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 tips are especially helpful for folks hoping to make a go of farming on smaller plots of land. Given the challenges in an industry dominated by factory farms, such as slim profit margins and little control over pricing and markets, between 52 percent and 79 percent of small family farms are at high financial risk. More than half of small farmers also have to work a second job to make ends meet. 

“We only have 45 acres, which is a really small farm around here,” says Larson. “Conventional wisdom was [that] you could never make a living off that small amount of land, because the farmers around here are all commodity farmers.”

But, some small-scale farmers like Larson have been able to make their operations profitable with creative techniques such as monetizing their social media presence and carving out interesting, competitive niches.

One way Larson did this is by finding breeds with great marketing stories behind them, such as Dexter cattle. Brought back from near extinction by homesteaders who wanted a dual purpose for beef and dairy, this Irish heritage breed works well for Larson because of their smaller size and good beef quality when raised on grass without grain.

“You want to be able to tell a story to customers that they can buy into,” says Larson about his choice cattle breeds. “You need to have a marketing hat on as much as anything else.”

Eventually, says Larson, the farm began to make enough money for the family to take home a profit. Then, about seven years into the endeavor, Larson says he had another idea: monetizing Just A Few Acres’ social media to help support their small livestock farm.

“It’s enabled us to … gradually, taper down the numbers of animals that we raise,” says Larson. “And it’s allowed me to say, ‘well, if I’d like to retire before I die, I can do that now.’ It’s given us breathing room.”

Likewise, across the country, Rob Miller and Melanie Jones had to think way outside the box—and their own fence—in order to acquire enough land to farm in Woodstock, GA. As owners and operators of Trefoil Gardens, they adapted a “multi-locational” model that has grown into a neighborhood agricultural cooperative, and it relies on the partnership of their neighbors. 

Through a program called SPIN-Farming, which stands for small plot intensive and teaches aspiring farmers to take a systematic approach to backyard-scale growing, Miller says he was able to connect with a farmer who already had a template for a yard-sharing contract. He brought the contract over to his neighbor, and they broke ground on their first neighboring plot on July 4, 2016.

Now, with plots spread across the yards of six of their neighbors, and a few others a two-minute drive from their suburban home, they currently have 15,000 square feet under cultivation. Since then, Trefoil has been able to take its yard and neighborhood to new levels of productivity. The SPIN program has also helped thousands of other farmers use this multi-locational approach to farming on limited space.

But, Miller says it took him a long time to stop burning himself out with the hard work, and to get to a sustainable mindset.

“We’re a mission-driven company, and I know a lot of a lot of people in our space are and so, for us, it’s not so much about money, but at the same time, we’ve got to earn a living. This thing has to be financially sustainable,” says Miller. “It’s been a big transition to move from that solely mission-based focus… you can only do that for so long before you just burn yourself out.”

Given the yard-sized scale of the operation, they have had to really look at which crops have outsized value for profitability, and which are too time-consuming or fickle to rely on in such a limited space. Miller says Trefoil has recently pivoted toward perennial instead of annual crops because they are more manageable and save time.

“We’ve also really dialed in to floral and mushrooms, and then also herbal products, botanical products,” says Miller. “It’s a joke, but it’s not really, that we grow food so that we can get into our farmers markets, and then we grow flowers so that we can afford to grow the food that we bring to the farmers market.”

Trefoil has also had to look at non-traditional methods of selling, because growing on spec with such little land became not only impossible but also incredibly stressful. So, Trefoil took on a community-supported agriculture (CSA) food box subscription model with a short subscription period allowing them to pivot based on what was growing well.

Now, having been profitable for the last three years and selling 25 food boxes at the peak of this year, they’ve also found creative ways to cut costs as compared to a traditional agricultural plot of land. 

“We’re in an older neighborhood and so everybody’s on septic systems, so there’s no sewer,” says Miller. “The water is pretty inexpensive for our neighborhood, and that’s really important.”

For many things, though, Miller says they rely on their relationships and community. “I wake up every morning fully indebted to everyone around me, and it’s the most freeing thing in the world. And it just sounds counterintuitive, but it’s true,” he says.

While Larson has also been successful by building up his community, albeit online, he cautions against expecting the farm to be profitable from the start, and he encourages aspiring small farmers to have some kind of a safety net, be it savings or part-time work off the farm.

