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The Peterson Farm Brothers: “Managed well, cattle keep the land swell.”

The Peterson Farm Brothers

The Peterson Farm Brothers create music videos that help explain modern farming. This featured video, called “Pasture Road”, is a parody on the original music: “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X. The parody lyrics were created by Greg Peterson.

Peterson Farm is a 5th generation family farm on about 2,000 acres located near Assaria, Kansas. Their Swedish ancestors homesteaded the land in the 1800s and the same land is farmed today. The Petersons primarily raise beef cattle (about 1,000 head at a time) and also have a small cow/calf herd. They grow corn, alfalfa, and forage sorghum as feed for the cattle and wheat, milo, soybeans, and sunflowers for cash crops.

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#CeleryJuice: Based on Facts or Followers?

social media icons with word "trapped"

Perpetuating pseudoscience

The #celeryjuice sensation has flooded our social feeds, mainstream news outlets, and Instagram stories. Images of beautiful and healthy green juice drinkers are regularly splashed upon our screens. These alluring photos and tweets touting the magical benefits of celery juice even prompted some at D2D to run to our local grocery store in search of celery stalks!

But, wait, we asked, “where is the science?”

The major health claim is that by drinking 16 ounces of raw celery juice in the morning, on an empty stomach, you can transform your health in as little as one week. It looks and sounds so easy-breezy, but is there any scientific proof?

Social media influence is blinding

The latest miracle elixir has gone viral, with over 120,000 posts tagged and swoon-worthy celebrities like Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow, Victoria Secret model Miranda Kerr, rap star Pharrell Williams, and talk show host Busy Philipps all enthusiastically supporting the celery wellness movement.

Celery juice looks delicious but it is not a miracle elixir!

“Apparently it’s supposed to do all of these wonderful things for you and something with Gwyneth Paltrow and I don’t know but I’m on board.”
– Busy Philipp

The self-proclaimed originator of the global celery juice movement is “medical medium” Anthony Williams, a Los Angeles-based health guru. With over 1.7 million followers on Instagram, Williams states that this cure-all elixir “is a powerful herbal medicine that is killing bugs in people’s bodies” and can transform your health in just days. What kind of “bugs”? The flu? Colds?

And have we learned nothing from the Fyre festival, that perception based on social influence can distort reality?

Williams says that he respects medical professionals. However, he rejects basic science and lacks scientific peer-reviewed studies to support his claims. This social media movement exploits chronic illness sufferers by giving them false hope.

Spirits and salts?

Williams explains that he has discovered the health benefits of celery juice via “spiritual clairvoyance”, which means that a spirit speaks to him in a voice only he can hear. In addition to the transformative claims of gut health, Williams also declares that he has uncovered what he calls cluster salts. He explains that cluster salts are a subgroup of sodium which can kill pathogens in people’s bodies, helping to rid chronic illness sufferers of ulcers, acne, eczema & psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, UTIs, acid reflux, and even high cholesterol.

Red flags all over the place!

How can one vegetable, comprised of almost 95% water and not particularly high in any vitamin or mineral, cure all these different ailments? Well, the short answer is that no human research has been conducted to prove all these claims. #Celeryjuice is the epitome of pseudoscience.

The truth is that celery, like most veggies, is a healthy dietary choice. Celery is hydrating due to its high water content; it is also naturally low in calories, fat, cholesterol, and carbohydrates. It contains a good amount of folate, as well as sodium, vitamin K and flavonoids, which have been shown in studies to balance electrolytes, keep blood pressure low, and combat inflammation. But most other veggies like broccoli, spinach, and cauliflower offer the same, if not more, nutrients.

Source: nutriliving.com

Your money would be better spent if you buy the whole celery stalk and incorporate it into a whole-food diet full of fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, whole grain, and lean proteins.
–Kristen Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD

Convenience over correctness?

Think of the recent wellness trends that have come and gone–oil pulling, activated charcoal, apple cider vinegar, the Master Cleanse, fasting, jade rollers, the red wine diet, waist trainers, raw milk—the list goes on. Psychologists have recently studied the implications of our “quick-fix” society”, determining that consumer decisions are not made with respect to the most effective option, but rather the quickest, and often only temporary, remedy.

Nutritionists we spoke to unanimously dismissed the quick fix mindset. To truly understand our health and optimize our well-being, we must look at our overall lifestyle, which includes behaviors, activity, sleep, relationships, and diet. And ultimately, not fall for social gimmicks, rooted in misleading pseudoscience.

