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Trading Carbon and Talking Plants


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Over the holiday break, my family was lucky enough to escape Omicron and go to the Virgin Islands. Some of us went diving a few times. On our various dives, we saw a wreck from 1867, colorful coral fish, barracuda, a shark, and even an octopus.

Afterward, as we sat on the beach with cold drinks, we enjoyed looking at the crystal blue water and the sailboats bobbing up and down. I thought to myself, if you didn’t spend time underwater, you would never understand what was beneath the seemingly benign surface.

The same can be said for soil.

As you drive or fly over the countryside, you’ll see picturesque farms and beautiful landscapes. And underneath, there is a dynamic, ever-changing microbial environment that affects our health and the Earth’s environment. The world of soil that supports everything green – including 95% of our food– is just as hidden as the abandoned ships and fish beneath the waves.

And just like ocean life, soil is critical to our future. Healthy soil has a tremendous benefit besides growing our food: it efficiently stores carbon, cleans our water, and give us the nutrients we need in our food.

Saving the soil for future generations

As a civilization, we have degraded our soils up to 10 times the rate of rebuilding. Since we have been farming the prairies, the Nature Conservatory reports that the U.S. has lost about 60% of its original organic carbon content in the soil. In the days of the buffalo, the United States had 18 inches in topsoil; today, on average, there is around eight inches. Future generations are facing climate change, nutrition security, and soil degradation.

Yet all is not lost. It is ironic that as we search for a climate change solution, we also urgently need to save our soil. The challenge today is to produce more food for more people with less land under plow with degraded soils, using less water and fewer energy resources. Soil carbon sequestration seems to be an answer for both.

In a previous D2D post, we addressed trading carbon credits between those who emit carbon and those who sequester carbon. According to Carbon Credit Capital, a company that matches carbon emissions with carbon capture programs, the average American emits about 20 tons of carbon each year, equivalent to driving 48,000 miles in a car. To find your carbon emissions, the EPA has a household carbon footprint calculator.

As a solution to climate change, farmers and ranchers are encouraged to measure the carbon they are pulling out of the air and storing in the ground as they grow their crops. They can sell this carbon in the form of a carbon credit.

In a quick search online, I found a couple of examples, one being Truterra, a farmer-driven sustainability platform. They work with farmers to evaluate carbon sequestering practices and match those who believe in the power of ‘farm-to-form’ and are looking to buy carbon credits. Indigo Ag contracts carbon agreements with farmers and identifies buyers to sell credits.

We wondered: What does all this additional carbon do to the soil?

Carbon’s critical role with soil

Carbon is present in every living thing – and it has helped the Earth thrive for the past 3.5 billion years. Plants and trees need CO2.

Someone once told me that our food system is just the commercialization of photosynthesis. Plants absorb sunlight, carbon dioxide (CO2), and water (H2O) to create their own energy.

Plants release the oxygen back into the air (luckily for us, as we need it to breathe). The water absorbed by leaves acts as a transport system to bring carbon down through the leaves to the roots and then into the soil.

Looking underneath the surface, you need a microscope to see the diversity of life. There are more organisms in a single teaspoon of healthy soil than people on our planet!

Soil is full of minerals, organic material, living organisms, gas, and water. One could call it the Earth’s brain, teeming with algae, fungi, nematodes, and bacteria that all merge together to give the plants nutrients.

CO2 is the nutrient that gets pulled down through the roots – a liquid carbon pathway. Plants convert this to sugars which feed the microbiome. The more food the plant provides to the microbiome, the more prolific the root system.

Plants and their microbiome have a symbiotic partnership that enables both to thrive. The plants feed the microbes in the soil. In return, the microbes in the soil feed the plants, much as our gut hosts the individual variety of microbiomes that give us antibodies to fight illness.

Each plant hosts their unique microbial community that surrounds its roots. This is called the rhizosphere – an area looking much like an old-fashioned hairnet, holding 100 times more microbes than in the surrounding soil. It is one of the most biodiverse and dynamic habitats on earth!

Part of the rhizosphere’s community is the mycorrhizal fungi. They increase the amount of space in the soil where the plant can take up nutrients and water.

Carbon as plant food

The more carbon a plant has, the more carbon it pulls out of the air. Carbon helps feed the microbes that keep plants healthy. Basically, the plants ‘pour’ carbon in the form of carbohydrate-rich exudates into the rhizosphere and the surrounding community of mycorrhizal fungi.

Plants and mycorrhizal fungi have had a relationship for 475 million years, working together to influence the Earth’s biosphere.

This partnership can reduce CO2 levels by 90%.

The higher the chlorophyll content in the leaf, the higher the rate of photosynthesis, the more carbon pulled out of the air, and the more mycorrhizal fungi. And so the cycle continues.

The plants then feed the beneficial microbes. The exude is a blend of amino acids, vitamins, and phytochemicals. The microbes hungrily consume this cocktail of nutrients. In return, these microbes protect and defend the plant from pathogens wanting to take them down.

As David Montgomery and Anne Bikle so eloquently explain in their book, The Hidden Half of Nature:

“Plants can’t run or hide but they have defensive strategies such as botanical swords (thorns) and shields (waxy leaf cuticles). Microbial recruits do the job below ground, taking on the role of palace guards to protect their botanical ally. Imagine a plant’s root system as a castle in an underground landscape harboring microbial bandits and invaders.

In this way, plants use carbohydrates (and other compounds) that only they can make to attract and build a community of microbial bodyguards that displace, deter, or take our microbial enemies.”

Did you know the carbon in soil enables plants and trees to communicate with each other? As we learned, carbon increases the microbial community. The mycorrhizal fungi can move through the soil and deliver phosphorus to areas of scarcity, letting fungi receive carbon.

This allows plants to have their own secret language through 100 different chemical signals among the microbes in the rhizosphere. They warn each other about pests and fungi so they can put up a protective defense.

What type of farming best suits carbon sequestration?

In part, sequestering carbon is why regenerative agriculture has shown such success to both the plants and the soil. Certainly, pulling carbon out of the air and into the soil is the most efficient way to sequester carbon.

But another entry point for carbon to make its way into the soil is through no-till agriculture. By not turning over the soil with a plow, the organic material remains on the surface, protects the soil from blowing away, and helps it to absorb water. As it decays into the ground, it produces carbon as a nutrient for the soil.

Regenerative agriculture also includes planting cover crops to keep the soil safely covered from erosion and to maintain a living root system in the soil to provide adequate carbon nutrition levels for the hungry microbial communities. Farmers also rotate their crops each year which increases plant and microbial diversity in the soil.

Gabe Brown, a prominent regenerative farmer from North Dakota has increased the carbon and the yield on his farm. You can see the carbon increase as he layered in cover crops, diverse crops, and livestock.

This brings to mind what Dave Albert, from Misty Mountain Farms, said when he drives by his neighbor’s farms, “You can tell a farm has unhealthy soil when there is a lot of mud on the road after a rain — a sign that the soil quality has deteriorated so much that it simply just washes away.”

The agricultural system is a marvel – and the future of our society.

Solving the riddle of climate change – and defining the role of healthy soil in that solution – won’t come about by the efforts of any single government agency, global company, or the efforts of just one person. All have a role to play, certainly. But a solution will come about through a collaborative and cooperative effort across every part of our modern food chain.

How can we help?

The farmer is the foundation for that work. The people who are farming today are on the front lines in combating climate and nutritional deficiencies in the soil. What is done on the farm or ranch to enrich soil (and to protect our air and water) make up the building blocks of the solution. Farming and the ag community are both a positive influence to improve global warming, as well as ensure nutrition for our plants and us.

Your part in helping farmers capitalize on their carbon sequestration is to look at carbon credits to help offset your carbon emissions. McKinsey estimates that in 2020, buyers retired carbon credits for about 95 million tons of CO2. By 2030, they predict the annual demand could go up to 1.5 to 2.0 gigatons of carbon. Or, put another way, the market could be between $20-50 billion.

This is one more situation where we can unite around food. Governments, businesses, and consumers can encourage the efforts made by farmers by rewarding responsible soil-health practices. It is both individual efforts and collaborative achievement that gives us the most modern and efficient food system in history. We got there as a united country.

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Ukraine: Quiet Pawn in Quest for Food Security


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What is at issue here? Why is Ukraine valuable?

The current tensions can be traced to a complex combination of geography, history, and geopolitics.

Ukraine is more than just the second-largest country in Europe, with a total area only slightly smaller than the entire state of Texas. It exists at a critical juncture between Europe and Asia – a geographic gateway between two cultures opening all the social, commercial and other opportunities created by trade and political interaction.

To begin, Ukraine offers an abundance of natural resources, including agricultural products such as corn and oilseeds, minerals and other staples of living. Its central location between European and Asian markets makes it a natural source of supply in both directions. Its river system and access to warm-water ports promise steady and reliable delivery.

And as any student of history will attest, such conditions attract a lot of outside interest. The roster of countries seeking to control or occupy Ukraine is a who’s-who of history: Scythians, Samaritans, Romans and many others figure into the country’s long national story.

In the 9th century, different Baltic cultures formed what came to be known as “Kievan Rus” – the first eastern Slavic state, centered in what is now the modern city of Kiev, and in the 11th and 12th centuries one of the most dominant states in all of Europe.

The name became the root word of the modern state of Russia, and by the 18th century, Ukraine was absorbed into the Russian empire. When the Soviet Union dissolved, Ukraine gained its official independence. In 2004, Ukrainians took to the streets in an “Orange Revolution” to demand western-style changes to national government, and in 2014 launched the Maidan Revolution to oust a pro-Soviet government.

But Russia and Ukraine have remained intertwined nonetheless, as progressive, independence-minded Ukrainians clash with a significant portion of the country’s population that retains lingering affinity for their Russian heritage and the old Soviet ways of doing things.

Official estimates say as much as 17% of Ukrainians still speak Russian as their first language, especially in the eastern and southern areas proximate to the Russian border. Unofficial observers contend as much as one-third of the Ukrainian population retain a sense of Russian identity. Regardless of the actual numbers, the Russian presence in Ukraine in both body and spirit remains very much alive.

That reality has played out in the continuing uprisings regarding election results and the unchallenged re-annexation of Crimea by Russia in early 2014, immediately following the ouster of the pro-Soviet government. Crimea was part of the Russian Empire since 1783, and Kremlin officials used many familiar arguments of history and residual identity to justify the militarily unchallenged occupation.

What’s behind Russia’s aggressive posture?

Modern diplomacy would hold that the rest of the world should leave it to the Ukrainians to determine their own future. But as current events and the Crimean example indicate, larger forces are at play.

From the Russian perspective, much of Ukraine remains Russian and should be reunited with their natural and preferred choice in identity. Perhaps more important to Kremlin leaders, Russia simply can’t allow a further drift of neighboring, and former Russian, countries toward the West.

Soviet (and now Russian) geopolitical strategy long emphasized the need and value of a ring of buffer states between the “Mother Country and the decadent West.” The fall of the Berlin Wall ushered in an age of independence, notably still vibrant in the Baltic states. The idea of Ukraine remaining neutral or uncommitted to the West might be tolerable to Russian leaders. But a clear shift to the West by a massive and economically vital neighboring country in such a critical geographic position – through stronger economic ties, or worse, through membership in NATO – is simply unacceptable.

The fear of losing control of a country so rich in industry, agriculture and energy is a foundational geopolitical interest – and would prevent Russia’s status as a true superpower, not just in Asia but all of Eastern Europe as well.

So where does agriculture fit into the picture?

In many respects, Russia’s geopolitical ambitions mask a less visible but important issue in the Ukrainian conflict. It’s food security.

The world needs more food every day. Countries worldwide are hard at work thinking about how to assure access to enough food for their citizens. Many are actually hard at work doing something about it. And many of those see the enormous potential role Ukraine could play in that food security paradigm.

Ukraine’s most productive agricultural regions claim as much as a quarter of the earth’s “black soil.”

Often referred to as “chernozem,” this soil is built up over centuries of the growth and decomposition of grasslands, leaving a deep layer (10 inches or more) of soil rich in organic carbon. By comparison, the U.S. Midwest is down to about 3 inches. Beyond its highly fertile qualities, the unique nature of the soil often minimizes the need for extensive plowing or tilling.

As a result, the soil has maintained its fertility, making Ukraine one of the breadbaskets of the world growing corn, oilseeds, wheat, and barley.

This important agricultural production advantage has made Ukraine a significant factor in the global agricultural system – despite some lingering problems with how the production system is managed.

A Snapshot of Ukrainian Agriculture

  • 33% of total population engaged in agriculture (17.5 million)
  • 80 million acres arable land (#10 globally, #3 as % of all available land)
  • Average topsoil carbon content: 2.3% of weight (US 1.5%, Argentina 1.5%, Brazil 1.2%, Australia 0.6%)
  • Crops 72%, animals 28% of all ag output
  • 45,000 ag enterprises (55% gross output), 4 million farming households
  • $22.2 billion in ag esports 2020 (45% of all exports)
  • #1 exporter of sunflower oil, #4 in corn and barley, #6 in wheat, #7 soybeans (2017)
  • Major export partners: #1 Russia, #2 China, #3 Poland
  • Imports fish, fruit & nuts, tobacco and various other food ingredients, roughly half from EU, one-quarter from Asia
  • Major import partners: #1 China, #2 Russia, #3 Germany, #4 Poland (energy)
  • 10-12% of GDP (3rd largest economic sector); estimated 9.3% Covid year 2020
  • Largest export category (2x larger than next category, metals)

– Sources for data: National Investment Council of Ukraine; International Trade Administration; www.trade.gov

The transition from the state-managed approach of the old Soviet Union days has been a difficult and often frustratingly slow process. Despite ambitious plans to modernize the system to capitalize on the country’s enormous natural advantages, political resistance to change remains firmly in place in select areas, notably among some officials still rooted in the philosophy of the old Soviet-controlled system.

Civil unrest and outright street battles between independence-minded progressives and traditionalists still clinging to a Russian heritage haven’t helped attract investment or accelerate comprehensive change.

But the protracted political back-and-forth can’t mask Ukraine’s enormous productive potential – and the role the country could play in meeting the food security goals of major international players, such as Russia and China. In addition to the geopolitical ambitions of so many countries, the attractiveness of Ukraine as a major source of food needs can’t be overstated.

Studies by academicians and various international organizations vary in their estimates of just how much untapped potential resides with Ukraine’s agricultural sector. One analysis reported by the International Trade Association placed just the country’s total grain output potential at 140 million tons – more than 60% above current levels. Improvements in production of food and feed grains could pave the way to similar explosions in productivity in the production of oilseeds, animal proteins, vegetable crops – and more.

In other words, despite all the problems created by its political and sociological history, Ukraine is a significant factor in the global agricultural picture.

The productive potential still present in the country has attracted the active interest of any number of people, commercial organizations and governments concerned with long-term food security.

Remember, nations can exert control through many means, not just the use of military force. Economic ties also can bind nations together, and both Russia and China have been actively seeking to use economics as well as troops as a key part of their foreign policy agenda. Note that over the past three years, Russia has quietly assumed the role of Ukraine’s number-one trading partner and largest export market. China is number two.

How does this affect me?

Political disputes and threats of conflict are nothing new, and it’s easy to dismiss something unfolding halfway around the world from our dinner tables. But we all have a stake in how this is resolved. Make no mistake, Russia and China are searching to expand their borders and food security cannot be taken lightly. If Russia succeeds in dominating Ukraine, when and where does it stop?

From Russia’s perspective:

  • National security
  • International standing
  • Practical economics: access to energy, food, minerals
  • Food security

From the West’s perspective:

  • National sovereignty
  • Human rights and self-determination
  • East-West balance
  • Investment/economic opportunity

And for the food consumer…

The immediate risks to the average food consumer are small. Our global food system continues to function well overall. As important as Ukraine is on the global food system, any significant disruptions to the global food picture are unlikely.

The bigger risk is long-term consequences of outright conflict and punitive economic sanctions. Conflict in any part of the Middle East could easily lead to further complications in unraveling the supply chain issues still lingering post-Covid. Higher energy costs in particular would work through the food system (and the entire economy), raising the prices we pay every day.

There’s also the risk of unintended consequences. Past international disputes have led to punitive actions that proved counterproductive in the long term. For instance, Germany halting the Nor Stream 2 pipeline, which brings natural gas from Russia to Europe, could influence natural gas prices around the world.

Restrictions on the flow of money and goods are double-edged swords. Ask any farmer how well past trade embargoes and trade restrictions have worked for producers and rural communities – and how those costs rippled back through the food system. Food consumers need to call for cool heads to prevail in international disputes, for everyone’s sake.

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We’ve got questions for you, 2022…

Dear D2D Readers,

We have rounded the corner of the New Year. While we don’t have a crystal ball, we are curious about what the future will hold for food and agriculture as it continues to innovate with new technologies, advances in scientific discoveries, and better information along the value chain from the farmer to the consumer.

Governments and companies are changing the way we address food security, the environment, and consumer health. At D2D, we have covered some of these subjects previously but are now looking harder at how the future will be shaped by those who grow, trade, process, and consume food.

Here are the key questions we see shaping agriculture and our food system in 2022. We’ve included a few links to our previous posts to provide some background information on these topics, but only by exploring ideas can we find meaningful solutions to these challenging questions.

Geopolitical: Trade

What are the trade implications of Xi and Putin, leaders who are looking for homogamy, to expand their borders through military presence as well as social and economic pressure? What does that mean for tariffs, trade, and agribusiness overall? What food and agriculture imports and exports with the United States prevent them from going too far?

As countries expand their reach to acquire cornerstone commodities such as energy, food, and rare minerals, what will be the U.S. and European response? Are sanctions enough?

What does food security mean for China and the rest of the world?

What does agriculture look like in a communist, socialist, and democratic country? What works and what doesn’t? What lessons can we learn from Venezuela?

What does the United States trade? What are the interesting storylines with imports and exports?  What happens in those different markets?

What role does the FDA and USDA play? What does the consumer need from government regulators?

Climate & Agriculture

How can we sustainably feed the world without expanding agriculture’s footprint?

The cattle industry is under attack for emitting methane. What innovations will continue to improve feed digestibility and methane digesters for cattle and dairy?  What is the role of cattle for grasslands and soil?

Will carbon become a new currency? Will the consumer be trading carbon credits? Will the farmer benefit from sequestering carbon in their fields? What are the economic implications along the entire food value chain – from dirt to dinner?

Will regenerative agriculture scale to make a meaningful difference in creating and building up our soil? Can large-scale farming truly sequester carbon?

How will our understanding of the soil and human gut microbiome give us better farming practices as well as nutritional health?

How are the Environmental, Social, and Governance goals of companies changing how food is grown? What are the implications to both the farmer and the consumer?

How soon will rural America have access to stronger internet, such as broadband?

Consumers: Health & Nutrition

Which companies reward their employees to make the connection between the food they eat and health care costs? By focusing on employee and family food plans, which companies have alleviated short-term sick days and long-term illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer?

What advances in genetics will help scientists and doctors tailor nutrition for individual needs?

Will food continue to unite us culturally and individually or simply become another means of highlighting our different agendas and interests?

What does the future hold for the alternative protein industry? Will they continue to be adopted by the consumer?  Will they significantly displace dairy, poultry, beef, and pork? Will the consumer adopt them wholeheartedly or will people eat a mix of proteins? Which countries have the most innovation and acceptance?

What will the aquaculture industry look like? Will the consumer demand more transparency on imported, wild-caught, or farmed fish?

Consumers want to know where their food comes from. What advancements will be made regarding food traceability? Blockchain, DNA testing, and sensors for animal traceability are just a few of the technologies that will bring full disclosure to the consumer.

How can the food system shape and create a healthy narrative for the consumer? Which companies are taking the lead in creating healthy and ‘good for you’ foods that can be found in the center of the grocery aisle?

Home delivery is not just the milkman or your favorite Instacart shopper. What are creative and innovative delivery solutions for both groceries and take-out meals?

What are you particularly concerned about as we move into 2022? Write to us at info@dirt-to-dinner.com to add in your own ideas!

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Supply Chain, Inflation & Climate Change


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2021 is, in many respects, a continuation of 2020’s dominant story – the global Covid pandemic. But much of what occupied our attention this year on matters of food and agriculture involves the effects of the pandemic rather than the disease itself.

Jump ahead to:  Inflation  •  Climate Change  •  Trade  •  Supply  •  Tech  •  …and, um, these stories

The Supply Chain Mess – No Easy or Quick Answers

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, according to the old adage. 2021 helped reveal what happens when several links in the supply chain from dirt to dinner show a weakness.

Most immediately visible to consumers, perhaps, was the sporadic lack of select food products. A shortage of as many as 80,000 truck drivers helped leave store shelves thinly stocked or even empty from time to time.

Trucks handle more than 70% of our domestic freight, and “nearly every good consumed in the U.S. is put on a truck at some point,” according to the American Trucking Associations.

Our food supply is no exception.

Images of ocean vessels waiting to unload at ports showed how the transportation problems extended far beyond the local store to the entire global marketplace. Costs for ocean shipping, domestic barge cargoes, and trucking rates soared across the board, reflecting the imbalance in transportation supply and demand. Demand for food remained robust, despite the system disruptions.

The big problem wasn’t a shortage of products as much as the inability to maintain the smooth, reliable delivery system that makes our food system normally so efficient. In recognition of that reality, the Federal Trade Commission has demanded information from nine major food retailers as part of a planned investigation into the reasons behind the disruption.

A persistent shortage of workers in meat plants, dairies, and row-crop farms also played a role in disrupting the system, as the effects of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and extensive government supports played out over the year.

Frustrated farmers, plant managers, and others across the food chain reported difficulty in finding the willing workers needed to harvest crops, maintain herds and flocks, service machinery and equipment, and all the other seemingly countless chores that go into growing, harvesting, storing, processing, manufacturing and distributing the $1.8 trillion dollars spent on food in the United States each year.

Just to put that number in context, note that the much-ballyhooed infrastructure bill passed by Congress this year costs about $1 trillion. So, when America’s food supply chain has problems, everyone sees the effect in the food choices available day to day – the prices paid for that food.

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Inflation – Up, Up and Away

No one needs to be told the cost of food has been going up. We see it every day, in the prices paid at the local grocery store and the bill as the local diner, and everywhere else, for that matter.

The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) pegs the annual inflation rate for food running at 6.8%.

Soaring energy costs account for a significant portion of the increase. But the cost of disruption to the supply chain, higher commodity prices, and other factors also have been playing a role in a steady rise in food costs in the second half of the year, and economists across the public and private sector caution that inflationary pressures will continue across the economy well into 2022.

What’s so significant about 6.8%? Consider this fact…

At 6.8% annual inflation, your food bill would double in less than 11 years. At the “normal” annual rate of food inflation over the past 20 years – roughly 2% – it would take 35 years to reach this level.

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Climate Change – For the Better

Concern with global warming accelerated during 2021, from the halls of international organizations and national governments all the way to the farm gate.

Efforts to assess the role played by agriculture in dealing with greenhouse gases, and other climate-related issues dominated the public-policy arena and the minds of farmers everywhere.

The 26th United Nations Climate Summit in Glasgow attracted as many as 30,000 supporters and political leaders from 197 countries, where delegates reaffirmed an international commitment to reducing gas emissions and limiting the projected increase in global temperature. The meeting produced lofty words, but many observers noted that much of the actual work being done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is being done at the local level.

Farmers, often working with various environmental groups and businesses, expanded their adoption of no-till, expanded grassland and crop rotation, and various other regenerative production techniques that help keep carbon in the soil rather than the atmosphere.

Government support for the development of carbon markets also helped drive farm-sector support for these “carbon smart” practices, as an investment in improved technology and environmentally-friendly equipment expanded sharply. The Department of Agriculture’s commitment of $633 million for “climate-smart” infrastructure investment in rural America only added to the momentum.

2021 may well be remembered as the year the ag sector’s role in climate change shifted in public perception from being a cause of global warming to emerging as a critical part of the solution to climate change.

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Trade – An Unquestioned Bright Spot

Despite the gyrations of the domestic market, U.S. agricultural exports are projected to reach record levels in 2021.

Department of Agriculture projections for FY2021 indicate total exports could reach a record $164 billion – up almost $28 billion (21%) from last year.

The United States also continues to rely on numerous food imports, turning to foreign suppliers for about 15% of our food, including about one-third of our fresh vegetables, half our fresh fruit, and more than 90% of our seafood. The fruit and vegetable market in 2021 is estimated at about $5.2 billion, and the seafood market at $3 billion.

Perhaps unlike 2020, the politically contentious issue of U.S.-China agricultural trade seemed to recede from the daily headlines. U.S. officials continue to press China to live up to the purchase commitments made in the 2019 trade agreement, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently expressed concern with the declining U.S. share of total Chinese imports.

But out of the media spotlight, China remains our largest customer, buying almost 18 percent of total U.S. agricultural exports, valued at $28.8 billion.

The trade data makes an important point for producers and consumers alike. Demand for U.S.-grown commodities and food products continues to grow. The world needs food, and the United States exports more food than any other country in the world.

Even when conditions complicate the task of bringing food from dirt to dinner, rising populations and robust economies continue to drive demand – and the U.S. food and agricultural sector consistently comes through in helping to meet it.

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Supply – Enough to Go Around

The supply news from 2021 is good. Despite production challenges created by drought, floods, pandemics, continuing urbanization, political unrest, and so many other factors, we continue to produce enough food to satisfy the caloric needs of a growing world.

Total global production of wheat is up slightly from last year (at 773 million metric tons). Feed grain production is projected to rise to a record 780 million metric tons. Palm oil crops are projected at about 75 million metric tons and soybeans as roughly 60 million.

With the U.S. corn and soybean harvest virtually complete, the Department of Agriculture reports “excellent” national results. Final figures won’t be available until the new year, but initial results indicate a very slight decline in soybean and corn yields from last year, due largely to drought conditions in select growing areas.

The take-away on supply: We continue to produce enough to satisfy a growing world demand for food.

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Technology – No Flashy Headlines, But Important Nonetheless

It rarely gathered headlines in the popular media. But it sure attracted investment dollars in 2021 – and investment drives improvement, according to economists.

2021 helped drive home an important truth: farming is a technology-dependent activity. Better technology can offset labor issues and enable the better productivity and operational efficiency critical to solid bottom lines.

Investment dollars continue to flow into a constantly expanding array of digital and material technological development. Consider just a small sampling:

  • Enterprise software
  • Drones
  • Water management tools
  • Remote sensing
  • Data collection, management & analysis
  • Robotics and automation for crop production, food processing, storage, and transportation
  • Genetics and CRISPR
  • Resource recovery & waste reduction
  • Food sampling and safety

Even before the onset of the Covid pandemic, the global agricultural artificial intelligence market alone was estimated at just over $600 million – with projected annual growth rates of 25 percent in 2019-2025.

It’s not often shouted from the rooftops, but technology may be the single most important factor in the dramatic productivity increases of the past decade.

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And now for something completely different…

From time to time, we also noticed items that didn’t quite grab headlines in the mainstream media or elsewhere. To celebrate the end of 2021 and welcome the new year, we share some of our favorite news items that few seemed to notice.

Joey Chestnut routinely grabs headlines when he wins the annual July 4th Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. This year was no different when the 37-year-old American scarfed down 76 hot dogs (and buns) in 10 minutes to win for the 14th time in his career. Less noted: Women’s champion Michelle Lasco managed to down 30 and ¾ hot dogs in the same time span. Yup, together that’s nearly 100 hot dogs in 10 minutes. It’s also close to 29,000 calories – or over 10 times the daily caloric intake of the typical person. Is this a great country, or what?

A Brazilian cow, unhappy with its prospects as a future delicious dinner, escaped and sought safety in a nearby water park, where it managed to take one last fling at fun by sliding down the park’s lengthy waterslide into the cool and refreshing pool below. Officials reportedly denied the fun-seekers request to “do it again, do it again…” but the happy animal was given a consolation prize of spending the remainder of what we all hope will be a long and happy life courtesy of a kind-hearted rancher 500 miles west of Rio de Janeiro. And BTW, the cow’s new name: Toboga, Portuguese for “waterslide.”

The fine folks in Austin, Minnesota, for years, have enthusiastically observed the glories of the pork delicacy SPAM, with parades, cookouts, and sundry celebratory events. Dirt to Dinner actually has attended this august event and can honestly report it to be one of the finest examples of true Americana anywhere. But we also must note that word has spread about another “Spam Jam” – this version found on Waikiki in Hawaii, where 7 million cans of Spam are consumed each year as a self-proclaimed “cultural tradition.” Cans of the pork delicacy are donated to local food banks if that helps explain the event’s real allure. Let’s ALL go…

And from our friends across the pond, we have this item from the village of Wonersh in Surrey, England. Police report a serial baked-bean bandit, who has a penchant for pouring the product everywhere, from doorsteps to mail slots to cars. Neighborhood watch groups apparently are on stand-by, but the bandit remains as elusive as the wind. There is no word on what snacks may be on hand or if toast also is involved. Sounds like a waste of good protein to us.

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FFA’s Nicholas Mello: The Importance of Seed Science

Nicholas Mello of California’s Hanford Future Farmers of America (FFA) Chapter is a finalist in the Agriscience Research–Plant Systems Proficiency field. Plant systems proficiency…what does this mean, exactly? Nick conducted research at Zonneveld Dairies, comparing the yield per acre of three different hybrid corn seed varieties planted on 95 acres each to determine the highest yielding variety.

Nick learned that nearby Zonneveld Dairies was interested in investing in higher yield producing corn seed variety to feed their dairy cattle. Mello developed and designed this experiment to ensure that each seed had the same acreage and grew under the same conditions. Dirt to Dinner had the opportunity to communicate with Nick about his experiment’s findings and his FFA experience.

Want to learn more about Nick’s research? Check out his video here.

Defining Research Objectives

Describe your Agriscience research experiment in detail for our readers—how did you develop the idea, what problem were you trying to solve, and how did you go about achieving results?

My agriscience research experiment compared three hybrid corn seed varieties based upon the yield they produce. These hybrid corn seeds are being used for silage for Zonneveld Dairies. I compared 3 branded hybrid seeds: Dekalb 67-44, Masters Choice 6522, and Croplan Genetics S5700. These seeds were selected based upon their similar and outstanding characteristics to grow in the Central Valley conditions, such as high heat and drought.

The goal of my experiment was to find which hybrid corn seed variety would produce the greatest yield to help the farmer generate more revenues and help Zonneveld save money in feed and make more money by providing the cows starch to produce more milk for dairy cow feed.

I hypothesized that out of the hybrid seeds, the Dekalb 67-44 seed would produce the most yield per acre due to its size and coating. I separated each seed into three 95-acre fields, totaling 285 acres of experimental land. I collaborated with DeKalb agronomists and 3D’s Family Farming about crop management, irrigation scheduling, and fertilizer management.

I then prepared the ground of each 95-acre field by ripping the soil in the fields, two passes of disking to break down the soil to be soft, then furrowing the ground into rows, and pre-irrigating the land so the soil has moisture for planting. I then planted the seeds at 34-35 thousand per acre.

