companies have made more than 730 commitments to action — an average of two commitments a day. They’re tackling everything from transitioning to renewable energy to reducing transportation emissions to adopting carbon farming practices to cutting the climate impacts of their packaging to engaging on climate policy, and more.
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Agriculture Could Fix Ecological Mistakes of Past
/by Regeneration InternationalProducers have a responsibility to reverse past mistakes made in agriculture, according to Grain SA conservation agriculture (CA) facilitator, Dr Hendrik Smith.
Author: Gerhard Uys | Published: March 23, 2018
Producers have a responsibility to reverse past mistakes made in agriculture, according to Grain SA conservation agriculture (CA) facilitator, Dr Hendrik Smith.
Speaking at the recent Landbouweekblad Regenerative Agriculture Conference in Reitz in the Free State, Smith said agriculture historically played a large role in issues such as climate change, and was only surpassed by fossil fuel production as the largest producer of greenhouse gasses in the 1960s.
He said producers needed to take the carbon footprint of their production into account, and one of the first areas where they could make a difference was the soil health on their farms.
KEEP READING ON FARMER’S WEEKLY
‘Beyond Organic’ Food Labels Seek to Supplant the USDA Standard
/by Regeneration InternationalWhat does Regenerative Organic Certification mean for producers and consumers?
Author: Katie O’Reilly | Published: March 23, 2018
The word “sustainable” doesn’t pack much punch any longer. Whether through overuse or greenwashing, it seems to have joined the same ranks as “eco” and “natural,” terms that essentially mean everything and nothing at once. Employed as it so often is—to blithely extoll corporate greening efforts and lifestyle products—some feel the word runs the risk of obscuring more than it reveals. “We should not as a society want to sustain; we should strive to improve,” says Jeff Moyer, executive director of the Rodale Institute, a nonprofit that conducts and funds organic farming research. “Ask growers in the developing world—they’re not hoping to sustain their subsistence farms, but to improve their soil and yields.”
It was an effort to move beyond sustainability that inspired the Rodale Institute to partner with two like-minded companies—Patagonia and Dr. Bronner’s—to create a Regenerative Organic Alliance and introduce a new food product label designed to encourage and reward continuous improvement in agricultural practices: the Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC), which officially launched earlier this month at the Natural Products Expo West trade show in Anaheim, California.
KEEP READING ON SIERRA MAGAZINE
This Georgia Rancher Might Be Our Best Hope for a Sustainable Future
/by Regeneration InternationalRide shotgun on this game-changing farm in “One Hundred Thousand Beating Hearts,” streaming now on Salon Premium
Author: Tom Roston | Published: March 23, 2018
Will Harris, a good ol’ boy Georgia rancher, may well be our nation’s best bet for a better, more sustainable future. He’s the subject of a documentary by Peter Byck, “One Hundred Thousand Beating Hearts.”
Salon talked to Byck, a professor at Arizona State University who teaches a film class for the School of Sustainability and Cronkite School of Journalism, about “One Hundred Thousand Beating Hearts.”
How’d you find Will Harris?
Our short film, “Soil Carbon Cowboys,” was well received in the ranching community, so when I was at a Grassfed Exchange conference, I was introduced to Will, and he invited me down to his farm, White Oak Pastures. It took me about nine months to then get down there to film.
KEEP READING ON SALON.COM
The Organic Way
/by Regeneration InternationalHigh demand means more organic crop production is needed to keep pace.
Author: Corinna Kaufman | Published: March 23, 2018
In a study by the Organic Produce Network and Nielsen, it was shown that sales of organic fresh produce items reached almost $5 billion in 2017, an 8% increase from the previous year (1). In fact, a bill was recently passed to increase the funding of organic farming research to meet this growing demand.
By the year 2023 the annual funding is supposed to increase to $50 million. Yet as organic remains the fastest growing sector in grocery, particularly fresh foods, it will require creativity and more private partnerships to meet demand with reliability.
General Mills just announced it is creating South Dakota’s largest organic crop farm and will convert 34,000 growing acres to organic production by 2020. The company will grow organic wheat for its popular Annie’s Macaroni & Cheese line, reports the StarTribune (2). But it will take more than that.
KEEP READING ON WHOLE FOODS MAGAZINE
Cape Town is Out of Water: What Can Living Soils Do to Help?
/by Regeneration InternationalPublished: November 28, 2017
Rainfall over 2017 in Cape Town, South Africa has been dismal. The city is experiencing the worst drought in over a century, and the city has about 10% of its usual water capacity available. The water is estimated to last the city until mid-July, with strict usage regulations already in place.
Regenerative agriculture rebuilds degraded agricultural soils and increases the soil organic matter in those lands. Just 1% of soil organic matter in an acre of land can hold as much water as a backyard swimming pool, serving as a reservoir of water in dry times like the current conditions. This can help reduce the water pressures caused by agricultural irrigation, which could instead be diverted to drinking water for residents. Unfortunately, lands farmed using conventional farming methods have gotten down into the 1–3% soil organic matter range, when they should be in the 6–8% range. That’s a shortage of 60,000–140,000 gallons of water per acre that the soil should be holding.
KEEP READING ON MEDIUM
Land to Market: The World’s First Verified Regenerative Sourcing Solution
/by Regeneration InternationalAuthor: Chris Kerston | Published: March 22, 2018
Every March in Anaheim, not far from the sound of crashing waves, under the rejuvenating rays of California sunshine and blessed by the sounds of squealing amusement park children and the nightly glow of a famous mouse, the largest natural food tradeshow in the world takes place. This year, the 38th annual Natural Products Expo West had over 85,000 attendees – the largest gathering to date. Over 3,500 different companies were represented in the tradeshow and we had a Savory Institute booth for the first time this year as well. The conference also features a robust education and networking program with a jam-packed schedule of lectures and panels taking place all 5 days. If you have never been to an Expo, check out this quick hyperlapse video, to get a sense of what it is like.
Regeneration Nation
Regenerative Agriculture has become a cinderella-story at Expo West, originally being something that those furthest on the fringe met to discuss hoping to one day have a larger voice, to now present day where it is openly acknowledged as one of the top trends in the natural foods industry.
KEEP READING ON SAVORY INSTITUTE
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