A Black woman and Le Cordon Bleu grad who cooked in prestigious restaurants, Woodward watched as peers in the industry obtained funding because they had a network to tap into. Individual investors dismissed her as not being ambitious or confident enough. She had no recent revenue figures to provide to a bank.

Woodward believes her color was a barrier to procuring capital. “I think we just have a perception of what leadership looks like, or who can lead or build. That’s a trope or image. If you don’t match that image…,” she trails off.

Then she successfully applied for financing from Black Farmer Fund (BFF), a nonprofit community investment fund that supports the Black agricultural community in the Northeast to close the racial wealth gap and build connections. 

Thanks primarily to BFF, “we were able to create a brand and get our infrastructure set up and inventory and everything we needed,” says Woodward.

Filling a void

Since the 1920s, the percentage of Black farmers in the United States has declined precipitously from 14 percent to two percent. The history of racism throughout the agricultural industry is well-documented. Though the ruling of Pigford vs Glickman awarded nearly $2 billion to Black farmers, it’s still difficult for beginning Black farmers to get a foothold in the industry.

BFF is one of a handful of organizations formed since 2020 to support BIPOC farmers and food businesses unable to obtain capital and other critical aid through conventional options, like a farm credit bureau or bank. Another is Potlikker Capital, a social justice charitable fund supporting mainly rural BIPOC farmers across the country.

Both are impact investing funds, which invest capital to generate returns and positive social or environmental impact. Like other investment funds, they raise capital through donations and the sale of notes. 

BFF seeks to deploy $40 million over 75 investments within 10 years. So far it has raised 68 percent towards that and invested in 16 farms and businesses including a distillery, a herbal education and medicine concern, and a brand of a West African sparkling beverage. Some are members of BFF’s $1.1 million pilot fund, which was used to test, build, and inform the organization’s process for centering the needs of farmers and investing in a more reparative structure of capital.

Potlikker aims to work with 300 businesses, including distributors, processors, and producers. lt also partners with farmers who are not of color, but who are in relationship to the community, and underwrites two agriculture entities: Jubilee Justice and Food System 6.

The funds employ a holistic approach using integrated capital, technical assistance, and networking, recognizing that growth support requires more than just money, particularly in BIPOC communities. Technical assistance can range from helping a farmer set up Quick Books to introductions to a soil remediation expert or a State Department of Agriculture contact. Chosen farmers and businesses must follow climate-smart practices and give back to their communities. 

In this non-extractive, restorative model, integrated capital can be zero or low interest loans, grants and recoverable grants, equity, or near equity. Decision making is community-led by BIPOC members of food and agricultural spaces, including farmers or those who work at nonprofits, in food systems, education, and business, including some of whom have received support from the organizations. 

Strands of support

Support takes many forms. For one, BFF and Potlikker establish culturally appropriate relationships and do not charge a fee for their services.

BFF also offers community engagement and networking through community work days and skill shares on topics like how to be loan ready. Funding comes from rapid response or community garden pools or as a portfolio business, a large scale investment. 

Sometimes, when trusted with people’s emotions or mental health challenges, “just being able to be there and help folks navigate through challenging transitions,” is what’s required, says BFF co-founder Olivia Watkins. 

Edenesque became a portfolio business of BFF last year. While most investees receive between a quarter and half a million dollars, the company received $1.25 million in a grant and a loan. With the funding, Edenesque relaunched in October 2024. Its nut and oat milks are sold in over 200 stores in the Northeast, including Whole Foods; that number will double by April. Now that she’s virtually rebuilt her company from scratch, Woodward plans to use BFF’s technical assistance offerings, like learning to use social media for brand promotion. 

Since 2021, Potlikker has provided resources to 57 farmers in 24 states. By May, co-founder Mark Watson expects that number to grow to 65. 

Ozell White, a Mississippi cattle and watermelon farmer, participated in Jubilee Justice’s rice growing project. He served as Chair of Potlikker’s Board and received a $12,000 grant for fencing and a mechanical weeder after meeting Watson on a cross-country RV trip to visit farmers. Better equipped to control weeds and practice sustainable farming, White now doesn’t need pricey chemical inputs. 

With eight other farmers throughout Mississippi, White is also participating in one of Potlikker’s “communities of practice,” groups organized so farmers can share knowledge and trade business opportunities. They’re learning accounting, tax preparation, and business planning from Potlikker staff, its Board and Resource Council members, and experts contracted by Potlikker.

“The beauty of Potlikker,” says White, “is that they can start with the farmer, and walk with that farmer from where they are and stay with them until they get where they need to go.” 

Changing the landscape

These efforts to effect systemic change have gained greater significance with the recent dissolution of many DEI efforts across industries. 

Watson and Watkins believe that fundraising will continue apace because of the substantial interest in having strong local food systems and support from mission-aligned donors. “I think it’s just the context in which we’re all working is going to shift,” Watkins says.  

Organizations like Potlikker and BFF are needed to help the money flow fair, says Watson. “I don’t know how we’re going to handle it, but we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing,” he asserts, “serving communities that we feel like have not ever had real access or might be getting diminished access to resources.”

The post On the Ground with Organizations Uplifting BIPOC Farmers appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In 2024, Environmental Defence Canada published Left Holding the Bag: A Survey of Plastic Packaging in Canada’s Grocery Stores. They found that over 70 percent of products in the produce and baby food aisle are encased in plastic. It’s not much better in the US. In 2019 Greenpeace USA assessed 20 grocery retailers with a significant national or regional presence. None of the retailers, according to Greenpeace, appeared to have comprehensive plans on how to reduce plastic use.

And while it’s true that consumers increasingly report that using less plastic matters to them, statistics paint a different picture. In 2020, over 242 million Americans used bagged or packaged salads–a figure expected to have risen to 251.47 million in 2024. Salad bags are generally categorized as “plastic film” and they jam recycling machinery. They end up in the landfill where they decompose releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Alongside the environmental concerns, there are potential health issues. Growing research suggests that chemicals used in the manufacture of plastic contribute to a multitude of health issues. Consumer Reports tested nearly 100 foods ranging from dairy products to canned goods.They found that phthalates, a chemical used to make plastic flexible, were in almost all of them. Studies suggest that regular exposure to phthalates can affect reproductive health and that older adults with phthalates in their bodies were more likely to suffer heart disease.  