“The science behind celery juice is very complicated. Many of the articles Williams references in his writing are animal-based studies, using high dosages. Ultimately, our dietary decisions should be looked at on an individual level, as each body is so different from the next.”
– Keiy Murofushi, Director of Food and Nutrition Services at Cedars-Sinai Medical

Social media and social acceptance

According to Sprout Social, social networks are the largest source of inspiration for consumer decisions. It is a massive marketplace, with advertising revenue reaching $18.4 billion in 2018 spent on influencing you, the consumer. It is no wonder we as a society struggle with proper decision making when the influx of consumer-targeted ads and social messaging is utterly overwhelming.

Additionally, social media is designed to be addicting, taking advantage of our need for a sense of community, acceptance, and inclusion. How many followers do you have? How many likes did you get on your last post? It preys on a basic desire to “fit in” with our peers.  It is this unconscious desire that often drives our decision making and blinds us to the facts. And in the case of celery juice, obscures our view of what is truly a healthy diet!

So how can you combat a very real societal challenge? Base your health decisions in science.

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Waste Not, Want Not: Eat Beer and Drink Sandwiches!

mug of beer and barley field

Sobering food waste statistics

According to ReFed, a multi-stakeholder nonprofit committed to reducing U.S. food waste, one in seven Americans are unsure where their next meal will come from. Yet simultaneously, we waste 40% of edible food from the time it is harvested to its journey to the dinner plate. It just doesn’t make sense.

Wasted food means wasted water and fertilizer, as well. Approximately 20% of the total amount of fresh water and fertilizer used to grow these crops just go to waste. And as for us, the end consumers, 20% of landfill volume is comprised of food waste.

 

Circularity is the new sustainability

A modern concept called “circular” sustainability goes beyond a product’s initial life to how it can be repurposed or regenerated into a new product. It is not enough to produce a product with sustainable solutions; companies must take responsibility for the discarded or unused ingredients, as well.

Source: Mintel/Wrap.Org

Eat your beer!

For all you beer lovers out there, let’s think about waste another way: out of every six-pack of beer, throw two cans away.

Beer making requires large amounts of water to brew the beer and grow the barley, hops or other grains that go into it. When all is said and done, brewing each six-pack of beer can leave behind a pound or more of brewer’s spent grains (BSG). These grains come from the leftover malt and make up nearly 85% of a brewery’s by-product.

We have fun drinking the beer, but all the fiber, micronutrients, and even probiotics from the barley after the fermentation process are left behind in a spent grain waste stream. Globally, about 42 million tons of BSG is created from beer we drink.

In the United States alone, we drink about six billion gallons of beer a year. But if we repurposed the spent grains, every American could enjoy 35 loaves of bread!  If we recycled it all, everyone in the world would have 12 loaves of bread each year!

The fermentation process. (image: Dirt-to-Dinner)

The brewing industry has been working hard to address and find creative ways to make the left-over materials serve as something other than waste.  This is especially important because 40% of total food waste by volume is from consumer-facing businesses.

Tasty Food from Spent Grains

Imagine crackers, cookies, and bread all made from beer. Restaurants and bakeries around the world upcycle BSGs and even sell them online. However, bread cannot be made with only the BSG. Of the dry ingredients, at least one-third needs to be wheat flour to keep the bread from getting crumbly.

Regrained, a San Francisco company, was inspired by two UCLA undergrads who brewed their own beer and then learned that they could bake bread with the leftover grains. They figured if they sold enough loaves, they could brew their beer for free.

Now a much bigger idea, Regrained uses BSG from several local breweries to create a patented SuperGrain flour to make nutritious granola bars with prebiotics, fiber, and micronutrients.

Rise Products, from New York City, makes and sells flour from spent grains collected from local craft breweries. The flour has twelve times the fiber, two times the protein and one-third of the carbs of regular flour. They utilize 6,000 tons of spent grains otherwise destined for the landfill.

Grain Elevator, in Mississippi, makes crackers from fermented sourdough.

Mash Tun Crackers has a relationship with a local brewery to make high fiber, high protein, enhanced mineral and vitamin, sprouted and roasted wholegrain crackers. Their motto: “The future of food will have reclaimed grain in it.”

