Lindquist is one of a growing number of oyster farmers whose businesses have the added benefit of helping restore the North Carolina coastline. 

“There is a nexus between food production and trying to improve the environment,” says Lindquist, a co-founder of Sandbar Oyster Company and a professor of marine science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Between 2009 and 2016, the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries processed 81 oyster farm lease applications; the numbers have continued to rise, hitting 98 applications in 2017, 69 applications in 2018 (when numbers were down due to Hurricane Florence) and 106 applications in 2019. Conservation experts say this uptick in the number of shellfish farms on the North Carolina coast is good news for wild oysters and the environment. 

Shellfish aquaculture or the farming of oysters, often in floating cages, helps protect wild oyster populations that have been historically overharvested. 

“The growth of the shellfish aquaculture industry in North Carolina can benefit the economy and the environment if it’s done sustainably,” says Jacob Boyd, section chief, Habitat and Enhancement for the NC Division of Marine Fisheries. 

From 1889 to 1908, annual harvests of wild oysters topped 500,000 bushels (with about 100 oysters per bushel), according to data from the North Carolina Coastal Federation but a combination of over-harvesting, habitat loss and diseases caused wild oyster populations to plummet to a low of nearly 34,500 bushels in 1994.

The numbers have started to rebound, as more than 119,000 bushels of wild and farmed oysters were harvested in 2018. The latest data shows that the harvest of farmed oysters has surpassed the wild harvest for the first time. Beth Darrow, chief scientist at Bald Head Island Conservancy, believes aquaculture has helped. 

“Oyster farming is one of the most sustainable food production systems [and] provides a sustainable alternative to wild oyster harvest,” Darrow says. “It reduces the strain on wild oyster populations and allows them to rebound.”

Oysters also offer some big environmental benefits: the reefs act as natural breakwaters, protecting against sea level rise and storm surge, reducing erosion and improving water quality (a single oyster filters up to 50 gallons of water per day).

The North Carolina coast is particularly vulnerable to climate-related changes, including storm surges, coastal flooding and erosion. Oyster farms could help mitigate the damage, says Erin Fleckenstein, a coastal scientist and regional manager for North Carolina Coastal Federation.

“When you use oyster reef to protect from erosion in a living shoreline, the reefs…act as speed bumps for the waves and help to disperse the wave energy,” says Fleckenstein.

Photo courtesy of Scott Burrell.

Boyd notes that while oyster farms do provide environmental benefits for ecosystems, it is unclear if they are as beneficial as wild oyster populations for building reefs. More data is needed before a solid conclusion can be drawn, he adds.

“Shellfish farming is more temporary because of the harvest, but farmers always have oysters of different sizes in the water and that creates a benefit,” he adds.

A growing number of oyster farmers are also contributing to restoration projects. 

These restoration projects have also helped sustain oyster farmers during the pandemic, as restaurants were closed and shellfish farmers were off from their biggest markets. As demand for fresh oysters fell, it increased concerns over the loss of jobs in the aquaculture industry and the potential for oyster prices to collapse.

In 2021, a new program, Supporting Oyster Aquaculture and Restoration (SOAR), was created to purchase 5 million farmed oysters to restore shellfish leases in 20 locations across the United States. 

SOAR is operated through a partnership between the Nature Conservancy, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Department of Agriculture and is aimed at protecting the shellfish aquaculture industry while supporting the environment.

In North Carolina, the Department of Marine Fisheries introduced the Shellfish Lease Restoration Permit (SLRP) in April. The pandemic-inspired initiative recognized that farmers needed an outlet to sell their oysters and allowed farmers to sell oysters, not meant for human consumption, to restoration sites.

Lindquist was one of the first oyster farmers to receive a permit.

“Not all of the oysters a grower has in their crop are table ready; they might not be pretty, they might have grown too big…and that’s a portion of the crop that could be useful for restoration,” he says. “[Selling to a restoration site] helps farmers to diversify their markets and helps us get as many oysters back into estuaries as we can.”

Every farmed oyster that goes into the water—even if it’s not used in a restoration site—provides important ecosystem benefits and Lindquist hopes that as oyster farming increases on the North Carolina coast, shellfish aquaculture will be viewed as a beneficial coastal industry.

“You can view oyster farms as restoration sites,” he says. “[Oyster farming] can generate a tremendous amount of high quality food…and have a lot of environmental benefits as well.”