But, there’s hope. In April 2024, the European Parliament voted to approve new rules aimed at reducing plastic packaging. Starting in 2030, bans will be in place for packaging of unprocessed fresh fruits and vegetables. Consumers will be encouraged to bring their containers to restaurants and cafés, which will also aim to offer 10 percent of products in reusable packaging. Since 2022,  Canada has banned the use of single use plastic bags at supermarket checkouts. And, in the US more than a hundred municipalities and cities have banned polystyrene ( styrofoam) used in food containers, including Los Angeles and New York. Illinois has gone even further. Legislation came into effect in 2024, permitting restaurants and retailers to fill or refill consumer-owned containers with ready-made or bulk food. Still, plastic packaging persists. 

Currently, out of over 300,000 grocery stores in the U.S., which range from expansive supermarkets to small specialty shops, only 1,300 zero-waste stores offer a plastic-free shopping experience.We spoke with a few shops around the country to see how they ditched the plastic. 

Maison: pay for food, not packaging

After visiting France and shopping plastic-free, Larasita Vitoux was inspired to open Maison Jar Refillery and Grocery Store in Brooklyn.

“In Europe, there are so many refilleries and stores with bulk aisles,” Vitoux says.   

Maison Jar sells bread, vegetables and dried goods all free of plastic covering. According to the store’s year-end impact report for 2023, they are making a dent in plastic use. For example: in 2023 Maison Jar sold 39,075 fluid ounces of kombucha–the equivalent of 2,443 16 oz plastic bottles. 

Something Vitoux believes could propel plastic free bulk shopping into the mainstream market is the introduction of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation. An EPR shifts the responsibility for managing materials at the end of life away from consumers and onto producers who are required to provide funding and/or services that assist in managing products after the use phase. To accomplish this, as Vitoux points out, there can be an embedded cost associated with the packaged goods that gets passed on to the consumer. 

Because bulk buying eliminates packaging, bulk items would not incur this carry over expense. 

“It would make bulk much more competitive,” Vitoux says. As of January 2025 legislation to establish EPR’s in New York State, where Maison Jar is,  had been introduced.  

Re_grocery: direct from the farm 

After living in San Francisco and enjoying bulk plastic-free shopping at the city’s iconic Rainbow Grocer, Joseph Macrino returned to Los Angeles in 2016. “ There weren’t any options in L.A. like that,” he says. So, he created his own. re_grocery’s first location opened in April 2020.

From the start, the store was popular; five years later re_grocery has expanded to a chain of three stores. One in Studio City, another in East L.A. and one in Venice. Carrying everything from cooking oils, quinoa, and organic vegetables, they work to keep  prices as competitive as conventional grocers.

“A lot of it has to do with the bulk nature of products we are purchasing,” Macrino explains. “For example, we purchase quinoa in 25lb bags. We get it directly from the farm after some processing and re-packing. It’s not going to another co-packer, where it is getting broken down into smaller packages. By avoiding that other middleman – the co-packer,  we are able to price bulk packages cheaper.” 

Customers at re_grocery weigh their containers when they arrive and receive a laser chip that is attached to the receptacle.When their goods are weighed at the check out the laser tag is scanned and the container weight is subtracted. The customer does not pay any extra for the container.

Roots Zero Waste Market: on demand ordering

The argument for wrapping a cucumber or head of cabbage in plastic is to maintain shelf life and freshness longer. At Roots, Rainey applies a “just-in-time ordering policy.” By ordering more frequently – often three times a week and only what she needs – food remains fresh. Roots sell eggs, milk, meat, and organic produce alongside bulk items such as olive oil, spices and rice. “We evaluate what’s moving on the floor seasonally and adjust to how people’s buying patterns are fluctuating at the time,” she says.

“We are an environmental company disguised as a retailer,” she says.  

Roots operates on a closed-loop business model that fits with Rainey’s environment consciousness, who is adamant that recycling does not work.

“There is no such thing as recycling,” she says. Not only do rules for what can be recycled vary by state: a plastic strawberry container, for instance, may be repurposed, but cling wrap may not be so lucky. Items such as toothpaste containers, chip bags, or juice boxes are formed with multiple layers of materials making them hard to break down and recycle.  

“We never send anything to the landfill,” Rainey says. If, for example, an apple gets bruised in produce, it’s taken to the deli where it is pressed into juice, with the  pulp repurposed for muffins and its core composted. 

 “We are an environmental company disguised as a retailer,” she says.  

The post On the Ground with Grocery Stores Ditching Plastic appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The Wood Buffalo Food Bank, in Fort McMurray, Alberta, fed 15,000 clients in 2021/22. According to Scott, the region is a hub for newcomers to Canada, and she estimates that at least half of the food bank’s clients are unfamiliar with Western food. 

Scott’s realization underscores a significant challenge faced by food banks and pantries across North America: Food is more than just fuel for the body. It carries deep significance that connects individuals to their beliefs and heritage. Food banks, though, are non-profit entities and, like the rest of us, are challenged by the high cost of food. This often means that they buy calorie-rich inexpensive products: canned soups, tinned fish, or dried pasta. But, these foods are not always the only foods people want. 

Feedback received by the the Ottawa Food Bank from a pilot project conducted between 2019 and 2020 indicated a desire for ethnocultural vegetables, such as okra, a traditional staple in African diets, to be available at food banks. Now, the food bank grows okra on its farm. 

Similar data was revealed in a report by the Food Bank of the Rockies, which found that individuals visiting food pantries that don’t offer cultural food preferences often feel stigmatized, unwelcome and unwilling to return. 

Recognizing the importance of culturally relevant food, Dan Edwards, executive director of the Wood Buffalo Food Bank, shared how it has always tried to incorporate specific items into its hampers. “We’ve made sure to add supplies for Bannock, a traditional Indigenous food, when it’s within our budget and capacity,” says Edwards. Items such as corn flour, Halal meat, lentils and spices are now added to food hampers if requested.

