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.

Yet, it’s not the same for all crops, everywhere. Each spring, along a hidden dirt road in northern Maine, my mother squats calve-deep in ditch muck to gather the edible, curled fronds of the ostrich fern, a delicacy that appears year after year regardless of rain, drought or fungus. While small-scale farms increasingly rely upon innovative technology to hedge their bets on a harvestable crop—think Kernza, complicated, mechanical planters or expensive, hybrid seeds—native, perennial crops, like my mother’s fiddleheads, persist regardless of an erratic growing season. This begs the question—what if annual crops can’t offer us the sustainable future we, as farmers and consumers, need? 

Finding an old way to farm

Mark Shepard’s New Forest Farm enterprise is built upon what he calls restoration agriculture: growing perennial food crops in a way that mimics native ecological systems. “We need to trust natural plant communities because they’re tried and true. They’ve done alright through just about every disaster that’s been thrown their way,” says Shepard. 

Native, perennial plant species—such as fiddleheads—are often better equipped to succeed than non-native, annual plants because they’ve evolved within an ecosystem for millennia. Native plants thrive with fewer or no inputs and, due to genetic diversity, are better equipped to survive in our changing climate. Because of this, landscaping with native species is already widely popular. 

Polyculture including hazelnuts, chestnuts, grapes, apples, and pasture. Together, these crops yield 2.5 times that of any individual component of the system. Photography via New Forest Farm.

Start with small changes

Farmers don’t need to make a whole-sale switch to native species to reap ecological benefits while tapping into an emerging, native-plant market. Small changes, such as converting a single, sub-prime field into a food forest,where a selection of diverse edible plants are grown mimicking the structure of a forest, can be effective. Shepard’s New Forest Farm began with annual crops and transitioned to perennial crops over time. 

Native species can also be included in techniques that many sustainability-minded farmers already employ. For example, hedgerows could be planted with species of American hazelnut, with the small, harvested crop offered in community-supported agriculture boxes or at farmer’s markets. 

Don Tipping of Siskiyou Seeds offers small quantities of unique crops—some of which are native plants—at farmer’s markets and sells them to customers, who are intrigued by the novel product. Although the success of a product can be hit or miss, as with products at any farmer’s market, sometimes, Tipping’s products sell out, with customers asking for them at the next market. He plans to experiment soon with plant-infused beverages. 

In addition, because native plant species support more biodiversity than non-natives, farmers looking to attract beneficial insects for pollination and pest control could plant alley crops of native species that provide food for pollinators and humans, such as sunchokes. 

Expand on silvopasture techniques

Much of the shift that farmers must make to incorporate native plants as food crops relies more on mindset than technique. For example, take silvopasture, which is a method of integrating foraging livestock and wooded areas. Farmers such as Kirsten Marra and Chris Wellington of Muddy Roots Farm use silvopasture practices to help feed and shelter livestock. In such a system, oaks and other nut trees are already key. “We know where all our hardwood stands are in the woods, so we choose our ends [of the pasture rotation] to finish the pigs under the nut trees. Tree nuts are high in fat and contribute to nice marbling of the meat; the unsaturated fatty acids help increase flavor and juiciness. They are also a good source of carbohydrates and protein. They’re very good for the animals, and they create a nice fat-cap or fat layer,” says Marra. 

In their woodland and field pasture system, the pigs are happier, fatter and healthier, all while eating far less grain—about two buckets a day for 10 pigs—which Marra and Wellington say the pigs don’t touch until yummier foods (including annual vegetable scraps) are gone. But this system also helps the environment. The pigs are rotated frequently to prevent any damage to the land, and their wallowing creates vernal pools, their foot traffic presses seeds into the soil and their munching keeps invasive species in check. 

To take a system like this one step further, creative farmers can use trees to produce crops for livestock and people—and not just using acorns or chestnuts. For example, linden tree leaves are great in salads, and their fruit and flowers make a unique (and delicate) chocolate substitute. 

Chris Wellington at Muddy Roots Farm.

A new market

While demand for native plant foods is different from that of annual agricultural crops, a market does exist. Elderberries are particularly trendy, but other native, perennial crops such as sunchokes, pawpaws and even chestnuts are also popular. Still others—such as hazelnuts, ramps and mushrooms—are already in demand at farmer’s markets and by wholesalers alike. 

On a national level, websites such as Foraged offer farmers an opportunity to reach a wider audience, with some of the website’s popular crops including boysenberries and American Ginseng. 

Using these native, perennial foods instead of annual crops often amounts to a simple substitution, such as frying fiddleheads instead of asparagus, using mashed sunchokes instead of mashed potatoes or using pawpaws in place of bananas in bread. 

Pigs at Muddy Roots Farm. Photography via Muddy Roots Farm.

Long term changes 

Changes in our food system must come at the policy level, but some of these changes are happening already. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) now recognizes the importance of agroforestry techniques by offering agroforestry grants and funding. More recently, the US Office of Global Food Security released its Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils, which advocates for returning to more traditional crops that grow better in certain climates. 

Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home and other books, worries that farmers will over-spray native plant crops and thus mitigate any environmental benefits. But if we work to change consumers’ expectations for Instagrammable, blemish-free food and restore our environments with healthy, resilient plants, we can find a balance between harvest and hope for the future of agriculture. 

This isn’t a utopian dream. Consumers’ increased interest in hyper-local foods and regenerative, sustainable agriculture offers support for new ways of farming. Plus, changes in perspective can occur on a crop-by-crop basis as innovative farmers showcase unconventional, native plant foods, even if those foods aren’t staple, dinner-table commodities right now. A great example of crop success is kale, which was once a mere garnish but is now a popular superfood. 

With agriculture facing more climate pressure, tenuous land access and fewer resources than ever before, now is the time to make small or farm-wide changes toward planting native, perennial species as crops, even if the path forward seems untraditional or unusual. 

Says Chris Wellington of Muddy Roots farm, “They called us crazy for wanting to raise pigs in the woods.” 

The post Fiddleheads, Not Spinach appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In part, this is due to the dearth of American-made tools. While John Deere and some other tractor brands are manufactured in the US, their tractors are notoriously expensive. And for many years, farmers were obligated to buy only licensed parts and use only certified repair shops to work on their equipment. For cash-strapped farmers, the inability to service their own equipment was often a crushing financial blow. Although there have recently been reforms to this policy because of “right-to repair” advocacy, many farmers are still distrustful of these large manufacturers. There are also precious few locally made options for hand tools that are more suited to a homestead or small human-scale farm. 

If we want a future with more farmers, more fresh, healthy food and stronger local economies, we need infrastructure that supports small growers. Locally made tools, from hoes to tractors, are an important part of that support system and confer many of the same advantages as locally grown food. Meet three US-based toolmakers who want to change the landscape of tool buying and making to better support their local farmers and communities.

Conor Crickmore filming an educational video on his farm. Photography courtesy of Neversink Tools.

Conor Crickmore, Neversink Tools, Claryville, NY

Conor Crickmore is a farmer, first and foremost. At Neversink Farm, he works 1.3 acres of highly productive organic vegetables with help from a handful of part-time employees. Many folks know Crickmorefrom his popular series of farming instructional videos. These videos grew out of projects that were started for fun and, eventually, spurred on by positive feedback, grew into extensive informational courses. Crickmore described a similarly organic progression when establishing his tool business, which started in his garage. “On my farm, there were just certain tools we needed. We were not intending to start a business; we just wanted to cover the costs of making them,” he says. But demand for his tools was high and, six years later, Neversink tools employs seven people in a shop outfitted with specialized equipment such as composite molds and a metal-stamping setup. 

Because Neversink Tools manufactures the tools it sells, it has e the flexibility to constantly tinker with design and update tools quickly. One of its most popular tools, the patented Mutineer hoe, features a system of interchangeable heads so farmers can choose the one best suited to cultivate in every condition. The lightweight heads can be carried on a carabiner, making it ideal for human-scale farms. 

The Neversink team focuses on improving or upgrading existing tools or making specialized tools that fill a need on small intensive-production farms. “If we are going to make something that’s already out there, we are solving a problem. We don’t make something just because.”

