Tag Archive for: Resilient Food Systems

Eco Cacao, A Story of Regeneration at Origin

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Author: Nancy Zamierowski | Published: December 10, 2016

The concept of “regeneration” is often used in conversation around social impact, finance models and agriculture, but what does it really mean? In this series Yellow Seed will explore: 1) what are useful ways to define and think about the concept? and 2) how can theory be translated into action and practice? We will delve into the concept of regeneration through real stories from the cacao industry, from producer, to supplier, to consumer. We intend to spark a deeper conversation about meaningful impact and the work we can do together to improve the system. We begin by getting a first-hand look into a pioneering cacao cooperative in Ecuador that is putting regeneration-based agriculture to the test.

The regenerative cacao cooperative of Eco Cacao

“When you go into the plantation, you wouldn’t know it’s actually a farm. It looks and feels just like a tropical forest,” described Daniel Korson of Coracao Confections in Oakland, California. His search to find a sourcing partner that mirrored Coracao’s values of transparency and ecological conservation took him to Esmeraldas, Ecuador where a regenerative cacao farm is set in the lush Ecuadorian jungle. The farm is part of a producer co-operative called Eco Cacao, co-founded in 2006 by George Fletcher and the Ecuadorian permaculture and Seed Guardians Community (www.redsemillas.org), a grassroots network that works with communities to preserve the bio-cultural diversity of the Ecuador. Gregory Landau, CEO of Terra Genesis International and founder of Nova Chocolate, began collaborating with Eco Cacao in 2006 with a strong vision: to support the local community in evolving their agricultural practices towards regenerative growing, and to create practices that also conserve the local Chocóan rainforest, an area of immense biodiversity. Now, Eco Cacao works to empower 80 farmers on 320 hectares dispersed across the Galera-San Francisco Peninsula, many of whom specialize in unique, high-quality heirloom varietals. Eco Cacao is part of a larger cooperative (UOPROCAE) which has a total of 1600 hectares.

In the past 5 years, direct, responsible sourcing has become increasingly important. Serendipity led Daniel to meet Gregory Landua at a conference, who then invited him to visit one of their farms. “Eco Cacao is leading the way in terms of walking their talk and being fully transparent. As an ambassador of cacao to my community, I want to know exactly how the cacao is grown and processed, the details of the farm and management, and how the producers and the environment are being treated. Eco Cacao makes it easy to share and amplify that story.” However, Daniel confessed that direct sourcing has not always been that simple. “After, being in the industry for 8 years, there are people who say they are doing their best, but often times they will not let you see ‘what’s behind the curtain.’”

On his visit, Daniel followed Gregory through the cacao-filled forest, “As we were walking, Gregory was chopping down brush with his machete to find the trail. As it fell to the ground, he would point out which species preserved nitrogen and which fertilized the soil. The forest was so loud with different bugs and birds. It is really a refuge for biodiversity.” As part of their business practices, Eco Cacao’s producers actively engage in restoring damaged landscapes; adding functional biodiversity, providing wildlife habitats, improving water cycles and creating conservation corridors where animals and plant life can flourish. In this holistic approach to regeneration, humans actually work for, not against, the natural landscape. Creativity and design ingenuity are able to “do good” and help renew local ecology. “Eco Cacao is the only cacao farm I’ve visited that is doing farming in a way that is not only preserving nature, but also steadily improving the natural environment,” says Daniel.

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Characteristics of a Regenerative Global Diet

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Author: Corinne Hanson | Published: November 28, 2016

We need to create, prepare and consume food differently. In every part of the food value network, we need to create system value, not system decay. In an earlier post, we established that today’s food system is falling short. What, then, do we propose as an alternative? How can we heal our food system and what can and should a healthy food system look like?