In Newton, Massachusetts, the Newton Food Pantry (NFP) started offering culturally relevant foods during the early days of the pandemic. “We offered things like celery, garlic, ginger, tofu, and Russian cheese,” says Sindy Wayne, board president of the food bank.

Flash forward to 2024: Client registration forms and intake reflect a significant percentage of food pantry clients as Russian/Ukrainian, Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese speaking), and Hispanic/Latino (Spanish speaking). Each month, the NFP receives funding from corporate sponsors for 100 percent of the purchase of ethnically appropriate food.

“Our hope is that, by offering culturally relevant food, our clients know that we see them beyond their need for food,” says Denise Daniels, pantry manager at the Newton Food Pantry. “In their time of need, we hope they will create familiarity and a sense of home through their meals.” Part of why clients return to the food bank is that it supplies food items with which they are familiar and like. 

One of those returning clients, Daniels recalls, was a woman from Guatemala who noticed that the pantry was stocking a cassava-based cracker. Excited to find an item she was familiar with from her home country, she has returned multiple times to the pantry. The pantry also stocks buckwheat flour and eggplant spread for recently immigrated Russian/Ukrainian clients.

Feeding America reports that of the 47 million people in 2023 who experienced food insecurity, 14 million self-identified as Latino, and more than nine million Black Americans could not access enough food to lead healthy active lives. In Canada, Statistics Canada reports that 28.6 percent of Canada’s Indigenous population 15 years old and older (excluding those living on reserve and in Canada’s three northern territories) experienced food insecurity at some point in 2022.

“There are so many different cultures throughout the United States,” says Molly Kern, chief executive officer of the SLO Food Bank in San Luis Obispo County, California. “What mattered most to us was listening to our community and understanding what their needs were.” Staff at the food bank spoke with nearly 350 community members, finding out what challenges they had accessing food, and, most importantly, what role food plays in their lives. The feedback they received was incorporated into the food bank’s 2023-2028 strategic plan.

“Regardless of cultural background, a big trend was looking for fresh fruits and vegetables,” says Kern. In San Luis Obispo county, the population is slightly over 280,000. Between 2010 and 2022, the Hispanic/Latino community grew 3.3 percent to become almost a quarter of the area’s overall population at 24.1 percent. Dried beans, fresh chilis, onions, and tomatillos, as well as fresh tortillas, are items familiar to Latino traditions and rank high on the list of foods that are available on food pantry shelves. 

“We measure satisfaction by how fast things fly off our shelves,” says Kern. “And when people know you are listening to them and caring for them, and working to improve,it builds trust.”

The post On the Ground With Food Banks Decolonizing Food appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“I was stunned,” says Harward. “Sophie said the little boys were crying because their bellies hurt. We just had no idea there were kids in our community that were hungry.” Harward and some families gathered food for the family, but she knew more had to be done. 

It was her daughter who mentioned all the food going to waste at her school and asked her mom a simple question: Why couldn’t they give families the food from her school instead of throwing it away?

Sophie’s idea became the spark that launched the Georgia nonprofit Helping Hands Ending Hunger, which now works with 150 schools throughout the state to divert food waste.

And there’s a lot of food going to waste. A 2019 USDA School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study found that 31 percent of vegetables and 41 percent of milk were tossed.

But those figures are changing. Schools in Atlanta are working to feed hungry families and rethink how they approach school food. Here are three making huge environmental impacts.

Helping Hands Ending Hunger

Harward thought her daughter’s idea to repurpose the food kids didn’t eat sounded simple, but the USDA has strict rules on preventing cold cafeteria food from being saved. 

But Harward wasn’t deterred. In 2016, she formed a 501(c)(3) and tested the pilot in her daughter’s school. After lunches, students collected uneaten prepackaged food or dry goods, such as apple sauce, packaged carrots, and unopened milk cartons. The students learned how to safely collect and store the unused food, and then handed it out weekly to families in need. 

In Georgia, that included more than 13 percent of children who lacked access to healthy food in 2022 (the latest numbers available), according to the nonprofit Feeding America. 

Today, the Helping Hands program is in 150 Georgia schools and is run by students. “We now train volunteers and school staff at every school chapter to teach kids that food is not trash,” says Harward.

Students at Atlanta Public School’s Springdale Park Elementary School (SPARK) STEAM program rescued about 700 pounds of food between February and May 2024 alone, according to Harward. It was repurposed into 566 meals and another 486 pounds of food for the community. 

“Food that can’t be saved is collected in compost buckets in the cafeteria and used in our [rooftop] garden; nothing goes to waste,” says Kristin Siembieda, STEAM program specialist and Helping Hands coordinator at SPARK.

Harward says the program works incredibly well. “These kids are taking charge and are going to be amazing future leaders.” 

Food Waste Warriors

The students at Gwinnett County School’s Lovin Elementary have a warrior mentality when it comes to food waste. 

In 2018, Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful’s Green and Healthy Schools had a rare opportunity to participate in a new initiative of the World Wildlife Fund, the Food Waste Warriors program.

“The World Wildlife Fund was looking for systems to collect data for its first food waste report, and to help write curriculum around how to do food waste audits,” says Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful board member Jay Bassett, who also works for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “The Green and Healthy Schools program was already established [at Gwinnett County Schools], so we did it.” 

In 2019, Gwinnett County Schools enlisted Lovin Elementary in Lawrenceville to be part of the Food Waste Warriors program, conducting food waste audits. They sorted milk, fruits, and vegetables left on lunch trays into buckets and weighed it all. They were shocked that the school had trashed almost 600 pounds of food — in one day. 

Thirteen Gwinnett County Schools completed the 31 food waste audits for the WWF’s Food Waste Warriors report. The data for Gwinnett County Schools was eye-opening: On average, 95,169 pounds of food per school, per year was wasted, and 49.4 pounds of food per student, per year was wasted, as well as almost 56,000 cartons of milk per school, per year.