We waited till the corn sprouted to begin soil compaction and injection of UN-32 fertilizer. After this, I irrigated the corn with 3D’s Family Farming and maintained the corn with fertilizer. Our goal was to reach 300 units of UN-32. I maintained the corn till it was a hard dent and was at peak starch. Starch is the nutrient that will allow the dairy cow to produce more milk.

Danell Custom Chopping came to harvest the corn, where I recorded the weight of the trucks and silage to find the total amount of yield. Masters Choice 6522 produced the most yield at just over 32 tons per acre, Croplan Genetics produced just under 31 tons per acre, and Dekalb 67-44 produced 28 tons per acre, going against my hypothesis.

Why this experiment? Have you always been interested in seed technology?

What got me into this experiment and interested in hybrid corn seed varieties is from working at 3D’s Family Farming. I work in the summer there as a tractor mechanic and operator. When I ran this experiment, my father, who normally furrows and does groundwork, had to take time off because he had surgery on his thyroid to remove cancer. Another worker also had to take time off. This opened the opportunity to step up and gain responsibility in the business and gain knowledge in farming.

When I found out that Zonneveld wanted to plant different hybrid corn seeds for silage, that sparked my interest in hybrid corn seed varieties. I collaborated with Dekalb Agronomists Barbra Kutzner, Pete Lain, Robert Fahey, and Jacob Lehar, who provided expertise on both hybrid corn seeds and crop management.

Crop Tech’s Future in Soil…and Beyond

This is such an exciting field that seems to be constantly evolving and innovating. How do you see seed technology advancing in the future?

I see technology evolving to make better crops that will hopefully help continue to fix the problems we face in agriculture. Agriculture has made a lot of advancements in technology and machinery. I can see technology evolving further in that field, as well as with hybrid crops and GMOs.

I believe technology in hybrids and GMOs will allow agriculture to produce more crops with fewer resources such as water, fertilizer, or other crop inputs such as potassium and phosphorus. This is especially true in California where water is scarce and creates more yield with less ground to feed a growing population.

Looking ahead to 2050, where there will be more mouths to feed, what do you think is the key to feeding this growing population? And why?

Advancements in modified crops and machinery will be vital in providing for this ever-increasing population. Maybe crops can be modified to require fewer resources such as water and nutrients from the solid but still produce more yield or crop.

This modification would allow for more production and may even allow our ground to last longer because the crops will take fewer nutrients from the ground. This modification in the crop can also enable more resources to be used elsewhere around the world or in agriculture.

Machinery advancements are needed to make agriculture more efficient in the production aspect of groundwork such as disking, ripping, furrowing, crop maintenance such as injection rigs and spray rigs and harvesting such as choppers, and also the repair and maintenance part of agriculture as well. Parts need to become more accessible for repair and maintenance.

These advancements will allow agriculture production to be faster, possibly allowing farmers to double-crop their land to produce more. This will also minimize the downtime lost when a tractor or implementation breaks.

These advancements with crops requiring fewer resources while producing greater yield and improving crop efficiency via machinery will allow agriculture to keep up with the growing population.

A Vast Array of Careers in Ag

We love to share about the diversity of career opportunities in the ag space. We know farmers and ranchers are just one piece of an enormous ag puzzle. Where do you see yourself in the ag field in the future? And why?

I can see myself in the agronomy field of agriculture as a Certified Crop Adviser (CCA) or research agronomist to continue experimentation and also try to find new ways to help agriculture.

I am currently pursuing a biology degree at UC Merced, focusing on ecology to use in the agriculture field. My dream job would be either a research agronomist or CCA because a research agronomist does similar actions such as my experimentation and also tries to find new ways to help agriculture.

I want to make a change in agriculture and try and solve one of the many problems agriculture is facing. I would also enjoy being a CCA as it helps farmers with their crops and production.

I would enjoy both of those careers because they are both involved in science which is my favorite subject, and understanding plant science and the interaction of plants with the soil and the environment is crucial for agriculture.

If you could advise other young people interested in seed science or agriculture in general, what would it be?

My advice to other young people interested in seed science is that it’s complex but exciting. Don’t let the complexity of genetics steer you away because this is a field of research that will be needed in agriculture to help solve the problems that agriculture is facing.
My advice for young people interested in agriculture is that it isn’t just farming and animals. There are so many aspects to it, and I’m sure one may have your interest for a career.

Also, don’t believe all the stereotypes and bad things in the media about agriculture because a lot of it isn’t true, and it just gets generalized over all of agriculture. The best thing to do is to actually get involved in agriculture through classes, FFA, or even working in an agricultural job.

By being involved, you learn the true experience and knowledge of what agriculture is all about. I would like to also say that although agriculture seems to be frowned upon by many, please remember that we eat, have shelter, clothing, other jobs, and actually survive because of agriculture because everything depends on it.

Gratitude and Community Building with Farming

Many of our regular readers are farmers. Is there anything you would like to leave them with – a piece of advice? Something to consider? A call to action?

I would like to tell farmers please don’t give up even if times are rough because everyone depends on you to feed them and provide resources. Although I understand you don’t always get thanks or appreciation, I know that I appreciate agriculture. I know I’m not the only one and know that a whole community is out there supporting you.

I would also like to say to farmers that many kids are willing to go into agriculture in this future generation, but not enough for the future of agriculture.

I would like to ask that farmers and any agriculturalist who listen please try to draw in the younger generation’s attention to agriculture and don’t try to push them away from it.

My family tried to warn me of the hardships of agriculture as if trying to push me away, but I found my roots there and am happy I did. Agriculturalists can reach the younger generations through FFA, agricultural advisors, and a big one is social media. Use social media to try and draw their attention to truly understand the different aspects of agriculture, which may help them find their passion by holding events or tours of agricultural business and destroy these stereotypes of agriculture.

Let’s try to get the younger generation into agriculture for the world’s future, but also have them understand that agriculture isn’t just farming, dairies, and cattle, but so much more and a great big community that is more than happy to teach anyone that decides to explore agriculture.

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Study shows dairy’s effect on heart health


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Published in the George Institute for Global Health, an international team of scientists studied the fat consumption of a considerable cohort of 60-year-olds in Sweden — one of the world’s largest dairy-producing and consuming countries. They did so by measuring blood levels of fatty acids found primarily in dairy foods. Researchers followed the group for almost two decades, observing circulatory events, strokes, and heart attacks.

The Findings

Researchers discovered that those with high levels of dairy-derived fatty acids had the lowest risk of cardiovascular disease. This data, combined with 17 other studies out of the U.K. and Denmark, aggregated 43,000 participant results to amass these significant new findings.

Participants with the highest intake of dairy fat showed the lowest risk of cardiovascular disease.

They were sure to note in their findings that it was difficult to isolate all variables, such as lifestyle, dietary habits, and other diseases. Furthermore, results certainly have influences of factors other than dairy, so further study is needed to better understand the full impact. But the lead author and researcher out of George Institute for Global Health, Kathy Trieu, detailed that dairy foods, especially fermented products, are beneficial for heart health.

A lecturer at the Department of Health and Nutritional Sciences at Ireland’s Institute of Technology Sligo, Brian Power, made a thought-provoking statement that should make us all question sweeping health recommendations: “[this study should prompt us to] rethink what we think we know about food and disease.”

Dairy Fat and Heart Health

Dairy fat contains over 400 different types of fatty acids. Two crucial fatty acids are C15 and C17. These both contain Milk Fat Globule Membranes, or MFGMs, which have been proven to lower type 2 diabetes risks.

With cardiovascular disease killing upwards of 350,000 people every year in the U.S. alone, it is no wonder scientists and researchers continue to study the various roles that food, and specifically fats, can play on heart health. A notable study out of Sweden looked closely at the relationship between fatty acid biomarkers in blood samples and cardiovascular disease.

Ultimately, in conjunction with numerous other studies, they discovered that the higher the dairy fat intake, the lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. Now, this doesn’t mean run out and eat cheese for three meals a day. But what it does mean is that previous recommendations to transition to vegan, non-dairy or dairy-alternative diets are antiquated.

Fermented dairy produces gut benefits, too

Fermented dairy products contain safe-to-eat bacteria that can produce what are called short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). The benefits of SCFAs cannot be overstated—they can reduce inflammation by decreasing the risk of heart disease and blocking cholesterol production.

SCFAs’ intestinal barrier supports healthy mucus production and colon health and provides an energy source for microbiota to conduct essential signaling functions for efficient digestion.

Dairy and its role in cancer prevention

While not part of this notable study’s findings, dairy has also been shown to play a role in the reduction of cancer onset. As we know, cancer risks are strongly impacted by our diet. It is important to note that the studies performed on the relationship between cancer and any food group are correlational studies, meaning that they use statistics to estimate the relationship.

Colorectal cancer, one of the most common types of cancer worldwide, has been studied numerous times, with most studies indicating that eating dairy may reduce the risk due to its makeup of calcium, vitamin D and lactic acid bacteria (a fermented food!).

The casein and lactose contained in milk may increase the calcium bioavailability to the body, making its range of protective benefits more easily accessed. Furthermore, the short-chain fatty acid, butyrate found in milk, may also serve as a protective mechanism against colorectal cancer.

While there has been talk over the past year about dairy having a relationship to the onset of breast cancer, no studies have been substantiated to support this claim. In fact, after aggregating 20 of the more prominent studies, the Susan G. Komen Institute conducted a pooled analysis and confirmed that there is, in fact, no link between dairy and breast cancer risk.

What to eat to increase dairy fat in a healthy way

Continue reading about the benefits of Fermented Foods here.

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How Is Ag Helping Battle Climate Change?

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When President Joe Biden announced his goal of making the United States carbon neutral by 2050, a lot of eyes immediately turned to the agricultural sector.

After all, farming and ranching accounts for about 38 percent of land usage worldwide – more than 12.4 billion acres – with the land in the United States alone using about 44% in some form of agriculture and food production. Farming and ranching have big carbon footprints, certainly.

But the good news is that crops produced every day on this land also draw carbon from the air and store it in the earth, helping offset greenhouse gas emissions and regenerating healthy soil. The cattle on the range help enrich the soil, which grow the grasses that sequester carbon. In fact, we need carbon for our plants and trees to grow, giving ag a promising opportunity to help battle climate change through practices that will reduce costs, improve yields and boost profits on the farm.

A Solution – Carbon Trading

Here is how it works. Those businesses that emit carbon will buy carbon credits from those who sequester carbon, avoid carbon, or capture emissions. In the case of agriculture, a farmer naturally pulls carbon out of the air just by growing crops or raising cattle on the range.

Let’s say a corn farmer with 1,000 acres wants to participate in this program. The conversion is approximately 0.5 tonnes of carbon per acre, but it depends on whether the farmer utilized no-till, reduced fertilizer, restores wetlands, plants, trees, etc. They would sell their carbon credits to a broker who would then sell it to a company, such as Microsoft, or an individual who emitted carbon and wants to offset it.

What’s the story behind carbon sequestration?

The overall effort is referred to as “carbon sequestration” – a systematic approach to expanding on-farm efforts to lock carbon in the soil through better farming practices. No-till and low-till farming, use of cover crops, smart crop rotation, expanded plantings of perennials, rotation of cropping, and animal grazing all contribute to keeping or pulling carbon into the ground and out of the atmosphere. The result: less of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that many scientists say too much promotes rising global temperatures.

Today, more and more farmers and ranchers are embracing the idea of carbon sequestration, both as a responsible environmental practice and a means of improving their own economic sustainability. The government, various academic institutions, and some important private enterprises are establishing practical methods of measuring the results of on-farm carbon sequestration efforts and building an effective marketplace to establish a value for their results.

The challenge here will be to ensure a verification process that works for each farm in each state with different types of farming practices and soil health.

But the benefits to farmers and society don’t end with reduced CO2. Science also shows that these practices are important to the entire “regenerative agriculture” movement, which seeks to promote an improved and sustainable approach to generating and maintaining the healthy, vital soil needed to feed this and future generations.

It all remains very much a work in progress, but the initial efforts have proven highly appealing to the farm community and all others with an interest in a better environmental future.

A recent study by the University of Missouri’s Division of Applied Science found very encouraging results of efforts to date. Rising food production levels over recent decades have indeed raised the overall greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, the study found. But expanded use of cover crops, no-till, and other carbon-capturing techniques have helped fuel a decline in the per-unit emissions for both crops and beef. In plain English, “we are producing more units of food at less greenhouse-gas emission per unit of food than before,” according to authors Ray Massey and Cammy Willett.

Analysis done at the 2015 Paris climate conference contended that even a small increase in the levels of carbon in soil would have a major environmental benefit.  Called the “4 per 1000” initiative, scientists argued that increasing soil carbon by just 0.4 percent annually would offset an entire year’s increase in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel emissions.

What’s the Value of Sequestered Carbon?

Carbon sequestration in agriculture is in many respects an extension of a well-established environmental principle encompassing energy, industrial and other sectors. As far back as 1990, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sought to reduce the emission of sulfur gas – and resulting “acid rain” — from coal-fired power plants.

Credits for reduced emissions helped spur the needed transition to more environmentally friendly practices – and helped usher in the idea of a marketplace for these “carbon credits.” The industry could use these credits to offset actual emissions, in effect buying time to make costly changes while still advancing the larger goal of lowering harmful emissions.

A “carbon credit” typically represents one metric ton of CO2. The prices paid for carbon credits vary widely, based upon the industry or sector involved and changing market factors. A carbon credit within agriculture currently is in the range of $30 per metric ton and remains fluid as more and more organizations enter the marketplace.

There is a question as to what the price has to be in order for the farmer to make a profit after incorporating some sequestering practices. It could be as high as $35 per ton. Studies on the subject provide varying estimates of just how much carbon can be sequestered per acre, depending upon the production techniques employed, soil types, water conditions, and numerous other factors. One study found no-till alone could sequester an average of 0.3 metric tons per acre per year – or roughly an extra $10 for every acre of cropland.

Sounds great. So what’s the problem?

Part of the challenge facing the carbon sequestration efforts rests in the sheer complexity of the task.

The first challenge is to collect enough data to deliver precise result metrics. The effectiveness of carbon sequestration in farming varies by several factors — soil types, soil health, climate conditions, water presence, to name a few. Fine-tuning the analytical process demands extensive data collection and careful analysis by agronomic experts. That work will be critical to developing a better understanding of the most effective practices in each production area or individual farming situation.

But an aggressive effort on that front is already underway across many leading universities and private institutions. Coupled with advances in data analysis services available to farmers, this work promises to help refine the assessment process and lower the costs of current expensive analysis.

Another big task is the development and refinement of carbon credit markets.  How will farmers and ranchers be rewarded for their success in locking away more and more of the carbon blamed for climate change?

As with any new economic phenomenon, the emergence of carbon markets has produced what may seem to be a complex and fragmented marketplace.

The government, private enterprise, and opportunistic market players all seem to be working to create markets attractive to producers, while Congress and the Biden Administration continue to wrangle over the development of comprehensive and cohesive policies and regulations for a major agricultural economic frontier. Amid all the discussion and debate, Economist J. David Aiken of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln calls the current environment “the wild, wild west.”

One major market has emerged for industries subject to stringent environmental regulations. The coal-fired energy plants that once dominated energy production helped pave the way for the development of the markets needed to buy carbon credits.

Today, energy, chemical production, waste management, forestry and lumbering, industrial manufacturing interests, and other non-agricultural enterprises actively seek to purchase carbon credits, most often through private agreements.

Efforts by the Obama Administration in the wake of the Kyoto climate accord to develop the Chicago Climate Exchange showed the difficulties that come with such an ambitious undertaking. The exchange sought to create a market for greenhouse gas credits but died amid congressional opposition to the Obama approach to GHG regulation.

Legislation to create a carbon bank through the U.S. Department of Agriculture remains before Congress, with bipartisan support from farm-state and other legislators with a genuine concern about climate change and the positive role to be played by the agricultural sector in dealing with it. Progress in advancing the bill, however, remains complicated by the larger political logjam regarding legislation deemed by political leaders as having higher national priority.

Many private and commercial entities have entered the market space, seeking to develop networks of producers willing to help build the needed data banks in exchange for financial payments based on acceptable measurement standards and techniques.

The challenge will be for companies to add up all their carbon emissions and figure out how much they need to offset with a carbon credit. This will be a time-consuming and arduous process. Economists like Aiken predict dramatic growth in these “voluntary carbon markets,” citing the work of Stephen Donofrio at Forest Trends, who projects growth of 1,500 percent by 2030 for them.  McKinsey predicts a $50 billion market by 2030.

What comes next?

The role of carbon sequestration within U.S. agriculture is increasing – but the road ahead will be long and winding.

A large part of the frustratingly slow pace can be traced directly to Washington, D.C., and more specifically, Capitol Hill. Clear direction in the form of agreed policies, standards, and regulatory guidelines would do much to advance the adoption of the environmentally friendly practices important to dealing with the climate change challenge.

But there’s good news, despite the frustration with Washington. The agricultural sector isn’t waiting for D.C. legislators and bureaucrats to find the answers needed for a climate solution.

Farmers and ranchers recognize the value of exactly the practices at the core of carbon sequestration – and the broader set of practices that contribute to soil health and comprehensive regenerative agriculture. Environmentally smart practices already are part of the production and land stewardship approach taken by farmers today. Creation of carbon markets will serve to speed and expand adoption of such practices. Not to mention offer another income source for farmers.

The farming and ranching community already is one of the most environmentally aware and committed sectors of our society.  Its members know that responsible environmental practices aren’t just the right thing to do but the smart thing to do as well. They know we all have a role to play in dealing with the climate change that threatens all of us. And they know that these practices can have a major positive effect on their own economic survival, beyond an additional income stream.

Soil sequestration practices cut costs. Over time, they enhance yields. And maybe most important in an era of rising costs and smaller margins, they mean a stronger bottom line — and their own operational sustainability.  

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How safe is our food from cyberattacks?   

The United States arrests two foreign nationals months after largest cyberattack on American infrastructure.…

The U.S. Department of Justice announced this week it arrested two men, one a 22-year-old Ukrainian national, the other a 28-year-old Russian national, for their role in the cyberattacks in June that disrupted businesses and government entities in the United States. The DOJ says it also seized more than $6 million in ransom traced back to the hackers.

The arrests come on the heels of two new cyberattacks on agriculture. In September, the cyberhackers hit farm cooperatives in the Midwest, Iowa-based NEW Cooperative and Crystal Valley in Minnesota. Both entities were attacked by what experts believe is the same group that launched the ransomware attack against JBS SA, the nation’s largest meat processor, in June. This comes less than six months after President Biden said he told Russian President Vladimir Putin 16 categories of business, industry, and critical infrastructure in the United States are  “off-limits” to Russian hackers.

Food & Ag in the Crosshairs

At the summit with Putin, President Biden did not reveal what the 16 categories were, but experts believe they are likely the same ones designated as “critical” by the Department of Homeland Security, as shown below.

That’s why alarm bells went off when, after Biden’s warning, the hacker group, known as “BlackMatter”, hit NEW Cooperative for $5.9 million and Crystal Valley for an undisclosed amount? American news outlets report the Russian group posted that they didn’t think NEW Cooperative had enough volume to be a critical company.

New Cooperative disagreed about their volume, telling Modern Farmer the company “provides software to 40 percent of American grain production, as well as feed scheduling for millions of livestock animals.”

The arrests could signal to cyberhackers that future attacks won’t be tolerated.A hit on any part of the food and agricultural sector can not only harm our ability to feed ourselves but to our economy as a whole. The American food and agricultural system accounts for approximately 20% of our nation’s economy. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) reports food and ag consist of over 2 million farms, almost 1 million restaurants, and more than 200,000 “registered food manufacturing, processing, and storage facilities.”

Many people first heard of cyberattacks, ransomware, and anonymous Russian hackers hitting America’s critical infrastructure when the hackers’ work generated major headlines this past June. But this type of technology terrorism has been around for a while. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has been keeping a detailed timeline of cyberattacks. CSIS says crimes of this nature have been happening since 2006. They only track cyber hacks that hit world governments, defense, high-tech companies, or other economic crimes that cause loss of more than 1 million dollars. That certainly includes the recent attacks on the co-ops as well as the attack this June on JBS SA, the world’s largest seller of meat.

Targeting the Big Players

The Wall Street Journal reports JBS SA paid the hackers $11 million dollars in bitcoin to stop the attack and prevent further damage not only to their company, but to their clients as well. “It was very painful to pay the criminals, but we did the right thing for our customers,” JBS CEO Andre Nogueira told the Journal. In a statement the company released to the press, Nogueira added, “we felt this decision had to be made to prevent any potential risk for our customers.”

Security experts estimate that JBS SA was one of 800-1,500 businesses to be hit by cyberattacks this summer. The hackers also targeted the Keystone pipeline and other government infrastructures. CNBC reports in 2020 that these attacks cost companies $350 million in cryptocurrency, a more than 300% jump from the year prior.

Breakdown of a Cyberattack

Here’s how the cyberattacks work: hackers, mostly from Russia, break into a company’s technological infrastructure using sophisticated software and take their data hostage. The hackers then threaten to cause disruptions, release private information, or delete it unless a ransom is paid (hence the name “ransomware”). These attacks are different from physical attacks on infrastructure in that it is the threat of damage, not the damage itself, that gets companies and governments to react.

Few Americans had ever heard of JBS SA, NEW Cooperative, or Crystal Valley before this year or likely understood how high-tech and sophisticated farming has become. In America, there can be a nostalgic view of farming. Farming has come a long way from the horse and plow. Farmers have tractors working off of GPS, sophisticated technology that enables them to manage their crop inputs, and access to markets to assess the futures market at harvest time. That means our ability to keep grocery store shelves filled with affordable food could be more impacted by technological disruptions than extreme weather events.

Bringing in the Experts

Cybersecurity experts, such as Susan Duncan (right), predict this is just the beginning of ransomware attacks on our nation’s critical infrastructure, with food and agriculture being a high-value target for hackers.

Susan Duncan is the Associate Director for the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station and Director of the Center for Advanced Innovation in Agriculture at Virginia Tech. Her work is focused on technology and innovations developed and used in agriculture, food, and nutrition.

D2D interviewed Duncan to understand how the food supply chain is recovering from this summer’s ransomware attacks, how vulnerable agricultural technology is, and what’s being done to limit disruptions from hackers.

D2D: Did the ransomware attack carried out in June against JBS surprise you?

Susan: I wouldn’t say [the ransomware attacks] surprised me in the sense that all of us are vulnerable. Also, it wasn’t the first one that happened. Over the past several years, other agriculture and food companies have had ransomware attacks. They just didn’t receive as much publicity, and the general public was less aware of them.

D2D: Now that the average consumer is more aware of the threat, how should we understand the role technology plays in the food we find in the grocery store?

Susan: You are asking about the connection of technology with our food supply, grocery stores, and the restaurants where we typically find our food. Of course, we all recognize that apples come from orchards, bread from wheat, and the meat cuts in the refrigerated unit at the supermarket came from an animal, but what you might not recognize is that we have the technology behind all of that. Those products likely had some form of technology used on the farm, such as drones, robots, sensors, computers on tractors, computer-controlled irrigation systems, and guided technology for managing animal feeding.

These technologies on the farm level generate data, which can be analyzed and translated into information to alert farmers or help them make decisions about how to manage their farm, protect the environment, and protect their crops and animals from extreme weather events like frost or drought. [It can also tell farmers] when to harvest and sell their crops or animals, so the quality and productivity is the highest. They are using technology to watch for weeds and pests growing in their field crops.

D2D: How vulnerable are these technologies? How secure are the systems?

Susan: Great question. We think incorporating agricultural technologies is safe and needed, but some changes are happening that introduce risks that we haven’t previously thought about or focused on. The connectivity of technology, the increased opportunistic and malicious players that seek access to data and computer-controlled equipment, the lack of awareness for protecting the equipment, computers, and software [all] increase vulnerabilities.

The agriculture and food system is huge, complex, and very diverse. As we saw, major companies, like the meat producer and processor JBS, have vulnerabilities. If you operate a small farm with one computer used to manage your business, store your drone data, analyze your crop data, you may not have sufficient financial resources, personal capacity, and experience to secure your computer. But at the same time, you most likely will not be a target. Cyber thieves are looking for targets with a lot of assets. Farmers should continue to use data and technology – the benefits still far outweigh the risks.

D2D: What questions should the farmer be asking upfront when they purchase technology then?

Susan: If [a farmer] purchased an inexpensive drone, what do you know about the security of the data? If there is backdoor access for control where the data from the drone may be used by a company in other way? How could a cyberattack affect your capacity to manage your business operation? Can you trust the drone data? Is the data corrupted or modified, and how might that influence your decisions for the appropriate management of your crops or animals?

These are all hypothetical questions. We don’t see this happening in the marketplace right now. However, I ask these questions so farmers know to read the fine print on all their technology and make sure they know how their data is being used. Overall, we want farmers to continue to use technology and we believe the benefits outweigh the risk by a significant amount.

Farmers using their technology resources and how to use them is just a smart protection measure. I compare it to wearing a seatbelt while driving. Overall, our risk of a car accident is very low, but we still wear a seatbelt. Well, that’s what we advise farmers to do. Read the fine print, understand how your data is collected, used, and secured. It’s precautionary and wise.

As agriculture is increasingly influenced by computers and becomes more reliant on digital data, we want to address the gaps in awareness and skills that are created. These are the most significant sources of vulnerability.

D2D: There is a need then for more education and awareness for farmers?

Susan: Awareness is important. Knowing the technology vendor and what the small print of the contract says is essential. The data you generate from the tractor, drone, sensor, or other technology may actually be owned by the company, and you don’t own your own farm data. Older systems probably need software upgrades to improve security. You know we all went through that experience with our computers. Haven’t we all experienced the situation when our old computer or smartphone couldn’t use the new software or apps? Old software, with its outdated security and coding systems, may not work on our new computer. It’s best to check on the security and get updated software and security systems on computers.

D2D: What else do farmers and processors need to think about as they deliver their products to market?

Susan: We have to think about how the organization or farm transfers information and knowledge to other entities within the food supply chain. There’s that gap between what you did in your company or what your farm might need versus what the upstream or downstream companies might be introducing.

Are you prepared to accept the risks imposed by the company that you work with if they are not attentive to the security of their technologies and computers? The security of our technology is really dependent on the age of the system. It’s also dependent on the amount of expertise within the company, how much they focus on security, and whether or not they’re willing then to take steps so that they have at least that fundamental baseline security process in place. Because most of the agricultural network comprises small and medium-sized farms and companies, they don’t necessarily have all those resources.

D2D: As farmers become more aware and ask the right questions about their technology, what is being done in the agricultural industry to prevent and protect from cyberattacks?

Susan: Several years ago, a colleague who had worked for years in national security talked with us about cyber biosecurity, which is a developing domain at the intersection of cybersecurity, biosecurity, and cyber-physical systems with applications in the life sciences such as agriculture. That introductory conversation has led to a pretty intensive and expansive engagement for us and at a significant time for our country. This is relevant to securing our production agriculture, biotechnology, and food supply chain and making certain that U.S. consumers and people worldwide do not suffer from a lack of food due to malicious cyber-attacks. Academia, the private sector, and government agencies at the state and federal levels are all working together to ensure our farmers and food can remain safe. It is a continuing effort and not one that has a specific beginning and endpoint. There is also not one solution but a myriad of options from better data management to security to preventing the attacks altogether.

D2D: How safe then is our food supply system?

Susan: Our agricultural food system is extremely safe. It’s not just safer from food borne illnesses, but we are building the technology and public/private infrastructure to address these cyberattacks. Sure, these attacks are scary. But the agricultural community has been through worse, and we’ve always come up with solutions. While bad actors will always be in the world, American farmers are responsive and adaptive, and we are tackling this problem head-on. Farmers and consumers should know there is large community of private and government entities working together to address the vulnerabilities in our food system.

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A Stick or a Carrot to Help Us Eat Healthy?


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It’s no secret that poor dietary habits have real – and unpleasant – consequences. But what can be done? What’s the best approach to helping people everywhere make better food choices?pr

What’s going on in the U.K.?

U.K. restauranter, Henry Dimbleby, was commissioned by the U.K. government to independently review their entire food system. While it began as an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses from farm to fork, they particularly focused on issues of hunger and ill-health brought about by Covid. Their National Food Strategy was written as an extensive analysis of the various food issues facing consumers, along with a set of specific policy recommendations designed to deal with them.

The “Dimbleby Report” has brought to light the already heated debate on the “right” food policy for a modern world. One of their recommendations was to put a sugar tax on foods since too much sugar can contribute to obesity and poor health. As the report notes, junk food contributes to 64,000 deaths each year in the U.K. In the United States, medical expenses to combat obesity total over $150 billion, sometimes reaching $210 billion a year. The report suggests simple economics as a possible solution, in the form of new taxes on the sugar and salt common to unhealthy food.

The U.K. also recognized that the answer to decreasing obesity doesn’t lie in one simple approach to food policy. It demands a comprehensive set of tools for leading citizens to a better, healthier future – one that accommodates the nutritional and economical needs of people and the maintenance of a sustainable food system.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson immediately announced his opposition to the tax proposals. And in the United States, critics of the “tax the sin” approach pointed to the controversial results of similar attempts to tax sugary drinks. So that leaves us with one question: What works best to create consumer behaviors leading to healthy people: a punishment or a reward for better decision-making?

The National Food Strategy Report – The Evidence, July 2021.

What is a sugar tax?

A sugar tax is a surcharge that’s levied on sugary foods and beverages, including soda, candy bars, cereal, etc. The Dimbleby Report is also considering a salt tax, designed to reduce the consumption of chips and other salty snacks and junk food.

There are different ways to impose this tax, including taxing per ounce or adding a percentage of the cost. Ireland imposed a soda tax in 2018 with 30 cents per liter added to any sugary drinks with more than eight grams of sugar per 100ml.

The Dimbleby Report proposes a tax of about $4 US per 2.2 pounds of sugary and salty foods. This kind of tax would raise over $4 billion US. But where will the money go? It said that some will provide fruit and veggies to low-income communities, but how realistic is this?

And who is this tax targeting, realistically? It’s no secret that sugary, salty, processed junk foods are cheaper than fresh fruits and vegetables, making them staples for low-income consumers. For example, a Mediterranean meal for two of salmon, quinoa, and broccoli could cost up to $20 or more. While a box of mac and cheese for two only costs as little as 98 cents.

18% of the U.K. population is considered low-income and 20% of working-age adults are considered living in poverty, plus 30.7% of children. This is much more than the 10.5% poverty rate in the U.S.

In fact, the Food and Drink Federation predicts that poor families will face an 11% annual increase in their grocery costs. This is equal to the total amount they spend per year on fresh vegetables.

Could it actually work?

Simply put, maybe. It could work in the short term if the tax was high enough, but no one wants that. Philadelphia imposed a tax on sugary drinks that increased their prices by almost 2 cents per ounce. Researchers found that the purchasing of these taxed drinks went down 39%. They also found that there was even more of a drop in neighborhoods with higher rates of chronic diseases.