Great Lakes Brewing Co. in Cleveland, Ohio, takes wasted beer and makes ice cream, soap, barbeque sauce, and beer mustard.

We don’t think of our byproducts as waste. Along with traditional recycling, we believe in repurposing everything we can. Spent brewer’s grain finds new life as a soil amendment on our farms and feed for livestock used in our brewpub’s menu items. We’ve even used spent grain to cultivate mushrooms. Low-fill beers become sauces, ice creams, soups, sausage, and even soap. Take, make, remake–that’s how we operate. (Great Lakes Brewing Co.)

Drink your Sandwiches!

Let’s reverse the process and drink beer from unwanted bread!

In Belgium, brewers use bread as an ingredient in brewing beer! The Brussels Beer Project takes unwanted bread, combines it with hops and yeast, and produces a popular amber ale. The group estimates that approximately 1,000 pounds of uneaten bread can be used to produce about 8,800 pounds of beer.

Coming soon to your Whole Foods will be beer made from wasted bread. Food waste advocate Tristram Stewart created the company Toastale. They make beer from unsold loaves from bakeries and unused crusts from sandwich makers. So far they have used a little over a million slices of bread to brew 450,000 liters of beer. They even show you how to brew beer yourself.

Spent grains for animal feed

The animal feed industry has long known the value of spent grains. BSGs are a nutritious source of protein and fiber for animals. About 80% already go into feed for chicken, cows, and pork. Some companies are even using them for farmed fish production.

And this isn’t even a novel idea. When Adolphus Busch started Anheuser-Busch, he encouraged farmers and ranchers to pick up spent grains from the brewing plant! Any farmer fortunate enough to live next to a brewery can often receive spent grains to supplement their regular animal feed, as most breweries donate the grains for free.

From Beer to Beef. image: Citizen Times

For example, MillerCoors has partnered with Nutrinsic to upcycle their wastewater to make ProFloc, a high protein animal and fish feed.

For those of you who home-brew, you can even make dog treats from spent grains. They actually look good enough for us to eat! You can also buy them from Doggie Beer Bones.

Spent grains for energy and composting

Spent grains can also be put in a methane digester to create energy for the brewery. The Alaskan Brewing Company created a steam boiler which provides energy to their brewing process.

The city of Boulder, Colorado is using weak wort, a beer byproduct, to reduce nitrate-nitrogen levels from its wastewater facility without using additional chemicals. They are working in collaboration with Avery Brewing.

Progress in the battle against food waste

The efforts of the brewing industry, which represent just a single element of an enormously large and complex food system, points to significant progress in the battle against food waste. As a consumer, you can do your part to recycle or repurpose your food waste.

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AquaBounty Salmon: 5 Questions

salmon steaks with rosemary

Alison Van Eenennaam is an extension specialist in animal biotechnology and genomics, Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis. Follow her on Twitter @biobeef

This article originally ran at The Conversation as The science and politics of genetically engineered salmon: 5 questions answered and has been republished here with permission from  Genetic Literacy Project.

A Massachusetts-based company [in March 2019] cleared the last regulatory hurdle from the Food and Drug Administration to sell genetically engineered salmon in the U.S. Animal genomics expert Alison Van Eenennaam, who served on an advisory committee to the FDA to evaluate the AquAdvantage salmon, explains the significance of the FDA’s move and why some have criticized its decision.

How is AquaBounty’s salmon different from a conventional salmon?

The main difference is that AquaBounty’s AquAdvantage salmon grows faster than conventional salmon, and therefore gets to market weight in less time. This is desirable for fish farmers because it means the fish require less feed, which is one of the main costs in aquaculture.

Fast growth is a commonly selected characteristic in food animal breeding programs. The growth rate of chickens, for example, has increased dramatically over the past 50 years thanks to conventional breeding based on the naturally occurring variation in growth rate that exists between individual chickens.

image source: Scientific American

To produce the AquAdvantage salmon, Canadian researchers introduced DNA from the King salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, a fast-growing Pacific species, into an Atlantic salmon genome 30 years ago. The AquAdvantage salmon are several generations removed from that original fast-growing founder fish. These fish inherited the King salmon fast-growth gene from their parents in the normal way, passed down through sexual reproduction.

The Food and Drug Administration approved AquAdvantage salmon in 2015. Why couldn’t it be sold in the United States until now?

