One week later, Alabama passed a similar ban, and Arizona and Tennessee are also poised to follow suit. A long list of other states, meanwhile, have banned the word “meat” from cultivated meat packaging.

Yet the movement to ban lab-grown meat isn’t confined to the U.S. Italy became the first country to criminalize cultivated meat in 2023, as well as banning the use of words like burger and sausage on packaging for alternative proteins. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, the same farmers struggling with the effects of climate change, like drought, are revolting against stricter regulations on pollution from livestock manure.

Conspiracy Theories and an Ongoing Culture War

Dozens of peer-reviewed studies have shown that livestock accounts for anywhere between 11 and 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, much of which comes from land use and cow burps. As part of the solution, groups like the World Resources Institute have suggested that consumers in countries with higher per capita meat consumption — like the U.S. — could reduce their food-related emissions by shifting 40 percent of their meat-based diet (cows, sheep, goats) by 2050 to meat alternatives, whether plant-based or lab-grown, or a mix.

Photography by Shutterstock/tilialucida

Unsurprisingly, DeSantis is not on board, and his speech that day was littered with misinformation. He denied that meat is making climate change worse, and presented the alternatives to be banned as a plot against the meat industry. “One of the things that these folks want to do, is they want to eliminate meat production in the United States,” DeSantis said at his press briefing. “The goal is to get to a point where you will not be raising cattle.” While that may be the goal of cultivated meat backers, the reality is the industry is a fraction of the size of Big Meat. A more realistic hope might be that one day cultivated meat could be one way out of many to reduce how much meat we consume.

And of course, the public still has a choice in the matter. “This is not about forcing people to eat cultivated meat,” Nico Muzi, co-founder and managing director of Madre Brava, a food and environment advocacy organization, tells Sentient. “This is about allowing a technology to be developed and potentially marketed.”

DeSantis did not shy away from the most common misinformation, including jabs at Bill Gates, the “global elite” and the campaign to make the world eat insects. Many of these points echo the “Great Reset” conspiracy theories promoted by far-right political and media figures dating back to the pandemic, Nusa Urbancic, CEO of the Changing Markets Foundation, an advocacy group favoring sustainable markets, tells Sentient. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Jeff Bezos invested a reported $60 million into lab-grown meat in Florida just before DeSantis signed the ban into law.)

These conspiracy theories are baseless, but they are also practically endemic in some online spaces. In a Changing Markets report analyzing anti-alternative protein messages on social media over a 14-month period, the majority of posts were linked to various aspects of the Great Reset conspiracy theory. For example, when a 2022 heatwave killed thousands of cattle in Kansas, some people falsely suggested they were purposely killed to boost Bill Gates’ lab-grown meat business — steamrolling over the scientific evidence for extreme heat spurred by climate change. Indeed, the mocking “Save Our Beef” sign at the DeSantis press briefing echoed the idea that the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates and other forces have an agenda to take over.

“Florida’s ban and soon Pennsylvania’s ban of cultured meat clearly demonstrates the prevailing ignorance of science among consumers at large and policy makers (often backed by deep-pocket science doubters),” wrote Kantha Shelke, founder of a food science firm called Corvus Blue, LLC and lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, in an email. These bans hinder innovation rather than seek protocols for vetting new technologies in food science, she added.

Proponents of this narrative also point to a non-peer reviewed 2023 University of California, Davis, study that claimed lab-grown meat was 25 times worse for the climate than traditional beef. Though the study was a preprint and vigorously contested by scientists who work in the cultivated meat field, many media outlets printed the headline of the study, and the damage was done.

That might be part of the reason why misinformation about meat and climate change isn’t limited to people who believe conspiracy theories. A shocking 74 percent of respondents to a Washington Post poll said cutting out meat would have little or no impact on climate change, despite the bulk of evidence showing the climate impacts of livestock farming, especially beef.

Photography by Shutterstock/Lukas Guertler

The Chewy Science of Cultivated Meat

Even as the 18th-largest cattle ranching state, Florida’s cattle history has deep roots dating back to Spanish colonization in the 16th century. Among the long legacy of cattle ranchers is Dusty Holley, director of field services for the Florida Cattleman’s Association and a seventh-generation Floridian whose family has been cattle ranching since the early 1800s. “We know that meat is something that people eat that’s from a muscle of an animal,” he said. “We’re not really sure what this lab-grown protein is.”

In actuality, cultivated meat is not that mysterious. Lab-grown meat made its public debut in 2013, when researchers at Maastricht University served the first lab-grown beef patty on live television. It became known as the $325,000 burger, one that needed salt and pepper, according to one taster. Since then, technological advancements have skyrocketed, bringing the average cost estimate — as of today — down to about $10, which is still more expensive than standard beef.

Although opponents like to say it’s not real meat — and shouldn’t be labeled as such — it’s near-identical to the beef and chicken coming out of slaughterhouses. “There’s no ingredients we’re bringing to the process that’s any different than what an animal uses to grow,” says David Kaplan, a biomedical engineer who leads a cellular agriculture lab at Tufts University. He argues that it’s as safe as traditional meat. Indeed, the FDA and USDA have protocols in place to regulate cultivated meat approved for sale in the U.S.

Photography by Shutterstock/Sameer Neamah Mahdi.

The reason cultivated meat is virtually identical is that it’s made from meat cells. First, scientists take a small biopsy of muscle, which causes little to no harm to the live animal. To get those initial cells to grow, scientists “feed” them a growth serum. Initially, companies used what’s called fetal bovine serum — the blood of cow fetuses after the mother is slaughtered — to keep these cells alive. The cells need some sort of scaffold to latch onto, like stripped-down broccoli or spinach, and then will grow in large tanks called bioreactors to become burger, pork shoulder or chicken thigh. The process itself isn’t entirely new; it’s similar to how scientists grow human organ cells for medical purposes, Glenn Gaudette tells Sentient. Gaudette is a biomedical engineer at Boston College who has grown human heart cells for cardiovascular diseases, and is now applying his research to cultivated meat.

The potential to make meat, only without the ranch, has felt like a blow to generational farmers like Holley. “You build this, one, great track record of consumer safety, and two, strong consumer confidence,” he says. Seeing the USDA stamp on meat packaging in the grocery reassures people it’s safe for them and their families, he added. “It’s been that way my whole life,” Holley tells Sentient. “A product that we’re not really sure what it is — it should not step right in and be labeled as meat.”

In reality, there is a very long way to go before cultivated meat could really cut into the meat industry. There are a slew of challenges to scaling production in a way that makes it economically viable. For one, the process is water- and energy-intensive, so researchers are looking into ways of using renewable energy to fuel the process. It also requires completely sterile and temperature-controlled environments, which are expensive. Compared with the global meat production, cultivated meat is still in its infancy. The budding industry has raised $3.1 billion in investments compared with the meat industry’s revenue of $1.3 trillion.

Stoking Fear Among Farmers

Although the science is relatively straightforward, narratives about the safety of lab-grown meat persist, especially among farmers and their powerful lobbies. Beyond states like Florida and Texas, where cattle ranching groups have an influential voice in state politics, farm lobbies in Italy and the Netherlands have stalled critical climate and environmental policies.

In reaction to the European Union’s Green New Deal, which proposed reducing pesticides, restoring nature and planting more climate-resilient crops, Dutch farm groups have pushed back. “Politicians in Europe are really concerned that these farmers will move too far right if they don’t give them whatever they want,” says Urbancic, the Changing Markets CEO.

