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.

As the owner of a multi-generational farm, Mardesen has seen industrial agriculture and factory farming take increasing control over meat production in the last few decades. With that has come the extreme overuse of antibiotics in livestock farming.

“You know, we want to produce more pounds of pork, more pounds of beef, more pounds of chicken on smaller and smaller resources. The best way they have come up with to continue with this efficiency push is to pound antibiotics,” says Mardesen. “I have never been comfortable taking an animal as intelligent as a pig and cramming them into a concrete box for the sake of efficiency.”

A recent report released by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that antibiotic sales for meat production increased by 4 percent from 2021 to 2022, with pigs and cattle accounting for the majority of sales. Antibiotic sales for animal use peaked in 2015, after which the FDA banned the use of antibiotics for animal growth, leading to a major decline in antibiotic sales the following year. But from 2017 onwards, antibiotic sales for livestock farming have steadily risen each year, increasing 12 percent from 2017 to 2022.

“I have never been comfortable taking an animal as intelligent as a pig and cramming them into a concrete box for the sake of efficiency.” 

About 70 percent of medically important antibiotics in the US are sold for animals, not humans. The more an antibiotic is used, the more both animals and humans develop resistance to them, which significantly lowers the effectiveness of the intervention, says Steve Roach, food program director at Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), an organization that advocates for humane farming. 

While antibiotics were originally used to treat sick animals, in the 1940s, farmers discovered regular antibiotic use could make animals grow faster in less time and with fewer resources. 

Although the US banned the use of antibiotics for growth, they are still used for disease prevention and disease control. If one animal gets sick, the entire group is often treated because they live in such close proximity to one another. 

Nearly a third of medically important antibiotics have no duration limit, meaning a farmer can use those antibiotics in feed for as long as they want to prevent disease. Roach says this allows farmers to keep animals in poor living conditions that are more likely to get them sick.

Ron Mardesen stopped the use of routine antibiotics nearly 40 years ago. (Photo courtesy of Ron Mardesen)

Antibiotic use is particularly common on factory farms, where certain practices lead to disease in animals. Cattle are often fed a corn or soy diet instead of grass, which can lead to illness. Baby pigs are weaned off their mother’s milk and fed solid foods before they’re ready, causing diarrhea. 

“Having animals close together in crowded conditions, it saves you money, but also disease can easily spread,” says Roach. “You give them a diet that causes problems, so you basically just feed them antibiotics continuously.”

Lynn Utesch, a cattle farmer in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin—a region often referred to as CAFO alley for its high concentration of factory farms—discovered early on that, with the right methods, he doesn’t need antibiotics to raise his cattle. He and his wife Nancy own a 150-acre grass-fed beef farm and use a rotational grazing method. Every two days, they move their cows to a new pasture and the animals have plenty of space from one another. In his 30 years farming, Utesch has never had to use antibiotics on his cattle, not even for treatment. 

“If you allow the animal to eat its natural diet, if you allow it to live the way that nature intended out in the open air and where it cannot be confined tightly to the other cows, then you don’t have any need for antibiotics because those animals are completely healthy,” says Utesch.

Lynn and Nancy Utesch. (Photo courtesy of Lynn Utesch)

When the Utesches started farming, their customers expressed a preference for antibiotic-free, grass-fed beef. It was hard to find that elsewhere at the time. These days, it’s what many consumers look for. A 2021 poll found that “antibiotic-free” labels are important to two-thirds of Americans when buying meat.

Despite this priority, labeling is far from straightforward. From “antibiotic-free” to “no antibiotics routinely used” to “antibiotics may be used,” there are plenty of ambiguities within labeling and there is little room for nuance, says Roach. Antibiotics were designed to treat sick animals, but the overuse and lack of transparency has led to “an all-or-nothing mindset” and negated their original intent, he says.

FACT supports antibiotic use for animal treatment, but only if it is approached with transparency and communication between the farmer and the certifier. The Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at George Washington University is developing a “certified responsible antibiotic use” label, which would allow antibiotics for treatment but not for prevention.

“When you do use antibiotics for treatment, you need to report that to the certifier and let them know. And so we kind of prefer that label, but it’s harder to communicate that to the consumer,” says Roach. 

Unlike Utesch, Mardesen of A-Frame Acres does use antibiotics to treat a pig if it falls ill, but he uses a strict documentation process. He has to clearly identify the animal, what type of antibiotic was administered, the outcome of the treatment and where the animal was marketed. He cannot sell that pork to Niman Ranch, which has a strict “no-antibiotics ever” policy.

“If I do get an animal that does get sick, because I don’t routinely always throw antibiotics at these animals, when I have to treat an animal, the antibiotics that are available to use work a lot better on the farm,” says Mardesen.

Limiting antibiotic use will likely require stricter regulation from the FDA and more transparency in labeling. The USDA is considering implementing higher standards for meat to be labeled antibiotic free. But both Mardesen and Utesch say it starts with changing practices that benefit the animals so antibiotics aren’t needed for prevention or control. If there wasn’t such a focus on yield and production in the food system, fewer animals would be crammed into tight spaces and fed poor diets, says Utesch.

As a consumer, Utesch says the best thing you can do is educate yourself and learn where your food comes from. Look for organic and grass-fed meat, understand the different labels and, most of all, build a relationship with your local farmer. 

“Find a farmer, and not only just pick up the product the farmer has, but have a relationship where you say, ‘What does rotational grazing mean? Or outdoor access? What does that mean to you?’ Have a conversation about how an animal is actually raised and handled,” says Nancy Utesch. 

The post On the Ground with the Farmers Producing Antibiotic-Free Meat appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Transitioning away from a system often characterized by carb-heavy, frozen and fried food can be a multi-year process, says Dreibelbis, and it starts with an in-depth assessment. “[Is the district] cooking anything at all? Are they buying everything prepackaged?” says Dreiblebis. “Do you have the equipment that you need to start cooking from scratch, even smallwares like cutting boards and knives? Some districts don’t even have that.”

From there, small changes add up to make a big difference: More than 28 million lunches are served every day in schools across the US, and for some students, that lunch is their most nutritious meal of the day. For schools with a breakfast program, evidence suggests that students who eat breakfast at school score higher on tests. But schools are up against many roadblocks, from staffing challenges to rising food costs.

Changing a school’s lunch program takes time, resources and commitment. Modern Farmer spoke with the four trendsetting schools to find out how they’ve made changes in their school lunches, what’s working and what the kids are saying about their new favorite foods. 

Students in the Clear Lake Community School District learn more about their vegetable of the month: corn. (Photography submitted by Julie Udelhofen)

Lowering the pressure 

“I was just reading that one in six kids have high blood pressure,” says Julie Udelhofen, food service director at Clear Lake Community School District in northern Iowa. “Sodium is an issue; so is sugar. We see it every day.” 