The post Can Oyster Farming Save the North Carolina Coast? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“One of the things we keep hearing is how happy people are to see things being built — to see investments in our communities — because usually things just come down in West Virginia,” explains Boettner. “With farming, we’re trying to create an alternative and give people hope.”

In a 2019 report, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) identified local food systems and agriculture as two promising sectors to build economic resilience in the region, which is important in a state with the lowest labor force participation rate in the nation, where the decline of coal mining has left residents with few options to make a living.

Wendy Wasserman, communications director for the ARC, supports efforts to transform reclaimed coal mines into productive agricultural land. “We’re seeing a growing pride in local agriculture and its potential to be a valuable economic driver in our communities,” she says.

A bounty of greenhouse lettuce at Sprouting Farms / Photo courtesy of Sprouting Farms

Converting Challenges Into Opportunities

With the help of a $1.5 million grant from the ARC POWER Initiative, Boettner began building a regional food system in West Virginia. He purchased an 85-acre training farm and partnered with another nonprofit, Refresh Appalachia, to launch Turnrow: Appalachian Farm Collective, a food hub that processes, markets, sells and distributes fresh foods grown on farms across Appalachia, including training farms operated by Sprouting Farms and Refresh Appalachia.

Boettner admits that the concept was strong, but the execution proved to be challenging. For starters, the land in West Virginia is more conducive to coal mining than agriculture. Refresh Appalachia tried growing vegetables on a reclaimed mining site in Mingo County, but the terrain and soil conditions proved too challenging and, when grant funding expired, director Adam Hudson decided not to pursue farming on alternative sites.

Refresh Appalachia and Sprouting Farms teamed up to turn another reclaimed mining site into an aquaponics facility that will grow tilapia and lettuce, thanks to a separate grant from the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Economic Development Pilot Program. The facility is scheduled to go online in early 2020.

In addition to providing jobs, the food hub and aquaponics facility create opportunities for both new and experienced farmers. Turnrow brings together a regional network of farms to sell large quantities of fresh produce throughout Appalachia. Its distribution area spans from Blacksburg, Virginia, to Huntington, West Virginia, and continues to grow, and the expanded distribution area means more sales.

“We’ve been having meetings with farmers, coming up with production plans and creating agreements so that we can continue to meet demand and build up their businesses,” says Boettner. “To me, farmers in West Virginia have always been subsistence farmers, and we’re showing them how to grow to scale, reach new markets and find new opportunities to sell their produce.”

Local farmers are responding. The food hub has increased from 10 producers and $65,000 in gross revenue in 2017 to 50 producers and $225,000 in gross revenues last season, and demand continues to grow. Boettner hopes revenues will hit $500,000 this year.

To keep up with the demand from restaurants, schools and farmers’ markets, Boettner is recruiting additional farm partners to grow more produce, and Hudson is recruiting additional participants to the Refresh Appalachia workforce development training program.

“Right now, we have more market demand than production, which is great for farmers and the local economy,” says Hudson. “When local farmers produce food that is purchased with local dollars, that money goes back into local communities, and we need that for viable economic development.”

The Struggle to Support Local Food

While the ARC, Sprouting Farms, Refresh Appalachia and other local organizations are fighting to make agriculture a viable industry in West Virginia, making local food accessible to residents remains challenging. “Most people here can’t afford to buy local food,” says Hudson. “Through no fault of their own, the cost is out of reach.”

Efforts are being made to expand the SNAP Stretch program, an initiative that allows low-income residents to double or triple the value of SNAP dollars at farmers’ markets throughout West Virginia. Sprouting Farms is working to expand the program to the Charleston’s Capitol Market, the largest farmers’ market in the state, to improve access to fresh local foods.

“It’s not just about doing the SNAP Stretch program for the vendors that are part of the food hub,” says Boettner. “We want to connect low-income residents with all of the market vendors to make local food more affordable.”

With multiple organizations committed to addressing the issue, Hudson believes it’s possible to build a local food system that prioritizes healthy, affordable food for residents and sustainable market opportunities and fair wages for farmers. But even a thriving local food system might not be enough to replace the economic devastation created by declines in coal mining.

“The coal industry is this huge economic and cultural identity that we’ve had for more than 100 years, but West Virginia is more than just coal,” says Boettner. “Farming might not replace the incomes or jobs provided by coal fields, but I think it can provide pride in our communities and ownership over our destinies. We want to feed healthy foods to our communities, and our goal is to take these opportunities and try really hard to see if we can make them sustainable because investing in our farms is good for our communities.”

