Alone, the task would have taken Aiello the better part of a day; together, the group covers the whole field in barely more than two hours. This is the beauty of a farmer support network, like Rooted Northwest. 

Rooted Northwest is a 240-acre piece of land which hosts a growing number of farmers, including Aiello, with collaboration and farmer support at the center of their operation, similar to an agri-hood. 

“Farmers rely on communities, and communities rely on farmers,” says Aiello. “We work closely together, we share infrastructure, we share equipment, we help each other out.” 

As a family farmer running a commercial business, Aiello says going it alone just isn’t a realistic possibility. And soon, he’ll have even more neighbors with whom he can collaborate.

In December, the Rooted Northwest Agrivillage Preliminary Plat was approved by Snohomish County. Thanks to a new ordinance passed in 2023, Rooted Northwest will be able to tightly concentrate new homes on less acreage than is typically allowed by county building code. This will allow the project to preserve at least 200 acres of working farmland. If successful, this experiment could become a replicable model for farmland conservation.

The ordinance

The Rooted Northwest land, ringed by trees, has only a few reminders of the centennial dairy it once was, including a handful of lingering structures and a small manure lagoon. The land sits about an hour north of Seattle in Snohomish County, which struggles from two problems that often feel at odds — the loss of viable farmland to development, and the need for more housing for its residents.

Despite its long tenure as farmland, the former Tillman Dairy was actually zoned residential. This made the land attractive to developers and drove up the price above what most farmers could afford to pay. When the land went up for sale, it was a risk of being converted away from agriculture. 

“It certainly wasn’t going to be something that was affordable to another farmer,” says Dave Boehnlein, one of the founders of Rooted Northwest.

After securing a bank loan and purchasing the land for $3.5 million in 2020, Boehnlein worked with Snohomish County to pass the Rural Village Housing Demonstration Program ordinance in 2023. This will allow them to build 40 homes in one corner of the property, and 30 in another, while conserving at least 85 percent of the land for farming. The ordinance is scheduled to last for a few years, as a way for the county to try it out.

“We are really hoping that this becomes a model, that this can be essentially a case study that other people, other counties, other jurisdictions can look at and say, ‘here is a novel way that we can use development as a tool to preserve land,’” Boehnlein says.

Rooted Northwest hopes to break ground on construction of village one in 2025, with 14 of the 40 available homes already spoken for. Not all residents of the onsite homes will be farmers, says Boehnlein. 

The prices for the homes will not be determined until the project goes out to bid, but the smallest two-bedroom units will likely be around $850,000 and the larger four-bedroom ones are in the ballpark of $1.8 million. These prices account for the cost of the house, but also the acreage preserved for farming.

“Let’s prove that this works.”

Boehnlein hopes that after they have proof of concept in place with the first group of homes, they’ll be able to find programs that will support affordability for more farmers to buy into the second village.

“The whole picture here is, at the end of the day, can we use the development of these neighborhoods to generate the money that pays for this land and puts it into protection in perpetuity, while tightly concentrating those homes in what essentially is a traditional village context,” says Boehnlein.

Cohousing in the US

Rooted Northwest is already a functioning farm, but in its final form, it will also be a cohousing community. It will join the ranks of a larger movement of communal housing in the United States.

Cohousing consists of tightly concentrated homes with shared communal spaces, such as outdoor areas or communal kitchens. They are self-organized and self-governing. There are some 180 cohousing communities in the US, with 140 more at some stage of development, says Trish Becker, executive director of the Cohousing Association of the United States. As with Rooted Northwest, one of the biggest hurdles these communities face is zoning challenges, she says. 

Becker, who helped start the cohousing community she currently lives in in the Denver area, cites many benefits of cohousing, such as knowing after a long day of work that there will be food already made if you ask for it, or knowing who can care for your pets when you leave town. 

“But then beyond all of those day-to-day details, I just think that when we experience a sense of belonging, specifically within communities of proximity, that we are more likely to pursue fulfilling endeavors,” says Becker. “We are better when we feel connected and supported, and especially when our basic needs are met.”

The Cohousing Association of the United States exists to support the cohousing movement by sharing resources and education, and working on some of the things that Becker perceives as other key obstacles in the larger cohousing landscape, such as the lack of racial diversity and the high cost of entry. 

“To build cohousing is no more affordable than to build any type of housing,” says Becker. “Struggles that are faced by housing overall are faced by cohousing, and that’s a challenge.”

Conservation

One thing that sets Rooted Northwest apart from other cohousing communities is its focus on conserving farmland and supporting farmers. As community members worked together to sheet mulch Aiello’s farm, they used shared rakes, shovels, and wheelbarrows. Aiello drives a shared tractor. 

The farming model of Rooted Northwest is an extension of the cohousing sense of community — it’s not just the land that is shared, but resources and infrastructure that are costly to purchase on one’s own. Beyond tools, this also includes critical infrastructure such as onsite cold storage, a refrigerated van, a greenhouse for plant starts, and washing facilities.

Boehnlein says they’ve worked extensively with the Snohomish Conservation District. In one instance, the Snohomish Conservation District received a grant to explore agroforestry as a solution to farming wet ground. Rooted Northwest is home to one of their test sites — about a three-acre chunk of the farm is now an alley cropping system, wherein hay is being grown among lines of aronia berries, hazelnuts, elderberries, pawpaws, and more. Through another grant received by the Snohomish Conservation District, they’re experimenting with agroforestry by planting in the understory of the trees. About a half acre of land on the eastern side of the farm will feature tea plants grown by one of Rooted Northwest’s farmers just beneath some big leaf maples. Boehnlein’s hope is that not only can they conserve farmland, they can share what they learn with others. In the coming years, Rooted Northwest will be the pilot of a housing ordinance that could protect farmland, and experiment with ways of farming effectively. It doesn’t have to be housing versus farmland, Boehnlein says. It can be both.

“Let’s prove that this works.”

The post A Washington Cohousing Project Could Help Preserve Farmland appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“Farming in America in particular, but also commercially and globally, it’s based on exploitation and making as much money for as little as you can pay. And we have to turn that around in a big way,” says Sasha Shankar, one of the farm directors.

Our food system relies on the security of small farms, but these farms face many obstacles—including land access, access to business resources, and access to buyers. To counter those challenges, Dig Deep Farms has entered into a partnership with the Alameda County Community Food Bank (ACCFB) as a way to accomplish its goals. For the next two to three years, ACCFB will provide institutional support, such as assuming the lease agreements for the farm locations. This will allow Dig Deep Farms to focus on growing a sustainable business, one that will stand on its own in just a few years.

Shifting priorities

Many people think of food banks as a place simply to get a meal. But in the several decades that the Alameda County Community Food Bank has been in operation, the organization has moved beyond hunger relief to addressing poverty systemically. 

“ACCFB has a long history of not addressing hunger in a vacuum or addressing food insecurity in a transactional way, but really wanting to look at those root causes and think about how we can offer solutions to hunger at that root cause level,” says Allison Pratt, chief of strategy and partnerships for ACCFB. “We took a look at how much money we were spending each year on food…and we realized that where we placed those dollars actually does make a difference in the food system.” 

“One of the frames that we’re working with as a food bank is our desire to move from a kind of food charity model, or exclusively a food charity model, to a food justice model,” says Susie Wise, ACCFB director of strategy. “Our understanding of where our food comes from, who grows it, who has resources in order to become farmers—these are aspects of bringing a food justice lens to our work.” 

