And despite the name, bird flu doesn’t only impact birds. Since 2022, there have been four cases reported in humans and, more recently, more than 100 herds of dairy cattle in the US alone. The infection has also been found in both the milk and meat of these animals. This month, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency updated its testing eligibility for cattle and said it would now cover some of the testing fees, to ensure any outbreaks are dealt with swiftly. Luckily, in humans, the disease isn’t known to be fatal, but it can lead to high temperatures, breathing trouble, diarrhea, conjunctivitis and potentially more serious complications such as pneumonia or respiratory illness. 

So, what does this mean for your grocery order? Let’s break it down. 

First, poultry. Is it safe to eat?

Yes. Experts say it is highly unlikely that humans can contract the virus from properly cooked meat or eggs. This means cooking eggs until the yolk and whites are firm and chicken to at least 165°F. And to be safe, keep raw poultry away from any other foods. 

But what’s even more important is that infected meat or eggs are very unlikely to reach grocery store shelves in the first place. According to a USDA predictive model, there is a less than five percent chance that infected eggs or meat might make it to the grocery store—and the model also predicts that if that did happen, 98 percent of infected eggs could be recalled immediately. 

Photography via Shutterstock/nastya_ph

But what about milk?

Recent studies of about 300 commercially available dairy products revealed inactive HPAI in one in five samples. That number seems like a lot on the surface, but there’s one key element: pasteurization. There is increasing evidence that the pasteurization process neutralizes the virus, making pasteurized dairy products safe to consume. 

In the 297 samples tested by the USDA, there was no instance of a live, viable virus in any pasteurized product. 

Is beef ok?

As with poultry and eggs, it’s highly unlikely that infected beef would make it to store shelves in the first place. However, if it does, experts also agree that properly cooked beef carries very little risk of transmitting the virus to humans. Cooking your meat to an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit (74 degrees Celsius) will neutralize avian flu, E Coli and any other bacteria. 

Photography via Shutterstock/Oxana A

So, what do I need to know?

The main thing to ensure when shopping for or preparing food is that you’re following safe food guidelines. Consuming raw eggs (looking at you, cookie dough) or unpasteurized dairy products could increase your risk of not just HPAI but salmonella, E Coli, listeria or other food-borne illnesses. Raw ground beef can also be a transmitter of those illnesses, so store beef at 40 degrees F or below, and use it within a few days. It’s also best to cook ground beef to an internal temperature of at least 160 degrees F. 

If you are someone who regularly comes in contact with farms, be they poultry or cattle, following a strict biosecurity plan will help reduce the risk of transmitting infections. That means tightening visitor access to your farm, wearing clean boots and clothes and removing or controlling any standing water. In the meantime, officials are looking at several solutions to mitigate these outbreaks, including new vaccines.

The post How Much Do You Really Need to Worry About Bird Flu? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

But the fight with bird flu isn’t over yet, and we may come out on the other side with healthier birds (and new menu options).

Photography via Shutterstock.

Rats with wings

The humble pigeon, thought by many to be a pest, has much to offer us in this fight against bird flu. Pigeons were once revered as war heroes, used to carry messages during the world wars; the Dickin Medal, the highest possible decoration for valor in animals, has been given to 32 pigeons, beginning with Winkie the pigeon in 1942. Before that, we used pigeons for meat and eggs, and squab (juvenile pigeons) remain a delicacy in much of the world. Texts from Spain regarding raising pigeons for their meat date back as far as 60 A.D. 

But today, it’s the pigeons’ DNA that can help us. Pigeons have high numbers of interferon-stimulated genes (which signal to infected cells when a pathogen is present), giving them what researchers hypothesize is an inherent ability to prevent viruses from entering their cells and spreading. After being exposed to bird flu in a lab environment, pigeons showed a low immune response and had low levels of the virus in their bodies. In comparison, chickens and turkeys with the same exposure had high levels of the virus concentrated in their organs, particularly in the brain. 

Further studies have shown pigeons to be resistant and/or minimally susceptible to the virus. One hundred rock pigeons were tested for the virus during the 2022 outbreak; only two were positive. However, their deaths were not attributed to the virus.

Obviously, the poultry industry’s showing no signs of restructuring to push pigeon quesadillas or pigeon tenders as your weeknight dinner. Despite pigeons’ benefits in bird flu resistance, much of our industry is focused around the more traditional chicken and turkey. But for those in favor of pigeon, they claim to reap the benefits. 

Squab Producers of California, founded in 1943, is the largest squab producer in the US, producing more than 400,000 squab yearly. Although SPOC owns a commercial processing plant, the squab are raised in more than 600 different local farms that work together as a co-op, so that the birds don’t have to face the traditional factory farming environment.

The federation’s president, Dalton Rasmussen, notes that the birds produce better when they’re happier—so they try to give each bird a short but sweet life. The birds processed by SPOC spend their short time in small, locally owned farms, often with outdoor flight pens that allow older breeder birds a taste of the good life. “It’s one of the tastiest, tenderest meats that you can get,” says Rasmussen. “It used to be known as the meat of kings, because it was served to royalty all the way back to the Egyptian days.”

Prices for conventional chicken and turkey meat, as well as eggs, have suffered through the bird flu epidemic. In addition, fear associated with the virus has dampened consumers’ enthusiasm for poultry dinners. Tyson, one of the largest poultry producers in the US, reported slipping sales through 2023, leading to the closure of four of its plants. US poultry sales overall declined by 13 percent between 2022 and 2023. It’s hard to say whether it’s impacted squab farmers, with so few commercial farmers to reference, but, so far, there has yet to be a bird flu breakout at any US pigeon farming facility. In an uncertain time of H5N1, we may see more consumers trying pigeon. And with many neighborhoods restricting chicken ownership, maybe we’ll see backyard pigeon roosts gaining in popularity, too.

We can’t change Bird Flu. Can we change chickens?

There are some possible pigeon-less solutions in the works, such as gene editing. However, it’s a tricky business, and it rarely has a guaranteed payoff. 

Scout Thompson, a PhD student in biology at Western University, says the technology might not yet be sophisticated enough to prevent the spread of avian flu. “Even if [gene editing] could successfully eradicate the current strains of concern in domestic flocks, the virus could still persist in wild waterfowl and be reintroduced with mutations.” 

And, with the current state of bird flu infections, that possibility doesn’t seem unlikely. Many different species of waterfowl have already fallen victim, and experts are concerned that migratory patterns of waterfowl may cause seasonal surges in infection. Researchers have begun making progress with the CRISPR gene-editing technique, but we simply don’t yet know if this could result in long-term progress for the battle against H5N1. 