However, only two months after the tax was put into effect, both grocery stores and distributors announced that they had to start cutting jobs and laying off employees because of the drop in sugary drink purchases. Pepsi laid off almost 100 employees and blamed the tax for it. It was also unclear if people were traveling outside the city to avoid the tax.

The city of Philadelphia faced even more trouble in 2016 when the American Beverage Association, several business owners in Philadelphia, and others filed a lawsuit against the tax because it went against the “Tax Uniformity Clause.” The case was dismissed in the end. New York even attempted to put a similar law in place to tax sugary drinks, but lost in court.

A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2013 estimated that a 20% tax would lead to a reduction in the prevalence of obesity in the U.K. of 1.3%, or around 180,000 people, with the greatest effects occurring in young people. They also reported that there would be no significant differences between income groups. But I wonder…how?

A tax of 20% is no small feat, especially for the economically disadvantaged, which we already know takes up a large portion of the U.K. population. This proves the point that for any real change to occur, a much higher tax is needed…

…a tax that no one wants and the economically disadvantaged can’t afford.

There is also a parallel here to tobacco taxes. Currently, the federal cigarette tax in the U.S. is $1.01 per pack. Despite this sizeable added cost to the consumer, there are still over 34 million adults and 1 million teenagers who smoke in the U.S. If people are still buying cigarettes now, even with this astronomical tax, do we think they won’t pay a little more for a candy bar, a bag of chips, or a bottle of soda?

Also, using a tax to persuade people to quit smoking is much different than using it to take food away from those who may not be able to afford anything else. The study above states taxes will work especially with low-income communities, but is our goal really to punish people for making food choices that sometimes are the only ones that can make?

What’s ‘the carrot’, then?

In lieu of a tax, a strategy proposed in 2020 by the U.K.’s Department of Health and Social Care was designed to decrease obesity and help the population fight Covid-19. This is similar to Chile’s successful campaign to combat obesity. With Chile’s stop-sign method, consumption of sugary drinks decreased by about 25% in the first 18 months.

This all-channel strategy included:

  • A ban on advertisements for junk food before 9pm online and on television
  • Ending “BOGO” sales in grocery stores on unhealthy foods
  • Displaying calories on menus
  • Showing calories for alcoholic drinks
  • Expanding weight management services through platforms, like self-care apps
  • Putting nutritional information on the front of food packages with a ‘traffic light’ system to encourage consumers to make healthier choices

Would a stop sign stop you? The Chilean Food & Advertising Law in effect, as shown within red circles above.

What are some other solutions?

There are solutions that don’t involve punishment or telling people what to eat. Here are some possible solutions to decreasing the obesity rate:

  1. Using an app to incentivize consumers to choose healthy foods. Boris Johnson proposed an alternative to Dimbleby’s report that includes creating an app consumers can use. When consumers make healthy food purchases, like fruits and veggies, they’ll accumulate points on the app. The points can then be used for discounts, free tickets, and more rewards. The app will also track calorie consumption and physical activity.
  2. Labeling policies have been shown to lead to greater impact than federal policies in Latin America. For example, Chile imposed a “stop-sign” method, where unhealthy foods had a black stop sign on them to decrease purchasing. In just two years, it led to a 24% decrease in the consumption of sugary drinks.
  3. Making fruits and vegetables cheaper and easier to prepare. Along with the sheer cost of fresh fruits and vegetables, some families also don’t have the time to cut, peel, and prepare. Cheaper and more accessible frozen and pre-chopped produce could allow consumers to purchase them.
  4. Early Education. Of course, the best way for consumers to eat healthier is through education. Knowing that we need to eat to be healthy and live a long life is incredibly important and should be taught at a young age. This is why we’ve partnered with the Farm Journal Foundation on an education initiative to teach students about nutrition, global food, and agriculture.
  5. Ending BOGO sales. We don’t really see many ‘buy one, get one’ sales on produce, but a lot on chips, candy bars, and other snacks. By ending sales of unhealthy foods in grocery stores, consumers may be less likely to purchase them or purchase as much.
  6. Advertising Policies. Creating stricter guidelines for junk food and sugary drink advertisements may also decrease consumer purchasing. It is the old, ‘out of sight, out of mind’ trick. If we don’t see junk food, we’ll be less likely to think about it and crave it, therefore we won’t purchase it as often.
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Investing in Food for Health @ Crusonia Forum

Dirt to Dinner is pleased to have Carter Williams contribute his knowledge and expertise to our site. Carter Williams is CEO and Managing Partner of iSelect Funds, an early-stage venture firm investing in companies addressing critical global issues. Carter has spent his entire career working on innovation as an engineer at McDonnell Douglas, then at Boeing managing R&D and starting Boeing Ventures. After Boeing, he was President of Gridlogix, which was later bought by Johnson Controls.

Prior to leading iSelect, Carter served as Senior Managing Director at Progress Partners, an energy and technology investment banking firm, and was a Managing Partner at Open Innovation Ventures and a Director at Clayton Capital Partners. Carter is the past President and Founder of the MIT Corporate Venturing Consortium and Co-founder of the MIT Entrepreneurship Society. He has an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Crusonia Forum Brings Together the Changemakers Driving the Future of Food

“We are here to showcase a new wave of companies that are effectively applying technology to improve, disrupt, and transform agriculture, food and health for the better. We have no idea if a future Amazon is in our midst today, but looking back on it we really had no idea that Amazon would be what it has become.

“In 1996, we just stuck to our belief that the effective, focused and thoughtful application of technology was going to lead to something very big, something very important, and most importantly something better. And we were right.”

With those words, Crusonia executive producer Paul Noglows kicked off Crusonia Forum BKLYN 2021, which brought together the investors, entrepreneurs and thought leaders transforming the global food system.

From the roof of Brooklyn Grange, one of the largest rooftop farming companies in the U.S. with 135,000 square feet of cultivated rooftop space across New York City, Noglows and the iSelect team spent the day discussing food innovations, changing consumer demands, new agtech products and more, with presentations from 15 companies working on solutions in each of these areas and more.

This is all happening because, in the U.S., the cost of treating food-related diseases has begun to exceed the cost of the food itself. We spend about $1.6 trillion a year in the United States on food. We spend between $500 billion and $1 trillion on nutrition-related health care. We’re eating ourselves to death and then trying to medicate ourselves out of it, and it’s not working. Diet-related diseases like diabetes, obesity, heart disease and more are among the leading causes of death every year with no signs of slowing down.

The challenge for innovators is solving these two problems — unhealthy eating and expensive healthcare — at once.

The good news is that consumers are clearly ready for change: 39% are actively trying to incorporate more plant-based food into their diet and 67% are open to changing their eating habits that adversely impact the environment. But transforming the global food system for the better can only be accomplished through increased innovation, education and investment.

As iSelect CEO Carter Williams explained: “The world’s population is going to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, and that’s happening because people are living longer. We’re also seeing billions more people moving into the global middle class, and when that happens they want to eat differently. They want to be healthier. They don’t want to eat carbohydrates all the time any longer, they want protein. But protein production is not terribly efficient — two and a half pounds of protein needs to go into the pig to give you a pound of pig to eat.”

That’s just the beginning of the inefficiencies of today’s food system. Based on healthcare spending for diet-related diseases, buying a hamburger today for $1.70 could turn into a lifetime cost of $1.90 for the impacts of that burger over time. The disconnect there shows up in the debate around “fixing” healthcare.

Rather than simply changing how we pay for healthcare or how much those services cost, the way to fix healthcare is to fix the food we eat.

That will reduce the need for expensive healthcare down the road and create a $3.6 trillion market that is going to be transformed over the next 20 years, as today’s small startups grow into the leaders of a new food system.

Here are some highlights from the forum, as well as the presenting companies offering solutions in the space: 

The Next Investment Arbitrage: Food Is Health

Carter Williams: “We have two food systems in the United States today. The first was the very practical system established after World War II. The goal in those days was global stability and feeding a growing population by producing vast amounts of food cheaply, largely based on corn and soy. The second system is more focused on fresh, nutritious foods but access is limited because it costs so much to produce those products today.

“The notion of the future food system is one that is high yield, tasty and nutritious — so that people will want to eat it — but it has to be able to scale. So the question is: how do you get the price down? Innovation is a fundamental, deflationary force that will drive down those costs and create a system that is better and cheaper, more protein-dense with fewer carbohydrates.”

        

How Did We Get Here? Food System Evolution

Nancy Roman, President and CEO, Partnership for a Healthier America: “We are in the midst of a dynamic, societal revolution in food that will no doubt bring changes to American life as big as the cotton gin and the steam engine. But, as with every transformation in human history, along with new possibilities come consequences, some intended and some unintended.

“We are aware of the incredible power of food to build or destroy our health. I know that those of you who are together today are coming at this from different angles. Some of you lead food companies, others are investors, but all of us are thinking about the future. I challenge you, wherever you sit, to not go into this next decade of change without asking what you can do to keep the connection between food and health front and center.”

“As we innovate in and around agriculture, as we learned painfully the last time around, it is also very difficult to come back and correct the unintended consequences later.

So let’s be intentional now, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have an idea of how we can drive food equity in this country further faster.”

   

Food is Health: What’s Your Fix?

Robert H. Lustig, M.D., M.S.L., Professor emeritus of Pediatrics, Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco: “You probably know that Dannon and Unilever underwent a sugar reduction exercise in the last year and they both touted their success at removing 14% of the added sugar from their portfolio. Well, I’m working with an international food conglomerate called KDD, Kuwaiti Danish Dairy, and they sell sugar in various forms. They sell it in yogurt. They sell it in ice cream. They sell it in juice. They sell it in tomato sauce. As part of my work with them, we have convened a scientific panel and we have determined that we are going to be able to get 78% of the added sugar out of their products by next year. 

“And the reason we can do that is because KDD is not on any stock exchange. It’s privately held. That’s the reason. We’re going to serve as a model for the rest of the food industry. Any food company can do this, but you need data science to analyze every single item in the catalog in order to figure out what’s actually in the food. What do we have to fix? Do we have to get rid of cadmium out of the cocoa? Do we have to get rid of rBST? Do we have to get rid of mercury glyphosate? What sugars need to come out?”

                      

“We’ll be able to actually put data science to work to completely not just to re-engineer, but re-imagine entire food companies. You cannot solve a problem if you don’t know what the problem is.”

Investing in Food Is Health: The View from Wall Street

Brian Holland, Managing Director & Senior Analyst, Cowen: “I think education is the biggest key. An example that comes to mind as far as a segment that has differentiated itself is plant-based beverages because there’s a need state there. Upwards of 80% of consumers in Asia, for instance, are lactose intolerant. So there’s a need state that exists. There’s a value proposition. And that’s ahead of plant-based meat from a merchandising and quality standpoint. Certainly, the plant-based meat space has made tremendous strides to improve the quality in the past decade, but plant-based beverages have been a little bit ahead of that.

“And then again, it goes back to size and scale. Until we get to a point of mainstreaming we can’t think about the consumer treating these products differently or consuming them differently.

“Right now we can define the baskets of alternative products around which everyone’s competing, but ultimately we need to see how the consumers behave once they are better educated about these products.“

“Right now I know these products are cleaner. I know they’re more sustainable. I’m making a decision based off of that myself. When we start to see that happen more broadly is when consumers will start to look at these products as being different from the incumbents.”

Panel on investment opportunities and challenges in Food is Health. Left to right: Carter Williams, CEO, iSelect; Sanjeev Krishnan, Chief Investment Officer, S2G Ventures; Matt Crisp, CEO & Co-founder, Benson Hill; David Lee, President, AppHarvest.

Learn more about Crusonia Forum and register for future events at CrusoniaForum.com.

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Toigo’s Transition from Tomatoes to Cannabis

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If you wanted to visit Toigo Orchards a few years ago, you could have driven out to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and pulled down the long drive of the 106-acre farm. You’d see workers freely coming in and out of the unlocked doors of five acres of greenhouses surrounded by organic peach trees. No one would stop you, or mind you were there.

Today, the friendly nature of Toigo Orchards remains, but there’s also a massive security presence. Unlocked doors are replaced by security guards and checkpoints. High fences, controlled access gates, and 24/7 video surveillance greet you upon arrival. Entry to the farm now requires everyone entering to go through rigorous protocols. Badge access is required for all workers. Visitors must leave their driver’s license with friendly security guards for the duration of the visit.

Why such a dramatic change in so short a time? Proprietor Mark Toigo says the high-tech security is all part of a business decision he was forced to make when low-cost foreign tomatoes flooded the organic market in the mid-Atlantic states – nearly bankrupting his decades-long greenhouse tomato business. To save his struggling farm from the glut, Toigo converted his tomato crops to cannabis.

The move not only helped save his generational family farm but may also save lives. Mark not only grows cannabis for use in medical marijuana but has also partnered with major Philadelphia hospitals to research pain management and opioid reduction.

The boy who grew up amongst the organic fruit trees covering the majority of his acreage (his cannabis operation is surrounded by a peach orchard) didn’t expect to find himself the entrepreneur of a small cannabis empire. But, the markets, Mexico, and a few knowledgeable Canadians helped him realize it was time to forge a new high-tech and highly entrepreneurial path in farming.

From Farmers’ Market to Farm-to-Table

Mark began farm-life young when he would work in his parents’ orchard. The Toigos were successfully selling a variety of conventionally grown apples, peaches, strawberries, and other seasonal tree fruit at local farmers’ markets. Thanks to their farm’s proximity to Washington, D.C., the Toigos were one of the first farmers to tap into the burgeoning local food movement in the city. The family’s success helped them expand business north to farmers’ markets in New York City.

When Mark became an adult and started running the farm, he expanded his selling season beyond summer fruit. He began cultivating greenhouse tomatoes “just to give us something to sell earlier in the season.”

“We started with hydroponics,” Toigo said. “It extended our ability to sell and keep more people around. We could do a fall crop, and we had them in the wintertime too, so that was a big, big change for us in how we worked.”

Soon, Mark found himself at the forefront of the farm-to-table movement just as it was taking off in the late 1990s and early 2000s. “We started to really cultivate relationships with customers over a long time, and we really got much, much better at growing diverse food items, Mark said. “We were specialty growing just for farmers markets and restaurants.”

That’s when the local retailers started to sit up and take notice. That’s when Mark decided to switch from conventionally grown tomatoes to organic. At the same time, he raced to build a farm infrastructure that could provide his locally grown organic tomatoes to grocery chains in the mid-Atlantic states.

A Glut In the Market

Mark says it took a lot of time, money, and effort to get certified organic.

His operation was the only greenhouse producer on the East Coast, giving him a competitive edge. But then, there was a shift in supply.

According to Mark, producers from Mexico began exporting organic tomatoes to the mid-Atlantic retailers and created a glut in the marketplace. Suddenly, Toigo says he was losing profit.

“Now we’re forced to sign larger supply agreements, but we’re not holding water,” Toigo explains. “You know what retailers we had a supply contract with said they were going to pay what we were promised, and then what we were getting paid was not the reality.”

The retailers that Tiogo had contracts with shifted their supply strategy to include
Mexican tomatoes. “They want you when the price is right. Not necessarily when there’s a harvest and you have to move your product.  So it does become a contentious kind of thing that takes place between buyers and growers; as much as retailers want to promote their steadfast dedication to the local, you can get banged up in the process a lot.”

When Mexican producers flooded the organic heirloom market, Mark says he tried to stay afloat by growing different variations. But foreign producers quickly caught on and he couldn’t grow enough tomatoes to sell for commercial volume at a profitable price point.

“And so we started getting a lot of pressure from our buyers telling us, “I’ll buy more organic from you if you can beat Mexico’s price.” Toigo said this was about more than profit. “What the heck’s that have to do with local?” Mark wondered about the retailers’ request for Toigo Organics to match foreign prices.

“I mean everything you’re selling to the consumer is the concept that you’re supporting the local growers, the food system as a whole. But the reality is, you know, you’re buying some of our product, but most other producers are not even growing in America.”

Toigo calls it a form of greenwashing.

“Farming is historically a cultural event, it’s not an occupation to speak, you have to grow into it, and you have to have a really good relationship between you and your partners, because not every season is going to be a good one. And they have to be able to pull you through when you’re having a bad time, and you got to take care of them when you’re having a good year too.”

Helpful Canadians

Toigo says he finally saw the writing on the wall after working with “world-class horticulturalists” from Canada. They recommend Toigo switch his greenhouse operations from tomatoes to cannabis. The Canadian government had legalized marijuana for medical use in 2001.

Since then, Canadian farmers had been perfecting cannabis-growing techniques for nearly twenty years. They saw in Mark’s tomato greenhouses the perfect equivalencies to growing cannabis and encouraged him to convert. Canadian horticulturalists encouraged Toigo to make the switch and helped him convert his greenhouses.

“So, in the cannabis space you’re either an indoor grow, or you’re a greenhouse grow, you could be hybrid too, but we are truly a greenhouse grower,” Mark explained.

“Some of my friends up in Canada started getting into cannabis cultivation. They just started switching from tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers or whatever they happen to grow, and they migrated into cannabis.”

Mark followed suit. Cannabis, Toigo found, had many similar attributes to the tomatoes business.

As with his tomato business, Toigo was able to use cannabis and grow his own product, market it, and build a transportation business around it.

“We felt like we are really well aligned to be able to do it because we already had the right people,” Mark told D2D. “We were already doing a lot of this work; now we’re just doing it with cannabis. The parallels are really profound. Now we’re just doing it with a different commodity.”

The one thing that didn’t translate from tomato to cannabis was how it reaches the end-user. Cannabis, even for medical use, has some of the most stringent regulations in all of agriculture. With tomatoes, Toigo was selling directly into retail grocery chains, restaurants, or farmer’s markets. With cannabis, Toigo decided to open his own dispensaries and use his transportation business to send his product to other dispensaries in Pennsylvania. Toigo is proud of how he has vertically integrated his business and intends to grow it in the coming years.

Environmental Impact

Toigo says he’s committed to ensuring his facility has not only the healthiest growing environment possible for his farm but for the entire community. His first step was to ensure the CO2 produced during cannabis production at the backside of their burners is captured. That captured carbon is then fed back into the cannabis for improved plant health.

Most importantly, Toigo is committed to the high-quality watershed district his facility operates in, free from any harmful agricultural runoff. Toigo says his cannabis is “pesticide-free.” And, while he uses private wells for watering, he ensures it’s all captured in a close looped system that reuses water and prevents any runoff into nearby waterways.

“We knew any runoff from our backyard would go straight into the Chesapeake Bay,” Toigo told D2D. “That’s why we have no runoff at this facility.”

A Lasting Legacy

Toigo said profits continue to rise for cannabis producers, but, like all other crops, it is a commodity and subject to price fluctuation. And as states continue to legalize both medical and adult (i.e., recreational) marijuana, Toigo thinks prices will like decrease in the long run.

But Toigo says his sole reason isn’t profit. When asked what his proudest accomplishment has been thus far, he points to his partnership with the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM). Toigo and PCOM are currently running five studies to conduct research into pain management and opioid addiction. That, Toigo says, despite the many struggles he and his family have faced over the years as farmers, makes everything worth the price.

“And really, it’s the best part of the whole process, to know that we’re helping to contribute to non-anecdotal evidence about medicinal marijuana. That’s the flip side of all this that we’re here for the right reason.”

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The truth about calorie-deficit diets


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Even my fiancé got on the bandwagon. I think of him as smart, educated on food — thanks to D2D 😉 — and cares about his health. Yet, even he fell victim to this crazy diet. Observing his one-month ordeal on this special diet was not pleasant, to say the least.

But what exactly does it mean to eat in a calorie deficit? Being on a calorie-deficit diet means that you eat fewer calories than what you burn in a day as opposed to a calorie surplus, which is consuming more calories than what we burn. It seems simple, but it’s actually more complex than I initially thought. I learned this from watching my fiancé, let’s call him “Chad”, attempt to adhere to the core principles to achieve his fitness goals.

This guidance came from a fitness trainer who recommended this diet to burn fat and build muscle. But, before we get into that, let’s take a deeper dive into what it means to eat in a deficit.  It is a little more complicated than just ‘calories in – calories out’.

How to identify your deficit numbers  

First, you want to calculate your maintenance calories, which your body needs to support your energy and activity. This is no easy feat as it takes a considerable amount of time. For example, you need more calories if you work out than if you lead a sedentary lifestyle. To find your maintenance calories, you’ll want to track your calories for ten days. You can do this fairly easily with apps on your phone, including the MyFitnessPal app.

During these ten days, you’ll also need to track your weight. The easiest way to do this is to weigh yourself every morning when you wake up. If your weight stays about the same during those ten days, then you’ve found your maintenance calories. It’s always normal to experience a little fluctuation day-to-day, but your weight should stay within a few pounds.

Next, you’ll want to find the average amount of calories you consumed. This can be done by averaging your daily calorie intake over those ten days. Then subtract 500. You’ve just found your calorie deficit.

Why 500? Studies show that decreasing your daily caloric intake by 500 does not change your hunger or energy levels. This means that by eating 500 fewer calories a day, you’ll still be able to perform your daily activities without an energy loss or feeling starved. Or so we thought…

I watched Chad track every single bite.

I’ve never tracked my calories. I feel as though there are so many other things we must think about when it comes to being healthy that tracking all these specific numbers is where I draw the line. But when Chad told me he would log his calories, protein, fat, and carbs to remain in a deficit and build muscle, I was supportive — yet skeptical.

Now, he’s already a thin, built person. He works out all the time, eats very healthy, and honestly barely has any fat on him, which is why I was a bit confused by this decision, especially since he tried it once before and hated it.

I watched him do this for a couple of weeks, and I was exhausted. Every time he ate, he’d take out his phone, go to an app, and start typing in everything he was consuming and in what portions. This means he had to use a scale to measure what he was eating to ensure it was within the appropriate range. So, when I was sitting at the dinner table after cooking a delicious meal, I had to watch Chad put everything on a scale, scoop by scoop until he achieved his portions. I’m tired just thinking about it!

I waited for what felt like an eternity, staring down at my steaming hot plate of Caprese pasta with chicken, thinking, “Why can’t we just eat healthily since we know how to? I wish it could be that simple.

And how can we find the balance between health, food, and fun?

Here come the “hangries”

The other thing I noticed was Chad developed a severe case of being “hangry,” or hungry-angry (it’s a real thing, I swear). He could only eat a specific amount of calories and would often remain hungry after eating. This often left him not very pleasant to be around, which I understood entirely since I’m the same way.

I heard a quote once that said, “If I say I’m hungry, we have about 30 minutes before I turn into a different person”…

I definitely felt this on a personal level.

He also experienced a complete lack of energy, especially in the afternoon since his lunch-time calories were cut. He had to up his caffeine intake just to get through the workday. Above, I mentioned that 500 calories shouldn’t impact energy or hunger levels, but my fiancé experienced an energy loss.

My activities change day-to-day. Shouldn’t my caloric intake?

As I wrote in my intuitive eating article, I practice listening to my body when it’s hungry and full. If I’m not full, I continue to eat or at least allow myself to have a healthy snack. With a calorie deficit, you have to make sure everything stays within your caloric intake for the day.

I also find myself eating more if I have a longer workout. And since I burn more calories with a longer workout, wouldn’t I need to eat more? There’s a lot to factor in on a day-to-day basis.

Every day is different. How can we only eat a specific number of calories when our daily exercise, activity level, and food choices change? And, what matters more: the amount of calories we eat or where those calories come from? For example, a 400-calorie fast-food sandwich is very different than a 400-calorie salad filled with lean protein, grains, and veggies. Yet, for many practicing a calorie deficit diet on social media, they only think about the calories, not so much where they came from. This seems wrong to me, since we know we need to eat a well-balanced diet for good long-term health.

The date-night guilt

The last thing I noticed was that Chad would beat himself up if he went over his caloric intake for the day. For example, if we wanted to have a spontaneous date night and order a couple of drinks, he’d get stressed if he didn’t have enough room in his daily intake to accommodate. While I sat back, happily sipping on my Pomegranate Martini, I watched him calculate in his mind how he would make up for this the next day. It made our date night less than romantic…

The one thing I didn’t want to see, that I sadly did, was that my fiancé became so consumed by his diet program that he stopped enjoying life like he used to.

This demonstrates that, although this diet may work for some people, it definitely does not work for all.

What’s the science?

Chad organized his calorie deficit in a particular way based on his personal goals and what his trainer told him to do. For other people, it can be very different. And for many, it’s been a successful way to lose weight.

One study from 2007 examined the different ways that overweight individuals can shed pounds to determine which method of weight loss was best. This included a diet-only method and a diet-plus-exercise method. The researchers found that it did not matter which group the individuals were part of, but that a negative energy balance, or a calorie deficit, consistently leads to weight loss.

A second study from 2018, also researched various weight loss practices, including low-fat, low-carbohydrate, and calorie deficit. The research found that a calorie deficit is successful for weight loss, especially in the first few months, but it can be dangerous if the individual consumes too few calories. Eating too few calories can put your body into fat-storing mode instead of fat-burning because it doesn’t think it’ll get more food. The study also said that eating in a calorie deficit long-term is difficult to do, which makes sense for my fiancé because he stopped his strict diet deficit after a month. Now we just make sure to eat all of our fruits, vegetables, and proteins.

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Want to Save the Planet? ‘Break Boundaries’ at Home


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I watched Breaking Boundaries on a clear, crisp day in September. The temperature was in the high sixties, so the windows in the den were open where I could hear the birds playing in the trees. Before sitting down for the film, I grabbed a handful of trail mix that I had just meticulously picked out from Whole Foods and a Smartwater—the big one, as I am trying to work on my hydration – and I found a comfortable spot in my favorite chair.

Before the film, these small preparations for my movie-watching comfort did not hit me as meaningful or impactful in any way. As the documentary came to an end, my thoughts wandered back. The windows open where the birds played, the decision to grab nuts as my snack of choice, and choosing to use a plastic water bottle — these unconscious actions, both good and bad, had made me wondering: what if my efforts became conscious? Could I somehow modify my previously unbeknownst ‘good’ and ‘bad’ behaviors? And could these small actions make a difference?

Let’s take a closer look. Or as Attenborough might say, an “Earth’s Conscience” perspective.

Breaking Down my Impact

As I discovered from watching the film, all my seemingly inconsequential actions made an impact on our planet.

  • The Trees outside my window are a critical element in promoting biodiversity and carbon offsets.
  • My Trail Mix is made of nut-based plants that provide healthy protein and nutrients and directly affect land and water use.
  • My Water Bottle is made of plastic, making it part of a linear economy that creates trash that cannot be upcycled or eliminated from our waste stream.

While fear must not paralyze us, this film showed some opportunities for us to make our changes to help the environment.

“Thinking and acting with one unified purpose — to ensure that our planet forever remains healthy and resilient.”

– David Attenborough

Thoughts about the Film

No matter where you stand on climate change, critics and proponents alike state that the documentary details some alarming statistics and fast-approaching global eventualities should we remain on our current trajectory.

The film is well-intentioned. It covers core global issues we currently face across nine defined boundaries. It highlights the importance of individual action and response.

But given its lean runtime, I thought it lacked depth about both the complex topics it sought to cover, and, more importantly, the potential solutions to these urgent global issues. I commend the film for calling to action the need for a broader societal shift toward sustainability.

Still, I would have liked if they better explored the closing themes of the film: planting, healthy-eating initiatives, and waste elimination.

While this was a miss for the film, it is an opportunity for Dirt to Dinner to share its thoughts, provide depth to these potential solutions, and bring these solutions to “your den,” if you will.   

Three Conscious Decisions YOU can Make

The scientific evidence in the film shows that we face unacceptable risks to planetary health. However, it also states that we still have time to correct the situation! To cut greenhouse gases and protect our wetlands, soils, forests, and oceans, we can affect change at a household level through these three simple actions:

“We will live in a cleaner, healthier, and more peaceful world.”

1. Plant Trees

Planting trees is one of the most impactful and achievable solutions to reduce stress on our climate, Attenborough says.

It is vital to offset the carbon we will inevitably emit (at least to some level).

One tree doesn’t quite do it, but it will help. Over 40 years, one silver maple will sequester approximately 400 pounds of CO2, yet the average U.S. citizen emits 20 tons per year.

But carbon-capturing is not the only benefit of planting trees. It can also prevent soil erosion and help regenerate land, providing incredible benefits for global biodiversity.

I looked into how easy or hard this would be and found endless resources. Whether you want to plant one yourself in your backyard or community garden, or have a tree planted in your name, the resources both nationally and regionally are plenty!

I used one of our Dirt to Dinner partners, The Nature Conservancy, that has a program called A Billion Begins with One. It seemed fitting, given that I really wanted to know how my actions could make a more significant impact. I learned that my single donation does more than just put a seed in the ground; it provides habitats for future generations and helps turn the tide of deforestation.

Below are other notable organizations combatting deforestation: 

                               

                                       

 

And to read more about the benefits of trees, carbon sequestration, deforestation, and soil health, check out these D2D articles:

           

 

       

2. Diet Choices

The film emphasizes the benefits of the ‘flexitarian diet’ for the environment.

Similar to the Mediterranean diet, the flexitarian diet focuses on veggies and fruits, nuts and seeds, and lesser-processed plant-based proteins with the flexibility to incorporate meat and animal products.

Research shows that eating a balanced diet rich in plant-based and animal proteins while avoiding processed foods and limiting sugars can be environmentally beneficial.

As we know, some low-impact, sustainably-produced meat can help sequester carbon, reduce soil erosion, and add nutrients to the soil, which aids in a diverse soil microbiome that is critical for carbon capture.

In my household, we receive Daily Harvest deliveries; this is one of many options for meal delivery plans. What drew us to this specific service was their Harvest Bowls that we use as sides to our protein. The primary ingredients are vegetable-based and provide dense nutrient profiles that help deliver a good portion of my recommended daily value of dietary fiber, protein, vitamins, and minerals while calories remain low.

There are certainly other ways to make easy flexitarian diet choices. Simple decisions at the grocery store can be immensely impactful:

  • Buy frozen fruits and veggies. These products contribute to 47% less food waste, as they last longer than their fresh counterparts while still maintaining a similar nutrient profile.
  • Shop the perimeter of the store. Not only is this a way to eat healthier by avoiding processed foods typically found in the central isles, but there is typically less packaging, fewer additives, and less greenhouse gas impact.
  • Go heavy on your veggies! As we know, we need 5-7 servings of vegetables per day, but did you know this is also a way to save a buck? Veggies are typically the least expensive items in the grocery store. Focus less on organic vs. conventional and more on freshness so you get the most bang for your buck.
  • Buy LESS! Food waste is a huge problem. Come up with a meal plan before you hit the grocery store, and be sure to read the expiration dates. Here is a good resource on how to choose foods that last the longest!
  • Read your labels! Don’t fall for labels that might be misleading and lead you to believe they are more sustainable than others—make educated decisions! Here is a list of labels that can serve as a guide.
  • And don’t forget to bring your reusable bags to the store with you. Pack some in your trunk, so they are always on hand! But be sure to wash them as they can harbor unwanted bacteria.

Want some great ideas for flexitarian-type meals? Take a look at these delicious dishes:

                

                

3. Waste Reduction

The mass of global production runs on what is considered a linear economy, a system not designed to eliminate waste.