Because the AquAdvantage salmon is a genetically engineered animal, it was required to undergo a mandatory premarket FDA safety evaluation. The agency completed that evaluation and determined the fish was safe in November 2015, after almost two decades of regulatory scrutiny.

Following this approval, Alaskan Sen. Lisa Murkowski introduced language into the 2016 federal budget bill that banned importation and sale of the genetically engineered salmon until such time as the FDA “publishes final labeling guidelines for informing consumers of such content.” According to her press release, she did this to protect Alaska’s fishing interests and Pacific “salmon stocks from the many threats of ‘Frankenfish.’

Soon afterward, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was tasked with developing the “National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard,” also known as the GMO labeling rule, which became effective on Feb. 19, 2019. This rule requires the fish to be labeled as bioengineered food.

In response, the FDA deactivated the 2016 import alert that prevented the genetically engineered salmon from entering the United States, clearing the way for its sale here. The fish had already been approved in Canada in 2016 and has been sold there since 2017.

Is there evidence that eating genetically engineered salmon could be harmful to people’s health?

No. The FDA evaluated the fast-growing salmon and concluded that it was as safe as conventional salmon. The agency determines safety by compositional analysis – basically, grinding up genetically engineered salmon and control fish samples and comparing them. In these analyses, the genetically engineered salmon and wild Atlantic salmon were not found to differ.

It was also determined that the introduced King salmon gene was not a novel allergen. Needless to say if you are allergic to fish, don’t eat this AquAdvantage salmon or any other salmon either. In reality, there’s no such thing as a completely “safe food,” so what the FDA scientists concluded was that the food from AquAdvantage salmon “is as safe as food from non-GE Atlantic salmon.”

Some critics argue that the genetically modified salmon will escape and mix with wild stocks of fish. How likely is that?

AquaBounty is using multiple, redundant biological, geographical and physical containment measures that collectively decrease the possibility of its salmon escape and interbreeding with wild stocks of fish.

Currently, it is growing its engineered fish in land-based freshwater tanks in an FDA-inspected facility in the highlands of Panama. This limits their interaction with wild stocks of fish. They are also being raised to be all-female and triploid. Triploidy means the fish have three complete sets of chromosomes rather than the usual two. Triploidy renders females essentially infertile.

The fertile broodstock fish as maintained in a closed FDA-approved facility on Prince Edward Island in Canada that has physical and geographical containment measures. After reviewing those safeguards, Canadian health and environmental authorities concluded that “The likelihood of (genetically engineered salmon) exposure to the Canadian environment is concluded to be negligible with reasonable certainty.”

In 2017 AquaBounty purchased a fish farm in Indiana where they plan to grow out genetically engineered salmon. This site was approved by the FDA in 2018 as a grow-out facility. The advantage of growing the salmon in land-based facilities in the United States is that it provides a local source of domestically produced Atlantic salmon. Currently, most salmon eaten in the United States is farmed Atlantic salmon imported from Chile, Norway, and Canada incurring considerable transportation costs and carbon emissions.

Source: Indianapublicmedia.org

The Pacific coast has a wild salmon fishery, and some of its representatives say the genetically engineered salmon is an ecological and genetic threat to native gene pools. But Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) are in a different genus from Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) species. This means they cannot interbreed.

In my view, claims that AquAdvantage salmon will negatively affect wild Pacific salmon populations are unfounded, due not only to the fact that AquAdvantage salmon are being raised in land-based tanks with multiple redundant physical, geographical and biological containment measures to prevent fish from escaping, but also due to the basic genetic incompatibility of these two distinct genera of salmon.

Where can I read more?

There are two comprehensive yet comprehensible write-ups that I highly recommend for readers looking for more detailed information on the science and politics of the AquAdvantage salmon. The first is from factcheck.org, a project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center, entitled “False Claims about ‘Frankenfish,’” and the second is by the independent educational site biofortified.org, entitled “Fast-growing genetically engineered salmon approved.”

 

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Rallying for our Flooded Farmers

nebraska-flooding-Farm-Near-Fremont

At Dirt-to-Dinner, we love working with farmers and telling their story. We want to take a moment to not only inform others of the flooding’s magnitude but also to consider a few ways to help those in need.

Floods sweep away livestock and buildings

Farmers and ranchers in Nebraska and Iowa have been suffering through a natural catastrophe that has yielded unprecedented damage. The flooding that began in March was so strong that it literally swept away cattle and other livestock, never to be seen again. But the devastation doesn’t end there. As flood waters continue to roll in, farmers’ losses are compounded as time eats away at what would otherwise have been used to plant crops for the upcoming harvest.

