But over the past 25 years, peer-reviewed scientific studies show that biodynamic farming enhances soil quality and biodiversity. It also produces more nutritious produce and wine that tastes better. 

With that in mind, the era of downplaying the merits of biodynamic farming is officially over. Today, biodynamic farmers on the cutting edge are taking the philosophy and science that has served them so well on their farms and applying it to their business practices.

Biodynamic farming 101

Still not sure what we mean when we say biodynamic farming? You’re not alone. Biodynamics is based on the work of philosopher and scientist Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). It is, at its simplest level, a method of chemical-free organic farming that entails the observation of lunar phases, planetary cycles and requires the use of locally sourced materials for fertilization and soil conditioning.

Practitioners see the farm as a closed, biodiverse ecosystem that requires internal inputs—which can come from the manure of ruminants raised on the farm, or from teas made from plants grown and animal products present on the farm—to nourish and feed itself. 

There are two primary forms of biodynamic certification, through Demeter-USA and Demeter International. It is estimated that there are around 6,000 certified biodynamic farms in operation across the world, and many more who farm biodynamically without certification. (The cost of getting certified varies depending on the farm’s size, but is generally at least a few thousand dollars, and requires adherence to a complex set of rules and standards). 

Now, a new crop of producers are taking these same concepts and applying them to their businesses as a whole. Is the certified biodynamic coffee you’re drinking truly biodynamic if the coffee pods were dried on a conventionally produced table? These are the kind of questions the truly hardcore are asking.

Deeply considering every element that touches products

Gérard Bertrand, who owns and operates 16 certified biodynamic wine estates in Languedoc and Roussillon, France, has been infusing business decisions with biodynamic ideas for decades. 

At the Minervois winery Clos d’Ora, the layout was designed so that sunlight hits a precise place in the barrel cellar during each solstice. And at Languedoc’s Clos du Temple, architect Francois Fontes designed the space to link sky and earth. Glass panels bring sunshine into the winery through the ceiling, while a mashrabiya (a latticework window that is characteristic of Islamic architecture) cools the heat the sun brings and casts patterns of light and shadow. 

“The sun, the star that anchors our system and shines bright for much of the year in this region, shapes our construction projects,” Bertrand explains. 

At his wine resort Chateau L’Hospitalet, Bertrand created a The Moon Room devoted to biodynamically rooted tastings. 

“Its light fixtures mimic celestial bodies, their glow, colors, and rhythms attuned to the dishes and wines served,” Bertrand explains. “Short narratives weave through the meal, inviting guests to sense the rhythms that guide our biodynamic work. This is more than a meal—it is a multisensory journey, an education, and a fresh way of looking at the heavens.”

Robert Eden, co-owner and winemaker at Chateau Maris, also built his winery in Languedoc based on the biodynamic approach. 

“Our cellar and winery is constructed from hemp bricks and wood to create a plant-based space that can receive external energies,” Eden explains. “Built this way, our winery’s operation is not impaired, and the energy is not repelled by artificial metals and other materials.”

The placement and construction of the building was also considered with the movement of groundwater and alignment to prevailing winds. 

Other vintners, like Count Michael Goess-Enzenberg, owner of Weingut Manincor in Alto Adige, Italy, embraces a holistic approach to biodynamic farming and business-building.

“We get everything possible from organic or biodynamic sources,” Goess-Enzenberg says. “Oak for our barriques, which we use to age our wines, comes from our own forest. Straw and manure for our compost comes from local farms in our neighborhood, which we mix with remains from grapes after they’ve been pressed.”

The quartz used for the biodynamic preparation 501 (a spray used to promote grape strength and health) is sourced from their local mountains. Goess-Enzenberg likens biodynamics to a broad lifestyle that requires wholesale commitment. 

“It brings our lives into balance,” he says. 

At Cullen Wines in Margaret River, Australia, winemaker and managing director Vanya Cullen has created a biodynamic bubble around her entire operation. In addition to farming her vineyards biodynamically, Cullen has a biodynamic produce garden that feeds the on-site restaurant.

Cullen also sources barrels sourced on fruit or flower days, according to the biodynamic calendar. (In the biodynamic farming calendar commonly followed by practitioners, fruit days occur when the moon is in a fire sign—Aries, Leo or Sagittarius; flower days occur when the moon is in an air sign—Gemini, Libra or Aquarius; root days occur when the moon is in the earth sign—Capricorn, Taurus or Virgo; leaf days occur when the moon is in a water sign—Caner, Scorpio or Pisces). 

“We were amazed at the difference between wine made in barrels harvested on fruit and flower days,” Cullen says. “Wine aged in barrels harvested on fruit days are bigger and more expressive. Flower day barrels impart minerality and structure. Overall, we find that wines made with biodynamic barrels as a whole taste more complete.”

Cullen has worked with her coopers to hone the barrel program even further, prioritizing wood harvested on a new moon descending. 

Applying holistic biodynamic ideas to staff management

Beth Hoinacki, owner and operator of Goodfoot Farm in Oregon’s Willamette Valley says that her work for the International Organic Inspectors Association made her realize that biodynamic operations often unconsciously extended their practices well beyond the farming itself. She became determined to conscientiously do so on her own vegetable and fruit farm. 

“I inspected organic and biodynamic farms, and I was always struck by the staff at biodynamic farms,” Hoinacki says. “From the people who are there working in the fields every day to the owners, there was clearly this beautiful dedication to what was happening, and the story they were telling about the universe and our interconnection through the food they were growing.”

There is something about the practice of growing food biodynamically by the rhythm of the planets, moon, sun and stars that seems to engage the minds and hearts of the people involved, Hoinacki notes. 

“I intuitively knew that traditional labor structures on farms were not healthy, so when I began hiring people, I began doing so through the lens of biodynamics with the goal of expressing the character of the farm as it exists,” she says. 

Instead of the traditional power and management structure of owner and employee, she gives her employees the power to collectively agree on hours, start times and breaks. Her decision rooted power on the farm, without allowing inputs from the outside world. 

“It is a system that feeds itself,” Hoinacki notes. “I work with them on the farm because I find working the land rewarding, so we get to make decisions together. Our team members love the system.”

On the other hand… 

Inevitably, there are many who are less than convinced of the merits of biodynamically minded business decisions. 

Wendy Parr, a wine scientist and oenologist at Lincoln University in New Zealand was among the researchers who wrote “Expectation or Sensorial Reality? An Empirical Investigation of the Biodynamic Calendar for Wine Drinkers,” published in the peer-reviewed Public Library of Science mega journal PLOS ONE. In the study, 19 wine pros were asked to taste 12 different Pinot Noirs on fruit and root days. Bottom line: they found the day made no difference.

“To date, there is no clear evidence that the calendar affects tasting,” Parr says. “We know from neuroscientists’ work that no two people ever experience a wine in precisely the same way because there are a myriad of neuro-physical and psychological variables that could be involved.”

Parr adds that there is “anecdotal evidence” that wines can show changes across fruit or root days. 

“I’ve met winemakers in Europe and New Zealand who wouldn’t rack off wine on a root or leaf day,” she says. “It is not for me to say what others should believe or practise. I will add that we did one study only. In the absence of further research, the issue remains unclear.”

The jury appears to be out on whether or not tasting on a fruit or root day will drastically alter your assessment of a wine. But even a few decades ago, the notion that biodynamic farming could improve soil health was unproven and widely ridiculed. 

Tasting special wines, planning farm and winery constructions and basing staff decisions on a biodynamic calendar and philosophy may seem slightly out there—but if it helps vintners and farmers create better products and teams, who are we to argue? 

The post Biodynamic Farms Are One Thing. What About Biodynamic Businesses? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Because farming is so central to our nation’s identity—and its idea of itself—this future can feel fraught. In 2012, the USDA forecast that most (70 percent) family farms would transfer hands over the next 20 years. 

How will that transition to a new generation of farmers happen? Will family farms as we know and love them survive, and how do the ones that are thriving now do it? We looked at a range of agricultural models, and spoke to farmers who are in the middle of the process of transition to find out more. 

The current state of family farms

After peaking in 1935, when there were 6.8 million family farms, the small family farm is increasingly imperiled. Today, there are around 1.89 million US farms, down seven percent from 2.04 million in 2017. The acreage is going down, too: There are about 879 million acres being farmed, down slightly from the 900 million acres growing crops or feeding animals in 2017. 

That’s the familiar bad news, a perennial, gloomy backbeat to most stories on farming in America today. But there are bright spots. 