All the work at Neversink Farm is guided by the ethos of constant improvement. There is a beautiful optimism in all of its content that tells farmers that they, too, can be successful and run a profitable business. “Farmers are creating incredible businesses and complicated infrastructures that support their hard work,” says Crickmore. 

Seth Pauley at his forge. Photography courtesy of Red Pig Tools.

Seth Pauley, Red Pig Tools, West Linn, OR

Pauley is a blacksmith who forges his tools with an anvil and hammer, using equal parts artistry and strength. Pauley makes all the Red Pig products by hand with help from a couple of apprentices who are learning the art of smithing. Many of the designs are taken from old-world tools that are hundreds or thousands of years old, although Pauley also makes custom orders upon request.

Red Pig tools are designed to withstand the hard work of producing food. Handles for its hoes and other tools can be chosen to match the user’s height and can be easily replaced. Pauley hopes to disrupt the disposable consumer mindset and empower folks to service their own tools and take pride in artfully made objects, just as they take pride in their gardens. He recognizes that his tools are more expensive than the same item from a box store, but he says that, over time, the value is greater. “You can get a good tool that can last you a lifetime… You can sharpen it. You may even learn to use a welding rig… There’s a lot of things you can learn to do to make a good tool last.” To support folks along this journey, Pauley makes himself available for phone calls and shop visits and tirelessly educates folks at garden shows and other venues.

He emphasizes that well-designed, well-built hand tools can help reduce the barrier to entry for small farmers, for whom tractors and power equipment can be financially out of reach. “You don’t have to be limited by the cost of the equipment,” he says. “You don’t have to play the same game as the bigger farms.” 

He, too, is optimistic about the future of sustainable farming. “I am seeing a lot of younger people who are more interested in growing things and doing something outside of a traditional 9-5 office job,” says Pauley. “There’s a lot of people who are interested in doing things or making things and that’s only gaining traction.” 

A RonnA Ronnie Baugh tractor on the warehouse floor. Photography courtesy of Ronnie Baugh Tractors.

Horace Green, Ronnie Baugh Tractors, Paint Rock, AL

At 89 years old, Horace Green sees his tool company as a part of a wider picture that can help bring back small, productive rural economies. Growing up in rural Alabama, Green remembers how the transition from mule to mechanization helped small farmers. But he also keenly recalls how the “go big or go home” era of ag policy decimated rural communities. He emphasizes finding the right tool for the right scale. Ronnie Baugh offers lightweight, tractors that can be customized by their width, height and center of gravity. 

Even in the US, the price of a full-size tractor is still out of reach for many small-scale farmers. Smaller, two-wheel tractors as well as hand-push tool carriers are in development at the shop. A former software engineer, Green firmly believes in open-source design and is committed to the right to repair. The new products are made using common parts such as bicycle wheels, which will allow farmers to source, build and repair components themselves. These push-driven cultivators can be upgraded using a bicycle motor and the adjustable toolbar can be swapped over to a larger two-wheel tractor. While the barrier to entry is low, the company still prioritizes quality. “We build for the life of the farmer, not the life of the product,” says Green. 

The post On the Ground With Toolmakers Helping Small Farmers Keep it Local appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Now ranchers around the country are trialing a new technology, virtual fencing, to manage animals and their land. A Norwegian company called Nofence is one of the first companies making this fence available to ranchers in the United States. There are several other systems also piloting their products, including Vence, eShepherd and Corral Technologies. 

Virtual fencing supplies ranchers with a collar solar or battery charged and uses a web-based app to remotely monitor and control where livestock graze. The rancher can use a smartphone, tablet or computer to draw paddock boundaries, and the collars are equipped with GPS to track the animals’ movements throughout the day. If an animal approaches the boundary, they receive an auditory warning that intensifies as they get closer. When the animal crosses the boundary, it receives an electric pulse that is less intense than that of an electric fence. 

The technology was designed to improve environmental and economic outcomes for livestock operations, while also reducing labor costs for ranchers and maintaining animal welfare. For those trialing virtual fencing products across the country, it’s achieved more. 

“I think it’s the future and there’s a ton of potential,” says Aaron Steele, founder and co-owner of mobile grazing company Goats on the Go. “To be able to do things like graze a small hilltop for four hours and not eliminate all of the vegetative cover, it opens up an opportunity we never had before.”

Environmental benefits

Regenerative grazing—or closely managing where and for how long animals forage—is a farming practice that can improve soil health and plant diversity. Ranchers think virtual fencing helps them be more efficient. Each new boundary drawn by a rancher moves livestock onto a fresh paddock, allowing grazed pastures time to recover as livestock feed in a new location. 

“We can move the goats an unlimited number of times a day if we want to,” says Adam Ledvina, owner of Iowa Kiko Goats and Blue Collar Goatscaping. “In a better world, you move your animals every day. And the more often you can move them, the better you are.”

For conservationists, it may also help a declining habitat. The United States has lost more than 50 million acres of grasslands in the last 10 years, and groups such as The Nature Conservancy and their partners are trialing virtual fences as a tool for conservation and grazing operations. 

Grasslands need stimuli from grazing to encourage plant growth and recycle nutrients into the soil, but the ecosystem also needs time to recover to decrease soil erosion. Virtual fencing enables land managers to be precise and adaptive in their livestock grazing activities so native plants thrive in pastures. 

“That’s one of the definite benefits to the soil, having animals on the land,” says Scott Haase, a farmer from Minnesota. “The livestock impact is what most fields have been lacking for the last 75 years.”

Megan Filbert, an adoption program manager at Nofence, uses the Nofence app with her herd of Kiko goats. The white icons represent each collared animal within the virtual boundary. (Photo credit: Robb Klassen)

Animal benefits 

Physical fences require ranchers to make frequent trips to their fields to check on their livestock and the stability of the fences. The mobile app connected to the virtual fence collars distributes real-time data on the rancher’s herd, providing information on animal health and location. The collar technology makes it so ranchers can see the current status of the animals anywhere and anytime—as long as there is an internet connection. 

“It could be the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night to make sure all the animals are doing their job and everyone is healthy,” says Ledvina. 

Virtual fencing also allows livestock to live more stress free with less human interaction. When animals are exposed to frequent stressors, it can cause an increased susceptibility to disease, decreased feed intake and reduced fertility.

In addition, the technology has even helped save animals’ lives by letting ranchers know when an animal stops moving or a signal is lost. 

“I have already saved animals from death because of the data being transmitted from the collars,” says Steele. “Farmers have a much better idea of the current well-being of their animals at any time of day than they’ve ever had before.” 

Steele recalls an incident that happened with another rancher participating in the Nofence pilot project with him. 

“He was just reviewing the data and found that one of his goats’ activity levels had declined,” says Steele. “He went and caught that goat, and sure enough, it had an injury. He only caught it in time to treat it because of the data.” 

Rancher benefits 

Virtual fencing has helped farmers monitor the status of their animals through a tap of an app, which current users of this technology says offers peace of mind. 

“If there’s a storm and a branch knocks down your fence, you wouldn’t know for a couple days, and this lets you know instantly,” says Ledvina. 

In the past, ranchers have struggled to keep livestock out of certain locations, such as bodies of water. Now, ranchers can create unique boundaries for their difficult terrain and even prevent animals from entering areas prone to flooding and wildfires. 

The fencing also eliminates hours of intensive labor. Building and maintaining physical fences requires a lot of work, including digging fence posts, replacing damaged fencing after storms and driving across pastureland to install more fencing. Ranchers report labor to be their largest expense, and virtual fencing can eliminate some of this labor. 

“I’ve got ponds and terrain to deal with, fallen trees in the wrong place, and all of those things add up,” says Daniel Faidley, operator of a cattle and goat farm in Iowa. “I don’t have piles of time.” 

Goats graze hard-to-fence terrain in Southern California. Ryan and Rianna Malherbe own this herd, and they utilize their goats for targeted grazing and wildfire mitigation. (Photo credit: Robb Klassen)

Room for improvement

Despite the suggested benefits the technology has brought to ranchers trialing virtual fencing, there are still some challenges in making it accessible to mass audiences. 