For them, this manifests in several different ways—for example, ACCFB team members went to Washington D.C. to lobby Congress for anti-hunger policies in the Farm Bill. Now, they are also investing in a farm that they see doing important work to strengthen the food system.

Dig Deep Farms was cofounded in 2010 as a social enterprise project by Martin Neideffer Hilary Bass. The farm’s mission has stretched beyond the act of growing food, to strengthening the community’s food system. For example, it has been a part of the local food as medicine initiative Recipe4Health, which integrates food into the treatment and prevention of chronic illness. One of Dig Deep Farms’ key ongoing priorities is paying employees a living wage and providing similar benefits to other jobs, to make farming a viable profession. 

“One of the reasons why folks are not entering the field, they’re hearing [there’s] no money to be made,” says Troy Horton, one of the farm directors. “They can’t make a living. It’s backbreaking work. And then if we go to those historically underserved, underrepresented folks, it’s even more grim. One of the things. Our primary focus was trying to create a real living wage for folks doing it.”

For the next few years, ACCFB will “incubate” Dig Deep Farms by assuming the lease agreements of Dig Deep Farms’ two farm sites, plus providing logistical, human resource, and financial support.

While a partnership between a farm and a food bank is not common, this partnership can become an example for others. 

“The incubator concept invites food banks to consider that question—what does it take to end hunger, in addition to continuing to grow food banks? What are the other pieces of our food system that are going to be vital if we’re actually going to achieve our mission?” says Pratt. “Supporting farmers and supporting equity in how our food is produced, creating economic activity through those channels, all helps to create a system where people have access to what they need.”

Horton points out that one of the big obstacles facing small farmers is the lack of support they get in comparison to large commodity crop farmers. Finding pathways to support, through partnerships, grants, and more, can strengthen small farms.

“That’s what we’re always preaching—us urban farmers or small farmers need to be subsidized, just like the big farmers,” says Horton.

The post The Farm and the Food Bank appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“It’s always been part of what we do,” he says.

In 2018, California voters passed Prop 12, one of the most notable animal welfare laws in recent history. One of the key components of Prop 12, which went into full effect in January 2024, is that it prohibits the use of gestation crates (which are used in conventional hog farming) for pork to be sold in California. Instead, sows must be given 24 square feet per animal to move around. In gestation crates, also known as sow stalls, sows can stand up but not turn around. They cannot walk or move around. Temple Grandin, a well-known and reputable animal rights researcher, has famously compared it to a human living their entire life in an airplane seat. 

For Wurtz, this was all he’d ever known. His hogs were raised in these stalls, as were his father’s before him. But he felt interested in Prop 12 because, if his farm could be compliant, he could sell his pork at a premium, leading to a more viable business for him and his family. 

He is part of a group of 12 farming families that together invested $11.6 million to become Prop 12 compliant. No more gestation crates on his farm—all his sows enjoy more space. He makes a premium for his pork in California. He makes his debt payments. His pigs are better off, and so is he.

“We’re not animal activists, we’re just farmers,” he says.

But the US House of Representatives has passed a Farm Bill draft that could undo everything.

While animal welfare activists had lauded Prop 12, the law drew a strong negative reaction from some members of the pork industry. The House Farm Bill reflected their complaints, including language originally from the EATS Act that specifically targets the pork industry. This language would make it illegal for a state to put requirements on how hogs in other states must be raised. 

If passed, the Farm Bill would essentially walk back Prop 12, making the welfare requirements irrelevant. More than that, it would inhibit the ability of any state to make local laws about hog welfare as it affects interstate commerce.

As Wurtz knows, though, this isn’t only an animal rights issue. Farmers like him who have already invested in becoming Prop 12 compliant will be left in the lurch—holding a competitive edge for a market that could deflate overnight. 

“We all put in absolutely everything we had,” he says. “This has the potential to bankrupt us.”

Joining together

Wurtz’s farm is one of hundreds of registered distributors who are Prop 12 compliant to sell in California, and it is one of more than  75 hog farms that sell to True Story Foods. True Story Foods was founded by Phil Gatto and Russ Kremer.

“I’m a lifelong farmer, [a] fifth-generation pig farmer from Osage County, Missouri,” says Kremer, now head of farm partnerships. “That’s all I ever wanted to do.”

A few decades ago, long before Prop 12 came about, Kremer started a cooperative with several other farmers who were  “passionate about raising pigs the right way, in a very humane nature, producing pork that was good for consumers,” he says. After he met Gatto in 2007, this cooperative became the network of farms supplying what they called True Story Foods.

All of the farms that supply True Story Foods are gestation crate-free, meaning the pigs are always able to walk and turn around, simple things that aren’t possible in gestation crates. When Prop 12 was passed in California, True Story Foods was poised to meet demands. Prop 12 has commonly been framed as a burden on the industry, but Gatto sees it as the opposite.

“It opens up the opportunity for a marketplace they did not have before,” says Gatto. “We were finding out that, in California and Massachusetts, consumers are looking for welfare, but they’re also willing to pay a little premium, or a reasonable premium for that welfare.”

Going to Washington

The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) has been strongly and publicly against Prop 12. Although the council didn’t respond to Modern Farmer’s requests for comment, itswebsite states that Prop 12 is a burden on small farmers who can’t make the changes, and it enables factory farms that can.

“Large companies can afford the cost burdens of Prop 12—but small family farmers will be crushed by it,” says the NPPC website. “Prop 12 will lead to consolidation, with bigger, corporate interests gaining a larger piece of the industry.”

The council’s resistance to Prop 12 made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments for the case in 2022, in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross. There, representation for the NPPC argued that Prop 12 unfairly increases the burden on producers, but the Supreme Court justices decided that the burden of compliance was not any greater for other states than it is for California.

In the end, the Supreme Court ruled affirming the constitutionality of Prop 12. Now, it all comes down to the Farm Bill, the current version of which expired on September 30, 2024.

Because Prop 12 deals with the humane treatment of animals, it is largely thought of as an issue championed by animal rights groups. True Story Foods argues that this is also an issue of farmer livelihood.

“This isn’t necessarily an animal rights issue where people from urban areas are coming in and trying to tell farmers back in the Midwest how to raise hogs,” says Kremer. “This is a response from producers that say ‘I love raising hogs, and I love raising them the right way.’”

For farmers like Wurtz, who’ve adapted their operations to be Prop 12 compliant, EATS Act language in the Farm Bill could hurt their business. Brand manager McKiernan Flaherty of True Story Foods says they can see the danger to many of the farms with which they work.

“I think just within our farms that we have that are across Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri, and Nebraska, we’re going to see that absolutely occur. A lot of these farmers are in communities that are in rural parts of America where farming is really one of a few industries that is maybe supporting that community and is really the backbone of that community. So, not only will those farmers be affected, but one of the few industries that is keeping individuals in that community will then lose viability.” 

Although so much of Prop 12’s history has been framed as animal rights activists versus farmers, the way this legislation has played out has made it clear that those lines are not actually true.

“We’re presenting the dissenting voice within the pork industry,” says Holly Bice, president and founder of Bice Policy Group, part of the True Story Foods team.

“We’re the pork industry, and we’re for Prop 12.”