There are fewer farmers and less farmland, but due to consolidation, there has been an increase in income for the remaining farmers. Gross cash farm income (GCFI) is calculated by tallying a farm’s earnings before expenses, and it includes both income from sales and payments from government farm programs. 

Adjusted for inflation, in 2024, the GCFI is forecast to be $577.1 billion, up from $422.7 billion in 2004. Family farms still account for the vast majority (97 percent) of all farming operations, and small family farms (with less than $350,000 in GCFI) make up 88 percent of all domestic farms. 

A dairy farm invests in new technology 

Wright’s Dairy Farm & Bakery has been producing fresh milk directly to the public since 1914. But the business today, which employs dozens of local bakers, dairy plant and farm workers, would be almost unrecognizable to its customers a century ago. 

Cathryn Kennedy, food operations manager at the North Smithfield, R.I. farm, says she had zero plans to join the family farm—and didn’t face pressure or expectation from her family. That meant that when she joined in 2015, she was able to see the farm with fresh eyes. 

Kennedy has led the charge into the wholesale market after noting a decline in retail store sales and an overall trend downward in milk consumption nationwide. In 2017, she helped launch Wright’s wholesale delivery department with three off-site sales locations. 

“Adding that sales channel and making it easier for people to buy our products helped increase milk sales amid declining consumption,” says Kennedy. “I’ve also built out a brand for scooped ice cream, which we were only selling pre-packed in our on-site retail store.”

In 2019, Kennedy had a seasonal ice cream trailer installed on the farm, then added an additional one at a separate location. The demand was so intense, Wright’s opened a year-round location in Providence, where they make and sell ice cream and other packaged dairy products. 

These innovations have required a serious capital outlay, including three different vehicles ($165,000), two ice cream trailers ($100,000), a digital platform to manage orders ($5,000 annually) and two full-time drivers ($100,000 annually). But since 2017, when it began putting changes into effect, Wright’s has generated $8.5 million in sales, with $200,000 per season coming from the seasonal ice cream trailers. 

A cattle ranch educates customers 

Eagle Rock Ranch was founded in 1868 by Louis Holst as a working cattle and hay operation. Now one of the few remaining cattle ranches in South Park, CO, the farm has stayed successful by getting creative and meeting customers where they are.

Erin Michalski, who runs Eagle Ranch Mercantile in Fairplay for her family farm and helps spearhead sales more broadly, says they’ve had to change their approach to finding and keeping customers amid a boom in the population of Denver and Colorado Springs, both of which are about a 90-minute drive from the ranch. 

“We need them to buy our beef, and they in turn need us to grow their food,” says Michalski, explaining that Eagle Ranch is leaning into the symbiotic relationship by offering ranch and eco-tours of the land to the public. 

“We want to educate people about the value of agriculture and increase awareness of how food is raised and grown,” she says. “We want people to see firsthand the care and attention that goes into raising our cattle and growing our hay, while also learning what it means to be stewards of the land.”

Eagle Ranch made a series of changes to its sales approach during COVID, when she realized that people want to know where their food comes from. 

“They also didn’t necessarily want to go to a store to make a purchase,” says Michalski. “We began selling our beef direct-to-consumer and at our store in Fairplay.”

Drawing the curtain back on its operations has allowed Eagle Ranch to thrive, despite dramatic increases in everything from the cost of feed for its cattle, to fuel for itstrucks and costs of input. Eagle Ranch has also diversified its revenue stream, by selling not just hay and beef but also an assortment of home and kitchen merchandise at itsMercantile store, and leasing private-water fishing rights on its land. 

Overall, these changes have increased the farm’s profits by 30 percent. 

A winery raises prices to reflect value

The Pedroncelli family has been growing and vinifying wine for almost 100 years in Sonoma’s Dry Creek Valley. When John Pedroncelli, Sr. founded Pedroncelli Winery in 1927, his primary goal was making exceptional wine, and that hasn’t changed. 

But the way that wine is sold and presented has transformed drastically through Prohibition, two world wars and the pandemic. When Julie Pedroncelli St. John took the helm as president in 2022, she knew it was time to make changes. 

“We wanted the value of our brand to be reflected in the price, and we also wanted to repackage our wines,” St. John explains. “Together, we knew this would signal our premium status to a different consumer, and we also knew the modest changes we made would not alienate our loyal customers.”

Prices went up on key national releases, from the high teens to the low to mid-twenties. 

The winery also invested in an upgrade to the tasting room and hospitality area, replanted a few key vineyards and gave the winemaking team new and better tools to play with. 

“The hospitality spaces had been built in 1986, and they hadn’t been updated since,” says St. John. “We invested about $1.5 million in improvements, and the bulk went to updating the space, but we also want to focus more on small lot wines, which meant upgrades in the cellar, including barrels. And we replanted five acres.”

Each acre costs about $50,000 to replant, and because it takes about four years for a new vineyard to bear fruit that can be vinified and bottled, it started small, with five acres. All told, there are 100 acres, and while the winery doesn’t want to replant its entire vineyard, it will chip away at small replantings as it goes. 

Sales of wine overall have been dismal in recent years, but Pedroncelli bucks the trend, with a sales boost of 25.5 percent year-over-year.

Farmers will always be foundational to the American story, and hopefully, our diets. But it’s clear that how that story gets told and sold may need to evolve with changing market needs. 

The post Why Are Family Farms in Trouble? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Scientists have declared that we are in the midst of the earth’s sixth mass extinction, this one driven by human activities such as unsustainable uses of land, water and energy, and climate change. All of the other mass extinctions were natural phenomena, and the last one was 65.5 million years ago.

While there is plenty of blame to share among us humans, it would be foolish to ignore the role of agriculture in the demise of so many animal and plant species across the globe. Close to 40 percent of the planet’s land and 70 percent of its freshwater is used by agriculture.

But in recent decades, farmers, ranchers, and preservationists are individually, and in some cases collectively, working together to save rare and endangered animal species by using their products to feed, nourish, educate and clothe people. It’s counterintuitive perhaps to work—and in some cases, eat—animals as a way of saving them. But this strategy is not just ensuring the long-term health of species, it is creating opportunities to preserve traditional culture, farm greener, prepare for more extreme weather and eat healthier.

Famille Joly

The Loire’s Famille Joly has long held legendary status among wine lovers, largely for the quality of its biodynamic wines, and its leader Nicolas Joly’s unerring commitment to the authentic expression of the estate’s La Coulée de Serrant wines and vineyards.

This devotion goes much deeper than “just” committing to creating wines with minimal intervention in the vineyards and cellar.

“Winemaking should not be surgery,” says Joly. “Everything should happen in the vineyard. … When you feel the music come to you when you taste the wine, you know that the work you did in the vineyard is coming through.”

That work is meticulous, complex, and strategic. It even includes the specific type of manure Joly selects to fertilize his vineyards. In a bid to be totally true to his terroir—a French winemaking concept that aims to impart a combination of natural factors including soil, climate and sunlight to the glass—he’s working with a herd of indigenous cattle to “produce” compost.

“We brought in a herd of 10 Nantaise cows and a bull for their compost,” he explains. “But we also decided to use them because they are endangered. These cows are an essential part of our region’s landscape and history.”

These cows are an essential part of our region’s landscape and history.

And because they are indigenous to the region, their manure, arguably, will deliver more authentic terroir.

The Bovine Nantaise Are Docile, Flexible

The Nantaise are originally from the Loire and southern Brittany, and they have largely lived in coastal areas, according to the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity. This medium-sized breed (between 1,325 pounds for a female and 1,875 pounds for a male) is typically used for milk and meat, and is suited for humid and poor conditions. The Nantaise can thrive in regions where other breeds struggle, and they are notably docile. There are only around 900 cattle still in existence in all of France, and their presence in other countries is thought to be nonexistent.

Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg has been preserving rare breeds of cattle, horses, oxen, sheep and fowl since 1986. The focus, Colonial Williamsburg’s livestock husbander Darin Durham explains, is central to Colonial Williamsburg’s overarching mission of showing people what 18th-century colonial British American life looked like. The program defines “rare” as having fewer than 1,000 animals registered annually in North America.

“But the rare breeds program also preserves genetic material that will otherwise be gone forever,” says Durham. “Many of the breeds we work with are more suitable for self-sustaining regenerative agriculture in a variety of climates. They may be slower growers, but they often have great grass conversion or can tolerate extreme weather better.”