If we can turn linear systems into circular ones to recover raw materials, our use of resources can be what the film calls infinite.

These circular economies are critical to eliminating waste and can be achieved with the decisions we make at the grocery store.

Technologies such as blockchain provide supply chain transparency by informing us where our food comes from and the regenerative practices utilized to grow it.

Other technologies, such as an emerging field of smart-labeling, can show shoppers when our food expires, preventing edible foods from being thrown out! Companies like Mimica and  SmartLabel are in the business of reducing food waste by providing environmentally-conscious information to make smarter decisions when throwing out food.

An elementary step we can make at home is reusing water bottles. It seems obvious, but the cumulative statistics are staggering.

Eighty percent of plastic water bottles end up in landfills already overflowing with more than 2 million discarded bottles in the U.S. To make matters worse, it can take up to 1,000 years for EACH bottle to decompose.

Want to learn more about how you can eliminate waste at home? Check out these articles on fast-food restaurants, buying your seafood, sustainable packaging efficiencies, as well as some myth-busting information on feeding our growing nation.

What Else Can We Do?

Our final recommendation would be to share this article with a friend. The more we empower our community with information that demonstrates how the smallest change at home can make a difference, the more of an impact we can cumulatively make.

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Five Reasons Why I Started Using Conservation Practices On My Farm

This article was written by Keith Mears, who farms with his family near Delphi, Indiana, and is a Conservation Steward with America’s Conservation Ag Movement.

Implementing farmland conservation practices is no easy feat, but the results are well worth the efforts. Keith Mears gives us five solid reasons why the time is now…

The most important step to making a change on your farm is determining why you are going to do it. Without a firm understanding of why, it will be too easy to lose motivation and change your mind when challenges arise.

To encourage other farmers to get started, I want to explain five reasons why I started using conservation practices on my 110-acre corn and soybean farm.

  1. Being the best steward I can be. One of my favorite free-time activities is kayaking on the local streams and rivers. It is sad and concerning to me how muddy-brown our streams and rivers are. I want to take responsibility for the farmland I am called to be a steward of and make sure I do my part to keep my soil on my farm. The legacy I want to leave for my community and my children is one of cleaner water and richer soils, allowing them to produce healthy, reliable food and enjoy the environment for generations to come.
  2. Increasing soil organic matter and, in turn, increase water holding capacity. The art of farming can be boiled down to using soil and water to capture energy from the sun to produce food fuel and fiber. Considering the factors I can manage, I realize that the sun is going to come up every day and there is not a lot we can or need to do to manage that. My farm relies on rainfall for all of the water for the crops and while there is absolutely nothing I can do to change the rains, I have come to realize that I can improve the water-holding capacity of the soil by increasing organic matter and improve yields by holding more of the rains we do get on my farm for my crops to produce higher yields. A 1% increase in soil organic matter will increase the water-holding capacity in the top 6 inches of an acre by 27,000 gallons. This is roughly equivalent to the amount of water in a 1-inch rain.
  3. Improving overall farm efficiency. To win in a commodity business a farmer must produce high yields at the lowest cost possible. Reducing tillage and, therefore, reducing trips across the field reduces the costs of growing a crop and improves efficiency. Two to three tillage passes are eliminated, resulting in less time, labor and fuel required to produce crops. Eliminating these tillage passes saves between $35 and $40 per acre.
  4. Reducing the amount of equipment I need to purchase and maintain to operate my farm. I do not own a chisel plow, disk or field cultivator. I also do not need to own a high-horsepower tractor to pull these implements. Further savings are realized by not having to have a larger barn to store these extra pieces of equipment. I am able to farm using only one tractor on the entire operation. Not having to buy a high-horsepower tractor, a chisel plow, disk and field cultivator saves my farm tens of thousands of dollars of capital costs.
  5. The support I receive from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). When deciding whether to transition to a no-till cover crop system, I reached out to the NRCS for ideas and support. The conservationists at the NRCS shared ideas and practices that had the highest likelihood of success in our area. I applied for and received three years of per-acre payments for no-till and cover crops through the EQIP program. These payments covered the cost of my planter pass and all costs of using a cover crop, including seed and planting. These payments reduced the risk of trying something new and gave me the confidence to get started.

I encourage anyone reading this to consider how to improve stewardship on their own farm in addition to how their management decisions impact the community and the legacy they want to leave for future generations.

I also encourage you to reach out to your NRCS office and/or connect with other farmers in your area to discuss conservation practices.

Getting technical with conservation

We found Keith’s conservation practices fascinating, so our team followed up with him to get some specifics on how he applies these farming techniques. Here’s what he had to say:

In terms of emission reduction, have you seen a decline? If so, how are you measuring that on the farm?

I have been able to replace 3 tillage passes with one cover crop planting pass for a net gain of two fewer passes across the field.

A conventional tillage system would be (1) chisel plow, (2) disk, (3) field cultivate, (4) spray, (5) plant, (6) spray, and (7) harvest; versus a no-till cover crop system of (1) plant cover, (2) spray, (3) plant, (4) spray, and (5) harvest.

This can be measured in diesel fuel savings of about 29%, or about $9 per acre.

Do you use any solar or wind technologies for energy offsets on the farm? If so, what do these systems look like?

No.  My energy requirements are the same on still, cloudy days as they are on sunny, windy days.  However, solar and wind power are essential for the farm.  Each corn seed I plant in the spring turns into approximately 560 seeds in the fall and each soybean seed turns into approximately 300 seeds.

The energy for these returns comes almost exclusively from the sun through the miracle of photosynthesis.  Additionally, the wind is vital to bring in rains, my only source of water, and cool and aerate the plants.

What does your typical rotation look like? If you are rotating, which crops do you grow on a single set of land, what does that look like, and how do you decide?

All of my acres are in a corn cover-soybean cover rotation. Usually, I use cereal rye as the cover crop.

I decide based on crop budget spreadsheets which factor in the market prices of inputs and each grain and calculate expected profit based on historical yields.

I have grown corn after corn and soybean after soybeans to increase expected profits.

photo credit: Brooke Sauter

Have your conservation ag practices helped with pests, diseases, invasive weeds, etc.? And if so, that must also equate to cost savings. But has it? And to what degree?

Not yet. I expect an improvement in soil health to lead to an improvement in pests and diseases long term.  Short term, during a transition to no-till, disease and pest pressures have increased. I am learning how to manage cover crops to reduce invasive weeds and have seen signs of fewer weeds where covers are planted, but after subtracting the cost of cover crop seed; I have not realized any consistent cost savings yet.

What about yield? Has there been a “regrowth period” once some of these practices were put in place as the soil acclimated? 

A transition to no-till caused a 5-10% reduction in yield.  After factoring in the capital and operating expenses of saving tillage passes I did not experience a change in profit per acre.  After implementing no-till and covers for about 4 years the yields come back up and seem to become more consistent.  This drives a long-term increase in farm profitability.

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The Labor Shortage: Lack of Workers or Lack of Willing Workers?


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Just how significant is the labor shortage?

Perhaps there is a better way of asking the question. Why do so many job openings go unfilled?

The number of people in the labor pool has increased steadily over recent decades, from 128 million in 1992 to an estimated 163.5 million in 2022. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects a resurgence in job growth in the next few years – as many as 12 million new jobs by 2030. Job growth is expected to be especially strong in the travel and leisure industry as it recovers from Covid. Health care and personal care services also are expected to expand as the population continues to age. But 11 million jobs go unfilled, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Why are there so many open positions? Part of the explanation involves a change in thinking about work. While the labor pool has grown, the proportion of the labor pool that actively seeks employment has steadily declined from a high of 67 percent to a projected 62 percent in 2022.

Many factors have contributed to the slow decline in participation rates – an aging population, changes in job and career attitudes, economic ups and downs, and of course, the profound chilling effect of the Covid-19 pandemic. Business and organizational shutdowns and reduced workloads helped drive global unemployment to the equivalent of 225 million jobs, according to the U.N. International Labor Organization. In the United States, the figure hit an estimated 20 million in 2020.

Changing workforce demands

By the end of this decade, the entire “baby boomer” generation will be at least 65 years old. This factor, coupled with the pandemic, rapidly accelerated a trend already underway toward a workforce less committed to the old model of job-seeking. Generous government subsidies created incentives to simply stay home. Lingering fears of threats from the Delta strain of Covid fostered a risk-averse stay-at-home mindset. Child-care and other family needs made a return to work difficult, if not impractical for many. Some people simply discovered that the old shoulder-to-the-wheel mentality of finding and keeping a job just wasn’t appealing or even necessary anymore.

Lifestyle becomes just as important – maybe more important to some – as finding a job or building an old-model career. The phrase ‘work-life balance’ has taken on a whole new dimension in the post-pandemic world – more like “life-work balance.”  

The result has been a significant shift in the employer-employee dynamic – a brave new world in which the worker has a more powerful, sometimes dominant position in the process of job seeking. As one California dairy farmer told Dirt To Dinner, “I no longer interview job applicants. They interview me.”

What does a new labor picture mean for our food and agriculture system?

The short answer: almost everything. The lack of willing workers cuts across every segment of our food chain, from the producer at one end to the consumer at the other and every step in between. For many, it’s a serious problem, far more than an annoyance.

The most obvious consequence is a threat to day-to-day operations. The Department of Agriculture tells us we have about 2 million full-time farm workers in the United States. But that’s not the total farm labor picture. Every year, farmers and ranchers hire between 1.4 million and 2.1 million laborers – the field workers, cow milkers, harvesters, and others critical to modern farming or ranching.

The work isn’t a nine-to-five, air-conditioned, free cappuccino, fully automated walk in the office park. It’s hard work, much of it outdoors in the elements, with physical and mental demands few outsiders recognize or appreciate. Dairy cows and other farm animals demand regular attention, often 24/7, without fail. To further complicate the picture, many states are tightening the overtime standards that govern hired labor.

Farmers and ranchers know all too well that work on the farm goes on all day, every day. Limits on the number of overtime hours translate into the need for additional positions, which only magnifies the challenge of finding willing and able people to fill the slots. And today, that’s where the lack of job applicants is hitting agricultural producers most.

“I used to have a mailbox full of a half-dozen job applications every week,” one California dairy farmer noted. “Now I get maybe one or two a month.”

Other farmers across the country paint a remarkably similar picture. “When I do get an applicant, I wind up answering most of the questions”, another observes. Those questions are not just about the job duties but also the benefits and perks and the flexibility they will have when they work.

“More and more, I extend an offer and hold my breath to see if the person shows up,” another comments. “Usually they don’t. They use my offer to negotiate something better down the road…. And if I do make a hire, I worry that they will take a lunch break and just won’t come back.”

So What Is to Be Done?

Dealing with the problem requires both short-term practicality and a long-term perspective. It means working longer hours and often asking family members to pitch in even more than usual. It means using recruitment services to seek out prospective employees – often outside the United States. Automation and robotics show promise as one part of the solution to the labor problem, but technology doesn’t yet address some tasks, and they are often an expense that just seems an awful lot to absorb right now.

But the problem does seem to boil down to greater expense, and a real threat of lost productivity, eating away at already thin profit margins. It means spending more money, not just on labor but other services, like trucking and delivery, that also may be experiencing the same kind of labor problems. It means doing what has to be done and spending what has to be spent to get by day-to-day, even if that means investment capital assets like better equipment and technology have to wait.

The Hispanic Connection

 The largest portion of farm labor involves non-U.S. citizens – notably Hispanic workers.  Roughly 44 percent of all ag occupations are Hispanics of Mexican origin. 57 percent of all farm laborers, graders and sorters are of Mexican origin, and another 8 percent non-Mexican Hispanic.  In the rest of the U.S. economy, Mexican-origin Hispanics make up only 12 percent of the workforce, and non-Mexican Hispanics another 8 percent.

U.S farmers continue to support immigration reform that will speed and simplify the process of obtaining work visas for non-U.S. citizens. Legislation on the matter remains pending in the U.S. Congress.

                                                        – Economic Research Service, USDA 2019

How is the rest of the food chain affected?

The shortage of job applicants extended far beyond the farm gate. The suppliers and service companies that provide feeds, seeds, fertilizers, and other necessary goods also report similar difficulties attracting the needed employees. They also have to bid up wages and benefits – adding to the costs paid by their farm customers, food manufacturers, warehousers, distributors, retailers, and restaurants.

Each of those segments faces the same set of challenges – simply not enough people to do the basic tasks. Meat processors report shortages of line workers that have on occasion forced process slowdowns or actual shutdowns. Distribution centers point to a lack of loading equipment operators. Restaurants don’t have enough cooks, counter staff, wait- and kitchen staff. Every segment of the chain seeks to find new efficiencies and cost-cutting innovations to alleviate the problem. But the problem persists.

Farmers and ranchers report seeing the effects of the lack of workers in a variety of places – but several show up over and over again, beyond the farm gate and the day-labor issue.

  • Transportation. The ability to move goods and services from place to place in a timely manner is the common thread tying all elements of the food chain together. Crop inputs, energy supplies, and other necessities must be delivered. Harvested crops must be moved to storage – especially the fresh fruit and vegetables with short storage lives. Food manufacturers, retailers, and restaurants rely on just-in-time delivery to make best use of storage and display space. Trucks move more than 70 percent of all the freight hauled in the United States (by weight), with as many as 60,000 driver positions unfilled. A shortage of drivers risks a chilling effect on multiple sectors of the economy – none more so than our food system.
  • Warehousing and storage. Farmers rely on a steady flow of supplies, including feeds and crop inputs. When suppliers don’t have enough workers to actually load those supplies, the farmer suffers. Likewise, off-farm storage for crops is essential. Labor problems at grain elevators and cold and climate-controlled storage facilities can risk damage to the quality – or preservation –of grains, oilseeds, fruits, vegetables, and more.
  • Equipment maintenance and repair. Modern farm equipment is a complex, sophisticated mix of engineering and computer technology. It demands skill to keep it in top operating condition or to repair the inevitable problems in even the most reliable equipment. Service may remain available, but the wait times may be longer for some producers. The lack of job applicants plaguing our economy is in some respects much like the weather. Everyone likes to talk about it, but no one quite seems to know what to do about it. But one thing seems clear: the labor problem is likely to continue for some time.
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White Fat’s Effect on Chronic Illness

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I am currently in my seventh month of pregnancy and have been reading allll things baby! I was reading about baby anatomy and came across a section on the makeup of beneficial brown fat they have at birth.

Brown fat? What in the world is brown fat? I thought all fat was a sort of a whiteish/yellow and something you wanted to have as little of as possible? As I dove deeper into my studies, I found that brown fat not only serves a critical purpose for infants, but plays a role in the long-term health of adults. And there are even certain foods we can eat to increase our brown fat.

Brown Fat vs. White Fat

When you were born, your fat stores were made up of primarily brown or beige fat. This type of fat is packed with mitochondria – the cell’s powerhouse – and helps to burn energy. When babies are newly born, they need this fat for protection from hypothermia. This is why you rarely see a full-term baby shiver — they have plenty of brown fat to keep them warm.

As you move into your adult years, your brown fat sheds. However, one study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that thinner adults tend to have more brown fat than heavier people. While brown fat may dissipate with age, Harvard Medical School discovered another type of fat, beige fat (so attractive to think of), more abundant in adults and serves a similar purpose as brown fat. It is typically interspersed with white fat tissue but contains the same protein found in brown fat (UCP1), which helps burn calories and generate heat. Beige fat could be critical in weight control and chronic illness prevention.

Why do we care what color our fat is? White fat, or white adipose tissue (WAT), is associated with serious health conditions like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. White fat stores energy and comprises one large lipid droplet or one sizeable single fat droplet.

Brown and beige fat (BAT), however, contain many tiny lipid droplets, as well as a high number of iron-rich mitochondria, which gives it its brownish tint. Brown and beige fat can generate heat by burning fuel from the white fat energy stores. Since too much white fat causes health issues like chronic inflammation and metabolic syndrome, brown fat has the potential to use your white fat for energy and reduce inflammation at the same time.

Once I have this baby, I would certainly love a way to boost my levels of brown fat to burn calories and cut down on some white fat stores that I’ve accumulated during pregnancy. But will the baby be the only one with brown fat among the two of us? Not necessarily. There may be ways we can boost our beige fat, which can help decrease our white fat by altering WHAT and HOW MUCH we eat, exercise, and sleep.

Apples and Turmeric: Your new afternoon snack

Curcumin is a major component found in the spice turmeric. According to studies, curcumin, as well as capsaicin, resveratrol, green tea, menthol, and fish-derived Omega-3 fatty acids, all play a role in what scientists call the activation of BAT, or otherwise known as the browning of WAT.

The University of Iowa found that apples can also play a role in WAT browning.  It was determined that the ursolic acid in their peels (what gives it its shine!) could also boost brown fat.

Hungry? Eat! Or Say ‘Hello’ To More White Fat

Hunger is an interesting thing. Every person from birth (yes, still learning a lot about babies!) has hunger-regulating neurons in their brains that we rely on to tell us when we are hungry and when we are full. But these neurons serve another purpose, as detailed in a Yale School Of Medicine mice study. This study illustrated that these neurons also encourage white fat to turn to brown fat.

Alternatively, and in support of this, another study found that eating too few calories prevented white fat from turning into brown fat as the body sought to store the energy in case it needed it for later, as the calorie intake signified that there might be times when food is not available, and energy stores are necessary. Ultimately both studies concluded that eating just enough to satisfy your hunger is critical in promoting the action of these neurons to turn your white fat to brown fat and avoid accumulations of new white fat stores.

Exercise, exercise, exercise!

This may seem like an obvious recommendation, but there is more to the story than just burning calories. One animal research study published in Disease Models and Mechanisms suggests that working out triggers the release of an enzyme called irisin. This compound works similarly to the above-listed compounds by prompting white fat cells to convert to brown fat when released.

Even more recent research from the American Diabetes Association discovered that the irisin released when exercising can prompt the browning of fat in men specifically, with the browning power continuing to increase over the course of 12 weeks.

Get your fat-burning beauty sleep on!

Melatonin is a fascinating hormone. It is responsible for regulating your sleep-wake cycles (another chapter in my baby book!), but it can also help increase the presence of brown and beige fat. As found in the Journal of Pineal Research, stimulating your natural melatonin by maintaining healthy sleep patterns can aid brown fat in its calorie-burning capabilities.

So be sure to get eight hours of sleep per night, avoid screen time before bed, and seek melatonin-rich foods like cherries, almonds, and tomatoes.

Chill Out! No, really…turn the temp down

While it is still a balmy summer now, there may be an opportunity for you to burn some fat when the temperature drops! What do I mean? One study out of the Journal of Clinical Investigation studied twelve men with what they considered to be lower than average amounts of brown fat.

The subjects were asked to sit in a 63-degree room for two hours per day throughout the six-week period. These men burned an extra 108 calories in the cold than they did in average temperatures, and after the six weeks were up, they were burning an extra nearly 300 calories per day in the cold. Researchers concluded that exposure to these lower temperatures increased the activity of a gene that converts white fat to brown fat.

Cold showers and ice baths, made popular by the Dutch athlete, Wim Hof, are believed to help build your body’s store of brown fat and boost immunity. His research has been substantiated by several studies, found here.

New Frontier: Gene Editing

Research has recently found that gene editing can transform the fat we store in our bodies from white to brown. Genes have been identified that can order our fat cells to burn energy rather than store it. We can edit these genes in the future to treat obesity.

The science behind this is pretty cool! Or at least I think so—learning all about how my body and my baby’s body functions has been a very cool research mission. As we know, our body digests protein, fat, and carbohydrates and turns them into amino acids, fatty acids, or glucose. We tend to convert fat into fatty acids, which are either used immediately or directed to be stored. The “storage” process, or accumulation of white fat, occurs when you eat too many calories or too few and make your body think it may starve.

Dr. Yu-Hua Tseng, out of Harvard Medical School, took fat cells from the neck and, using CRISPR-Cas9 technology, inserted a molecular “switch” into the DNA of these white fat cells. The switch turned on a gene called UCP1. In brown fat, this gene functions in the mitochondria to churn out heat and burn energy. When this switch was inserted, it boosted 20 times the amount of protein that the UCP1 gene made. This newly switched-on fat cell (or what they called HUMBLE) was then inserted into mice. At the end of the study, HUMBLE cells communicated with existing brown fat to release chemical signals telling the mice’s tissues to take up more blood sugar and burn more energy.

This is promising for future disease-fighting research in that it may be a treatment for obesity and people with diabetes, given its blood sugar uptake capabilities. Tseng said she could imagine doctors removing patients’ fat cells, editing their DNA, and returning the cells back to the person. She says it’s “almost like waking up your fat cells to boost your glucose metabolism.” For now, however, more research is needed, and side effects need to be studied.

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21st Century Fermentation: Disrupting More Than Our Food


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I just got out of the lake this morning after a long swim. It was lovely…blue skies, a bit of early morning breeze, and a loon calling nearby. Afterward, I am always starving, so I dutifully made my post-workout smoothie. As I blended my easy and quick protein powder mixed with milk, hemp hearts, yogurt, avocado, and fruit, I started to think of the new technology on the block – Synthetic Biology.

Moving beyond the lab…

What if my milk and yogurt didn’t come from a cow, an almond, or an oat, but really from fermented yeast? What if the steak I planned to cook for dinner was made from mushroom roots? The same food we know and love, but just made a different way. But make no mistake about the term ‘synthetic’.

The word ‘synthetic’ can make people fear companies are making ‘fake’ food…but that is not what is happening at all. It is really taking food proteins and putting them through the fermentation process. Similar to Kombucha, or the beer we drink on the weekend, fermentation technology has been around for thousands of years. Today, we have just adapted fermentation to the 21st century. Though there are about four different methods of synthetic biology, for the purposes of food, we are mainly talking about the fermentation process.

So how can these innovations be used in food and agriculture to feed the growing population sustainably and nutritionally? Synthetic biology seems to have some of the answers. So much so, that by 2030, it is predicted that most people will have eaten, worn, or used something created by synthetic biology. McKinsey predicts that the annual direct economic potential ranges between $2-4 billion, with around $1 billion of that attributed to material changes in agriculture, aquaculture, and food. Markets and Markets has an even higher prediction; that by 2026, the market will reach $31 billion.

The SynBioBeta report ranks the food and food ingredients industry as the second-highest in the number of investments, behind therapeutics and before life sciences, agriculture, and energy.

Solutions in agriculture range from fully utilizing the soil microbiome to aid in sustainable and increased agricultural production.

And solutions in food are replacing traditional meat, poultry, and seafood with meat created in a lab either by growing cells in a petri dish or fermenting bacteria or yeast.

Some of the companies that create these unique products state they are more sustainable for the environment and can address animal welfare issues.

…and into your fridge

If any of you have eaten the Impossible Burger, then you have experienced food made with synthetic biology. Remember when you took a bite and it was red and juicy, just like a hamburger? This was accomplished by isolating the leghemoglobin protein in the soybean plant that carries oxygen to the root nodules via the protein heme.

In animals, hemoglobin is essential and carries oxygen from the lungs to the cells. That is the part of the hamburger from a cow that ‘bleeds’. Scientists at Impossible Foods make the heme with the leghemoglobin and fermenting it with genetically engineered yeast.

Let’s say you want to make ice cream or cream cheese, but not use milk from a cow. A company called Perfect Day teamed up with agricultural company ADM to create milk proteins without the milk.

Perfect Day orders the necessary milk proteins, whey, and casein from a company with a genetic database that can send you actual genes in the mail. Scientists at Perfect Day combine these proteins in a fermentation tank with a specific synthetically-engineered microflora that ‘supercharges’ the proteins. Then the substance we think of ‘milk’ is created. They even have a non-fat ‘fat’ called Epogee to make the ice cream taste delicious without the calories.

Who would have thought fermenting fungi could create an edible protein? The company Enough also uses fermentation technology to create a meat-like substance, called ABUNDA, by fermenting fungi with sugar feedstocks from grains. This fermented meat substitute has fiber, all nine essential amino acids, vitamin B12, zinc, and iron.

Partnering with Unilever, Enough’s website states that producing one million tonnes of ABUNDA will replace five million cows, over 1.2 billion chickens and reduce more than five million tonnes of CO2.

Broadening synthetic applications

Of course, cows produce much more than just meat that we eat. At least 47% of the cow is used for leather, garden fertilizer, jet engine lubricants, tallow…the list is endless. Much of these synthetic materials replace the traditional cow hide, alligator skin, or spider silk. In one case, even jet engine lubricants.

The leather coat you wear, or the belt, even the shoes, all come from an animal – most likely cattle. Modern Meadow, however, is replacing animal-based leather with biofabrication using bio-engineered proteins and fermentation. They grow their protein cells with a yeast culture into collagen which, in turn, goes into making various materials (check out their very interesting process here).

A backpack out of mushrooms? Ecovative Design grows material using the familiar button mushrooms. By fermenting the mycelium – the root structure of the mushroom – they can turn proteins such as cellulose, lignin, collagen, or non-spider silk into strong, soft silk, leather, or even whole-cut meats.

The interesting phrase here is ‘whole-cut meats’. Normally, cell-based meats (those made in a lab) or plant-based meats lack the ‘scaffolding’ to hold it all together. That is why most of the alternative meats are made into a ‘hamburger’. But these fermented mushrooms from Evocative Design can grow into a structure that can help create a steak or a specific cut of meat.

Working in conjunction with Bolt Threads, the British fashion designer Stella McCarthy created a ‘leather’ purse out of the mycelium. Bolt Threads has created manmade spider silk ‘stronger than steel and softer than a cloud.’

Synthetic biology can now supercharge your vegetables, too. For instance, we all know that broccoli is good for us. Today, that saying has never had more meaning. Scientists in Singapore used synthetic biology to restructure a common and benign form of E. coli, Nissle, that is found in our gut. They engineered the bacteria into a probiotic that attaches to the cell of a cancerous tumor in the colon. These bacteria then secreted an enzyme – found in broccoli – into the cell. This concoction became an anti-cancer agent killing up to 75% of tumors in mice. In the future, this could be used as colon cancer prevention or a way to ‘mop up’ cancer cells after surgery, something just plain old broccoli can’t do.

Unfolding and reconstructing DNA

We have come a long way from Gregor Mendel when he began experimenting with crossbreeding pea plants in 1865.

DNA is the blueprint for every single organism. Synthetic biology can rearrange DNA to make whatever material or organism we want. This may sound confusing but let’s start with the basics.

We are familiar with computer coding using a combination of 0s and 1s. It always amazes me what you can do with just two numbers. Well, take four chemical building blocks identified primarily as their letters: A, C, T, G.

These chemical building blocks, called DNA, come together to form genes that instruct our cells to function how we want.

Our genes give us the color of our eyes, our height, and all the genetic codes that make us human. Remember Legos? You could build whatever was in your imagination: an airplane, a motorcycle, a spaceship, the list was endless. Think of the four letters in DNA as four different colored and shaped Lego pieces. Synthetic biology allows us to recreate the DNA in our food and other materials, essentially making our own Lego designs with whichever instructions we choose.

Mail-order genes?

What makes this easy – relatively – are companies that specialize in synthesizing and selling genes. They have what is called a genetic library. We used to go to a library to check out books. Now we look online to find the gene we want and get it delivered to our lab or office.  Twist Biosciences “gives you the flexibility to get the DNA you want, the way you want it. Think bigger, expand your design scope, and accelerate discovery”.

Illumina is sequencing the genes of all living organisms.

If someone is designing and building new products, Illumina provides the infrastructure to figure out the genetic pattern of the A, T, C, & Gs. Like the Legos, you need to make a structure so Illumina will tell you which genes you need.

 

A company like Ginko Bioworks will restructure the ‘Legos’, or genes, into what you want. But you can’t make the Lego airplane without knowing which pieces you need.

A company doesn’t need to have the technical skills to be a gene sequencer or a protein builder to make milk or meat – they only need certain starter feedstocks, usually sugars that come from grains. Then it goes through the fermentation process to make the desired proteins. For instance, if a company is an expert in fermentation, then they can order the genes they need from a company like Ginkgo Bioworks to make any kind of meat, milk, fabric, or building material.

The world needs protein!

Synthetic biology can synthesize parts of DNA to make plants more resilient to disease, have greater nutrition, and be resistant to climate change.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the most well-funded companies in the synthetic biology space are all focused on feeding people. A high-protein diet is more than a new eating craze — it’s essential to our health. Protein is essential not just after we run, jump, swim, or left weights.  It is the basic building block of life that “keeps the lights on” in our bodies.

Our growing world needs to fuel itself with protein. As COVID-19 continues to rage, it’s more important than ever that humans produce and consume enough protein to boost their immune system, heal from illness and injury, and move and store nutrients throughout the blood.

That is probably why the amount of protein consumed by the world is such a staggering number. The world eats about 467 million metric tons of protein a year. If you put all that meat in rail cars, how long is that train? It would go around the Earth’s equator almost two times.

And by 2035, those 532 million metric tonnes of protein will go around over two times, which is essentially adding a train of railcars going from coast to coast 2.5 times across the United States. The world needs to grow a lot of protein!

Precision fermentation won’t replace all protein, but it will certainly help fill up the rail cars. While we just focused on protein, the market has significantly more potential via the broader technology of synthetic biology.

There is a race between Europe, China, and the U.S. to have the most competitive technology and capture the most of the potential $31 billion in global revenue. That competition will spur excellence, innovation, and an expediated timeline.

This means sooner, rather than later, we may soon have our broccoli spears fighting cancer and grown in a lab down the road.

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The Gabels: From Wall Street to little Grassy Creek


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Farming is more than a business to people like Sandy and Laura Gabel. Sure, the money side of the farm is important. Very important. It takes money to run a 1,000-acre cow-calf operation anywhere, and it’s no different here in central North Carolina.

The cost of farming operations

Currently, little Grassy Creek has about 100 cows and 95 calves split among two herds. Separately, they have 17 replacement heifers (future moms, 3 bulls, and 2 or 3 feeders (cows on feed for harvesting). They all need shade from the summer sun and shelter from the winter winds, and of course careful monitoring for proper nutrition needs and overall health. Then there’s the cost of managing the artificial insemination program that produces healthy animals, as well as animals of the right type for this environment and with the ideal developmental traits.

Vet bills have to be considered, as is the cost of genetic specialists for upgrading the herd over the long term. Probiotic regimens that aid digestion and nutrient absorption also must be thought through. There’s always a need for some new machinery, or an addition to the storage barns, or improvements to the water storage and distribution system. But thinking and planning are just the first part of the job of raising cattle.

Some piece of equipment always seems to need maintenance or repair. The temporary fences that define different grazing areas have to be moved every day, and posts replaced when an ambitious cow decides to expand her horizons.

Fixed fences that define the farm boundaries need mending, and some surrounding scrubland will make good pasture when it’s cleared. Existing grasses and ground covers need to be managed constantly to preserve productivity.

Here, no-till and other soil-protecting practices are the long-held norms, not some new idea or government dictate.

The herds have to be patiently shepherded from one grazing area to the next, and the temporary wire fences (none barbed, ever) relocated. And there always seems to be a few calves that need that little something extra to thrive – special food, special medication, or just plain old special personal attention.