“The extensive flooding we’ve seen…will continue through May and may be exacerbated in the coming weeks as the water flows downstream.”
– Ed Clark, Director of NOAA’s National Water Center

The timing of these floods couldn’t be worse for farmers and ranchers, many of whom currently struggle to keep their farms in operation. Farmers have been working on very slim profit margins with historically low commodity prices and punitive export taxes in ongoing trade wars. When this flood rushed in, it hit our farm belt like a tsunami.

The flooding also wiped out farmers’ reserves. Many farmers strategically store last season’s crops to protect against a downturn, like a rough trading climate or a bad storm. In fact, because of tensions with China, farmers stored more of their harvest last year than in previous years for such protection. Sadly, all those efforts – and lost income – went to waste.

Damage is in the billions

Nebraska and Iowa were hit the hardest by the flooding, with initial damage estimated at $1.4 billion and $2.0 billion, respectively, and these estimates exclude long-term damage, which can multiply the loss, especially when you consider all the unplanted and unharvested crops this year. Furthermore, other affected factors like feed, soil quality, and water supply, will have a profound ripple effect throughout the system that lingers far beyond the current flood.

“This flood isn’t just bigger; the effects will last longer. Long after waters recede, the sand and debris left behind must be cleaned up before planting. But the equipment to remove that debris is not always available quickly and fields may not be ready in time for farmers to get a crop in at all this year.”
– Sam Funk, Iowa Farm Bureau’s Senior Economist

More than 500,000 acres of land were flooded in total, mostly comprised of corn and soybean crops. That’s the equivalent of the area of 35 Manhattans! While floodwaters are now receding in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, river levels are increasing across the northern Plains, with more flooding likely. In Nebraska alone, $400 million worth of livestock have been killed or displaced. This affects not only the ranchers’ operations and livelihoods, but also our dinner plates as the market seeks to find a new balance, leading to beef price fluctuations.

Additionally, with 81 of the 93 counties in Nebraska in a state of emergency as of March-end, many of the roads, bridges, and tunnels are in disrepair, leaving farmers unable to get their goods to the market or transportation hub. For instance, what normally took one Nebraskan farmer around 15 minutes now takes more than three hours to bring his food to market, increasing costs during an already extremely challenging economic time.

A farmer’s limited protection

Our nation provides protection in such disasters at both a federal and state level that farmers can utilize. Of particular aid to farmers in need is the Farm Bill, which significantly extended disaster assistance as of 2014 to include livestock loss from weather events, livestock emergency assistance, and other relevant programs. Also, farmers and ranchers not previously signed up for protection prior to these catastrophic events now have access to coverage.

Despite the breadth of programs offered to those in need, they can still leave the farmer vulnerable to massive loss, as many of these programs only cover a fraction of the damage, if even at all. For instance, with the stored crops we mentioned earlier, neither insurance nor the Farm Bill will cover the loss. In more typical weather events, farmers would have enough time to relocate their grains and seeds in the event of flooding. However, the recent flooding filled the fields too quickly, leaving farmers with no time to relocate their millions of dollars’ worth of stored crops. Any farmer depending on selling those crops for necessary operations and taxes will likely go out of business.

Given the magnitude of loss and the lack of farmer protection in particular issues like stored crops, we expect that new legislation may be proposed in the near future to cover such devastation. But, for many hurting families and communities in the Midwest, those funds can’t come soon enough.

Humanity at its finest

For those who have lost so much, not all hope is lost. Thanks to the compassion of many individuals, companies, and organizations, these farmers and ranchers can find more relief from the storm. Addy Tritt, a recent college graduate, found a remarkable way to help: she purchased a stores’ worth of shoes to donate. Now some may think she must have pretty deep pockets to donate over 200 pairs of shoes, but she used her ingenuity to provide relief. Knowing that Payless was going out of business, she called the corporate office and negotiated over $6,000 worth of inventory down to $100. Talk about a good deal!!

Ralco, an ag tech company, has donated over $15,000 of their animal feed and wellness products to farmers in need. With products that help cattle overcome high-stress situations, Ralco’s donation will go far with livestock that may have temporarily suffered from malnutrition and trauma.