While farms across the world used to include a multitude of animal breeds, many of which were indigenous to the region, in recent decades, certain breeds selected for desirable characteristics such as high milk production or fast growth now dominate the landscape.

The composition of America’s cattle is 72 percent either straight or high-percentage British, with 17 percent primarily British crossbred, according to a recent survey conducted by Beef Magazine. That leaves just 11 percent of Continental or other breeds. (Of that 72 percent, 73 percent are Angus cattle, 15 percent are Red Angus and nine percent are Hereford).

Poultry populations are similarly uniform, with the Food and Agriculture Organization warning that up to 50 percent of poultry breeds are at risk of extinction.

“You never know what’s going to happen,” says Durham. “Many of the animals we work with are suitable for niche agricultural purposes, but you also never know when we might need that genetic material for science.”

There’s also the increasing prevalence of diseases that are entering our food supply. Just recently, the FDA noted that one in five retail milk samples tested positive for fragments of bird flu. Having a diverse genetic pool to draw from makes extinction-level disease spread less risky, researchers say.

The Rare Breeds program has about 150 animals on-site at one time, with many being either rented out to other farmers who want to breed them, or sold to buyers who plan to utilize the animals on their farm.

Nankin Bantam Chickens Are Foundational, Broody Breeds

The Nankin is believed to be one of the oldest bantam chickens in existence, and is foundational to most other bantam breeds. Durham notes that, in addition to being stunning farm eye-candy with copper-colored bodies and green and black tail feathers, they are docile and gentle, which makes them easy to care for. They are also broody, which makes them useful for hatching the eggs of pheasants and quails at larger operations.

American Milking Devons Make Great Cheese and Milk, Work the Land

American Milking Devons were the “trucks and tractors” of American farms before the advent of the internal combustion engine. In addition to being strong, and willing to work the land, Durham says that these cows offer milk with unusually high butterfat content, which makes them favorites among cheesemakers. They also provide quality meat and fatten up on grass well without supplements.

The Leicester Longwool Sheep Is a Triple Trophy

Animals that can be utilized for meat, milk and wool are rare, but the Leicester Longwool Sheep delivers, says Durham. The sheep are docile, easy to feed, are happy to graze on grass with good meat conversion and offer up to 10 inches of beautiful, ringleted wool.

Vermont Wagyu

“When I tried my first Wagyu burger in Montana, my reaction was the same as everyone else’s: ‘Wow,’” recalls Dr. Sheila Patinkin, a University of Chicago-trained pediatrician-turned-Vermont Wagyu founder.

Patinkin grew up around cows her whole life, and she found the opportunity to grow the market for Wagyu beef in the US on the 350-acre farm she purchased in 2006 irresistible—not that it was easy or straightforward.

“It was not possible to buy Wagyu cattle in the US at that point, so, instead, I purchased 20 embryos and had them implanted in Angus surrogates,” she says. “We ended up with 10 males and [10] females, which is pretty good.”

Growth of the market—and the cattle—was slow. It takes about three years for Wagyu to be ready for market, more than a year longer than Angus. And Patinkin had to pound the pavement to get any buyers.

But then she hooked Michael Anthony, executive chef at the Michelin-starred Gramercy Tavern in New York. By the time COVID hit, Patinkin had scaled up to 70 animals. What could have been a business-ending crash turned into an opportunity, thanks to her four children who shared her nascent e-commerce site with their email lists.

“It was amazing,” says Patinkin. “We actually ran out of inventory because word began to spread on the quality of what we had, and people were getting so interested in home cooking and high-quality food when everyone was stuck at home.”

Today, she typically has around 150 heads at any one time and e-commerce has turned into a mainstay of her business.

In the US, the presence of Wagyu cattle also contributes some much-needed diversity to the ranks of cows in the US. Until 1976, there were no Wagyu cattle in the country, and today, 100-percent Wagyu cattle still only account for 0.029 percent of the country’s 89.9 million cattle.

But Patinkin thinks that the Wagyu farmers, under current US labeling rules, are unable to leverage and fully recognize the rarity of the product they’re selling. As a rancher herself and as the president of the American Wagyu Association, she is spearheading a Wagyu transparency labeling initiative.

“We need to do a better job of identifying our heritage on labels,” says Patinkin. “There’s a lot of half-Wagyu beef out there that is selling at a discount, and doesn’t taste like my 100-percent Wagyu. It confuses the market. Why would a consumer spend double for mine if they don’t know it’s more authentic? And if they taste the other and think it’s 100-percent Wagyu, they won’t understand why it’s not as good as they’ve been told.”

Patinkin hopes that she and the roughly 1,700 other members of the American Wagyu Association will soon have a label that clarifies what they are selling, along the lines of certified Angus labels.

Wagyu Cattle Are Docile, Calve Easily, and Command Much More in the Market

The term refers to four breeds of cattle that hail from Japan, two of which (Japanese Black and Japanese Red) are available in the US. The first appearance of American Wagyu commercially became available in the 1990s amid a bid to produce super-premium beef. Wagyu beef also has a more heart- and cholesterol-friendly balance of fats than other beef products. In addition to offering superior flavor, nutrition and texture that make the product highly desirable and commands up to 50 percent more than comparable beef counterparts, Wagyu are docile, have good grass conversion, tolerate extreme weather better than other common domestic cattle breeds and calve easily, says Patinkin.

Currently, more than 44,000 species are threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Perhaps if we placed commercial value on more of these species, we would all value them more, and preserve them for the generations to come.

The post How Using Endangered Animals Might Actually Save Them appeared first on Modern Farmer.

And there are distinct differences in how a President Kamala Harris would govern for the farmers, eaters, and workers in the United States than a President Donald Trump would. Just how different? We looked at their past actions and stated policy goals to learn more. 

The Landscape for Farmers Under Harris 

Vice President Harris’s track record on agriculture can be traced from her time as a California attorney general and US senator to her time as Biden’s second in command. 

As attorney general in California, she appealed a federal ruling that nixed California’s foie gras ban, and defended California’s law requiring humane, free-range facilities at egg farms. 

While Harris hasn’t formally outlined any agricultural policy plans for voters yet, Jonathan W. Coppess, former administrator of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency and current associate professor and director of the Gardner Agriculture Policy Program at University of Illinois, forecasts very little change from the current status quo for farmers and farming policy under Biden. 

“There are no indications that a Harris administration will deviate from the Biden administration on agriculture or trade,” says Coppess. “Also, it’s important to keep in mind that presidents only have so much power. The bulk of farm policy is controlled at the congressional level, so the president can only have a limited role in planning what will ultimately end up in a farm bill.”

According to many measures, farmers have been higher on the hog under Biden than Trump. Net farm income hit $165 billion between 2021 and 2023, compared with $94 billion between 2017 and 2019. 

The administration also provided $56 billion to American farmers in direct payments.

The Landscape for Farmers Under Trump

Farmers and ranchers in the US appear poised to back Trump for president, according to a poll commissioned by Agri-Pulse and a survey conducted by Reuters. While both of those studies were conducted before Harris entered the race, they are unlikely to change, says Ferd Hoefner, founding policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and consultant on farm, food, and environmental policy.

“You’ve got this strange dichotomy where he polls well in the farming community, but yet they all live in mortal fear of a trade war,” says Hoefner. “When Trump was in office (farmers) lost billions because of the trade war he started with China, but he essentially paid them off because he knew it was politically expedient to do so. They think he’ll do the same thing again, but I don’t think that’s logical.”

Trump, indeed, shelled out $32 billion to farmers in 2020, and, over his entire presidency, he spent at least $61 billion on bailouts to compensate ag companies for the cost of the trade war he started. 

If Trump is elected, he has proposed another round of punishing tariffs: a baseline of 10 percent on all imported goods and a 60-percent tariff on all Chinese imports. This would constitute the highest and broadest tariffs imposed in the US since World War II, and it would result, Goldman Sachs projects, in a rise in inflation of 1.1 percentage points and a reduction in GDP growth by a half point, not to mention five additional Fed rate hikes. 

“Agriculture is very export dependent,” says Hoefner. “Farmers should think long and hard about which candidate they decide to support and what the implications of each candidate’s past and stated plans might mean for them.”

The Landscape for Eaters Under Harris 

Food prices have spiked 25 percent between 2019 and 2023, and price inflation at restaurants has been even higher. There are more than 44 million Americans currently facing hunger. One in five children doesn’t have enough to eat or access to healthy food, making food assistance programs a hot political topic that inspires now-familiar partisan rhetoric.