The post Prop 12 Was a Landmark Animal Rights Law. Repealing it Could Hurt Farmers. appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) of swine impact the air in Sampson County. Not only is the smell overwhelming, but the odor is an indicator of what these facilities are emitting—dangerous substances such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. CAFOs are densely populated in communities of color in eastern North Carolina, and the pollution and impact of them has been on the books for decades. The issue, and the environmental justice advocates in the community who have spoken out against it, are well documented in the film “The Smell of Money.” 

The EPA has air sensors deployed around the country to monitor air quality. When there’s documented pollution, it can enable the government to hold polluters accountable. But rural areas can get overlooked when it comes to air quality measurements—in Sampson County there is a gap in data collection. One of the aims of this project is to make the case for a federal air monitor in the county. 

“One of the end goals is to advocate for a federal air monitor within the county,” says Wall, Community Science Manager for CleanAIRE NC. “And that’s actually something that we’ve been able to do in the past.”

CAFOs and Air Pollution

On a broad scale, very large-scale industrial livestock operations (with tens of thousands of animals) have been getting away with air pollution for a long time. 

“These facilities have not been required to report their air emissions for almost two decades,” says Carrie Apfel, deputy managing attorney for the Sustainable Food & Farming Program at Earthjustice. 

This exemption to the Clean Air Act can be traced back to a consent agreement made between the EPA and thousands of hog CAFOs in the early aughts. The EPA decided it needed to establish reporting methodologies for CAFOs in order to enforce emissions regulations—and so it traded legal immunity to some of the country’s biggest producers in exchange for a few years of data collection. Those few years came and went, producing very little useful data. Two decades later, CAFOs still get a free pass to pollute the air.

Meanwhile, a study from 2021 reports that agriculture leads to 17,900 air quality-related deaths every year in the US. This has been an urgent environmental justice issue for decades now, but the EPA is no closer to regulating air emissions from CAFOs.

Organizations such as Earthjustice have been working to hold the government accountable. It sued the EPA, challenging the reporting exemption for CAFOs under EPCRA as unlawful. This is one of the few statutes that would give the public the right to this reported information. Part of the resistance, says Apfel, has come from the idea that this will burden small farmers with having to figure out their emissions impact. But it won’t —this law would only affect the largest of operations, a small percentage overall.

“There’s a lot of mythology out there about where our food comes from and what these CAFOs are and are not, and I think that Big Ag does everything it can to keep it that way,” says Apfel. “I think that a lot of this is a narrative battle just trying to explain that these are not farms…They’re factories, and they don’t resemble anything like farms.”

While big wheels turn, Sampson County is taking action.

Community-driven data collection

CleanAire NC has seen success with its air quality work before, in Charlotte, NC.

Charlotte’s Historic West End endured redlining—the practice of banks refusing loans to communities of color. This contributed to multiple polluting industries moving into the area and impacting air quality. Residents wanted to know to what extent. So, community members approached CleanAIRE NC.

Residents and ClearnAIRE NC partnered to install PurpleAir sensors at peoples’ homes. The air sensors automatically track and record air quality, mainly through measuring particulate matter in the air. You can see the dashboard of operating air sensors here.

But measuring particulate matter presents a limited picture, and that’s where volunteer airkeepers come in. When levels get high, they can record their observations of what they see and smell and they can take pictures and videos. This will help the data set reflect the differences between highway emissions, CAFO pollution, rock dust from a quarry, and more.

“Particulate matter is so variable, and so it’s hard to pinpoint what might be going on at a specific time,” says Wall. 

Thanks to the data collected by these air sensors, Mecklenburg County Air Quality installed an air sensor. 

Community leaders and CleanAIRE NC have partnered on other efforts to create a green district in the Historic West End, such as planting trees, installing electric vehicle chargers, and supporting green infrastructure.

Now, 30 sensors have been deployed in Sampson County. Just as the work in Charlotte’s Historic West End has been driven by community questions, input, and resources so, too, will be the work in Sampson County.

“That’s a way that we’re trying to fill the gap between these researchers that are coming in to be a part of our project, and maintaining our values on engaging communities,” says Wall.

The post In Eastern North Carolina, Community Science Aims to Fill an Air Quality Gap appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“I was surprised and dismayed to find that climate change was barely mentioned except for the usual nostrums that pass for addressing the environment: water, recycling, reusing, and the like. I don’t think that food disruption is just a vague possibility, I think it is inevitable, and that communities should be preparing for it.” 

Food security, at its core is, access to affordable, nutritious, culturally appropriate foods. It involves a high degree of choice—the freedom to pick between different options. Food insecurity is when that choice and that access are taken away. Moreover, food insecurity disproportionately affects traditionally underserved communities.

And the reader who wrote to us is correct: Climate change, and the more frequent and fierce natural disasters associated with climate change, are proven to increase food insecurity. It can disrupt access to food, or exacerbate existing inequalities. In June and July, Hurricane Beryl caused power outages for hundreds of thousands of people in Texas, resulting in widespread food spoilage. Months after the 2023 firestorm in Maui, thousands of people were still living in emergency shelter accommodations, relying on Red Cross meals and lacking the ability to cook their own food. In California, 2023’s catastrophic atmospheric rivers endangered the jobs of farmworkers, who already face high levels of food insecurity due to low wages and other factors. 

And right now, communities in the American Southeast are dealing with the repercussions of Hurricane Helene. 

There are a lot of independent organizations that address this intersection head-on. But how can people like our reader encourage their local governments to follow suit? Across the country, communities are addressing this question in different ways. 

Palm Springs, CA

Four hundred and fifty miles away from Sierra Vista, California’s Palm Springs is a city of a similar size, with around 45,000 people. Heat and drought are top concerns in this desert town. Palm Springs has a Sustainability Plan, meant to inform future planning in the city, that directly mentions food security along with renewable energy, water conservation, and more. While Palm Springs has a reputation as a vacation destination, the income disparities in the Coachella Valley are some of the highest in the state. Christian Wheeler, climate and sustainability specialist for the city of Palm Springs, says that there is food insecurity in Palm Springs. 

“Already in the city, we have a road and, below the road, there’s a lot of grocery stores, but above it, there’s not really any grocery stores,” says Wheeler. “So, [the city] already knew that there was inequitable access to food in general, and then climate change is not going to help that.”

Food deserts—areas without access to affordable and nutritious food—demonstrate that there doesn’t need to be a specific weather event for climate change to impact food security. Having to travel further to the grocery store can quickly become unsafe in extreme heat if you don’t have access to a car. And in Palm Springs, where temperatures regularly reach above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, heat exposure is a big concern.

Palm Springs doesn’t grow or produce its own food. One of the things the city is looking into is how to incentivize more local food growth through zoning. 

“We are currently in the process of updating our zoning code,” says Wheeler. “You can incentivize this through landscaping requirements…dedicated to edible food, herbs and different things like that. You can also zone for urban agriculture, because in some cities, it’s a little bit hard with the zoning—it’s not really made for someone to do farming in the middle of the city.”

This is replicable in other places, says Wheeler. Most cities have some kind of landscape requirements; it’s just about gearing them toward food production. Updating those existing requirements with edible food requisites could be one way to get more food closer to home.

They are also expanding their community gardens. Being a smaller city, one of the challenges is just getting the word out.

“Since we’re a smaller city, we don’t necessarily have community organizations that are focused on urban agriculture, so we kind of have to do our own outreach,” says Wheeler.