The post Can Farming Save Appalachia? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

This important book is now available.

Is Beekeeping Helping or Hurting Struggling Pollinator Populations?

Excerpt by Jodi Helmer

In the race to save pollinators, even the ancient hobby of beekeeping has come under fire. Critics warn that domesticated honey bees are detrimental to wild pollinators. In fact, a 2018 study published in the journal Science was titled, “Conserving honey bees does not help wildlife,” and suggested widespread efforts to tend European honey bees were misguided.

Instead of treating honey bees like pollinators, a growing number of researchers have suggested seeing them as livestock, noting that both managed colonies and cows, pigs, and chickens raised in cramped conditions face similar issues: Overcrowding and homogenous diets depress their immune systems and increase pathogens. In one meta-analysis, more than half of studies found competition for resources had negative effects on wild bees. (The research did not measure the direct effects of honey bees on wild bee fitness, abundance, or diversity; managed hives located in their native ranges had a lower impact on wild bees than those in hives situated in non-native ranges).

“Much of the discussion and the debate around pollinators and pollinator health over the last 10 years has really been driven and fueled by the honey bee… I think those of us who have worked on pollinator ecology for a long time, we feel a certain amount of affinity for the honey bee. But out of the whole range of pollinator issues, the honey bee is doing fairly well compared to some species. The honey bee is not going extinct anytime soon,” says Eric Lee-Mader, co-director of pollinator conservation at the nonprofit Xerces Society.

Thanks to the focus on honey bees, Lee-Mader believes that native pollinators might not get enough credit for their role in crop pollination. He cites squash and pumpkins as examples of crops where native bees outperform honey bees. But farmers often don’t realize this, paying for hive rentals to ensure pollination takes place, even though native bees are more than equipped to do the work.

Lee-Mader notes that the native bees tend to be active early in the morning, often before the sun has fully risen, so farmers don’t realize they’re getting a free service. He hopes beekeeping can evolve so people understand that honey bees are not the answer to every pollination challenge. We can’t keep ignoring the larger health of the natural environment.

“Unfortunately, when we look at beekeeping, especially large-scale beekeeping, there tend to be a lot of problematic and troubling questions that arise,” he adds. “The honey bee, unfortunately, suffers from the challenges that have arisen from within the beekeeping industry like the long-distance movement of bees…that has facilitated the spread of bee diseases.”

One serious concern is the spread of pathogens between managed bees and wild bees. The majority of studies on the topic have found potential harm to wild species. The possibility that honey bees could be contributing to the decline of their wild brethren led researchers to test 169 bees from four families and eight genera for five common honey bee viruses…and found that more than 80 of wild bees were diagnosed with at least one virus.

Viruses can be spread when both species visit the same flowers. Moving hives between pollination sites is equivalent to bringing new, non-native species to different areas. These issues led the study authors to suggest that honey bee declines should be seen as an agricultural issue, not a threat to biodiversity. They also argued for policies such as hive size limits, location restrictions, and greater controls of managed hives in protective areas. The authors offered a firm directive, noting, “Honeybees may be necessary for crop pollination, but beekeeping is an agrarian activity that should not be confused with wildlife conservation.”

Christina Grozinger PhD, distinguished professor of entomology at Pennsylvania State University embraces a less hardcore stance on the issue, noting while it’s currently popular to say that honey bees are destroying landscapes, she doesn’t think that the data backs up that view.

“I don’t think it’s a zero-sum game where you have honey bees in the landscape and therefore, the wild bees go down,” she says.

Novice beekeepers might be making life harder for honey bees. As the “save the bees” message spreads, the number of new beekeepers has increased. In 2015, the Florida Department of Agriculture reported a record number of registered beekeepers in the state with 3,856 beekeepers maintaining 460,000 new colonies (up from 150,000 hives in 2007). Illinois has also reported a surge in new beekeepers with 700 new beekeepers registering with the state Department of Agriculture in a single year, bringing the number to the highest level since 2005. Meanwhile, 300 new beekeepers have joined the Backyard Beekeepers Association in Spokane, Washington, since 2015.

Even though uneducated beekeepers have been called, “one of the largest killers of local bee populations,” most beginners lack adequate support to succeed. Even the most enthusiastic new beekeepers might struggle to maintain their hives without education and mentoring. According to some estimates, 70 percent of new beekeepers quit within the first two years.