“Harris hasn’t forecast that much on what she would do as president, but her past actions indicate that she may be more active on consumer issues than Biden,” says Hoefner. 

During her entire political tenure, Harris has advocated for improving food security and nutrition for all Americans, but especially low-income families and children. During COVID, she introduced two pieces of legislation that aimed to help eaters and producers.

She co-sponsored the Food Donation Improvement Act as California senator. The act was designed to encourage food donations by nixing liabilities for people willing to contribute. Harris also boosted the state’s Farm to School program, helping both farmers and children, and increased food assistance programs across the board. 

The Closing the Meal Gap Act of 2020 expanded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for all who needed it. The FEMA Empowering Essential Deliveries (FEED) Act granted the feds the power to team up with small restaurants and non-profits on meals for people in need. 

The Landscape for Eaters Under Trump

If Trump’s promised tariffs go into effect, there will likely be retaliatory tariffs imposed on American goods, including food, which could cause a cavalcade of effects. 

His immigration policy could also cause a variety of challenges that would trickle down to workers, says Coppess. 

“It’s a giant unknown if what he’s saying will actually be pushed through, but a significant portion of the agricultural labor force is immigrant labor,” says Coppess. 

Labor costs currently comprise about 15 percent of a farmer’s costs, and that number is on the rise, according to the USDA. Almost half of the labor force on farms is undocumented. If many of those workers are deported, without a ready and willing supply of hands, the price of food will likely continue to surge. 

Under his previous administration, Trump sought to cut SNAP benefits by $180 billion, or close to 30 percent. There was also a $50-million proposed cut that would have limited student access to free or lower-cost meals at schools. 

Project 2025, a 900+ page manifesto-cum-wish list for Trump’s next term drafted by a coalition of more than 100 conservative organizations—from which Trump has distanced himself, despite his deep ties to many of its creators—includes a plan to divide the farm bill.

The notoriously unwieldy farm bill typically pairs policies backed by red-leaning rural farming communities (i.e., farm subsidies) and blue-leaning cities (food aid programs such as SNAP), and allows both parties to negotiate a piece of the action. Project 2025 would bifurcate the bill and slash spending on farm-friendly programs such as Agriculture Risk Coverage, Price Loss Coverage and crop insurance, while also targeting SNAP and school meals. 

The Landscape for Workers Under Harris 

Trump may have farmers’ votes, but farm workers seem to be backing Harris. United Farm Workers officially endorsed Harris shortly after news broke that Biden was stepping down. They applauded the Biden-Harris administration for championing unionization efforts for farm workers, helping undocumented workers secure COVID vaccines, and increasing legal protections in the industry. 

“Since the very beginning of her career in California—the nation’s largest agricultural producer—Kamala Harris has proven herself a loyal friend of all working people,” said United Farm Workers president Teresa Romero in a statement. 

Hoefner argues that in addition to promoting fairer competition and lower food costs and aiming to correct previous wrongs committed against farmers of color, the mood changed at the USDA. 

“I am regularly in touch with a variety of people at the USDA, and I can say that, under Biden, there was a huge morale boost,” says Hoefner. “People felt once again that they were able to address climate change and workers’ issues. They felt like the work they were doing is worthwhile.”

The Landscape for Workers Under Trump 

Under Trump’s guidance, the USDA delivered more direct aid to farmers than any prior administration. During the COVID pandemic, almost half of farmers’ incomes were coming from the feds. But these payments mainly helped larger conglomerates, not smaller farmers. 

About two-thirds of the aid went to the largest 10 percent of recipients. (The average payment for the top tenth was $164,813, versus the average payment of $2,469.49 for the bottom half.)

Under Trump’s guidance, the USDA also put the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration under the control of the Agricultural Marketing Service, which critics said weakened oversight.

“What little is left of commodity and farm support will completely disappear under a second Trump administration,” Hoefner predicts. “And while it hasn’t gotten much better under Biden, it could potentially get much worse.”

Potential Wild Cards 

“Who they pick for the secretary of agriculture will tell us a lot,” says Coppess. “With Trump, it was one of the last cabinet positions he filled. And we don’t know who he’ll pick this time. Strong contenders are Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller, who is right of Attila the Hun and would be the MAGA pick, or Kip Tom, an Indiana farmer who served as US ambassador to the U.N. under his previous administration, and would be more of the center pick.”

Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, a vocal critic of benefits programs, has also thrown his hat in the ring, adds Coppess. 

On the Harris side, Coppess floats two potentials: Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and Xochitl Torres Small, the current US deputy secretary of agriculture. 

“I think they’d both do a good job, and [they] have expertise that would balance business and farm interest,” says Coppess. “Karen works in California now, but she’s a Nebraska farm girl, so she has Midwest cred, and Xochitl and Tom [Vilsack, US secretary of agriculture under Biden] are both seen as balancing farm and business interests.”

Even with all of the evidence and policy projections in the world, there are plenty of wild cards, no matter who wins.

The post What a Trump or Harris Presidency Will Mean for Farmers and Eaters appeared first on Modern Farmer.

If you live anywhere in or near suburban or urban America, chances are you have personally encountered—or at least heard about—sightings of carnivorous mammals such as coyotes and bears in your neighborhood. As we take over more of their territory, they enter ours, often looking for food. 

The starkest evidence of unwanted human-wildlife interactions happens on our roadways. Every year in the US, vehicle-animal collisions result in 200 or so human fatalities, millions of animal fatalities, tens of thousands of injuries, and billions of dollars in damage to cars and other property. 

That’s just the roads. There are also broader issues of connectivity. While there are large swaths of protected wildlands across the country dedicated to keeping grizzlies, wolves, pronghorn, wild cats, and other large animals safe, they are often isolated in those protective zones, unable to reach other individual animals or packs in other protected areas, leaving these groups vulnerable to inbreeding, not to mention stymieing their natural rhythms of hunting and migration. 

A bipartisan infrastructure bill passed in 2021 contained $350 million for wildlife road crossings. The structures are built under or over roads, with fencing that guides animals to safety, and they are thought to reduce wildlife-car run-ins by up to 97 percent. 

These crossings, constructed over or under human-made incursions in the landscape like roads, can include underpass tunnels or viaducts for mammals and amphibians of all sizes, or bridges, generally for larger mammals. These crossings provide safety and connection for animals whose habitats have been fragmented by roads and buildings. (The largest one ever made is currently being constructed in California. See its progress here). 

Now, a network of activists and policy makers are working to both help heal and create links between wild areas across the US for commuting critters, and ease animals’ way under and over major roads that cut through their ranges. 

Working for wolves

“We are really lucky to have a partner in North Carolina’s Department of Transportation,” says Will Harlan, southeast director and senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The team there understands that building wildlife corridors across Highway 64 will potentially save the species, help other wild animals, and prevent human death and property loss.” 

There are fewer than 25 red wolves in the wild right now, and Harlan says that five have died in the past year along that stretch of highway, which is the longest in the state, running from 604 miles from the Tennessee state line to the Outer Banks. Red wolves used to range from Texas to New York. Today, the only place red wolves still exist in the wild is in the 3,200-square-mile Abermarle Peninsula in North Carolina. 

“In North Carolina, we have a super high rate of vehicle accidents, and seven percent of all road accidents are wildlife collisions,” he says.In 2010, the Department of Transportation considered widening the highway; it identified five major animal crossing areas. Harlan is currently in the midst of a major fund-raising effort to get the crossings built, with the goal of raising $2 million by August 1. 

“Wolves are my personal priority, but, of cours,e I will be thrilled to see other species like [the] 700-pound black bear, rare snakes and turtles, beavers, bobcats ,and dozens of others able to safely get across the road.”

Recreating landscape links

Grizzly bears, wolverines, lynx, Mexican wolves, and bull trout are particularly vulnerable to death or extreme isolation due to the loss of natural links between landscape areas in the Northern Rockies, New Mexico and Arizona, where WildEarth Guardians focuses its efforts on restoration and safety. 

“That often means protecting important areas from logging projects and pushing the agency to remove roads and motorized trails instead of building and punching in new ones.” says Adam Rissien, rewilding manager with WildEarth Guardians. 

This kind of work often requires the covert monitoring of trails. Last winter, WildEarth discovered illegal activity in Northern Idaho’s Kaniksu region with the help of LightHawk, a nonprofit conservation aviation organization that sponsored a monitoring flight. Using aircraft as an asset in conservation has been on the rise, especially with volunteer-based groups such as LightHawk, which taps into its network of more than 300 pilots who donate expertise, time, aircraft, and fuel to support investigative flight campaigns with organizations like WildEarth. 