Photography via Shutterstock

Betting on biosecurity

Vaccines are always an option, but it’s not always possible to mass-vaccinate poultry on the scale that would be required on a factory farm; after a positive test, just one major poultry farm in Texas was forced to cull close to two million chickens. 

But for smaller flocks, vaccines can be a source of hope. “I think we should make it easier for very small flocks to purchase vaccinations, medications and other treatments for their birds,” says Saro Nortrup, an urban flock owner in Nebraska. “Most of these, such as [medication for] Marek’s disease, are very expensive with large dosage options and a very limited shelf life.” 

According to the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, all of the UK’s native breeds of chickens, ducks and geese are under threat from bird flu. While bird flu losses that make the news typically number in the millions, Nortrup noted that any bird’s death can cause a cascade of damage. “If you have a rare breed, for example, the loss of your flock could have a serious impact on the genetic pool of an entire breed.”

Many American producers grew frustrated as it seemed to be an endless wait for bird flu vaccinations that weren’t coming; even now, many farms don’t have access to preventative vaccines. However, renewed interest has led to new developments and increased accessibility for these vaccines; scientists are working on a vaccine for humans, in the case of a potential pandemic if bird flu begins inter-human transmission.

We don’t have all the answers to bird flu yet. But, with so many partial solutions in the works, we’ll find a way to push forward—even if the poultry industry is never quite the same.

Correction: A previous version of this article referred to HPAI as H1N1. That has been corrected to H5N1. 

The post Rats With Wings, Vaccines, And New Breed—2024’s Solutions to the Bird Flu Crisis appeared first on Modern Farmer.

I’ve worked with birds in many different settings, which allowed me access to many different species. For the exotic birds, it ranged from rescued wild-caught African Greys who wanted nothing to do with me to aviaries full of friendly budgies and cockatiels clamoring for a little one-on-one affection. For domestic birds, such as poultry, I worked with total “mutt” chickens to Bourbon Red Turkeys to the coveted Ayam Cemani, a breed of chicken that is fully jet-black, inside and out. (No, I didn’t crack any open to check.) Aside from my own pet birds, I worked on a farm where I raised chickens, ducks, and turkeys, and I volunteered for years at an avian sanctuary primarily for exotic birds like parrots. Some of the exotics I’d worked with were abused, while some were treated like royalty. With the domestics, there was one sad consistency—nobody seemed willing to care about the birds as individuals, and some barely saw them as living creatures whatsoever.

Patrick Kuklinski.

Birds are some of our most underappreciated species. Despite America’s love for birding and bird feeding (it’s estimated that the US alone had over $3 million in sales of bird food and supplies through 2023), we often underestimate their importance both to humanity and to the natural world. In the wild, birds are often keystone species (animals that have a disproportionately large impact on their surrounding environments). By spreading seeds, controlling insect populations and providing prey for larger birds and mammals, birds contribute to their ecosystems. In addition, their sensitive nature means that decreases in bird populations can often be a warning sign for impending danger to other species.

Sometimes, it seems problems the agricultural industry faces could have been avoided by simply looking ahead. Bird flu is one such circumstance that has many gritting their teeth—especially the researchers who sounded the alarm in 2022, when the same strain of bird flu that devastated farmers in 2015 re-emerged. Now, in 2024, we’re still deep in the throes of a bird flu pandemic (so far, mostly contained to animals)—and we have no signs that infections will slow. From January 2022 to June 2024, the USDA found 96.5 million infected birds—and there’s more to come. With so many years of research, loss of animals and stress to the public, one might expect that we would be closer to solving the bird flu crisis, but we’re lagging on actionable answers.

Photography via Shutterstock/IWall

A problem of our own making

Sadly, as it stands today, bird flu isn’t being handled humanely, which should be our bare minimum for epidemics like this. A common method is ventilation shutdown, which is exactly what it sounds like. The ventilation of an enclosure is shut off until the birds die “naturally.” Ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+) is a method where ventilation shutdown is combined with additional heat or gas in attempts to make the process more efficient; there’s no doubt that the birds subjected to this method still suffer excruciatingly. 

According to Ben Williamson, director of Compassion in World Farming, the leading methods of euthanasia for infected birds is “ventilation shutdown, which involves killing birds by an excruciating combination of asphyxiation and heatstroke, is inhumane, contrary to WOAH (World Organisation for Animal Health) standards and should be banned.”

According to the Animal Welfare Institute, about 77 percent of birds infected with bird flu, or 44.9 million birds, were killed via ventilation shutdown from February 2022 to March 2023. In these situations, the WOAH recommends the use of inert gasses, such as nitrogen or carbon dioxide, to be pumped into enclosures, which is a more humane method of slaughter. 

AWI’s analysis of USDA records indicates that operations with large flocks (at least 100,000 birds) were much more likely to employ VSD+ as a mass-killing method. Even with the widespread use of VSD+ in such situations, however, the USDA’s depopulation timeline was not met in a majority of cases. Of the 37 large flock depopulation events that involved VSD+ during a 16-month timespan between 2022 and 2023, nearly two-thirds took at least three days to complete. That’s far from a humane end for birds who were already potentially infected and suffering. In the most extreme cases, in which at least one million birds were involved, depopulation took more than two weeks. 

The USDA has requested that organizations only deploy VSD+ as a last-resort method of culling—and yet, in cases of such large populations of birds, humane options are rarely efficient, and so they are ignored. In addition, turning the ventilation off within a farm is essentially a free method of euthanasia, even if it’s slow and painful. More humane methods are associated with costs for which farms might not want to foot the bill. Chickens are already one of the least protected species when it comes to slaughter. They are exempt from the Humane Methods Of Slaughter Act, largely due to industry lobbying, and are instead given a provision in the 2005 Treatment of Live Poultry Before Slaughter notice by the USDA that they should be handled and slaughtered in a way that “is consistent with good commercial practices.” What this means, however, is not clearly defined. 

No easy way forward

Despite factory farms supplying the majority of the world’s poultry supply, growing concerns are also mounting over their inability to efficiently manage or stop the spread of disease. As of 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, there were 164,099 registered poultry farms in the US, and the majority of them are factory farms.  According to analysis by the Sentience Institute, 99.9 percent of America’s broiler chickens live on factory farms, only slightly higher than 99.8 percent of America’s turkeys. 