“You have to have some kind of financial security to start out, because … you don’t have any income from the farm on day one,” says Lason, explaining that he and his wife had some savings that they lived off in a “very modest way” for a few years.

“When we sold our first products at market, everything that came back, the money that came back in stayed on the farm side, and we used that to reinvest and gradually, bootstrap ourselves and grow the size of the farm,” says Larson. Despite land becoming increasingly expensive for aspiring small farmers, a little creativity can still make the business viable. 

The post The Financials of Profitable Small-Scale Farming appeared first on Modern Farmer.

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

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

Shifting priorities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.

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

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

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

CAFOs and Air Pollution

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

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

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

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

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

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

While big wheels turn, Sampson County is taking action.

Community-driven data collection

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the spring of 2014, I found myself sitting across from a man who was by every definition my enemy. His name was Craig Watts and he was a chicken factory farmer, raising chickens for slaughter. My career is devoted to protecting farmed animals and ending factory farming. Until that point, I’d spent my whole life working against everything Craig Watts stood for. Now I was sitting in his living room.

As I sat there, a thousand questions were swirling in my mind. I’d been trying for years to get footage from inside a chicken factory farm at a time in our country when seeing inside a chicken farm was—and still is—nearly impossible. I’d failed every previous attempt.

That day, I’d driven from my home in Atlanta to Craig’s home in rural North Carolina. Before I left, I gave my husband the address and told him, “If I don’t come back, look for me rotting away in the chicken litter.” I was convinced I was heading into an ambush, not knowing my life would soon be changed forever.

Prior to our meeting, Craig Watts had been raising chickens for twenty-two years in factory farms for Perdue, the fourth-largest chicken company in the United States. When Craig was a young adult, he had searched for a way to stay on the land that had been passed down in his family for five generations, in one of the poorest counties in North Carolina. There were very few jobs in the area, so when Perdue came to town and offered him a contract to raise chickens, it sounded like a dream come true. He took out a $200,000 loan from the bank to build the chicken houses while Perdue agreed to pay him for each flock he raised. With that money, he planned to pay off the loan, as you would a mortgage.

But soon the chickens started to get sick—it was a factory farm, after all. Twenty-five thousand chickens were stuffed wall-to-wall in darkened warehouses, living on their own feces, breathing air thick with toxic ammonia. Many of the sick chickens died, and you don’t get paid for dead chickens. Craig started to struggle to pay off his loan. His paychecks got smaller, but the bills kept coming. Soon he wanted out, but he’d been trapped. Now he was all but an indentured servant, and if he stopped, he’d risk losing everything.

By the time he and I met, Craig had reached a breaking point. His payments seemed never-ending, and so did the illness, death, and despair of the chickens. He was ready for a change. Through late afternoon conversations, and much soul-searching, I realized that I had overlooked an ally. I learned that chicken factory farmers wanted to see factory farming change about as much as animal rights activists did. We had been over-looking each other all these years.

Throughout the summer of 2014, I came back many times with my filmmaker partner Raegan Hodge to learn from Craig. I walked those warehouses as Craig explained the problems, as he picked up the chickens who had died or had to be killed because they had messed-up legs, trouble breathing, difficulty walking. All of these horrors, all of our conversations, were captured on film.

In the winter of 2014, after months of filming and learning to trust each other, Craig and I did something neither of us expected to do. We decided to release the footage together. This was a huge risk. He feared losing his income, his land, and having his neighbors hate him. But he did it anyway. The New York Times broke the story. Within twenty-four hours, a million people had seen our video about the horrors of chicken factory farming. Our story went viral. Suddenly, we had a megaphone. Our unlikely alliance put the truth about factory farming on a global platform.

Too often we become so entrenched in our values, in our fight, that we don’t stop to consider what we might have in common with the so-called opposition. We jump straight to the differences. And it is often the tyranny of small differences that holds progress hostage. Craig was the very first chicken factory farmer I ever connected with, but there would be many more.

In the United States, we still hold close an image of a quaint, independent family farm. But what actually exists is industrial animal agriculture, a system that does more harm than good. If you cross the country, no matter what state you are in, you’ll find a similar story. There is a person in a poor rural county who is searching for a way to stay on the land that had been passed down in their family for generations, searching for a way to make their living off the land and live out their version of the American dream, one in tune with nature and set to the soundtrack of crickets, cicadas, warblers, and chickadees. With few jobs around, the chicken industry’s offer sounds like a dream come true. This farmer often ends up just like Craig.