Volunteers also contributed photographs documenting over-snow-vehicle tracks in essential habitat for wolverines, grizzly bears, lynx, and mountain goats. This kind of disturbance can imperil the viability of all of these species, especially as many will abandon or move dens, reducing reproductive success. 

WildEarth is currently in the process of “evaluating the potential for a lawsuit to protect the habitats,” says Rissien. 

The organization has also moved to challenge a Forest Service logging project outside of Yellowstone National Park on the Custer-Gallatin National Forest that it says will reduce habitat security for grizzly bears. Last year, 50 grizzly bears died within the natural park. If the project goes through, more than six square miles will be clear-cut, and another six square miles of mature forests will be logged. 

“The Yellowstone grizzlies need more habitat to recover, not less,” says Rissien. 

Using science to drive policy 

Development isn’t the only foe of wildlife safety. Climate change, and the manner in which it is affecting where animals can and want to live, is intensifying the challenges faced by wildlife. 

“Protecting and improving wildlife connectivity will help us fight against the extinction and climate crisis,” says Tiffany Yap, PhD, senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Urban Wildlands Program. “As climate change intensifies and resources on the landscape shift, connectivity will give wildlife a chance to find the resources they need to survive and keep our ecosystems healthy.” 

Enhancing connectivity across roads and through landscapes is most effectively accomplished through science-driven policy, says Yap. 

In 2022, the Center co-sponsored AB 2244, the Safe Roads and Wildlife Protection Act with the Wildlands Network. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the act into law, which received bipartisan support and requires Caltrans to identify barriers to wildlife on roads and build crossing structures when building or improving roadways. 

The center also co-sponsored AB 1889, aka the Room to Roam Act with the Wildlands Network, which aims to reconnect fragmented areas for wide-ranging pumas and slow-moving newts. 

“Overdevelopment and careless development along with our roads have fractured the habitat so much that animals are unable to find food, shelter, and unrelated mates,” says Yap. “This act requires local governments to consider and minimize impact to wildlife movement and habitat connectivity as part of the conservation element of their general plan.”

The legislation encourages wildlife-friendly fencing, reduced light pollution, and the planting of drought-resistant native plants that will attract native pollinators. (Wildlife-friendly fencing is highly visible to animals and birds and allows for the safe passage of animals over or under fences; typically, this means a 40-inch-tall fence with a minimum of 12 inches spacing between wires. Light pollution can be reduced by minimizing light installations, using LED lights, pointing lights downward, and using shades or covers on lights.) 

“By keeping ecosystems healthy, we can better maintain the co-benefits people receive from them, like clean air and water, buffers from extreme weather, crop pollinators like bees and pest control like bats, which hunt crop-eating insects,” says Yap. 

The post On The Ground With Groups Creating Wildlife Corridors appeared first on Modern Farmer.

It was dark, with a sliver of a moon lending a Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland eeriness to the inherent novelty of my planned morning of activities. I pulled past the “No Trespassing” signs and found the trailer, cheerfully lit up against the dark meadow quietly swaying in the breeze behind it. 

I shook hands with the waiting stranger and grabbed one of the headlamps and a set of protective earmuffs (exposure to the sound of gunshots over time can damage your eardrums) on offer, and followed her—yes, her—into the woods, where we’d huddle in a blind for hours, waiting to see if any turkeys would show. 

Cheryl Frank Sullivan, a research assistant professor of entomology at the University of Vermont, grew up around hunting in Upstate New York, but she was never interested in it. “I studied environmental science in college, and I didn’t see until a little later how hunting could fit into that,” says Sullivan. Many folks may change their minds about a stance they took when they were younger. But hunting is a topic that inherently brings up strong emotions. And crucially, it hasn’t always been portrayed as friendly or open to women looking to join up. 

As I found out on that cold spring morning, that’s changing. 

The hunt

Sullivan led me toward the blind she had set up, telling her story. (I don’t have a license to hunt, so I could only legally observe her hunting.) Like many other female hunters, the route she took to get where she is today was meandering but meaningful. 

“For me, hunting has become a way of living and a way of being in the world and the woods,” said Sullivan as we sat in comfortable camp chairs inside a snug tent with windows we could zip and unzip as needed to see what was going on, disguise ourselves and—if all went well—Sullivan could target and shoot a gobbler.

Sullivan set up realistic (to me) looking hen turkey decoys in a patch of meadow in front of our ground hide. Hunters can also set up blinds in trees, but those are best utilized for deer hunts, or they can just completely camouflage themselves and set up next to a tree on the ground or move quietly from place to place, she says.

“Turkeys have eagle eyes, so wearing camo and staying very still is important, and they have incredible hearing, which is why I’m whispering,” said Sullivan. 

In a bid to draw the birds, Sullivan brought out a slate call, scratching the striker against the slate to imitate a turkey’s distinct vocalizations. Sullivan, who seemed familiar with all of the state’s hunting regulations, was only able to target gobblers or male turkeys.

“May is nesting season, so you can’t hunt hens,” said Sullivan. “We can also hunt from a half an hour before sunrise to noon.”

Following the rules, which vary state to state and are generally handled by a wildlife management agency, is important to Sullivan and all of the hunters she knows.

Women have always hunted 

An army of female hunters may seem modern, but recent studies show it’s anything but. 

For millennia, the notion that men hunted and women gathered dominated the academic study of early human life. The popular imagination followed, and for many years, the idea that society would function better if men and women would do what comes “naturally” to them—in other words, stop trying to wedge your way into boardrooms and onto battlefields, ladies—seemed like common sense in many circles. 

But science and new discoveries have overturned that paradigm. New research out of the University of Washington and Seattle Pacific University shows that, around 200,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens began their slow trudge toward space travel and excessive screen time, women were responsible for hunting, right alongside the men. 

The findings published in PLOS One found that, in 79 percent of societies across the world for which scientists were able to find direct evidence, women were hunting with purpose and their own tools. Girls were actively encouraged to learn how to join the hunt. 

Sullivan’s approach to hunting—as a way to respect and care for the land and the intricate ecosystem and food chain that it supports—reflects a consistent shift in the culture of hunting, says Mandy Harling, director of education and outreach programs at the National Wild Turkey Federation [NWTF], a foundation dedicated to wild turkey conservation throughout North America.

When the organization was founded in 1973, hunting heritage was foundational to NWTF’s mission. Since 2012, when it launched a refreshed preservation push, the NWTF has conserved or enhanced more than four million acres of wild land for turkeys and hunters, and it has opened public access to hunting on 600,000-plus acres of land. 

Conservation and hunting, while at first glance perhaps unlikely bedfellows, share many of the same goals, says Harling. 

“Clean water is essential for all living things on earth, and where there is clean water, there are turkeys,” says Harling. “We work with partners to create healthier forests and watersheds. And when we manage a forest for wild turkey habitat, we also improve the land for all wildlife and the humans who live around it.”

Getting women interested in and invested in hunting is also part of the NWTF’s long-term strategy.

“We formally began organizing women in outdoor programs in 1998,” says Harling. “We have found that the conservation aspect is an important aspect of the culture of hunting that attracts women.”

While only 10 percent to 15 percent of hunters in the US are currently women, that number is on the rise, with the number of women applying for hunting permits almost equaling that of men and more organizations set up to train women hunters. Some states such as Maine have programs specifically for women organized by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. There are also nonprofits such as Doe Camp Nation and companies such as Artemis and Wild Sheep which offer retreats and training programs for would-be women hunters. 

Maya Holschuh, a 25-year-old Wilmington, VT resident who started hunting at 21, says the practice has been empowering and transformative. 

“I feel like it’s a much more ethical way to consume meat. I know how the animal died, I know it lived a great life in the wild and I know it wasn’t raised in captivity and pumped full of hormones,” says Holschuh. 

On my first foray into the hunting world, there were no kills. The experience left me with the same feeling I get after the first day of skiing every year: I connected with the natural world on a deep level that I somehow forget I know how to plumb on other nature excursions. I was OK with my performance, but I could do better next time. I know what I’d change. It left me sated but wanting more. 

I love eating meat. But I want to eat less beef because I know that continuing to support cattle farming with my burger habit is more destructive to the ecosystem and surrounding community than, say, shooting one deer or a handful of turkeys and eating their meat for an entire season. I opt for organic, grassfed everythin, and have developed a taste for wild meat thanks to my generous hunting friends who are always willing to share their hauls.