For Udelhofen, the health of the roughly 1,450 kids in her schools is a top priority, with sodium a particular issue. To combat the rise of sodium, Udelhofen has made two major changes. First, she’s moved away from pre-packaged and frozen foods as much as possible and brought in local fruits and vegetables, conducting taste-tests with her students. “We’ve done beets, kohlrabi, rutabaga and parsnips. We had all kinds of radishes, and about 10 different varieties of peppers, and the kids go down the line and pick their favorites,” says Udelhofen. The key, she says, is to introduce these foods in a low-pressure environment, making it a game of sorts. “It’s a lot of fun, because the kids are wholly invested in it. They will stop and taste things and talk to us.” 

Behind the scenes, Udelhofen and her team have drastically cut sodium levels by making their own spice blends, which have been a big hit with the kids. “That’s one of the best things we’ve done, especially in the middle school and high school.” They offer a garlic and herb blend, along with Greek and Italian seasonings that kids can add to their meals, without the heaping helping of sodium from traditional blends. 

At Sandy Valley School District, staff make up pre-packaged fruit and vegetable pouches for kids to grab and snack on. (Photography submitted by Tina Kindelberger)

Broccoli at breakfast

Most adults are probably not grabbing broccoli at breakfast, but somehow, Tina Kindelberger, food service supervisor at Sandy Valley Local School District in eastern Ohio, has turned the children in her schools into broccoli fiends. 

“It’s so cute when they do that,” says Kindelberger. “I see kids walking in here with packs of broccoli, and it’s 7:30 am.”

Kindelberger started her team’s transition to scratch cooking by first just making raw fruits and vegetables available to the kids at each meal. Rather than change everything they were cooking at once, they just added in a case in the cafeteria with packages of produce such as carrot sticks, tomatoes, snap peas, bananas, apples and yes, broccoli. “The kids seem to be excited when we bring out new things and try new things. I had plums out one day, and I couldn’t believe how many kids asked me what they were. They’d never seen a plum,” says Kindelberger. But they’re now primed to try these raw fruits and veggies, which also means they’re more willing to try the cooked options as the district moves to scratch cooking.

Kindelberger and her team feed about 700 students a day, from kindergarten to high school, and each age group has different tastes and preferences. For her, the first step to changing the menu was consulting with the kids. “I meet with [students] on a regular basis, and we get a lot of feedback,” she says. One request, from the older students, was a breakfast smoothie station. So, Kindelberger got a grant for a blender, and now there are fresh fruit smoothies. “The biggest thing is getting your kids involved, getting their opinions, because it does matter. They want to be heard.”

Carlee Johnson McIntosh has made many changes to her schools’ breakfast program, including adding a grab-and-go fruit station. (Photography submitted by Carlee Johnson McIntosh)

Spaghetti and moose balls

Local food looks a lot different in parts of Alaska than in much of the rest of the US. While many school districts are working with beef and potatoes, Carlee Johnson McIntosh, the food service director in the Petersburg School District in Southeast Alaska, has a freezer full of Sockeye salmon and moose meat. For her, working with local farmers sometimes means getting food delivered by boat from neighboring island farms. 

Her commitment to eating and preparing local foods started from a young age; Johnson McIntosh has allergies and was always looking for ways to alleviate and control her symptoms, so she became interested in what she was eating. Now that she supervises 450 students at her schools, she’s especially committed to ensuring they have high-quality and freshly prepared options. She’s spent the last decade advocating for changes at the school level, from altering when kids can eat breakfast to updating the kitchen facilities to allow for more scratch cooking. 

“Previously, the mealtimes were crammed together. The breakfast was before school and almost nobody showed up. Now, we’re after the bell,” and kids actually show up for breakfast, she says. She’s also had to push the district on purchasing more raw food and getting her staff certified to do more than just reheat frozen packages. “My first step was to talk to our health authority and see where our deficiencies are. Why is it that we are not adequately meeting a restaurant standard? We are feeding an at-risk population, so we should be held to the same standards [as other facilities].” 

That required some creativity on her part. While previous frozen options might be chicken nuggets, for Johnson McIntosh, local proteins are more likely to be moose, herring eggs or Sockeye salmon. So, that’s what they have. Now, the kids are chowing down on moose stroganoff or spaghetti and moose-balls, along with a daily salad bar. 

At RSU89, staff engage students in taste tests, to try out new recipes. And you even get a sticker for participating. (Photography submitted by Denise Tapley-Proctor)

One-bite policy

Not every new menu item is going to be a hit. Denise Tapley-Proctor, food service director at Regional School District 89 in Maine, knows that well. As she’s moved her team over to scratch cooking, there have been some fantastic wins and some less-than-stellar reviews. “We did a vegetable panini that the adults in the school system really liked and the high school kids were OK with. But the little kids were like, ‘no, don’t put vegetables in my grilled cheese.’ It was just a no go.” 

But that’s all part of the process, says Tapley-Proctor. One of the staff on her food service team introduced the “no thank you bite” policy when introducing a food of the month. You don’t have to eat the whole thing, but you have to take one bite to try it. Plus, you get a sticker if you do. 

The one-bite policy has been a great help to Tapley-Proctor and the team while they feed about 225 students a day. It’s allowed them to take a gradual approach with the changes, phasing in one new meal or even one new ingredient at a time. 

“Instead of bringing the box of instant potatoes, see how much longer it takes and how much better the flavor is [to make your own],” she says. “If we have leftover rolls from the day before that we didn’t serve the kids, if you cut them up and throw some spices on them, bake them in the oven, you have homemade croutons, and the kids are excited to put it on the top of their meal. It’s the little things that lead to the big thing.”

They’ve also started working with local farmers, teaching kids how plants grow. “We’ve learned that if the children have a stake in it somehow, like if they grow the food, they’re more apt to want to eat it,” she says. They’ve grown tomatoes in the school garden, then used the after-school program to make a salsa, which went on the menu the next day. “The kids were like, ‘this is our salsa,’” she says. 

Tapley-Proctor says it’s been a process for the staff as well. She’s helped them get training from the Chef Ann Foundation on kitchen skills and learning new recipes. But even with extra effort, she says the feedback from the kids is what makes it worth it. While serving a chicken pot pie, one of the students told them that it “made her belly happy.” Another boy was having a bad day, and then had some fresh watermelon with lunch. “This makes me think of summer and fireworks,” he said. “He had gone from a bad mental health day to a good mental health day because of the food.” 

A typical lunch tray at Sandy Valley School District. (Photography submitted by Tina Kindelberger)

Care about your cafeteria? Here’s how to get involved

The USDA will finalize proposed legislation around school lunches this month, with updates to its nutrition standards and exceptions for local and traditional foods. In the proposed changes, schools would have to reduce sodium levels, limit added sugars and would be allowed to use locally grown, raised or caught food that has been minimally processed in their menus. Updates will be phased in over the next five years, with the first changes coming to menus in the fall of 2024. 

If you have kids in school and are interested in helping bring about changes in your own district, everyone Modern Farmer spoke with recommended reaching out to the food service director at your school to find out what kinds of foods the school is working to introduce to kids and how. They’re the ones that feed your kids every day and can speak about their goals when it comes to nutrition. Some schools will even welcome parents to join their kids for a lunch period, to get a first-hand look at what’s on offer. 