Photography by Shutterstock/Ground Photo.

In Florida, appealing to farmers is a well-worn political tradition. “I’ll bet many of you didn’t know that I’m a farmer’s kid,” Senator Jay Collins, who introduced the bill banning lab-grown meat, said at the May 1 press briefing. “Our family struggled coming out of the ’80s. It turns out that Democratic policies weren’t good then either, and our family ended up losing our farm.”

No matter the perception of reality, animal agriculture is still the second-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions behind fossil fuels and is the number one cause of deforestation and biodiversity loss. It also uses about a third of global grain production at a lower output; 25 calories of cattle feed, for example, produces just one calorie of beef, according to Yale’s Center for Business and the Environment. Beef is considered the least efficient type of meat.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Integrating cultivated meat technology with more traditional forms of agriculture could also help reduce the impacts of meat production and its drain on natural resources, Gaudette suggests. “What if we were to grow more meat from the same number of cattle, or grow more meat from fewer cattle, so that now we can have more water?” he said, adding that the approach should be collaborative. “There are farmers that are hard workers that are concerned about losing their livelihood,” he said. “So can we involve them in this process?”

A cultivated meat collaborative just like this is underway in the Netherlands, in fact. The argument that cultivated meat threatens agriculture is paradoxical, says Madre Brava’s Muzi, whose parents are Argentinian ranchers. “This push against cultivated meat is the work of a very specific way of producing meat,” he said, adding that it favors industrialized agriculture that keeps big farmers in power while pushing out small and medium-sized ones. It perpetuates a global, resource-intensive system where animal feed like soy is causing deforestation in parts of South America. “In a world where we need to feed a lot more people, meat…will still be demanded and exacerbating climate change and deforestation,” Muzi said.

He adds that alternative proteins would help farmers. “An important shift to this type of alternative proteins could free up a lot of farmland to allow for more agroecological farming,” he says, such as incorporating rewilding projects to mitigate emissions.

Kaplan says he sees the knowledge gap about the science of cultivated meat — and it’s a responsibility he places on himself. “We don’t do a great job of educating the broader public,” he says. “But I think it’s also just symptomatic of the world today. It’s a very polarized set of constituencies out there.”

Still, Kaplan hears a more positive outlook on the future from his students. “The younger population is clearly invested in this (cultivated meat),” he tells Sentient, and for all sorts of reasons. “It could be for sustainability, population, food equity, healthier foods, animal welfare. It all comes into what drives them.”

Update: This piece has been updated to clarify the cultivated meat industry’s value in terms of investments.

This article originally appeared in Sentient Media.

The post Inside Florida’s Ban on Lab-Grown Meat appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Last week, the FAO released its annual report on the state of aquaculture — which refers to the farming of both seafood and aquatic plants — and fisheries around the world. The organization found that global production from both aquaculture and fisheries reached a new high — 223.3 million metric tons of animals and plants — in 2022. Of that, 185.4 million metric tons were aquatic animals, and 37.8 million metric tons were algae. Aquaculture was responsible for 51 percent of aquatic animal production in 2022, or 94.4 metric tons.

The milestone was in many ways an expected one, given the world’s insatiable appetite for seafood. Since 1961, consumption of seafood has grown at twice the annual rate of the global population, according to the FAO. Because production levels from fisheries are not expected to change significantly in the future, meeting the growing global demand for seafood almost certainly necessitates an increase in aquaculture.

Photography via Shutterstock/Adnan Buyuk.

Though fishery production levels fluctuate from year to year, “it’s not like there’s new fisheries out there waiting to be discovered,” said Dave Martin, program director for Sustainable Fisheries Partnerships, an international organization that works to reduce the environmental impact of seafood supply chains. “So any growth in consumption of seafood is going to come from aquaculture.”

But the rise of aquaculture underscores the need to transform seafood systems to minimize their impact on the planet. Both aquaculture and fisheries — sometimes referred to as capture fisheries, as they involve the capture of wild seafood — come with significant environmental and climate considerations. What’s more, the two systems often depend on each other, making it difficult to isolate their climate impacts.

“There’s a lot of overlap between fisheries and aquaculture that the average consumer may not see,” said Dave Love, a research professor at the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University.

Tuna farm rings. Photography via Shutterstock/Karina Movsesyan.

Studies have shown that the best diet for the planet is one free of animal protein. Still, seafood generally has much lower greenhouse gas emissions than other forms of protein from land-based animals. And given many people’s unwillingness or inability to go vegan, the FAO recommends transforming, adapting, and expanding sustainable seafood production to feed the world’s growing population and improve food security.

But “there’s a lot of ways to do aquaculture well, and there’s a lot of ways to do it poorly,” said Martin. Aquaculture can result in nitrogen and phosphorus being released into the natural environment, damaging aquatic ecosystems. Farmed fish can also spread disease to wild populations, or escape from their confines and breed with other species, resulting in genetic pollution that can disrupt the fitness of a wild population. Martin points to the diesel fuel used to power equipment on certain fish farms as a major source of aquaculture’s environmental impact. According to an analysis from the climate solutions nonprofit Project Drawdown, swapping out fossil fuel-based generators on fish farms for renewable-powered hybrids would prevent 500 million to 780 million metric tons of carbon emissions by 2050.

Fish food. Photography vis Shutterstock/Attasit Saentep.

Other areas for improvement will vary depending on the specific species being farmed. In 2012, a U.N. study found that mangrove forests — a major carbon sink — have suffered greatly due to the development of shrimp and fish farming. Today, industry stakeholders have been exploring how new approaches and techniques from shrimp farmers can help restore mangroves.

Meanwhile, wild fishing operations present their own environmental problems. For example, poorly managed fisheries can harvest fish more quickly than wild populations can breed, a phenomenon known as overfishing. Certain destructive wild fishing techniques also kill a lot of non-targeted species, known as bycatch, threatening marine biodiversity.

But the line between aquaculture and fish harvested from the wild isn’t as clear as it may seem. For example, pink salmon that are raised in hatcheries and then released into the wild to feed, mature, and ultimately be caught again are often marketed as “wild caught.” Lobsters, caught wild in Maine, are often fed bait by fisherman to help them put on weight. “It’s a wild fishery,” said Love — but the lobster fishermen’s practice of fattening up their catch shows how human intervention is present even in wild-caught operations.

An oyster farm in the Netherlands. Photography via Shutterstock/Elena Zadorina.

On the flipside, in a majority of aquaculture systems, farmers provide their fish with feed. That feed sometimes includes fish meal, says Love, a powder that comes from two sources: seafood processing waste (think: fish guts and tails) and wild-caught fish.

All of this can result in a confusing landscape for climate- or environmentally-conscientious consumers who eat fish. But Love recommends a few ways in which consumers can navigate choice when shopping for seafood. Buying fresh fish locally helps shorten supply chains, which can lower the carbon impact of eating aquatic animals. “In our work, we’ve found that the big impact from transport is shipping fresh seafood internationally by air,” he said. Most farmed salmon, for example, sold in the U.S. is flown in.

From both a climate and a nutritional standpoint, smaller fish and sea vegetables are also both good options. “Mussels, clams, oysters, seaweed — they’re all loaded with macronutrients and minerals in different ways” compared to fin fish, said Love.