Hunting seems like the next step in my CSA-joining, farmer’s market-shopping food journey. Will I run out and get a hunting license? I haven’t yet. But I’m intrigued by the idea of joining my sisters in arms. 

Sullivan has introduced countless women to hunting and fishing, and she has instructed groups on weekend retreats through associations such as Vermont Outdoors Woman and Vermont Outdoor Guide Association. 

“If you want to learn to hunt, reaching out to an organization that guides women is a great place to start,” says Sullivan. “You’ll get guidance on technique but also learn what kind of licenses and gear you’ll need. Plus, you’ll be creating a network of other female hunters who are eager to learn.”

The post Women Are Reclaiming Their Hunting Heritage appeared first on Modern Farmer.

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

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

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

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

The circumstances and details of delivery vary considerably. 

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

Delivering aid in Somalia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Delivering aid in Gaza 

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

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

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

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

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

Delivering aid in Ukraine 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A recent visit to the northern city of Montreal in February, when temperatures hovered around 10 degrees Fahrenheit, found restaurants and bars that still managed to serve locally grown and produced food and beverages. It drove home the point that, if they can make it work here—we can do it anywhere. 

A long history 

Decades before cities began actively encouraging the growing and consumption of local food, Montreal was on it. In 1936, Montreal launched the first community garden initiative, alongside the Relief Gardens, and later, the Victory Gardens that sprang up as a result of the world wars. Community gardens continued to grow in popularity over the century, with new branches and chapters flourishing in the 1970s. That’s when the concept of “guerilla gardening” became popular in the city, as groups of Portuguese and Italian immigrants began gardening in unused spaces around the city. In 1973, the Victoria Community Garden was founded by the Jewish General Hospital and the Golden Age Foundation, which aimed to create a gardening space for residents over age 55. It’s now the second-largest garden on the island. 

Today, growing and consuming food feels like a cultural imperative.

“We have always valued culture and the arts, and to us, food and wine is part of that,” says Julie Martel, a longtime advocate for local produce and a project manager at the annual food-centric festival Montreal en Lumiere. “As we have all become increasingly aware of the impact of consuming food that is grown far away, Montreal’s institutions and its regular people have become more invested in supporting the local food movement.”

Today, there are 57 urban farming companies in Montreal, including the first urban rooftop greenhouse and the world’s largest urban farming project, Lufa Farms, at 300,000 square feet. 

A culture of support

A proliferation of locally grown food won’t make an impact without a hungry and supportive culture. In Montreal specifically, and Quebec more broadly, that culture is specifically and purposefully fostered.

In 2020, Quebec Agriculture Minister André Lamontagne and Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonatan Julien earmarked $100 million to double the size of the province’s greenhouse operations by 2025. Already, the province is 50 percent self-sufficient, providing its citizens with locally grown produce year round, with the goal of reaching 80-percent sufficiency. 

In Montreal, the government-funded convention center—the Palais des congrés de Montreal—is carbon neutral and has invested in several innovative food and ecological initiatives. The Urban Agriculture Lab, which has Canada’s first urban rooftop vineyard, extensive rooftop gardens and pollinating beehives, is housed there. 

But perhaps more importantly, the citizens, event planners and chefs of Montreal actively support these institutions.

“Did you know that spinach grown in the winter is sweeter?” asks Martel. “It’s because it is struggling, and that process releases a chemical that makes it taste sweeter. You discover that, and so much more, as a food lover in Montreal as we all get more creative growing and eating local food year-round.”

Martel treats her robust CSA—which grows its own produce and brings in dairy, poultry and meat from nearby farms in Quebec—like many of us do our grocery store, shopping online and ordering for the week. But she also uses her position of power to ensure that Montreal en Lumiere, a festival that draws in 500,000 visitors and includes events with 52 restaurants in the city, is hyper-local focused. 

“We bring in Michelin-starred chefs and iconic winemakers from across the world to create meals and pairings for the event,” says Martel. “But they are all using locally produced ingredients. When the festival began 25 years ago, it was all about Italian truffles and lemons. Now it’s about Montreal-raised fish, locally grown produce.”

Indeed, there are several now-iconic Montreal food and drinks companies that are regionally beloved but largely unknown outside of the city, simply because most of their goods are consumed by local gourmands.

Lufa Farms, the world’s first commercial rooftop greenhouse, was founded in 2009, employs more than 600 people and grows 50+ types of produce (including 10 varieties of tomatoes and three varieties of eggplant) across 300,000 square feet on four rooftops. That bounty totals 25,000 pounds a week and goes to 20,000 customers who are able to order customized food baskets. Lufa offers more than 400 pick-up points around the city, and the farm also delivers straight to customers’ doors. 

Several restaurants in Montreal proudly showcase their connection to Lufa Farms and another new local-famous innovator: Opercule. 

Founded in 2017, Opercule farms arctic char sustainably, consuming, it says, 100 to 200 times less water than classic open-circuit fish farms. (It is also powered by hydropower, which is ample in Quebec and much cleaner than alternatives such as coal). The fish are raised without antibiotics or hormones and delivered to the dozens of grocery stores and restaurants with which it works, just hours after being harvested via electric vehicles. Opercule produces around 25 tons of fish per year and harvests fish only once an order is placed.

Other, less obvious locally produced food and drinks businesses are also thriving. Take Distillerie de Montreal. 

Founded by fifth-generation distiller Lilian Wolfelsberger and lawyer and entrepreneur Stéphane Dion, the Distillerie produces about 300,000 bottles across more than two dozen different products, many of them using all local ingredients, says production manager Alexandre Arpin. “We buy mash from our local brewery that sources grain locally, and in a few years, we’ll be using our own grains, which we plan to source from our friends nearby.”

The vast majority of the production is purchased locally, although it does have a cult following in certain pockets of Europe. 

Distillerie also creates several spirits and liqueurs from locally farmed or foraged fruit, including La Pomme Blanche Marie-Jo (made with locally grown apples) and Sureau Elderberry (made with locally harvested elderflowers and berries). 

“We’ve ended up with some of our more interesting products because of things our forager Guy has brought us,” says Arpin. “I have at least 74 plants and mushrooms in some stage of distillation from things he’s brought us.”

Looking ahead

Montreal rides its fame for bagels, poutine and smoked meat hard. But it is also increasingly seeking to honor the traditions and cuisines from the 120 ethnicities that live and thrive there, especially that of its First Nations people. 

In addition to supporting museum collections and festivals highlighting First Peoples’ culture, a First Nations Garden has been opened in the city’s Botanical Garden, and the city’s large-scale festivals are working to bring in and highlight the work of First Nations producer chefs. 

“We have so much to learn from the history and culture of the Indigenous people,” says Martel. “We decided to spotlight Indigenous cuisine at the festival this year, because we recognize how much Indigenous people have to offer in terms of knowledge of the edible plants and spices we still have to discover all around us.”

Maxime Lizotte, an Indigenous chef who worked at some of the country’s top kitchens, agrees. 

“During the pandemic, I decided it was time to focus on my Indigenous roots,” he explains. “I want to not only honor the traditions and lands of my ancestors of the Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk First Nation but also merge them with the cuisines that influenced me and made me fall in love with cooking and food.”

Much of the food that his ancestors cooked and ate was for survival, he explains. 

“The conditions were harsh,” he says. “A lot of our produce and meat was smoked or dried or both. It was an excellent way to preserve the food and sustain life, but maybe it’s not the way we want to eat today.” 

So, instead of serving up dried berries and simply smoked seal meat, he combines the best of both worlds. 

“I use Indigenous ingredients like seal and wild plants but also pork raised on my ancestral land,” he says. “To me, that’s more logical than serving deer flown in from New Zealand.”

Montreal’s spirit of using what you have on hand but prepared with inspiration from a wide swath of histories and cultures feels extraordinarily 22nd century. 

Hungry to find your own local, progressive, home-grown flavor? Check out the USDA’s CSA finder and LocalHarvest. Then write your local political representative and tell them to take a few pages out of our northern neighbor’s playbook and start funding local farming institutions.

The post If Montreal Can Feed Itself Year-Round, More Cities Can appeared first on Modern Farmer.

No person or plant can emerge unscathed, says Dr. Guillermo Murray-Tortarolo, a researcher at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. His work focuses on understanding the link between climate change and its impact on food production and human societies. As hotter and wetter conditions become more prevalent, so do the fungi, microbes and insects that thrive in those conditions. They can all increase a plant’s likelihood of disease. As well, changes in temperature make it harder for plants to photosynthesize, so crop yields are dropping. 