You can also get involved at the state level, organizing around campaigns such as Healthy School Meals for All. For a list of what’s happening in your state, check out this map from the National Farm to School Network. 

And if you work in a school district, Dreibelbis advises that you make the switch to scratch cooking one step at a time. Take a cafeteria classic: boxed macaroni and cheese. You can change one element at a time, such as purchasing a pre-mixed cheese sauce but cooking your own pasta. Once that’s second nature, add one more element. “If you’re making something like a homemade cheese sauce, you’re using flour, butter, milk, cheese and salt. And right there alone, you’re going from what was probably 30 ingredients to five.”

The post On the Ground With the Schools Learning What It Takes To Improve Lunch Menus 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.

Most consumers aren’t thinking about fraud in their food supply while pushing a cart around their local grocery story. But shady shenanigans, fakery, and outright fraud happen more than you might realize.

In this Modern Farmer feature series, we investigate the wide world of food fraud and fakery—and explore the technology poised to make supply chains more transparent.

It’s Time to Stop Underestimating the Scope of Food Fraud

by Karen Constable

Food fraud affects much more than consumers know, and not just in high-cost foods like honey and whiskey. It occurs in all parts of the food chain, including commodities such as grains and oils, animal feeds, fruit and bulk ingredients. [Read more]

Using a Food’s Unique Fingerprint to Detect Fraud

by Emily Baron Cadloff

Every food has a unique, and invisible, chemical “fingerprint.”A researcher from Purdue University has discovered a quick and portable way to identify that fingerprint and sniff out food fraud on the go. [Read more]

In the Shopping Cart

by Lena Beck

Here are some common examples of food frauds and fakes you could come into contact with at grocery stores around the world. [Read more]

When Labels Lie

by Lena Beck

Food labels are loaded with words and images that convey meaning. Knowing the story of your food means sifting through the true, the false and everything in between. [Read more]

Can You Trust the Organic Food Label?

by Emily Baron Cadloff

“Organic” food is specifically certified and verified, but millions of dollars worth of fraud still occurs within the organic system. [Read more]

What’s in a Name? Food Labels, Explained

by Lena Beck

Food labels can be difficult to understand and interpret, so we’ve created a glossary of some common ones that you’ll see at the grocery store. [Read more]

Can the Blockchain Clear the Smoke for Cannabis?

by Naoki Nitta

Cannabis often has a hazy supply chain, but blockchain technology promises seed-to-sale transparency for growers and consumers. [Read more]

Series edited and illustrated by Rose Garrett 

The post Phonies, Fakes and Food Fraud appeared first on Modern Farmer.

That’s what Bobbie Kramer, a veterinarian near Portland, Oregon, was wondering when she responded to our recent call for reader questions about where their food comes from. 

“As a meat eater, I enjoy the flavor and texture of lamb. But I’d love to try mutton. I know that in other parts of the world, lamb and mutton are more economical and popular to raise than cattle,” she writes. “I’ve traveled a fair bit (Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Great Britain) and have friends from parts of the world where small ruminants such as sheep and goats are raised for meat and fiber. My good friend from South Africa tells me how she and her husband miss cooking with mutton, which they find more flavorful and satisfying than lamb. What happens to the mutton-aged sheep here?”

It’s true that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to find mutton—defined as meat from a sheep over two years old—in American grocery stores. “Mutton is not an accessible protein option in the US,” says Megan Wortman, executive director of the American Lamb Board, an industry group aimed at expanding the market for domestic sheep products. If you’re looking to get your hands on some mutton, “you’d have to go through a specialty butcher shop or directly to a special-order processor,” she says.  

Mutton has less tender flesh and a stronger flavor than lamb, which comes from sheep that are less than a year old. (Meat from sheep aged one to two years is generally called “yearling” in the US, and “hogget” elsewhere around the world.) That stronger flavor lends itself to curries, stews and “value-added” products such as spiced sausages, says Wortman, “so most of our mutton goes into value-added products or into specialty ethnic markets at this point.” 

Some mutton is exported to Mexico, where it’s braised low and slow, barbacoa-style. Mutton is also often sold at butcher shops that serve communities that have brought a taste for the meat with them from elsewhere, such as new immigrants from Africa, Central America and the Middle East. (Wortman notes that the majority of US lamb and mutton is halal processed.) And in western Kentucky, a tradition of barbecued mutton still holds, although no one is quite sure why.

“There are consumer segments that would raise their hand and say ‘yes, I would prefer a stronger flavor,’ but we just don’t market it in mainstream grocery stories,” says Wortman. “There’s definitely a general hesitation that the minute you label it ‘mutton’ the average consumer has negative connotations with that product.”

So, how did mutton, a widely consumed protein around the world, come to be unmarketable to most Americans?

Sheep were first brought to the southwestern US by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, and flocks grew with the influx of European settlers, who utilized sheep locally for their wool and meat. With rising demand for wool in the 19th century, sheep farming became more industrialized, but the primary focus was on the wool, not the meat. Simply put, mutton was a byproduct of wool production.

Mutton was slaughtered, sold and canned locally, but no large-scale infrastructure arose to source and process sheep meat. “The simplest story is that no commercial meat industry developed around mutton,” says Roger Horowitz, a historian and author of Putting Meat on the American Table. “It seems to me that it was very rural in character.” He points to a can of roast mutton in his collection, dating from the 1890s, as emblematic of the time: It advertised that its contents were both slaughtered and canned “on the range” in Fort McKavett, Texas.

A man shearing a sheep at the San Emigdio Ranch in Kern County, CA in 1890. (Carleton E. Watkins/Library of Congress)

That’s not to say that mutton wasn’t consumed at the dinner table. Mutton chops were featured in cookbooks and restaurant menus from the late 19th and early 20th century, as the population grew and urbanized and demand for protein rose. Lamb was a seasonal product served at Christmas, and for a time, sheep meat was seen as a food for the upper classes. Even first-class passengers on the RMS Titanic were served grilled mutton—for luncheon and breakfast. 

Sheep numbers in the US peaked in 1884 at 51 million head. But with the advent of synthetic fibers in the 20th century, wool production began to flag, and sheep numbers—and the availability of mutton—declined. (In 2016, there were five million head of sheep in the US.) Lamb consumption began to dwindle, too: Americans consumed five pounds of lamb per person in 1912. Today, that number is about a pound per person annually. 

Pork, Horowitz notes, was more convenient. “Everybody had pigs, and pigs are a lot better to raise for meat because they eat anything.” And when it came to grazing animals, cows just made more sense: They provide far more meat per animal, and demand for beef was—and remains—high.

This woman does not want to cook mutton. (Photo: Ethan/Flickr)

By the end of World War II, mutton had come to symbolize everything that Americans wanted to leave behind. Men returned from the war swearing they’d never eat another bite of mutton after stomaching tinned army rations that included the notoriously unappetizing “Mutton Stew with Vegetables.” Women were enjoying new appliances that allowed them a modicum of freedom from household chores. Modernity and convenience were all the rage, and mutton, which requires dry aging and long, slow cooking times to become tender, was neither modern nor convenient. If mutton ever really had a heyday, by midcentury, it was over. 