“Factory farms create the ideal conditions for the spread of the disease, as they give viruses a constant supply of genetically similar hosts in close proximity to each other—allowing infections to spread rapidly—and for highly harmful new strains to emerge,” says Williamson. “Most worrying of all, keeping large numbers of immune-suppressed birds in close proximity also increases the risk of viruses mutating, perhaps with the risk of evolving into new more pathogenic strains, which can then multiply and spread.” Not only are factory farms a breeding ground for diseases, but stress suppresses the immune system in poultry, and there’s data showing that poultry in factory farms are indeed stressed. Many environmental factors that we’d find unpleasant—heat, crowding, light, noise—all negatively impact chickens, too.  

Photography via Shutterstock

“When a farm has hundreds of thousands of birds per shed (or tens of thousands of birds per shed in some cage-free systems), rapid disease spread is unavoidable. What’s more, on a policy level, the government and farms are not treating these outbreaks as something that can be mitigated within a farm—if disease is detected, the entire flock is killed,” says karol orzechowski, from Faunalytics, an organization that collects data and research to improve animal welfare. “In this framework, mitigating disease within a farm becomes a moot point.” While there is no cure for HPAI in chickens, there’s no efficient way to test large flocks, meaning uninfected birds are culled along with their infected shedmates. 

There’s no easy answer here. There are plenty of expedient ways to cull chickens without prolonged suffering—cervical dislocation by hand, throat slitting, individualized gassing—that produce much less suffering. But these methods take additional time and money, leading many corporations to opt for the easier method, regardless of  the torment the animals endure.

The Better Chicken Initiative, headed by Compassion in World Farming USA, is a program intended to improve the lives of chickens in factory farms, as well as breed healthier chickens that produce better-quality meat for consumers. Launched in 2014, the organization estimates that with corporate partnerships through the program, the conditions and lives for over 100 million chickens have been improved. Meanwhile, some farms are taking matters into their own hands, such as Kipster, a Dutch egg farm (that has just opened its first US location), prioritizing humane conditions and carbon-neutral farming. 

Whether or not we’re ready to accept it, there’s probably one answer that’s far more humane than any proposed alternatives to bird flu—restructuring not only how factory farms operate but how we treat farmed poultry. Until we have conditions for farmed birds that don’t actively promote the spread of illness, we’ll have to keep fighting. We may not see immediate solutions to the bird flu crisis, but strengthening our animal welfare practices now will help animals and consumers for generations to come.

The post Opinion: Bird Flu is a Problem. The Way We Deal With it is Cruel appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, the class of chemicals more commonly known as PFAS, are everywhere, not just in the world of agriculture. Since the 1940s, chemical companies such as Chemours, DuPont and 3M have developed more than 14,000 PFAS compounds for use in products as varied as nonstick cookware, electric-vehicle batteries and refrigerators. Because all PFAS contain bonds between carbon and fluorine, among the hardest to break in chemistry, they’ve earned the moniker “forever chemicals” for their remarkable persistence in the environment.

The problems with PFAS are daunting, but people are now mobilizing to reduce the dangers they pose. At the federal level, the EPA recently enacted its first enforceable limits for six PFAS in drinking water, as well as placed two PFAS on the list of hazardous substances covered by the Superfund law. And in communities across the country, researchers and local officials are testing out innovative approaches.

Sludge tanks at a water treatment facility. Photography via Shutterstock.

Beth Valentine’s inaugural fund

The leading edge of state-level responses to agricultural PFAS can be found in Maine. In 2022, its legislature became the first in the US to ban the field spreading of PFAS-containing sludge, and earlier this year, its Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry opened applications for the country’s first fund to help farmers deal with PFAS pollution on their land—with $65 million allocated so far.

“There are still many unknowns concerning how PFAS travel through [different substances] and to what extent they are taken up in various food products,” says Beth Valentine, the fund’s director. Because of this uncertainty, Valentine says farmers need time to identify and implement strategies to deal with PFAS.

Cattle graze at a farm in Maine. (Photo by Shutterstock)

The bulk of the fund will give farmers financial and technical backing as they plan for changes in their business. About $20 million is also set aside to purchase and manage land that’s too contaminated to work, with the goal of eventually making it suitable for farming again.

While the fund’s initial allocation is expected to last for five years, Valentine says it will seek additional money from state and federal governments, as well as through litigation against PFAS manufacturers, for ongoing operation. “PFAS are nicknamed ‘forever chemicals,’” she say. “Agricultural producers are likely to need support for years to come.”

Jessica Ray’s selective carbon

Scientists know that one widely available technology is pretty good at removing PFAS: activated carbon, a processed charcoal that captures chemicals in countless tiny pores. The issue, says civil and environmental engineer Jessica Ray with the University of Washington, is that activated carbon is even better at removing everything else.

Because PFAS chemicals are usually present at much lower concentrations in wastewater than other pollutants such as drugs and pesticides, Ray explains, those more common contaminants can fill up activated carbon’s filtration capacity first. She and her colleagues have thus been working on a way to make carbon choosier.

Ray describes her approach as “kind of a lock-and-key mechanism for PFAS removal, where we’re building the lock and the PFAS molecule is the key.” She allows a reusable plastic polymer to form around a specific PFAS in the lab, then washes away the chemical, leaving behind microscopic impressions in the polymer like footprints in wet concrete. When the polymer is joined to activated carbon, its tailor-made molecular slots filter out PFAS while snubbing other pollutants.

After proving the concept in a paper published last year, Ray hopes to develop a polymer that targets the six PFAS the EPA now regulates in drinking water. That solution could then be layered atop existing activated carbon filters, making it easier to adopt at scale.

Susie Dai in her lab. Photography via Susie Dai.

Susie Dai’s friendly fungi

“Human beings are good at producing many new problems,” says Susie Dai about the spread of PFAS. As the associate professor of environmental sciences at Texas A&M University points out, however, the most pernicious part of PFAS chemistry—the “forever” carbon-fluorine bond—is also produced in nature, as part of the toxins made by a handful of mostly tropical plants.

Since those bonds are mirrored in nature, a natural solution also exists to break them, through the decomposing powers of bacteria and fungi. As described in a 2022 paper, Dai’s team took corn harvest wastes and processed them into a material that both filtered PFAS from wastewater and provided a substrate for Irpex lacteus, a fungus also called white rot, which is typically found on hardwoods. After adding PFAS to the medium and letting the fungus grow for two weeks, Dai confirmed that it had started to break down the pollutants. 