Meeting Craig would change my trajectory as an activist. We’d become close friends, collaborators, and conspirators in the decade that followed, working to dismantle factory farming piece by piece. We’d see that we’d been fooled. As Craig said: “We were red ants and black ants trapped in a jar. And then someone would shake the jar and we’d start fighting each other. But we’d never stop to question—who’s shaking the jar?” And I’d ask, “Why are we trapped in this jar?” The years ahead, we’d look to smash the jar and remove the shaker’s power. We’d look to reform our food system away from industrial animal agriculture and remove the power of Big Animal Agriculture—the great monopolies with strongholds over our political and economic systems.

When it comes to the meat, dairy, and eggs we eat, the price at the grocery store or restaurant is never a fair reflection of the true cost. In factory farming, risks and liability are mostly externalized by the industry, and most often to the most vulnerable among us. This damage, this harm, is borne by many—from the workers to the animals to the farmers. The industry makes extraordinary profits off this harm by externalizing risk and liability. Externalities are the root of the business model, and they’ve driven the spectacular success, power, and wealth of this industry. But because these costs are hidden from those who purchase the products, consumers don’t affirmatively consent to the harm caused by eating animals and their products.

The workforce in slaughterhouses, the communities living around factory farming, and, in recent years, refugee communities who’ve been brought in as the next generation of farming communities are some of the most affected. These vulnerable communities lack political and social capital, and they have few choices and little ability to fight against the harm that factory farming imposes upon them. 

In slaughterhouses, some immigrant workers have documentation and some don’t, but regardless of their situation, if they complain they take risks. When people die on the job, the federal agencies don’t respond 85 percent of the time, according to Civil Eats. Agricultural work is some of the most dangerous work in the country, ranking third among all occupations in fatal injuries together with forestry, fishing, and hunting. According to Civil Eats, animal confinement workers are subject to long-term lung and acute respiratory injuries from their work environments and are exposed to asphyxiating gases from manure.

Black communities in the South, many of whom are descendants of enslaved people, are also disproportionately affected by factory farms. Maps of North Carolina clearly show higher clusters of factory farms surrounding historically Black and low-income rural communities. Studies indicate that in some communities in North Carolina, for example, there are ten times more concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in low-income and Black and Brown neighborhoods than in higher-income, whiter areas. This is a clear example of environmental racism, a form of institutional racism where environmental hazards and harms are disproportionately distributed in and around communities of color. Where once these communities enjoyed the land that meant so much to their families’ freedom and history, that enjoyment is now ruined. Now they are surrounded by hog and chicken farms, unable to even leave their homes without suffering the smells, flies, and even spray from the farm’s waste.

As the pool of people willing to take on the perils of working in factory farms and slaughterhouses diminishes, the industry has begun to recruit a new, unsuspecting crop of factory farmers: refugees fleeing persecution in war-torn countries. From Burma to Cambodia to Laos, families looking for opportunity and escape come to the US and take on factory farming, only to find themselves trapped and unexpectedly in danger again.

Though farmers, workers, and animals have been suffering for decades, the system responsible for their collective oppression was thrust into the public eye during the pandemic. The attention it received was unprecedented, as was the desire for change.

Transfarmation

During this time of great loss and uncertainty, the people closest to factory farming—farmers, slaughterhouse workers, and communities living next to factory farms—who had already begun to build a new way, accelerated their efforts. They were tired of feeling vulnerable to the fragility and oppression of factory farming.

In late 2019, Mercy For Animals, the organization I lead, launched a new project. We called it the “Transfarmation Project,” and it aimed to be a platform where we could support farmers wanting to make the transition from animal agriculture to plants. It built on the work Craig and I started all those years earlier. But it ended up being so much more. In the years that followed, I would continue my curious journey through rural America, meeting farmers and together rolling up our sleeves to set out a road map for a new rural economy—everything from hemp to mushrooms to lettuce and whatever other innovations we could dream up.