But while “climate change is affecting absolutely everything,” says Murray-Tortarolo, “some sectors are more impacted than others.” 

Dry and semi-arid ecosystems are seeing record biodiversity losses and challenges in the agricultural sector. 

“The large increments in precipitation variability and seasonality have reduced the certainty of planting times and expected yields, with some extreme examples occurring the last couple of years, like with the red jalapeño for sriracha and Canadian mustard,” he says. That’s right, folks; climate change is not just taking down staple crops, it’s coming for your most beloved condiments. 

Mustard yields are way down

The global mustard market is worth about $6.87 billion, and it is projected to increase by a compound annual growth rate of 5.8 percent through 2029. While mustard seed is native to Europe, World War II disrupted production there, and since then, Canada has become one of the world’s largest producers of yellow, oriental and brown mustard seeds. 

Last year, farmers in Canada planted close to 555,000 acres of mustard seed, producing 161,781 tons, primarily in Saskatchewan. But amid challenging weather conditions, yields have plummeted in recent years. In 2021, mustard yields hovered at 431 pounds an acre, down close to 57 percent from the usual 1,000 pounds per acre. 

That meant soaring prices and—quelle horreur—a distinct absence of mustard from supermarkets in France. “We lost almost everything during the harvest [of] 2021, but every year for the past 15 years has had extreme challenges,” says Élaine Bélanger, vice president of operations and co-owner of Maison Orphée, a Quebec City-based manufacturer of mustard, olive oils and other specialty products. “And because we are manufacturing organic mustard, we are a niche within a niche market. The costs were going way up in every direction, and even as we were able to source some mustard seeds from abroad, we didn’t want to change our recipe too much.”

The mustard Maison Orphée creates is a blend of yellow, brown and oriental seeds, and while Bélanger prioritizes sourcing from its network of growers in Canada, in bad years, it’s had to eat the costs of sourcing from Eastern Europe and beyond. 

“It’s very difficult for us as manufacturers, and for the growers we work with, to know what to invest in,” says Bélanger. “Because it’s not just an increase in temperature. It’s a change in several ways. If growers invest in a variety that is more adaptable to temperature, what about drought?”

With El Niño conditions this year, Murray-Tortarolo says we should all prepare for challenges. 

“This year, an El Niño is predicted, which may bring additional winter rainfall but also extreme conditions,” he says. “While it is too soon to know what to expect in the next planting season, extreme events are expected to be numerous.”

Hot sauce shortages 

Hot sauce shortages have also become increasingly the norm. 

The maker of the beloved sriracha, Huy Fong Foods, had to issue repeated statements to customers apologizing for the shortage of sauce, blaming poor harvests of chili peppers in California, New Mexico and Mexico for the ongoing dearth on supermarket shelves. (At certain points in the past few years, resellers have been offering the usual $5 bottles for up to $150 to desperate hot-heads.)

As it turns out, where we’re growing these peppers is part of the problem—and climate change is amplifying the issues. 

“Peppers first emerged in the rainforest,” says Dr. Danise Coon, a senior research specialist at New Mexico State University’s Agriculture Experiment Station. “And over 6,000 years ago, we domesticated them and eventually moved them to arid climates.”

While we bred and adapted peppers for dry heat, it is now both hotter and drier in the regions in which they are cultivated.

“There are so many more extremes in recent years,” says Coon. “Last year was the hottest on record with 105 degrees or higher for 60 days during the growing season. In New Mexico, there’s a lot of debate going on about drip irrigation, which just adds to the challenges.”

The New Mexico red and green chili production was valued at around $46.2 million in 2022, but farmers also grow cayenne peppers and jalapeños there.

As the weather gets hotter and drier, and widespread irrigation appears less viable, researchers like Coon are working hard at coming up with solutions. “We are working on several projects aimed at combating climate change. We’re trying to breed chilis to produce higher yields under greater stress and drier conditions.”

Her colleague, Dennis Lozada, who specializes in plant genomics and molecular biology at New Mexico State University, says that examining the DNA sequence of individual chilis has been invaluable.

“We are looking at how we can even change things like root morphology to create higher adaptability,” says Lozada. 

They are working with an “endless” number of varieties, because there are thousands of wild species, which they can then cross-breed and hybridize. For Coon, it’s not just about saving hot sauce.

“In New Mexico, growing and eating chilis is a cultural thing,” says Coon. “It’s part of our heritage.”

Ketchup’s challenges 

Ketchup’s market size is gargantuan. Arguably, so are the challenges it is facing. The ketchup market was valued at around $31.9 billion in 2022, with an expected compound annual growth rate of 4.58 percent through 2028. 

Three years of searing temperatures in Australia, Spain and California—three of the world’s top tomato-producing areas—has led to a drop in tomato paste stocks, which not only goes into ketchup bases but is also key for pizza and marinara sauce. 

“Our market demands, compounded by climate change, have completely outpaced the ability of staple crops to evolve and adapt to a warmer climate,” says Dr. Amy Concilio, an associate professor of environmental science at St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX. 

California produces about 30 percent of the world’s tomatoes and 95 percent of the tomatoes used in canned goods in the US. Harvests were down 10 percent in 2022, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, and that trend is set to continue if things don’t change. 

This is where scientists come in. Artificial intelligence apps will be part of the solution, from helping improve weather models to reducing water consumption, says Concilio. 

And mega-companies such as Kraft Heinz (the world’s top manufacturer of ketchup) are pouring money into research and drastically reducing their environmental footprint as well. In 2022, its efforts allowed it to reduce water use by 8.7 percent overall and by 16.07 percent in high-risk watershed areas, according to its 2023 ESG Report. The company also sourced 75 percent of its tomatoes sustainably. 

But perhaps even more importantly, the company is investing in its own breeding program, dubbed HeinzSeed.

“At our core, Kraft Heinz is an agricultural company,” says Patrick Sheridan, vice president of global agriculture and sustainability at Kraft Heinz. The company is the largest purchaser of processing tomatoes in the world and it is serious about maintaining its edge amid a changing climate, says Sheridan.

“We’re aiming to purchase 100 percent sustainably sourced Heinz ketchup tomatoes by 2025,” he says. “One of the most significant challenges we face is water availability.”

Several years of below-average precipitation, coupled with decreased water availability in the regions in which the tomatoes are produced, with further declines anticipated, says Sheridan, has led the company to invest in improving irrigation technology and protocols and next-generation HeinzSeeds that are more heat, drought and disease tolerant.

For the foreseeable future, those who want to buy their condiments ready-made may have to face inflationary prices and shortages.

***

Hungry for a more eco-friendly and dependable alternative that is also kind to your wallet? You’ll never run out of sauces and spices if you grow the ingredients to flavor your foods yourself:

Grow mustard greens

Mustard greens are cooler-climate plants, and they tend to thrive in temperatures between 45 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. You can grow them in raised beds outside or containers inside. Make sure they have access to six hours of direct sunlight. 

Take a plastic planting box with holes in the bottom and fill with prepared planting mix. Scatter mustard seeds over the soil, moisten lightly but don’t soak. Loose soil works best. Cover with cling wrap, and after two to three days, you’ll see seedlings. Remove the wrap, moisten the soil. After five or so days of growing, they’re ready to be harvested, or you can let them grow for up to three weeks. Use an organic vegetable fertilizer to feed these plants, following the directions on the label. Reseed the soil when you’re ready for another crop. 

Mustard greens are delicious on their own or sauteed in olive oil with salt and pepper. But if you’re eager to try your hand at making mustard itself, try this easy recipe from HGTV.

Grow serrano peppers

Serrano peppers need six to eight hours of sunlight every day, so make sure you place them near a south-facing window. (Alternatively, use artificial lights designed for gardening.) Also keep in mind that serranos are used to warm temperatures: 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit ideally. 

Take a plastic planting box with holes in the bottom and fill with prepared planting mix. Sow seeds about ¼ inch deep, and space them one to two feet apart. Loose soil is ideal. You want to keep soil moist but not wet. Use an organic vegetable fertilizer to feed these plants, following the directions on the label. Pepper plants self-pollinate, but you can shake them occasionally to help spur them on. 

Serrano chilis will spice up your life in a number of ways, but if you want to turn the chilis into hot sauce, try this basic recipe from the Food Network. 