Phoenix, AZ

Phoenix is in the same state as Sierra Vista, but it is a major metropolitan area. When writing its Food Action Plan, published in early 2020 with the goal of making healthy food available for all, it made a GIS map of food deserts. This made it easy to show council members vulnerabilities in their districts.

“As we start to roll out programs, we really start to look at food desert areas,” says Rosanne Albright, environmental programs manager for the City of Phoenix.

Phoenix has a climate action plan that uses items from its food action plan. In Phoenix, climate threats include heat and strain on water. Around a third of the city gets its water from the Colorado River, a dwindling water source.

The food security part of this plan aims to increase local food production—on rural farms, city farms, backyard gardens and community gardens.

“We also knew that our local farmers really are some of the best in the country, because they know how to farm given our extreme heat and our water situation. So, that alone let us know that if we could increase that we’re not only going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but we’re going to be able to provide more food, healthier food, all of those things all at once.”

Another facet of this plan focuses on the distribution side—getting local food into the local market. This is challenging because farmers can’t sell their products locally if those pathways are not already established.

“That distribution can go to it staying here, rather than getting exported elsewhere and reduce the need for us to import food here,” says Albright.

Many of Phoenix’s food programming got put on the spot immediately. Right after the plan was approved in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began. As cities began receiving disaster funding, many struggled to know how to use it most effectively. Phoenix began plugging it into the food programs it had just developed. 

“We were able to go beyond just providing funding to food banks, [and] really creating this network,” says Albright.

The network proved to be very useful, because it allowed people in the food system to have a direct government ear to let officials know when something was impeding the path to a more resilient local food system. Producers that wanted to try innovative things to bolster local food production such as vertical farming, growing in storage containers and more were hitting permitting roadblocks. It was through this network that they learned about critical gaps in zoning code. In the next year, they’re hoping to have some of these zoning amendments addressed.

“Our zoning codes did not have all the current definitions of agriculture,” says Albright. “They don’t consider solar panels. There’s lots of things that we didn’t even know about. And now we do because we have that pipeline directly to those farmers. So, that network, we’ve learned, is really important.”

Ashland, OR

Ashland, a city near the border of Oregon and California, has seen the linkage between climate change and food security play out in recent memory. In 2020, the Almeda fire burned more than 3,000 acres, forcing evacuations from the surrounding area and destroying more than 2,500 homes.

Published in 2017, the Ashland Climate & Energy Action Plan lacks measurable food security goals, says Bryan Sohl, who served on the committee that wrote the plan. But after the fires occurred, food security conversations have changed in Ashland and the surrounding areas.

Rogue Food Unites, a nonprofit organization, was formed during the fires. Although it began responding to the direct need for immediate relief, it has expanded its programming to include things that can increase local food security, such as a mobile free farmers market, where insecure families can access fresh food, and creating freeze-dried ready-to-eat meals for disaster preparedness.

When the Almeda fire happened, Stu O’Neill’s house became a drop site for donations. In the years since, he’s joined Rogue Food Unites as chief financial officer. The connections the group has formed locally—with farmers, restaurants, and food-insecure individuals—poise Rogue Food Unites to best serve the community in future crises.

“And yet, we know, because of climate change and how things are happening in our communities, and the impacts of climate change for us, it’s kind of a matter of when, not if, and we hope to be strong and ready and have our community stronger and more ready to respond the next time something bad happens,” says O’Neill. “We really do feel that the resilience of being able to respond to future disasters comes from having a strong local food system.”

Now, Rogue Food Unites is working on creating a replicable blueprint of its work, so that others can put it into action in their communities.

“We’ve been talking to a number of different communities around Oregon who are interested in replicating our market model in their community,” says O’Neill. “We’re really interested in seeing more communities adopt this sort of food insecurity initiative.”

As for folks who want their city’s plan to reflect the relationship between food security and climate change more explicitly, bringing food security to the attention of officials is helpful.

“Coming up in the mid [to] late fall, we’ll be doing our annual work plan for our committee,” says Sohl. “And I think one thing to bring back to my committee is like, hey, what are we doing about food security?”

In Your Community

While there are many great independent organizations doing work around food security and climate change, you can also encourage your local government representatives to address the issue. Many city government meetings are open to the public, either in person or on Zoom, and will accept written or spoken public comments. Based on the perspectives in this article, here are some questions to bring with you for a starting point:

-What is our city doing to plan for climate change-induced food insecurity?

-Does the zoning in our city encourage local food production? Or does it actively inhibit it? How?

-Who is doing food security work in our area? 

-Where are the food deserts located in our community? How is our city working to address these accessibility issues?

How is your community planning for climate-induced or exacerbated food insecurity? Let us know in the comments.

The post City Planning for Food Security in the Face of Climate Change appeared first on Modern Farmer.

What she didn’t realize was that he was also against the factory farm system, having experienced first-hand the way it abuses farmers. What unfolded in the years after their first meeting was an initiative called The Transfarmation Project, which today works to help former contract farmers transition away from this system and into sustainable agriculture.

In her new book, Transfarmation: The Movement to Free Us from Factory Farming, Garcés takes a holistic approach to framing the issue of industrial animal agriculture. Not only does she detail animal rights abuses, she explores how factory farms create living and work conditions for humans that are unacceptable by any standard. Garcés takes the reader to North Carolina, Iowa, Texas, and beyond. She shows us what the conditions are like for animals and workers in slaughterhouses, and how living near hog farm sprayfields means you’ll inevitably have pig feces inside your home. 

In this book, Garcés shows that a more sustainable food system will never result from a fragmented approach, but requires a holistic view on the well-being of communities across the country.

Transfarmation: The Movement to Free Us From Factory Farming is available for purchase now. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Modern Farmer: You begin this book by recounting your first meeting with Craig Watts, a former contract poultry farmer. Historically, animal activists and contract farmers have been on opposite sides of the factory farming issue. But instead of finding an enemy in Craig, you found an ally. Can you tell me about how this discovery changed your perspective on how to fight the industrial animal agriculture system?

Leah Garcés: Before I met Craig, I was a vegan animal rights activist had perceived contract farmers, poultry farmers, in one way: They’re the enemy—they’re to blame. And through a mutual journalist, I was able to make contact with him and [was] eventually invited onto his farm to see his chicken farming practice.

And I went in there with the idea that I was going to go in, get footage and get out. But when I got there, everything changed. We sat down and started talking, and he has twins that are the same age as my oldest son. It turned out he hated factory farming as much as I did. And this, I realized, was my biggest blind spot I’d ever had in all of my activism, ever. And as I listened to him, I realized I had overlooked a very important ally. 

And then that made me realize, how many other allies have I overlooked? It absolutely transformed my strategy and activism. My job after that became about building bridges to other folks, other stakeholders, other groups. And I was most curious about the ones that I perceived as my enemy, and most curious about wanting to meet them and finding what common ground we could to build power—build power to bring down a very oppressive system that impacts so many in such a negative way.

MF: You started The Transfarmation Project to assist former contract farmers in transitioning out of industrial animal agriculture. Why were you moved to create pathways for farmers to get out of this line of work?