This book is about more than individual farmers going through a career transition. It is about how we transition away entirely from factory farming. Many times, when people are tackling systemic challenges, they write about either the problem or the solution. But a gulf is left in the middle—the complexity of how. This book peers deeply into that gulf, at the transitional moment, and shows how it might be done, through the experience of those who are already doing it. It is told in three parts from the perspective of those closest to factory farming: farmers, the animals, and vulnerable communities working in or near factory farms or slaughterhouses.

This book is about smashing the jar and changing the common narrative that this food and farming system is serving us well. It is about rebuilding our food systems so that we are not trapped in a container, controlled by a monopoly causing us harm. Instead, we are in a collaborative, community-built network that honors all animals and nature, unlocks our highest potential, and empowers everyone to thrive.

The post Transfarmation: The Movement to Free Us From Factory Farming appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Enter the alternative choices to traditional proteins. There are soy proteins and seafood, whey powders and Impossible meat. There is the decision to just go vegan or vegetarian as a potential solution. A single person exchanging eating meat for a vegan diet reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 1.5 tons per year. If every American were to cut out one serving of chicken per week from their diet, it would save the same amount of CO2 emissions as taking 500,000 cars off the road. Despite these numbers, there’s a big problem: Americans don’t want to give up meat.

So, what is the solution here? It could be slithering just under our noses: snakes.

As far as food and protein conversion ratios, pythons outperformed all mainstream agricultural species studied to date. They’re incredibly tolerant of a variety of less-than-ideal situations: During the study, some pythons were fasted for over four months; while they lost weight during this time, they recuperated quickly after resuming feeding. They’re also tolerant of heat and drought, ideal qualities on a warming planet.

Few Americans go out of their way to eat snakes, but in the face of a climate crisis and growing worries about global food insecurity, more are opening their minds. Snake farming is common in some Asian countries, such as China and Thailand, and certain snakes are considered a delicacy (often, python species, due to their quick-growing nature). Because snakes as food are much more normalized there than they are in the US, there’s no hesitation about serving up python. Granted, reptile meat isn’t too different from chicken—it’s frequently compared to poultry in taste, and it’s also high in protein and low in saturated fats, although it’s sometimes oilier than other meats. Snake farmers benefit from low costs of operation and high production value. But would their systems translate well if there was a demand for snake meat globally?

A study published in Nature seems to find few faults in wide-scale snake meat farming projects. The researchers’ proposal covered two snake species commonly farmed in Asia—the reticulated python and the Burmese python—among multiple farms in Thailand and Vietnam. These two species are viewed as ideal for agriculture; these two grow fast, reproduce quickly, and are hardy, making them good candidates for large-scale farming. 

However, pythons aren’t perfect. There’s one glaring issue with pythons as a farmed food: Pythons are carnivorous, and they usually feed on captive-bred rodents when kept as pets. According to the researchers in this study, the pythons in Thailand were often fed wild-caught rodents, but they also accepted “waste” protein (food scraps not usable for human consumption) from fish, pork, and chicken. Some farmers combined waste protein to make sausage-like diets for snakes. Snakes who ate them did well, but convincing them to give sausages a try instead of their ideal food, a live rat, was another matter. It’s not clear if it’s logistically possible to transfer farmed snakes solely to a waste protein diet—or how sustainable such a diet would be in the long run.

“The cost of food is going to be the biggest hurdle,” says Grant Milbury, the resident “Morph God” (in reference to snake color morphs) at New England Reptile Distributors. Milbury lives and breathes snakes. While he’s OKwith people eating them, too, he’s not sure it’s a good idea to farm snakes. He says farming a species that loves to eat rodents might not end up being cheap, which could turn away potential corporate investors. “I believe that pythons can handle much harsher conditions than typical livestock, although people seem to treat all reptiles poorly.” Milbury says that, for pythosn to be widely accepted (and ethically farmed) in the US, there would need to be vast regulation alongside public education. “Even then, getting people to enjoy a python filet might be a hard sell.”

It’s also possible that trying to introduce snakes to widespread agriculture could quickly backfire concerning animal welfare. While some believe that snake farming could be easier to perform ethically than most current livestock farming, it’s important to remember that most peoples’ opinions of snakes are, well, lower than those of cows and chickens. If given the opportunity, it’s possible that large-scale agricultural operations could treat farmed snakes poorly with few repercussions.