But the process needs to happen at a much greater scale and speed to deal with the ubiquitous PFAS pollution introduced by humanity. Going forward, Dai plans to study the biological mechanisms white rot uses to destroy PFAS, with the goal of picking up the pace. “We’re adding an acceleration pedal,” she says. 

An online community 

Today, nearly all Americans have measurable PFAS levels in their blood.

“We’ve all been signed up for the study without our consent,” says Laurel Schaider, PhD, senior scientist at the Silent Spring Institute, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to understanding the links between chemical exposures and health. “We’re all part of this.” 

PFAS-REACH (Research, Education and Action for Community Health) is a collaboration between research partners Silent Spring Institute, Northeastern University and Michigan State University, and community partners Testing for Pease, Slingshot and the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition. The initiative has developed the PFAS Exchange, a free resource for communities affected by PFAS and anyone who wants to learn more about the chemicals.

A screenshot of the Connecting Communities Map from the PFAS Exchange.

Among the site’s resources is the Connecting Communities map, led by the PFAS Project Lab. The map is an ArcGIS tool that allows people to see locations of known PFAS contamination, sites of presumed contamination, which states have passed PFAS regulations and conducted testing, locations of health and exposure studies as well as regional advocacy with whom people can connect. 

PFAS Exchange also features the What’s My Exposure? tool. This is for people who have had their water or blood tested for PFAS. Schaider says it’s important to give people not only results but also enough context to understand what those results mean. The What’s My Exposure? tool allows people to enter in their test results and see how they compare to other people and areas.

“They can understand what their results mean—as well as anyone can—and they feel empowered to take action.”

This story is part of our ongoing PFAS series, The PFAS Problem: Demystifying ‘Forever Chemicals’

The post On the Ground with Initiatives Responding to PFAS appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Tree shaking during late October at Sorrells Farms in Comanche, Texas. Photography courtesy of the Texas Pecan Growers Association.

Plant-based milks have proliferated in the marketplace over the past 15 years; a 2020 study notes that they accounted for 15 percent of all milk sales and 35 percent of the plant-based food category, totaling $2.6 billion in sales.

And there are a lot of milk alternatives out there. Almond, pistachio, macadamia, hazelnut, walnut, cashew, peanut, soy, pea, potato, oat and hemp are just some of the options for anyone forgoing traditional dairy. Yet, pecan milk has been largely absent from the plant milk space. 

“I feel like pecans haven’t had a place in the market because no one grower or conglomerate had a significant supply of nuts to make the milk into a national or global product,” says Kortney Chase. Growing up in southeastern New Mexico, her family would harvest pecans from their farm and make creamy milk from the buttery-tasting nuts. The family would add it to cereal or drink it straight. Years later, Chase wanted to share her love of pecan milk with the world, so she launched Pecana, in late 2023. 

Kortney Chase. Photography by Samantha Marie.

People have tried to introduce pecan milk into the plant-based space before, with varying degrees of success. In 2014, Houston’s MALK Organics became the first brand to make pecan milk, although it was later discontinued; the company now makes almond and oat milk. In 2015 and 2016, Atlanta became home to Treehouse Naturals and Pecan Milk Co-op, respectively. The former is now the only brand manufacturing canned pecan milk.

Pecana sources its pecans directly from its own farms—those same orchards in which Chase grew up. A third-generation pecan farmer, Chase’s family started Chase Pecan in Artesia, New Mexico, in 1986. In 2003, Chase Pecan relocated from New Mexico to San Saba, Texas, the self-proclaimed “Pecan Capital of the World.” The Hill Country town is home to what may be the oldest fossilized pecans on record; the remnants discovered on the banks of the Colorado River in San Saba are estimated to be at least 65 million years old.

But, the pecan holds a special place for Texans in particular; in 1919, it was declared the state tree because of its role in Texas heritage, economy and culture. Pecans were also a crucial food source for the indigenous peoples of the region, whose upriver trade routes expanded the nut’s habitat and eventual agricultural terrain. But pecan growers in Texas have faced hardship in recent years due to climate change, crop input costs, water expenses and lack of labor.

Pecan trees in Brownwood, TX. Photography via Texas Pecan Growers Association.

Chase Pecan is now the leading grower of pecans, with 13,000 cultivated acres comprised of tenant farmer-occupied estate orchards and small family farms in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, with roughly 3,000 acres of that land dedicated to organic farming. The company specializes in the Pawnee (a large, buttery variety popularized in the western states by Kortney Chase’s father, Richard) and Western Schley (a small, crunchy variety) pecans. It’s also one of the largest manufacturers of pecans, harvesting an average of 20 million pounds of nuts annually, which ensures Pecana gets a consistent supply.

 After graduating college in 2011, Chase set out to learn the manufacturing side of her family’s business, as well as doing sales and market research. “I would look at certain products like nut milk and wonder why they weren’t made with pecans,” she says.

It wasn’t until the pandemic, however, that Chase began formulating a “commercial nut milk that I wanted to drink.” While higher in fat and calories than almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and cashews, pecans make an indisputably creamy milk and, unlike oats, they don’t require the addition of canola or sunflower oil to yield a product with an equivalent consistency. 

Pecan production. Photography via Chase Pecan.

Because pecan milk is so new to the marketplace, there’s little data comparing it to other plant milks, but its lower environmental imprint and the crop’s long production cycle bode well for the future of the industry. Pecan trees take five to seven years to bear fruit, but they produce for up to 300 years. By contrast, almond trees don’t bear fruit for three years and have an average production span of 25 years, while English walnuts bear fruit in four to seven years and have a 30-year production period. 

Pecans are also wind-pollinated, which means the trees can reproduce without human or insect intervention. These cross-pollinated trees yield larger, higher-quality orchard nuts (commercial pecan varieties are hybrids developed through controlled pollination). 

Almonds, by contrast, require pollinators for reproduction. California produces 80 percent of the global almond crop, which is aided by the importation of European honeybees, which then compete with and displace native species. Imported bees also die in large numbers due to pesticide exposure, parasites and disease. 

Nuts litter the ground after tree shaking at Sorrells Farms in Comanche, Texas. The workers at Sorrells Farms will now come through with harvesting equipment to collect the fresh crop. Photography via Texas Pecan Growers Association.