LG: I’ve been an activist working to end factory farming for about a quarter of a century now, and what I’ve noticed is we talk a lot about the problem and a lot about the solution, but not on how to get from problem to solution. We don’t look at the path in between. I really wanted to roll up our sleeves and try to create easy runways for farmers. And I don’t pretend that a small nonprofit could transition thousands of farmers, but what I wanted to create were models, demonstrations, prototypes to test if it was possible. And it is possible, and farmers do want to transition. So, now we know. Now we have the prototypes. It’s time to move forward with creating the plans for how farmers could off-ramp.

MF: Large-scale animal agriculture CAFOs are disproportionately built in communities of color. One of your chapters focuses on eastern North Carolina, where there is an abundance of hog CAFOs in majority Black communities. You also write that the industry there has a lot of influence on policy and even local law enforcement. Residents have become environmental justice advocates, sounding the alarm on how CAFOs impact neighboring communities. What did you learn from your time in this community about how CAFOs impact their neighbors and how people can organize against them?

LG: What is happening in North Carolina is happening around the entire country. I did dive deep, though, into one particular community’s experience in North Carolina, and I had the opportunity to meet two women who in particular have been fighting the system, René and Rosemary. 

Their families had established property ownership and economic freedom post-slavery, and this was huge for this population. It created freedom. It created mobility. And owning land was very significant in that sense. And it was only later that the pork industry started to move in around these communities. And in doing so, [it] not only negatively impacted their quality of life and their health, but [it] drove their property prices down. 

[It] might not seem obvious why a farm moving next door would cause property prices to drop and health to decline, but here’s why: These giant pig farms create a giant amount of pig waste. The pig waste goes into what is euphemistically called a lagoon. The lagoons are cesspools of pig feces. Those get to be too full, and so the solution is to pump out the waste onto adjacent fields—and not fields that are necessarily growing crops, just fields to absorb the pig poop. They’re in giant sprinklers, and those sprinklers spray into the air. That spray inevitably flows through the air and onto the neighbor’s homes, their mailboxes, through their keyholes, windows, ends up on countertops, microwaves, ovens. There’s scientific evidence where that’s been shown, that there is pig feces inside of homes like Rosemary and René‘s.

And if you look at where this is happening, it is happening in Black communities around the country. If you were to spray pig feces on a field next to a white suburban home, it would be shut down right away. The reason it’s not shut down is because these communities have less political, social, and economic power. 

People like René [and] Rosemary are fighting back. There’s still a lot of work to do, but they are not giving up. And it was very inspiring to meet these women who are fighting the pig industry, to protect their land, protect their economic mobility, and protect their power.

MF: You mention many important policy priorities in this book, such as the Farm System Reform Act, the Packers and Stockyards Act, and work to reduce line speed in slaughterhouses. What are the most immediate policy priorities that readers should contact their legislators about?

LG: I think one of the policies that could make a difference on so many levels is to slow down the slaughter lines. One of the [slaughterhouse] workers told me, her name was Sandra, that on a daily basis, 10,700 pigs would pass through her hands, and that the crux of the problem, the thing that makes it dangerous and difficult, is the line speeds. And so, slowing down how fast they go would not only create better, safer working conditions, but [it] will result in higher animal welfare and less suffering of those pigs.

Same with chickens. There are three chickens every second that pass in a slaughter line. It’s so fast. If we slow those lines down, the chances of reducing their suffering during slaughter increases. The potential for less suffering increases for both the animals and the people working those lines. I also think that, as mentioned in the book, the main animals that are moving through our food and farming system, chickens, are excluded from federal protections. There are no federal laws protecting chickens that are raised for meat. They are specifically excluded from the laws that require humane slaughter. It’s unacceptable. There’s a lot we can do right away, just [on] the slaughter side of things [that] would reduce suffering and increase safety.

Beyond that, we need to provide the opportunity for farmers to shift away from factory farming. So many of them want to, but they are under the thumb of debt. The Farm System Reform Act laid out a plan for creating a transition for these farmers, if they wish to, and that involves debt relief for the farmers and transition money for them to move to better farming practices. 

This is not the first time we’ve done something like this as a country. We did it with tobacco, and when farmers were given the choice, overnight, many of them just shifted away from tobacco. It’s part of our history to adapt and adjust our agriculture policy according to the pressures that our country is under and the new information we have about the dangers of agriculture practices. Just like tobacco, this is dangerous, and it’s putting us under pressure, and we need to adjust.

MF: Industrial animal agriculture creates a cheap product. But you write that that’s because the real costs of this system are externalized to everyone but the industry itself. How do we begin to hold the industry accountable for the harm it causes to both human and animal communities?

LG: I think it’s really important for consumers to understand that cheap meat is only cheap at the register, but it is costing someone a lot. It is costing the animals suffering. It is causing people suffering. It’s causing our environment destruction, and it’s costing communities their health. And those have real prices to them. So, communities are paying medical bills. Communities are paying for environmental clean-up costs, and slaughterhouse workers are paying medical bills, and the animals are suffering. And there’s no price that can be put on that. 

But if you flip that and you say, if we take animals out of cages, that increases the cost by a percentage. That’s how we’re putting the cost back into the system, rather than the animal. If we slow down the line speeds, it means it will be a little less efficient, and it’ll cost a little bit more, but that’s where we’ve taken the cost out of the worker suffering and put it back into the meat, put it back into the system. 

MF: Last week, you got to open up the first Transfarmation demonstration hub. Can you tell me about what that experience was like and what you hope will come from it?

LG: Opening up the first Transfarmation hub was three years in the making. We had this idea that we needed to show and we actually needed to work out what a full transition would look like. We worked with consultants, we worked with architects, we worked with tech specialists, farm specialists, to help a farmer transition from growing chickens to growing microgreens in a greenhouse and mushrooms in a container. And last week, we had a launch party for that.

I was in these warehouses just after they had had chickens in them, and they smelled of ammonia. They had dust in them—the ghosts of the chickens were everywhere, and the smell of the chickens was still there. To enter this place of death and destruction and see it revitalized as growth and creation and innovation…It was so moving and gave me a lot of hope. It gave everyone a lot of hope that there are solutions. We just have to roll up our sleeves and work together towards them.

The post The Transition Away From Factory Farming appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Caminando por los campos de Viva Farms en el valle de Skagit, en el estado de Washington, el olor a fresas es fuerte en el aire. La lluvia que cayó con fuerza la semana anterior significa el final de la temporada de fresas, dice el agricultor Francisco Farías, pero todavía tiene frambuesas, uno de sus productos favoritos para cultivar.

Farías explica todo esto en español, mientras que la directora de viabilidad de las granjas de Viva Farms, Anna Chotzen, traduce.

Farías ha cultivado una parcela de tierra aquí en Viva Farms desde 2017, al igual que docenas de otros agricultores. Viva Farms es una incubadora de negocios agrícolas y un programa de capacitación. Educa a los agricultores principiantes en prácticas sostenibles y les proporciona terrenos para iniciar su negocio. Farias completó el programa en 2016 y, junto con sus hermanos, comenzó Farias Farm en 2017.

En los últimos años, Viva Farms se dio cuenta de que necesitaba expandir su trabajo de acceso a terrenos para ayudar a que las empresas con más experiencia se lanzaran más allá de Viva Farms. El acceso a terrenos no solo es una barrera crítica para los nuevos agricultores, sino que también es algo que se ha visto exacerbado por los patrones de discriminación por parte de USDA y los prestamistas agrícolas. El acceso a la tierra es una barrera aún mayor para las comunidades que estadísticamente están desatendidas o a las que se les niegan préstamos.