Inexperienced beekeepers might not be equipped to recognize and treat pathogens like Varroa mites. Bees from infected colonies will abandon their hives and merge with other colonies. Or when they die off, bees from other colonies will “rob” the honey from infected hives and bring it back to their colonies, spreading disease. Whether or not a colony is healthy can depend on the beekeeper’s background and apicultural practices. Unfortunately, those practices are currently trending aware from good science and management. An article in American Bee Journal notes a “strong mood shift” among aspiring beekeepers. Some want zero interaction with their bees, believing that feeding bees or smoking the hive (to keep bees calm during routine inspections) are acts against nature.

Given the hands-off approach that some new and “natural” beekeepers take to maintaining hives, it might not be surprising that beginning beekeepers had double the winter losses of professional beekeepers; beginners also had more signs of bacterial infections and heavier Varroa infestations. Pesticides are the sole treatment option for Varroa mites.

Novice beekeepers often want to steer clear of chemical treatments, which puts other hives at risk. Because small-scale beekeepers have hives spread across the landscape—as opposed to concentrated in agricultural areas—starting a hive without understanding how to maintain it increases the risk that viruses will spread. Hobbyist beekeepers have exacerbated the spread of pathogens and resistance to miticides and antibiotics, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Economic Entomology.

Data collected from beginning beekeepers could be making the status of honey bee populations appear direr than is warranted. Reports of abandoned hives led to widespread concerns about Colony Collapse Disorder, but information about losses came from voluntary surveys from beekeepers; beginning beekeepers—whose inexperience leads to greater losses—contributed to those surveys and their die-offs became part of the scientific record. During the 2017-2018 season, backyard beekeepers lost 46.3 percent of their colonies over the winter compared with just 26.4 percent for commercial beekeepers.

Highlighting the possible downsides of good intentions is not meant to dissuade public efforts to help pollinators. Rather, letting concerned citizens know what could go wrong—and providing education and resources to minimize those unintended consequences—can help pollinator populations bounce back. Experts support initiatives to protect pollinators, including some of the potentially “harmful” practices such as monarch releases, maintaining gardens of tropical milkweed, and beekeeping.

“It’s really important to understand the species that you’re trying to protect,” says Sarina Jepsen, director of endangered species for the Xerces Society and deputy chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature bumblebee specialist group. “Often, we need to act before we fully understand why a species is declining and it’s really important to continue to do research to answer the most relevant questions and to continually adjust conservation strategies as new research becomes available.”

The post Book Excerpt: “Protecting Pollinators: How to Save the Creatures that Feed Our World” appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Beehive theft is big business. It takes more than 1.5 million colonies of bees to pollinate the almond orchards in California, and beekeepers are paid an average of $171 per hive for pollination services. Thanks to high demand and increasing fees, beekeepers see the potential to earn bigger incomes by stealing hives and renting them out for pollination.

While there are no national statistics available, law enforcement offices throughout southern California receive reports of stolen hives on a regular basis during February and March, which is peak almond pollination season.

Some beekeepers paint their hives or carve serial numbers into the wood, but the markings are simple to scratch out or paint over. New high-tech tools have emerged to track stolen hives.

Ellie Symes, CEO of The Bee Corp, learned about the need for a device to track stolen hives while attending the Oregon State Beekeepers Association meeting in 2017. Several beekeepers approached Symes to ask if she could develop a GPS-based solution that would track stolen hives. “Beekeeping is an expensive profession, and these thefts were having a big impact on beekeepers,” she says. “Hiding a GPS device in a hive is a deterrent. It’s similar to putting an ADT [alarm] sign in front of a house: Potential thieves know that the hive movements can be tracked.”

In New Zealand, police made a bust at a beehive “chop shop” thanks to a tracking device created by MyApiary. The device allows beekeepers to keep tabs on hives and lead police straight to the thieves.

Managing director Darren Bainbridge likens the device to a cell phone in a box: If a hive is moved, beekeepers receive notifications via cell phone and can track the movements. The HiveTracker costs around $200, plus an annual subscription fee.

While it’s cost prohibitive to embed a tracker in every beehive, Bainbridge says that using one or two devices for every 30 hives is often enough to thwart thieves. “It’s not one or two hives being taken,” he says. “Thieves are pinching entire apiaries.”