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

The post The World is Farming More Seafood Than it Catches. Is That a Good Thing? 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.

“This is getting ridiculous! I just spent $370 on groceries and have barely any food… How are people supposed to survive like this? Why is having three meals a day a luxury now?”

“Since the boycott, I’ve spent some time analyzing what I spend and where, and I’ve realized I can go entirely without the big three: Loblaws, Sobeys or Metro. I haven’t stepped foot in any of their stores since and I don’t plan on ever doing it again.”

These are just a few of the thousands of comments that Canadian Redditors have left on the page “Loblaws Is Out of Control,” where members share stories of $9 butter or tubs of $28 feta (twice the price of a competitor). The page was started by an Ontario woman, Emily Johnson, in November, as a way to share frustrations about high grocery prices. It quickly attracted members, with more than 79,000 people joining up in a matter of months. And they had a lot to talk about. In February 2023, the Consumer Price Index noted that food prices were up more than 10 percent year over year, double the national rate of inflation. It was the seventh straight month of double-digit food price increases. 

As more members joined the page, talk of a grocery store boycott began to intensify. 

Loblaws store shelves. Photography via Shutterstock.

Canada’s grocery market is dominated by five main retailers, which make up 76 percent of the market. The country’s biggest grocery chain, Loblaws, has cornered 28 percent of the market entirely. The company runs multiple brands of grocery and pharmacy chains, has several in-house lines that it sells, including the President’s Choice and No Name brands, and has long been a source of ire for Canadians struggling with rising food prices. While general economic inflation and rises in the cost of living do account for some hikes in food prices, these Redditors allege that price hikes have more to do with corporate greed and lack of competition than anything else. 

In addition to high costs, Loblaws has refused to sign a proposed Grocer Code of Conduct, saying that it worried that would lead to even higher prices on food. Loblaws has also struggled to regain public trust after its involvement in a bread price-fixing scandal over the 2010s. [Update: On May 16, the CEO of Loblaw Companies Limited told media they would sign the code of conduct as long as its grocery competitors did too.]

Frustrations reached a fever pitch; Loblaws was an obvious target for a boycott for many Canadians. 

On May 1, Loblaws announced its  2024 first-quarter profits; they’re up nearly 10 percent over the same time last year. The same day, the boycott officially started, with tens of thousands of shoppers vowing to ignore Loblaws. In smaller communities, where Loblaws stores are the only option, thousands vowed to cut their purchases.

Boycotters are demanding that both Loblaws and Walmart agree to sign the code of conduct, as well as commit to price caps on essential items and no retailer-led price increases for the rest of the year.

Loblaws chairman Galen Weston told media that the boycott is an example of “misguided criticism.” Weston said that he understood the frustration, but that expectations that Loblaws would be able to dramatically drop prices “betrays a misunderstanding of what’s actually driving food prices higher in this country.” However, Redditors have posted their own examples of small victories, which they attribute to the boycott: offers of extra reward points, photos and videos of items with large markdowns and alleged conversations about falling sales numbers.

With a boycott underway, the Reddit thread has become a place for people to offer tips and help their neighbors—with many finding ways to highlight local food or farmer’s markets. One user created We Food Wise, a site to help shoppers compare grocery prices. Another shared the site AltGrocery, which promotes local and indie food sellers, as well as farmer’s markets and co-ops. 

“The pandemic made us all acutely aware of food prices and shortages, prompting questions about the trustworthiness of local supermarkets and whether food prices are justifiably higher post-pandemic,” said the creator of AltGrocery, in an email. They have opted to remain anonymous, as they say they want the focus of the site to be the farmers and food producers. 

So far, AltGrocery has received about 107,000 visitors, and it has even had to temporarily suspend the map feature due to high traffic. AltGrocery says it is updating the map functionality, so users can find local markets from their mobile phones. It is also working on introducing filter systems, which will allow people to sort food by price. It has also brought in about $800 in donations to put towards site upkeep. “I plan to keep running beyond any boycotts. I think, if anything, [the site has] educated people to second guess where they get their food from and how much something is being sold for.”

Photography via Shutterstock.

Local markets have seen a boom in sales already. Edmonton-based Forage Market, an online farmer’s market, saw a 37-percent boost in website traffic since the boycott began, leaving them cautiously optimistic. “The first day of the boycott, we were up 27 percent. That’s great, we’ll take that. And then the next day, we were up 175 percent,” says Courtney Hanak, business development manager for the market. “The support is always appreciated. But we’re definitely trying to think about how we can make this last. How can we show consumers that this is an option year round?”

Hanak and her business partner started the market during COVID, when empty grocery shelves were a norm. “We started asking ourselves, why aren’t we buying locally? I’m seeing empty grocery shelves, but I know that the farmer down the road grows [these products].” They found that traditional farmer’s markets weren’t always accessible, either by location or hours, so they opted for an online warehouse model. Customers can go on the website to select products from individual farmers, just like stalls at a farmer’s market, but Forage will package and ship them out together. 

Hanak says she’s happy to see people getting more acquainted with farmer’s markets and local food. “There’s still this myth that people assume the farmer’s markets will be more expensive. But with inflation and the grocery prices and where they’re at now, it’s not… We’ve done cost comparisons, and we end up beating the average grocery cart total by about $2.”

A PieceMeal Kit. Photography courtesy of Kara Friesen.

And many shoppers are happy to pay prices on par with grocery stores if they know where that money is going. “If you pay a farmer…then they’re going to take that dollar, and they’re going to spend it on a local hairdresser, they’re going to spend it at the local cafe, they’re going to spend it on items that are also provided locally. So, we are feeding our own economy rather than funneling our money to millionaires and billionaires,” says Kara Friesen, owner of PieceMeal, a Nova Scotia-based meal kit. Friesen works with local farmers to collect in-season produce, then puts together weekly meal kits, with recipes and instructions so people can easily throw meals together. When she heard of the boycott, she created the Loblaws Boycott promotion, offering a discount for new signups in the last two weeks of May.

Friesen is supportive of the boycott, but she recognizes that it’s not easy for everyone. “It is often hard for people to access food outside of the grocery stores, because these retailers are highly competitive and can sell food for less than it’s actually worth, because of things like the retail fees that they charge suppliers,” says Friesen. She recommends figuring out what you are able to purchase locally, with fresh produce at the top of the list. Then, make a meal plan around what’s available, and purchase only what you have to from bigger stores. 

“I’ve devoted a lot of time to researching our food systems and how it affects every aspect of our lives,” says Friesen.”When I saw the boycott, I just sort of breathed a sigh of relief and thought this is really something that could gain traction and maybe help educate the public a little bit more about how important it is to understand the food system.” 

Many in the Reddit community have spoken about expanding the boycott past May or to include other stores. The creator of AltGrocery also told Modern Farmer they would be interested in expanding their site to include the US, as mergers and consolidation have also resulted in high food prices further south. 

Emily Johnson, the creator of the Reddit page, has met with officials from Loblaw to talk about the demands of the boycott. She’s also started a petition with Canada’s House of Commons to ask for stronger anti-trust laws and investigate the pricing structure of large grocery stores. The petition has nearly 7,000 signatures so far. 

Update: On May 16, Lobaw CEO Per Bank told media that the company was ready to sign on to the Grocery Code of Conduct, provided that other grocers also sign. 