“I joke sometimes that I do lamb by day and sheep by night,” says Cody Heimke, who, in addition to managing the Niman Ranch lamb program, raises a heritage breed of Shropshire sheep on his property in south central Wisconsin. The flock of about 50 head are raised primarily for breeding, but Shropshires were at one time the most popular sheep in the world, primarily because of the quality of their mutton. “[The] breed of sheep doesn’t really matter when it comes to the flavor of lamb, but it does when it comes to the taste of mutton,” he says. 

Heimke does “a little bit” of direct lamb and mutton sales when he has sheep to harvest, selling middle cuts to a restaurant in Madison, and utilizing the rest for sausages in varieties such as Bavarian-style, Merguez and spicy Berbere. He acknowledges that there isn’t a lot of demand for mutton. “I got a call this year, somebody looking for mutton, which is rare. I don’t usually get those calls.”

His advice for would-be mutton eaters? “Find somebody at a local farmers market that’s selling lamb. You really gotta find somebody that’s raising sheep and doing direct marketing, and ask them if they’re doing any mutton.”

For his part, Heimke says he enjoys mutton in sausage form. Last year, one of his wholesale clients was looking for ground lamb, but he didn’t have any in stock. “I’m like, ‘Well, what about ground mutton?’ And we [sold] one-pounders of ground mutton,” he says. “I tasted that before I sold any of it, and it was as good or better than any ground lamb I’ve ever had.” 

Have you ever eaten mutton? Do you want to try mutton—or not? Tell us what you think in the comments below. 

Thanks to Bobbie Kramer for submitting her question for our “Digging In” series. Got a question about where your food comes from? Let us know what you’d like us to investigate next by filling out this form.

The post Digging In: Why Don’t Americans Eat Mutton? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

He was excited to begin a promising new life in America, with opportunities and comforts he could never have imagined back home. But this fantasy was quickly shattered by the harsh reality of dairy farming. 

“When I got there, I saw that I was going to be living in an old trailer all by myself,” he says. “No cellphone service. No internet. Just totally alone and isolated. That was my first shock.” 

When Balcazar began work a few days later, he didn’t know how to do the job and didn’t understand the language. But he immediately began putting in long hours, seven days a week. 

He was excited when pay day came around and he got his first check. “When I opened it, my heart sank. I was only getting paid $3 to $4 an hour,” he says. “For the work I was doing and as hard as I was working, it was much less than I expected.”

Balcazar approached the farm manager, who told him, “it is what it is,” and if he stuck around, he might eventually get a raise. 

Months passed, but the raise never came. 

Vermont’s dairy industry relies heavily on the labor of undocumented migrant farmworkers. (Photo courtesy of Migrant Justice)

Balcazar’s story is typical for undocumented migrant farmworkers in Vermont, who now comprise the overwhelming majority of dairy workers in the state. 

Dairy farms in the region are under immense pressure to cut costs due to industry consolidation and globalization, which allows powerful agribusinesses to place downward pressure on farmers’ incomes. Farmers then hire migrant workers who they can pay far below minimum wage. 

The visa program and federal law designed to protect seasonal migrant workers, such as agricultural workers in California, for example, don’t apply to dairy farmworkers in Vermont because of the year-round nature of dairy production. 

As a result, the majority of these workers face dangerous work conditions and live in substandard housing. Despite paying taxes, they do not have the rights of US citizens and are under constant threat of deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol.

Migrant Justice, a Vermont-based farmworker-led organization, was founded in 2010 in response to the death of José Obeth Santiz Cruz, a 20-year-old migrant worker from Chiapas killed in a tragic workplace accident, and the rampant exploitation taking place on most dairy farms. 

Its signature program is Milk with Dignity, which enlists powerful corporations to pay a premium to help raise wages and improve conditions on supplier farms. Compliance is monitored by an independent third-party organization.

Will Lambek, an activist with Migrant Justice, says that one of the reasons that dairy workers  created this program is because of the state’s failure to address labor and housing violations. 

“The structure set up through the Department of Labor and the Department of Health have left farmworkers out and haven’t protected their rights,” he says. “So, that’s why dairy workers created their own model … to ensure dignified treatment for their workers.”

Rubinay Montero, a Migrant Justice leader, marches through Middlebury, Vermont in December 2022. (Photo courtesy of Migrant Justice)

When Balcazar was just seven years old, his father moved to Vermont to work on a dairy farm. He would send money back to Mexico to support his family, but the money wasn’t enough, so in 2011, when Enrique was 17, he followed his father to the United States.

As a child of farmworkers, getting a visa wasn’t an option, so he decided to risk his life crossing the border. It was a significant risk, but it was his best chance to earn enough money to continue his education in Mexico. 

That’s how he became one of the millions of mostly black and brown migrants and refugees escaping unstable governments and economic crises caused in part by centuries of imperialism, exploitation and deliberate underdevelopment. Many arrive in the U.S. to take jobs that offer low wages and no benefits, that would otherwise remain unfilled and that are essential to the US economy.

After a couple of months working on that Vermont farm without a raise, Balcazar found a new position on the farm where his father worked. It was there that two members of Migrant Justice visited him and invited him to a community assembly. That visit would change everything for Balcazar. 

When he showed up at the assembly, he felt a strong sense of community because there was a room full of farmworkers, just like him, talking about the same injustices that he had experienced. It was the first time he realized that his experience wasn’t an isolated incident; the problems his community was facing were systemic. 

“For decades, the migrant community has been criminalized and persecuted by a system that wants our labor but doesn’t care about our lives,” says Balcazar.

At that moment, he thought about his parents and everything they had gone through. “It left a mark on me and I had a realization of the challenges and the solution: organizing for our human rights,” he says.

Although Balzcazar was working 60-70 hours a week without a day off, he became increasingly involved in Migrant Justice. At the time, it was starting to organize for freedom of movement, allowing migrant workers access to driver’s licenses. “That was really exciting for me because I saw that people were working together based on those common experiences,” says Balacazar. “And so, right there, I was hooked.” 

Enrique Balcazar leads a protest at a Hannaford Supermarket in April 2023. (Photo courtesy of Migrant Justice)

Balcazar has since emerged as one of Migrant Justice’s most visible and vocal leaders. His activism has helped to improve not only his own work and living conditions but those of hundreds of migrant dairy farm workers in Vermont. 

After two years of advocacy, Migrant Justice was instrumental in passing a law allowing migrant workers to get driver’s licenses, which has changed farmworkers’ lives in rural Vermont. 

Balcazer also became a part of developing the Milk with Dignity program and the campaign to enlist Ben & Jerry’s, which is based in Vermont and is the largest ice cream company in the US with 2022 sales of $910.68 million. 

In 2014, Migrant Justice began pressuring the company with protests in front of Ben & Jerry’s stores, picketing its board meetings and marches.