The first 31 audits launched the ongoing relationship with the WWF and Gwinnett County Schools, which continues to focus on K-12 education. Today, the Food Waste Warriors program is a critical part of the Green and Healthy Schools and STEAM education within Gwinnett County Schools, which is the largest in Georgia.

“The most important thing about the Food Waste Warrior program is the students tackle every aspect of the project,” says Brenda McDaniel, environmental education manager, Gwinnett County Schools. “It’s not just about doing food waste audits; the students must come up with solutions to tackle the problems.”

That first student-led audit at Lovin Elementary provided the school with different resolutions it has now implemented, including serving food differently to reduce packaging waste, eliminating straws and breakfast cutlery, and using biodegradable trays.

Third-graders now collect food scraps that would be trashed at the end of lunch and add them to the compost bin that’s part of the Food Well Alliance’s Compost Connectors program. They learn about composting in STEAM classes and how to use it to fertilize their gardens and help feed the school’s chickens.

First- and third-graders have improved their skillsets in science and math so much, the county revised its middle school curriculum to accommodate their new abilities.

“I never envisioned where this would go,” says Bassett. “We just wanted to change policy on how to reduce waste in cafeterias. That led to systemically building this culture around agriculture, nature-based learning, biology and engineering. Reducing food waste is just a small part of it.”

Raccoon Eyes

Georgia Tech in Atlanta is synonymous with engineering, prestigious research and cutting-edge technology. Soon, its dining services could be a leader in what universities can do to cut down on food waste in their dining halls, thanks to Tech students Bruce Tan, Ivan Zou, and Nathanael Koh. 

The three students focused their CREATE-X Capstone, which is an undergraduate senior design course for entrepreneurial projects, on reducing food waste on campus because of the amount of food being trashed in the university dining halls. Their solution: Raccoon Eyes. 

“The eye-opener for me was a time I was in the kitchen at the end of lunch service,” says Zou. “A worker pushed in carts full of food that were going straight to the trash.” 

Raccoon Eyes has two components: 3D cameras and a computer screen on the dining hall trash cans. The 3D cameras take pictures of every plate and calculate the type and weight of food waste going into the trash using software the three students developed. The computer screen uses visual and audio to collect feedback about the food and to nudge students about future food waste.

During the period between Jan. 11 and May 2, 2024, the system tracked and measured the amount of food waste on more than 240,000 plates at Tech. While there was still about an ounce of food left on each plate, the overall amount of food being tossed dropped by 19 percent during the semester.

The post On the Ground With Atlanta Schools Reducing Food Waste appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Food maps can show the locations of all the food banks in a region to more specific food assets such as fruit-bearing bushes and trees found along your street.

In the village of Lumby, in B.C.’s North Okanagan Valley, the non-profit Land to Table worked with the local government to create a food asset map to determine if or how village-owned agricultural land could be turned into a community food asset. “Based on mapping out what the community has, we could see what is missing,” says Liz Blakely, the group’s executive director.

Increasingly used by nonprofits and city planners, food maps paint a hard-to-ignore visual depiction of an area’s access to food.

Connecting dots and people: Vancouver Food Asset Map

“A food asset map gives us more information about what’s going on or available in neighborhoods,” says Ian Marcuse, coordinator of Vancouver Neighbourhood Food Networks (VNFN), a non-profit organization promoting food security throughout the city and the group responsible for current updates to the Vancouver Food Asset Map (FAM). 

The FAM depicts nearly 1,000 assets, ranging from urban farms, community orchards, and gardens to food assistance programs, school breakfast programs, and grocery stores.

“When we reach out to assets, it also builds relations,” says Marcuse. These interactions not only help maintain the accuracy of the map but also open the door for new resources, such as Indigenous food programs that make food systems more inclusive. 

Elvira Chan is the partner engagement coordinator for the Vancouver Divisions of Family Practice, a non-profit organization whose goal is to support physician members and advocate they receive the necessary tools to look after patients. Chan recently contacted the VNFN about food maps. “Doctors,” says Chan, “don’t always know what is out there and available to them.” A map, as part of a larger resource package doctors can disseminate to patients who are looking for healthy eating options or who have expressed food security concerns, is a useful tool, she says.

Food Stash, a not-for-profit Vancouver-based food recovery program, also finds the map a valuable resource tool.

“We get emails, phone calls and people onsite every day looking for food. We keep a running list [based on the asset map] of programs we know have space or are a low-cost option while people are put on a waitlist,” says Anna Gray, communications coordinator.

Available for anyone to access through the VNFN’s website, since the FAM became available to the public in 2017, it has accumulated more than 400,000 views. 

Feeding America: Map the Meal Gap

Map the Meal Gap was created in 2011 by Feeding America, the largest charity dedicated to ending hunger in the United States. This map provides an in-depth, visual representation of food insecurity across America showing a county-by-county breakdown of food access highlighting barriers to nutritious food and how much funding and meals are needed to close the gap between those who have enough to eat and those who don’t.

Groundbreaking in 2011, the map is updated annually with data transcribed from government census reports and sources such as the USDA. But why a map when a written report would provide similar information? “We wanted a visual,” says Emily Engelhard, vice president of food security and well-being research and insights. “We wanted to have a tool that anyone could click onto in their state and county and play around with to see how food insecurity looked different in their community compared to another.” Food insecurity, as Engelhard notes, is found in every state and every county of the US. In 2023, for example, 13.5 percent of all US households experienced some level of food insecurity.

To gauge the effectiveness of the map, every year, Feeding America sends out a survey to food banks in its network. Seventy-five percent of food banks that respond report using the MMG “often” or “always” to allocate resources effectively. 

From Oregon Food Bank’s five main locations, food is distributed to communities across Oregon and Southwest Washington State. In 2023, there were 1.9 million visits to food assistance sites within the network—a 14-per cent increase over 2022.

 “The map,” says Morgan D. Dewey, media and engagement manager, “also helps highlight that food insecurity disproportionately impacts particular communities—such as Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color; immigrants and refugees; single moms and caregivers; and trans and gender-expansive individuals—regardless of geography.” 

By addressing these disparities, the map becomes an essential tool in ensuring everyone has access to resources.