Some landowners claim virtual fencing is cheaper than investing in physical fencing, but the cost is still higher than they’d like. The individual cow collars by Nofence cost $329 each and $229 for goats or sheep, but that isn’t the rancher’s only expense. They also have to pay a monthly subscription fee that will vary depending on the size of their herd and other factors. Despite the costs, Ledvina says he believes the reduction of labor costs makes it less expensive and, therefore, worth the investment. 

The battery life of the collars is another potential concern. After their initial charge using electricity, some of these collars are charged using solar power, which means that the amount of sun they receive can affect the battery life. In the summer, animals like to seek refuge in the shade. And in the winter, there are fewer daylight hours. Steele says that, although the collars hold their charge for a long time, it can be difficult to get sunlight on these collars at all times. 

Another reason some ranchers are hesitant to try virtual fencing is a reluctance to rely too much on technology. 

“Some people like to think you’re just getting more into your phone, and I get it, I want to disconnect, too,” says Ledvina. “But I wake up every morning and I’m able to check my animals. I do it to check my livelihood.”

A look into the future

Many ranchers consider virtual fencing to be the next frontier. It’s made it easier for farmers to do things they haven’t been able to do before and gives them time to prioritize what they’ve been missing out on.

With the trial’s success, Nofence is currently considering how many collars will be available to the public for 2024, with a priority going to sheep and goat collars. Its cattle collars are expected to launch in 2025. eShepherd, produced by Gallagher Animal Management, will also be available to the public some time this year. 

For those still debating trying out virtual fencing technology, Haase says it’s worth taking a chance. 

“I think once it really takes off, people are going to do creative and surprising things with it,” says Haase. 

Jenny Melo Velasco and Kelly Wilson contributed reporting to this story.

Want to get in line for access to virtual fencing technologies? Farmers and interested readers can register interest or sign up on a waitlist to be the first to receive these collars. Here are links to the major companies on the market: 

• Nofence
• Vence
• Gallagher eShepard
• Corral Technologies

To learn more about The Nature Conservancy and partners’ projects to research how virtual fencing can help managers improve soil carbon storage, biodiversity and economic outcomes, you can read more about it here. 

The post Ranchers Embrace Virtual Fencing for Greener Pastures  appeared first on Modern Farmer.

It turns out the miracle thread made from oil isn’t so recyclable. But it does break down, bit by bit: in the wash, on land, everywhere. Textiles are a major source of microplastics in the ocean, where they weave their way into the food chain, causing untold harms to marine life. Entire ecosystems are being altered by our clothes. 

Studies tell us we eat and drink its flecks, too, with unknown health impacts, and that the volume of plastic particles in the ocean is doubling about every six years. 

Our daily clothing choices are part of it all, but with polyester, rayon and acrylic so ubiquitous plastic even rains from the sky, choices are limited. Polyester, made from the same plastic as most water bottles, is woven into about half of the world’s clothing. Cheap and easy to make, it’s still the fastest-growing group of fibers used to manufacture garments. 

What’s the solution? Some see the answer to more sustainable fabrics in new materials that can readily decompose or be recycled; others say natural fibers and local supply chains are the way to go. But each approach depends on infrastructure that has yet to be fully realized. If the end game is simply more mass production and consumption, with the thought that all of this material will quickly degrade or find its way to recycling, our oceans and landfills of trash will only grow.

The high cost of fast fashion 

Fast fashion uses both synthetic and natural fibers, and the environmental trade-offs between the two are endless, from land and water use to chemical inputs. But when it comes to planet-heating emissions, fossil fuel-based synthetics—the main materials in use—are clear losers. Fashion contributes around 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, second only to big oil. And most of the carbon footprint of a garment is around producing its fibers. 

Another big factor is end of life. There is nowhere near enough fiber recycling infrastructure in the US, where 85 percent of used clothes and other textiles get sent to the landfill. In California, most clothing is disposed of through curbside solid waste collection—a straight route to the dump. At every level are gaps that prevent “textile circularity” especially when it comes to sorting out salvageable garments and sourcing recycling. And while natural fibers can biodegrade, it’s rarely that simple. Companies often blend natural with plastic fibers, adding dyes and finishes, and blends are particularly hard to recycle because the components require different processes.

In the US, 85 percent of used clothes and other textiles are sent to the landfill. (Photo: Shutterstock)

For companies, it isn’t profitable to develop large-scale reuse, repair and recycling with the high costs of transportation, labor and processing, along with decreasing quality of new products.

According to standards body Textile Exchange, only about 14 percent of polyester is made from recycled fibers. Companies are working on technology to make it easier—yet thousands of dangerous chemicals are used to make plastic goods and researchers are sounding the alarm about recycling them. 

In addition, most natural fibers are grown conventionally, which often means heavy use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers and genetically modified or treated seeds. Cotton, the most used natural fiber, occupies 2.4 percent of the world’s farmland but uses 4.7 percent of the world’s pesticides and 10 percent of its insecticides. 

Enter next-gen synthetics. A slew of startups is out to replace both polyester and natural fibers with alternatives they say are better for the planet.

Emerging protein designers 

One emerging method used to create new fibers is with gene editing. It happens in a wink compared to the millions of years it took nature and selective breeding by humans to perfect, say, sheeps’ wool.

After modifying genes that give a desired quality to a natural fiber, scientists insert this DNA into yeast or bacteria cells. Next, fermentation turns the microbes into factories, churning out proteins that will be spun into fibers and given names such as Microsilk and Werewool.

As the companies see it, the process is more efficient than growing fibers naturally; traditional silk, for example, is biodegradable and long-lasting, but cultivation can use large amounts of water and pesticides. One of the most promising polyester and silk replacements is Tandem Repeat’s squid protein-based Squitex, which draws on AI to design a fiber with stretch, strength and thermal responsiveness, and it works with most current manufacturing equipment. The Philadelphia company, which plans to sell both fibers and garments, will release a limited collection this year.

Another is Spiber’s Brewed Protein, which can replace oil-based, silk and other animal fibers. The polymer can yield various end products depending on the twisting of yarns. By changing the protein content and yarn diameter, the company can tweak texture, weight and handfeel.

Spiber Inc’s Brewed Protein filament yarns have a silk-like sheen and texture. (Photo courtesy of Spiber Inc.)

That’s the easy part, experts say. The difficulty, and the stage most of these startups are now, is in scaling manufacturing. The manufacture of next-gen fibers requires giant fermentation vats and skilled workers. When it comes to spinning, according to Bloom Labs, costs can be two to three times higher than with oil-based yarns because the melt-spun machines used by the apparel industry don’t work with these fledgling fibers. 

But as the planet burns and plastic fibers boom, it’s getting harder for brands to ignore the need for sustainable fabrics. 

Nicole Rawling, CEO and co-founder of the think tank Material Innovation Initiative (MII), says they define “next-gen” as more than the gene-edited proteins. Those fibers can be plant-derived, mycelium, cultivated animal cells, microbe-derived, recycled materials and blends. “Next-gen materials must be animal-free, high-performance and have a smaller environmental footprint than their traditional counterparts,” she says. MII focuses on the goals of production, not the technologies used.

“We recommend focusing on the real problem: petrochemicals, not plastics,” says Rawling, noting that some plastics are bio-based and have less of an environmental impact. The claim is controversial, however, in terms of biodegradability and because plant-based plastics require crops such as corn and farmland that could have been used to grow food.

Spiber’s Brewed Protein materials are produced through a fermentation process that utilizes sugars and microbes. (Photo courtesy of Spiber Inc.)

Proteins aside, Circ, a recycling innovator, has developed a hydrothermal process that can separate polyester-cotton blends—the largest blend category globally—and recover both portions to make into like-new fibers for textiles. 

“Not long ago, it was nearly impossible to separate and re-use fibers from cotton/poly blends, thus millions of tons of discarded clothing and textiles were destined for landfill or incineration,” says Rawling.