Regardless of the type of plant milk you consume, “all tree nuts and legumes are, generally speaking, far more sustainable from orchard to manufacture than any milk from an animal,” says Dana Ellis Hunnes, a dietitian and assistant professor at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health. “However, the degree of sustainability for one nut or legume to another varies as some are more water intensive than others, but tree nuts are a carbon sink because trees pull carbon out of the atmosphere and into their roots. Plant milks also require 50-percent less water and up to 10-percent less land than cow’s milk and produce minimal greenhouse gasses.”

While dairy milk shouldn’t be demonized, it does come with a more significant environmental footprint. “The primary reason is that you have to feed a pregnant or lactating animal more food, and this is inefficient,” says Hunnes. “When you consider the water use, emissions produced by the animals themselves and land use, plant milks will always win.”

The post Meet the Pecan Farmer Who Wants to Change the Plant-Based Milk Scene appeared first on Modern Farmer.

We are closely following PFAS regulations and researching ways to protect ourselves in the meantime. Please reach out to our staff writer Lena Beck directly with questions about PFAS, to tell us what you want to know next, or to share your story. Email: Lena@modfarmer.com 

Photo by Shutterstock

Asked & Answered: PFAS Q&A with Kyla Bennett

by Lena Beck

PFAS expert Kyla Bennett answers Modern Farmer reader questions about forever chemicals. Here’s what it means for you.

Songbird Farm property, which was affected by sludge spreading. Photography via Maine Farmland Trust.

Why Maine is Taking the Feds to Court Over Sludge

by Kirsten Lie-Nielsen

Maine was the first state in the nation to ban the use of sludge as a fertilizer. Now, the Maine Organic Farmers And Gardeners Association plans to take the EPA to court over farmland lost to forever chemical contamination. Read the story.

Photo by Shutterstock

On the Ground with Initiatives Responding to PFAS

by Daniel Walton

Researchers and advocates around the world are looking for ways to help address the PFAS problem. Here is a quick look at some of these projects in their various stages of development.

The post The PFAS Problem: Demystifying “Forever Chemicals” appeared first on Modern Farmer.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are chemicals that are used commercially for their nonstick or waterproof properties. The problem is that they don’t readily break down and have been associated with harmful health conditions. Today, these chemicals can be found everywhere. As a result of both direct chemical pollution from manufacturing facilities and exposure through everyday household items, PFAS can be in our water, soil and even the blood of most Americans. 

In our previous PFAS coverage, we’ve brought you in-depth looks at the efforts to regulate PFAS, stories of communities on the frontlines trying to protect themselves, as well as consumer guides for how to reduce your own exposure. 

Through these stories, we connected with Kyla Bennett, science policy director at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Bennett is a PFAS expert and knows this issue inside and out. Last week, we asked you, our Modern Farmer community, what questions you had for Bennett, and you delivered big time. Below, find our community questions with Bennett’s responses.

Modern Farmer: Who is most at risk for PFAS exposure?

Kyla Bennett: We are all at risk because PFAS is so ubiquitous, but fenceline communities (i.e., people living immediately adjacent to industries using PFAS, Department of Defense facilities, firefighting training facilities, conventional farms using biosolids and airports) are likely exposed to higher levels of PFAS than the rest of us. Moreover, infants, children, the elderly and pregnant people are at higher risk as well.

Firefighting foam contains harmful levels of PFAS. Click here to learn how farms located near facilities that use this foam are endangered by PFAS. (Photo by Shutterstock)

MF: Who profits from forever chemicals? Please name the companies.

KB: The top 12 companies responsible for most of PFAS pollution are: AGC, Arkema, Chemours, Daikin, 3M, Solvay, Dongyue, Archroma, Merck, Bayer, BASF and Honeywell. 

MF: We hear that PFAS are harmful to human health, but what kind of specific health issues are they associated with?

KB: PFAS cause a variety of health impacts, including thyroid disease, high cholesterol, lowered immune response, obesity, developmental issues, heart disease and cancer, especially kidney and testicular cancer.

MF: Are there any known commercial products that filter out PFAS in our drinking water that consumers can purchase on store shelves? 

KB: The National Sanitation Foundation (NSF, nsf.org) certifies filters that remove PFAS from drinking water. The NSF website has a list of certified filters that anyone can purchase.

MF: What is the best way to find out if my water has been tested?

KB: Many states require municipalities to test drinking water for PFAS. Moreover, the EPA is also requiring public water systems to test for PFAS over the next few years. If you are on town/city water, the best thing to do is reach out to your water department and ask them for any PFAS test results (although many of these are available online). Note that private well testing is done by well owners, so there is far less information on PFAS in private wells. 

MF: Where can we send soil and water samples for testing?

KB: There are many commercial labs around the country that do PFAS testing. Look for a lab that is accredited by the EPA. However, this testing can be very expensive. There are some at home test kits available for water testing, but be aware that these are not accredited by the EPA. 

Your closest lab will vary depending on where you are located. Search based on your state or region. For example, this lab will test soil and water samples in the Northeast US region.

The What’s My Exposure? tool through the PFAS Exchange will help you contextualize your water test results by comparing them to others.

You can have your soil samples tested for PFAS. (Photography by Shutterstock)

MF: If the new drinking water PFAS limits put the burden for monitoring mostly on the municipalities and not directly on the polluters (companies), will that have an impact on my personal taxes? Am I paying the cost of these continued polluters?

KB: When municipalities construct water filtration, those costs are often shifted to the consumers (through higher water rates, etc.). However, many towns and cities have joined class action lawsuits suing PFAS manufacturers to try and recoup some of that money. 

MF: Companies know that PFAS cause health issues and don’t break down. They’ve paid out huge settlements. How are companies still allowed to produce them?

KB: Unfortunately, the EPA only regulates six PFAS in drinking water, and the states that regulate PFAS also only regulate a handful. The chemical industry has a very rich and powerful lobby. Contact your state and federal representative and urge them to define PFAS broadly and regulate them as a class. 

MF: Are there non-toxic alternatives or methods these companies could use instead of PFAS? 

KB: The vast majority of PFAS uses are for convenience and are not essential uses. Industry is coming up with alternatives to PFAS, and there are lists of PFAS-free consumer products, including for items like rain gear! You can view that list here.

MF: How might the momentum on PFAS regulation be impacted by the upcoming election season? Is there anything I should be considering or looking for when casting my vote?

KB: The previous federal administration was much more industry-friendly than the current administration. The EPA’s new drinking water regulations, which came out in April of this year, were a good but small step forward. It is important to research local, state and federal candidates and ensure that they have public health and the environment in mind. Vote for the candidates whose values align most closely with your own.