Then there are the other animals that seem to have accumulated since it all started here in the early 2000s. Seven horses, including a couple of rescues. Alpacas Max and Ziggy – another rescue story.

Chickens and guineas, and of course the German shepherd pup Shadow and big sister golden retriever Lynka curled up quietly in front of the iron stove in the corner.

From 5:30 a.m. till well after everyone else has gone to bed, there’s something that needs to be done. Something else that needs to be considered. Some new idea to think about, or some potential problem to head off.

Longing for longer days

“You never get everything done,” Sandy says in passing, with Laura nodding energetically in agreement.

Why would anyone give up a successful three-decade career in the high-flying world of the New York insurance industry for a life like this? What makes the bucolic world of cattle-raising in the rural mid-South more appealing than a life on Wall Street? In Laura’s case, why pass up the prominent career in education she enjoyed? Why trade all that for this?

“No, it’s a lot more than money,” says Sandy, in what soon proves to be his usual measured, quiet and reflective voice. “It’s more about finding something that gives real satisfaction.” He continues,

“Maybe satisfaction isn’t exactly the right word. This is passion.”

As sincere as his answer obviously is, it seems a little hard to accept – at first. But spend a day with Sandy and Laura, and you quickly recognize they probably have nailed it exactly right. It’s not just a chance to make a living. It’s a chance to actually live.

Sandy and I ride one of his well-worn ATVs for a quick tour of the farm, and an introduction to the cows and calves that wander slowly and quietly around us, like a rising tide of brownish-red Herefords. “We should have 110 moms, come September,” he observes as we ride among this particular herd. He sounds surprisingly like a proud parent.

“I’m really a grass farmer,” Sandy jokes as we ride. “I spend so much time thinking about what grass to plant, how to get it to grow, how to make sure it will stay productive. Grass is everything for an operation like this.”

We all seem to be so very – content. The sky is bright Carolina blue, the lush grass Sandy manages so carefully is so green that Ireland would be envious. The air is rich with the smell of nature. “You see the beauty of this every day, everywhere,” Sandy says in passing, almost under his breath. “In the animals. In the land. In everything.” On this day at least, God is in His Heaven and all is right with the world.

“How can anyone not be moved by this – at least a little?” Sandy just smiles, the corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly at the visitor’s revelation of what he discovered long ago. “The word you’re looking for is serenity,” he says. And he is absolutely right.

Creating new roots

The die for this special kind of life probably was cast very early in life. Sandy’s father was another successful businessman who grew up on a farm outside New York – not a play farm but a real working farm, with cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, and more.

Even as Sandy’s father toiled at his career in the Big Apple, he also enjoyed the farm life on his own special North Carolina retreat, not all that far from where we sit today. Farming is in this family’s genes.

Graduating from nearby Duke University also probably played a role in Sandy’s decision-making. The growing Raleigh metropolitan area long ago swallowed up the old family farm that gave the family so much satisfaction. But proceeds from its sale provided the seeds for little Grassy Creek Farm between the state capital and the Virginia border. Initially, the land needed a lot of patient work to restore its productivity, “and to clear out a hundred years of accumulated garbage,” Sandy remembers.

The farm has grown steadily over the years, in size and sophistication, and so has the satisfaction that it provides. So what’s the secret, the magic formula for making the demanding world of cattle raising so satisfying?

“Our goal isn’t to maximize profits,” Sandy says over a cup of hot tea after our farm tour. “We probably could make more money selling specialized beef products to some of the local markets. I might even make more money planting some pastureland to specialty hays for the horse-feed market. But that’s not our big objective.”

The obvious follow-up question: what is?

“To leave something for the future…a sustainable farm for the future… something important… something worthwhile.” Sandy and Laura say the same things, almost in unison.

We’re trying to build up an operation for our kids and future generations, they explain. We want to leave behind a farm that is built around doing the right thing in every aspect of our operation. In how we treat the cows. How we protect the land and the water. In finding better ways to produce beef, and do it in a way that works best for all of us, from the animal to the farmer to the consumer. In making farming an appealing way of doing something important in the world and finding joy in doing it.

“People today simply don’t understand our agricultural system,” Sandy says. “They take it for granted. They need to see how modern farming is important to all of us, and the whole world around us. To our common future.”

Laura agrees completely. “I think it’s fun to have people come out to the farm and just walk around and look at what goes on here,” she says.

“Giving folks a chance to ask questions gives children – and adults, too, for that matter – is the best way I can think of to teach them about what we do.”

On-site visits may be the best way to educate people, but it’s far from the only way.

“I’ve started posting a few short videos on our farm Facebook page that show some of the tasks that go on around here,” she adds. “There’s one with Sandy baling round bales, and there’s one with Sandy feeding the replacement heifers.

You can hear him telling them ‘good morning’ which is something he always does – and that’s one reason why our herd is so settled and docile. Sandy’s out there every day among them, and it makes a difference.”

When Sandy and Laura say things like that, it doesn’t sound idealistic, and certainly not corny. These are people who don’t just say things like “do the right thing” and “leave something lasting for everyone.” They mean it. They live it.

And after a too-short day with them, I see that they are right. And I know I should want to, too.

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Serving Up Sustainability at Fast Food Restaurants


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According to the CDC, 36% of Americans eat fast food daily. That’s almost 90 million people going to a fast-food restaurant every single day. And most have three items: chicken/hamburger/salad, a drink, and fries.

That’s well over 286 million individual wrappings, cups, straws, and clamshells thrown away day after day.

The 325,000 total fast-food locations across the U.S. present a massive opportunity to curb waste and boost sustainability efforts based on the sheer scale of fast-food chains. And the opportunity extends far deeper when you consider the effects these companies have on their supply chains to practice these efforts.

Whether it is Starbucks testing out an entirely plant-based menu, McDonald’s trialing a plastic-free concept store, Subway changing the companies they source their ingredients from, KFC pledging that all consumer-facing plastic packaging will be recoverable by 2025, or Taco Bell committing to make all of its packaging compostable and recyclable, each of these businesses is leading the way in their industry’s sustainability efforts.

These initiatives are honorable and necessary to combat our growing environmental crisis, but we are left with some questions:

  • Will the consumer be willing to pay more for sustainability?
  • What practices actually work to reduce their carbon footprint and decrease waste and pollution?
  • Furthermore, which third-party companies regulate these “green” claims?  Or are they internally regulated? If so, do we trust that internal oversight?

But first…will we pay more for less waste? 

It is a mixed bag. A Nielsen study from October 2015 showed that 66% of global consumers are willing to shell out more money for sustainable goods. Of those global consumers, millennials rank the highest in support of sustainability and willingness to pay with an overwhelming 73% on board.

A 2018 analysis from Statista supports this claim, detailing which age groups are willing to pay more, and even went so far as to break out how much more they are willing to pay.

A recent survey by GreenPrint found that nearly 64% of consumers are willing to pay more for eco-friendly products, but almost 75% of them struggle with how to identify these products.

How do they know what they are getting is more sustainable? A challenge many fast-food companies are looking to solve.

But do these polls convert to actual shopping behaviors? The brand giant, Unilever, found that while about 4 out of 5 people say they are inclined to buy from environmentally-friendly companies, consumers don’t actually follow through with their wallets.

Other studies show a consistent gap between purchase intentions and behaviors. Despite polling about environmental concerns and reported positive attitudes of consumers towards green products, it is estimated still that only about 25% of those attitudes translate into spending. Consumer cognitive dissonance will always be a challenge with data gathering and polling biases.

The question is who bears the cost of innovation in sustainable packaging until enough volume is achieved to be competitive with existing packaging? Is it the producer? The fast-food restaurants? The consumer? What is the inelastic price point where the consumer just won’t pay more for sustainable food? Would consumers pay 10 cents more per burger at McDonald’s to help share the cost of sustainability? For instance, McDonald’s sells 2.36 billion burgers every year. That would bring an additional $236 million in “sustainability” sales.

What methods of “green” packaging really make a difference in the fast-food world?

The Dogwood Alliance recently detailed a best-practices roadmap for “greening” fast-food packaging. It said that environmental stakeholders must make sustainability a corporate priority and this starts from the ground up. Foundational steps include embracing corporate leadership on sustainability, using a full life-cycle supply-chain approach, reducing overall packaging, and increasing efficiency.

As you drill down past the foundational level, the next tier requires that fast-food companies increase their usage of recycled and/or biodegradable fibers, work to eliminate paper originating from controversial forestry practices, increase in-store recycling and recovery, eliminate toxic inks and labels, and change the composition, weight, and size of its packaging.

Fast-food companies have taken note and have mirrored sustainability efforts after these key principles, rather than arbitrarily creating a set of their own green goals.

But here I am, an educated consumer left with one overwhelming question in my head…

How in the world am I going to figure out if the fast-food companies I choose to enjoy actually follow these standards?

Fear not: there’s a website that will do most of the heavy lifting for you.

Green Restaurant Association tracks businesses and measures food companies based on their environmental footprint, ethical workplace practices, animal welfare commitments, product safety, and marketing strategies to children.

Who is regulating these green initiatives?

Many small brands turn to organizations like Climate Neutral, Foundation Myclimate, and Global Ecolabelling Network for their stamp of approval.

However, not all companies operate or seek to be wholly verified by a third party, especially the big guys. McDonald’s and PepsiCo, for example (the latter owns KFC and Taco Bell), have crafted internal policies to address green initiatives and environmental efforts.

These companies have made similar statements, claiming to work towards the conservation of natural resources, recycling, pollution control, and the pursuit of alternative oils that can be repurposed. While these green plans appear robust and thoughtful, is internal governance enough for consumers to trust that these initiatives really are being put in place?

Good governance is critical to managing our impact on the world. Our governance structures help us to prioritize ESG issues effectively and guide our actions and performance across issues. Engagement with our Board of Directors, cross-functional leadership teams and working groups, and Franchisees and suppliers ensures we have robust governance mechanisms in place to manage these issues and can deliver long-term value for stakeholders.

— excerpt from McDonald’s Purpose and Impact statement

While internal governance is critical, it is not the only means of approvals and certifications that big chains use to provide consumer trust and verification. They may not work with regulatory bodies that can put a stamp on an entire organization. But most of them do, in fact, work with a rigorous group of organizations at an ingredient level to ensure they are meeting and/or exceeding the requirements for their sustainability goals.

What about sustainable food ingredients? 

The influence fast-food restaurants have on overall sustainability is tremendous. Holding their suppliers accountable has far-reaching benefits as many of their producers also sell to grocery store chains. Fast food companies are now answering questions. Where does the meat come from? Is it grown humanely? Is chocolate or coffee grown with fair labor practices? How do we know?

We spoke with Christy Johnson, former Vice President at Papa John’s International Inc., who shared some insights as to how they make “better ingredients, better pizza.” Johnson explained that while there is no overarching regulatory body, they partner with organizations such as the Whole Wheat Council to ensure that their crust is 90% whole grain, and with the Clean Label Project for their toppings so they comply with their regulations. Papa John’s even went so far as to remove 14 ingredients back in 2016 that were not up to the standards of these partners.

While this might mean Papa John’s spends more than $100 million each year to ensure that they are implementing and maintaining these clean label changes, it also offers an avenue of trust for the consumer.

“Papa John’s attempts to always be fully transparent—sharing data and information with the consumer about how and where ingredients are sourced, as well as the mechanisms for ensuring the best quality is imperative for consumer trust.”

– Christy Johnson, Former Vice President at Papa John’s

How to present meaningful data that’s impactful for the consumer

Nicolas Brosens, Strategic Sourcing Officer at McDonald’s, turned the idea of internal regulation on its head, explaining that it is less about the consumer-facing regulatory stamps and data than it is about true transparency and traceability initiatives. McDonald’s is currently working to create a network on their website where consumers can eventually type in an ingredient or menu item and see where it came from, how it is treated, what the environmental impact is, and so on, as verified by their farming partners, processors, etc.

McDonald’s has long been a leader in the sustainability space, and it continues to be at the forefront of sourcing, packaging, and general renewables. As it turns out, McDonald’s, and most large fast-food companies, have a slew of data points on various sustainable measures, sourcing information, green analytics, and more. It is not a matter of having the data; it is a matter of figuring out how to present that data in a meaningful and impactful way to the consumer.

As in the case of Papa John’s, many certifications are held at an ingredient level. McDonald’s shares a similar model, with ethical sourcing as a critical part of their overall sustainability strategy. They have partnered with organizations like RSPCA, FARM, Forest Stewardship Council, PEFCTM, Conservation International, RSPO, ProTerra, RTRS, GRSB, AIM-Progress, and others to help them regulate and monitor the traceability of all ingredients, including ingredients in their livestock feed products.

Coffee is another industry where certification comes into play with regulation. Brosens stated that all coffee and coffee beans in the EU are certified by the Rainforest Alliance, while other regional McDonald’s work with the Fair Trade Organization — deforestation being a massive component of their green strategy.

While the efforts being made by many fast-food chains are progressive and impactful, this does not mean that all fast-food chains are as committed to going green. It is also important to note that many of these companies are in the inception stage and have set goals of five, ten, fifteen years from now till the next impact measure.

Here is a list of a few companies and their environmental strategies and/or sustainability reports so you can make an informed decision on where your next drive-thru order will come from!

                        McDonald’s  |  Papa Johns  |  Taco Bell  |  Panera                                                                           Starbucks  |  KFC  |  Chick-fil-A                                                 

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What do probiotics have to do with it? Why soil health matters.

Dirt to Dinner is pleased to have Renée Vassilos contribute to our site. Renée is The Nature Conservancy’s Director of Agriculture Innovation where she manages investments in companies practicing regenerative agriculture. Previously, Renée worked at John Deere, including several years in Beijing, building global market product strategies, design and manufacture equipment, and marketing and sales. She also led her consulting firm, Banyan Innovation Group, advising growth-stage agriculture technology start-ups and investors. Renée has a BS and MS in agricultural economics from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana and University of California, Davis respectively.

Probiotics: For Our Body and Our Soil

As you’re walking through grocery store aisles, I suspect you’ve seen items labeled as ‘prebiotic’ and ‘probiotic’. Much of this push comes from a compelling and growing body of research around the critical role our complex gut microbiome plays in our immune system. Our immune system’s role is to protect our body from outside invaders, such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi. This system is made up of different organs, cells, and proteins all working together. We can either support or hinder our gut health by what we consume.

David Montgomery and Anne Bikle’s book, The Hidden Half of Nature, puts it simply:

“It’s not only how much we eat, but also what we eat and what lives within us that matters.”

In parallel to this growing body of knowledge around the role of our gut microbiome, there is a growing and compelling body of research around the critical role of the soil microbiome.

We are learning a tremendous amount about the role the soil microbiome plays in healthy environmental ecosystems. The soil microbiome is a complex group of microorganisms that can be found in soil, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microbial forms of life. At the farm-level ecosystem, the benefits of improved soil microbiome include higher rates of productivity and profitability over the long term. At the societal level ecosystem, the benefits of boosting the soil microbiome are even more profound, including improved water quality, filtration, and storage; richer biodiversity; and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, mitigating the impacts of climate change.

It is because of these profound ecosystem benefits we at The Nature Conservancy have a critical body of work focused on rebuilding the U.S. soil microbiome. We refer to this as rebuilding soil health, the equivalent of rebuilding gut health. Since 2016,  TNC scientists, economists, and policy experts are focused on executing our roadmap to soil health and getting us closer to our audacious goal: 50% of U.S. cropland under adaptive soil health systems by 2025. The core focus of this brilliant team is to scale four critical practices we know are part of adaptive soil health systems: maintaining a living root in soils, minimizing tillage or disturbance, increasing crop diversity, and optimizing nutrient application.

This critical work towards our goal continues with our team of scientists, economists, and policy experts at the national level and at the tactical, boots-on-the-ground level. In 2019, however, it was acknowledged that we were not moving fast enough towards our goal. We needed to think about other ways to expedite change. How could we tap into innovation to drive farming for soil health?

Taking a Seat at the Venture Investment Table

We believe there is tremendous opportunity to drive progress towards adaptive soil health systems through innovation. We believe that TNC’s investments in those innovations will send a critical signal to other investors around the opportunity to invest for returns and impact. To date, TNC has invested in five companies. Their solutions are wide-ranging:

  • Kula Bio is developing an organic alternative to synthetic nitrogen with the potential for localized production.
  • Swarm Farm is developing an autonomous tractor that will provide farm enterprises a cost-effective way to practice precision application of inputs. This eliminates unnecessary treatments.
  • Growers Edge is a financial technology company that is using warranties to help de-risk the adoption of new technologies on-farm. We are working with them to develop a warranty to de-risk the practices we know build soil health.
  • Stony Creek Colors provides the enabling services for farmers to diversify crop rotations with crops that can be used for plant-derived dye.
  • Pattern Ag provides soil microbiome analysis and recommendations for input optimization on farm.

Our work continues to support the transformation towards large scaling farming of adaptive soil health systems.

What can you do to support the transformation?

Start with your own microbiome. What foods foster your healthy gut microbiome? How do you see these efforts improving the overall health of your immune system? Then you can make that intellectual leap to the microbiome needed in the soil for it to thrive and support plant growth. The better our collective understanding and appreciation for our gut microbiome, the easier it will be for all to make the connection to the soil microbiome and a recognition of how critical it is to move the needle on soil health for our collective planetary ecosystem.

An excellent resource to read, David Montgomery and Anne Biklé, The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health. You can also watch them discuss their book.

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Can Rural America Lead in AgTech?

Lucy recently spoke at a Boy Scouts of America event hosting community business leaders and politicians in Pennsylvania. She chose to speak about rural America’s potential to pave the way for the future of agricultural innovations.

Below is her speech.

Thank you for the introduction, Jeff Homer, President of Grovedale Winery. And thank you to the Andaste District Scouts for having me here tonight to speak to all of you about my favorite subjects: agriculture, food, and the technologies that lead us.

Even though my experience as a Girl Scout was very brief, the Boy Scouts are near and dear to my heart because my husband is an Eagle Scout and has remained involved with the Scouts for years. In fact, the Scouts are one of the reasons we are married.

When he asked my father to marry me, surprised for sure as we had only been dating a couple of months, he said no. But then, when my parents discovered that Mark was an Eagle Scout, they embraced him warmly.

So, my advice to you is to forget match.com – just become an Eagle Scout and make sure your future wife’s family knows it. You see, being a Scout – especially an Eagle Scout – still means something in this world. It signaled to my parents more than anything that Mark would be a good husband and father.

The Scouts are about character. Your values: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent –set you apart from many in our country. You cannot be a leader with virtue. What the scouts teach are the virtues needed for children to grow into good citizens.

I love how these values coincide with the American farmer. Every day we can thank a farmer for what is on our plate. America has one of the most affordable, clean, safe, and efficient food systems in the world. This is accomplished by hard-working people who have a strong purpose to bring food to your table.

I think a lot about agriculture, science, and food…

My interest in food really solidified when I had children. Two of them, including myself, have a blood disorder. To keep our immune systems strong, our pediatrician told me to make sure we ate well. What did that mean? I thought that it simply meant organic. But as I investigated further, I began to understand that there are many ways to bring healthy, safe, clean food to the dinner table.

The grocery store was – and still is – telling me that hormones are terrible in milk (all cows have hormones), GMOs are frankenfood , glyphosate – the main chemical in the weed killer Roundup – is poisoning our food, gluten is causing everything from allergies to back pain, and chickens raised indoors, cattle at the feedlot, and dairy cows in the milking parlor are experiencing animal welfare issues.

So other than starve to death – what was I supposed to do?

I started visiting farms, feedlots, dairy farms, and saw that none of this was true. Sure, some farmers and farms are better than others, but this dichotomy made me uncomfortable, and I wanted the truth to be told That’s why I started my blog, Dirt to Dinner. Our mission is to inspire curiosity, knowledge, and action about our food from the farmer’s field to the dinner table, using science as our guide.

I recently had the chance to think about agriculture from a unique perspective…the seat of my motorcycle. My husband, one of our sons, and I love to ride through the beautiful Pennsylvania countryside on our bikes.

As the wind was whipping by me and the rows of corn and dairy farms faded into a blur – I started thinking about how important our farmers are who grow our corn, meat, dairy, soybeans, fruits, and vegetables to feed the 7.71 billion of us on Earth. In less than four years, that number will jump to over 8 billion. This global increase of 400 million more people is more than the population in our entire country – in less than four years.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that we need 60% more food to feed the extra two billion people by 2050. It sounds like a long way away. But for those of you who are teenagers, you’ll be in your 50s. You are the ones that will shape the world you inherit.

How are you going to make sure the world is what you want it to be?

Will the farmer growing the corn I whizzed by have fresh water? Will he, or she, create and maintain healthy soil? Will we be eating meat from animals or foods made in a lab? And if it is grown in a lab, what does that mean for rural America and the farming communities that sustain it? At D2D we talk a lot about technology and how that is shaping our food system. It is the future. And I wonder if we are all prepared?

Logically, you might think that to produce more food, we need more land to farm. The good news? We can do this on existing agricultural land because of innovations in agricultural technology. And, personally, I love companies that solve problems and deliver solutions.

In the ’90s, someone told me that I would have my own personal phone number that would be carried around with me. I thought, ‘What is wrong with our house phone?’ Look at what sticks in our back pocket now. It is not just our phone number: it is movies, games, the internet of things. That is in my adult lifetime. Think of agriculture as making the same leaps.

Examining the challenges of sustainability

Sustainability means that our generation leaves your generation with clean water, healthy soil, no child labor, fair labor practices, animal welfare, enough water, clean air…the list is endless. Basically growing food with Scout values – meaning – Do the right thing.

And the first place to start answering that question is by starting at our feet. The next time you’re outside around dirt – pick up a small handful – and take a good look. Did you know that you would be looking at more microbes than all 7.8 billion people on Earth today? A small handful of soil has more diversity than all the frogs, plants, monkeys, birds, panthers, miniature elephants, and other billions of species in the vast, vast Amazon Rainforest.

Stop. Think about that for a minute…just in a handful of soil. All these fungi, insects, bacteria, and algae happily coexist in the soil keep us alive by growing our food. They control pathogens, reduce plant disease outbreaks, give plants nutrients, keep them resilient, give them energy to pull carbon out of the air, make land less prone to wind and water erosion, clean and filter water, and finally are a source of human medicine.

Here’s a great example of a very well-educated farmer who makes the most of his soil. Last summer we rode our motorcycles down to Trout Run to see Dave Albert’s farm, Misty Mountain.

Dave is the sixth generation of his family to farm the land. His ancestor and his wife immigrated to Philadelphia from Germany. After they got acclimated to their new country, they walked 200 miles to Trout Run pushing a wheelbarrow with their belongings.

Today Dave has a successful beef operation growing corn, soybeans, oats, barley, and canola to feed their cattle, sheep, and pastured poultry. How?

Dave became a soil expert reading about regenerative ag and is applying that to his farm today. He knows his soil is healthy because he can achieve the same yield per acre as conventional farmers with little to no herbicides and pesticides. He understands the power of the mighty microbes.

There’s more than one way

Big multinational companies, like Bayer and Mosaic, and smaller start-ups, like MyLand and AgBiome, are also changing the way we look and use soil.

Each farm has its own microalgae in the soil – just like we all have our own gut microbiome. Mine is different from yours and yours is different from your siblings. This company looks at which algae is essential to that specific farm. They then grow those algae in small vessels with lights and correct temperature. They make millions of cells – and sprays it back onto the soil using the farm’s irrigation system. in a tractor-trailer housed on the farm. The farm then uses less fertilizer, less water and increases their yield and thus their revenue.

Another company looks at all the soil microbes that kill insects, fungus, and weeds. They sequence the DNA, grow them in a lab, and take them out to spray on the field to have healthy crops – without pesticides and herbicides. Healthy soil, healthy planet.

These companies are leading agriculture to sustainability while making the difference between profitability and bankruptcy for family farms.

Animals can benefit, too…

It is not just soil that has excellent new technologies with sustainability. Animal welfare – taking care of our animals whether they are in a feedlot getting fat for our dinner plates, giving us milk to drink, ice cream, and mozzarella cheese, or chickens giving us eggs or chicken salad sandwiches is the right thing to do.

How do we keep track of all these animals? If one is not feeling well, they might tell you by a droopy head, not eating, not socializing. But when a farmer has hundreds of cattle on the range or in the dairy barn – it is hard to tell how each one is feeling. And often when they are sick, it is too late and you have to call the vet.

Today, it is not going a problem to keep track of them. Anyone wearing an Apple Watch or Fitbit?

Great – so is the cow.

Just like our watches – the cow version of fit bit is a necklace they wear. Where they are (important on the range), whether they are socializing, their body temperature, how much they are eating, and if they are a dairy cow, how much milk they are producing. One company does facial recognition for dairy cows instead of a necklace – because necklaces fall off.

These technologies relay information to sensors on gates and after leaving the milking parlor, if a cow is deemed to have a problem, she is automatically sorted into a ‘sick pen’. The herd manager immediately receives a text on his phone and goes to attend to the cow so she can be taken care of before she gets so sick that she needs antibiotics. Or if it is cattle on the range, the herd manager also receives this information on his phone. He, or she, can even move the cattle from pasture to pasture from sensors on the gates.

This unique technology is not only a more humane approach; it enhances the margin for the farmer by keeping their animals healthy which then makes the farmer more competitive in the market.

Alt meat’s place in the global food system

Of course, no conversation about cows would be complete without including alternative meats.

The world is also full of carnivores. According to Research and Markets, alternative meat consumption, mostly alt-poultry, beef, and pork, is projected to have a compounded annual growth rate of 7.4% through 2025. Did you know Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America will drive 83% of this growth?

As more and more people come out of poverty thanks to the free market, they can afford and consume more meat. Once people begin making more than $5,000 a year – yes, a year – they start incorporating protein in their diets.

Right now, the world eats about 300 million metric tons of meat a year. That doesn’t include sheep and goats. If you put all that meat in a rail-cars, how long is that train? It would go around the Earth’s equator almost two times.

I am so curious as to what will happen with the future of meat. Will this industry be entirely disrupted? It just might. There are four different ways to get meat.

How many of you have had the Impossible Burger or Beyond Burger? These are burgers made out of pea protein, potato protein, water, coconut or canola oil, and several other ingredients. They are not necessarily healthier or cheaper than a lean beef burger but they have created a lot of excitement. It is a great ‘meat’ option for vegans and vegetarians. And both CEOs are committed to improving the technology.

The other non-meat option is grown in a lab. It is called cell-based meat. For instance, Upside Foods, takes cells from a particular part of a cow, duck, and chicken and grows them in a lab to make flank steak, duck breast, or chicken thighs. We went to visit them in San Francisco. It was an impressive lab for sure. But this technology is challenging as you need science technicians to literally babysit the cells, cull out the bad ones, and feed the good ones so they can grow into a meal.

The cell-based meat was initially about $5,000 a hamburger. So, you haven’t seen it on the dollar menu at McDonald’s.

Not yet…

Finally, there is synthetic biology. This is the future. Many of you are familiar with the 0s and 1s used for computer programming. It always amazes me what you can do with just two numbers. Well, take four letters instead: A, C, T, G.

They make up our DNA – and all DNA of every single living organism. Your DNA is the blueprint for your body. Each one of your cells holds this six-foot-long strand tightly wrapped and folded within the nucleus.

Synthetic biology can change the genetic code within an organism and make it do something it might not do otherwise. Or, put another way, we can create food, medicine, lumber, clothing in entirely unconventional and different ways.

Ginkgo Bioworks can make vegan ice cream by programing and fermenting yeast to create the perfect milk protein. Ecovative Design ‘grows materials’ with mycelium – the root structure of a mushroom to grow meat that tastes like crab cakes or bacon.

We need all tools in our toolbelts to thrive

As I said before there are four ways to make meat. Don’t buy into ‘canceling’ out an entire industry. We can’t say, “Oh it’s better for the earth if we just make our food in a lab” and then wipe out traditional ways of raising meat. Because that does more than remove cows and chickens from our diets – it removes much of rural America’s way of life. Also, we will need all ways to feed a growing population who need protein in their diets.

Food can unite people – let’s not let it divide people. My point here is we do not need a protein war like we have a political and culture war between our very own shores.

The technologies I have just discussed are all successful – today. But they were generated on the backs of many, many failures. Rumor has it Edison tried 1000 times for the lightbulb. Everyone who has had success has failed. I certainly have.

Being a leader means stepping out and just get started.

I was worried about starting D2D. Take a risk my uncle said! If it doesn’t work – then shut it down. So far – so good. We are trying to take a leadership role by encouraging and embracing new and safe technologies that can increase our yield and grow our food in the most sustainable and healthy way.

Being a leader means taking the values you cherish as a scout and making a difference in your community – your world.

One of my favorite D2D stories is about Farm Link. During COVID, a college-aged boy was sitting around at his kitchen table – maybe a bit bored. His mother said, go out and do something – make a difference. So he and three of his friends linked the food waste problem in our country with food banks. Food waste is a serious issue: if you were to grow a garden the size of a football field, take all the food from the 40-yard line to the goal post – and throw it away. That is how much food is wasted every day.

The goal of Farm Link is simple: to rescue wasted and surplus food from farms and connect them with food banks around the country in need of food. This was especially poignant during Covid.

The time is now

Here is where you can come in. One of the worries for our country is the decline of income in rural American. I see the problems of rural America when I fly my Super Cub over the countryside. (I also love to fly airplanes). Even from 500 feet over the ground, you can tell that some farms are thriving, and some are struggling or non-existent with junk in the front yard.

Much of our manufacturing has moved to China. A bigger worry is that we have put cheap pharmaceuticals, furniture, clothes, and almost everything we buy ahead of American jobs. But the one thing we have not exported is our food.

We grow enough food to food 350 million people plus many in the rest of the world. But we can’t if we don’t accept technology and try new things. America exports our corn, soybeans, meat, fruits, and vegetables.

How can you link the need for income growth in rural America with our food security? Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Texas North Carolina are all states that are attracting businesses. Why not Pennsylvania? Why not change the tax and regulatory code in the county where you live to bring in new types of business thus creating jobs and income?

Why not grow fish in the middle of our state? The oceans are certainly getting overfished. You really don’t know whether you are eating cod or grouper? Is your fish really Chilean sea bass or something grown in China? Honestly, we have no idea. How about home-grown fish in rural America? It is a unique idea for sure, but why not grow salmon, shrimp, tilapia all indoors in a clean safe environment and truck them fresh to the grocery store?

A high percentage of Americans are obese, have diabetes, heart disease, or cancer. Much of that can be changed with our diets. Just eat five to seven servings of fruits and vegetables a day. But access to affordable produce is tough. It is cheaper to eat a box of macaroni and cheese with a hamburger than eating your required fruit and vegetable servings. So how to make it easier, more affordable, and more accessible? What about vertical farming? Nutritious fresh produce delivered that is grown hydroponically right to the market is wonderful – especially in the wintertime. This is a new and expanding industry that grows lettuce and other produce year-round?