We are a long way from this Regenerative Diet on a global scale. Yet we know that there are several guiding elements that would support our decision-making as we rehabilitate the way we produce and enjoy food. Here is a proposed set of characteristics

  • The eater—not the consumer—comes first: We propose our future diet should be “eater-centric”, which is different from “consumer-driven”. We need to shift the conversation from being consumer-driven (“They like sugar, so we sell them sugar…”) to being system-driven (“We know that if people eat this, their health will be sustained as will the ecosystems which made the food possible”).Corporations’ license to operate in the food and agricultural sectors will be based on their ability to nourish people well. The improvement of human health will be the primary goal of any company in the food value chain.
  • Eating food heals the system: The question, “If more people ate this, would the world around us be better off?” has to be asked, and the answer has to be, “Yes.” This still allows for regional, cultural and personal diversity and breaks out of the divisive “meat bad, plants good” dichotomy. It shifts the equation from “what we believe” to “what we can demonstrate is creating the conditions that support life”.We know that farming practices that reduce biodiversity or do other damage to natural systems are detrimental to the wider system. Therefore, they need to change. Successful actors in a regenerative system will proactively ask and answer the question, “How is this contributing to overall human and ecosystem health, without undermining it?”
  • The business model incentivizes healthy eating: A regenerative diet requires that the business model of any food value chain company goes beyond how it is “increasing productivity” (e.g. a biotechnology that requires pesticide use in order to be profitable) or “improving consumer access and choice” (e.g. a floating grocery store of processed foods on the Amazon) and calls on a company to determine how—or even if—it is enabling eaters to be healthy without undermining other aspects of any social or environmental systems.There is room for interpretation and absolute answers will always be elusive but we can make more informed, purpose-driven decisions than we currently do. A regenerative business model creates financial value by intentionally contributing to human health, and while not being financially rewarded in any way for undermining human health or the health of other life on Earth.

These are tall orders; however, several companies have already been delivering progress. Marks and Spencer’s Plan A has long been lauded for aggressive ambitions across key products and ingredients in its food. They’re working directly to prevent food waste in the field, at manufacturing, and on shelves.

They blend business experience, Life Cycle Analysis, stakeholder input and benchmarking to inform approach and use science to clarify complicated tradeoffs, e.g. packaging vs. length of product life. There is still a significant shift required to induce healthy eating and a truly sustainable system contained within such a plan, but it’s pointed in the right direction.

Panera has increased their commitments to animal welfare and to removing artificial ingredients and antibiotics from all products, now sourcing 100 per cent vegetarian-fed and antibiotic-free chicken, with a brand focus on “food you can feel good about” and “good eating”.

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The Obama Administration Announces New Steps to Advance Soil Sustainability

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Published on: December 5, 2016

Today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in collaboration with Federal agencies and private-sector stakeholders, is announcing new steps to work towards the long-term health and sustainable use of one of America’s most important natural resources: its soil. OSTP is also releasing today a Federal framework for soil science, developed in collaboration with more than a dozen Federal agencies, with input from approximately 80 stakeholders from academia, industry, non-profit organizations, and the agricultural community.

Soil is essential to human life. Not only is it vital for providing most of the world’s food, but it also plays a critical role in ensuring water quality and availability; supports a vast array of non-food products and benefits, including mitigation of climate change; and sustains the biodiversity needed for ecological resilience. These roles make soil essential to modern life. Thus, it is imperative that everyone—city dwellers, farmers and ranchers, land owners, and rural citizens alike—take responsibility for caring for and investing in our soils. Given their importance, soil must be protected from degradation, as the alternative is the loss of an array of important ecosystem services.

The new actions being announced today aim to advance scientific understanding of soils so that land managers and farmers are better able to care for them and maintain their ability to support food security, climate mitigation, ecosystem services, and public health. These actions focus on three key areas:

  1. Promoting interdisciplinary research and education, to answer key questions on rates of soil genesis and erosion, the role of soils in bioenergy production, the development of advanced soil sensors, and research to better understand non-agricultural soils.
  2. Advancing computational tools and modeling, to improve analytical capacity and develop a robust predictive framework in studying soil properties, including pursuing a more sophisticated understanding of soil-carbon fluxes and the potential for soil-carbon sequestration.
  3. Expanding sustainable agricultural practices, to ensure farmers and ranchers have the information and tools they need to protect and enhance agricultural soils and ensure global soils can continue to provide food security and climate benefits for future generations.