“Vemos que el sistema no está funcionando para los agricultores, y estamos realmente comprometidos a ir más allá para que pueda [funcionar]”, dice Chotzen. Farías, quien ahora opera su granja en asociación con su esposa, también quería perseguir este objetivo. Y este verano, ese sueño se hizo realidad.

Trabajando con Viva Farms y Dirt Capital Partners, una compañía de inversión agrícola, Farias ahora ha cerrado un acuerdo de financiamiento que lo pone en camino de poseer una parcela de tierra a unas pocas millas de Viva Farms, en tan solo unos años. Tiene un contrato de arrendamiento de 10 años y espera y planea comprarlo antes de eso.

“Siempre ha sido un sueño y un objetivo para nosotros encontrar un lugar en el que realmente pudiéramos hacer crecer nuestro negocio, y que pudiera ser un lugar estable donde supiéramos que podemos quedarnos”, dice Farías.

Incubando un sueño

Farías creció en la agricultura en México y trabajó por un corto tiempo en una granja convencional allí. Cuando llegó a los Estados Unidos en 1996, trabajó para una granja orgánica en el estado de Washington.

Cuando se conectó con Viva Farms y comenzó su Practicum en Agricultura Sostenible, le dio las herramientas para iniciar su propio negocio.

Después de que sus hermanos completaron también la práctica, los tres comenzaron a cultivar juntos en tierras de Viva Farms. Farias Farm cultiva brócoli, coliflor, fresas, arándanos, zanahorias y otras verduras, todas orgánicas.

“En la producción orgánica, me siento libre”, dice Farías. “Puedo estar en el campo y saber que todo es realmente saludable. Tengo hijos, y pueden salir y comer comida de la granja, y no tengo ninguna preocupación”.

A medida que crecían, tenían éxito. Se establecieron en los mercados regionales de agricultores y vendieron productos a través de Viva Farms. Los hermanos de Farías se fueron para seguir otras carreras, y su esposa Lorena se unió a él como copropietaria. Se expandieron de solo medio acre a tener 10 acres en Viva Farms y 10 acres en un terreno cercano.

Y luego ese terreno cercano se puso a la venta.

La pieza final

El número de granjas en EE. UU. disminuyó un 6.9 por ciento entre 2017 y 2022, según datos del Censo de Agricultura de EE. UU. El estado de Washington ve este patrón reflejado en áreas agrícolas como el valle de Skagit: el estado perdió 3,717 granjas entre 2017 y 2022.

Esto habla de la tendencia a la consolidación, una rápida presión sobre los pequeños agricultores en todo el país que no muestra signos de disminuir. Mientras que los agricultores establecidos se ven obligados a marcharse, los nuevos agricultores luchan por ocupar su lugar debido a una serie de altas barreras, entre las que destaca el acceso a la tierra.

Viva Farms ha estado operando desde 2009 y proporciona a los nuevos agricultores las herramientas para iniciar su negocio agrícola, incluyendo capital, marketing, educación bilingüe y más. Una de las cosas más importantes que proporciona es la tierra: Viva Farms opera más de 100 acres, y los miembros de su programa de incubadoras pueden acceder a parcelas orgánicas certificadas para cultivar.

Pero la tierra de Viva Farms no está destinada a ser el hogar permanente de ninguna de las granjas que incuba. “En los últimos años, ha quedado muy claro que para que estemos comprometidos con el éxito de los agricultores, tenemos que ayudarlos con esta última pieza”, dice Chotzen. “Suena bien en el papel decir que construyes tu negocio durante unos años en Viva y luego lo lanzas fuera del sitio, pero la realidad de encontrar un hogar a largo plazo para tu granja es mucho más desafiante”.

La posesión de terrenos proporciona a los agricultores individuales estabilidad y seguridad, les da más libertad para tomar decisiones sobre sus operaciones y planificar a largo plazo. En términos generales, un sistema de granjas diversificadas es más resistente a las plagas y a los choques climáticos que las operaciones de monocultivo.

Así, Viva Farms trabajó con Farias y Dirt Capital Partners para establecer términos que podrían resultar en un camino hacia la posesión de tierras para Farías. El modelo que utilizaron permite a los agricultores obtener un contrato de arrendamiento seguro, con la opción de comprar en una fecha posterior. Esto les permite adquirir terrenos de inmediato sin el requisito de un pago inicial inmediato, y con un margen de 10 años para calcular su financiamiento.

Es un buen primer paso, dice Chotzen, y cree que es replicable para otras firmas de inversión. Dirt Capital Partners es líder en el espacio entre las firmas de capital de riesgo e inversión de impacto, dice, y espera que el proceso evolucione para reducir aún más las tasas de interés y la cantidad final que los agricultores deben.

“Simplemente creo que si nosotros, como comunidad de agricultores, apoyamos a los agricultores, ya sea nosotros en Viva o en el espacio financiero, si realmente queremos apoyar a los agricultores que históricamente han sido excluidos, y construir el sistema alimentario que queremos utilizando las prácticas ecológicas que todos pensamos que son esenciales, tenemos que estar dispuestos a ser flexibles en lo que esperamos en términos de retorno financiero. “, dice Chotzen. ” El riesgo no puede recaer en el agricultor todo el tiempo”.

En los últimos dos años, Viva Farms ha recibido $6 millones del USDA para apoyar este trabajo. Más mandatos regulatorios para financiar este trabajo ayudarían, como en la Ley Agrícola.

Un puesto de cultivo

Tener su propio lugar para cultivar abre nuevas oportunidades para Farías y deja espacio para nuevas metas. Los habitantes de Washington pueden encontrar Farias Farm en los mercados regionales de agricultores; espera abrir un puesto de cultivo en la propiedad el próximo año.

También está haciendo otros planes futuros: espera construir su propio refrigerador, para que ya no tengan que depender de la capacidad de refrigeración de Viva Farms. También hay una casa en el terreno que poseerán, y se mudarán pronto, para que puedan vivir donde cultivan.

Caminando de regreso al estacionamiento desde los campos, Farias habla sobre poder plantar más arándanos ahora. Cuando alquilas un terreno, tienes que pensar a corto plazo. Temporada tras temporada. Brócoli, zanahorias y otras cosas que no requieren cuidados de varios años. Pero ahora que tiene su propia tierra, tiene la estabilidad de poder planificar el futuro.

“Hay muchas oportunidades y espero lograrlas”, dice Farías. “El simple hecho de poder planificar a largo plazo es algo muy importante”.

The post Un camino hacia el acceso a terrenos para los agricultores appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Farias explains all this in Spanish, while Viva Farms farm viability director Anna Chotzen translates.

Farias has farmed a parcel of land here at Viva Farms since 2017—as do dozens of other farmers. Viva Farms is a farm business incubator and training program. It educates beginning farmers on sustainable practices, and provides them with land to start their business. Farias completed the program in 2016, and together with his brothers started Farias Farm in 2017. 

In recent years, Viva Farms realized it needed to expand its land access work to help more mature businesses launch beyond Viva Farms. Not only is land access a critical barrier to new farmers, it’s also something that has been exacerbated by patterns of discrimination by the USDA and agricultural lenders. Access to land is an even higher barrier for communities that are statistically underserved or denied loans. 