The post $9 Butter? Canadian Redditors Say No Thank You appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In the US, an estimated 77 million tons of food are wasted annually, even as one in eight American families struggles with hunger. Growing all that food that no one eats wastes financial and natural resources, while also contributing to climate change. Food is the number one item we throw into landfills, where it drives almost 60 percent of their methane emissions.

But there is an easy way to cut down a large portion of that food waste: Change the “best by” labeling system. According to new research by MITRE and Gallup, there are more than 50 different date label phrases in most grocery stores today—“sell by,” “use by,” “best if used by,” “enjoy by,” and so forth—leaving consumers confused about whether these terms refer to freshness, safety or other issues. As a result, one third of all consumers “often or always” throw away food that has passed its date label. The end result is that households and food businesses throw away perfectly wholesome food (6.5 million tons annually in the US, which is nearly 10 percent of all US food waste) and spend an average $1,500 a year per household on food that they then toss in the trash. 

The US has set a goal to halve its food waste by 2030. To accelerate progress, the Zero Food Waste Coalition (a group of nonprofits, major food businesses and communities) has come together to help advance two commonsense pieces of bipartisan legislation: the Food Date Labeling Act (FDLA) and the NO TIME TO Waste Act. Congress should pass both these acts in the upcoming Farm Bill.

The FDLA aims to establish a consistent, easy-to-understand food date labeling system, at no cost to the government. The FDLA would streamline food labeling into two simple categories: “Best If Used By” to communicate peak food quality and “Use By” to indicate the end of a product’s estimated shelf life. Most importantly, the act would launch an education campaign to help consumers understand the difference between these categories.

Simplified date labels are one of the most cost-effective strategies to reduce food waste across the supply chain—with the majority of the benefits going to consumers. The FDLA would also make more food available for donation by clarifying that food can still be donated after a quality date (which 20 states prohibit or restrict today). More than 23 industry leaders, such as Walmart and Unilever, have signed on in support of the FDLA.

In addition to the FDLA, the NO TIME TO Waste Act would establish an Office of Food Loss and Waste at the US Department of Agriculture. This office would spearhead a whole-of-government approach to reducing food waste, strengthen food waste research, create consumer awareness campaigns and support public-private partnerships and local food recovery efforts. 

These two pieces of legislation are a no-brainer for Congress to pass. Tackling food waste is good for consumers, businesses and the environment. Meeting our national goal of reducing food loss and waste by 50 percent would deliver a $73-billion annual net financial benefit (again, in large part to consumers), reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75 million metric tons and create 51,000 jobs over 10 years. The 2024 Farm Bill is a golden opportunity to make meaningful progress in our fight against food waste, help families stretch their limited food dollars and transition to a more efficient and sustainable food system. 

Pete Pearson. Photography courtesy of Pete Pearson/WWF.

Pete Pearson is senior director of food waste with World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C.

The Zero Food Waste Coalition aims to inform and influence policy at the local, state and federal levels and share policy updates and opportunities with partners and stakeholders around the country to bring consumers, businesses and government together to make food loss and waste history. The Coalition was launched by NRDC, WWF, ReFE, and FLPC in April 2023, formalizing a partnership that began in January 2020.

The post Opinion: Congress Should Standardize Food Labels in Farm Bill to Curb Food Waste appeared first on Modern Farmer.

There’s no doubt that industrial animal agriculture carries a laundry list of sins; greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, deforestation, water pollution and labor rights abuses are just a few examples. But there’s also evidence that some regenerative grazing practices can enhance biodiversity, improve soil health and—possibly—sequester carbon. Not only that, but animal husbandry also has significant cultural value and eating animal products can have health benefits.

For some people, eschewing meat—or even all animal products—entirely is the only reasonable course of action. But for those who don’t want to go so far, “less” and “better” can seem like a pragmatic solution: There’s no need to cut out meat altogether; just cut down. Choose quality over quantity. Dig a little deeper, however, and things once again get very confusing. How much less is less? And how do we determine which meat is better?

Are chicken and pork the most climate-friendly options? Is it better for the planet to eat locally or organically? What’s the impact on my physical health of choosing one meat—or one meat alternative—over another? To be able to weigh up all these questions and accurately calculate which kind of meat and how much is “OK” for us to eat, the average consumer would need far more information, time and energy than anyone typically has at the grocery store. It can feel like we’re doomed to fail before we’ve even made a start.

Here’s the thing: There is no right answer when it comes to meat. And that’s OK. 

These questions and warring data points spurred us to make Less and Better?, our new podcast series from Farmerama Radio. Exasperated and concerned by the lack of nuance around this pressing issue, we wanted to try a different approach—one that attempts to illuminate the values and priorities that underlie even the most allegedly scientifically motivated positions.

For many people, the answer is simple: Just go vegan, or at least vegetarian. Studies show that diets without animal products have one-fourth the climate impact of meat-filled diets—from using less water and land and producing fewer carbon emissions. Rather than wrestling with the “best” meat to eat, many choose to forgo it altogether. 

But not everyone can do that. Meat holds cultural significance for many, and it can have nutritional benefits. There’s also a difference between heavily processed meat products and unprocessed meat, both in their effects on the body and the climate. So, for folks unable or unwilling to give up meat entirely, eating better-quality meat, and less of it, is the best approach. But even then, there are questions. The “right” answers to questions of how much less or what is better depend not only on a dizzying array of complex data but fundamentally hinge on which outcomes you believe are worth pursuing. Some argue that intensive factory farms produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, in general, than extensive, pasture-fed systems. Others disagree strongly with this, but say, for the sake of argument, we accept this as true. At first, it seems simple: “Better” meat is factory-farmed meat. Now we just need to figure out how much “less” we should eat.

But what if we think the most important issues are biodiversity loss and ecosystem health? Or water pollution? Or workers’ rights? Or animal welfare? We address each of these issues in our series, and each of them points to a potentially different answer. On that last point, for example, animal welfare scientist Professor Françoise Wemelsfelder argues that recognizing farm animals as sentient beings “probably means that large industrial farming systems are not morally feasible.”

Wrestling with these concepts and questions is a valuable and valid exercise; it’s commendable to make decisions about your consumption and purchases that reflect your morals and values. But, like comparing apples with oranges, trying to find the perfect answer is an impossible task. It could even have negative mental health outcomes. Research in the field of consumer behavior has shown that we can experience negative emotions when trying to make choices that force us to make “emotionally laden trade-offs.” And, higher levels of eco-anxiety are reported among folks with more environmental awareness. 

What “less” and “better” means for you also depends on what interests, values and biases underlie your particular vision of what the world could, and should, look like. Efforts to boil less and better down to simplistic questions of CO2 emissions per livestock unit or the relative technical merits of soil carbon sequestration versus cellular agriculture ignore political questions. Questions such as who benefits? Who holds the power? Who has access to “better” meat? And what kind of future are we building?

Ultimately, we don’t think it’s possible to provide a simple, silver-bullet answer to the question of what constitutes “less” and “better” meat. But we also think that’s kind of the whole point. When it comes to less and better meat, we think the real question we need to ask is better for whom and for what?

Listen to the podcast series Less and Better? by Farmerama Radio here. 

The post Opinion: There’s No Right Way to Eat Meat appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Conservationist Eric Steen aims to change that. His Earth to Beer project is bringing together over 35 breweries from across the US to make a commitment to brewing a mindfully sourced and packaged beer in collaboration with local environmental nonprofits this Earth Day, “to pack as much sustainability as possible into each can.”