One challenge is designing biodegradability into goods that won’t easily fall apart in use. A recent study from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography tracked the ability of natural, synthetic and blended fabrics to decompose in the ocean. It found that natural and wood-based cellulose fabrics (Lyocell, Modal and Viscose) degraded within a month, while fabrics made of what was thought to be a biodegradable plastic (PLA) and the oil-based fibers in textile blends showed no decay after more than a year in the ocean.

Kintra Fibers has developed a bio-based polyester (56 percent corn-derived) it says greatly reduces greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional polyester and can be produced with the same equipment. According to its website, the material decays in controlled composting conditions. 

Fiber growers

Last October, Sally Fox was thousands of miles from home, where the greens and golds of her cotton fields shimmered in the Central Valley sun. She was at a cotton-spinning mill in Japan to sell her fibers, because there are no such mills left in California, she said in an email. “I have one customer in the world.”

Fox has been selectively breeding cotton to produce her exquisitely colored yarns for 38 years, and she says the industry was once profitable enough that she could afford to lease her own gins, the machines that quickly separate cotton fibers from seeds.

That’s no longer the case. “The textile industry collapsed when the big brands went offshore and dumped the spinners and weavers in the US, Europe and Japan. And I lost all the mills I was selling to except this one,” she said.

Fiber farmers, already up against cheap polyester and the economy of fast fashion, now face another threat: the rise of mass-produced alternative synthetics in development.

Naturally colored cotton, bred by Sally Fox, growing at her Viriditas farm in California’s Capay Valley. (Photo courtesy of Sally Fox)

Rebecca Burgess, founder of Fibershed, a nonprofit that supports regenerative farming, points out that there is already a bounty of natural fiber available for textiles.

Two-thirds of the wool in California doesn’t even have a home and 900,000 pounds per year is textile grade, says Burgess. “We’re not even getting all the natural fibers that are part of food rotations.” 

The US is the third-largest global cotton producer. In 2018, more than 14 million of the 18 million bales it produced were exported. More than 200,000 acres of cotton is grown in the San Joaquin Valley—”enough to create at least seven pairs of jeans each year for every person in the state,” says Burgess.

If a strong local fiber economy existed, growers could find markets for all their fiber, she says. Instead, they face “huge deficits” in aggregation, distribution and manufacturing. If you start a spinning mill, for example, you also need a good wool scour line for a washing station and places to send wastewater.

Absent is large-scale felting, wool scouring, color-grown cotton gins, large-scale fine gauge spinning, industrial felt natural dye pigment production and more. 

Burgess sees the main problem with cheap fashion—one she thinks next-gen won’t solve—as massive overconsumption. At one end are people unboxing their huge hauls, “stoking people on TikTok to purchase just like them.” At the other is the Atacama Desert in Chile or Accra in Ghana, “where they receive something like 40 million garments per month,” most of which end up in open-air dumps.

Soil-to-soil fiber economies

Fibershed advocates for bringing home the once-thriving textile supply chain, which now exists as a geographically long series of links among growers and processors of fibers, weavers, knitters, dyers and finishers, product manufacturers and distributors. It envisions local systems where natural fibers are sustainably grown, processed, sewn into garments and ultimately composted. 

In Fibershed’s 168-producer network are regenerative farms and textile projects such as Chico Flax in the Sacramento Valley, which is working on bringing back the region’s flax textile industry. There are growers of dye plants, hemp, cotton and wool.

Wool production is often criticized for wreaking havoc on land, from overgrazing to scouring chemicals. The Center for Biological Diversity has called on brands to phase out or cut wool use in half by 2025. But Fibershed sees wool as a carbon sink. More than 55 wool producers have joined its Climate Beneficial Verification label program that supports farmers who are building healthy soil.

Wool is a renewable, biodegradable resource, but critics say the current scale of wool farming is environmentally unsustainable. (Photo: Shutterstock)

It’s not about small versus large-scale farming, says Burgess; small growers don’t always have enough land to use the rotational grazing that fosters plant biodiversity. “Some of the most regenerative, or grassland regenerating, grazing I’ve seen is on larger operations.”

To create vegetation shifts and poly cultures, ranchers try to mimic a wildland biome through multi-species grazing, “moving animals quickly through these systems, then having them return after land has had time to regenerate.”

Even cotton can be grown and processed within a scalable, restorative system, proponents say. Central Valley growers and researchers are incorporating carbon farming to help soil store carbon and water; abilities lost to decades of conventional practices. Less than one percent of cotton grown in the US is organic.

Cotton growing at Viriditas Farm, where rotational crops like heirloom Sonora wheat bolster root material and straw to build soil organic matter with each crop year. (Photo courtesy of Sally Fox)

Cleaning up cotton is something Sally Fox knows all about. “I was among those who started the whole organic cotton industry.” She grows her colorful “foxfibre” cotton using biodynamic practices, but for certification, she sticks with organic—it’s less challenging, but organic is the original regenerative certification, she says.

“It is absolutely the gold standard for sequestering carbon into soils—the goal of all regenerative farming practices.”

Unbox ‘like new’

Fox views sustainability in clothing as revolving around its longevity. Cotton spun correctly should last 20 to 60 years (except jeans). Linen spun correctly should last 100 to 1,000 years. Wool spun properly should last 80 to 300 years. “I am not kidding,” she emphasizes.

Her next criteria is ethical production, “with the work force between the raw material and final product not being enslaved or coerced or any of the rest of the shenanigans used to beat down the cost brands pay for products.” She prefers garments made in the US, Japan or the EU, because they have workplace standards. Elsewhere, she seeks GOTS and Oeko-Tex certifications. “GOTS actually inspects every facility.”

Last but not least, she mends holes, fixes seams. She even darns socks. It’s not exactly fast fashion, but just landing on a definition of sustainable “can make one’s head spin,” she says. And the first response is to give up, and basically give in to polyester—the wonder fabric that, today, isn’t so wrinkle-free after all.

With legislation that requires end-of-life solutions for products, consumers rethinking their choices and investment in both next-gen synthetics and local natural fiber economies, both visions can be part of a better clothing future. Here’s how you can help:

Buy less, and love what you do buy. Instead of buying loads of cheap clothing, instead think about investing in a few high-quality items that you love and know will last you a long time. Whether made of synthetic fibers or natural fibers such as wool, silk and linen, keep in mind the lifecycle of your clothing: what will happen to it when you’re finished with it?

Buy and sell used clothing. Gently worn or returned purchases are increasingly being offered on sites such as ThredUp, Poshmark, Relay Goods and Patagonia’s Worn Wear. (For example, Relay, which calls itself a zero waste marketplace, sells shoes and sports gear, buying their surplus inventory and returns from retailers and offering the most sought-after shoes at attractive markdowns). 

Learn to mend and repair. Sewing, darning and other forms of mending used to be common, and for good reason: they help you get the most out of your clothing, and they can be fun and creative, too. Inspiration is everywhere, if you know where to look—social media can be a good place to start, and books such as Visible Mending by Arounna Khounnoraj provide step-by-step instructions for how newbies can get started.

Support legislation designed to cut down on textile waste. Legislation introduced in California and New York would eventually require textile producers to provide end-of-life solutions for products. If you want to support those bills or ask for a similar one to be introduced in your state, contact your local legislators and let your voice be heard.

The post Are Next-Gen Synthetic Fibers the Future of Sustainable Textiles? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Livestock is responsible for anywhere from 11.1 percent to 19. 6 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, the majority of which come from cows raised for meat and milk products. Cows belch methane, a potent greenhouse gas that stays in our atmosphere for a much shorter time than carbon dioxide, about 12 years compared to thousands of years, but has much greater warming potential. One cow, for instance, burps about 220 pounds of methane in a year. As the planet warms, everyone from the IPCC to consumers to farmers and food producers is asking how to reduce those emissions—but what does that really mean? 

Photography submitted by Organic Valley.

“When you hear the term carbon neutral, that relates to industries that have carbon dioxide emissions,” says UC Davis professor and head of the agricultural research organization CLEAR Center at UC Davis Frank Mitloehner. “The cows are eating carbon-rich feed; they digest it, and when they digest it, they convert it to methane, and then they belch it out. So, what matters is that we manage methane and find ways to reduce it … Methane is only a problem if we don’t manage it and let it go into the atmosphere.” 