Grow tomatoes 

Tomato plants need sun, and you may need some artificial gardening lights as an assist, especially in the winter. Seedlings need 18 to22 hours of light when growing indoors. Once they have color, they need less and can move to a window with plenty of light. Smaller tomatoes grow better inside. Keep in mind that tomatoes also love temperatures of 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Give your seedlings a boost by giving your seed-starting trays a little heat (the top of your fridge is a great spot). Once the seedlings are six inches tall, transfer them to a larger plastic planting container with potting mix. Keep the plants moist but not wet. Use an organic vegetable fertilizer to feed these plants, following the directions on the label. Tomato plants self-pollinate, but you can shake them occasionally to help spur them on. 

Tomatoes are great on salads, in sandwiches—even solo with salt and olive oil. But we’ve got your back if you want to use yours to make ketchup: This Food Network recipe is a good place to start.

The post Climate Change Is Coming for Your Favorite Condiments appeared first on Modern Farmer.

But when you look at it from the outside, that diversity is rarely seen. Often, the people actually running wine businesses are white and male, and their stories are the ones that get told. 

The fact that the wine industry is powered by a heterogenous group but run largely by white men, some say, is a matter of what the wine industry—and the broader culture—values and prioritizes. 

“People don’t see the wine industry as diverse, but if you include the story of the people in the vineyard, we are very diverse,” says Sofia Torres-McKay, co-owner of the Dundee Hills, OR-based Cramoisi Vineyard and co-founder of AHIVOY (Asociación Hispana de la Industria del Vino en Oregon Y Comunidad), an organization that aims to empower the largely Latinx community of vineyard stewards through education. “To me, the work that is done in the vineyards is often the most interesting part of the story of wine. ”

But the reality, says Torres-McKay, is the people who are there in the vineyard every day, caring for the grapes, shape the outcome of the wine just as much as its terroir—the environmental factors: climate, soil and elevation. 

During the pandemic, when the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and #MeToo movements gained support from Americans (about 67 percent of people supported BLM in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center, and about 49 percent of people support #MeToo), both individuals and brands looked for ways to support businesses, as well as hire and promote people who more accurately reflect the population of the country. For a moment, it seemed like the tide had turned. Not only would the people who do the work get recognition for it, but they might be given the opportunity to move up in the industry. 

What has the hope and promise led to? Three years after Black Lives Matter and #MeToo gained widespread acceptance, not only has the support for BLM dropped to just 51 percent, the progress and opportunities that seemed just around the corner appear, to many, to be further away than ever.

Breaking down diversity 

America is an increasingly diverse country. A recent study of the voting population throws the numbers into context: About 38 percent of voters aged 18-25 identify as people of color, compared with 32 percent of millennials, 28 percent of Generation X and 21 percent of Baby Boomers. The US is 50.5 percent women to 49.5 percent male. The percentage of the population that identifies as LGBTQ+ is now 7.1 percent, double what it was in 2012, according to a recent Gallup poll. 

But the percentage of BIPOC individuals who own a winery or serve as head winemakers is less than one percent, and women account for just around 14 percent of winemakers (up from 10 percent in 1890, which must constitute one of the slowest growth curves in history). There has been some progress though: 38 percent of winery owners or co-owners are now women. There are no comprehensive assessments of the percentage of openly LGBTQ+ winemakers and winery owners, but the numbers, according to observers, do not come close to reflecting the population.  

Economic challenges and progress 

Marketing professor and wine business researcher Dr. Monique Bell has conducted two groundbreaking studies of Black wine entrepreneurs, providing a snapshot of the challenges and advances. 

When comparing the two studies, Bell found that the biggest issue for Black entrepreneurs was finding funding. “[It’s] actually increased between 2020 and 2023, with 50 percent now reporting that as their number one challenge, versus 43 percent in 2020,” says Bell. Respondents also believe “that Black wine entrepreneurs face racial bias and racism more in the wine industry than they would in other industries.”

In lieu of support from financial institutions, almost nine out of 10 Black-run wineries either self-fund their businesses or rely on family and friends for support. More importantly, only 50 percent of Black-owned businesses were profitable in the past year. Despite that, 90 percent of respondents say that they are more optimistic about the future of their business than they were a year ago.

Bell says that unless the industry, government and trade associations step in with financial and distribution support, the rise of Black wine entrepreneurs will be slow and painful. 

Organizations such as Our Legacy Harvested, founded in 2020 by Tiquette Bramlett, are hoping to bridge some of those gaps in support by bringing BIPOC winemakers together. 

“I have been in the industry at this point for close to a decade,” says Bramlett. “In 2020, it became clear to me that people who look like me aren’t finding a lot of opportunities in the wine industry. I wanted to create a community that isn’t just about bringing in more Black and Brown people, but about connecting members of wine country who want to increase the diversity of their staff, and also support more BIPOC businesses generally.”

Bramlett wanted the process to feel organic, she says, because she thought it would foster longer-lasting and deeper connections. Her first step was to throw a party.

“We did a socially distant party in [Oregon’s] wine country, inviting 35 BIPOC vendors,” says Bramlett. “Winemakers came and made connections that are still growing and thriving today.”

But Bramlett wanted to do more, and so did members of the wine community. Next came paid internships at wineries, with a funded place to leave and transportation to and around wine country included. 

“The first year, 2022, we had more than 100 applicants and just four places to fill, which shows how much of a hunger there is for this kind of program,” she says. The internships were a success and will continue, along with shorter opportunities for folks who can’t take three months off of their jobs and lives to move to wine country. 

Offering new opportunities for visibility 

“While the vast majority of the people caring for grapes in the vineyard are LatinX, they are unseen, and not really considered by the average wine consumer,” says Torres-McKay. “Not only that, but they don’t have the opportunity to see what their work turns into. Most people who spend their careers working in vineyards never see a tasting room or cellar.”

That creates a disconnect for all. 

AHIVOY, Torres-McKay’s education organization, offers classroom work at a community college, visits to wineries, cellar tastings and visits to parts of the winery with which workers might not be familiar, such as the bottling line. “That way, if they’re pulling leaves, they know why. It will lead to riper fruit, which will make the wine taste better. Once they understand why they’re doing things, they become more invested in the process, and can ask better questions and do a better job.”

The results, she says, have been fruitful for the dozens of workers who have gone through the program since it was first offered in 2020. 

Like the LatinX community, the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community is much more diverse than people realize. Lois Cho founded the Oregon AAPI Food & Wine Festival this year to educate wine lovers and shatter preconceived notions about the community.

The inaugural event, held this past May in Dayton, OR, offered bites from five AAPI chefs and wine tastings from five AAPI wineries. It sold out quickly, and she plans to grow and evolve the events and offerings next year. AAPI wineries have already reached out to them, and they already have 13 wineries from across the country on board for 2024. 

But Cho has more in mind than simply changing the narrative around AAPI food and wine. 

“When we reached out to a distributor initially, they told us not to highlight our ethnicity,” says Cho. “At first, it seemed like maybe that would make sense, because it’s typically thought of as such a traditional European business. But it actually ended up inspiring me to embrace and lean into it. We’re opening a tasting room this spring and we’re going to lean into nontraditional pairings, like an Asian-inspired charcuterie board and Asian-inspired pizzas like Korean Spicy Chicken.”

Providing support and outreach 

Remy Drabkin, one of a handful of prominent queer winemakers in the country, also became the first queer-identified person to hold the office of mayor of McMinnville.

“I think now, especially as many states enact laws that create hostile environments for trans and queer people, sharing our voices and experiences is more important than ever,” says Drabkin. 

The Remy Wines vintner founded Wine Country Pride to amplify voices in the local Oregon wine community and more broadly through regular fundraisers and events that also in turn provide scholarships for LGBTQ+ youth and support organizations that advocate for the community. 

In 2022, Remy Wines hosted the first inaugural Queer Wine Fest, to celebrate queer-made and grown wines from across the country. 

“It has turned into its own thing, which is really inspiring to see,” says Drabkin. Queer people in the wine industry “is not a new thing… but now we’re creating a framework that has made and will continue to make us stronger than we’ve ever been.”

Wineries should continue to push for greater diversity and inclusion because it’s the right thing to do, through job outreach and good old-fashioned just-for-fun event activations. But ultimately, money talks. But what it’s telling us may surprise folks: Study after study shows that businesses that empower BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals and women make more money—a lot more money. 

“I see what we do as an opportunity for everyone, not a confrontation between two different groups,” says Torres-McKay. “Wineries and vineyard managers also benefit, because they have a stronger and more empowered and informed team.”

The post How Diverse is the Wine Industry Now? appeared first on Modern Farmer.