The post Asked & Answered: PFAS Q&A with Kyla Bennett appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In previous coverage, we’ve told you about PFAS—per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances that don’t readily break down and can accumulate in humans, causing serious health problems.

We’ve also told you about how the EPA recently passed its first-ever regulations on a handful of PFAS in drinking water, and how these rules leave a lot to be desired.

And then we told you about some of the ways you can reduce your own personal exposure to these chemicals while you wait for the slow wheels of government to turn. And if you read that article, you know that making shrewd decisions while you shop can help reduce the amount of PFAS with which you come into contact. 

“I think the best thing that people can do is be educated consumers,” says Kyla Bennett, science policy director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Many items in the retail sphere won’t have information about PFAS use because it’s not required. To make matters more complicated, a PFAS-free label doesn’t necessarily give you all the information you need. Potential PFAS-free greenwashing may or may not be intentional, but regardless, that label might need closer inspection. We consulted some experts to help you understand how to find PFAS-free items in the marketplace.

Start with a trustworthy list

Verifying if something is PFAS-free can be tough, so don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to. Here is a trustworthy list of brands and products that you can buy knowing they are PFAS-free, as well as a comprehensive buying guide.

This list from PFAS Central is a good source for outdoor gear, apparel, kitchenware and more. Food & Water Watch recently released a thorough buying guide to help you side-step PFAS in everything from paint to menstrual products to furniture.

Know the laws where you live

More than a dozen states have passed some kind of legislation restricting the use of PFAS in consumer products such as foods, packaging, apparel and carpeting. We do not yet have the ability to test for all of the thousands of PFAS, so one way to screen for PFAS is by testing for the total amount of fluorine in a product. This test can serve as a good indicator of whether there is PFAS in a product, although it’s not yet clear exactly what level of PFAS is present from directly adding PFAS versus unintentional PFAS contamination.

“It’s an imperfect method, but it’s one of the better methods that are out there, especially when you couple it with more in-depth testing,” says Mike Schade, director of the Mind the Store Program for Toxic-Free Future. 

Washington State has been a leader on this front, and Schade points to the state’s Safer Products for Washington Act, which gives the state regulatory authority to ban chemicals that are hazardous.

“Raise your voice for policy change,” says Schade. “We know that the federal government is slow at making change around chemicals like PFAS. There’s been a lot more progress at the state level.”

You can use this bill tracker from Safer States to find out what states have either introduced or enacted legislation to ban PFAS in different product categories. 

Ask the right questions

When you have the time and opportunity to ask a company about its products, asking the right questions is key. Inquiring whether something is PFAS-free might not cut it.

Here are three key questions you can ask:

Does this product use nonstick or waterproof properties?

PFAS specifically are used for their waterproof and nonstick qualities, so those are good flags.

“Every time I’m going to buy something, like if I’m buying a kitchen appliance, I call and I say is there nonstick on there? Because if it is, I’m not going to buy it,” says Bennett.

Raincoats can contain PFAS because they are waterproof. (Photo by Shutterstock)

Does this product use fluorinated chemistry?

This is a good catch-all question, because while we do not yet have the ability to test for all PFAS, if there is fluorinated chemistry in a product, this is a reliable indicator that there will be PFAS in the product.

Sometimes, companies will call out a certain PFAS by name. The specificity is helpful, but at the same time, it’s important to understand what this means. Just because the product doesn’t contain one specific PFAS doesn’t mean that it doesn’t contain another that is just as dangerous.

“[Companies] say oh, we have no PFOA,” says Bennett. “That means they have no PFOA, but they could have 11,999 other PFAS in them. So, they really have to ask the right questions like ‘Is there any fluorinated chemistry at all in your product?’ And that kind of covers the whole thing.”

What alternatives to PFAS do you use?

“PFAS-free is good, but it’s not enough,” says Schade. “And if I’m a consumer, what I would do is I would ask companies ‘How are you ensuring the alternative that you’re now using is safer? What are you doing to evaluate the safety of alternatives?’ Getting into the nuances of 100 parts per million versus 50 parts per million, I think that’s too challenging of an area for most consumers to navigate, quite honestly. But I think asking questions about how are you vetting the safety of alternatives, I think that is a more productive and useful question to ask, because most companies are not thinking about it.”

Beware suspect alternatives

In manufacturing, it’s possible to substitute one well-known PFAS for an alternative that is simply another, less common PFAS. Known as “regrettable substitutions,” these swaps can be just as harmful to your health.

But you also want to be sure that PFAS aren’t being changed out for another type of chemical that is just as bad. Schade recommends looking for certifications or policies that are specific about what types of alternatives are allowed. 

“Most laws that are out there and most company policies that restrict PFAS don’t do a good enough job ensuring that companies are utilizing truly safer alternatives,” says Schade. 

Schade points to GreenScreen Certified as an example of a third-party standard that not only restricts PFAS but also restricts other chemicals of concern—not all third-party standards will cast this wide of a net.

Want more choices? Schade also recommends EPA Safer Choice and Cradle to Cradle.

Start conversations with retailers

Businesses and retailers can be huge forces for change, says Schade. “Another thing that consumers can do is reach out to the retailer’s businesses that you support, that you shop at and ask them whether or not they’re taking action on PFAS.”

Campaigning has compelled major retailers including Whole Foods, REI and Dick’s Sporting Goods to take some action on PFAS. According to Schade, it really does have the potential to start a conversation within the company.

Visit Retailerreportcard.com to learn which companies are leading and which are lagging when it comes to addressing PFAS. You can even use this site to contact the companies at the back of the pack and ask them to prioritize safer chemicals.

Kyla Bennett is the science policy director at PEER, and she wants to answer your questions about PFAS. Submit your question to contact@modfarmer.com

The post PFAS: Behind the Label appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Last month, the EPA passed its first-ever legally enforceable drinking water standards on a handful of PFAS—a group of chemicals used to make non-stick coatings and products that resist heat, oil, water and more. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are toxic chemicals and are often referred to as “forever chemicals” because of their tendency to not break down.

The regulations state that all public water systems have three years to complete testing for these chemicals and must implement solutions to reduce PFAS in five years. Under the new laws, the public must be informed of the level of PFAS measured in their drinking water.

In a lot of ways, the EPA decision is a ground-breaking move. PFAS have been used commercially since the 1940s, and it has long been known that these chemicals are toxic to people. Big chemical companies, such as  3M, have known about the harmful qualities of these toxic chemicals for decades but intentionally hid the evidence. 