Bainbridge believes that deploying technology can help with recovering them, collecting evidence and helping to build a case. Botti agrees and calls GPS hive-tracking tools “a great idea” that he would encourage beekeepers to use.

But as high-tech hive trackers become more mainstream, thieves have found new ways to steal colonies, including showing up to remote orchards with their own hive boxes and stealing the frames of bees (and leaving the GPS trackers behind).

Symes believes that the best tool is small enough to embed into the hive, making it harder to detect. For now, The Bee Corp isn’t planning to develop a new anti-theft device. “Beehive theft pisses off the entire industry, but is it enough of a problem to make it worth the cost to develop?” says Symes. “There are other, bigger issues facing bees.”

The post Can High-Tech Tools Solve Beehive Thefts? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“There is this really cool thing happening where initially identical microbes evolve as they’re sent out into different environments,” explains Benjamin E. Wolfe, an assistant professor at Tufts University and part of the team working on the Sourdough Project at NC State. “The bacteria start to change, integrating foreign elements into their genomes really quickly.”

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) launched a similar citizen science project last spring, dubbed “The Herman Project.” Researchers shared a sourdough starter, named Herman, with bakers and tracked its path from person to person to see how microbes change in different environments. To date, researchers have sent 150 starters to 10 countries; more than half have been returned to the MIT lab for analysis.

“We’re starting to appreciate the role of whole communities of diverse micro-organisms, like the gut microbiome, and how microbes in the soil provide essential nutrients to the plant in agriculture,” says Gabriel Leventhal, a postdoctoral fellow at MIT and founder of The Herman Project. “Fermented foods like sourdough are particularly interesting because, as humans, we have been cultivating these ‘microbial communities’ for thousands of years. There are many stories about sourdough starters that have been propagated for decades —  even centuries — and handed down through generations, but we know very little about the internal composition of the microbial community. This is where The Herman Project comes in.”

The initial results from both MIT and NC State show that the microbial makeup of a sourdough starter changes based on multiple factors in the environment — from elevation to temperature to a baker’s skin — and it affects everything in the resulting bread, from aroma to flavor. It appears that the differences start in the field.

As part of a 2015 study, researchers grew wheat on one farm using four different farming methods (conventional, organic with cow manure, organic with green manure, and zero inputs) and found marked differences in the microbes in the flours. Farming methods also had an effect on the bread — breads made from organic flours had a superior crumb structure and crust color.

Wolfe calls this farm-to-ferment effect an important consideration when choosing flour for a sourdough starter. “Different kinds of flour create different microbial communities,” he says.

Although researchers on The Sourdough Project have just started assessing the microbes in various starters, one controversial finding has emerged: “There is nothing unique about San Francisco sourdough — no unique microbial signature that we’ve found so far — that makes it any different from sourdough from Boston or Quebec,” says Wolfe. “We’re still looking.”

The post How Does Sourdough Get Its Unique Flavor? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Meadow mics

Researchers placed small microphones in alpine meadows to record the buzzing of bees. According to the 2017 study, the acoustics allowed scientists to gauge the number and species of bees in the meadows. Researchers hope that farmers could place microphones in their fields to monitor the pollination of fruits, vegetables and nuts and, in the absence of sufficient bee activity, rent additional hives.

BuzzBox

For $199, beekeepers can attach sensors to their beehives that monitor sound signatures, which can signal issues like missing queens, swarming and parasites. The BuzzBox hive health monitor sends alerts via smartphone app if something is amiss. “Early detection is the next best thing after prevention,” says Aaron Makaruk, co-founder of OSBeehives, the start-up behind BuzzBox.

Thermosolar hive

Chemical treatments are the first defense against the Varroa mites that decimate bee colonies. Czech beekeeper Roman Linhart designed a beehive with a rooftop solar panel that heats up the interior of the hive to temperatures that can be tolerated by bees but not Varroa mites. A 2016 crowdfunding campaign raised more than $70,000 for the project; the patented hives were sent to backers who pledged at least $650. The Thermosolar Hive isn’t yet available to the general public.

Robot bees

If honeybee populations plummet, drone pollinators could pick up the slack. Designs for robot bees are varied: Japanese scientists retrofitted a drone with gel-coated horsehair bristles to collect pollen grains, while the RoboBee developed at Harvard University has flapping wings. The working prototypes are a good “plan B,” according to Shashi Shekhar, a computer science professor at the University of Minnesota. “If there are unanticipated surprises or if other measures of protecting bees aren’t effective and we have a real shortage of bees in the future, we’ll need artificial pollinators,” says Shekhar.