The projects in this Fact Sheet build on decades of experience, research, and conservation efforts of farmers, ranchers, and land owners, along with States and the Federal Government. Since the 1930s, when the onset of the Dust Bowl led to the creation of the Soil Conservation Service, Federal agencies have invested tens of billions of dollars in soil conservation and research initiatives. During this Administration, land managers have increased the number of acres of farmland enrolled in the Department of Agriculture’s conservation programs by nearly 200 million acres. Federal soil-science efforts are not limited to agricultural soils—across the Federal research enterprise, more than a dozen agencies work to protect soils in rangelands, cities, forests, coasts, and other areas—often working hand-in-hand with citizens, universities, local organizations, and other private-sector partners.

New Steps Being Taken by the Administration Today

To support the coordination of future government-wide science and technology efforts to protect soils, the National Science and Technology Council’s Soil Science Interagency Working Group (SSIWG) is releasing today “The State and Future of U.S. Soils,” a Framework for a Federal Strategic Plan for Soil Science, which is the result of a collaborative effort from more than 15 Federal agencies. In developing the Framework, SSIWG considered input from stakeholders from academia, industry, non-profit organizations, and the agricultural community who attended an OSTP workshop on soils in August 2016. The Framework is available for public comment until January 10, 2017. SSIWG intends to use it to inform the future development of a comprehensive Federal Strategic Plan for Soil Science.

The Framework sets forth the most important threats to U.S. soils and potential Federal research priorities. It identifies three overarching “Challenge and Opportunity” categories: (1) land use and land cover change; (2) unsustainable land management practices, and (3) climate and environmental change. It also lists potential priorities for future Federal science and technology efforts. In addition, several Federal agencies are supporting the development of the Strategic Plan by expanding their research and conservation initiatives:

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Why Farm-to-Institution Sourcing is the Sleeping Giant of Local Food

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Author: Leilani Clark | Published on: August 29, 2016

The next time someone points to the need for more farmers’ markets as a way to help move local food from a trend to a substantive cultural shift, you might consider telling them about the power of institutional purchasing. It may sound less interesting and, on the surface, it certainly is. (Who doesn’t love buying purple carrots to the sound of a didgeridoo?) But bear with us.

You see, public and private institutions spend billions of dollars each year on food.Schools, universities, hospitals, prisons, corporate cafeterias, and senior care facilities share one thing in common—they prepare, cook, and serve thousands of meals every day. Now, a rising national movement wants to persuade these institutions to source a higher percentage of food from regional producers—with an emphasis on farms, fishermen, and and ranches that follow ecologically sound, socially just, and humane practices. It’s called institutional food procurement, and, while it might not have quite as much romance as some other elements of today’s Good Food Movement, some say this follow-the-money strategy could hold the key to transforming the American food system.

A shift in institutional food buying has the potential for major impacts on not only the local economy, but on food access, according to Amanda Oborne, Vice President of Food and Farms at Ecotrust, an Oregon-based nonprofit that works to advance farm-to-institution initiatives in the Pacific Northwest.

“We put the focus on the buyers with multi-million dollar food procurement budgets because even if they just redirect a couple of percentage points of their budget into the region, that’s going to drive change all the way through the [local] supply chain,” says Oborne. In one example, chefs at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon can order whole hogs from local producers thanks to an innovative partnerships with a meat distribution company.

For Ecotrust, and other farm-to-institution groups across the nation, the goals are two-fold. First, they aim to sway large institutions with huge food budgets to leverage their purchasing power in support of small and mid-sized regional farmers, ranchers, and fisherman as a way to boost the local economies. And to pivot away from consolidated global distributors like Sysco. A second, and just as important goal, is to open up access to healthy, local, and sustainable food for the populations generally served by public institutions.

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Ten Questions with Nicolette Hahn Niman, Rancher, Lawyer, and Author

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Author: Kate Reed

Food Tank, in partnership with the Sacramento Convention & Visitors Bureau, Farm-to-Fork Program, and University of California, Davis, is excited to announce the 1st annual Farm Tank Conference at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento on September 22–23, 2016. This two-day event will feature more than 35 different speakers from the food and agriculture field. Researchers, farmers, chefs, policymakers, government officials, and students will come together for interactive panels.

The event will feature interactive panels moderated by top food journalists, networking, and delicious food, followed by a day of hands-on activities and opportunities for attendees.

Food Tank recently had the opportunity to speak with rancher, lawyer, and author Nicolette Hahn Niman, who will be speaking at the summit.