One day, they marched 13 miles to their ice cream factory. “Imagine working 12 hours on a farm, before spending the whole day walking under the sun and  going right back to another shift. Those were the sacrifices that we made to defend their dignity,” says Balcazar.

It was during this time that Balcazar and other community leaders were detained by ICE. Eventually, thanks to mobilization from the community, Balcazar was freed. 

“That was a really difficult experience, but having gone through it, I want to say this deepened my commitment even more to continue fighting for justice and human rights for my community,” he says.

Migrant Justice eventually won a contract with Ben & Jerry’s in 2017, which covers 100 percent of Ben & Jerry’s northeast dairy supply chain and 20 percent of Vermont’s dairy industry. This has changed the lives of more than 200 farmworkers. Migrant Justice reports that, since the agreement, $3.4 million has been invested in workers’ wages and bonuses and dramatically improving labor and housing conditions. The goal is to expand the program to cover every farm in Vermont and nationwide.

Farmworkers picket in front of the corporate headquarters of Hannaford Supermarket in Scarborough, Maine in February 2023. (Photo courtesy of Migrant Justice)

Now, Migrant Justice is trying to enlist Hannaford Supermarket to the Milk with Dignity program. Hannaford is headquartered in Maine, with nearly 200 shops all over New England and New York. It’s one of the largest supermarket chains in the Northeast and a significant buyer of dairy products in the Northeast. 

“Hannaford has had a number of responses over the course of the campaign and has consistently rejected calls to sit down with dairy workers in their supply chain,” says Lambek.

Hannaford is a subsidiary of the Dutch agribusiness giant Ahold Delhaize, which reported $91.51 billion in sales in 2022. Both companies claim to be committed to respecting human rights.

However, Migrant Justice alleges that labor and housing rights violations are taking place on supplier farms for Hannaford supermarkets. Hannaford has said it has investigated those allegations and that none have been substantiated. 

After facing pressure from the public, one of Hannaford’s responses has been to set up its own hotline, called the “Speak Up” line. Workers in its supply chains can submit a complaint if their rights are being violated. When it made the announcement last year, workers decided to take the company up on it.

“Workers on 10 farms submitted complaints, and, through their experience, have shown that this company line is a farce,” says Lambek. “It hasn’t protected any worker’s rights and hasn’t provided any remedy for workers who have been abused.”

Most recently, in June of this year,  Hannaford released a statement saying, “Because of the complexity and scope of the issues facing migrant farmworkers, we do not feel this approach is scalable. Nor do we feel that these issues can be solved with a patchwork of loosely affiliated programs like Milk with Dignity working independently.”

Research supports the effectiveness of Milk with Dignity’s approach. Milk with Dignity is an example of a worker-driven social responsibility program (WSR) that is designed and led by farmworkers. It was modeled after the Coalition of Immokalee Workers Fair Food Program and has been shown by a 10year longitudinal study to be “the most effective framework for protecting human rights in corporate supply chains.” Earlier this year, Harvard Law School published a report calling WSR “a new, proven model for defining, claiming, and protecting workers’ human rights.”

Farmworkers pose outside their farm, a participant in the Milk with Dignity Program. Efrain (R) reflects: “Before you just had to do what they told you. No holidays, no sick days, no vacation, no bonuses, no raises. Before we didn’t have protections. Now we do. We feel more dignified.”

Balcazar can attest to how much migrant workers’ lives improve once their employers join WSR programs such as Milk with Dignity. When he reflects on his arrival in Vermont 12 years ago, the change has been drastic.

“Now, you can drive to the store without fear, you can take your family out to a park and, if you’re working on a farm, then, when you’re working, you have dignified conditions that you deserve,” says Balcazar.

Balcazar and his community envision a future where their Milk with Dignity program expands to cover every farm. Public awareness and support can help them achieve this goal.

“The next time that you drink a glass of milk or eat that pint of ice cream,” he says, “remember: the cows don’t milk themselves.”

The post This Farmworker Collective is Organizing For ‘Milk With Dignity’ and More appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Jackie and Donald Bickel inherited their dairy farm from Donald’s father, and they were raising their own kids in the dairy life. But, by 2018, Jackie and Donald were starting to talk about finding a way out. The Bickels sold their milk to a co-op and, economically, it wasn’t proving feasible. 

“In 2018, milk prices were equivalent to what my father-in-law was receiving in the 1980s,” says Jackie Bickel.

And they weren’t the only ones—many nearby dairy farms in Ohio had closed up shop over the previous years after struggling against low prices.

Fortunately, the Bickels’ daughter, Maggie, had an idea. As part of a Future Farmers of America (FFA) project, she came up with a business plan for saving the farm that entailed making the switch to retail—selling milk directly to customers. If they did that, they could turn a profit and stay in business. But they’d need a few things: certification to sell, bottling equipment and a customer base.

They started selling their other products, such as beef and eggs, directly to consumers on a platform called Market Wagon. Market Wagon is a food delivery service for farm products. The Bickels knew that if they established a presence on the platform with their other items, they’d have customers waiting when they were ready to sell milk. 

Maggie’s plan ended up winning an award in a national FFA entrepreneurship competition. And her parents agreed that it wasn’t just a good student project—it could actually work. 

And it did.

Farm to front door

Market Wagon functions as an online farmers market, allowing the Bickels to tap into a group of consumers who want to buy directly from producers. In 2020, the Bickels started selling milk under the label Happy Cows Creamery. They offered standard, fresh milk, but they eventually also added fun flavors such as orange creamsicle, chocolate and strawberry. They also use Market Wagon to sell products such as soft cheeses and rolled butter.

“We started delivering the milk through Market Wagon and we haven’t looked back since then,” says Bickel. She adds that the dairy exit strategy they had once been contemplating is not even on the table anymore.

Here’s how it works: Farmers update the site with what they have for sale that week—fresh produce, dairy, meat, prepackaged meals and more. Customers shop across categories and vendors. They submit orders by a pre-set deadline, and farmers take their items to the Market Wagon hub in their area.

“For a Tuesday delivery, about one in the morning on Monday, we receive what’s called a ‘pick list’ from Market Wagon,” says Bickel. “It’s basically a list that is broken down by customer and it is also broken down by product. So we have a whole day to assemble the orders.” She drives the order in, disperses the items amongst the individual customer tote bags, and then heads back home.

Gig drivers then deliver the items to their destination. This process happens weekly or biweekly. 

Individual customer orders are assembled at local Market Wagon hubs. (Photography courtesy of Market Wagon)

Grocery delivery is nothing new, but many produce delivery systems rely on national supply chains. Some, such as Farmhouse Delivery, offer a similar farm-to-doorstep model rooted in Texas agriculture, but they also offer certain items from out of state. As opposed to a typical grocery delivery service like Instacart, Market Wagon aims to keep things as local as they would be at an in-person farmers market while using its online marketplace to aggregate at a scale that is difficult through traditional methods.