We can reinvigorate rural America – places where traditional manufacturing and industry have abandoned our towns and counties – but we can only do this by being open to new and innovative ways of doing old things…— it starts not with governments or industries but us – people just like you…

It will take pioneers – friendly and courteous and educated and helping one another along the way…you can be today’s pioneers. You don’t have to be Elon Musk or Richard Branson.

Millions of Americans have gone before you and done it. They were not all wealthy. Most had no connections and had left behind everything they knew – think of Dave Albert’s ancestors. Scouts, you can create your own legacy of making the world a better place. That is the definition of a good life and what all people of character strive for.

Thank you all for your time tonight.

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Getting nutrition info from social media? Think again…


On the run? LISTEN to our post!

Food Trends on Social Media

Social media is a space for finding trends: music, videos, life hacks, fashion, food. On Instagram, there are over 3 million posts containing #avocado, 1.7 million with #kale, and over 1 million with #quinoa. Just a few years ago, we had never even heard of some of these, let alone labeled them as healthy, trendy, or superfoods.

Pinterest’s “food and drink” category has long been a hotspot for millions of popular recipes, videos, and photos. Facebook and Twitter, of course, contribute their fair share as well, escalating the White Claw viral craze in 2019 that led to a national shortage, and also the Twitter feud between Popeyes and Chick-fil-A.

More recently, the feta pasta recipe craze on Tik Tok led to empty feta shelves at grocery stores. And these are just a couple of examples that demonstrate the power of social media on our food distribution systems.

Now, if social media can do all this with food, imagine what they can do to our minds. With an overabundance of information on nutrition, health, and food all in one place displayed in fun and memorable ways, it’s no surprise that more people are getting their health information from social media than ever before.

Viral Nutritional (Mis)information

What’s worrisome is that social media can also spread information on nutrition just as fast as it causes disruptions in the food supply chain. I noticed it first-hand when I couldn’t find feta at my local supermarket during the height of the TikTok’s pasta craze.

Since the start of COVID-19, many users have been taking to Tik Tok to share what they eat and why and encourage others to do the same. For example, keto and low-carb are two huge trends on social media right now. Eating in a calorie deficit, meaning eating fewer calories than what you’re burning off in a given day, is another.

Almost every other video I see in my feed pertains to one of these categories (I take partial blame because clearly, the algorithm knows what videos I stay on). And while I know my body needs both carbs and calories, some people don’t understand that, and they could easily take to the wrong diet.

Many registered nutritionists and dietitians also have accounts on these platforms, intending to inform users of what’s true and not. One account, @NutritionalSarah, drives home the research behind a well-balanced diet and even answers questions her followers have on food. She follows more of an intuitive-eating diet, meaning she feeds her body what it wants without counting calories or macro and micro-nutrients.

Is This Filling the Education Gap?

A report released in July 2020 from Tufts University’s Federal Nutrition Research Advisory Group said that one of the reasons we are facing a health crisis in America is because there’s a lack of education on nutrition. There are two reasons for this. First, there are so many diet trends popping up that it’s hard to keep track of what’s right and wrong. Should I start Keto or Paleo? Should I start eating vegan? Should I only eat plant-based? The list goes on and on.  Second, there’s no governing unit at the federal level to oversee what research is being done and how to get the science to consumers.

Experts at Mintel say that health was the top priority of many Americans in 2020. It led to an increase in demand for nutritious food and drinks as many wanted to strengthen their immune systems in the wake of COVID-19. And, Mintel states, the demand for educational food facts is predicted to continue growing over the next couple of years.

Since the beginning of Covid, many of us actively seek out legitimate health information to increase overall health and well-being during this stressful time. But how can we be sure our sources of information and inspiration are valid, and not just fluff or, even worse, flat-out dangerous to our health?

The “Influencer-Turned-Nutritionist”

Many of the people online who influence our diets and the foods we eat are not nutritionists or doctors. Social media platforms, especially Instagram and Tik Tok, are dominated by celebrity influencers or just attractive people who steer others toward specific trends, foods, clothes, and more.

These influencers post more “nutrition” information than ever before, including promoting specific diets, foods, and drinks to their followers without providing fact-based information. Many of them are paid by partners and sponsors to post positively about products. For example, the Kardashians are paid by Fit Tea to say they drink the tea every day to achieve their desired figure.

But sometimes nutrition misinformation is not entirely the influencer’s fault. Their followers crave a role model to follow, especially for what they eat every day. Are you plant-based? Do you consume dairy? And should I follow the same diet?

As we learned from Jack Bobo, our brain has a strong tendency to take in selective evidence to confirm our existing beliefs. This is called confirmation bias. Also, we are bombarded with information that is both confusing and fearful. Jack Bobo also points out that when it comes time to make a decision, our brain is in overload and takes the easiest path possible to decide.

Especially for those who are easily influenced, copying others on social media is the same as mimicking whatever the popular girl did in school. Just as we thought she had it all figured out, we believe the same of influencers. Finally, it’s hard to know the difference between someone who studied the subject and someone who did not.

Examining Influencers in the Nutrition Realm

Here are some of the internet’s most popular influencers-turned-nutritionists:

When perusing your next social media feed that may or may not have one of these influencers, practice good research skills to avoid falling down a hole of social media information. Want some tips to help on your fact-finding journey? Scroll further down…

  1. Janelle Rohner – Janelle is both Instagram and Tik Tok-famous, with over 4 million followers. At first, she was your one-stop shop for all things keto. But now, she is gaining fame through much more. Recently, she’s promoted swapping every carb with bell peppers. And she also eats cucumbers dipped in Stevia instead of watermelon.
  2. The Kardashians – I know we already mentioned them before, but it’s worth doing so again because they’re paid to promote many different “nutrition” remedies. Not only were they paid to sell Fit Tea, promising to make women skinny by just drinking a cup a day, but they also endorsed “diet lollipops” that stopped you from being hungry.
  3. Gwyneth Paltrow – Gwyneth Paltrow has been on everyone’s radars the last few years. As the creator of GOOP and a well-known celebrity, it’s no surprise that she’s come forward as an active nutrition influencer online, as well. She promoted “intuitive fasting”, two diet methods that totally contradict each other. Intuitive eating is about listening to your body when it tells you you’re hungry by promoting mindfulness, while intermittent fasting requires consuming your daily caloric intake within a specified amount of time. For example, consuming your meals within eight hours during the day.
  4. Katie Price – Katie Price gained her fame from both reality TV and modeling. She faced backlash for similar reasons to Kim Kardashian. Price promoted an appetite suppressant on her Instagram page to over 2 million followers. The advertisement was for a weight-loss shot by BoomBod.
  5. Miranda Kerr – Miranda Kerr, Victoria’s Secret model and Founder & CEO of KORA Organics, has over 12 million followers on Instagram. She was one of the biggest promoters of the celery juice cleanse. The cleanse claimed to transform your health in just one week by drinking 16 ounces of raw celery juice every morning on an empty stomach.

Navigating Nutrition Advice for Credible Sources

If something sounds too good to be true (“just buy my product and the weight will melt off!”) or counter-intuitive, it’s time to dig deeper. The first step is to see if any peer-reviewed studies back what you heard. This can be done easily by going to Google Scholar and typing in a topic. The best studies are peer-reviewed and cited multiple times by others.

You can also find credible information on university websites, for example, Harvard Health. You can check to see if the person has any partnerships or sponsors, meaning they may be paid for promoting specific products. For more tips on how to decipher good science from bad, click here.

And finally, to find out what works best for you, please talk to your doctor before making any significant dietary changes.

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Keeping Score on Biden’s Ag Initiatives

It’s been a hectic half-year for Congress and the new Biden Administration, with enormous amounts of time and energy devoted to dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, the largest economic stimulus bill ever passed, the infamous January 6 attack on the Capitol, comprehensive infrastructure legislation, and more.

But behind the scenes of these high-profile issues, what has been done related to our food and agricultural system? What does the scorecard show for efforts to fulfill the promises and pledges made during the 2020 campaign for farmers and ranchers and everyone else along the chain from dirt to dinner?

Want to jump ahead to a particular issue? Click on one of the following initiatives:

Climate Change  •  Rural Economic Revitalization  •  Equity & Social Justice  •  Trade  •  Labor  •  Consolidation & Competition

Crop Programs and Disaster Assistance

The campaign theme:

A greater role for government in helping all farmers and ranchers, especially during difficult times and circumstances

Both the Biden Administration and Congress have focused on providing disaster relief for farmers and ranchers plagued by drought and severe weather events. Updates to long-standing crop programs in the 2018 Farm Bill allowed legislators and administrators to focus on expanding many of the economic protections available to producers.

The Department of Agriculture has relaxed some bureaucratic requirements, eased some terms and conditions, and expanded funding where possible for a variety of disaster programs, including crop insurance.

Before leaving town for the August recess, the House Agriculture Committee voted to add $8.5 billion in disaster aid for 2020 and 2021 disasters through the Wildfire Hurricane Indemnity Program (WHIP). In the Senate, bipartisan legislation has been introduced to allow early haying under the Conservation Reserve Program. Another bill before the Senate Agriculture Committee would offer loan forgiveness and other economic aid for producers.

Compared to the trillions of dollars and weeks of negotiation represented in Covid and infrastructure initiatives, it may not sound like all that much. But to rural America, it’s a significant potential for help.

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Both Congress and the Administration have made help for producers amid exceptional weather circumstances a top priority – perhaps consuming a portion of the political energy needed to fulfill other campaign pledges and priorities. Much more remains to be done to finalize some legislative initiatives, but the often-slow wheels of the legislative process are in motion.

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Climate Change

The campaign theme:

U.S. agriculture has a major role to play in dealing with global climate change, and it’s time for our food and agricultural policies and programs to take on a more aggressive role in tackling the problem

With many U.S. farmers and ranchers facing extreme conditions right now, climate change policies seem to have taken a bit of a back seat to emergency relief efforts. But the broad issue of climate change – and in particular the farm sector’s role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions – remains an active interest in the Biden Administration and on Capitol Hill.

Perhaps most significantly, the Senate voted 92-8 to pass the Growing Climate Solutions Act, authorizing the Department of Agriculture to establish a Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Technical Assistance Provider and Third-Party Verifier Certification Program. That’s a long-winded name for a critical first step: to create a marketplace for environmental credits for farmers and others willing to engage in sustainable land-use practices that advance climate-change goals. Similar legislation is pending in the House of Representatives, with 50 bipartisan co-sponsors.

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Talk is cheap, especially in the heat of a political campaign, but passage of the Senate bill represents a concrete first step in transforming talk into action. Attention now shifts to the House for completion of the job.

The White House, meanwhile, continues to focus on non-ag accomplishments through executive orders and presidential memoranda, such as rejoining the Paris Climate Accords and canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, as well as the appointment of a Presidential Envoy for Climate and creation of an Office of Climate Change Support within the State Department.

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Rural Economic Revitalization

The campaign theme:

Make the federal government a more active partner in a comprehensive effort to revitalize the rural economy

The promise to help rural communities is nothing new to American politics. But the sheer breadth of the Biden Administration’s proposed actions is noteworthy nonetheless and includes a vast array of initiatives, such as:

  • Added funding for credit in promoting new and growing businesses in rural areas, delivered equitably
  • Extended broadband and wireless access
  • More primary health providers and money for health centers
  • Additional emphasis on renewable energy and green energy jobs
  • Improvements to infrastructure and transportation
  • Expanded conservation programs
  • Better access to healthy foods

It all sounds great. But how is it all delivered? It begins with more funding for existing programs and a different mindset among those charged with administering them.

But the real accomplishment since Inauguration Day in this area undoubtedly is the development of a massive bipartisan infrastructure deal – a 2,702-page piece of legislation spending roughly one trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000.00…that’s a lot of zeroes). The massive bill still requires extensive additional Congressional attention before going to President Biden for signature. But the bipartisan agreement is a huge political achievement.

The White House calls it “a generational investment in rural America.” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack notes the far-reaching effects of the bill on rural areas, including roads, bridges, wastewater systems, broadband expansion, telemedicine and tele-education, power system improvements, environmental clean-up, rail expansion, and many of the other areas touched upon during the 2020 campaign.

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Politics aside, this agreement represents an enormous commitment to improvements across America, and nowhere more so than rural America. The details of how this massive piece of legislation is enacted remain to be seen. But its intent is clear: invest in America, nowhere more so than our rural areas.

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Equity and Social Justice

The campaign theme:

Past farm policies and programs too often have been skewed to the disadvantage of certain groups, notably minority farmers and smaller operators. Social justice demands a new, more equitable approach – and remediation of past injustices.

Both the Biden Administration and the Congressional agriculture committees have made this subject a centerpiece of hearings and public outreach efforts. But the flagship initiative in fulfilling this promise has been an element of the American Rescue Plan enacted in March in response to the Covid pandemic.

The $1.9-trillion Plan includes a $4 billion fund for debt-relief payments for “socially disadvantaged” farmers. This includes Black, Hispanic, American Indian and Asian American farmers who are deemed to have been discriminated against in past farm programs and policies, representing roughly 3.3 percent of U.S. food producers, according to the 2017 Census. Additionally, another $1 billion would go for education, training, outreach programs, grants and loans helping improve land access for disadvantaged farmers.

Initial payments for roughly 13,000 qualifying farmers were scheduled to go out this summer. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack notes the payments will cover the entirety of outstanding loans, plus an additional 20 percent of the loan as a cash payment to deal with the tax consequences of the loan forgiveness. Legal challenges in federal court alleging discrimination are pending, and several banks have expressed concern over the damages they might face as a result of early loan pay-offs.

Overall: ???? ???? ????

If spending is any measure of success in fulfilling a campaign pledge, this subject earns several thumbs up. What remains to be seen is the effectiveness of the effort in expanding the number of minority farmers from the present levels.

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Trade

The campaign theme:

Trade is critical to the economic interests of U.S. farmers, ranchers, and consumers. It’s time to stop the combative, go-it-alone approach we’ve used in recent years and get back to a more collaborative, less confrontational approach that will expand our trade opportunities.

The elephant in the room for this campaign promise obviously was trade relations with China, our largest foreign customer for U.S. food and agricultural products, and the most important player in international trade. A new Administration and a new Congressional leadership favored a strong focus on rebuilding relations with China; not through overt confrontation, but traditional diplomacy.

But a strange thing happened on the way to the promised bright future. Relations with China have remained frosty. Tensions over human rights, cyberpiracy, intellectual property rights, military aggressiveness, and a host of other issues made it difficult to define what a ‘traditional diplomatic approach’ actually means. After six months, we’re still waiting to see the comprehensive strategy for U.S.-China relations promised by the Biden Administration.

Instead, we see aggressive actions to re-introduce the United States as an active participant in various international organizations and initiatives. The United States rejoined the Paris Climate Accord and has promoted extensive engagement in international Covid relief and vaccination efforts. Reduced or ended military commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq also have been major areas of international focus.

Not by accident, the Biden Administration launched efforts to work with Capitol Hill in promoting expanded trade with Africa, where China has become the continent’s leading trade partner and leading lending source.

Overall: ????

Fulfilling this campaign pledge remains very much incomplete. Until the promised review of the long-term U.S. strategy for relations with China is completed, let’s hope the pragmatic approach taken by both sides on agricultural trade continues. China needs the food we produce, and our farmers and ranchers deserve the economic returns that the Chinese market offers.

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Labor

The campaign theme:

Farmers and ranchers increasingly have problems finding enough workers. We need a comprehensive approach to the problem that promotes a bigger pool of qualified labor and clarifies the role of migrant laborers.

Purdue University’s AGBarometer captures the problem very effectively. Roughly two-thirds of farmers responding to their survey said they face “some” or “a lot of difficulty” in hiring adequate labor. That’s up from less than a third of respondents the previous year. To add to the problem, the inability to find enough help extends beyond the farm gate all the way to restaurants, food retailers, farm equipment mechanics, truck drivers – and more.

The reasons behind the difficulty run the gamut. Historically low wages and government pandemic assistance that sometimes pays more to stay at home than to work. Uncertainty over changing approaches to immigration policies and practices, and requirements for the green cards needed by non-US citizens.

More attractive off-farm job opportunities, especially as the post-Covid economy recovers. Even simple fear of the Covid virus.

So far in 2021, most attention has focused on the controversial situation at America’s southern border and the Biden Administration’s proposed immigration legislation, which would allow large numbers of those living illegally in the United States to have green-card status and subsequently gain citizenship. However, that legislation does not deal with the issue of “guest workers” and permission to stay for extended periods.

Overall: ????

Given the focus on Covid relief and infrastructure, both Congress and the Biden Administration may be extended some forgiveness for apparently making this a back-burner issue. But it remains an important problem not just for farmers and ranchers but also for the entire food chain – and arguably our entire economy.

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Consolidation and Competition

The campaign theme:

More needs to be done to protect the little guy in our economic system, and that means a more aggressive approach to dealing with food industry consolidation and competition

The more liberal elements of the Biden Administration make no secret of their suspicion of organizations that grow to become what they consider “too big and too powerful.” That attitude prompted a promise to take a much tougher line on bigger mergers and acquisitions, as well as levels of competition.

So it came as no surprise President Biden in June issued a far-reaching executive order with 72 initiatives by more than a dozen federal agencies to take on “pressing competition problems across our economy.” Enforcement efforts should focus on the labor markets, agricultural markets, healthcare markets, and the tech sector, he instructed.

One of the primary anticipated targets of this order is expected to be the U.S. meat industry, notably the meat processing industry. Legislators on Capitol Hill joined the fray by calling for a special investigator at the Department of Agriculture to look into antitrust issues in the industry.

Overall: ???? ????

Once again in politics, if the objective is to generate headlines and gain attention, 2021 has been a good year in fulfilling this particular campaign pledge. But it remains far less certain where the effort will actually lead.

Consolidation and growth have been hallmarks of the food and agriculture sector for decades, and the meat industry has been a prime target for critics alleging a lack of producer power in the buyer-seller relationship. Until we see some concrete actions, this must remain a promise in progress.

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Is Liquid Chlorophyll Beneficial or Just a TikTok Craze?


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Users of the platform are now adding drops of chlorophyll to their water every day to clear up their skin, reduce bloating, and lose weight.

Are there more benefits? Should we all be hopping on the liquid chlorophyll bandwagon, or is this just another self-improvement lark with no scientific evidence?

We depend on food to get nutrients, and it’s best to get nutrients from whole foods. However, supplements like probiotics, EPA/DHA, and zinc, can help fill the void if we don’t get the right minerals and vitamins from whole foods.

But it’s hard to know when we’re putting too much trust in a green-water supplement that’s not backed by any reputable organization. So let’s start with the basics.

What is Chlorophyll?

Chlorophyll is a natural pigment found in plants that give vegetables, like spinach and other leafy greens, their green color. But more importantly, chlorophyll is essential for plant life. It’s a vital part of photosynthesis because it helps plants absorb energy from the sun and keeps plants healthy as they grow. Almost every growing plant you see in nature has chlorophyll in it.

There are four types of chlorophyll: chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, chlorophyll c, and chlorophyll d. The two that concern us are chlorophyll a and b.

Chlorophyll is a pigment, but the substance humans consume from chlorophyll is called chlorophyllin. Chlorophyllin is a semi-synthetic blend of sodium copper salts that comes from chlorophyll. One difference between the two is that chlorophyll has magnesium, but with chlorophyllin, the magnesium is replaced with copper and the phytol hydrocarbon tail disappears. Another difference is that chlorophyllin is water-soluble, making it easier for the body to absorb the chlorophyll and obtain its benefits.

In supplement form, chlorophyll is sold as a liquid that can be added to water, as a powder, as vitamins, and as Chlorophyll Water, a drink also containing vitamins A, B12, C, and D. It’s sold at most stores that sell supplements and also online.

These are some examples of different chlorophyll supplements online. You can see one supplement is chlorella. Chlorella is a type of single-celled, fresh-water algae that contains chlorophyll along with other antioxidants.

Is There Any Science Behind this Trend?

Unlike most viral diet trends, chlorophyll does have science behind it.

When it comes to skincare, studies have shown that a topical sodium copper chlorophyllin complex can reduce signs of aging and help reduce acne in women. However, some of the studies also had women use retinol, too, which may indicate that the combination of both may lead to better results.

Other studies show that, because of its antioxidant properties, consuming chlorophyll in vegetables may reduce the size of cancer cells and have anticancer effects. This is because the chlorophyll in both versions can “form tight molecular complexes with certain chemicals known or suspected to cause cancer,” according to the Micronutrient Information Center at Oregon State University. This binding can reduce the number of cancerous cells reaching vulnerable tissues.

Some studies even state that chlorophyll can reduce inflammation in the body. In a study on rats, chlorophyll a and pheophytin — a magnesium-free chlorophyll a combined from leaves — were highly effective at reducing inflammation.

Other chlorophyll studies have found antioxidant effects; specifically, it may reduce oxidative damage from carcinogens and radiation, aid in detoxification of carcinogens, and decrease chances of developing aflatoxin-associated liver cancer. Some people use chlorophyll therapeutically as an internal deodorant, especially in wound care, to slow bacteria growth in wound healing. Wheatgrass has even been shown to help in blood transfusions, ulcer healing, liver detoxing, and preventing tooth decay.

So How Much Should I Be Consuming?

Currently, the FDA states that people 12 years and older can take 300 milligrams of chlorophyll a day. To put it in perspective, we are supposed to eat four servings of leafy green vegetables a day. That amounts to about 30 milligrams, depending on the plant. Spinach is especially high in chlorophyll, with about 24 milligrams per one-cup serving. Parsley follows close behind with 19 milligrams per serving. This leaves space for extra chlorophyll from a supplement, if you desire.

Now, this doesn’t mean we should go crazy on the chlorophyll. Too much of anything isn’t good. And while supplements can help us get the nutrients we don’t get from food, taking too much of any particular supplement can harm you, according to Harvard Health. In general, the effects of too much chlorophyll are minor and include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and skin rash or irritation when used as a topical solution.

Which Supplement Should I Buy?

Choosing the right chlorophyll supplement for you should start with a conversation with your doctor. Even though the FDA says we can consume 300 milligrams of chlorophyll a day, it’s good to talk with your doctor to find out if you should be consuming that much. If you eat lots of green veggies, you may not need any. Your doctor will be able to tell you which supplement and dosage are best for your lifestyle.

While liquid chlorophyll and other chlorophyllin supplements can be great for those not getting enough of the nutrient in whole foods, it’s healthier to increase the amount of veggies eaten than to take a supplement.

According to Harvard Health and several studies, all nutrients are most potent and best absorbed when they come from whole foods, not supplements. Also, any foods we eat that contain chlorophyll also have numerous other nutrients that our bodies need. This is why it’s critical to consume a variety of fruits and veggies every day and why most nutritionists recommend eating 5-7 servings. Each vegetable contains different nutrients that our bodies use for different functions and that feed different microbiome in the gut. This will ultimately benefit your immune system and overall health.

So, if you want to up your chlorophyll intake, consider altering your diet to include more veggies before running to the supplement aisle of the grocery store. Here are some chlorophyll-dense foods you can add to your diet:

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5 Things ‘Seaspiracy’ taught me about Seafood


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As native Bostonians, my husband and I instinctively demand seafood in our diet. When planning a visit with our family in coastal New England, the first two things on the to-do list are placing an uncomfortably large order with the local lobster pound and buying up all the unsalted butter at the grocery store. It gets intense, to say the least: the array of surgical-looking utensils, wet naps strewn all over the table, and those silly-but-necessary lobster bibs. But we feel comfortable in our consumption, knowing it’s all locally sourced and sustainably caught. And that our cholesterol levels are reasonably low.

So when our marketing director, Hayley, asked if I had seen the Netflix documentary, Seaspiracy, I guffawed and got a sudden pang for a buttered lobster roll. But then I started recalling my previous blindspots in our global food system and the deeply unsettling opacity of the seafood industry.

For instance, only 10-20% of the seafood we consume in the U.S. is sourced from here, leading to cases in which purveyors don’t even know the source, let alone the type of fish sold to us. So with that fundamental knowledge (and echoes of recent headlines questioning the main ingredient in  Subway’s tuna salad), I sat down and prepared myself for the incoming deluge of information.

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices contribute to the mislabeling of seafood, as well as many other prohibited activities that Seaspiracy identifies throughout the film.

Seaspiracy Journey

The producers of Seaspiracy know how to create a compelling journey; after all, Kip Andersen and Jim Greenbaum also produced the very dramatic, very anti-meat documentaries, Cowspiracy and What the Health.

Knowing this, I assumed my reasonably rational thinking and iron-clad stomach would pull me through. But, disappointingly, I definitely grew queasy during some of the really brutal scenes, which then triggered my anger at human nature to pollute with such wild abandon. These filmmakers know what they’re doing, that’s for sure.

I then tried to see the larger picture of the story. Despite the obfuscated facts and pro-vegan sentiment that concludes each of their films, it still brings a lot of frightening but necessary issues to light.

“Even if it’s chocked full of lies and half-truths, maybe [Seaspiracy] is still good overall if it introduces people to ocean issues and inspires a desire to make a difference.”

– Liz Allen, marine sustainability writer at Forbes

But does that mean we must throw the delicious, soft-shell chick lobsters out with the bathwater? I would still like to eat seafood, after all. Just maybe not yet.

Diving back in

To help me get back on the seafood track, I merged some of the broader points made in the film and some of the concepts we practice here at Dirt to Dinner to find a simple yet strategic way to improve my selection of sustainably sourced and responsibly managed seafood. Below are five key rules.

Rule #1: Farmed fish can be the most sustainable seafood

Despite common misconceptions (including my own), farmed fish that’s sustainably managed is the most cost-effective and planet-conscious choice. How else can you be 100% certain that the fish you’re paying for is actually what you think it is. For wild-caught, it could be flounder bottom-trawled off the coast of Southern Asia and not the $30/lb halibut from Norway.

Since farms facilitate the entire lifecycle development, filtration systems, and production management, farmed seafood offers an unparalleled level of transparency compared to wild-caught seafood, making consumer research much more accessible.

Are you still feeling meh about aquaculture? When you zoom out on the fish-farming landscape, aquaculture is the same practice as livestock management for cattle, sheep, chickens, etc. Don’t forget that modern ag practices have guaranteed incredibly safe, fresh, and affordable food on our tables for decades.

Rule #2: Where your seafood is raised or caught matters

Just like buying your beef, lamb, and chicken, it matters which regulatory food system is involved. But trying to find a nice, tidy little crib sheet of countries with the most stringent sustainability and safety guidelines is like seeking out the elusive Mid-Atlantic blue lobster.

Though the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has done an incredible job defining various codes of conduct for sustainable fisheries all over the world and is highly regarded by many countries, I had a hard time finding any detailed data that I could play around with on their site.

My data source target then turned to Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch project.

This resource is impressive – it offers highly specific recommendations for sustainable seafood and is very transparent. I used their search function to see the most consumed seafood in the U.S., like shrimp, salmon, albacore tuna, and tilapia. The regions most often cited as offering the “best choice” in terms of sustainability among these kinds of seafood are the U.S. & Canada, Europe, New Zealand, and Japan.

But it’s important to note that more countries are following suit, like Australia, Chile, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, and Palau. These countries will end harmful subsidies contributing to overfishing by 2025 as part of their sustainability initiative.

Rule #3: Labels can be an easy way to dress up a questionable product

I expect the producers of Seaspiracy and the Dirt to Dinner team to agree on this rule wholeheartedly: non-government-issued third-party verification package labels displaying a qualified, certified, or recommended product are generally garbage.

Unless you see a government department on the label from reputable countries with sustainable seafood practices and accompanied with some sort of grade or indication (think USDA “Choice” or “Prime” beef; USDA “Organic” products), focus on rules 1 and 2.

At best, labels allow non-government organizations (NGOs) to “certify” products to the degree they feel necessary. The organization then gets paid royalties by a food producer to apply the NGO’s label on their products. But at their worst, they can prey on our most basic survival instincts of fear and mistrust to manipulate us toward their often-obscured agenda. And I believe some organizations with these highly visible labels, like the Non-GMO Project and MSC, lie somewhere deep within that spectrum.

Rule #4: When in a rush, buy your seafood from highly reputable stores with not-too-cheap prices

First things first: I genuinely believe any decent grocer with U.S.-farmed seafood will have sustainably-produced fish that’s fresh and safe.

The trouble is, it’s not always easy to find. Our demand is low for U.S.-specific farmed fish, and it’s often a little more expensive than its potentially questionably-sourced counterpart, which really stinks because the U.S. is a global leader in sustainable and responsibly managed fisheries.

So I was disheartened to read the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA)’s assessment that U.S. production only accounts for $1 billion in a $100-billion global aquaculture market. Hungry for more market data? Please check out their site – it’s surprisingly easy-to-read and fact-heavy.

But as far as retailers are concerned, it appears that Whole Foods, Hy-Vee, Aldi, and Target are all great picks. These stores have seafood procurement departments that only purchase from sustainably caught or raised fisheries that are also responsibly managed.

There are some great home-delivery seafood options, too, like Crowd Cow. We really like the information they provide on where and how their fish are caught, and your selections arrive at your doorstep within a couple of days. Give online retailers like this a try by checking out how transparent they are with their sourcing and supply chain.

Rule #5: For wild-caught, dive deeper into your research…and wallet

Still want to stick with wild-caught fish? That’s ok! But you’re gonna have to check out a few more things and pony up a little more dough if sustainability is important to you.

Basically, nothing compares to wild-caught Alaskan seafood. Period. Producers feel incredibly responsible for maintaining their unique and pristine marine life, so everything is carefully managed to limit overfishing and bycatch. But this will affect your food budget, so prepare accordingly. And, again, if you stick with those aforementioned countries, you’re on the right path.

Another consideration is how the fish is caught, which you can better understand with the Seafood Watch site. It lists a bunch of reasons why it’s essential to be equally aware of seafood capture practices as country of origin. So try to stick with fish caught with handlines, pole-and-lines, midwater trawls, and trolling lines. And don’t buy seafloor captures, like trawls, seines, and dredges. Gillnets can be dangerous to local marine life, too.

Some quick dining and takeout rules

Need some time for research but craving shrimp pad thai tonight? Consider these tips:

  • Do your research about the meat & seafood philosophy of the restaurant and its holding company before you leave the house. This may help reduce awkward staredowns with your waitperson.
  • Feel free to ask questions that are important to you, like if they sell sustainable seafood, if it’s farmed or wild-caught, and which country it’s from. If the waitperson doesn’t know, ask them to check with the chef. If the chef doesn’t know, order the burger.
  • Are you a sushi lover who’s curious about sustainable yellowfin tuna? Or only interested in fish locally caught in the South? Seafood Watch has a guide for you. Seriously, this site has almost everything you need to make informed decisions about what you eat.

How we can create demand for responsibly managed fisheries

Yes, government and academic sources are great for a particular industry. But if you’re eager to find a company you feel you can stand behind, ask your local fish market where they buy their seafood from. And then check out the producer’s site. The more information the site has, the better.

And if you really like a tilapia that’s caught in a country not listed here, that’s fine! Fisheries aren’t inherently “good” or “bad” based on overgeneralized criteria – those are for finding our way initially. As with most things ag-related, it depends on the producer and their practices, so more reason for research.