The scary thing about PFAS is they are simultaneously very close to home and unsafe. They’re used in everyday household products such as raingear, nonstick pans and mascara and the EPA admits that “exposure to PFAS has been linked to deadly cancers, impacts to the liver and heart, and immune and developmental damage to infants and children.”

Despite the known risks, there’s a reason it has taken so long to get even one rule passed at the federal level to regulate these chemicals in drinking water. Extensive lobbying efforts by chemical companies have helped keep restraints off these substances. You can read our coverage of this lobbying here.

So what does this mean for you? 

Here are five essential takeaways for you to know about the new drinking water regulations, along with expert insights from Kyla Bennett, science policy director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). 

These laws apply to only six PFAS

Of the at least 12,000 existing PFAS, the EPA issued regulations for only six of them. This new regulation dips a toe into the water of regulating them. It sets maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) in drinking water for two of the oldest and most pervasive PFAS, called PFOA and PFOS, of four parts per trillion. The EPA has said that there is no safe level of exposure for PFOA and PFOS. 

“It’s a good first step. I think it’s too little too late given that it’s only for six PFAS and there are 12,000 to 14,000 of them,” says Bennett.“It alleviates the stress a little bit, but not a whole lot…Nobody should relax.”

Food & Water Watch recently released a thorough buying guide to help you side-step PFAS in everything from paint to menstrual products to furniture.

This is only for public drinking water systems

Public water systems have to complete initial water monitoring within three years, and if the levels are too high, take steps to reduce them within five years. For example, this could mean shutting down a contaminated water source or installing a filtration system. Data about public drinking water systems is available online. Private wells, common in rural or farm areas, won’t automatically be tested for PFAS. 

“[This regulation] does not apply to private wells,” says Bennett. “And I know a lot of farmers do have private wells. However, there is money available for private well owners if they are contaminated, to get a filter put in or to get it fixed. So, that’s good news for private well owners.”

Installing a filter at your kitchen sink can help reduce your exposure if there is PFAS in your water. Bennett recommends looking on The National Sanitation Foundation website for filters that will reliably reduce total PFAS in your water.

Private wells will not automatically be tested for PFAS. (Photo by Shutterstock)

The burden is on municipal drinking water systems, not directly on polluters

The drinking water regulation puts the burden of fixing high contaminant loads on public drinking water systems and municipalities, not the polluters themselves. This also means that, under this law, there is no direct lever for polluting companies to change their practices.

However, this regulation could start a domino effect—municipalities that don’t want to be on the hook for installing very costly filtration systems might begin putting more pressure on polluting companies in their jurisdictions.

“States are going to want to help the municipalities within their states, and they are going to then start putting in PFAS limits in the effluent, which will help reduce the amount of PFAS going into the public drinking water,” says Bennett.

Is there PFAS pollution in your area? Consult the Environmental Working Group’s interactive map.

A still image of the Environmental Working Group’s Interactive PFAS pollution map. The light blue dots show where drinking water PFAS levels are known to be above the new limits, and the dark blue dots show where it is known to be below the new limits. (Image courtesy of the Environmental Working Group)

The EPA should regulate PFAS as a class, not individually

There are at least 12,000 known PFAS, and we can only currently test for about 70 of them. Bennett says that the EPA should define PFAS broadly, and then regulate them as a class, instead of doing more of this “whack-a-mole regulation,” where they only deal with a handful at a time. And then, she says, we should ban all non-essential uses, such as cosmetics.

It’s important to regulate PFAS broadly, says Bennett, because addressing only a handful of PFAS does nothing to protect people from what are called “regrettable substitutions”—where companies using PFAS just swap restricted ones for other PFAS that remain unregulated (remember, there are hundreds of these chemicals out there). 

While the federal government moves slowly, individual states have made more moves restricting PFAS. You can use this bill tracker to find out what states have either introduced or enacted legislation to ban PFAS in different product categories.

You still need to protect yourself from PFAS

The EPA’s working assumption right now is that 20 percent of your PFOA and PFOS exposure comes from drinking water. Even if all “forever chemicals” were eliminated from your water, it’s still critical to eliminate other sources of exposure. While PFAS is a large, systemic problem, and solving it should not be on the individual’s shoulders, taking action now can help protect you while we wait for legislation to hopefully catch up. 

“It shouldn’t be this way,” says Bennett. “But right now, because the states and the federal government are acting so slowly, we have to take it upon ourselves to reduce our risk as best we can. So, education can go a long way in getting people to realize what they should and should not be buying, what they should and should not be using, what they should and should not be eating…It sucks that the government isn’t taking care of us. But people assume that if something’s legal, it’s safe. And that’s simply not true.”

Kyla Bennett is the science policy director at PEER, and she wants to answer your questions about PFAS. Submit your question to contact@modfarmer.com

The post The EPA Just Passed the First-Ever Federal Regulations for ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Drinking Water. Here are the Top Five Things You Need to Know. appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Unlike wildlife scat, which spreads seeds and returns nature’s nutrients in a balanced way, most conventional pet diets yield large amounts of waste.

The average dog produces about three quarters of a pound of poop per day, or 275 pounds per year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Philadelphia accounts for tens of millions of pounds of dog waste annually, while New York City contributes 82,125 tons.  

A pile left to rot on the ground can take months to decay, potentially shedding bacteria, viruses and worms. The nutrient-rich waste is likely to get into storm drains and waterways, helping fuel toxic algal blooms. 

So, scooping seems like an easy win. But what about that plastic bag that’s typically part of the bargain? In the small city of Morro Bay, California, about 1,000 bags are used for each dog’s waste per year. These, too, get left on the ground, where rain can wash the entire neatly tied package into waterways.

A trash can overflowing with dog poop bags in San Francisco, CA Image from Shutterstock

A study estimates that up to 1.23 million tons of dog poop bags are disposed of annually around the world. It’s a small fraction (0.6 percent) of all plastic waste, but as the authors note in their title, their brief life cycle makes them “a non-negligible source of plastic pollution.” 

Some cities even require pet waste to be double-bagged to shield workers from the contents. 

In landfills, whether it’s incinerated or sits slowly decaying, poop adds to methane gas emissions. Packaged poop can take hundreds of years to break down, even in bags deemed compostable or biodegradable; certifications that are based on commercial composting conditions, not landfills—but US industrial composting facilities don’t accept pet waste.

The Biodegradable Products Institute, which sets standards for such bags, stopped certifying pet bags for the US market for that reason.