As the impacts of climate change intensify worldwide, there is a greater awareness that we need to make changes in our daily lives to help combat its effects. With this project, Steen is enabling breweries and drinkers to do this in an open-ended and collaborative fashion. “What I think is truly unique about Earth to Beer is that we don’t prescribe a specific way to approach the environmental question,” Steen explains. “We aren’t telling brewers to buy organic only, we’re saying that organic is one of many great options that also include local, regenerative agriculture, other certifications like Salmon-Safe, non-certified but responsibly grown, and more. This decentralized approach allows breweries to get creative in ways that make sense for them, their budgets, and their communities.” 

Ghostfish Brewing of Seattle is putting out an oyster stout and supporting the Puget Sound Restoration Fund as part of the Earth to Beer project. (Photo courtesy Ghostfish Brewing)

Steen aims to make the project as accessible as possible for breweries and drinkers, offering negotiated discounts with suppliers, information about ethical sourcing, and marketing and branding resources and custom artwork to help breweries attract interest from customers and retailers. Brewers can make any style of beer and use whichever sustainable resources they feel will suit their needs best. Recipes released already include Aslan Brewing’s classic Amber Ale, which uses all Salmon-Safe certified hops, and GearHouse Brewing’s Imperial Honey Wheat Ale brewed with Pennsylvania honey and aged in locally sourced whiskey barrels.

Earth to Beer features participants from Alaska to Texas to Hawaii, all of whom have committed to working with sustainable suppliers and partnering with a local environmental nonprofit. “We’ve asked breweries to reverse the role of what normally happens with a nonprofit — usually the nonprofit approaches the brewery and there’s a pretty hands-off way of giving donated beer for a cause. In Earth to Beer, breweries have to find a nonprofit they want to work with, do the outreach and invite them in” says Steen.

Oddwood Brewing in Austin TX has chosen to partner with the Colorado River Alliance for the project. “With good, clean water being absolutely crucial to the creation of good beer we, as a small community-oriented brewery, wanted to team up with those that are fighting to protect our water and communities,” says Oddwood’s events and operations manager Charlie Mikulich. Oddwood is also sourcing its malt from TexMalt, a locally based supplier that works with nearby farms to reduce the carbon footprint of malt supply. It is also sourcing from Yakima Chief Hops, a grower-owned family farm collective that uses green energy to power its facilities, a water reclamation program to keep local habitats safe, and created the Green Chief Program (a sustainability management program that promotes and develops guidelines for all their farms). 

Breweries are required to pay a small fee to join Earth to Beer and make a contribution to the nonprofit of their choice, depending on brewery size, ranging from $500-$1,000 minimum. They are also expected to begin open-ended collaborations, such as providing beer for events and offering free meeting spaces. For startups and minority-owned breweries, sponsor Arryved, which specializes in point-of-sale technology, has provided a stipend so cost doesn’t prohibit participation. “Building a better world through beer requires not only more sustainable ingredients and processes, but also more opportunities for people of color to participate and contribute to the creativity and problem solving we will need to get there,” says Aaron Gore, Director of Community and Partnerships at Arryved.

MadTree Brewing in Cincinnati, Ohio organizes staff volunteer days and donates one percent of all sales to local nonprofits. (Photo courtesy MadTree Brewing)

Another sponsor and collaborator is Canworks, the first US company to print directly onto aluminum cans, eliminating plastic waste and making them recyclable. “There is a challenge in consumer awareness. Most consumers don’t realize that many of the cans they recycle are covered in shrink sleeves and those cans are going straight to a landfill because of that,” says Canworks head of marketing Daniel Rigdon. That’s where Earth to Beer comes in. “Educating consumers so they can make informed decisions is the fastest way to effect change,” Rigdon explains.

Steen aims to spearhead wider industry change by creating a multi-layered, inclusive, educational and open-ended initiative. “Formalizing a campaign around Earth Day and institutionalizing it will go a long way to get breweries who aren’t thinking about their impact to start to care,” he says. This is also the goal for Tulsa OK’s Heirloom Rustic Ales, which is partnering with the Conservation Coalition of Oklahoma. “Our hope for this project is that other brewers (and growers) will see that consumers appreciate, and even gravitate towards, agriculturally holistic products,” says co-owner and brewer Jake Miller. 

For Steen, the key goal is to raise awareness about brewing and drinking intentionally. “If you’re not already intentional in the way that you source your ingredients, consider making one beer a year where you change things up. And each time you make this beer, get a little more intentional about it,” he says. His advice to consumers? “Ask breweries what they’re doing to support producers and suppliers who are environmental stewards, and go out of your way to support breweries that are intentional.”

Earth to Beer releases will be available around the country this April. Find the full list of participating breweries here.

The post Drinking, and Thinking About, More Sustainable Beer appeared first on Modern Farmer.

 In the aftermath of the war, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was accepted by members of the United Nations (U.N.) at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. Among the resolutions in the foundational text is Article 25. It reads, in part: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care.”

The right to food seems so basic; in 1948, it seemed unimaginable that we would be where we are today, with 828 million people living in hunger, according to the latest numbers from the World Health Organization. Most of those people—more than 85 percent—live in areas affected by conflict and war.

In 2015, the U.N. targeted 2030 as the year it would end hunger and food insecurity. In the past decade, we’ve seen catastrophic wars and food crises in South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Haiti, Gaza, Ukraine and Somalia topping the list, with tens of millions of their citizens suffering almost unimaginable hardship, hunger and suffering. The populations in those conflict zones risk starvation, because access to food has been either coincidentally or intentionally cut off. 

While the U.N. unanimously passed a resolution condemning the use of food insecurity and starvation as a tactic of war in 2018, the resolution isn’t legally binding. The only way the millions of people in conflict zones are getting food that they don’t grow or find themselves is through the efforts of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and nonprofits, often staffed by volunteers who risk their lives to deliver food to people on the front lines.

The circumstances and details of delivery vary considerably. 

“Logistics for delivery of aid differ depending on many factors, from the location, geography and weather to the nature of the disaster, beneficiaries, time of year and level of conflict,” says Christine Quinn Antal, co-founder of the nonprofit Task Force Antal and a veteran with years of experience operating in conflict zones and managing crises. Task Force Antal focuses on providing food, evacuation support and humanitarian aid with a team of elite special operations veterans in conflict zones across the world. “Keeping supply chains safe and secure is always a major focus, so we can maintain confidence that the food and supplies we’re delivering make it to the intended location without any tampering.”

Photography provided by World Central Kitchen.

Delivering aid in Somalia

For decades, Somalia has been enduring conflict and extreme drought. While the country’s Civil War was sparked in 1991 when Siad Barre’s military junta was overthrown, it has since devolved to include multiple warring rebel groups. Currently, more than four million people there are acutely food insecure and 1.7 million children aged five and under are expected to suffer acute malnutrition this year, according to CARE International.

CARE works in 97 countries, in a mission to promote social justice and defeat poverty. Justus Liku, the Kenya-based senior director of Humanitarian Response and Impact, explains that delivering food aid is one measure CARE takes to assist those in need. 

“The drought in Somalia has killed tens of thousands of people and decimated crops and livestock that people depend on for their lives and livelihoods,” says Liku. CARE relies on food imported from nearby Kenya and Ethiopia and imports corn from Western Europe.