In other words, to reduce emissions from the agricultural sector, many companies and scientists believe the answer is to capture or reduce methane and nitrous oxide, the other significant greenhouse gas from the farming industry. Yet, measuring how much methane and nitrous oxide to reduce is a source of debate—in part because we don’t have a good understanding of these terms and labels. 

“One of the issues is the imprecise use of language many are interchanging between carbon-neutral and climate-neutral,” says Caspar Donnison, the author of a paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, on climate neutrality claims in the livestock sector. 

Donnison says that, in order to have alignment with the Paris Agreement (keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius), there need to be significant methane reductions in the livestock sector, around 50 percent between 2020 and 2050. In contrast, the methane reductions proposed by some, such as studies he and his co-author scrutinized in their paper, are insufficient. Even with a proposed cut of 23 percent, livestock sectors would remain a source of very high emissions, sustaining a warming impact that is too high. 

“It is a misleading use of the term ‘climate-neutral’ that is used in these studies, since under their definition the sector would still be causing global warming,” says Donnison. To actually maintain neutrality, Donnison says, the sector has to reduce enough to offset all the greenhouse gasses and other emissions for which it is responsible. 

According to Donnison, there are large opportunities for the food sector to lower emissions, but they involve dietary shifts to plant-based foods, especially in areas with high meat consumption, and increased efficiencies in livestock production. 

Photography submitted by Organic Valley.

“About five years ago, I gave our sustainability director a goal for the farm to be carbon-neutral by the end of 2022 and expand that to the rest of the other farms that supply us by 2030,” says dairy farmer and president of Straus Family Creamery Albert Straus. The Straus family farm has been operating for more than 75 years, tucked along the coastline of Northern California. In 1994, Straus dairy farm became the first certified organic dairy farm west of the Mississippi River, and it was the first 100-percent certified organic creamery in the country.

The farm didn’t make its goal of carbon neutrality by 2022, but it is still working toward it. It has started testing a feed supplement with red seaweed, which has demonstrated a reduction in cow’s enteric methane emissions (which occur via cow burps) an average of 52 percent and as much as 90 percent, although there have been delays with availability recently. The Straus farm is one of a growing number of dairy companies, including Organic Valley and Neutral, which are trying to be climate-neutral and vying for sustainability motivated consumers in the process. But they each have different ways of going about it. 

Along with the seaweed supplements, Straus has implemented a few new pieces of tech, including a methane digester that captures methane emissions from on-farm manure that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere and converts it into electricity. They are also working with other farms that supply the creamery; in 2023, Straus launched an incentive program to incorporate the practices he experimented with and perfected on his farm, so the whole dairy creamery supply chain can be carbon-neutral by 2030.

“I think it is essential for us to create a positive environment where our farms … can address climate change, can address healthy organic food for the local populations and regional populations, and help revitalize rural communities as well,” says Straus.

Start-up Neutral, which launched in 2019 in Oregon and Washington before expanding nationally in 2021, uses carbon offsets. Carbon offsets (when a company or individual calculates its carbon footprint and then funds projects that offset climate change, such as tree planting) have become controversial over the past few years because they rely on hard-to-verify data and tend to put the burden of fighting climate change on projects occurring in the global south. Still, for Neutral, it was a way to be climate neutral from the start while working with its suppliers to reduce emissions on farms.

“Our goal is to use fewer offsets as we implement more of our carbon reduction projects,” says ​​Jake Schmitz, carbon reduction manager at Neutral Foods. “With a growing portfolio of emissions reduction projects, our goal is to cover as many reductions as possible through our own projects, resulting in a reduced use of offsets.”

To do that, Neutral is working with its farms to supplement cows’ feed with Agolin, an essential oil blend that the company says increases feed efficiency by more than four percent and reduces those burps by more than 8 percent. As Agolin helps farmers feed less, it should reduce N2O from crop production. It is also working to change the manure systems to separate solids and liquids, allowing farmers to distribute the manure more efficiently to cropland. 

Photography submitted by Organic Valley.

Organic Valley, a 1,600-farmer-owned cooperative, decided carbon offsets weren’t right for it.

“If we wanted to be carbon neutral tomorrow, we would have to buy carbon offsets because that’s how you get a lot done quickly,” says Nicole Rakobitsch, director of sustainability at Organic Valley. “Buying the carbon offsets from outside of your supply chain, though, means money goes to those projects that are not related to your commodity or the products that you’re making.”

On the facility side, Organic Valley has already pivoted to renewable electricity. Organic Valley, which has plans to be climate-neutral by 2050, decided to go with an approach called carbon insetting, which, according to Rakobitsch, means that, instead of purchasing offsets, it is using that money to invest in its suppliers and farmers.

Thanks in part to a USDA Climate-Smart Commodities grant, Organic Valley started a pilot program to provide technical assistance to farmers who want to implement a new practice, such as agroforestry, but don’t know where to start. Organic Valley pays its farmers annually per ton of carbon reduction to incentivize the farms. 

There are pros and cons to all of these reduction methods; the methane digesters that are part of Straus’s and Neutral’s work to be climate-neutral have been touted by the Biden administration as a critical part of methane reduction, but there are questions about how effective they really are. 

As the climate crisis intensifies, dairies who reduce their emissions are helpful, but only one part of an agricultural solution. As consumers look for more climate-friendly options, Donnison says to pay attention to the language companies use, to help avoid greenwashing. “It’s important to understand how companies are defining climate-neutral, and how they have calculated their emissions, as it can be misleading.”

The post Can Milk Be Climate-Neutral? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

This breakneck pace is great news for the nation’s mission to transition to more clean energy generation, especially as precipitous cost curves make it increasingly affordable to decarbonize. But the reliance on utility-scale solar, which requires hundreds to even thousands of acres of land for panel installations, has sparked questions regarding the magnitude of land use requirements. In addition to concerns about impacts on food production and sensitive ecosystems, some critics argue that converting thousands of acres of agricultural land to utility-scale solar arrays would compromise the character of rural regions. 

Community solar, in contrast, operates at a small enough scale that it can occupy land within rural communities, such as commercial rooftops and brownfield sites, that might otherwise go unused—thus preserving the bucolic nature of agricultural regions. Plus, it enables households and business owners within rural areas, farmers and non-farmers alike, to benefit from renewable energy.

Community solar: the Goldilocks of renewables

Historically, would-be solar energy supporters have faced a binary between utility-scale solar, where large projects of typically five or more megawatts (MW) deliver electricity directly to a utility’s electric grid, and rooftop photovoltaics, where individual households or businesses generate up to one MW of solar energy through leased or purchased panels.

Between these two extremes sits community solar, a rapidly expanding midpoint promoted by recent legislation across many US states. Usually generating up to five MW of energy, community solar projects are small facilities, occupying up to 25 to 35 (and often more like five to 10) acres. Each megawatt powers the equivalent of 164 homes.

A solar project located at Gedney Landfill in White Plains, NY. (Photo credit: DSD Renewables)

Anyone living in the utility territory who pays an electric bill—from rural farms to urban apartments to businesses of all sizes, houses of worship and nonprofits—can subscribe to the community solar farm and receive a discount off their electricity bill, typically between five and 20 percent depending on the state.

 Instead of one solar array built on the rooftop of a single-family home, community solar provides an option for entire communities to share in the benefits of locally generated clean energy together. And unlike utility-scale solar, where ratepayers finance large solar projects via new line items on their utility bills but do not necessarily see the savings, community solar subscribers directly benefit from solar savings—similar to how a home-owned array benefits an individual household. In addition, a community solar subscription provides flexibility: no sign-up fees, no cancellation penalties and the ability for a subscription to follow the user’s utility account to a new home if they move. 

Perhaps the best thing about community solar is its effectiveness as a tangible option for people to participate in and take advantage of our country’s transition to renewable energy. More than a third of American households rent their homes, and for those who are homeowners, many lack the right sunny conditions on their property or simply can’t afford the long-term investment in solar panels. Community solar bridges the gap between utility scale and rooftop solar projects, keeping more money in people’s hands.