“You would have to go to a farmers market every night to reach the number of people that you do through Market Wagon,” says Bickel.

Customers buy directly from producers, just like in a physical farmers market. But there are differences, too: Farmers only bring what they’ve already sold to the hub, instead of having to guess what they’ll sell that day.

“There is a pipeline from local farms and makers to consumers, but it’s narrow and twisty,” says Dan Brunner, co-founder and chief executive officer of Market Wagon. “And we’re here to widen that pipe.”

Farmer to consumer

Brunner says a lot of consumers long to know where their food is coming from. And while farmers markets allow you to look your grower in the eye, Market Wagon tries to keep personal touches as part of its technology, by allowing for direct communication and emails between consumers and farmers. 

“As an online marketplace, technically, we don’t need to replicate that—we can’t totally replicate that,” says Brunner. “But enabling consumers to ask those questions and get answers is a central thing that we felt like we just couldn’t live without.”

Screenshot of Market Wagon order screen. (Photography courtesy of Tom Hodson)

But, in practice, the online community does sometimes spill over into the real world. Bickel says they have a loyal customer base now and often have their Market Wagon regulars come visit the dairy, see the baby calves and pick up items at their farm stand.

“Now more than ever, it is so imperative for us to have a voice with the consumer,” she says. “So, we love to talk with our customers and answer questions.”

Market Wagon does not ship anything—everything is kept within a tight radius of where it’s grown or raised or made. 

“It’s really a unique business model, because, instead of building a national distribution pattern for the same products, we are actively trying to have a different supply chain in every single place we’re operating,” says Brunner.

Tom Hodson is a loyal customer of New Horizon Farm and Dairy’s Happy Cows Creamery through Market Wagon. He orders weekly and favors their eggs and baked goods. Hodson, descended from farmers and an advocate of eating locally, likes that Market Wagon allows him to know exactly where his food comes from and how it was grown. 

“What you see on the screen is exactly what ends up getting delivered in your order,” says Hodson.

In his retirement, Hodson has also begun driving for Market Wagon twice a week, and he says he hears that same sentiment echoed by many of the customers he meets. They like buying directly from local farmers.

Market Wagon tote bag with produce. (Photography courtesy of Market Wagon)

Pre-pandemic, Market Wagon existed in six markets in Indiana and Ohio. But the advent of COVID-19 highlighted the benefits of having groceries delivered to your door. Today, Market Wagon is in about 25 markets overall in the Midwest. Brunner foresees continual expansion into areas that could use a service like this—aimed at helping farmers thrive in their local markets.

This fortified resiliency is something that Bickel can attest to. Thanks to Maggie’s business plan and the resulting partnership with Market Wagon, her second-generation dairy farm appears to have a future as a third-generation dairy farm. 

“We’re just trying to be as sustainable as possible with every resource that we have so that the farm is available for the next generation and the generation after that,” says Bickel. 

The post The Farmers Market, Delivered appeared first on Modern Farmer.

It has to be flavorful. It should become gooey and stringy when melted. It needs to perfectly balance an acidic tomato sauce.

But does it have to be made from animal dairy?

The cheese innovators over at New Culture would say no. Their first product, a mozzarella cheese created with casein protein made through precision fermentation—that is to say, not from a cow—is launching in Nancy Silverton’s Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles in 2024. Silverton and Pizzeria Mozza have received numerous accolades over the years, including the 2014 James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Chef. 

Precision fermentation is the process of engineering microbes to make something specific during fermentation. Inja Radman, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of New Culture, says its microbes are experts at making casein, a protein found in mammalian milk that’s full of nutrients for animal offspring. It also happens to be the protein that gives cheese, well, its cheesiness. The melt, chew, crumble and ooze of cheese are all thanks to casein.

“Everything we know and love about cheese really comes from casein,” says Radman. By making milk protein without milk, Radman and the others at New Culture are making “cow cheese without the cow.”

New Culture is part of a wave of scientists and innovators asking how the future of cheese will look. Some, like New Culture, aim to reduce or eliminate the dairy component altogether, while others seek to improve the dairy cheese process overall using unexpected allies. 

Microbe-made casein protein. (Image courtesy of New Culture)

Sea cheese

One day, you might be able to buy cheese made with help from an unlikely source: seaweed.

A critical first step in making cheese is coagulating milk. In traditional cheese-making, this happens thanks to rennet, an enzyme derived from calf stomachs. But there’s not enough rennet to meet the global demand for cheese, so most cheeses in US commercial markets are made using alternatives. These alternatives have their own shortcomings, says Jian Zhao, associate professor in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of New South Wales and one of the researchers looking for rennet alternatives. For example, the taste doesn’t quite hold up to traditional cheese. 

 “There is a continued need for the industry to explore new alternatives,” says Zhao.

In a recent research project, Zhao and his team turned to the ocean to look for an enzyme that could interact with milk similarly to rennet—coagulating it within an efficient timeline. They weren’t the first to consider the ocean as a potential provenance for this enzyme, but they took the research furthest, isolating a particular species of seaweed called Gracilaria edulis and actually using it to make cheese.

Gracilaria. (Photo: pokku/Shutterstock)

Of the seven seaweed species they tested, G. edulis was the only one to quickly coagulate cheese. The researchers used it to make two cheeses, an aged cheese similar to cheddar and a fresh one more like ricotta, and they were given to a taste-testing panel.

The cheddar was too bitter, says Zhao. But the ricotta? “The quality is quite good,” he says.

You won’t see seaweed ricotta in stores just yet. More research needs to be done to show that seaweed enzyme cheese can produce a product on par with other cheeses. Then, says Zhao, they’d need adventurous cheesemakers to start trying it out.

When it comes to making “sea cheese,” as Zhao calls it, it’s more than likely there are other enzymes in the ocean waiting to be identified. 

“I’m pretty confident there are more species which will have the ability to coagulate milk,” says Zhao. “And they potentially can do a better job than Gracilaria.”

Hybrid cheeses split the difference

Clara Talens, senior researcher at AZTI, a Spanish research center that focuses in part on food innovation, sees a future for hybrid cheese.

Hybrid cheese—a milk-based cheese supplemented with plant-based ingredients—can help ease the transition toward more plant-based products, says Talens. The presence of milk makes the cheese’s taste and texture familiar to consumers, but the environmental impact is lower because it uses less dairy. Cheese has a hefty environmental footprint, due to the land use and greenhouse gas emissions associated with dairy farming. 

“If we keep feeding our world with animal-derived proteins at the pace we are now, it’s not possible to feed us all,” says Talens. That doesn’t mean eating animal protein is inherently bad, she says, just that the rate is unsustainable. 

Added proteins can come from sources such as insects or pulses such as chickpeas. In a recent study, Talens and her team used insect flour made of mealworm larvae and flour made of faba beans (also sometimes called fava or broad beans). These ingredients were chosen because they are high in protein but are not as resource-intensive to cultivate.

“It’s a matter of the resources needed to produce a kilogram of protein,” says Talens.

Faba beans. (Photography by @boulham/Shutterstock.)