The post The Buzz Over High-Tech Beehives appeared first on Modern Farmer.

It took two years to perfect the process and get approval for retail sales, though Adam Cornell, co-founder of the Sydney-based startup, admits that the task of getting the cow-to-consumer product on store shelves was challenging.

“We were in touch with [the New South Wales Food Authority, the Australian equivalent of the FDA] from the beginning,” he says. “The more we tested, the more we learned; and the more we learned, the more we tested. Proving the science was difficult, but in the end it led to a patented method that met or exceeded the results obtained from heat pasteurization.”

Unlike pasteurization, which heats milk to 161 Fahrenheit for 15 seconds to kill pathogens, the cold-press process (called high-pressure processing or HPP) puts the bottled milk under intense water pressure without the addition of heat for several minutes, which Cornell claims, “inactivates the nasties in the milk.”

Offering consumers a legal alternative to raw milk, Cornell believes, could be a turning point for Aussie farmers.

“Our farmers get a bad deal here in Australia,” he says. In fact, it costs around 50 cents to produce one liter of milk [about $1.89 US per gallon] and local co-ops purchase milk for just three cents more per liter, according to Cornell, leaving little profit for the farmer. Although Cornell declined to provide specifics about how much Made by Cow pays its farmers, he says it’s “a lot more” than conventional dairy farmers earn.

In their Sydney, Australia, treatment facility, Made by Cow uses a patented high-pressure processing to create “almost raw” milk that isn’t pasteurized or homogenized. Courtesy Made by Cow

Made by Cow sources their milk from a single herd of 250 Jersey cows in Berry, pictured here with farmers Hayley and Stuart Menzies. Courtesy Made by Cow

To date, Made by Cow has partnered with local farmers Hayley and Stuart Menzies to raise 250 Jersey cows whose milk is bottled, cold pressed, and sold throughout Australia.

Producing a premium product – a 750 ml bottle of cold-pressed raw milk retails for $4.99 Australian, which is about $3.79 US – allows farmers to earn a premium wage, he says. The price has not deterred consumers from purchasing Made by Cow milk. Within 24 hours of delivering the first 3,000 750 ml bottles of cold-pressed milk to Australian supermarkets in June, most were sold out.

Through its current relationships with farmers, Made by Cow is producing 10,000 liters of almost-raw milk per week, roughly the equivalent of 2,640 gallons. As the business grows, Cornell hopes to add more farmers to meet demand. In the meantime, Cornell has plans to travel to the United States in the coming months to meet with FDA officials to talk about cold-pressing raw milk for sale in this hemisphere. “We have had hundreds of inquires from the US since we launched so we are confident it will be well received,” he says.

Indeed, with US farmers struggling to make inroads with raw milk – just 12 states, including Washington, Arizona, Nevada and Maine allow raw milk to be sold in retail stores and an additional 15 states permit sales at farmers markets or on the farm – a process that removes pathogens while preserving flavor could be a boon to the raw-milk market.

In Australia, though, critics warn that despite approval from the local food authority, allowing widespread sales of cold-pressed milk could prove problematic. In an article published in June in the Sydney Morning Herald, microbiologist and infectious disease specialist Peter Collignon expressed concern over the lack of research on the cold-press process, saying, “I do worry this is a marketing exercise for raw milk but without the science to show the process is anywhere near as good as pasteurization.”

Cornell, unconcerned with the criticism, stands by the safety of the process. Thanks to consumer demand and the blessing of the New South Wales Food Authority, Made by Cow hopes to build its cold-pressed dairy product empire, adding new products made with the same process.

“We hope the benefits of drinking the closest milk there is to raw milk will resonate throughout the community,” he says.

The post Milking a Legal Loophole to Get (Nearly) Raw Milk to the Masses appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Whiting ensures perfection – and claims 70 to 80 percent of the world market – by breeding his own birds. Since earning a Ph.D. in poultry science (with a specialty in genetics) from the University of Arkansas in the late 1980s, he’s developed dozens of breeds, including the Coq de Leon, Brahma Hen, Spay, and Whiting Grizzly (above).