Ohio maps that tell an artful story

Alan Wight is the community and school forest garden liaison at the University of Cincinnati. In his spare time, he works with organizations such as Eat Local Central Ohio River Valley (CORV) to help community organizations create food maps.

Food maps to Wight are a form of art. Inspired by Situationist International, a mid-20th-century movement that used the concept of mapping to change the way people think about the spaces around them, Wight hopes the food maps he facilitates create an artful expression and a new way for a community or groups to appreciate the local food system around them.

Creating a map is a year-long process that begins by talking to community stakeholders about what they’d like represented on the map. “Sometimes, it can be as simple as the convenience stores and grocery stores or as detailed as where the fruit and nut trees are growing,” says Wight.

Small groups are formed to walk through neighborhoods documenting these assets.

The first map Wight helped a community create was of Camp Washington, a Cincinnati neighborhood. Depicting convenience stores, restaurants, community and school gardens, meat-processing and packaging facilities, the map is an artful display of logos that guides the user through a labyrinth of food assets.

Downloadable from the Eat Local CORV website, Wight says that the maps are often made into posters and displayed at community centers and other neighborhood gathering spots. But, as far as he is concerned, how they are disseminated is secondary. It’s the community engagement in designing the map that to him is the biggest benefit.

“It’s the process,” he says. “What comes out of the discussions lives much longer than the map.”

The post On the Ground Exploring a Community’s Food Assets with Maps appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In 2020, the number of Detroit residents identifying as food insecure reached 69 percent. This was further exacerbated by the decline in the number of grocery stores—from 74 in 2017 to just 64 by 2021. None of the remaining grocery stores, in a city where more than three-quarters of the population identifies as people of color, were owned by people of color. The Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network (DBCFSN) knew this had to change. 

After 14 years in development, in the spring of 2024, hope emerged in the form of the Detroit People’s Food Co-op (DPFC). Spearheaded by the DBCFSN and embracing the principles of co-operative economics, the co-op’s purpose is to build power in the food system for the Black community in Detroit. “It is meant to give the community more say in how food is grown, processed, retailed and cycled back into the agricultural system,” says Dr. Shakara Tyler-Saba, co-executive director of the DBCFSN.

It is called the “people’s co-op,” because, unlike private price clubs such as Costco, for example, lack of membership does not preclude a person from shopping. It’s the same story for the majority of food co-ops. However, membership does have its perks. The DPFC’s 4,000 members pay fees to join the cohort, which gives them voting power in electing a board of directors who work to ensure that decisions about what is sold, how it’s sold, and how the store is run reflect member values. The profits of the co-op go towards operational expenses and any profits above and beyond are distributed evenly among co-op members who recycle the monies back into the local economy and community.

It’s a model steeped in a long history of co-operative movements, often led by marginalized groups seeking equality and stability in harsh economic conditions. Perceived as part of the counterculture movement of the mid-late 20th century, co-ops gained a reputation as the antagonist to the industrial food system. 

Joy Emmanuel is a veteran co-op researcher and developer based in Vancouver. “Co-ops are often very involved in supporting the growth and resiliency of the local food system,” she says. On average, according to Cooperatives for a Better World, food co-ops do two and half times more business with local farms and product makers than conventional grocers. 

Much of DPFC’s organic produce is sourced from Detroit’s Black-led farm projects, such as the D-Farm run by the DBCFSN and the Oakland Avenue Urban Farm. 

And while DPFC’s democratic voice rests with its members/owners, on the other side of the county in West Oakland California, the Mandela Grocery Co-op is a bit different. Here, the employees of the co-op are the owners instead of the customers.

Currently, the co-op has 11 full-time team members, five of whom are owners, and six who have embarked upon a year-long candidacy, taking courses and learning what it takes to run a food business. Store manager Anj Talley believes this model is more equitable than a member-owned co-op.

“In a consumer co-op model, operations of the store are much like a traditional grocery store, with a hierarchical structure that includes managers and middle managers, with decisions being made at the top of the triangle,” says Talley. “In a worker/owner model, the owners of the business are in the store talking to the team and the customers, making decisions collectively, on a much more flat level.” 

It’s estimated that when $1,000 is spent at a food co-op, $1,604 is generated in the local economy. For Mandela Grocery Co-op, this inspires them to be even more laser-focused when it comes to supporting people of color in the West Oakland community, and keeping money circulating within the local economy. 

Not only is Mandela Grocery Co-op the only grocery store within a 33-block radius, says Talley, but in West Oakland, where historically systemic racism and gentrification have segregated the community, opportunities for small-scale businesses are limited. Talley often curates specialty products such as homemade candles from local entrepreneurs, giving them opportunities to sell their products that otherwise might not be possible. 

Nowadays, food co-ops are anything but counterculture. The National Co-op Grocers (NCG) helps independently owned food co-ops maximize members’ success, and to grow the co-operative grocery sector in size and scope. Currently supporting 164 food co-ops operating more than 230 stores in 39 states with combined annual sales of more than $2.6 billion, their 2023 Food Impact report paints a picture of more than 1.3 million consumer-owners. 

It’s the promotion of local and organic foods alongside environmental stewardship, community involvement and the fair treatment of workers that advocates of co-ops say has gained the trust of consumers who prioritize sustainability and ethical consumerism. 

“Food co-ops today tend to be more varied in how they are set up, reflecting change in the food system, competition from big food chains, and varied community needs,” says Emmanuel.

In Milwaukee, Outpost Natural Foods Co-op opened in 1970, just as single-use plastic use was gaining popularity for its convenience and affordability. “It was important to the people who formed the co-op that it operated with conservation in mind,” says Margaret Mittelstadt, director of consumer relations. 

From its conception, the consumer/owner co-op has reflected the desire of its member community and has never packed groceries in plastic bags, instead encouraging customers to use reusable bags. Its efforts in sustainability have expanded to include solar panels on the roof of one of the co-ops’ four stores to generate power and reduce the store’s carbon footprint. This has made the co-op a community leader that is often invited to sit in on round-table discussions and to share knowledge with the county or city on sustainability.