Talens analyzed different ratios of milk protein to faba bean protein to insect protein. The researchers looked to both dairy cheese and plant-based cheese as reference points, analyzing the resulting mixtures for their nutritional value, taste and texture. 

The researchers found that the texture of the faba bean was good, especially when combined with the milk protein. The insect protein did not contribute well to structure, but it gave the cheese an umami-like taste similar to certain aged cheeses.

Another group of researchers from Denmark also looked at the potential for incorporating plant proteins to make hybrid cheeses, and concluded that this area shows great potential—once cheeses are developed that offer satisfactory taste and texture. And in the US in 2021, cheese company The Laughing Cow tried out the concept by releasing hybrid spreadable cheeses that included lentils, red beans and chickpeas.

Still, says Talens, instead of striving to create direct imitations of traditional cheese, maybe another mindset shift is in order.

“We should open our minds and accept all the flavors and other tastes that are produced by using other raw materials,” says Talens. “But still, that’s the most difficult part. With the hybrids, maybe we are a bit closer to acceptance.”

Cheese for everyone

Once the microbes at New Culture make casein, it’s combined with plant-based fats and other ingredients and made into cheese using a similar process to standard cheesemaking, thanks to the fact that the microbially made casein performs the same as casein from cow milk.

“It’s identical to casein we would get from milk,” says Radman. There just wasn’t an animal involved. 

New Culture mozzarella. (Image courtesy of New Culture)

Radman says there was a reason they chose to make mozzarella as their first product. Pizza is everywhere in the US, and pizza is made with mozzarella. New Culture doesn’t just want to market to vegans. 

“This is a cheese for everyone,” says Radman. 

And since it’s a pizza cheese, she adds that it’s something that people can share without anyone in a group compromising on values or taste. “That means this is a cheese that brings people together.”

The post Microbes, Mealworms and Seaweed Could Inform the Future of Cheese appeared first on Modern Farmer.

But the epic flooding this past March was simply unprecedented, says the owner of Lerda-Goni Farms. After a winter of record snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a sudden warm spell melted the lower reaches, unleashing nearly 40,000 acre-feet of water—a volume equal to more than a tenth of Las Vegas’ annual supply—in 48 hours. The torrent overwhelmed dams, swelled rivers and crumbled levees, inundating entire farming communities, including Lerda-Goni and a dozen other ranches, and reawakening a long-dormant lake lying beneath the vast agricultural region.

With floodwater breaching six-foot high banks, “I don’t know what we could have done to prevent it,” says Goni. “It was just an insane amount of water in such a short amount of time.” Months later, he’s still shell-shocked from having to relocate his herd of 2,400 cows in the middle of the night—a Herculean effort pulled off by his team of 11 long-time employees, neighbors and countless volunteers, some who hailed from as far away as Nevada.

The reemergent Tulare Lake is not expected to drain for up to two years. (Photo courtesy of Lerda-Goni Farms)

All told, one official estimate pegs the dairy industry’s losses at $10 billion. While the lake has drained down to about 168 square miles, a chilly spring also kept the high-elevation snowpack at a slow melt, helping to avert an even greater calamity in the low-slung basin. Yet, as whole farming communities dig themselves out of the muddy ruins, the growing uncertainty of climate change is darkening a cloud over the future of the region’s largest industry—one valued at nearly $2 billion annually.

Following multiple years of drought, the diluvian whiplash is just the latest in a mounting list of burdens facing the basin’s largest industry, which pumps out 54 percent of California’s milk supply. As environmental adversity—along with the strain of rising costs and regulations—tightens the squeeze, many smaller, family-owned ranches have been caving to consolidation pressure. And that’s tipping the landscape in favor of mega-dairies—the large-scale operations that critics point to as disproportionate contributors of human-induced climate change.

At this point, “our farm is pretty self-sufficient,” says Goni, as he rushed to plant summer feed corn on his barely dry fields. His 580-acre farm grows enough forage to supply the herd, so “I’m good with where I’m at,” he adds. Still, the trend of getting big or getting out is all too real, adds the farmer, who’s seen plenty of small dairies pushed out in his lifetime. “But I’ll leave that [decision] for my nephews, for the next generation.”

Located in the southern reaches of the San Joaquin Valley, about 200 miles north of Los Angeles, Tulare Lake was once the largest body of freshwater west of the Mississippi River. Fed by four rivers flowing from the Sierra Nevadas, the shallow inland sea covered 1,000 square miles—more than four times the surface area of Lake Tahoe. Vast tule marshes surrounded its banks, creating a rich ecosystem teeming with fish and birds that, in turn, supported the Tachi Yokut and other Native American communities.

As westward expansion swept across the region in the late 1800s, settlers began draining the 40-foot deep lake for farmland. Within decades, a network of dams, levees and canals had dried up the basin, transforming the fertile crater into an agricultural hub. Today, the four counties sitting in the lake bed account for more than $25 billion in food and crop production, with Tulare County ranking number one in the nation for milk and oranges. Neighboring Fresno and Kern Counties top the list for almonds, while Kings County rules the state in cotton production.

But thirsty crops and cattle have taken their toll: Amid California’s cycles of drought, excessive groundwater pumping has left Central Valley basins the most overdrafted in the state. Although California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) aims to recharge them by regulating draws, the dried-up lake bed has long been collapsing under the massive weight of industrialized agriculture—to the tune of a couple of inches per month.

As climate change fuels more extreme swings in weather patterns, subsidence further compounds the region’s issues, says John Abatzoglou, professor of climatology at University of California, Merced, with arid years advancing the sink and wet ones expanding flood risk.

The tanking basin is also wreaking havoc on the region’s extensive canal system and levees. Corcoran, a community of 22,000 in Kings County with a sizable population of agricultural laborers and a large state prison, is scrambling to raise its 14-mile-long embankment, which has already collapsed by several feet since getting a $10-million boost just five years ago. As future deluges become more severe, maintaining, repairing and upgrading valley infrastructure will require greater investment, says Abatzoglou. 

Dairy farmer Joseph Goni’s grandfather witnessed the 1955 deluge that flooded their farm. (Photo courtesy of Lerda-Goni Farms)

Since the 1983 flood, changes in farming patterns have also raised the basin’s economic risk, he notes. Orchards, vines and other perennials cultivated as long-term investments have steadily replaced ephemeral crops such as tomatoes and cotton, which are far less costly to sacrifice or replace. Meanwhile, the consolidation of dairies has led to a sharp increase in herd size despite a plummeting number of farms, reflecting a national trend. 

“It’s a different playing field,” says Abatzoglou. Ultimately, the altered landscape means that climate-related disasters including floods, wildfires and drought will all take a deeper toll on agriculture—fruit and nut farmers having to abandon decade-old trees, for instance, or cattle ranchers needing to relocate hundreds of thousands of cows at a moment’s notice. And that’s on top of less snowpack and quicker melts thanks to a warming climate, as well as shrinking milk production from heat-stressed herds.