In America, we might not have to look far to find python to eat. The Burmese python isn’t only farmed for food, it’s a popular pet species that’s now been banned from Florida due to their status as an invasive species. Florida holds annual python-hunting contests in an effort to curb the population growth and prevent the loss of native species to the hungry snakes (which can grow over 16 feet in length). Most of these pythons are wasted instead of being used for food, but increasing demand for snake meat might motivate more people to try python (and work harder on eradicating them from Florida’s precarious ecosystem). 

Avery Briar, who owns a pet ball python (another species sometimes found roaming the wilds of Florida, although less common than the Burmese), loves snakes, but agrees that sometimes eradication of invasives is the only way to go. “Dealing with invasive species is always an ethical challenge, and it’s very easy for something that’s supposed to provide a fix to go wrong and have unintentional ecological consequences,” he says. Briar’s not wrong: Cane toads, rabbits, and even cats are just a few species intentionally introduced to areas they weren’t originally from, and there’s few cases without significant ecological harm. But there’s also hope found in trying new things like python meat. “I think that if any sort of python meat is going to make it into more mainstream acceptance, this is what would have the best chance.” 

America may not be ready to embrace an overhaul of our meat industry, even if the growing pressure to curb climate change demands it. But for those who aren’t shy of trying snake, more demand is a good thing. Florida could use fewer pythons, and the US could use some more sustainable sources of meat.

The post Sneaking Snake Onto the Menu appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The rates of food insecurity shot up during the pandemic, with two peaks. The first was at the start of the pandemic, as people lost jobs and so much was up in the air. And the second peak happened once COVID supports ran out. In 2022, 17 million households in the US reported trouble finding food, which is additionally frustrating considering the amount of food that ends up in landfills.

The amount of food waste in North America is staggering. In the US, close to 40 percent of food is wasted, with 92 billion pounds of food thrown away each year. Canadians create 50 million tonnes of food waste every year, but there are estimates that more than half of that waste could be prevented.

That’s where community fridges come in.

The food comes to fridges in one of three main ways. Ideally, organizers have consistent larger donations from grocery stores and other retailers. If a grocer has a load of apples, juice boxes or lettuce and they know it will pass the sell-by date, they will often partner with a community fridge. Volunteers will pick up the load of food and stock the fridges as food becomes available. Then there are individual donations. These can be leftovers from your dinner or a loaf of bread you grabbed at the grocery store that you don’t need. For many fridges, neighbors can pick up what they need and drop off what they have to give. Lastly, there are the restaurant donations. Just like retail stores, some restaurants partner with community fridges to pick up unsold meals and redistribute them.

In this series, we explore how community fridges popped up in different neighborhoods, speak with folks who both use and volunteer at community fridges, and find out the best ways for citizens to get involved in their own community fridges.

The post The Rise of the Community Fridge 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.

She had never thought of herself as an organizer or an environmentalist. She ran a restaurant. She published a cookbook. She was a mom to five kids. Of all the hats she wore, organizer wasn’t one of them.

“I had no idea about any of this stuff,” says Dougherty. “Literally zero—less than zero probably. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

Dougherty is definitely not unique in this respect. It is very hard for most people to know what to do to organize against the threats presented by factory farming in their community. While reporting our story about some of the communities that have resisted or are currently resisting factory farms, including Dougherty’s, we came across a lot of great advice from people who themselves have been in this position. Whether you’re organizing in response to a particular factory farm site or advocating for systemic change, learning from the experiences of others can be a great place to start, so we’ve compiled some of those insights for you here. 

Align yourself with a supporting organization

Food & Water Watch addresses factory farming on a big-picture scale. Michaelyn Mankel of Food & Water Watch Iowa says connecting with others is valuable at that broader scope, too.

“If you’re really serious about getting involved in this work, the most important thing I think there is to do is to find your people.”

Jennifer Breon of Food & Water Watch Iowa echoes this point.

“I think collective action is key, whether it’s Food & Water Watch or any other environmental organization that’s working on factory farm issues, or environmental issues around agriculture, where you can have a sphere of influence. Don’t just do this on your own.” 

When Barb Kalbach became aware of a hog CAFO being planned for just up the road from her in 2002, she called on the help of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. After successfully resisting the CAFO, she now works with Iowa CCI. According to Kalbach, aligning yourself with an organization can help you with strategy you might miss on your own. “It’s just those little things…that you and I wouldn’t think of, and that an organization that’s worked and helps people like that, they do think of that.”