Back in Detroit, the DPFC has also quickly become a powerful community symbol as more than just another grocery store. 

“As a Black-led project, the DPFC is pivotal in building equity at the local level and helps people understand what is possible in the food realm, the housing realm and many other realms, not just food or agriculture, ” says Tyler-Saba.

The post On the Ground With Grocery Stores Changing the Way We Shop appeared first on Modern Farmer.

When the Food Industry Association asked Americans to list reasons why they buy local produce, 82 percent of those surveyed cited a desire for freshness. Finding fresh local produce in conventional grocery stores, especially in urban settings, is not always easy. Retail distribution systems are designed to deliver products in as few trips as possible. Breaking this down into numerous shorter trips can be time-consuming and expensive. Large grocery store chains often have long-term contracts in place with out-of-state suppliers that are difficult to breach and, therefore, don’t have store capacity for local produce.

Fresh from the parking lot

Despite these drawbacks, across North America, a handful of grocery stores are pioneering a new way of growing that puts hyper-local food at the forefront of the supply chain. For those operating these farms, such as Kelli Ebbs, store manager of Muskoka North Good Food Co-op in Huntsville, Ontario, the two large shipping-like containers in the store’s parking lot have filled a much-needed gap in the supply chain. 

 “During the growing season, we don’t have a problem procuring fresh greens from local farms,” says Ebbs. In north-central Ontario, however, the growing season is short and, for six to seven months of the year, the store was ordering organic produce from aggregates sourcing produce, sometimes as far away as Mexico. For Ebbs, this was undependable and problematic. 

The first container farm was installed in the store’s parking lot approximately a year and half ago. Built in Canada by Growcer and designed for the fluctuations in the Canadian climate, structural insulated panels keep cool air inside during the summer and make working conditions bearable in winter. Currently growing salad greens, cooking greens and herbs, when a second unit comes online this winter, the store will experiment with growing fresh locally grown strawberries. If the popularity of the first unit is any indication, it will be no problem making sales. 

“We can harvest 100 units of fresh produce on a Wednesday and, by Saturday, it is gone,” says Ebbs. A half-pound bag of fresh salad greens sells for CDN$8, which is comparable to pre-packaged organic greens sold in any grocery store across Canada. The popularity of the products has meant that Ebbs has been able to cover the continuing operating costs of the vertical farm without it having an impact on store profits. 

Ebbs sees a future for the units at her store, but she is also adamant that this type of growing cannot and should not be viewed as a replacement to local farmers or food grown naturally under the sun and rain. “Grocery stores have to continue to support our local farmers and the work they do,” says Ebbs. She vowed when the containers arrived that she would never turn away a local farmer offering fresh produce to the store.

Greenhouses in the sky

“Customers love knowing that we are supporting sustainable methods to expand urban agriculture while being able to offer produce that is fresh and hyper-local,” says Jinah Kim, store team leader at the Third and 3rd Whole Foods in Brooklyn, NY. 

Since 2013, hydroponically equipped greenhouses on the roof of the store have been producing salad greens and fresh herbs for the store below. “What we can grow in half an acre in a hydroponic greenhouse would require 15-20 acres in a field,” says Viraj Puri, CEO of Gotham Greens. By growing and marketing crops locally, the need for long-distance food transportation, fuel consumption, and carbon emissions associated with food miles has been eliminated. For Puri, though, this isn’t the biggest impact being made by the farm. “There’s a lot of symbolism around the project,” he says, “and what is possible in making cities green and liveable and in connecting people to the food system.” 

In-store signage in the produce section educates the customer about the rooftop farm. For those enjoying lunch in the Whole Foods rooftop cafeteria, a bank of windows overlooks the greenhouse production area, letting customers see up close exactly where the lettuce in their sandwich was harvested.

Whole Foods acts as the landlord, but Gotham Greens owns the greenhouses. Produce under the 20,000-square-foot greenspace is marketed to customers under the Gotham Greens label at prices comparable to organic products sold anywhere else. A 4.5-ounce package of salad greens, for example, sells for $3.99, according to Puri. 

Customer loyalty

The Sobeys supermarket chain is one of the largest in Canada, overseeing 1,500 stores under different banners, including the IGA Extra Famille Duchemin in Saint-Laurent. Since 2017, the store has been growing and selling organic produce grown on the store’s open-air roof farm. Designed and built by La Ligne Verte, a company specializing in the design of rooftop growing spaces, the idea initially was to create a green roof. “The IGA being a grocery store,” says Anthime Bion, a landscape architect with La Ligne Verte, “we thought it would be interesting to have a grocery store that was not only a distributor, but also a producer of high-quality organic fresh produce.” 

“The most complicated part was the watering,” says Bion. “We had to be permanently connected to the city’s water system to get enough water to water the surfaces.” Weight constraints on the roof makes the use of machinery prohibitive, meaning the work of growing and harvesting has to be done by hand. Finding skilled market gardeners capable of this, Bion acknowledges, can be challenging. Originally managed by the market gardening wing of La Ligne Verte, in 2023, Sobeys contracted the Montreal non-profit organization La Ferme Du Rue to take over the management of the rooftop farm. 

Being able to manage the IGA farm provides the non-profit organization with income to run workshops throughout Montreal and in schools that introduce youth to the value and practicalities of urban farming. 

“The farm grows exclusively for IGA,” says Réal Migneault, La Ferme du Rue’s founder. “Once harvested, we take it down 44 steps to the store below.” According to Richard Duchemin, the owner of the IGA, the rooftop products increase sales of organic products by 1.5 times over what is normally sold in stores. “The prices are the same as for organic products sold in IGAs stores throughout Quebec,” he says. As with any retail venture, the success depends on the customers’ reactions, who, according to Duchemin, are very proud to be able to contribute to hyper-local purchasing. 

This bolsters Migneault’s belief that a business case can be made for more farms such as IGA’s. “If we look at the benefits of the model,” he says, “it builds faithfulness in the customer base who see the store as an actor of change and this builds your brand. Customers have told me they come to this specific store because of the organic vegetables grown on the rooftop.” 