Food Tank (FT): What inspired you to get involved in food and agriculture? 

Nicolette Hahn Niman (NN): It was kind of accidental, really. I was working as the senior attorney for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., at Waterkeeper, and he asked me to launch a national campaign to reform industrial livestock production. That was the beginning of a journey I’ve now been on for 16 years!

FT: What do you see as the biggest opportunity to fix the food system?

NN: The power of the consumer. Each of us has tremendous influence over the food system because we directly interface with it several times a day. Every penny we spend on food is a vote for what kind of food system we want.

FT: What innovations in agriculture and the food system are you most excited about?

NN: There is an amazing amount of research and work on farms and ranches around the world focusing on the biology, especially the microbiology, of the soils. It seems that having a healthy soil microbiome is the single most important foundation of a viable, sustainable food system. This is amazing since hardly anyone was considering this even a decade ago!

FT: Can you share a story about a food hero that inspired you?

NN: I have met so, so many over the years, and it’s nearly impossible to choose one. They have been men and women of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds, and they are simply re-making the food system. One small but powerful step at a time, by creating farms, restaurants, markets, and direct-to-consumer ventures that are founded on the principle of food that is ecologically and humanely produced and healthy to eat.

 

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Freebee: How bees can help raise food security of 2 billion smallholders at no cost

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What do cucumbers, mustard, almonds and alfalfa have in common? On the surface very little. But there is one thing they share: they all owe their existence to the service of bees.

For centuries, this tiny striped helper has labored the world’s fields without winning much recognition for its many contributions to food production. Wild bees, in particular, seemed doomed to slog in the shadow of their more popular cousin – the honeybee – whose day job of producing golden nectar has been far more visible and celebrated.

But bees of all stripes are finally getting their moment in the sun with the publication of a paper that quantifies, for the first time, just how much our crop yields depend on the work of pollinators who unknowingly fertilize plants as they move from flower to flower.

And in doing so, they may have a key role to play in improving the production of some 2 billion smallholder farmers worldwide and ensuring the food security and nutrition of the world’s growing population.

The paper, published in the magazine Science, makes the case that ecological intensification – or boosting farm outputs by tapping the power of natural processes — is one of the sustainable pathways toward greater food supplies.

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Beyond Vegetarian: One Man’s Journey from Tofu to Tallow in Search of the Moral Meal [Interview]

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Author: Dustin

I met Daniel Zetah this past summer, while interning on a small-scale vegetable farm in northern Minnesota. He arrived one Thursday in a white, well-worn isuzu pickup, together with his fiancée, Stephanie. They brought with them two coolers full of meat (which they raised and butchered themselves), a few baskets of vegetables, a live turkey and her poults, two dogs, some camping equipment, and an old friend from their eco-village days who they had fortuitously seen hitchhiking along the side of the road. Daniel had interned on the farm years ago, and he was now returning to be married.

I learned over the course of their visit that Daniel had spent years living in Tasmania, where he had been a “freegan” (someone that scavenges for free food to reduce their consumption of resources), and full-time environmental activist, then a permaculture student, and then a natural builder. I learned Daniel had spent nine months on The Sea Shepherd—an anti-whaling ship vessel that uses direct-action tactics to confront illegal whaling ships—and played a very active role in Occupy Wallstreet.

I learned, too, that after ten years of vegetarianism, Daniel had become a big-time carnivore. As I had recently given up meat in an effort to mitigate my environmental impact, this choice struck me as incongruous. We ended up having a conversation about ethical and environmental eating, which challenged, angered, intrigued, and enlightened me. Daniel and his wife returned to their once-farm in central Minnesota, to finish packing and preparing to move to Tasmania. I called him at home to get the whole story, and record it for this article.

Would you describe yourself as a long-time farmer and environmental activist?

Not at all. I used to be a redneck. I used to race cars and motorcycles and snowmobiles… I was a motorhead. I don’t want people to think I was always like this, because then they’re like “oh, they were just brought up that way by parents that…” it’s like no, no: I was raised by wolves.

Until I was in my early 20s I ate nothing but crap. Like, garbage, American, supermarket food. When I would go shopping, I was literally after the cheapest calories I could possibly find at the supermarket.