Resources

Food & Water Watch has chapters across the US and organizes at a national level as well.

Iowa CCI provides assistance on a variety of social and environmental issues in Iowa.

Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP) has a Help Hotline for communities struggling against factory farming.

Environmental organizations can also be good to reach out to, especially ones that participate in water monitoring such as the Waterkeeper Alliance.

Communication is key

Dougherty, now senior regional representative with SRAP, recommends creating opportunities for community members to talk and be heard. Listening is key early on:

“Just literally holding space for folks and listening to them talk through the incredulousness of what they’re confronting…Tell me what’s going on, how is this impacting you? Are other people concerned? For me, at least the first couple of meetings are not spent devising a plan of attack; the first couple are completely based in, ‘Tell me more,’ as opposed to, ‘Let me tell you something.’”

Communication isn’t just important at the beginning. Emily Tucker of Food & Water Watch New Mexico recommends talking to others about what you’ve observed.

“Talk to your neighbors about it. Alone, we can’t get much done. But I think that the more folks work together and just say, Hey, I’ve noticed this, have you noticed this? I think that’s really important. Even if you don’t have a background in organizing, that is a wonderful place to start—just talking to your neighbor about the issue.”

Resources

Join Food & Water Watch’s Food Action Team as a volunteer to begin connecting with others in your community.

Get the word out

It’s important to make communication as easy as possible, and have streamlined ways of disseminating information. For ongoing battles, having a means of central communication is essential, says Starla Tillinghast of Oregon. 

“Kendra immediately got up a website full of information about it. And then people got signed up to be on email notification. And I think [the] number one most important thing is central communication because then that way we can be updated with anything coming up.”

Besides websites and listservs, other common ways to share information include Facebook groups and lawn signs. Bringing information to already established groups such as faith groups, schools, and community centers can also be helpful. 

Use public information and learn the laws

The industry isn’t going to publicize their plans, so seeking out information that is in the public domain but not advertised is a skill worth learning. These may include site plans, permit applications, and more. 

However, the process for getting access to public records looks different everywhere, says Kendra Kimbirauskas of State Innovation Exchange (SiX). Figuring out the unique process for making these requests in your area is a good early step.

“For somebody who’s kind of in the position that we were in, it’s really important to figure out who the public records officer or steward is, figure out what the process is, and then follow the process. And there’s going to be probably different processes for the different bodies of government that you’re talking to. We were interested in the state and the county, slightly different processes, but we had to understand what those processes were before we could get the records.”

It’s also okay to look at what other communities have done that could be a model for your community. When Farmers Against Foster Farms wanted to increase its  “setback” distance—the required distance between CAFOs and property lines— in Linn County, Oregon,  Tillinghast began looking at other agricultural states to see what their required setbacks were. Other states had much greater setbacks, and Tillinghast thought that this information could help Oregon follow suit.

“I went and looked up setbacks all across the nation, and I wrote that out in a table,” says Tillinghast. “I brought it to the planner, and I brought it to the county commissioners.”

Resources

SRAP has compiled the relevant laws concerning industrial livestock operations in each state. Find yours here.

Here’s a tutorial on how to make a Freedom of Information Act request.

Google “How to make a public records request in (county, city, or state name)” for more information.

Find out if your county has “local control”

It’s much harder to resist the effects of CAFOs once they are already built. Ideally, people would be able to know where CAFOs are going to go so they could prepare. Unfortunately, this is hard to do.

“It’s really tough to figure out where a CAFO will go next; they are pretty opaque when it comes to their next steps,” says Dougherty “From what I’ve seen, they like to come in under the radar and try to get the process started with little to no public knowledge. They seem to prefer communities with as  [few] regulations as possible.”

There are a few things that industry will look for when siting a CAFO, and perhaps the biggest one will be the ability to operate without being heavily regulated. One thing you can do today is find out if your state has “local control,” the ability to make certain decisions about agriculture at the county level instead of at the state level.

“Generally, CAFOs go where they can have a cluster, be within a certain distance to a processor, have access to transportation infrastructure, and feel that the local community doesn’t have the political power to prevent them from coming in. So, places are targeted where there [is] no local control—often, communities of color, often, communities with high unemployment rates so that they can sell the false narrative of job creation. Usually, the best way for communities to find out is through the community rumor mill. Sadly, a lot of times, communities don’t find out until the wheels are greased and the operations are being built,” says Kimbirauskas. 