Solar panels atop the Shapham Place parking lot in White Plains, NY. (Photo credit: DSD Renewables)

The clean energy cover crop

Importantly for farmers and other rural residents, community solar helps rural areas meet their energy goals without an outsized impact on local landscapes. Community solar fits neatly into the nooks and crannies of a community and doesn’t require the large acreage of a utility-scale array installation. 

You can think of community solar as a multi-benefit “cover crop” for land that might otherwise go unused. Just as a farmer might grow alfalfa as a cover crop on a fallow field, communities can install solar on a school’s rooftop, a parking lot, a brownfield site too expensive to remediate or on agrivoltaic-compatible land such as cranberry bogs or sheep pastures. And just as alfalfa fixes nitrogen, builds soil, fights erosion and feeds livestock, community solar lowers energy costs, can make the local electric grid more reliable and brings money and jobs through labor and income, such as farmland leases, to the area.

With community solar, farmers save on their energy bills, property owners earn monthly rent for hosting panels, school children experience field trips to learn about solar generation and the municipality progresses towards its clean energy goals. Community solar is the third alternative that helps agricultural communities make efficient use of their land without sacrificing the farms or natural features that make the area special.

Photo credit: DSD Renewables

Sunlight isn’t red or blue, it’s ultraviolet

Growth in community solar ties into clean energy’s larger shift from politically divisive, abstract discussions about climate change to more nonpartisan, financial pragmatism. Recent meteorological events, such as the Canadian wildfire smoke, the Midwestern polar vortex and San Diego’s flooding, have spurred more conversations around the need to prepare for extreme weather, no matter what causes it. Given the energy transition’s potential to boost climate resilience, people are also discussing the role of renewables, such as solar and wind, within our nation’s generation stacks. This shift from political to financial perspectives makes clean energy a frequently purple endeavor, supported by the fact that both red and blue states are looking for ways to open or expand community solar as an option.

How does community solar fit farmers’ needs? Because of their large energy consumption at a more expensive residential rate, energy costs for farmers are often disproportionately higher in their operating expenses compared to other business types. Consequently, representatives from rural and agricultural areas are often community solar’s biggest supporters. Farmers looking to boost their resilience to extreme weather events by building a financial cushion can look to utility savings or solar leases as a significant benefit.

People interested in community solar can do a quick search online to see what kind of subscriptions are available in their area. As of December 2022, community solar projects are located in 43 states, plus Washington, D.C. To lease some of their land, people could contact community solar developers about opportunities to host solar projects. Other ways to take action include writing to elected officials to express support for the introduction or expansion of community solar programs, depending on the state’s current legislation, and spreading the word about community solar’s potential to neighbors and peers.

Whatever kind of community you find yourself in, community solar is or may soon be a neighbor—and a good neighbor, too.

Bruce Stewart is ⁠President and CEO of Perch Energy, a Boston-based company focused on accelerating access to community solar nationwide. Bruce has 30+ years of experience leading both energy and technology companies, serving as president of Direct Energy Home, co-president of Centrica US Holdings, and executive positions at GE Current and Constellation Energy. He is committed to Perch’s mission of making cleaner energy options more accessible for all.

The post Opinion: With Community Solar, It’s Not Renewable Energy vs. Rural Character appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Recently, these unassuming spaces are cultivating a new trend in home-grown businesses. Armed with little more than ingenuity and entrepreneurial drive, microgreen growers are transforming the unused corners of their dwellings into profitable farming operations.

Using minimal inputs and resources such as water, energy and land, microgreens can offer a consistent and hyperlocal source of fresh, nutrient-dense produce, especially in urban settings. And done right, they allow farmers to reap a meaningful livelihood—an important consideration in a profession known for grueling demands and razor-thin margins.

“It’s a great gateway crop,” says Don DiLillo, owner of Finest Foods in Huntington, New York, for ushering in a new breed of novice farmers. After finishing college seven years ago, the “video game-playing, beer-drinking kid” dusted off a section of his parents’ Long Island cellar to launch his micro farm. With $3,000 allocated for equipment and many hours spent watching YouTube tutorials, he built a steady farmers market following, selling tender, week-old pea, sunflower, radish and broccoli sprouts.

Now 27, DiLillo has seen his business blossom. After expanding to a vacant neighborhood deli in 2019, he’s since set up shop in his grandparents’ former home, which he shares with his girlfriend and fellow farmer, Alissa Yasinsky. The 800-square-foot basement and garage provide ample space for germination, cultivation and packaging, he says, with the vertical shelf configuration leaving plenty of room to grow. “I could triple [production] and still be able to operate it from my home,” says DiLillo.

Given the cost of Long Island real estate, the space efficiency is “one of the great benefits of [farming] microgreens,” says DiLillo. Plus, he adds, “I can do farm chores in my pajamas.”

Photography submitted by Don DiLillo, Finest Foods.

Small footprint, big potential

“Microgreens” is a term used to describe the tender, edible seedlings of various herbs, vegetables and grains typically seeded in shallow, soil-filled trays, grown under natural or artificial light, then harvested within two weeks of germination. Packed with vivid colors, a fresh crunch and intense flavors that can range from sweet to peppery, San Francisco chefs popularized them in the 1980s to liven up fancy dishes.

Although the specialty greens have maintained their trendy reputation, research has also shed light on their health benefits, finding that the nutrient density of sprouts is often higher than that of mature plants. And because they grow quickly with minimal resources—and without herbicides or pesticides—scientists point to their potential to help bolster nutritional security, hedge against disruptions in the food supply chain and even generate fresh produce on long-term space missions.

Retired army veteran Gerry Mateo started farming microgreens in the garage of his Bakersfield, California home as a way to combat anxiety and depression. It’s proven to be a calming and grounding endeavor, he says, and it has also helped improve his diet. 

When he launched FilAm Vets Hydroponics Farm in 2021, Mateo was overweight and suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes, he says. But a daily dose of his own fresh produce has made him much healthier and lowered his cholesterol. “You can only eat lettuce in a salad or sandwich,” he says. Microgreens are highly versatile, pairing well with—but not overpowering—various dishes and blending easily into smoothies.

Mateo, who also farms leafy vegetables such as basil, kale and arugula hydroponically, was surprised to find high demand for his produce—especially given his Central Valley location. Yet with California’s agricultural hub dominated by large-scale farms and commodity crops, he’s found a comfortable niche at his local farmers market.

Customers now include nearby restaurants, and with business booming, he’s put a 10-by-20-foot greenhouse in the backyard and hopes to upgrade to a larger vertical farming structure in the near future. With arable land at a premium—urban sprawl is a growing threat to the farming region—“I’m lucky to have a big yard,” says Mateo. 

Over the last decade, the appeal of consistent and efficient crop production—made increasingly so by precision technology, AI platforms and data analytics—has spurred a boom in Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). By regulating temperature, humidity and light in an enclosed space, CEA structures, which can include everything from tunnel houses to warehouses, can pump out a reliable stream of fresh produce regardless of season, weather or location, often using far less water, soil and inputs than traditional farming.

Despite promises of fortifying and climate-proofing local food production, however, not everybody is convinced about the sustainability of CEA, particularly at scale. Critics equate large ventures to indoor agribusiness: Often backed by companies and private investors with little experience in commercial agriculture, some factory-like facilities can span multiple acres and consume vast amounts of energy. Opponents also question the taste, nutritional value and long-term health implications of crops grown in this artificial setting.

Photography submitted by Don DiLillo, Finest Foods.

But for micro producers, their environmental impacts match their minimal footprint, says DiLillo, of Finest Foods. His energy costs, for instance, are nominal: Although New York ranks among the most expensive states for electricity, his monthly bill, which covers both home and farm, hovers around $300 in the winter and doubles in the summer with air conditioning—in line with the national household average of $430 a month. And with weekly deliveries contained in a 20-mile radius, his transport footprint is super light, he notes.