And, if you’re open to it and it’s available, please give U.S. aquaculture a shot. We need to drive demand for responsible seafood by standing behind products that do just that. It’ll help drive down food waste, transportation costs, carbon emissions, and unfair labor practices while supporting supply chain transparency, marine biodiversity, and future generations to fully reap the benefits of our waters.

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Drought: The “Hidden Global Crisis”


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How widespread is the drought problem?

Drought conditions have been reported around the world, often involving some of the major agricultural producing nations.

In the United States, drought remains a very serious issue across much of the Western States and large portions of the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest, including important production regions for wheat, feed grains, and oilseeds. California agricultural growing areas—including key centers for production of fruits, vegetables, and dairy — have been experiencing drought conditions described as “extreme” and “exceptional.” Conditions in the North and Southeast also are described as “moderate drought.”

Prolonged drought in these areas can have a significant effect on overall U.S. food supplies. California, for example, provides one-quarter of our total U.S. food supply. The Golden State is the nation’s largest dairy producer and grows as much as 80 percent of all the fruits and vegetables produced in the United States. North Dakota farmers provide more than half of all U.S, durum and spring wheat, key components of pasta and bread.

In contrast, conditions across much of the Midwest, South, and other portions of the country are generally in good shape for moisture.

Seriously dry conditions have steadily expanded across South America since at least 2018, moving from key areas in Brazil to include parts of Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina.

Regional and local droughts also have plagued major crop production areas in Australia, Ukraine, and parts of Africa and Asia in recent years.

The mixed bag of conditions has farmers and others across the agricultural sector keeping a close eye on weather patterns. Timely rains during the growing season can help make up for the early lack of moisture to some degree. At present, forecasts call for another good year of overall food production. But as with any “average” assessment, the forecasts mask the severity of potential damage to the most hard-hit areas.

What are the causes of drought?

The debate over climate change has produced some widely divergent points of view about the causes of drought and extreme weather conditions in general. Most experts tend to agree that the reasons most likely involve a combination of natural and man-made causes. But opinions vary on the relative importance of each set of factors.

What influences weather patterns?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cites a variety of contributing factors:

  • Uneven heating and atmospheric pressure close to the earth’s surface cause global winds. These winds then push around large air masses, which meet and collide to create storms or clear skies.
  • In the atmosphere, jet streams send weather systems, heat, and moisture around the globe.
  • El Nino and La Nina are significant factors for temperature, rainfall, air pressure, atmospheric and ocean circulation that influence each other
  • Variations in the location and size of the ozone layer

Climate activists, in particular, are quick to note the importance of human behavior in creating water issues. Reducing fossil fuel use, employing more aggressive water conservation and water-use practices, curtailing agricultural practices that require intensive use of water, protecting water supplies from contamination and other practices are major goals. Whether such efforts deal with the causes of climate change and drought or merely its symptoms, continue to be debated.

What effects will drought have on our food system and our families?

Drought affects both crop and livestock production, obviously. Dealing with the problem poses different sets of problems and issues for both.

Livestock producers can reduce herds and flocks or bring in water supplies to deal with temporary needs. Bigger issues emerge for them when drought limits their ability to grow their own feed stocks.

Of equal concern, drought harms crop yields. That means we have less food from the land in production. Just watch the below clips of Western Growers interviewing farmers who had to abandon their crops due to drought conditions.

Joe Del Bosque, farmer, had to sacrifice his asparagus field due to drought conditions. As a result, 70 people lost their jobs. Click here to view an almond farmer and del Bosque’s melon farm. Source: Western Growers via YouTube.

The amount of reduction in food production can vary widely, depending on the severity of the dry conditions.

Academic studies show divergent projections of the effect of climate change on global food production. One study led by Cornell University estimated that global food productivity has been reduced by 21 percent by climate change. Other studies by USDA’s Economic Research Service project yield declines across corn, soybeans, sorghum, rice, oats, cotton, and silage as a result of climate change (and alterations to irrigation patterns that are driven by water concerns). The journal One Earth warns that forecast increases in global temperatures will alter rainfall patterns and shrink the globe’s food-productive areas by as much as a third.

Buried within what is likely a mish-mash of science, hyperbole, ideological bias, and sincere passion is a single obvious truth: the world faces changing climatological conditions that already are affecting our ability to produce the food the world needs. What we do in response will determine how significant the effect of drought and other possible manifestations of climate change will be on our long-term food security.

Are our prime growing areas changing?

Where drought occurs is a critical factor, too. When drought hits major production areas for cornerstone commodities – food grains, feed grains, or oilseeds, for example, the adverse effects are magnified across the entire global food system. Reduced supplies in the face of continuing strong demand result in higher prices, or even spot shortages. Smaller crops of fruits and vegetables can hit consumers harder and more quickly, especially if the normal distribution system that supplies products from distant sources has been disrupted.

Those sorts of traditional concerns regarding the effects of drought have been joined by rising concerns about climate change. Some scientists worry that an increase in the frequency, duration, and severity of drought conditions could signal a fundamental shift in climatic conditions and weather patterns.

If so, that would mean the areas of historically highest productivity – the prime growing areas of many crops – could be shifting, moving generally northwards in the Northern Hemisphere and southerly in the Southern Hemisphere. Imagine the heart of the American corn belt stretching from Ohio to the Dakotas moving north into Canada, or traditional southern crops like cotton and sorghum migrating north. Such new cropping patterns would mean a massive change in the structure and functioning of the current global food system.

What can be done?

The issue of drought – and the larger matter of climate change — won’t be resolved by any single action or practice but rather through a comprehensive long-term approach that touches on virtually every sector of our society. Remember, humans are resilient and innovative. We will adopt new solutions to address our changing climate.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t take immediate steps to deal with the issue of drought that has plagued humankind long before the term “climate change” was coined.

  • More attention to soil health. The use of cover crops reduced tillage, regenerative agriculture, and other practices that help make the soil “spongier” and better suited to the retention of moisture
  • Better conservation of water and water use techniques
  • Better use of technology to monitor and manage soil conditions
  • Continued development and use of drought-resistant seeds
  • Continued reliance on open trade is a critical tool in assuring a steady supply of the foods consumers want and need every day

What about us consumers?

Perhaps the most important role the consumer can play in dealing with drought and other climate-related problems is that of an active participant in our food system.

Consumers can recognize the up-and-down nature of food prices as a result of disruptions to normal food production patterns. Even with severe and pronounced drought in areas around the world, there is no shortage of food. Our food security is not at risk.

But we all have a role to play in assuring that we react positively to the possibility of longer-term changes to our food system, driven by climate issues. The days of profligate and extravagant use of water or other natural resources in our food system are gone – long gone. Farmers and others across the food chain are working hard to adapt to this new reality, and consumers can speed that process by demanding responsibly produced food products.

Look for food products that have been produced sustainably, using the techniques and tools available to us to make the best use of water and other natural resources. Speak up to food suppliers about it. Look for labels and other product information that makes the techniques and standards used in food production, manufacturing, and packaging more transparent. Your voice counts, so make it heard. Email us at connect@dirt-to-dinner.com!

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The Protein Blues: Confessions of a Confirmed Carnivore


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I love a good piece of beef. Maybe a steak on special occasions, or just a hamburger off the grill in the backyard. But I’ve also been known to chow down energetically on Mom’s Sunday pork roast, and I still say her fried chicken is the undisputed Food of the Gods. There are probably a few dried-out, half-gnawed chicken nuggets under the driver’s seat in my car, too.

Yup, I’m a carnivore. 

I’m also intelligent enough to see the merit in all the hoopla about meat and its role in health and the environment. I’m not what most folks would call a ‘woke’ kind of guy, but I’m not exactly ‘sleepy,’ either. I understand the importance of making smart choices about the proteins in my daily diet for my own good and that of the planet. I accept that moving forward, plant-based proteins – and plants in general – are likely to play a much larger role in the choices I make about what I eat. I find myself asking a lot more questions about the proteins I consume and where they should come from. I have choices to make.

Right off, I could choose to stop eating meat altogether. Ain’t gonna happen. 

It’s a personal choice. I like meat. It tastes good and gives me a happy, warm feeling and a sense of after-dinner contentment. It provides essential amino acids, some very difficult to find in plants, and satisfies many other nutritional needs.

It requires the use of environmental resources, sure, and like a lot of other things, has some carbon footprint.

But I’m far more inclined to look at those more as an investment than a cost, especially when I see the growing clamor for protein from meat by hungry and undernourished people around the world, not to mention the efforts being made across the animal production industry to better manage the use of resources.  

What’s more, I still struggle with the idea of where all this will end. The beef industry obviously is in the cross-hairs of a lot of people, and it’s already having an effect when profit-minded retailers and restaurants make marketing hay out of a very public decision to no longer sell or promote beef products. Pigs and chickens require water and feed and create environmental issues, too. Maybe not as much as cows, but there are a helluva lot more of them than there are cows on the planet.

Do we simply accept the logic of the argument and say animal protein’s day on the consumer’s plate is over?

To me, all of life has an environmental cost of some sort, animal and human alike. Our day-to-day lives are not perfectly aligned with the environment. For instance, most of us discard our mattresses after a couple of years – and doing so makes up 450 million pounds of waste a year. Since the beginning of Covid, we are all now addicted to hand-sanitizing gel that degrades slowly and accounts for 60% of all drugs in sewage and wastewater.

The question is the value created, measured against the price we pay. I’m happy to listen to all arguments and sides on the issue. I’ll consider your case. But I reserve the right to make my own choice – to find my own balance point in the debate. But my second option is much tougher…

Do I increase the non-animal portion of my caloric consumption? 

I can make vegetable-based and laboratory-produced protein products part of my personal menu. I’ve tried lab-grown meat products, as well as some produced solely from plants, all in the name of intellectual curiosity and discovery. Some of them were okay. I might eat more of them from time to time. But I just couldn’t shake the sense that I was eating something artificial, something more lab-based than nature-based. 

I know the science that supports the products, but I still have this ingrained sense that I like a real hamburger a lot more than chemically-manipulated grass or a burger fresh not from the grill but the petri dish.

Irrational in some way, probably. But very human.

The smart side of my brain says this is most likely the best course for me moving forward. But I still have a few mental hurdles to get over before I go all-in on this option. Remember, I still have nightmares from time to time about the movie Soylent Green, and whoever came up with the damning label “Frankenfood” is a stone-cold marketing genius for the anti-meat, anti-GMO, and anti-science crowds. Enough said about the psychology of the fear of food.

I didn’t blink at all when I read about the report at the elite World Economic Forum in Davos that cited weeds as a potentially significant source of food for a hungry world. I’d already seen promotions from various back-to-the-earth groups (and maybe a few survivalists) making the same point, some offering actually to sell me weed seeds, presumably, so I could get a head start on the trend and avoid having to scrounge on my own along roadsides, in ditches, and almost everywhere in my neighbor’s lawn.

I couldn’t help but think about all those hours I spent as a kid destroying this invaluable food source when my parents made me pull weeds from our backyard garden for hours on end, either to build my character or punish some filial sin or probably both. 

Maybe I think even bigger and go all European in my approach.

The European Union’s food regulatory agency recently issued approval to the use of mealworms in animal feed – and as a human food. Other parts of the world embraced insects as food long ago. Nothing says “oh, yum!” to me more than a heaping plate of grubs, maybe with a side of worms and a nice side salad of dandelions and other home-grown weeds.

In our childhood – age 14, actually – my younger brother once ate three worms on a dare, and we all know how that turned out. He still can’t do eights and nines in the multiplication tables. 

Going European also would make it easier to leap to the next level of protein management.

Why not just man up and go vegetarian or vegan?

Put aside a Pavlovian liking for meat that goes back to the Eisenhower Administration. What kind of plant-centric diet should I follow?

Start with the basics. Vegetarians consume some animal-derived food products, such as milk and eggs, and vegans don’t. But I’m not exactly au courant on the ins and outs of vegan eating, so let me do a quick search in cyberspace and see if that offers any helpful guidance.

Right out of the Google gate, there’s what’s called the Whole Food Vegan Diet. This diet allows me to eat fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. The Raw Vegan Diet also seems to involve no animal products – I suppose meaning fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, and so on, only not cooked. Except for some foods that are allowed to be cooked to 104 degrees, for some reason. One set of Raw Vegan devotees apparently follow the diet up till 4 p.m. every day. After that, I suppose, anything goes.

A so-called Gluten-Free Vegan Diet just adds gluten to the list of what not to eat. Next, my search engine gives me the Fruitarian Vegan Diet, in which I’m supposed to avoid plants and eat only fruits, nuts, and seeds. Except some Fruitarians also prohibit the consumption of seeds since they contain future plants. 

The Paleo Vegan Diet restricts me to the pure and unprocessed foods consumed by my Paleolithic ancestors. That would let me eat lots and lots of fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, seeds, and nuts, but no grains or legumes, since they weren’t around as food options for the Stone Age connoisseur. 

And a Freegan Diet permits consumption of processed vegan foods, including mock meats and vegan ice cream, whatever the hell that is.  

Now I don’t mean to disparage people who want to tailor their diets for health, environmental, religious, ethical, or other reasons.

But all I see in this search is a lot of “don’t eat this” and “don’t eat that,” at least at certain times or on specific days, and certainly never when Taurus the Bull is astrologically ascendant or some Kardashian hasn’t opined on the matter.

Try as I might, I suspect my efforts at plant-centric eating would leave me underfed, undernourished, and underwhelmed. 

Maybe I just avoid the whole subject with others…

…my friends, relatives, coworkers, church members, LinkedIn communities, Instagram and Twitter followers, neighbors, extended warranty salespeople, therapists, and anyone else I ever meet. If trapped into some comment on the subject, lapse into the double-talk and non-sequiturs I sometimes use to convey senility, or if absolutely necessary say all the politically correct things needed to get me out of the immediate pickle.  

I then retreat to my basement or my garage or my two-man tent in the backyard or my sofa-cushion fort in the rec room, where I surreptitiously chow down like the hungry dog I am on year-old frozen meatloaf, Slim Jims, Vienna sausages, Spam, BBQ chicken wings, and any other meat product I can hoard.

I join the growing legions of the Meat Underground, secure in my knowledge of the secret handshakes and high fives its members use to connect with like-minded but guilt-ridden meat junkies. There’s no 12-step program for us, so we just have to do the best we can, one day at a time.  

Maybe I just stop eating altogether.

My health plan is pretty good, so maybe I could simply opt for regular intravenous feedings of essential nutrients. That sounds like a pretty efficient, Spockian way to deal with the matter. 

I can’t face the final years of my life as a social pariah because I made the wrong choice about what kind of protein I consume. And it sure seems right now that any choice I make – short of not eating at all – is going to be morally offensive, irresponsible, perhaps sinful, environmentally callous, unscientific, irrational, politically charged, or just flat-out wrong to all the experts so eager to guide me to the truth on questions of food, nutrition, the environment, social responsibility, humanism, science, and morality.  

I just don’t know what to do. Other than, of course, grilling a hamburger while I ponder the matter further. And maybe a nice cold beer would help, too.

Let me get back to you on this one. 

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7 Things to Know about Indoor Farming


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I walk into my local grocery store, grab one of the wet wipes to sanitize my cart, and head to the produce section. I pick up some strawberries and raspberries for my smoothies; celery and carrots for my afternoon snacks; and some butter lettuce…but wait, where is the kale?

It takes me a moment to scan the area, wondering where they could have moved it, and then I see it: a glowing, light-filled series of shelves filled with greenery interspersed with dill and parsley and all kinds of other herbs – and they all appear to have their roots still intact.

As I take a closer look, I read the signs: 

“We believe your herbs should not have to travel more than you have” and “By keeping the roots on, we keep all the flavor and goodness” and “We’re growing herbs in-store using 95% less water.”

I pause for a moment, considering the other items already in my cart…

My carrots, celery, and butter lettuce don’t have the roots on them, and they have had to travel across many states to get in my cart.

Does that make them less nutritious? Or worse for the environment? Or less flavorful?

Infarm, the company behind the installation in the grocery store, combined indoor farming with the “internet of things” technologies — to create a controlled ecosystem with an optimal amount of light, air, and nutrients. While considered a vertical farm, this type of farm falls within the larger umbrella of a group of farming techniques called Controlled Environment Ag (CEA). This includes greenhouses, indoor farms, and vertical farms that apply a combination of engineering, plant science, and computer-managed technologies to optimize growing systems.

As it turns out, there is a lot to know about this field of farming…

1. You can grow almost anything using Controlled Environment Ag

Did you know that 90% of our U.S. retail grocery tomatoes are grown indoors? There are more tomatoes grown indoors than flowers! There’s been a remarkable shift from just 20 years ago when that number was closer to 5-10%. Indoor agriculture employs a series of hydroponic technologies to grow almost anything.

When I spoke with Joe Swartz, Vice President at American Hydroponics, he explained that:

“CEA can grow just about anything, the technology is there. You can grow a banana tree if you’d like, but you must look at it as a matter of economics. Leafy greens and produce like tomatoes are more prominent not because that is the only thing you can grow but because it allows you to maximize space. These are also crops that can be sold at a market premium, that consumers will pay more for, for higher quality — such as tomatoes.”

Leafy greens, however, are the real growth driver here. About 90% of our leafy greens are still grown in fields, but over the next few years, market trends suggest that we will see that number shift to CEA.

More than 21 million pounds of lettuce is consumed in the U.S. every day, and while the amount of lettuce we consume has not changed significantly in recent years, where it’s coming from will. This is said to be the most significant opportunity in the indoor growing space. As of 2020, that translates to about 74 acres of operational vertical farmland in the world. About 41,000 indoor farms exist in the U.S. alone, from large to small operations.

2. The location of greenhouses and indoor growing facilities is critical

Gotham Greens is a well-known greenhouse situated on a rooftop in Brooklyn. I never stopped to consider that the location was anything but an available space with sunlight. The truth is, a ton of strategic planning goes into indoor farming location selection. The key considerations are how best to use waste energy. Heat, wind, air conditioning, electricity — these are all vital components of any indoor farming operation.

Neal Parikh, former VP of Capital Markets and Corporate Development at BrightFarms Inc. and current Managing Member at Lattice Impact Partners, explained that tapping into alternative energies is paramount to cost savings and sustainable efforts.

For example, greenhouse farms like Gotham Greens can harness rainwater from rooftops to reuse for irrigation. CEA locations near landfills can make use of the waste methane – these types of locations are considered co-generation facilities, in other words, facilities nearby that generate an energy source that the indoor farm needs. Locations near factories can take advantage of the waste heat or CO2 that they need to farm. This carbon capture or carbon sequestration from neighboring businesses saves time, money, and energy while reducing labor.

Another consideration, as the Infarm ads I saw in the grocery store suggest, is that farmers want their production location to be as close to their distributors (or grocery stores) as possible, to cut down on complications caused by traveling long distances. As both Neal and Joe pointed out, certain crops must travel long distances to be affordable, but there is an opportunity in indoor farming to bring producers closer to the end customer. To feed a growing population, we must include all kinds of farming as options for consumers.

3. Food safety is a top priority

As we’ve all seen in the news from time to time, leafy greens are the most vulnerable to food safety issues. The latest E. coli outbreaks in romaine lettuce have still left some worry in our minds. This is because leafy greens are produced and processed in such mass quantities that it is often hard to trace an outbreak. In CEA, E. coli, for example, can be traced back to one batch of romaine to isolate the incident quickly and accurately. Additionally, indoor farming allows for variables like animal waste contamination to be controlled and eliminated.

Between Yuma, Arizona and the Salinas Valley in California, these areas produce over 98% of the lettuce grown in the U.S. What greenhouses and indoor farms can provide, and all CEA for that matter, is a detailed tracing and inventory system, which makes pinpointing a specific batch more manageable than any other method of farming.

The CEA industry also upholds a rigorous standard for food safety, regulated by the CEA Food Safety Coalition. One of the first standards they formalized was standards for leafy greens.

4. Helping with climate change and population growth

CEA addresses many of the same environmental impacts that conventional or organic farming is addressing—but takes it one step further. We know the population is growing and estimates say we will reach upwards of 10 billion by 2050. This type of growth causes an imbalance in food demand and supply. Indoor farmers believe (and we agree!) that we need to embrace all kinds of farming methods and technologies to feed our growing world.

Controlling climate variables is much easier indoors than outdoors. With the technology of indoor agriculture, farmers can customize the temperatures, light exposures, CO2 intake, and more, for each plant they grow. As discussed earlier, conserving natural resources and upcycling waste heat is another chief benefit of CEA.

5. There are many challenges associated with CEA

CEA is a double-edged sword. One of the biggest hurdles, and debatably the reason why the indoor ag space is not more prominent, is that the initial investments in space and technology are immense.

Global Indoor Farming Technology Market Trends

As Joe Swartz alluded to earlier, profitability is a concern when it comes to crop selection and what to grow. There must be enough demand for the crop that a consumer will pay a higher price for a plant grown with controlled inputs.

In addition to the steep initial investments, operating costs are also astronomical. Producing sunlight, oxygen, air conditioning, and water filtration systems are no small line items. These challenges not only make it arduous to start a CEA, but hinder profitability in the short term – and if not run efficiently – in the long term.

The consumer-facing debate is that CEA is not considered organic because it is not grown in soil, therefore they cannot label as such. Supporters of indoor organics say that organic food is more about pesticide use (or lack thereof) than being grown from soil. This debate continues, making it difficult to land on an enticing marketing strategy for foods grown indoors. (We say conventional, organic, or CEA – each option is nutritious and should be available for the consumer to choose from!)

6. There is no magic to indoor ag; it takes hard work, just like traditional farming

Just like row cropping, indoor ag requires the same inputs—air, nutrients, sunlight, CO2, water. Furthermore, the technical acumen required for these operations is steep. The difference is that these inputs are produced inside, artificially, rather than naturally.

This requires specialized machinery, multi-faceted hydroponic technologies, and smart picking and packing systems. The development and implementation of hardware and software can be likened to the occupational knowledge of farming equipment in the field. Labor is also needed, as it is with organic or conventional farming.

While the methods are different, the result is the same: safe, good-for-you foods.

7. Vertical farming is not a new concept 

Vertical farming—a thing of the future! Well, not exactly. Automated greenhouses actually started popping up in the 1980s. Millions of dollars were invested in large greenhouses in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The technology was sold to the consumer as “by the 1990s, all of your food will be grown in a greenhouse mega farm!” Well, that never happened.

Robotic greenhouses and lettuce factories sprouted up thanks to a significant generation of public interest, which led to a fair degree of investment. Unfortunately, the technologies failed miserably. They were not market-ready, affordable products. This lack of demand led to closures. It took over 20 years to regain both consumer trust and substantial enough investments in the industry.

The good news is that technologies now exist to make vertical farming not only possible but economical.

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Food Transparency Starts With Farming’s Digital Transition

man controlling drone flying above field

We are pleased to have Drew Slattery publish his article on Dirt to Dinner. Drew is the Human Dimensions of Change Lead for Farm Journal’s Trust In Food, where he applies human dimensions theory to empower agricultural producers in the U.S. to continuously improve their operations’ environmental, financial, and social outcomes. 

A lack of transparency into food production is one of the fastest-rising concerns among U.S. consumers. Plenty of people want to know they are buying food products that were ethically and sustainably produced – and for good reason. General Mills, Walmart, and McDonald’s are just a few of those companies whose sustainability reports are showing transparency in their supply chains.

But building this transparency from grocery store shelf to farmgate isn’t as easy as it sounds.

What you might not realize is that asking farmers for data about how they produce their harvest is akin to asking someone to show you their family’s detailed medical records. Would you be comfortable if your friends and neighbors had access to a detailed report on your health? Even if farmers are willing to open their record books, the supply chain systems that rely on agricultural products are incredibly complex, and that data can be lost along the way.

Enter: Agriculture’s digital transition.

By collecting data each season through digital tools and managing that data through a software platform, farmers are helping make transparency easier for the supply chain to achieve, all while improving the efficiency of the decision-making processes for their operation.

The companies involved are significant. As an example, Project Mineral, formerly Google X, has a robotic buggy that roams the fields capturing data to enhance farm productivity.

And John Deere has a field-sharing data management system to fully integrate equipment used for tilling, planting, and harvest.

And then there is Descartes Labs which has geospacing technology that consolidates information such as crop yields in certain parts of a country. And this is a very short list of companies in an ever-expanding industry.

Balancing Transparency With Privacy

Privacy is a major concern for the American farmer – and really, for the vast majority of all Americans. In Trust In Food’s most recent survey of farmer perspectives on this topic, 73% of respondents said they don’t trust private companies with data on their farm’s production while 58% don’t trust the government with this data.

Those perspectives closely mirror average Americans’ data concerns – in a 2019 study, for example, 79% of Americans expressed concerns over how companies use their data, while 64% expressed concern over government use of data.

In many farmers’ eyes, the details of how they manage the production on their farms is private. Trust In Food’s research has shown that in certain cases, up to half of producers don’t think consumers and supply chain actors have a right to know how their farm products were managed.

For many farmers, this data represents proprietary business plans and trade secrets. In the Midwest where the farmland market is incredibly competitive, there have been reports of farmers who implement regenerative soil health practices yet have their land scooped up by others who want to benefit from their years of work to build soil health. So for many farmers, it feels safer to keep their cards close, especially if they have good things to share.

Challenges Abound With Agriculture’s Digital Transition

More than half of the farmers we surveyed this year (62%) said that they don’t use a digital (software) platform to manage their farm’s production data.

Put another way, only about 38% of those we surveyed are able to consider providing the transparency the food supply chain requires in today’s connected world.

Without digital collection and management of farm-level data, there is no way for the supply chain to provide transparency for the final product consumers purchase.

In addition, many farmers could be missing out on insights available to them through a digital platform. Although this is an incredibly complex environment for farm businesses to operate within, here are three of the key drivers that might explain why farmers aren’t using digital tools more universally, based on our research:

  • The cost associated with setup is too high, especially since there is not always a guarantee of a return on investment for farmers. Oftentimes, these data and insights don’t provide farmers with any benefit, such as a financial premium for providing greater transparency into the food products they grow or raise. Instead, organizations downstream in the supply chain reap the benefit.
  • It is a technically complex process, and many farmers lack the training and understanding to do it alone.-At the same time, the support network of advisers and service providers to help farmers transition to regenerative practices using software systems to capture data illustrating that transition, is limited as well.
  • Trust is a challenge. Farmers don’t want to see their detailed production data fall into the hands of groups they don’t trust.

Patience Is A Virtue

What does all this mean? Consumers are pushing for more detailed transparency into on-farm production, and as a society, we are transitioning by focusing our buying power more and more on sustainable products. Yet the data bridge onto the farm remains hard to cross. In a way, we can’t blame them. Going back to the example of sharing your medical data – how farmers farm is as personal to them as sharing our cardiovascular report would be to our community.

The encouraging news for the public and for farmers is that many producers are embracing digital ag and rushing into the future because they are in agriculture and food for the long term. They see a future in which incentives will shift and farmers will indeed be rewarded for their stewardship and transparency into farming practices, in a responsible, safe and privacy-protected way. Additionally, many organizations are working to support them, ensuring farmers don’t bear all of the costs for outcomes that benefit our environment and society at large.

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Why are my groceries so expensive right now?


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Dirt to Dinner decided to take a deeper look behind the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recent projection of a 2.2 percent increase in food costs in May, on top of a 3.5 percent increase the year before.

Just how much more expensive is our food?

The most immediate thing we learned was how complex the answer to those questions really are. No one or two simple causes are out there. Instead, it’s a complex mix of factors – some matters of macroeconomics, some of unique circumstances and situations, some of the changing demands placed on our food system both here in the United States and around the world. What’s more, it seems likely at least some of them will continue for a while to come. Let’s dig into the details behind the numbers, and see what we can learn and what we can do about it.

Inflation is all around us. The latest Consumer Price Index from BLS tells us prices have climbed by 5 percent year over year, the largest jump since 2008. Sharp rises in energy costs (29 percent) are a major factor behind that number, as anyone who filled a car with gas recently can readily attest.

The prices we pay for our food are right at the top of the list of greater expenses. On a global scale, the BLS numbers sound downright reasonable. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently estimated that the global Food Price Index has jumped 30.8 percent above last year’s figure, to its highest level since 2014. Higher costs for oils, meats, dairy, and cereal products all contributed to the rise – and the increasing worries about food insecurity that come with them.

That sobering picture makes the 2.2 percent number from BLS sound almost reasonable. But for anyone who does the daily shopping, the reality behind that innocent-sounding figure quickly gives way to an immediate and personal recognition of just how significant 2.2 percent can be – especially as part of a steady stream of superficially innocuous annual increases.

What’s making it more expensive?

Let’s look at some reasons for food price increases, from the big-picture perspective.

  • The cornerstone commodities that provide the raw materials for our food are more expensive. Remember what you paid to fill your tank with gas a year ago? Wheat that sold for just one $5 per bushel one year ago today is near $7. Corn that sold for roughly $3 per bushel in August 2020 today is $6.85. Soybeans that were $8.33 in May of last year are almost $16 today.
  • Demand for food and commodities is growing, and our supply of reserves is tighter than before. No one today needs to be reminded of the increases in global population and economic growth that fuel steady growth in food demand. What’s less well recognized is the narrowing gap between global food production and global consumption. The simple fact is, in the current environment we are drawing down our reserve stocks. And when strong demand meets shrinking supply, prices go up.
  • Weather problems in key parts of the world add to the supply and demand imbalance, pushing prices up and increasing price volatility. Whether it’s climate change or normal weather cyclicality, some important growing regions around the world are experiencing record dry conditions in key production areas in South America, Russia, Australia, and the American West and Upper Midwest. Worries about crop sizes fuel a steady upward pressure on commodity prices.
  • The cost of producing commodities is rising. The rapid run-up in energy costs has a profound effect on-farm costs. Diesel fuel for farm equipment, gas for vehicles, propane and natural gas to dry wet crops, even fertilizers – all contribute to higher production costs, which inevitably factor into the final prices paid by food consumers.
  • Labor shortages complicate both farming and food manufacturing. Farmers and food manufacturers alike complain that they simply can’t find all the workers they need to cope with the current situation. And when they do, they often find they must pay more, if only to contend with the disincentives created by COVID relief payments. Department of Agriculture labor statistics indicates the number of workers hired by farmers and ranchers was down 11 percent from year-ago levels as recently as April, to about 613,000. The drop occurred despite an April increase of 6 percent over the previous April’s labor rates, to an average of $15.97 per hour.
  • Supply chain disruptions add to costs. As if labor shortages and higher fuel costs for hauling commodities and delivering food products weren’t enough, our finely tuned food distribution system is still adjusting to yet another cycle of changes and interruptions in delivery channels.  On a global scale, we’ve had to wrestle with complications in the location and availability of the ocean freight used to carry commodities around the world – not just what the United States exports, but also what we import to satisfy our food demands. Events such as the recent shutdown of the Suez Canal and the cyberattack that paralyzed JBS, the world’s largest meat producer, provide evidence of just how quickly and pervasively these disruptions can ripple across the entire food system.
  • More out-of-home dining. The Covid pandemic led to a dramatic decline in the amount of food eaten out of the home, requiring our food system to adjust to moving a greater share of the food supply to retail channels. With the pandemic now appearing to ease, the system must once again adjust to a more traditional pattern. That means change to packaging, more complicated transportation logistics and a raft of other costly changes. BLS points out that the overwhelming proportion of the increase in food costs came from a run-up on prices for food eaten away from home – a whopping 4 percent, compared with 0.7 percent for food eaten at home. We’re going out to eat once again – and paying more for the privilege.
  • Food waste remains an issue. We waste as much as a third of our food every day and every year. One online firm specializing in market data analysis estimates that about 1.6 billion tons of raw food products are never turned into consumable food to feed the hungry. Such waste only adds to the inflationary pressures of the big supply-demand picture.