It also relies on imported nutritional supplements that malnourished children and parents need, as there is no supplement industry local to Somalia. “Getting food aid to people is very challenging in Somalia because there are so many conflicts, so crossing from one zone to another requires a great deal of planning and coordination.”

To conquer the logistics of delivering food by truck from one conflict zone to another within Somalia, CARE relies on a chain of local connections who meet each other near border crossings and deliver food from one truck to the other. 

“The drivers know each other, and remain in contact,” says Liku. “It is complicated, but [it’s] the best way we have found to get food to people across Somalia.” 

Thankfully, says Liku, mobile phone service is much more dependable in Somalia than in other countries in which CARE works, which enables delivery drivers to utilize GPS when necessary and communicate with each other and the people they’re trying to reach. 

Finding local on-the-ground contacts is key to the NGO Human Appeal’s approach in Somalia, as well as its other efforts in 27 countries, including Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen and Iraq. In 2023, Human Appeal delivered food and nutritional support to 773,426 people. Each delivery, by design, was different. 

“Local partners know the context and local challenges, and identify duly vetted local implementing partners,” says Owais Khan, deputy CEO of Human Appeal, a nonprofit organization working across the world to deliver aid and fight poverty and injustice. In an email, Khan told Modern Farmer that the group has an established model to assess the ability and capacity of local partners to help with food delivery projects. “The same applies to suppliers who need to be screened, have a solid track record and economically viable prices.”

Understanding each country’s needs, the demographics of the target group, the local diet and preferences and any other specific requirements such as religious or other food codes is essential, says Khan —and frequently, locals are the only ones who can truly decipher these often unwritten rules for outsiders. 

The U.N.’s Humanitarian Response Plan in Somalia is woefully underfunded, with about 9.8 percent of the $1.59 billion needed funded this year.

“There are so many countries and people in need,” says Liku “and not enough funding.”

Photography submitted by World Central Kitchen.

Delivering aid in Gaza 

Food security experts warn that the war between Israel and Hamas has caused a food crisis that threatens every single person living in Gaza. Currently, about half of the population—1.1 million people—are facing severe hunger and the possibility of famine, according to Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, an agency that monitors global hunger. Delivering food has been a dangerous endeavor recently, when at least 112 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded amid an aid truck delivery in Gaza. 

World Central Kitchen (WCK), a nonprofit founded in 2010 by Chef José Andrés, has delivered more than 350 million meals around the world. WCK delivered food to Israelis after the October 7 attack that sparked the country’s war with Hamas and now is delivering food to Gaza. 

In early March, WCK began exploring routes into Gaza, eventually partnering with the NGO Open Arms in securing a maritime route through Cyprus. The mission has been dubbed Operation Safeena, which translates to Operation Boat or Vessel in Arabic. 

WCK has come under fire recently following allegations of sexual harassment within the top levels of the organization; however, that does not seem to have hampered its aid work. A spokesperson for World Central Kitchen said that WCK continues “to prepare about 300 tons of humanitarian food aid for a second sailing to Gaza from the Larnaca, Cyprus port.” 

WCK is focused on delivering culturally appropriate, shelf-stable foods, such as beans, carrots, canned tuna, chickpeas, canned corn, parboiled rice, flour, oil and salt. To date, WCK has delivered 39 million meals by land, sea and air to Palestinians. More than 1,500 trucks have been dispatched for on-the-ground deliveries across Gaza from WCK’s Cairo warehouses, and more than 60 community kitchens have been opened in Gaza. During the sacred month of Ramadan, WCK is delivering daily airdrops, the spokesperson said. 

Common Man volunteers delivering food and presents. Photography submitted by Common Man for Ukraine.

Delivering aid in Ukraine 

The war between Russia and Ukraine began in 2014 when the republic of Crimea was invaded by Russian troops in disguise. On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion. Today, an estimated 3.7 million people are displaced in Ukraine, and 14.6 million people require humanitarian assistance, including food.

Children are especially vulnerable, says Susan Mathison, who co-founded Common Man for Ukraine in 2022 with Steve Rand, Lisa Mure and Alex Ray.

“When we visited Ukraine to see what we could do, we decided to focus on children, because we came to understand the enormity of what they were facing,” says Mathison. “Hundreds of thousands of children have been sent on trains from Eastern to Western Ukraine by their mothers who hope to keep them safe. Informal safehouses have sprung up to care for 2.5 million children.”

Two of the founding members of Common Man are members of the Plymouth Rotary Club in New Hampshire, and they used that connection to launch their mission.

“We knew we’d have to embed with local organizations on the ground if we wanted to succeed,” says Mathison. “So we called the Rotary presidents in Poland and Ukraine, and from there built an incredible network and system of delivery.”

Thus far, they have delivered more than three million meals to hungry children in more than 100 safehouses across Ukraine, using trucks driven by around 200 volunteers. They deliver locally produced traditional foods such as groat (similar to muesli or granola), canned meat and fresh produce grown by local producers, often to houses in the dead of night, and not necessarily with electricity. 

“Sometimes, I feel like we’re not doing enough,” says Mathison. “How are we really helping if we can only serve a fraction of the people in need? But I’ve been there to see the looks on the faces of the children when they receive the food, and that’s when I realize that what we are doing does matter, because every child matters.”

Hope for Ukraine, a non-profit launched in 2016 by Ukraine native Yuriy Boyechko, has raised more than $8.4 million since the full-scale invasion began and operates under a similar model.

“We realized that millions would need our help,” says Boyechko. “We began organizing food and field kitchens and figured out how to deliver meal kits that would feed families of four for (over a week).”

Currently, Hope for Ukraine is supplying 1,500 families with meal kits every week, with the help of co-partners on the ground and more than 100 volunteer groups, which deliver food to the most hard-hit regions in frontline towns. The non-perishable food they deliver is largely locally sourced, with the goal of boosting the economy, and providing the kinds of food locals are used to. 

“For a lot of people, this is their only lifeline,” says Boyechko. “Their infrastructure has been destroyed, and without this they will have no food. We are also operating five field kitchens with other pop-ups when possible and as needed.”

Currently, an estimated 10 percent of Ukraine’s humanitarian needs are being met, and Mathison says that donations have fallen off precipitously since the October 7 attack in Israel and the ensuing war there. 

“There are so many problems happening in the world, it’s easy to stay frozen,” says Mathison. “But if we could all just focus on one country, or one child, or one project, the world will be a better place. Pick something that will make your heart sing.”

Common Man for Ukraine founders. Photography submitted by Common Man.

Want to donate to an NGO or food charity? Here’s what you should consider: 

To ensure the safety of staff and success of the mission, always look at how the NGO interacts with and incorporates local groups into their work. 

“At the end of the day, any organization you support should be working with the actual citizens and organizations based there,” says Antal. “They are critical to know how to get in and get out, especially in armed conflicts.”

To ensure your funds are actually going to help, ensure that the charity is legally registered and abides by the rules and regulations of its governing body. Also important is that it submits an annual report of its expenses, so you can see exactly where the money is going. 

“A charity with a sustained track record of delivering aid to where it is needed most and regularly reporting its work to its donors is also key,” says Khan. “A professionally managed charity will always have internal policies and procedures that are applied across all internal functions to ensure proper governance and standards.”

In addition to the NGO’s featured above, here are vetted and widely respected organizations which you can feel safe donating money to:

The World Food Programme: Founded in 1963, it is the lead U.N. agency that responds to food emergencies and combats hunger worldwide. 