DiLillo has also focused on eliminating the sore spot of retail microgreens: plastic packaging. He dropped single-use clamshell boxes for a biodegradable and compostable, plant-based alternative, and he even closed his health food store accounts, which require water-resistant adhesive labels. His subscription-based residential customers and chefs don’t miss the vinyl stickers, he says, because “they know exactly what they’re getting every week.”

As for the artificial environment, “I’m not here to tell you that [LED] lights are better than the sun,” says DiLillo. Yet, “the beauty of microgreens comes from the seeds,” he adds, noting that the just-germinated sprouts retain much of their seminal nutrients, thriving under artificial light in the short duration before harvest.

Microgreens at Kupu Place. Photography by author.

The local edge

Hawaii’s year-round temperate climate, however, is ideal for farming microgreens outdoors. Cousins Anthony Mau and Steven Yee established Kupu Place in 2017 as a side gig in the backyard of their family home in Honolulu. (Kupu is Hawaiian for sprout; the property is located on Kupu Place.) Given the sliver of land—about a 16th of an acre—the duo initially had doubts about the business’ profitability. But armed with advanced degrees in agricultural sciences, they started with aquaponics, growing leafy vegetables in tilapia tanks, adding hydroponically grown edible flowers before expanding to microgreens.

“Per square foot, it’s obvious which one is more profitable,” says Mau.

As Kupu’s revenues moved into the black, the space limitations became more apparent. Two years ago, after a grueling search in Oahu’s tight real estate market, the cousins landed on a residential property in Kahaluu, on the island’s windward coast. Once home to orchid farms, the neighborhood, which lies about half an hour from downtown Honolulu, still retains a rural air, complete with roaming chickens, despite an influx of residential development. Because the sellers wanted to keep the land productive, Mau thinks it made their offer attractive.

The 1.5-acre lot has ample space for the growing business. Along with the home that Mau and his wife share with Yee (luckily, “it wasn’t a tear-down,” says Mau), there’s a storage room with refrigerators, sinks and germination shelves, while the yard has two 20-by-40-foot shade houses with room for another. Naturally vented and sunlit, the wooden structures display a colorful patchwork of microgreens in local flavors such as red shiso, lemon balm and tatsoi.

Although Kupu’s competition comes from California, on-island production gives the business a tremendous edge, says Mau. Along with lead times of hours instead of weeks, they’re able to accommodate last-minute orders and high levels of customization. And with nearly 90 percent of Hawaii’s food consumption reliant on imports, any boost in homegrown crops for the local market benefits the state’s food security, says Mau.

Since the move, Kupu has become Mau’s full-time endeavor (Yee still runs his landscaping company), and, at 32, he’s in it for the long haul. Microgreen farming is particularly suited to career longevity, he says, as farming at waist height is simply more manageable.

Kaʻinapu Cavasso agrees. One of Kupu’s two employees, she started orchard farming at 16. But the constant repetition of bending down to plant, weed and set up irrigation and looking up to prune trees and harvest fruit became taxing, she says. Now 20, her new job is “a lot more mellow, ergonomic and efficient,” she says. “I love farming…so I hope to [continue] this for a long time.”

The post Cultivating Profits in a Compact Crop appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Effective January 1, 2024, intrastate trucks in California must be equipped with Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs), following in the steps of other states that have made similar mandates. Trucks making interstate deliveries have been required to be equipped with ELDs since 2017. 

ELDs are small devices, but the impact they’ve had on the trucking industry is monumental. Monitoring devices that track when the truck is in motion and for what duration, ELDs are largely intended to address road safety issues associated with drivers pushing themselves too far for too long. But some say ELDs are having the opposite effect and are a violation of trucker privacy and workflow.

“It just seems like the trucking industry is getting regulated out of existence,” wrote one trucker, Allen Boyd, in response to a request for comments on ELD regulation updates by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in 2022.

Why ELDs?

Long-haul trucking used to be a secure and respected career. Today, it’s a job with high turnover and a lack of security. Many headlines today talk about the future of trucking, which includes the possibility of autonomous fleets replacing human-driven ones at some point down the line. But the predicament in which truckers find themselves now actually goes back in time by several decades.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, which created a guaranteed minimum wage, passed in 1938. An exemption was included for truckers, so they could earn more and be more productive. But, in 1980, when the Motor Carrier Act was passed, truckers for the first time encountered Hours of Service rules, capping how many hours they were allowed to be on the job. While this is a pretty standard labor regulation, the fact that truckers still didn’t have a minimum wage created the issue as it stands today: Many truckers are paid by the mile, but they are limited in how many hours they can work. To earn a comfortable wage means there’s an implied and incentivized race against the clock. This, of course, is a dangerous combination on the open road.

ELDs are attached to the engine and can set very firm boundaries on how long the truck can be in operation and when it’s time for a mandated break. The FMCSA estimates that ELDs will lead to 1,844 fewer crashes and 26 prevented deaths every year.

The issue, says Karen Levy, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University and author of Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance, is that ELDs don’t address what she believes is the actual root cause of fatigue-related crashes or unsafe driving.

According to Levy, these problems can be traced back to the standard pay structure for long-haul truckers, which is compensation for miles driven. There’s a common saying in the trucking industry, “If the wheels ain’t turning, you ain’t earning.” The issue with this is that there are tasks inherent to the job—getting gas, loading the truck, unloading the truck—that take place when the truck is stationary. As the saying implies, money isn’t earned during these periods, even if they take hours. This can incentivize driving longer without breaks than is safe. 

“One of the things that has really been striking to me is it can’t really be overstated how fundamentally dependent we are on this system that hardly works,” says Levy.

A truck dashboard with an ELD screen. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Not only do ELDs not solve the problem, says Levy, they could even make it worse. Firm constraints on driving time, while the pay structure remains based on distance traveled, means that drivers are implicitly encouraged to drive faster and more recklessly to maximize their mileage within the allotted time.

“We haven’t changed the economic structure of the industry or the rules,” says Levy. “All we changed is how they are monitored.”

It’s only been a few years since the 2017 mandate, but one study suggests that accident rates haven’t gotten better yet and might have even gotten worse.

One of the reasons for this, says Levy, is that it takes the flexibility out of the work. She gives a hypothetical:

Before, if you had 11 hours to get somewhere, and it takes you 11 hours and 10 minutes, it’s not a big deal. That’s just part of being on the road.

But, with an ELD, if you have 11 hours to get somewhere and taking a minute over would put you in violation, you might handle that drive differently.

“You’re probably going to drive much more recklessly, much faster, you’re not going to take the time to go get a cup of coffee if you feel like you need it,” says Levy. “You’re not going to stop and check on something that sounds weird on your truck.”

And, at the end of the allotted drive time, the trucker might not be anywhere near a place they can pull over to rest. If they drive further looking for a truck stop, they risk being in violation. In response to a request for comments on ELD regulation updates by the FMCSA in 2022, an anonymous trucker voiced their concern.

“In my honest opinion since ELD there has been more accidents because drivers are always being forced to race the clock so they can get loaded/unloaded and to [the] next pickup or safe spot to sleep for the night because they are out of hours.”

Another commenter agreed, saying that the ELDs make it harder for drivers to take breaks when they need them. And if they hit traffic, construction or unreliable road conditions, the driver loses miles and hours.

“We keep getting told that these laws, [these] rules are put in place to make it easier and safer for the driver. In doing so, it makes it harder.”

The road ahead

There’s a path forward, says Levy, but it’s got to go beyond just technology. “I don’t think there’s a tweak we could make to the ELD that would solve all the truckers’ problems,” says Levy. Safer roads probably require an approach that focuses more on trucker pay and labor rights. Trevor Ralphs, in a comment response to the FMCSA prompt, echoed Levy’s point about trucker pay structure.

“If you really want to make driving more safe for not only truck drivers but everyone else on the road, you would make it so that truck drivers are all paid hourly. This would make sure truck drivers are not in a rush to make the most money but instead they are taking things slow, steady and safe because you will be paid more for your time.”