“I would just like to find one commercial composter in the US that accepts dog waste, period,” says Gary Bilbro, sales director at EcoSafe Zero Waste bags, on a web post. Faced with a dog waste composting desert, EcoSafe quit selling its certified compostable doggy bags in the US. “Our Canadian markets purchase hundreds of thousands monthly, but most of the Canadian composters accept pet waste.”

In fact, dozens of communities in Canada, in the provinces of Alberta, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan, compost dog poop, saying it reduces the amount of plastic going to landfills, while studies have found it can cut the volume of dog waste in half.

In the US, dog parks are catching on.

Lessons From Mushers and Others

Composting is the controlled breakdown of organic matter into humus, a rich soil amendment many prefer over chemical fertilizers. Farmers and gardeners often use livestock manure from poultry, cattle or horses. But when it comes to dog manure, the process is frequently shunned over fears of pathogens—despite the widespread practice of fertilizing crops with “biosolid compost”—sewage sludge—which has been found to contain toxic PFAS chemicals and many other hazards.

Mingchu Zhang, professor of soil science and agronomy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, cautions in an email about infectious organisms in dog poop that might survive composting. “That is perhaps why most cities prohibit it.”

Yet a number of studies and pilot projects have helped pioneer the composting of dog waste— and unlike biosolids, it’s not being spread on food crops. 

The first scientific study took place in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1991. In the land of the Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race are scads of dog lots near wetlands. As snow melted, piles of manure reappeared and infiltrated waterways. Armed with an EPA grant, conservation agencies and dog mushers worked together to find a fix. 

In summer, poop is mixed with sawdust in covered bins in a ratio of about 30 parts carbon to one part nitrogen. Every one to two weeks, rangers give it a stir, and in one to two months, it shrinks into a smaller pile of crumbly soil. Over winter, there’s no stirring the frozen mix; poop is collected, but the entire process takes one to two years. 

Composting is still in use at some sled dog kennels, including one in Denali National Park, the only national park that composts this waste from its sled dogs as part of its commitment to starve the landfills.

“Since it’s from dog manure, it is not recommended for vegetables, but there are a lot of other uses for it,” says ranger Mitch Flanigan. In 2021, the kennels produced 6,650 pounds of compost. A lot of it winds up in flower pots in the kennel and visitor center. Some is donated to locals through signs he posts in stores, he says. One resident used the material as backfill for a septic system.

Different styles of compost bins used by Denali State Park

Composting is also thriving at many US dog parks and other places that took a chance on the maligned material. New York City’s Battery Park uses it, once fully cured and tested, for plantings in highway medians. 

Mississauga, Ontario, which in 2019 began processing dog poop at waste-to-energy facilities, turns some into fertilizer. City spokesperson Irene McCutcheon says that, in 2023, almost 14 metric tons of dog waste was collected and diverted—”the equivalent of powering close to eight homes for a year.”

Repurposing dog poop is also helping Colorado front range communities inch closer to their zero waste goals. Rose Seemann, who started a composting company called EnviroWagg, has helped forge a path by working with Metro Denver and Boulder dog parks, hiking trail heads and businesses. 

The poop is collected by a pet waste removal service partner, which  delivers it to the composting facility. The finished product is used only on landscaping at the compost site, with no distribution to the public, says Seeman. Past batches intended for sale have tested safe. Each batch needs to be tested separately, but once a batch passes EPA standards for pathogen levels, it can be used for edible plants.

So, why do we recycle sewage sludge in the US but not dog poop? 

Plastic Ick  

Ten years ago, EnviroWagg created and test marketed a product for use on herbs, fruits and vegetables. It tested well for plant nutrients and passed EPA standards for pathogens, making it “an excellent soil amendment for both landscaping and edible crops,” says Seemann.

But that wasn’t enough.

“The ick factor made it a difficult sell.” 

Envirowag’s composting site in Longmont Colorado. Photo courtesy of Rose Seemann

Today, the company doesn’t turn a profit, she says, and that’s not unusual. “No one has figured out a way to monetize the process.” Programs such as  those in NYC are carried out by parks departments, while communities in Canada and Australia accept pet poop with food scraps and yard waste in residential green bins.

The EPA doesn’t recognize it as a waste stream, she says, “although audits and guesses say it adds up to around 12 percent of residential waste.”

But any commercial composting facility that follows processing regulations and testing protocols can do it, says Seemann. And professionally finished compost can be used for any planting, even produce.

“It’s just a perception issue.” 

The main challenges in getting dog parks and cities to take it on are convincing the public decision-makers who authorize budgeting, and finding a regional composter willing to accept pet waste, she says.

And once again, plastic trips things up.

Dog park composting pilot projects live on—or not depending on people knowing what goes where. Two dog parks in Calgary recently ended a six-month trial because people were tossing plastic in the composting bin. Only certified compostable bags were allowed.

Adding dog poop to US organics curbside collection programs would create a mess for sorters who have to remove contaminants such as  plastic, and in turn, the compost facility charged with managing it.

According to the Biodegradable Products Institute, many doggy bags advertised as compostable are actually petroleum-based products treated with chemicals to hasten their breakdown.

To get around the plastic problem, Friends of Hillside Dog Park in New York City placed scoopers and biodegradable brown paper next to the compost bins. 

Do-It-Yourself

Poop near a storm drain is one thing, but the Environmental Protection Agency sees the benefits in repurposing it. “Dog waste composting is a natural process that requires air, water, organic matter, microbes and a little human intervention,” its  website notes.

Seemann says the big difference between commercial and DIY compost is that the latter should not be used on edible gardens unless it’s been tested. Backyard composters can struggle to maintain the high temperatures needed to kill pathogens. Denali rangers recommend home poop composters sustain a temperature range between 130°F and 170°F.

But the process—cooking, turning, curing a dedicated poop pile—isn’t that hard to learn. It can even be done in small spaces. 

“Compost dog waste the same as other materials. The dog poo is green, so you need to balance it with carbon.” Rose Seemann

Add the variables of climate, weather and available materials to get a sense of the trial and error aspect. When any unfinished compost smells, it needs carbon—such as wood chips or shredded straw—and turning. 

Zhang, the soil scientist at the University of Alaska, cautions about selling or giving away backyard compost unless it reaches US EPA standards. “People who use it on their own are responsible for themself for the issues that may arise from compost dog manure.” 

Good composting, on the other hand, can keep problems in check while it shrinks the waste—and that mountain of plastic used to package it.

The post Closing the Loop on Poop appeared first on Modern Farmer.