Oxfam America: A global organization founded in 1942 fighting to end poverty and injustice. 

Action Against Hunger: A global humanitarian organization that takes action against the causes and effects of hunger. 

The post How Does Food Get Delivered to Hungry People in Conflict Zones? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Ben Stanger has composted his whole life, starting with a backyard bin when he was a child. But when he wanted to expand his composting efforts and start a business, he had a hard time finding a municipality that would let him. 

Eventually, he was able to work with officials in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, to update their bylaws so Stanger could start composting. Now, two years later, his business Green Box has grown by 28 times, and he’s looking to see how much further he can go. 

Stanger spoke with Modern Farmer about what it takes to start composting at this scale and how to advocate to rework restrictive legislation. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Photography submitted by Green Box.

Modern Farmer: First things first: Ben, how did this interest in composting start for you?

Ben Stanger: Growing up, my family was always very involved in growing food, gardening, canning stuff, whatever. As part of that, we composted as a way of doing natural waste diversion and creating quality soil to go back into the garden. It was something I was very used to and, as a young child, always took for granted. I realized, as I was older, “Oh, everybody doesn’t do this. Why don’t they all do this?” 

I moved to Chicago after college and, in 2017, I was working at a sustainable seafood company at a farmers market. And I saw a compost collection van driving around the neighborhood. And I just realized, “oh, wow, people are doing this, this is a real thing.” I contacted them, and I started working for them. I worked there for about two years. And in those two years, during the beginning of the pandemic, we grew really quickly. And I realized, “OK, this is a real way to kind of solve this issue.”

MF: So, that’s when you decided to iterate on the Chicago business, but in your hometown of Madison, Wisconsin?

BS: Yeah. In Chicago, [the business] didn’t actually compost ourselves. We were collecting organic waste, and then somebody else collected it from us. And that worked for the situation, but I kind of felt like it didn’t give us enough oversight over what we were doing. 

After moving back to Madison, I realized there wasn’t really any infrastructure to compost food scraps, even if I wanted to outsource it and just be a collector, like in Chicago. 

MF: On the surface, it seems like a compost program would be easy to implement if a city already has a trash or recycling pick-up. When you were searching for a place to start your business, what were the issues you came up against?

BS: The big thing is a lack of infrastructure; there’s nowhere to compost that amount of food waste. Food waste is hard to compost compared to other organic waste, like yard waste. It’s really nitrogen rich, it’s really putrescible. It’s really wet and often contaminated. And so you have to be able to handle all those things. And so it kind of requires a different approach than yard waste composting, which is pretty easy to manage. And so just making the investments, there are things that communities haven’t done. 

MF: In terms of infrastructure, many cities have landfills. What do you need for a large-scale composting program?

BS: Well, there’s no one right way to do this, everything is kind of iterative.

We opted for a rotating drum composter. Our goal was to just get our foot in the door in whatever municipality we ended up working in. And to do that, we wanted to make sure our process was as clean and efficient as possible so that we would allay any fears about possible rodents or pests or bad smells. So, we spent a lot of money to make sure that we didn’t run into any perception issues. Our main goal is to kind of make the perception of composting seem cool and achievable. 

Photography submitted by Green Box.

MF: In a place like Wisconsin, roughly a third of household waste is food waste. With that much organic waste, compost seems like an issue many jurisdictions would want to tackle. How many places did you go to before you found a home for Green Box?

BS: I was in my parents’ basement for about six months, just shopping around municipalities. Pretty much every place I emailed either didn’t have a commercial composting zoning classification, or if they did, they expressly prohibited food scrap composting. And pretty much every place, all their zoning codes were written in the ‘80s, when they were more concerned about pests for local landowners and homeowners. That was a big legislative hurdle. 

The other hurdle was real estate. The market is really hot right now, there are a lot of people moving here. And a lot of it is dedicated towards either residential or multi-use development, so it’s hard to find space for this sort of operation.

Finally, just being a new business owner in a business that’s not well established, it’s hard convincing people that what you are doing is worthwhile, if people hadn’t even heard of composting.

[RELATED: Map: Who Composts?]

MF: So, you had to contend with a bunch of bylaws written 40 or more years ago. 

BS: Yeah. And we did find a home in Sun Prairie. That’s a combination of timing, finding a good location and warehouse and the city being willing to work with us. What ended up happening was there was a zoning code to allow for commercial composting operations. Sun Prairie was very helpful and willing to work with us to update one of the classifications to compost food scraps.

MF: So, now, your coverage area extends outside of Sun Prairie, and you actually have customers throughout Madison as well. 

BS: We started off smaller and tried to be dense. We started just about two years ago, on Valentine’s Day, 2022. 

At first, we had 25 members that were composting 200 pounds a week. And because of that we had to be fairly tight, just to make sure that we weren’t losing money on pickups. But now that we have about 700 residential members, composting about seven tons a week, we can afford to go a little bit further afield. In fact, we’re planning a few expansions to even further surrounding smaller municipalities in this coming year. 

Photography submitted by Green Box.

MF: Is composting easier with more people, with larger pickups? Can you do things that backyard composters can’t? 

BS: So, in order to kill pathogens like E. coli and salmonella in compost, you need to achieve a temperature of 131 degrees [Fahrenheit] for a sustained 72 hours. That’s the baseline. Most backyard composting piles don’t hit that, so you don’t want to compost meat, bones or dairy in those smaller compost piles because of the risk of bacteria spreading. 

But for us, we can achieve those temperatures on an industrial scale, no problem. And because we are rotating and composting in a vessel indoors, we have no issues with pests. 

We need to make this easy for the average consumer to adopt. We’re happy to take diehard conservationists and environmentalists, that’s great. But we figured they were probably already composting. We need to try and cater to people who don’t have the time or the interest or just the knowledge. So, [we’re] trying to get as broad a base as possible.

[RELATED: Composting Makes Sense. Why Don’t More Cities Do It?]

MF: That’s an interesting goal, to go after the customers who might not be your immediate target audience. I know that, for many folks, efforts like composting can seem a little futile in the face of the massive changes that need to happen to help our planet. 

BS: Definitely. I’ll say it probably doesn’t matter that much if one individual composts. But if that one individual composting gets 10 more people to compost, eventually those 10 get 10 more, and then we get to the point where now there’s buy-in and capital investment in the infrastructure, so we can start working with whole municipalities…That’s a real impact. Part of this is changing perceptions, changing goals, changing understandings about how waste works. That’s the really powerful part.

Photography submitted by Green Box.

For more on what is takes for cities to start a compost program, check out our feature on municipal compost programs here. 

Ready to compost where you live? Here are some expert tips to get started. 

• Look for community compost groups. Many organizations, including community gardens or environmental clubs, hold seminars or introductory panels on how to start composting. Get up to speed on what’s offered in your area; in addition to learning the composting basics, you might be able to join a network that’s already established. You can also search for a local composter here, or use this EPA map to find opportunities to divert excess food near you. 

• Check in with your city’s waste management team. Does your city offer composting? If they do, is it easily accessible? Most city’s waste management departments are easily found on the city website. From there, they should lay out exactly what you can and can’t compost, your individual pickup times, or the drop-off locations nearest you. 