As individual farmers reel from the most recent disaster, many are up against the consequences of a new normal, says Anja Raudabaugh, chief executive officer of Western United Dairies, a Fresno-based industry trade organization. “Insurance carriers are not going to tolerate this again,” she adds, so farmers in floodplains are bracing themselves for a range of costly upgrades, including raising the elevation of entire feed lots and barns. 

In an industry known for razor-thin margins and a grueling, 365-days-a-year schedule, Raudabaugh sees consolidation accelerating. Although herds of 1,200 used to be the norm not too long ago, small family dairies are increasingly merging into 4,000- to 6,000-head operations. Larger players have more buying power and efficiency to manage rising operational costs, she says, so “becoming bigger is like a risk buffer.”

And in recent years, the soaring cost of feed and water scarcity—both compounded by drought and SGMA regulations—have made consolidation pressure all the more acute in California. “Despite the resilience of family [farms], the mega-trend is undeniable,” says Raudabaugh.

With the growing scale comes a ballooning environmental footprint: More inputs of feed and water increase output, which includes greater methane emissions. Dairy and livestock account for more than half of California’s production of the powerful greenhouse gas (GHG), one that traps 84 times more heat than carbon dioxide.

In Tulare County, where nearly half a million milk cows live on 222 dairies, the sheer density of large operations also magnifies other impacts, says Andrew deCoriolis, executive director of Farm Forward, a Portland-based humane farming advocacy organization. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have been linked to numerous environmental issues such as nitrate contamination of groundwater and bacterial runoff, as well as dust storms and poor air quality (the county ranks among the worst in the nation).

“On a local and regional [level], it would be hard to point to another industry—except maybe oil and gas refining—with as much emissions and pollution,” he adds.

For their part, dairy farmers are duly engaged in sustainability efforts, says Raudabaugh. She points to wide-scale implementation of anaerobic digesters, which capture methane from sealed manure lagoons to create biogas. “They’re currently the only technology in the entire state that reduces methane,” she adds. Under a California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) program aimed at slashing the state’s GHG emissions by 40 percent, she estimates that dairy farms have installed more than 200 projects, with an additional 25 currently in development.

Bio-digesters can help dairies cut emissions, but they’re costly. Critics say they create the wrong incentives. (Photo: Shutterstock)

A recent County report shows that, in the last decade, bio-digesters helped Tulare’s dairies and feedlots reduce their emissions by nearly 20 percent. And because the entire system is sealed, dairy digesters went unscathed during the spring floods, Raudabaugh notes, preventing vast acres of effluent from escaping.

Harnessing methane also helps farmers build economic resilience. At the federal level, participants can earn clean fuel credits through the Renewable Fuel Standard program, while in California, biogas producers can also sell their carbon credits to oil and gas companies. All told, the added revenue could boost a dairy’s earnings by as much as 50 percent.

Critics, however, remain skeptical. With one digester costing anywhere from $400,000 to $5 million to install and operate, smaller operations often find them cost prohibitive. Yet for those that can afford them, it’s an enticing cash cow, says DeCoriolis, with a return on investment that scales up with increased methane production. “The value of the energy is great enough that it’s creating these perverse incentives to grow CAFOs.” 

And it’s not just the manure, he adds—cows also burp 220 pounds of methane annually. “We’re subsidizing [the expansion of] these megadairy operations, all [in the name of] renewable energy,” says DeCoriolis. “And it isn’t going to do anything to reduce the other negative impacts.”

Size is relative, says Daniel Sumner, professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis. With the country’s average herd ranging around 300 heads, “just about all dairies in California are considered large by U.S. standards,” he writes in an email. But, he adds, the scale helps keep the Golden State’s dairy prices in check.

California’s small, pasture-based, organic dairies—many of which are clustered on the state’s North Coast—have a lighter environmental footprint, and they contribute just a sliver of the industry’s overall methane emissions. Yet that comes with high production costs that run 50 percent greater than Tulare County operations, says Sumner.

Although the premium operations fill a niche market, large-scale ones keep dairy accessible to Californians far beyond the grocery aisle, says Western United’s Raudabaugh. Consumer groups include food assistance services, including school nutrition and the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) programs, as well as food banks, prisons and other public institutions. “There’s more cheese, yogurt and milk being consumed in these [services] than ever before,” she adds.

Dairy is also tightly woven into the fabric of California agriculture. Despite competing for land and water, the region’s orchards and milk farms have developed an unlikely partnership, says Sumner. Cows consume vast amounts of agricultural by-products, including almond hulls, citrus peel and other food-processing leftovers; the supplemental feed keeps crop waste out of landfill and “the dairy business afloat in the Valley,” he adds.

The field is further ingrained in the local and state economy. California produces nearly 42 billion pounds of milk annually, which, together with dairy products, total nearly 15 percent of California’s $51-billion annual agricultural production. And because the fresh fluid is costly to transport, dairy processing is highly regional, says Sumner. Statewide, the industry is responsible for almost 180,000 jobs, he notes, and supports another 132,000 indirect ones through trucking and hauling, veterinary services and other ancillary sectors.

Nearly half a million milk cows live on 222 dairies in Tulare County. (Photo: Shutterstock)

But a resilient industry needs a strong foundation to keep it from getting too top-heavy. And that means fostering a diverse range in the scale of farms, says Jeanne Merrill, the former policy director for the California Climate and Agriculture Network. “Agriculture [prospers] when small and mid-scale family operations can not just survive but thrive economically.” In other words, policy measures aimed at sustainability need to also support economic viability.

Merrill points to CDFA’s suite of climate smart solutions that promote agronomic benefits through financial incentives. The multi-pronged approach fosters conservation management practices that improve soil health and sequester carbon, as well as irrigation measures that reduce on-farm water and energy use. The Alternative Manure Management Program also offers a more cost-effective and greener alternative to bio-digesters, minimizing methane at the source by up to 90 percent and simultaneously generating compost.

And dairy farmers are increasingly engaging in recharging over-pumped basins. The California Department of Water Resources LandFlex program incentivizes growers to fallow fields during drought or, as the case may be this year, flooding them in years with heavy rain to replenish regional aquifers.

These state incentive programs all help to keep family farms in business while advancing innovations. “It keeps the land [active] and on [a farmer’s] asset sheet,” says Raudabaugh, “so he can still pay his employees, bank notes and property taxes—all of which keep the local community going.”

The programs also help mitigate some of the risks of implementing innovation, adds Merrill. California farmers are a highly motivated group, she says. With program demand far exceeding available funding, “we’re seeing that they really want to engage in practices that’ll make a difference on their operations.”

Still, the looming challenges of climate change are daunting, Merrill concedes, and require much more ambitious action. “We have to bend that emissions curve in order to avoid some of the worst impacts, and in agriculture… these changes take time,” she says. “So, we have to invest now in order to reap the rewards later.”

ThThis story is part of State of Abundance, a five-part series about California agriculture and climate change. See the full series here.

The post ‘An Insane Amount of Water’: What Climate Change Means For California’s Biggest Dairy District appeared first on Modern Farmer.