At about 50 weeks, the chickens are butchered and their feathers harvested. (Removing them would be painful to the bird.) The rest of the chicken is then composted for use on farming fields. “It’s a funny niche business,” Whiting allows. “But I’m actually designing new chickens, which is vastly more satisfying than I ever imagined.”

The post Meet the Modern Farmer: Tom Whiting appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“A mature peach tree can produce 300 to 500 pounds of fruit and adopters need to harvest all of it,” he explains. “We want [adopters] who are willing to make a commitment.”

Vasseur sugarhouse / Courtesy Tonewood Maple.

Masumoto Family Farm launched its Adopt-A-Tree program in 2004. On the 80-acre orchard, 50 trees are set aside for the adoption program. In exchange for a $600 annual fee, adopters are sent regular updates about their tree; when the peaches or nectarines are ripe, adopters come to the farm and pick all of its fruit.

Adopt-a-Tree programs are niche offerings that are gaining favor with farmers. It’s possible to adopt fruit trees, maples, olives and even cacao trees; the fees help offset operational costs and an early season commitment ensures farmers have a market for their harvest.

In Vermont, an adopt-a-tree program launched in 2012 is helping maple sugar makers preserve a local tradition.

The fees help offset operational costs and an early season commitment ensures farmers have a market for their harvest.

Dori Ross created an agency, Tonewood Maple, that partners with Vasseur Family Farm and Hartschorn Sugarbush to coordinate the adoptions of maple trees on their farms.

“These are multigenerational farms where sugaring is a labor of love,” she explains. “Climate change is affecting these sugar-makers and unless we do something creative to raise awareness and help support the farms, the history and culture of sugaring will be lost.”

The farmers weren’t interested in overseeing the program but were eager to have a new market for their maple sugar and syrup.

Tonewood Maple collects a $120 adoption fee and sends along bottles of artisan maple syrup, maple sugar and maple wafers to adopters along with a personalized certificate and photo of the adopted tree. They include a booklet that describes the process of sugaring, various syrup grades and challenges maple farmers face.

Since the program started, adoptions have doubled each year and Tonewood Maple counts a rock star, a Hollywood celeb and a European prince among its dedicated adopters (you’ll have to guess which ones).

“It’s a fun way to support a livelihood and an age-old sustainable product,” Ross says.

[mf_1200px_image src=”https://modernfarmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Hartshorns.jpg” caption=”Sugarmakers Paul & Dave Hartshorn. / Courtesy Tonewood Maple.” captionposition=”none” parallax=”off”]

Over the last decade, the adopt-a-tree program at Masumoto Family Farm has become so popular that there is a waiting list to participate (and the farm declines applications from adopters that don’t seem serious about the commitment).

It’s different from a u-pick operation because the commitment requires adopters to harvest all of the fruit on their tree, not just pick a few pecks. A bountiful harvest is turned into pies, cobblers, jams and salsas, helping adopters feel connected to the farm long after peach season ends.

“We never wanted to be a theme park of peaches,” Masumoto explains. “We want to connect people with their food — the best way to do that is to have people come to the farm and pick peaches.”

[mf_editorial_break layout=”threecol” title=”Make It Official” subtitle=”” credit=”You can support farmers by becoming the proud parent of a tree. Here are a few farms that offer adopt-a-tree programs.”]

Masumoto Family Farm in Del Ray, California
www.masumoto.com
Adoption applications are available in January and adopters must be available to pick the fruit from their tree during harvest season.

Tonewood Maple in Waitsfield, VT
www.tonewoodmaple.com
The $120 adoption fee includes a personalized certificate and photo, four bottles of maple syrup, maple sugar and maple wafers.

YA YA Farm and Orchard in Longmont, Colorado
www.yayafarmandorchard.com
The $150 annual adoption fee includes an adoption certificate with a tree number to help adopters find their tree in the orchard and a half-peck of apples annually.

Manawai Estate Chocolate Farm in Maui, Hawaii
www.manawaiestatechocolate.com
Cacao seedlings and young trees are available for adoption. The fees range from $60 to $800 and benefits include adoption certificates, photos and estate chocolates.

Texas Hill Country Olive Company in Dripping Springs, Texas
texashillcountryoliveco.com
For an adoption fee of $165, adopters receive a branded wooden crate, four bottles of private and estate-labeled extra virgin olive oil and the option to create customized labels.

[/mf_editorial_break]

The post Adopt a Tree, Help a Farm appeared first on Modern Farmer.