And organizations like Farm Rescue are continually seeking ways to help farmers and ranchers by providing the necessary equipment and manpower to plant or harvest their crops. They also provide livestock feeding assistance and other services.

What can we all do to help?

For one, know that it’s never too late to give. And two, every little bit helps. Even providing a can of beans, donating $5, or just sending a hand-written note of support and warmth will go far. You can donate money or other services at Farm Rescue which has locations throughout the farm belt.

Nebraska Farm Bureau established a Disaster Relief Fund, where 100% of the donations will be distributed to Nebraska farmers, ranchers, and rural communities affected by the disasters. And if you are a farmer in the area and have hay, feedstuffs, fencing materials or equipment to spare, please consider donating to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, where they will provide supplies to those in need.

Should your spring cleaning leave you with extra gently-used clothes, the United Way of the Midlands’ Omaha office at 2201 Farnam Street in Omaha, NE 68102 is set up for donations. They have established the Nebraska & Iowa Flood Relief Fund to help people who lost homes or suffered other setbacks in the flooding. 100% of every donation will be given to nonprofit programs that provide shelter, food and other services in the area.

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We Need Common Sense to Understand Risk

wine being poured in wine glass with no sides

This post is featured content from Global Farmer Network and was originally published on March 15th, 2019. The author, Ted Sheely, raises lettuce, cotton, tomatoes, onions, pistachios, wine grapes and garlic on a family farm in the California San Joaquin Valley.

If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too? As a dad, I may have used that line to get one of my kids to use common sense when considering risk.

But sometimes risk can be blown out of proportion. Perspective helps.

There’s a group in California that wants to ban a tool that I use on my farm to help me battle weeds. They go about it by scaring us about the risk. This time, they’ve taken it to the ridiculous. They have tested to find an infinitesimal trace of glyphosate in beer and wine. Let me introduce perspective.

Alcohol is a known carcinogen. It’s on the list on this web site from the American Cancer Society. That risk is in the category of Group 1 from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an international organization renowned for finding almost everything to be a cancer risk. Alcohol falls between Aflatoxin and Aluminum Production on this list.

Alcohol is also on the list from the National Toxicology Program. The American Cancer Society site goes on to explain that things on the list don’t always cause cancer.

Glyphosate is also on the IARC’s list, in a lower group, 2A, falling between Glycidol and working as a hairdresser. There is some controversy as to how glyphosate even got on the list, given all of the studies that have shown it to be perfectly safe. Here’s an article on that investigation.

This whole idea of generating worry about glyphosate is nonsense and driven by an anti-technology agenda. That’s the only thing that explains why people are even driven to test the level of glyphosate in alcohol. What next? Do we test for glyphosate in arsenic and asbestos?

We live on our farm and eat what we grow. My grandchildren play in the fields. If I had any concerns about the safety of glyphosate, I wouldn’t use it. At every step, we use this crop-protection product with great care, following the product guidelines and applying only the right amounts. You might use it to take care of your lawn.

This group that’s stoking our fears says the highest level found in their testing was in an amount so small that a 125-lb. adult would have to guzzle more than 300 gallons of wine per day for life to reach this mark. That’s more than a bottle of wine per minute, without sleep.

I like a good chardonnay as much as the next person, but even I know my limits.

The crazy continues. Even at this level, the group tries to assert that heavy drinkers should be cautious. For people who drink that much beer and wine, of course, glyphosate is the least of their worries. Their massive intake of alcohol is much more harmful.

While there’s no excuse for drinking too much, farmers have many reasons for using glyphosate. This product is popular because it’s effective and much safer than some other herbicide options available. It also works well in a no-till farming system that helps to conserve the soil.

In the end, it’s all about healthy crops, whether they’re the hops and grapes that go into our beer and wine or the soybeans that go to feedlots. When our plants fend off weeds, they’re bigger, stronger, and better able to fight disease. They’re also more delicious and affordable.

You know what? I think I’ll drink to that.

Ted Sheely also volunteers as a board member for the Global Farmer Network and is Chairman of the Horizon Growers (pistachios). He has provided leadership to the National Cotton Council, Cotton Incorporated, California Farm Bureau and Westlands Water District. Ted’s long-standing interest and investment in water availability, quality, and use has earned him recognition by the California Water Policy Conference with the Innovative Water Conservation Award. You can email Ted at tsheely@globalfarmernetwork.org