Trucks at a truck stop in Missouri. (Photo: Shutterstock)

While the industry pay regulations haven’t changed, some companies have started shifting toward time-based pay in the ELD era. Nathaniel Hosea writes in response to the FMCSA prompt:

“I personally like ELDs as a company driver, it keeps everything organized and I get a[n] hourly pa[y] now. Before ELDs, I got paid CPM [cents per mile] and lost lots of money waiting time in stopped traffic and not being paid at warehouses. Finally, with ELDs and hourly pay, I don’t have to be pressured to speed and driving unsafe to deliver loads.” 

Hosea goes on to say that driving per mile should be a thing of the past. “There should be a law to end CPM [cents per mile] wage payments, traffic is too congested today to make any money on CPM.” 

We should remove the trucker exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act, so that truckers can be paid more fairly, says Levy.

“I think, fundamentally, the problems in the industry are political and economic,” says Levy. “Truckers don’t have the political power to successfully argue for labor rights that would really make us all safer.”

More broadly, says Levy, there’s been a cultural shift from seeing truckers as the heroes of the highway to seeing them as on the fringes of society. But, at the end of the day, our country—and our food system—would not function without long-haul truckers and the work that they do. 

“Building dignity back into the job,” says Levy—not barring them from using business bathrooms or filming them constantly—“those are good places to start.”

***

Interested in learning more about this topic?

You can find Levy’s book here: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691175300/data-driven

Truckers are paid a little differently than most other professions. A breakdown of why can be found in this article from FleetOwner. For a longer history of the trucking industry, check out this podcast called On the Move.

The post Driven Out appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Using farmland for solar panels, especially in the agriculture-heavy Midwest, is fraught with controversy. “There is concern that solar energy will prevent land from being used for farming,” says Matt O’Neal, professor of entomology and Henry A. Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University.

What if the two could co-exist?

A new study underway at Iowa State University seeks to answer that question.

“Solar panels don’t have to be disruptive. It doesn’t mean farming the land has to stop,” says O’Neal. “We want to look at possibilities and profitability.”

A multi-disciplinary team of ISU professors, graduate and undergraduate students is working with Alliant Energy through a public-private partnership to study the potential of agrivoltaics, the simultaneous use of areas of land for both solar panels and agriculture. The team includes horticulturalists, economists, environmentalists, sociologists, engineers and even entomologists.

The project is the first of its kind. “There has been research conducted, but not on a utility scale,” says Nick Peterson, Strategic Partnerships Manager with Alliant Energy, “and not in a public/private partnership with a land grant university.”

There has also been little research conducted in the Midwest, the heart of agriculture, where farmland is gold.

The solar farm

Alliant Energy completed construction on the 10-acre Alliant Energy Solar Farm on the ISU research farms near Ames, Iowa in the fall of 2023. Managed by the ISU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the research farms are used to study livestock production and the agriculture industry.

Alliant designed, built, owns and will operate and maintain the 3,300 solar panels and 16 inverters at an ultimate estimated cost of around $4 million.

The ISU team will plant fruits and vegetables beneath and among the panels to measure not only plant growth but the effect on energy production.

“One of the questions before the electrical engineers is the effect of the vegetation on the panels,” says Peterson. “Engineers know from previous study, particularly out of Colorado, that panels that are cooled can absorb more energy. What we’re studying now is how different types of panels and vegetation impact energy production.”

The solar array consists of two types of panels—fixed and single access tracker. 

Fixed panels are like those often found on rooftops. As the name implies, they stay in one fixed position. For scientific method purposes, the lowest edge of the panel sits at two heights, five feet or 2.5 feet. 

Tracker panels move with the sun. They are placed at five or eight feet. All panels are bi-facial, meaning they absorb sunlight on both sides.

Horticulturalists are growing raspberries, strawberries, summer squash, peppers and broccoli, along with control grasses. The first of the raspberries and the grass mix went in this fall. The remainder of the crops will be planted in the spring. 

Traditional Iowa crops such as corn and soybeans were avoided due to the need for large equipment and the small acreage. 

Issues such as harvest timing and growing season will be studied, as well as climatic impacts. O’Neal sees specific varieties eventually being developed for the environment.

The harvested crops will be sold to the university’s dining halls.

The crops, along with flowering perennials, were chosen with natural attraction of pollinators in mind, and the project will include beehives, with researchers studying how the bees develop and what kind of honey they produce. Other projects in various parts of the country have utilized sheep grazing in their agrivoltaics, but livestock was ruled out at ISU due to limited area and water availability.

“Bees are livestock, too,” says O’Neal.

More questions

While the bees, plants and energy production are under study, sociologists and economists will weigh in.

Sociologists will study public perception of agrivoltaics and solar power in general. Researchers will look at how such a project could affect a community and will track how information based on science leads to future community decisions.

“There are valid concerns about how land will be used in the future,” says O’Neal. “People are leery about ag land being used for recreation, urban development or energy production.” Wildlife conservation is a concern, including pollinators. Some see solar arrays as disruptive to agriculture, Iowa’s top industry. “This project will give the public a chance to see if various modifications to a solar farm make these sitings more palatable.”

“The bottom line is this is Iowa, and we should be growing things,” says Peterson. “For us to be good stewards of our customers, we need to be looking at how we can maximize land use.”

For Alliant Energy, the economics of power production are front and center. Peterson says 52 percent of Alliant’s energy comes from a mix of renewable sources such as wind and solar. The rest comes from natural gas and a few remaining coal plants set to retire by 2040.

A three-person economics team will study the cost and profitability of the solar farm. “Every step can be costly,” says Hongli Feng, assistant professor at the ISU Department of Economics, “from the land to the ground preparation, to the seeds and equipment and labor.” 

Based on the cost tracking, the team will create an enterprise budget tool for farmers and solar field developers.

The basic business model is based on reality. 

“The land lease agreement between ISU and Alliant Energy follows what landowners might experience if the energy company chooses a site on their land,” says O’Neal. “We want to look at what that relationship would be like.”

“Much of the existing research is regionally specific,” adds Feng. “We need to see how it applies to Iowa and the Midwest.”

The partnership

Alliant Energy has been active in research conducted by ISU’s Electric Power Resource Center for more than 60 years. According to EPRC director Anne Kimber, the center’s research focuses on integrating renewable energy into the existing structure that wasn’t designed for it.

In addition to the ongoing research, Iowa State University has a five-year strategic plan for operational sustainability, which includes goals for tripling the use of renewable energies and ultimately, carbon neutrality.

“ISU called Alliant to explore what sustainable energy production on the research farm might look like,” says Peterson. “ISU has added several new facilities to its research farm in recent years, including a feed mill and a turkey teaching and research facility. These projects give students the opportunity to learn agriculture and the agriculture industry firsthand, but they come with operating costs.”

The Alliant Energy Solar Farm will produce 1.375 MW of power at maximum capacity, enough to power the equivalent of around 200 homes. The renewable energy ISU receives will offset a portion of the university’s annual carbon emissions.

That alone is a pragmatic goal. But Ray Klein, director of partnerships at Iowa State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, saw more opportunity. He proposed leveraging the project for academic and ag industry research.

The result was a four-year, $1.8-million grant from the US Department of Energy, the largest grant awarded by the agency for such a project.

The research

Iowa State University is a land-grant teaching college, and the project includes surveys, seminars and field days to share findings with agriculture producers and the public through Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.

“When we first started this, ISU’s priority was that they be able to share what we learned,” says Peterson.

The information may be especially useful in the growing farm-to-table sector of ag production, where producers often operate on smaller tracts of land and sell locally, and food produced in agrivoltaics systems may more immediately go into local food systems impacting food availability.

“Local food systems are the next level of diversity in ag,” says Peterson. “This opens up a new avenue for farming that is coupled with renewable energy. I’m hoping we can develop the research base to show if agrivoltaics is viable, profitable and sustainable for this part of the world.”

“This is unbiased research,” adds Ajay Nair, an ISU professor of horticulture. “We will report what we find, and people can decide whether this is a system that is feasible or not.”

Kimber sees benefits beyond food and energy. “There are a lot of communities who are thinking about community solar arrays,” she says. “Imagine if the community also gets to have gardens associated with those arrays? You’re starting to build community around that. I think that’s worth working on.”

The post Crop and Energy Production Merge in Iowa Project appeared first on Modern Farmer.