“We see that the system is not working for farmers, and we’re really committed to pushing the envelope so that it can [work],” says Chotzen.

Farias, who now operates his farm in partnership with his wife, wanted to pursue this goal as well. And this summer, that dream became a reality.

Working with Viva Farms and Dirt Capital Partners, an agricultural investment company, Farias now has locked in a financing deal that puts him on track to own a parcel of land a few miles away from Viva Farms, within just a few years. He has a 10-year lease and is hoping and planning to purchase it sooner than that. 

“It’s always been a dream and a goal of ours to find a place that we could really grow our business, and that can be a stable place where we know we can stay,” says Farias.

Incubating a dream

Farias grew up farming in Mexico, and worked for a short time on a conventional farm there. When he came to the US in 1996, he worked for an organic farm in Washington state. 

When he connected with Viva Farms and began its Practicum in Sustainable Agriculture, it gave him the tools to start his own business.

After his brothers completed the practicum as well, the three of them began farming together on land from Viva Farms. Farias Farm grows broccoli, cauliflower, strawberries, blueberries, carrots, and other vegetables, all organic.

“In organic production, I feel free,” says Farias. “I can just be out in the field and know that everything is really healthy. I have kids, and they can come out and they can eat food off the farm, and I don’t have any worries.”

As they grew, they had success. They established themselves at regional farmers markets, and sold produce through Viva Farms. Farias’s brothers left to pursue other careers, and his wife Lorena joined him as co-owner. They expanded from just half an acre to having 10 acres at Viva Farms and 10 acres on a nearby piece of land. 

And then that nearby land went up for sale.

The final piece

The number of farms in the US decreased by 6.9 percent between 2017 and 2022, according to US Census of Agriculture Data. Washington State sees this pattern mirrored in agricultural areas such as the Skagit Valley—the state lost 3,717 farms between 2017 and 2022. 

This speaks to the trend of consolidation—a rapid squeeze on small farmers across the country that shows no signs of letting up. While established farmers get forced out, new farmers struggle to take their place due to a smattering of high barriers, principle among them access to land.

Viva Farms has been operating since 2009, and provides new farmers with the tools to incubate their farm business, including capital, marketing, bilingual education, and more. One of the most important things it provides is land: Viva Farms operates more than 100 acres, and members of its incubator program can access certified organic parcels to farm.

But Viva Farms’ land is not intended to be the forever home for any of the farms it incubates. “In recent years, it’s become really clear that for us to be committed to farmers’ success, we have to help them with this final piece,” says Chotzen. “It sounds nice on paper to just say you build your business for a few years at Viva and then launch off-site, but the reality of finding a long-term home for your farm is much more challenging.”

Land ownership provides individual farmers with stability and security—it gives them more freedom to make decisions about their operations and to plan long-term. Broadly, a system of diversified farms is more resilient to pests and climate shocks than monoculture operations.

And so Viva Farms worked with Farias and Dirt Capital Partners to set up terms that could result in a pathway to ownership for Farias. The model they used allows farmers to get a secure lease, with the option to purchase at a later date. This permits them to get on land right away without the requirement of an immediate down payment, and with a 10-year runway to figure out their financing. 

It’s a good first step, says Chotzen, and she believes it is replicable for other investment firms. Dirt Capital Partners is a leader in the space among venture capital and impact investment firms, she says, and she hopes the process evolves to further reduce interest rates and the final amount farmers owe.

“I just think that if we as the farmer support community, whether that’s us at Viva or the finance space, if we really want to support the farmers who’ve been historically excluded, and build the food system we want using the ecological practices that we all think are essential, we have to be willing to be flexible on what we are expecting in terms of financial return,” says Chotzen. “The risk can’t land with the farmer all the time.”

In the last two years, Viva Farms has received $6 million from the USDA to support this work. More regulatory mandates to fund this work would help, such as in the Farm Bill.

A farm stand

Having his own place to farm opens up new opportunities for Farias, and makes space for new goals. Washingtonians can find Farias Farm at regional farmers markets; he hopes to open a farm stand on the property next year. He’s doing other future planning, too: He hopes to build his own cooler, so they don’t have to depend on Viva Farms’ refrigeration capacity anymore. There’s also a house on the land they will own, and they’ll be moving in soon, so they can live where they farm. 

Walking back to the parking lot from the fields, Farias talks about getting to plant more blueberries now. When you rent land, you have to think short-term. Season to season. Broccoli, carrots, and other things that don’t require multi-year tending. But now that he has his own land, he has the stability of getting to plan for the future. 

“There are a lot of opportunities, and I’m hoping to achieve them,” says Farias. “Just being able to plan for the long term is a big one.” 

The post A Pathway to Land Access for Farmers appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“When you walk through our kitchens, it’s very clear to see that we contribute to food waste. And we were very concerned about particularly the greenhouse gases that are created when food goes to landfills,” says vice president of food education and wellness Terri Brownlee. “We knew that there were lots of things we could do.”

In California, BAMCO now must be compliant with SB 1383 regulations, and its program positioned it ahead of the curve.

Passed in 2016, SB 1383 is California legislation that reduces emissions by diverting organic waste from landfills. It included a component that requires food recovery from food generators of a certain size—restaurants that seat more than 250, grocery stores, hospitals, schools, and more.

These entities donate surplus food as a way to reduce food waste and also feed the hungry. Regulations went into effect in 2022.

Wasted food and other organic matter is responsible for about a third of methane produced by landfills, so food recovery has the potential to greatly reduce emissions. And in a country where hunger rates are unacceptably high—over one-fifth of California’s population was food insecure in 2020—wasted food could be better used elsewhere.

But legislation like this is also one of a kind. While the Good Samaritan Act provides federal liability protection for surplus food donations, California is the first to mandate it. This means that California’s program is a statewide experiment that will likely inform if and how other parts of the country choose to address food waste.

Cutting down on institutional food waste is not a small task—but Brownlee says it’s doable.

“Don’t be scared of it,” says Brownlee. “It might feel overwhelming to begin with. But if you just take it and break it down and create some systems, it becomes very manageable.”

Food recovery in practice

On any given week, the Alameda County Community Food Bank (ACCFB) in California has about 490 scheduled food pick-ups from entities that produce surplus food—grocery stores, food distributors and more. These pick-ups are accomplished by approximately 70 of ACCFB’s agency partners. Under the logistical guidance of ACCFB, the food that gets picked up every week gets redistributed to food pantries, soup kitchens and other entities that can directly service community members who need it.

Many of the donors from which ACCFB’s partners collect food are edible food generators compliant with SB 1383. “Edible food generators” such as grocery stores are important to target in pursuit of food waste solutions because consumer-facing businesses are responsible for about 20 percent of food waste in the US.

So far, California is making progress on its food recovery goal of sending 20 percent of edible surplus food to people who need it by 2025. In 2022, about 405,782,341 pounds of food was recovered. That translates to approximately 338 million meals.

Organizations such as ACCFB, which have been in food recovery work for years, are finding themselves as subject matter experts in this field that is now relevant to a lot more organizations.

This legislation has resulted in an uptick in donations from existing partners and brought new donors to the table, says Xochi Hernandez, sustainability program manager for ACCFB.

“We were kind of able to leverage this legislation and say, ‘hey, help us help you be in compliance.’”

In order to safeguard against existing food recovery organizations being bombarded with food donations beyond their capacity, SB1383 stipulates that food recovery organizations are not required to accept food that they can’t handle.