Currently, though, IGA’s rooftop farm remains one of a kind in Canada.

The post On the Ground With Grocery Stores Redefining How Local Food is Produced appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The garden is a stark contrast from where it began in 2012—an abandoned lot where Landham, the garden’s manager, said people would dump things such as stolen cars, old furniture, and even dead animals.

“It was really an eyesore,” Landham says. “It was across the street from the school, so some of the community members got together and decided that they wanted to make a green space out of it.”

Weed-riddled vacant and underutilized lots are familiar sights across Philadelphia neighborhoods. Philadelphia has about 40,000 of them, according to the City’s website, most caused by decades of neighborhood disinvestment. But some inspired communities are transforming lots into green spaces and centers of urban agriculture. Many are food-producing, which is crucial in a city stricken with poverty and food insecurity.

There are about 264 community gardens and farms in Philadelphia, 70 percent of which are in high-poverty areas, and there is demand for more. Landham says there is a 20-person waiting list for his garden’s 51 plots. More community gardens, particularly in lower-income areas, can help ensure communities have adequate and affordable food supply.

Plentiful harvests have made buying vegetables this summer unnecessary for the gardeners at Strawberry Mansion, they say. And some gardens can produce high volumes, enough to sell and share. For example, Brewerytown Garden, in North Philadelphia, can produce more than 5,000 pounds of food a year, according to Sharon Hildebrand, one of its founders. It holds a weekly farmer’s market and donates excess to older people in the neighborhood.

According to The Pew Charitable Trusts, almost 25 percent of the Philadelphia population lives below the poverty line. And about 16 percent of households face food insecurity, according to Feeding America. Some lower-income households also live in food deserts— areas that have limited access to affordable and healthy food—leading to a reliance on fast food restaurants and corner stores, which often lack nutritious options. Community gardens and farms help provide a solution by filling the gap for fresh fruits and vegetables. However, they are being threatened by land insecurity and rising development.

Naw Ta Blu Moo has been gardening at the Reinhard Street Community Farm, in West Philadelphia, since March. It was founded by chef Benjamin Miller, on vacant lots in his West Philadelphia neighborhood, as part of the People’s Kitchen, which was a COVID response led partly by Miller, to provide free meals through a community kitchen and garden.

Miller invited Blu Moo to garden at Reinhard after she lost her parcel of 10 years, last year. The company that owned her former space, and gave her community permission to utilize it, decided to take it back for development. In fact, more than 140 community gardens and farms are no longer active since 2008, according to the Philadelphia Garden Data Collaborative. Part of the reason is redevelopment.

Miller was on the cusp of losing Reinhard, but a “strong coalition” saved it, he says. In 2022, he found it on a list for sheriff sales of tax-delinquent properties. That’s not uncommon for community gardens as numerous abandoned lots have tax liens. Community advocates who knew the law and had contacts in the city government, including the Public Interest Law Center, which advocates public use of vacant land for gardens and helps people navigate the complex legal process, succeeded in getting the land removed from the list.

The community had crowdfunded to purchase Reinhard’s land, but since that funding was no longer needed it went into growing the garden and providing free meals and produce, underscoring the importance of including community gardens in the fight against food insecurity.

“All of our gardens are completely open,” says Miller. “People are welcome to go in and harvest herbs or squash or watermelon as they see things ripening…There’s no limitation.”

Making food accessible to the community is also a goal of Strawberry Mansion. And there are five community plots open to the public, says Landham, where people can take things such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil.

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which provides education to community gardens, including Strawberry Mansion, through its community garden program, encourages established gardens to help tackle food insecurity through its City Harvest Initiative.

“It’s built to assist those gardens with the means or capability to allocate a parcel of land or plot to specifically grow for the neighborhood or grow for donation purposes,” says Justin Trezza, senior director of healthy neighborhoods at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

About 130 gardens are part of the initiative, which provides education and organically grown seedlings. Trezza says his organization gives out more than 250,000 seeds during a growing season.

Serving lower-income families was part of Blu Moo’s critical work at her former garden. She ran a farmer’s market where families on government assistance, including WIC, could use their benefits to purchase her garden’s produce at a lower cost than grocery stores.

Now there are no longer alternatives nearby for her former customers, she says. Since the garden ceased operations, other community garden members in the surrounding areas worry about their future.

Uncertainty for the future grew when sheriff sales resumed in July. During the pandemic, the city had issued a moratorium on sheriff sales, granting temporary relief to gardeners on vulnerable grounds. Now that the freeze has lifted there’s an urgency to protect more lots.

Established by the City of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Land Bank works to put land back in the hands of the community by managing and returning vacant land to neighborhoods. In May, the Philadelphia City Council reauthorized the land bank to place priority bids on sheriff sales, allowing it to acquire land ahead of developers and transfer it back to the community or to secure it for preservation.

Recently, the city council allocated $1.1 million to reacquire 91 liens on community gardens for protection, mostly in Black and brown neighborhoods. It was an attempt to rectify a 1997 controversial move by the city to sell liens to a private lender, which resulted in a substantial amount of abandoned lots.

Preserving community gardens is done through the Neighborhood Gardens Trusts, a nonprofit land trust that, through an application process, secures ownership and long-term leases on the land of community gardens. So far, the organization has preserved 52 community gardens.

Although Strawberry Mansion is preserved and under lease, Landham hopes they will eventually own the property as leasing does not guarantee it will not be sold.

“We invested a lot in this community. It’s a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. We just hope that they can help us sustain our garden without them selling it from underneath us.” Terrence Landham

Officials do recognize the importance of urban agriculture. In June, a bill was passed by the Pennsylvania State Senate to offer more vacant lots for gardening and provide an easier pathway for people to own the land under existing gardens.

Jenny Greenberg, executive director of Neighborhood Gardens Trust, which supported the bill, welcomed the passing, especially since she said some people are “squatting” and starting gardens on lots without legal permission.

“We’re very excited,” she says. “There are many long-standing community gardens and individual gardens where people have been caring for formerly abandoned and neglected land for so long, and they do not have legal access or assurance that they’ll be able to garden on it in the future.”