• Make your voice heard. If your city does not offer a compost program, let the waste management department know you want one! One of the biggest hurdles to starting a pilot program is ensuring that there are enough residents interested in composting in the first place. Make it clear that you want to participate in a program, which makes it much easier for city officials to greenlight one. There are also resources to help municipalities as they get started, including this template from the US Composting Council which helps cities look at land use ordinances and classifications. 
• Look at the zoning bylaws. As Ben found out, some municipal bylaws were written decades ago, and they may not be up to date with the best waste management strategies for cities. But when city officials see that there is interest from the public, they have more reason to look at updating those bylaws, or looking at new ways of waste diversion.

***

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The human pressures on the river’s resources have come about through a combination of the valley as attractive farmland, significant urban growth and an influx of tourists wanting to hike, boat, bike and bird-watch. The population of Phoenix, which relies on water from a combination of the Verde and Colorado rivers, has grown to 4.75 million in 2024 from 221,000 in 1950, now the fifth largest city in the US, while climate change and agricultural demands have placed additional pressure on the river’s supply. 

Global environmental nonprofit The Nature Conservancy has been working on the Verde River for more than 50 years, and as the issue of low water flow became increasingly critical about 15 years ago, it began working with local communities to effect change and save water. This was the launch of Sinagua Malt, Arizona’s first malt house, a Certified B Corp public benefit corporation, which works by incentivizing farmers to transition from water-intensive summer crops such as corn and alfalfa to barley, by providing them with a stable market and offering local breweries and distilleries the opportunity to use locally sourced malt. This measure has saved more than 725 million gallons of Verde River water between 2016 and 2023, according to data from The Nature Conservancy—or more than 50 gallons per pint of beer.

Kim Schonek and Chip Norton inside the Singua Malt malt house. Photography by Justin Brummer.

Barley to the rescue

It was a 2015 meeting between The Nature Conservancy’s Kim Schonek and the Verde Conservation District’s Chip Norton that resulted in the game-changing plan to conserve the Verde River flow. The idea for Sinagua Malt came about through Schonek’s and Norton’s shared goals, approached from different perspectives. For Schonek, the key objective was elevating flows in the river, along with protecting farmland and ensuring its viability. Having tried fallowing agreements, where farmers were paid not to farm, and drip irrigation, which was hard for farmers to manage in large areas, they needed a new initiative. “We were also looking for a crop that would still be profitable while using significantly less water in the area—and barley was an obvious choice,” explains Schonek. 

Barley is planted in January and February, so it receives a lot of water from the winter rains as it irrigates. It dries out through May and is harvested in June, when the river is at its lowest. Conversely, alfalfa or corn need one foot of water per acre of irrigation during June, which places a significant burden on the river. 

Norton came to the issue of water flow through his work on habitat preservation in the Verde. During this time, Schonek and Norton had both built strong relationships with local farmers, and they were able to convince nearby Hauser Farms to take part. 

The initial test batch of 15 acres of Harrington two-row malt barley was planted and harvested in 2016, but it had to be sent to Austin for malting, as there were no malting houses in Arizona. When the returning malt was tested by local breweries, including Arizona Wilderness and Sedona Brewing, and found to be of saleable, usable quality, Norton and Schonek were left with a conundrum: The transportation costs and environmental impact of sending their barley all the way to Central Texas negated any savings for local farmers and brewers, as well as some of the benefit to the river. They needed to malt closer to the source, and the only way to do that was to build their own malt house.

Chip Norton with some of the barley now grown along the Verde River. Photography submitted. Photography by Justin Brummer.

Learn by doing

“It worked because Chip didn’t expect anyone else to do stuff—he just jumped in and did it. He was willing to be the guy to make it happen,” says Schonek. Norton came out of retirement to start the business. His background as a project manager in water and wastewater plant construction came in handy. “I had a great deal of experience with automated process equipment in my previous career, but I knew nothing about farming or grain processing,” he says. “My training as a maltster was essentially being thrown in the lake and learning to swim. It has been a steep learning curve.” 

After researching technique and recipes through various resources, including the equipment manufacturer and the Craft Maltsters Guild, Norton “just started doing it.” Although Norton says his first batch was “the easiest I’ve ever made,” it wasn’t long before the realities of running a malt house single-handedly set in. “Malting needs cool weather, and there was no air conditioning, which was very challenging in the summer as it was 95 degrees inside—I had to go and buy blocks of ice to throw in the steep water by hand to keep things cool,” he says. There was also a great deal to learn, and batches didn’t always go to plan. Norton says he “learned the correlation between fields that didn’t yield well by quality of barley, so good communication with farmers was crucial. I didn’t have a mentor so I had to self teach—so we learned which fields not to harvest, what techniques gave the best consistency of quality and, over time, we’re making good malt on a small pilot scale.”

Photography by Justin Brummer.

Communication is key

Schonek emphasizes the importance of Norton’s persistence but also of strong communication and integrated goals shared between herself and Norton, the farmers and the brewers. “The brewers’ willingness to try malt that maybe wasn’t the greatest was critical,” she says. Sinagua’s stable of three to four breweries kept them at full capacity, until additional investors funded a new malthouse, which has scaled up production to 1,700 tons from 150 tons per year. Sinagua is now operating at a capacity where it is looking for new farms and new breweries and distilleries to work with. 

The Nature Conservancy measures the change in the Verde River watershed by evaluating the change in crop and how much water each crop uses. It compares the volume of water used to grow barley to that which alfalfa and corn require per acre to see the savings. Measurements are taken during the summer months when the river is at its lowest ebb, and the pair estimates that its initiative has saved 725 million gallons of water. They’ve been able to grow to 610 acres this year from 95 acres of barley produced in 2016. Sinagua Malt now works with five farms, including Hauser, the Yavapai-Apache Nation’s Cloverleaf Ranch and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community’s Hatler Farm. They estimate they will be able to supply upwards of 25 local breweries and distilleries by the end of 2024.

Schonek says there has definitely been more water in the last few years. “You can go boating again now,” she says, “and we expect the impact on the river to at least triple with the new production facility.”

“It’s a dream come true to have such a meaningful impact on the river flow,” says Norton. However, the pair is keen to highlight that there were things they could have done differently along the way and things that have been essential to making the project work. 

“Looking back, one more year of assessment before launching would have been beneficial,” says Norton. They both emphasize that you can’t second-guess the future, but that thorough planning, communication and responsibility are essential when working with multiple partners. “It is critical to listen to agricultural partners and understand what their options are—and to have partners who are on board with shared goals and willing to take some level of risk but also help them manage that risk,” says Schonek. The Nature Conservancy initially helped farmers manage the risk by offering compensation for failed batches, although this has now ceased. It also played an integral role in getting investment from donors, a process by which both Norton and Schonek had to present the venture as practical and profitable. The pair emphasizes goal alignment with other complementary initiatives, such as Friends of the Verde River’s Verde River Exchange Water Offset Program, to which Sinagua contributes, and The Nature Conservancy’s work on eliminating waste in water conveyance and ground water management to ensure the best possible outcomes. 

When it comes to solving the kind of social and environmental issue that the Verde River flow raised, persistence is the key for Norton. “To achieve results, you have to keep plugging away and not quit—things don’t fall in your lap,” he says. Schonek puts creative problem-solving at the forefront. “We can’t just do what we did last year or what we did a decade ago. We must learn from what we’ve done, scale up and invest in better infrastructure,” she says, highlighting the need for greater funding and policy work across the board. 

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