Food Share is a food recovery organization in Ventura County. Chief operations officer Brian Fisher says there’s a need for additional education for food producers about what can actually be donated.

“Food donations have increased but so has the amount of unusable food, which, unfortunately, ends up in the trash,” wrote Fisher to Modern Farmer in an email. “We have discovered there is a need to educate donors on what food recovery organizations can accept and what should be thrown away.”

Food Share has been handling what the legislation calls “tier one” foods for years—these are shelf-stable items and produce. But education will also be important as the roll-out begins of tier 2 food recovery. These are foods that are more distinctly perishable. Tier 2 includes prepared foods such as sandwiches and pre-packed meals, and Fisher says the coordination between nonprofits and the county governments will be paramount to finesse this process safely.

“Dealing with prepared foods and produce, it’s a totally different way that food is stored and dealt with, having two totally different health requirements and code requirements,” says Fisher.

Reducing surplus food

Replate is a food recovery organization with chapters all over the country. One of the biggest bonuses that COO Katie Marchini observed from the legislation is the education component—SB 1383 requires counties to educate those in their jurisdictions about the requirements they must meet. A common misconception that she encounters in her work is that food donation is illegal. It’s great that now businesses will know that it’s not only legal, it’s required.

But leaving education up to counties to administer also means there is slight variation throughout the state, says Marchini. Additionally, SB 1383 was an unfunded mandate. She’s observed that counties haven’t had enough resources to fully implement the education aspect. This leaves nonprofits to up the slack.

“I think the education component has been heavily on the shoulders of nonprofits,” says Marchini.

Currently, there is an amendment to SB 1383 in the California Senate that would require CalRecycle, the state’s waste management branch, to provide technical assistance to jurisdictions that request it. That technical assistance could include education programming.

By reducing the amount of organic waste that ends up in landfills, this legislation is a great way to approach a positive impact on climate change, says Marchini, but it’s not the answer to food insecurity.

“I think everyone who works in this system understands that food recovery is not the solution for food insecurity,” she says. “The fact that food recovery and food insecurity keep getting paired up together kind of complicates these matters.”

But Marchini expects that SB 1383 will have a ripple effect, inspiring future interventions and legislation in other places. She sees it already—some of the organizations with which Replate works have locations in both California and other states, so SB1383 has prompted them to start programs elsewhere as well, for the sake of uniformity.

The legislation backs into what she perceives as the real aim, which is to reduce the amount of surplus that occurs in the first place. It’s much easier to reroute excess away from the landfill if there’s less excess in the first place.

“I think requiring food donation makes a lot of sense, but I think it only makes sense if it’s also paired with source reduction,” says Marchini.

Dana Gunders, president and CEO of ReFED agrees, saying she wishes California had incentivized source reduction more upfront.

It’s too early to know the long-term effects of SB 1383, but Gunders says she thinks we may see a trend of more cities or states creating food recovery legislation in the future, as California pilots it out.

“I think a lot of eyes are on California,” she says.

The post California’s Food Recovery Program is the First of its Kind in the US appeared first on Modern Farmer.

And then it got sued for it.

New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against JBS because its claim of pursuing net neutral emissions is not substantiated by actual changes in company behavior. Not only has the company not established an accurate enough estimate of its emissions, it has documented plans to increase production, which will increase emissions. JBS USA’s parent company reported greenhouse gas emissions of 71 million tons in 2021. This is higher than the total emissions of some countries. Concentrated animal agriculture is high in emissions because of things such as improper manure management and land used to grow feed. However, JBS’s estimate of its footprint does not include the emissions impact of deforestation—the company is responsible for clearing millions of acres in the Amazon.

This lawsuit alleges that JBS made these declarations anyway, knowing that it would be received positively by the public, creating a financial incentive. This is known as “greenwashing.”

JBS is not the only company to make extravagant climate claims. Many companies have made similar pledges. As a business, committing to reducing your emissions footprint is a good thing, when it’s done authentically. This lawsuit is an attempt to hold a company accountable for benefitting from an untrue message.

The outcome of this case could set an important precedent in the food industry and beyond.

Futurewashing

Tom Lyon, PhD, of the University of Michigan and the Greenwash Lab, says that he thinks James has a good case and could win.

“JBS hadn’t done anything to measure their existing footprint,” says Lyon. “So, if you have no idea of what your current footprint is, it’s really hard to develop a credible plan for reducing it over time.”

JBS is not the only company that has made a promise to achieve net zero emissions by a certain year. When a promise is not backed by a legitimate plan, this is a particular type of greenwashing called “futurewashing,” says Lyon.

“When we get to this futurewashing, it’s just a story about the future,” says Lyon. “So, there’s no way to verify if it’s true or not, because it hasn’t happened yet.”

There’s still a lot of gray area when it comes to the legal repercussions of greenwashing, but outside of the US, strides are being made.

This year, Canada passed a new law that requires companies to back up their sustainability claims. Companies that put forth net zero plans must also shoulder a burden of proof.

“If they don’t have any documentation to back it up, then they may be at risk of some sort of litigation,” says Lyon.

The United Nations, the Science Based Targets Initiative, and others are reaching a shared, science-backed understanding of what “net zero” can mean in the corporate world.

If James wins this case, it will mean that JBS must cease its “net zero by 2040” claims to continue selling its product in New York, potentially having a ripple effect beyond just one state.

Skepticism and grace

Maisie Ganzler, a strategic advisor for Bon Appétit Management Company, says that bold company goals need to be grounded in reality and transparency. There’s a difference between corporate greenwashing and failing to achieve a goal that was planned.

“We do need companies to make bold commitments to stick their neck out, maybe even without having all of their ducks in a row and their plans in place. But that’s very different than making a claim that is seemingly impossible, that you don’t have any plan as to…how to measure, much less how to meet.”

In Ganzler’s recent book, You Can’t Market Manure at Lunchtime: And Other Lessons from the Food Industry for Creating a More Sustainable Company, she writes that companies that make positive strides toward authentic sustainability can create a ripple effect toward industry change, for good and bad.

“I think that when one company sets the bar, their competitors have to come to that bar,” says Ganzler. “And a lot of positive change is made that way with true leaders raising the bar on their industry and forcing others along. But there is the shadow side of when false promises are made, it inspires other companies to also make false promises to appear competitive.”

For companies that want to be leaders in sustainability without greenwashing, Ganzler recommends setting audacious goals with specific plans to achieve them. Don’t make a promise about something that is beyond your scope to know, such as what happens at every stage in the supply chain. If those plans go awry, be transparent with your consumers about why. In her book, Ganzler details an experience she had at Bon Appétit, when she realized that its pork supplier wasn’t meeting the welfare standards to which Bon Appétit had committed. Bon Appétit had inaccurately overstated its supplier’s welfare practices, but found a new supplier and issued a press release owning up to the mistake. Instead of facing backlash, Bon Appétit was praised by the Humane Society for its progress.

As for consumers, Ganzler says everyone has a responsibility to do a little bit of research. But in the end, it’s important to approach the companies they shop from with a balanced perspective.

“[You should have] both a healthy dose of skepticism, but also on the other side, a healthy dose of grace,” says Ganzler. “You should question commitments that companies are making, but also have grace for companies who aren’t truly trying to do the right thing and may fall short.”

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