The bill still needs to pass the state house, but, if successful, it will allow for adverse possession, granting ownership of a space if gardeners can prove they continuously used the land for at least 10 years, a decrease from the current 21-year requirement.

In addition, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation released a city-wide urban agriculture plan last year, which is described as “a 10-year comprehensive plan that will serve as a road map for a thriving local food system and economy, with an urban agricultural foundation.”

There are signs of progress in ensuring green space.

“[Protecting] green space should be a priority for our elected leaders,” says Miller. “These green spaces are really vital in the communities, for creating our quality of life.”

To help cultivate and sustain flourishing community gardens, people in Philadelphia can volunteer at one of the many community gardens. Pennsylvania Horticultural Society has a map of community gardens on its website. Advocating for legislation for more investment and more availability of vacant land for community gardens is another way to help.

The post On the Ground With Philadelphia Neighborhoods Transforming Vacant Lots into Flourishing Gardens appeared first on Modern Farmer.

As it rots, it emits methane, a greenhouse gas that for the first 20 years of its life in the atmosphere has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. What’s worse is that while all that edible food percolates in the dump, one in eight American adults is experiencing food insecurity.

But like many modern-day problems, there’s an app for that. 

These apps connect farmers, restaurants, and grocery stores that have extra food that might otherwise go to waste, with folks who bring it back into circulation. “If some of these apps can change how we think about food and can include educational components and resources, this may help their customers spread the word about the importance of reducing food waste,” says Dr. Tammara Soma, director of research for Simon Fraser University’s Food Systems Lab.

Too Good to Go

Too Good to Go’s app is a location-based service free for download in every Canadian province and in 30 cities across the US from New York to Phoenix. “What users in one community will see differs from what someone 40 miles away in another city will see,” says Sarah Soteroff, senior public relations manager for Too Good to Go Canada and the United States.

The app user finds restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, and donut shops within their own neighborhoods that, at the end of the day, find themselves with a surplus. The retailer may not want to store the food overnight, and, sometimes, food regulations prevent the reheating of day-old restaurant meals that makes those three leftover slices of pizza unsaleable. 

“It’s based on the surplus of that day and what the store has. It’s unpredictable, so we make it a surprise bag,” says Soteroff. It could, for example, be three dozen donuts divided into four to a bag. Too Good to Go makes $1.99 from the purchase of each bag, and it recommends bags sell for between $3.99 and $9.99. The products in the bag are usually, according to Soteroff, discounted by a third of the original price. 

The app keeps track of how much money the user has saved by buying food destined for the landfill as compared to what it would cost at full price. “Apps like these,” says Soma, “may help restaurants reduce the amount of food that is wasted at the end of the day, especially when people are motivated by cheaper prices.”

The app launched in Denmark in 2016, and it now has 90 million users globally. It has saved American consumers an estimated $127 million on food they otherwise would have bought at full price, and it has earned $41 million for businesses that otherwise would have tossed food away. 

Every time a surprise bag is sold, 2.5 kilograms of Co2 equivalent (Co2e) is diverted from the landfill and atmosphere, with approximately 35 million kg of Co2e diverted in the US. The app personalizes this for the user, by providing a running tally of the CO2e they’ve kept out of the landfill through the purchase of surprise bags and, subsequently, the difference they’ve individually made to global warming. 

Food Rescue US

In 2011, one in seven Connecticut households was experiencing food insecurity, while more than 36 million tons of food was being tossed out across the US. This didn’t make sense to Jeff Schacher, a software developer, and Kevin Mullins, a local pastor, from Fairfax County, Connecticut. They founded Community Plates (now Food Rescue US) and created a model of food rescue that depicts the true meaning of the adage “waste not, want not.”

“We were born out of a problem and a solution,” says James Hart, development director for Food Rescue US.

Businesses agree to donate food, and not-for-profit social service organizations such as shelters, soup kitchens, and food pantries agree to take it. The app’s secret to success is the volunteers who sign up to rescue food and deliver it to the organizations in need. The app gives detailed instructions on where to pick up the food and where to take it. Anyone can sign into the app and claim a food recovery in their area.

For Jenna von Elling, a parent volunteer at Luther Jackson Middle School in Falls Church Virginia, Food Rescue US has made a huge difference to her school community. “At the start of the pandemic, we wondered how we were going to keep the school pantry stocked for families,” she says. After a quick Google search, she discovered Food Rescue US and the pantry has not been without food since.

Twice a week, von Elling and her fellow food rescuers fill two SUVs full of food they claim and recover from the local Target grocery store. What they bring back to the school pantry includes produce that is nearing the end of its grocery store shelf life but is still edible. There are also chicken breasts and other meat nearing best-before dates to boxes of diapers that are damaged. 

Since its founding, the organization has expanded to 23 states, provided 152 million meals to those in need, kept 183 million pounds of excess food out of landfills, and boasts 20,000 volunteer food rescues.

Misfits Market

Misfits tackles food loss at the beginning of its life cycle, including, what Rose Hartley, head of sustainability for Misfits, calls “cosmetically challenged” produce. 

“What we have been hearing from farmers,” she says, “is that they need an outlet to be able to sell this produce.” 

Misfits buys the twisted zucchini, the sunburnt cauliflower, and the pepper that’s grown into a cylinder instead of a bell, and makes the produce available via the app in the form of a food box delivered directly to the user’s doorstep. Subscribers can expect a 30-percent savings compared to food bought at the grocery store.

Sign into the app, anywhere in the contiguous US, and subscribe to a weekly or bi-weekly box, or choose a flex plan to shop as needed. Boxes also contain rejected shelf products—maybe the packaging is crinkled, or the printing of the label is slightly off-center, and, therefore, rejected by the store.

“We are trying to fill that gap that buyers back out of,” says Hartley. “The hope and the dream is that we create a different conception of what good food looks like.”

She admits though that change of this scale could take decades. In the meantime, Misfits continues to recover unwanted food. In 2023, it prevented 26, 444,000 pounds of food from going to waste across the US.

The post On the Ground With Apps Preventing Food Waste 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.