When did that start to change?

Well, I met a girl that I ended up getting married to and she was vegetarian, and so I started eating a vegetarian diet. Which is still completely disconnected and completely clueless as to what your eating and where it’s from, it’s just you’re not eating meat. I ate tons of grain, lots of dairy and cheese, even eggs, but just no meat… And that’s where I was at for probably a good eight years, until my early 30s.

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Fixing Food: Fresh Solutions from Five U.S. Cities (2016)

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The nation’s cities are at the frontlines of a food system that sickens and impoverishes millions of Americans every year. Local communities where people live, shop, work, and receive healthcare bear the brunt of this system’s unhealthy, unjust outcomes, which disproportionately affect communities of color and low-income Americans.

In response, many local governments and community leaders are launching innovative efforts to make healthy food more available and affordable. Fixing Food presents case studies of programs from five U.S. cities that are helping residents grow and sell healthy food, training the next generation of farmers, and bringing healthy food to places where people gather.

The case studies

We reviewed hundreds of initiatives taking place in hundreds of U.S. cities, ultimately choosing five local efforts that show how healthy food access problems can be addressed at multiple points in the food system—by facilitating local production, creating new distribution channels, or making it easier for consumers to overcome time and transportation hurdles.

The five cities chosen—Oakland, Memphis, Louisville, Baltimore, and Minneapolis—all have populations between 400,000 and 700,000, and in all of them, the percentage of residents living below the federal poverty line is higher than the national average.

We hope these case studies may provide models that other local communities can learn from and adapt to their own unique challenges and needs. But they also demonstrate the need for comprehensive national food policy reform.

Keep Reading on the Union of Concerned Scientists

Degenerative vs Regenerative Agriculture – A Battle for Your Fork and Fashion

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Author: Jon Connors

In the fictitious Star Wars mythology, there are two sides battling for balance of the Universe. Those who serve the Dark Side, represented in the picture above with red light sabers, serve an order of hatred, anger, and absolute power. Those who serve in the Jedi order, serve according to Universal Laws and principles of goodness, fairness, balance and justice. These stories have captured our collective imagination partly because we can intuitively sense their truth in our everyday lives. In a subtle way, we are playing out the myth of Star Wars every time we sit down to eat, or choose clothing to wear; it is time to be aware of the ramifications of our actions.

In the real world, there are similarities between the Dark Side and the Jedi order when it comes down to agricultural production. The majority of agriculture in the United States is degenerative (aka the Dark Side); it pollutes the land, takes up more water than can be replaced naturally, erodes topsoil, and places carbon in the air- contributing to global warming. Most of the world’s agriculture fits this description.

Pollution: Wikipedia

Agricultural pollution refers to biotic and abiotic byproducts of farming practices that result in contamination or degradation of the environment and surrounding ecosystems, and/or cause injury to humans and their economic interests.

Water: USDA Economic Research Service

‘Agriculture… accounts for approximately 80 to 90 percent of U.S. consumptive water use.

Topsoil: University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources

In the United States, we lose an estimated 6.9 billion tons of soil each year (Pimentel, 2000).

Carbon: Yale’s Environment 360

The world’s cultivated soils have lost 50 to 70 percent of their original carbon stock.

According to many scientists, the Earth’s Sixth Extinction event is underway, in large part because of global agricultural practices. What this means is that every time most of us choose what food to eat and clothing to wear, we are unconsciously participating in the rapid destruction of our planet- we are unconsciously acting like the Death Star from the first Star Wars movie.

Keep Reading in The Medium

 

Main Street Project

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Our food and agriculture system is not working. Consumers experience declining nutritional quality and increasing health risks; agricultural workers endure long hours and low wages; rural communities are declining economically; and the environment suffers from soil depletion, chemical inputs and toxic waste.

The current structure of ownership and control of our food and agriculture system concentrates power in the hands of a select few, regards consumers merely as a source of revenue, and treats the environment as nothing more than the source of the products that capture that revenue. And we all pay the price.

We can do better. And at Main Street Project, we are. Main Street Project is developing a regenerative agriculture system that can equip farmers to solve our nation’s food crisis and has the power to change how food is produced around the world.

Learn More About Main Street Project