Resources

Learn more about SB85, the recent law that gave Oregon local control here.

Think big picture, too

A lot of the work for a more sustainable food system is being done at the policy level. It’s important to go beyond individual site fights, because industry will always be looking for the next place to land. Alexa Moore of Food & Water Watch New Mexico points to the Farm Bill as a good example of legislation with a broad impact.

“There’s different levels of stuff—there’s your local level, there’s your state level, and then there’s your national level. We’re doing work on a fair Farm Bill. And so, that’s something that whether you’re in New Mexico, or Oregon, or Iowa, or Maryland, or South Carolina, or any of these states, this is going to impact you. And so, I think that’s something that whether you’re in a small community or in a very urban area, as a large farmer or small farmer or what have you, you can always connect through this larger issue that impacts everyone such as the Farm Bill.”

In your everyday life, you can support the kind of farmers you want to see, says Kimbirauskas. But beyond market-based solutions, she also encourages people to engage with legislators.

“Every single person in this country is represented by [legislators]. If you care about this issue, if you haven’t talked to them about this issue, they’re not inaccessible, typically. It’s pretty easy to connect with your state elected officials and let them know that this is something that you care about.”

Don’t think about these issues as siloed, says Rania Masri, PhD, co-director of North Carolina Environmental Justice Network.

“My advice that I have for people organizing is to make those links and not to organize in silos, not to just think about one aspect, but to make those links and then to connect them to state policies and federal policies. Have the courage to demand not a token seat at the table, but a completely different kind of table.”

Resources

The Farm System Reform Act would place an immediate moratorium on new factory farms. You can contact your legislators through Food & Water Watch about these issues here.

The House of Representatives’ Farm Bill draft has included language from the EATS Act. If included, this could take away states’ power to make decisions about the conditions of industrial animal agriculture locally. Learn more and take action here.

Avoid polarizing media narratives

Industrial farming can be an emotional topic for people involved. And according to Mankel, sharing stories with the media can be a powerful way to get the word out to others in the community.

“For the average person reading this, the best tool and the best place that you can put your focus on, at least to begin with, I think is the media…Look at local media and how you can get word out to the public and how you can get coverage on what’s going on and look to other organizations that you think might have a stake in this issue.”

Tucker advises people to tell their stories without contributing to polarizing anti-agriculture media narratives.

“I think that it’s really important to differentiate between small- and family-scale farmers and industrialized agriculture. And that’s something that can be kind of a struggle sometimes, and it can very, very easily get folks who farm small scale to be like, Well, why is this group organizing against me? And so, I think the narrative there is one that’s particularly important to challenge and say that, we want a food system that works for small farmers, and that works for consumers and works for the environment. And we think that we can do it. But that is a pretty difficult narrative to challenge in the media at times.”

Kimbirauskas of Oregon seconds the importance of this.

“A lot of times, we sort of get into these mindsets of them versus us. A lot of times, that kind of plays out as urban versus rural, and animal rights activists versus farmers. And that’s how the narrative is developed. That’s a losing battle for anyone who doesn’t like factory farms. And so, really striving to think about finding places of commonality, and not villainizing all farmers…I think our community saw this—when there’s a way for independent farmers to come together with advocates, and work together against factory farms, that is a winning strategy.”

Resources

You can contact us at Modern Farmer at contact@modfarm.com

Reach out to your local newspapers for coverage—most accept tips from the public. Try calling or emailing a reporter directly. You can usually find this contact information on the publication’s online masthead. If someone in your community is a writer, you can submit a letter to the editor—consult your newspaper’s pitch page for specific directions.

Take care of yourself, too

Organizing is hard work, and both site battles and systemic change can be long fights. Leslie Martinez, community engagement specialist for the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability says that this kind of work can be hard on the mental health of organizers.

“Take care of yourself, because this is a movement. This is going to take time. It’s going to be hard. There’s going to be a lot more battles. And I’d also encourage people to remember that being selfless is not a sustainable way of doing this work.”

Martinez draws power from working closely with the community.

“I can use what I know to push back. I find strength in that.”

The post Advice From Those Organizing Against Factory Farms appeared first on Modern Farmer.