We also need to remember that we may have been lulled into a touch of complacency about our food prices over the last decade. Food price inflation has been largely muted in recent years. Between 2013 and last year, for example, annual food price inflation averaged roughly 1.4 percent, with 2016 and 2017 both coming in with less than a single percentage-point rise.

Economists say the current inflationary prices eventually will ease. But few are willing to say when, or by how much. As our look at the causes of food price inflation showed, many of the factors driving up food costs are likely to be with us to one degree or another for some time to come.

But what does it all mean for me?

For most of us, the dizzying array of things that influence our food prices are less important than their immediate effect on our pocketbooks.

Dirt-to-Dinner decided to take a look at the real-world – or at least an admittedly unscientific glimpse of what the CPI data actually means to U.S. food consumers.

A sincere thank you to the D2D Network of Unofficial Field Reporters: Gary Tomasello of San Jose, CA; Jake Cuaron of Denver, CO; Dick & Tanyia Williams of Jacksonville, FL; and Frank & Kathe St. Lawrence of Fairhope, AL.

We asked our network of friends across the country to help us with an exercise that builds on some insightful and valuable work done by the Toledo Blade. That highly respected newspaper created a market basket of 15 common food items and tracked its cost in 2003, 2008 and 2011.

We elected to continue that work by seeking current price information for the same 15-item food basket, but with data from the Northeast, mid-Atlantic, deep South, upper Midwest, Gulf Coast, Mountain region, and West Coast.

Our results are intended to provide a simple snapshot of what food price inflation really means at the consumer level – not a rigorous, statistically reliable economic analysis. Our results show the cumulative effect of what may seem like small annual cost increases.

We invite our readers to use the item checklist to take a closer look at what food inflation means for each of you.

The exercise taught us as consumers one very important lesson: shop smart.

We were surprised and pleased to see that the retail food industry seems to be doing its part to help consumers deal with rising food costs.  We found numerous examples of sales and discounts for various items on the list, as well as some potential savings from house brands and locally sourced food items. In some cases, those savings helped reduce the overall basket costs significantly.

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Cyberattack at JBS: Understanding Meat Technology


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The best part of the conversation with my friend was her honesty. “Lucy when I think of how we get our meat, I think of Yellowstone, the TV series. It’s Kevin Costner and a bunch of hot cowboys rounding up cattle under a gorgeous setting, herding the cows into a warehouse where they come out the other side as my Bubba burgers. So I’m pretty unaware of how technology plays into this”.

After we got done laughing, I realized that was a fair point. After all, the food supply chain is not visible to most and the technology used in ag is not something people think about on a regular basis.

I assured my friend the cyberattack did not make our food unsafe and that there wouldn’t be any shortages. I told her I would use this week’s blog post to explain the entire cattle-to-meat process, the role technology plays, and what the ransomware attacks did. And, I even promised to sneak in a photo of those hot cowboys from Yellowstone.

What Happened to JBS?

Let’s start with the basics. Brazilian-based JBS, the largest meat supplier in the world experienced a ransomware attack. The FBI believes that REvil, one of the most advanced Russian cybercriminals in the world, hacked into JBS computer systems and either encrypted its files or shut its system down in all U.S. beef plants, as well as its meatpacking facilities around the world.

In return, the hackers wanted money; JBS ended up paying them $11 million in ransom. The payment was in bitcoin.

In the past, criminals kidnapped people in exchange for money. Today, it seems that kidnapping computer systems in return for U.S. dollars or cryptocurrency is a more lucrative business.

What Does Technology have to do with Cattle?

Think of processing cattle like an auto assembly line, but in reverse. When a car is made, 30,000 parts must be assembled before it gets shipped to the auto dealership. Cattle, on the other hand, get taken apart into over 1,000 SKUs. We eat about 63% of the animal and the rest goes into just about every other industry imaginable. Most people don’t think of cattle when imagining the ingredients used in medicine, pharmaceuticals, soaps, fine bone china, leather, and even asphalt.

It’s Very Complicated

In the United States alone, more than 100,000 cattle are processed six days a week. JBS produces between 20%-25% of global volume — further evidence of South America’s rapid growth in livestock production. The technology involved to create the assembly line of 1,000 SKUs is intricate and complicated.

First, the cattle need to be trucked from the grasslands or the feedlot to the processing plant. An inventory management system is needed to purchase the cattle. As they are waiting outside, they are individually tagged and identified. Each animal has its own identification code that follows the various body parts at every stage. For instance, a particular code is associated with the ground beef you buy at Walmart and the steak at Kroger’s. And the tongue that is sent to Japan. And the liver that winds up in Egypt.

After the hide is stripped off the animal, the carcass goes into a washing station. Think of a car wash. It gets cleaned and the goal is to remove and kill all pathogens. Computer settings control the amount of water, spray, and heat. After the wash, USDA employees use computer-driven scanners at each processing plant which inspect for pathogens, grades each carcass and make sure the facility meets strict HACCP requirements.

Technology is critical to managing the 2,000-plus employees in the facility. Each employee in these meat-processing plants stands next to a large, precise, and sophisticated assembly line. The line keeps moving so each worker has to keep pace by cutting their specific parts such as the tenderloin, ribs, and strip loin, etc. The technology tells the plant manager how many workers are present, how productive they are, and if there is any wasted meat.

Quiet on the Set

As in Yellowstone, the typical meat plant is much like a movie studio, with hundreds of people all doing different jobs to create the final product, a polished cinematic gem. Everybody has a part to play and a carefully crafted script to follow, and that script is run by technology.

If the lights are wrong or the sound isn’t perfect, or the sets or costumes aren’t completed or the actor flubs a line, the whole process grinds to a halt. Cattle processing demands the same coordinated ballet.

Plant managers depend on computers for that coordination and control – to pull dozens if not hundreds of actions altogether, effectively, and efficiently.

After this incredible coordination of processing the animal –where does all the beef and the over 1,000 different SKUs go? Managing and sending all those parts is definitely not executed with an Excel spreadsheet and a fax machine. Complex automated inventory management systems send each item boxed and shipped around the country and throughout the world. In the average meat facility, about 5,000 animals go through the system every day.

And each animal produces about eight boxes of beef which must be invoiced and sent to the right locations. While there are giant coolers that hold about 100,000 boxes of beef, the product can’t sit there for more than 24 hours. Every day, about 60 trucks come to the facility to pick up the 40,000 boxes that must be trucked out to their customers.

Every step from the ranch and/or feedlot through the processing plant to the grocery store or restaurant is handled with a complex data management system. When that breaks down as it did in the case of the JBS hacking, it halts the entire beef production – from steaks to animal feed. This time the hackers picked an exceptionally good time to infiltrate JBS’s system.

For the next three months, beginning on Memorial Day, meat consumption is at an all-time high, and the number of cattle that get processed each week increases by about 10%-15% to meet the needs of worldwide grilling, barbecues, and overall summer fun. It is very encouraging to see how quickly JBS was able to respond and get its systems up and running.

Keep Calm and Carry On

According to NPR, REvil has indicated that the agricultural industry will be a target. So far, Mondelez, Molson Coors, Campari, Arizona Beverages, MGP Ingredients, Wendy’s, Huddle House, Caribou Coffee, Dunkin’, and Sonic have all had cybersecurity incidents within the past few years.

It looks like this is just something corporate America has to live with. Given that these were not as well-publicized as the JBS attack, we can assume that this will be an ongoing issue where the company will handle it and keep its business operational. It is a matter of who has the better technology.

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Are Farmer Protests in India a Cautionary Tale for Americans?


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What’s behind the protests?

How can you keep food prices low for consumers but expect farmers to pay more to grow that same food? The brouhaha between farmers and the government of India began in 2018 with the passage of three farm laws altering long-standing farm policies. In simplest terms, the laws sought to change the way most farmers sold their products into the market, largely by deregulating wholesale markets. Rather than rely on the traditional middle-man system of wholesalers as purchasers, farmers would be allowed to sell to other commercial entities, and to use electronic and other new mechanisms for finding buyers.

On the surface, it all sounds very reasonable. The idea: give farmers more freedom to seek the best deal for what they produce. They no longer would have to rely only on the middlemen to provide the minimum guaranteed prices dictated by the government.

But change is rarely warmly embraced. And for India, the idea of reform affects not just the interests of farmers and overall food security, but the national economy and social structure, as well.

Over time, opposition to the laws has steadily escalated. News reports around the world tell of tens of thousands of protestors, many living in tent cities indefinitely, and many using tractors and other farm equipment to block and disrupt traffic to call attention to their cause. Video footage of angry men and women has become commonplace, seen by consumers around the world.

What prompts such intense debate – and protest?

To understand the impasse between the government and farmers, it’s essential to recognize the unique nature of Indian agriculture.

Farming and agriculture represent by far the largest component of the country’s employment. In India, just over half of its 1.3 billion people rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. Some credible estimates say as much as 70 percent. That means any changes to fundamental agricultural policies stand to affect between 600 and 800 million people in very meaningful ways.

In the United States, by comparison, farmers represent only 2 percent of the total population. The food and ag sector accounts for about 22 million jobs – or roughly 11 percent of our national workforce.

Despite the presence of a robust commercial farming sector in the United States, the overall agricultural picture in India is dominated by small land-holdings. America and India have comparable arable land areas. But the average farmer in India works roughly two and a half acres of ground, compared to the average U.S. farm of 444 acres. The prevailing small size of India’s average farm limits income opportunities and discourages investment in equipment, infrastructure, and other productivity enhancements.

Many farmers simply eke out a year-to-year existence. In many cases, their families have to live on less than $1,000 a year. They look to state support as the principal means not of growth, but of basic economic survival. This struggle to survive on very low, if any, profits, has manifested in over 300,000 farmer suicides since 1995. In 2018, there have been an average of 10 suicides a day.

So Indian agriculture isn’t simply a food-producing sector. It is a cornerstone of the entire society. Since the 1960s, national policies have attempted to accommodate both needs.

Government subsidies assist producers and rural residents in a number of ways: financial assistance for fertilizer, free electricity for water pumping, loan forgiveness, and direct financial aid all help hundreds of millions of producers stay afloat.

Protestors are deeply concerned about what happens to the government-guaranteed minimum prices for commodities such as rice, wheat, sugar, and other staples, which drive annual production on even the most un-economic farms. These supports have assured ample supplies for the domestic marketplace – and economic survival for millions.

In some instances, this policy has made exports possible. Today, for example, India is one of the world’s leading producers of wheat, cotton, groundnuts, fruits and vegetables, and even livestock — and among the largest global producers and exporters of rice, sugar, and wheat.

To protect consumers, the government has provided additional subsidies to keep prices low for basic foods, including rice. On one hand, food prices have to remain low to alleviate hunger and poverty and on the other hand, the low food prices are making life extremely difficult for over half the Indian population. This financial double-whammy of supporting two sometimes opposing sides of production and consumption can lead to unbelievable price distortions.

For example, the price of rice on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CMA) was actually lower than the fixed government price of rice in India, the largest rice-producing country in the world. A metric ton of rice costs $233 on the CME yet it costs $254 a ton for consumers in India. “A kilo of rice, which has an economic cost of 37 rupees to the taxpayer, is sold to two-thirds of the global population for 3 rupees.” as reported by Bloomberg’s David Fickling and Andy Mukherjee. Wheat support prices in India were 25 percent above the prevailing Chicago wheat futures price, the report also noted. To shield consumers, subsidies make the cost disparity magically disappear.

Changing market prices may have altered the arithmetic since that day, but the larger point remains valid.  Subsidies can distort markets – and create unintended but difficult consequences.

Arguments for reform:

  • Existing policies are economically unsustainable
  • Policies perpetuate poverty/dependence on state support
  • Policies create environmental concerns (fertilizer overuse, water depletion)
  • Reform promotes productivity improvements, long-term competitiveness for global market opportunities
  • Best for long-term interests of nation, economy, farmers, consumers

Arguments against reform:

  • Smaller producers (which are the majority of farmers) would lack the market clout to bargain with larger, more powerful commercial entities – and thus would wind up at their mercy
  • Increases the power of the larger commercial farming interests across India and invites greater involvement by multinational agricultural companies
  • Leaves far too many people economically vulnerable
  • Potential displacement of a huge number of people
  • Accelerates migration to urban centers

Is there a future for small and independent Indian farmers?

Proponents of reform say existing policies are simply financially unsustainable. Opponents of change say the risks are simply too large for too many people – and the threat to social order too great.

Both sides in the dispute say they won’t budge. All three farming laws have been passed but suspended by the Indian courts as discussions among farmers, farm groups and government officials continue.

But the clock is ticking for India. As the debate drags on, India’s population continues to expand. As it does, the twin responsibilities again emerge. Population growth means more mouths to feed – and more people dependent upon agriculture for their livelihood.

Various international agencies and institutions project that India will become the world’s most populous country within this decade. The total population is projected to climb from 1.3 billion to 1.7 billion by 2050 – within what amounts to a single generation.

That means another 400 million consumers and job seekers will enter the fray – well above the entire current population of the United States, and only slightly less than the number of people in the 27 nations making up the European Union.

The situation in India may add a perverse new economic dimension to the notion of agricultural “sustainability.” Can the country continue to afford the enormous expense of the current approach? Or must it seek some form of greater engagement with an open, competitive marketplace? What approach will best allow Indian agriculture to survive? What’s best for both producers and consumers?

What does any of this mean to Americans?

For the average person watching the video of men and women protesting the new laws, the situation may seem a world away. The truth is that decisions made in the coming months will have an impact on food prices, availability, the stock market, and more. And the same goes for here in the U.S.

Most obviously, the simple humanitarian aspects of the situation should matter to everyone. We are all food consumers.

Food is something we share. It unites us and ties us all together in a shared common basic human need. It is a cornerstone of the philosophy behind Dirt-to-Dinner. When any person’s food security is at risk, we all should pay attention.

For students of the global food system, the outcome will have important ramifications for how food moves around the world.  India already is a major factor in many global markets – rice, cotton, sugar, and wheat, to name just a few. Future policy decisions will help determine whether that involvement in global markets expands – or not. If India’s producers elect to apply their productive capacity to capturing more foreign market opportunities, the world will see an even larger player in the international food marketplace.  Consumers everywhere could have more choice, and also enjoy the discipline imposed on food prices when nations truly compete to supply the world’s food needs.

On another level, the situation in India should provide a cautionary tale for food consumers everywhere. It demonstrates the importance of making balanced decisions about the agricultural policies and programs that create our modern food system. It shows what happens when our best intentions — to provide food and incomes for all — veer too far from economic reality. The tragic decline of Venezuela’s economy and rampant food insecurity already have provided one important object lesson in fundamental food economics. It’s a lesson we all need to remember, from Delhi to DC, and everywhere in between.

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Postbiotics: You Are What You Digest


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We may think of ourselves as ’23 and me’ based on our pair of chromosomes, but really, we are closer to ‘3 million and me’ based on our microbiome. If you add up all of our genes, we are really 90% microbial.

3 million and me?

What do we mean? Throughout our intestines, we have about a mango-sized bag of hungry microbiota – which scientists are now considering an organ just like the liver or heart. This kind of tiny, powerful, and hungry bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes, and viruses determine your mood, immune system, and nutrition absorption. What type of microbiota you have depends on what you eat!

Because of its importance, microbial health has been a topic of significant discussion in the nutrition world for the last few years. By now, we’ve heard of the many gut-health-enhancing suggestions on how to boost pre- and probiotic production, such as fermented foods, daily probiotics, and a range of various fruits and veggies. But have you heard of postbiotics? They are a result of these pre- and pro-biotics you eat every day.

In relation to prebiotics and probiotics, postbiotics are the outcome of these efforts. What do I mean? Let’s do a quick pre- and probiotic 101:

  • Prebiotics are a wide variety of fiber, such as whole fruits, veggies, mushrooms, and even seaweed. Diversity is critical as it helps support a broad range of beneficial bacteria. For instance, some bacteria will thrive when you eat black beans, and some will happily multiply with spinach. If your diet is not varied, then those microbes that like certain foods will not flourish.
  • Probiotics are made up of fermented foods; specifically, 12 strains of bacteria synergistically grown together, shown to positively affect overall gut health. Think kombucha, yogurt, and kimchi.

Now for the new guy…

  • Postbiotics are compounds (or metabolites) created by the probiotic bacteria that help protect, renew, and assist the body’s essential and critical functions.

More on Postbiotics

Postbiotics are a relatively new term in the ‘biotics’ field. That said, there is substantial scientific consensus surrounding pre- and probiotics, but with postbiotics, this is not yet the case.

Here is what we do know: postbiotics are a byproduct of pre-and probiotics. They are metabolites or cell-wall components generated during fermentation in the gut. They are soluble byproducts secreted by live probiotic bacteria that include short-term fatty acids, extracellular polysaccharides, cell fractions, functional protein, and so on. What does this mean, and what do they do for you?

Postbiotics have drawn attention as of late due to recent research indicating they can have direct immune effects.  

Clinical evidence on postbiotics shows that in healthy individuals, they improve overall health and relieve symptoms in a range of diseases, such as infant colic and adult atopic dermatitis, different causes of diarrhea, and many more.

Postbiotics can also help with:

The Journey of a Bean

Let’s take black beans, for example. You prepare a black bean salad for lunch. You chew it all up, enjoy all the rich flavors, but then what happens when it leaves your mouth? Well, digestion is not just a simple food-in, excrement-out process. These beans you just ate are going to encounter a variety of microbial players in the gut along the winding gastrointestinal tract and in the colon.

One cool part about all this is that the foods (like the beans) determine your body’s specific microbial “players”. So, you can actually think of your gut as your own personal fingerprint – it is unique to you, it is unlike anyone else’s, and it is based on what you feed it. The foods we eat make up the bacteria that live and thrive in our gut!

I like to think about it in these two equations:

Variety of Fiber + Prebiotic foods = Healthy Gut Microbiome (Healthy Bacteria makeup)

Healthy Gut Microbiome (Healthy Bacteria makeup) = Multitude of Postbiotics

But, let’s get back to the beans! A bean is a legume packed with protein and fiber. Digestion starts in your mouth with enzymes in your saliva that begin the process of breaking down your food. It travels through your esophagus, where even more enzymes jump in to help them break down the process. These broken-down food particles feed the gut microbiota to produce short-chain fatty acids.

T-cells Taking Action

While they may sound little, these short-chain fatty acids are robust and directly affect T-cell production. What’s a T-cell? Glad you asked! A T-cell is a type of white blood cell that, at its core, tailor’s the body’s immune response to specific pathogens or invaders. You can think of T-cells like soldiers who seek out invaders and destroy them!

Here is the Science: Fiber is digested in your colon by bacteria and turns into short-chain fatty acids. Short-chain fatty acids serve as messengers to tell certain cells to turn on as immune cells, or T cells. These T cells multiply and turn into helper, regulatory, or cytotoxic T cells. They can also become memory T cells. The T cells are sent to peripheral tissues and can circulate in the blood or lymphatic system. Once they detect an antigen, helper T cells send out chemical messengers called cytokines. These cytokines (are good and not to be confused with the cytokine storm) fuel the differentiation of B cells into plasma cells (antibody-producing cells- these are what you need to fight off viruses!). Regulatory T cells act to power immune reactions. Cytotoxic T cells, which are activated by various cytokines, bind to and kill infected cells and cancer cells—helping to protect us against multiple viruses, like Covid. 

Now, what if your body didn’t have enough fiber variety to produce these fatty acids needed for the T-cells? This can happen when we don’t feed our body enough variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. It takes a combination of many types of these foods to maintain a healthy gut microbiota, which enables our body to break down and absorb nutrients from our food correctly and ultimately provides for our immune system defenses.

Here is another set of equations for you:

Fruits + Veggies + Whole Grains (Fiber) = Short-chain fatty-acids +Vitamins +Minerals

Short-chain fatty-acids +Vitamins + Minerals = More T-cell Production

More T-Cell Production = Better defense against pathogens & invaders

While beans are a great probiotic, many plant and animal foods can provide the fiber and protein needed to produce the fatty acids that produce T-cells. Think of T-cells as the ultimate result of postbiotics.

Who would have thought that a bean salad could achieve all that? I bet you’ll have a whole new appreciation for your lunch now that you know what an important role your food plays in preventing pathogens from attacking you.

How Can I Maximize Postbiotic Production?

Well, here is the deal: postbiotics are only produced in a body with a diverse microbiome. When you feed your gut a diverse array of dietary fibers and prebiotics, the probiotics are plentiful and varied. This variety of probiotics allows for more diverse postbiotic metabolites to be secreted. Postbiotic compounds play a critical role in regulating your organ system, your immune system, and your brain.

Think of your postbiotics as tools in your tool belt. You acquire those tools through fiber varieties. The broader range of tools you have, the more effective tool kit you have for your overall health.

As gastroenterologist Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, M.D., author of Fiber Fueled, puts it, “when you take a prebiotic or probiotic, people don’t realize that at the end of the day, the hope is to get some postbiotics. The entire point is about postbiotics.”

While part of the issue is many people don’t know this is the end game, it is also that our microbiome is not diverse in most cases. In The Mind-Gut Connection by Dr. Emeran Mayer, M.D., he notes that an alarming 90% of children and adults in the United States do not consume the recommended amount of daily fiber. We should eat at least 30 grams of fiber a day.

How much of each pre- and probiotic food is enough? 2-3 servings of prebiotics and 1-2 servings of probiotics each day – ingested in different ways—will suffice. The idea here is that if you fuel your body with enough pre- and probiotics regularly and in a variety of ways, your body will, in turn, produce myriad postbiotics—adding to that tool belt! And the conjunction of all these components is proven to have a significant impact on our overall health.

Your probiotic bacteria’s ability to make postbiotic metabolites is solely dependent on the amount of and diversity of fiber in your diet.

Maybe we should consider changing the phrase from “You Are What You Eat” to “You Are What You Digest”!

Getting More Dietary Fiber in Our Diet

While taking a daily probiotic can help diversify our microbiome, it is simply not enough. As we know, functional foods are critical to a healthy diet, which goes for fiber consumption as well. We must learn to feed our bodies with probiotic bacteria from whole foods.

Feeding our microbiome with a wide variety of plant foods is the best thing you can do to boost postbiotic production; you will need 5-7 daily servings of a variety of the below foods:

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I Tried Intuitive Eating for a Month – Here’s What I Learned


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There’s a lot of mixed information swirling about on social media regarding the new healthy trend, “intuitive eating”. The nutritionists and dietitians promoting it seem very happy, healthy, and peaceful, as if their body literally tells them what foods it needs. As someone who has studied nutrition to increase health for myself and others, I thought this was a great way to give my body what it wants while eliminating the inevitable guilt that comes with “slipping up.”

What is Intuitive Eating?

Intuitive eating was created by dieticians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in 1995. They started the trend with their book, “Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works.” However, it wasn’t something completely new. In 1978, Susie Orbach published, “Fat is a Feminist Issue,” which focused on emotional eating—a substantial component of intuitive eating. Intuitive Eating is gaining popularity now because of social media.

Intuitive eating generally focuses on self-care, rather than a strict regimen. It combines instinct, emotion, and rational thought into one practice. According to Evelyn Tribole, “intuitive eating is a personal process to honor our health by listening and responding to the direct messages of the body in order to meet your physical and psychological needs.” But how can this work, when the U.S. suffers from a 42.4% obesity rate and a 12.3% malnutrition rate?

The founding principles to successfully practice intuitive eating are as follows:

My Experience with Intuitive Eating

I’ve seen KFC’s Nashville Hot Tenders all over TikTok. I don’t normally crave fast food (except the occasional Chick-fil-A, of course!), but they looked so good, and I love chicken tenders, so I decided to “listen to my body” and try some.

They tasted delicious, but almost immediately afterward I felt sluggish. I was tired, lethargic and surprisingly, very thirsty. I thought, if only I had listened to the way my body felt after eating the tenders before I ate them, I probably wouldn’t have had any.

As Jack Bobo described in his new book, Why Smart People Make Bad Food Choices, our minds are influenced by outside narratives. In my case, TikTok’s KFC videos. We are confronted with compelling reasons to eat certain things, and our brain retains that and seeks it out despite our better judgment. Why?

The decision was easy. Easy? Yes. Our brain did not have to find another food or research something else to eat – it already knows this food is delicious — so our tired minds make the easy decision.

But per my experience, easy is not always best.

That we are influenced by the media and advertising is a no-brainer. But what is not so simple, is that our brain plays the biggest role in helping us stay healthy and lose weight. Eating intuitively could actually increase your cravings and make you gain weight.

Is There Any Science Behind This? 

The National Institute of Health (NIH) makes it clear preliminary studies show that the more you stop yourself from eating food you are craving, the more that craving diminishes. NIH researchers are bullish on these findings while still noting more research is warranted.

Studies found that intuitive eating practices are associated with better weight stability than those who followed rigid diets. Furthermore, intuitive eating has shown to improve psychological and behavioral health, including reducing binge-eating.

But if you read carefully, it is weight stability and not weight loss or gain. As with every diet, there are challenges associated with intuitive eating. Researchers found that women who participated in intuitive eating experienced many social and environmental barriers that limited success, including their own varied emotions and support from family and friends. Also, many women found that the “unconditional permission to eat” was the most challenging part of the diet.

This demonstrates a need for self-control and self-discipline to find success with intuitive eating. It is no surprise that research shows that resisting those cravings will help you lose weight.  Resisting cravings is easier when you think about how your body feels after eating certain foods more than how they crave the foods before.

Studies also show that our gut microbiome craves what we feed it. So, if your diet consists of chocolate, candy, and junk food, managing your cravings while practicing intuitive eating will be more difficult – if not practically impossible. Remember, your brain lights up when it even thinks about sugar. A diet consisting of sugar will only make you crave more. If your base diet is already healthy, full of fruits and vegetables, then intuitive eating will be much easier because your body will crave healthy food.

From what I learned in both my experience and research, intuitive eating is most helpful for those who suffer from disordered eating or binge-eating.

By welcoming all foods with kindness, you limit the chance of binge eating “restricted” foods, such as chocolate and chips, because you’ve incorporated them into your diet in a limited, healthy way.

I’ve never been one to try out fad diets, so my experience with intuitive eating was very similar to my eating on a normal basis. I still made sure to eat my servings of fruits and veggies every day, but I also did not limit myself. I am under no false impression that every person is cognizant of their intake of fruits and vegetables. Without the foundation of knowing what I needed before I let myself enjoy the occasional food I wanted, I probably would not have fared as well.  Maybe I would have skipped the fruits and vegetables altogether.

So for me, an educated eater, if I felt my sweet tooth coming, I indulge in a piece of dark chocolate. If I really was not feeling the salad I had planned on having for lunch, I make myself something else, like a wrap. One night, we decided to have a bonfire and I made myself a s’more because they’re my favorite. I didn’t allow myself to feel guilty or ashamed after, but I also didn’t allow myself to have three or four. I listened to the need but quickly recalled how sluggish I felt after the KFC experience, so I moderated my snack.

As far as exercise goes, I always listen to my body to avoid injuries. I have my weekly workout schedule that typically remains the same. But, if one day I really don’t feel like running and want to jump rope or lift weights instead, I do that. What I don’t do is let myself go days in a row without moving. Again, it’s all about moderation.  If I’m halfway through my run and my ankles hurt, I stop and walk.

However, exercise is critical for maintaining a healthy lifestyle, which is why it’s one of the main tenets of intuitive eating.

It’s easy to sometimes feel ashamed after eating foods that “aren’t good for us.” I know I have been there. But just remember, one decision does not have to impact your next. If you grant yourself permission to have a piece of dark chocolate after dinner and end up eating the whole bar, don’t let that decision ruin your week. Restart your intentions with your next snack or meal.

My Big Takeaways

Here’s my advice if you want to give “intuitive eating” a try:

  • Be kind to yourself, but have discipline. Remember that your end goal is to be healthier overall.
  • Stay active. Even if you don’t feel like running, do something else. I rotate between running, walking, boxing, HIIT, and strength training.
  • Find fun and creative ways to eat your fruits and vegetables. I love having fruit in the morning and adding veggies to my lunches and dinners. I eat veggies in pasta, rice, salads, and other dishes.
  • Always make sure your food tastes GOOD. If you force yourself to eat something just because it’s healthy but you don’t like the taste, you’re not going to want to eat it again. Even with veggies, make them taste good. Add your favorite seasonings and dressings.
  • Stay focused on your goals. My goal is to be as healthy as I can, while also enjoying life and food. I eat pizza. I eat sushi. I eat burgers. But, I also love broccoli, brussels sprouts, and strawberries. Eat all your food in moderation and always keep moving toward your goals.
  • Be mindful. Intuitive eating requires you to stay mindful of your health, nutrition, and body.
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Why Do We Make Bad Food Choices?


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Today, I am reviewing an insightful book about the relationship between consumers and food. Why Smart People Make Bad Food Choices by Jack Bobo, CEO of Futurity, “where food meets future”. Bobo previously served as the Chief Communications Officer and Senior Vice President for Global Policy and Government Affairs at Intrexon Corporation. In 2015, he was named by Scientific American as one of the 100 most influential people in biotechnology. Prior to joining Intrexon, Bobo worked at the US Department of State for thirteen years as a senior advisor on global food policy.

After reading it, I felt like I did not really know myself after all. I am a pretty adventurous and active individual. I eat well, exercise, get sleep, and make good choices to stay healthy. Or do I? Are my brain and my body tricking me? Are marketing efforts on social media and at the grocery store completely confusing even the educated consumer? Apparently so.

Here is the framework that Bobo applies to human behavior and our food system:

  • The Mindscape: How our minds trick us into thinking we are making the right decisions.
  • The Foodscape: How the food landscape (restaurants, TV, radio, social media, grocery) has an invisible hand that guides us toward unhealthy choices.
  • Transforming the Foodscape: What we can do to redesign our food system using behavior science to improve food choices and live to be a healthy 100 years old.

The Mindscape

Our brains can play tricks on us. Bobo discusses the tendency to hold onto confirmation bias when we agree with the information that confirms what we already believe. This can impact our existing knowledge about food.

Rather than spend time searching for knowledge that challenges our beliefs, we look for facts that support or defend them.

This means that it is hard for us to change our minds. When was the last time you changed your mind? Not about what to have for dinner – but your position on a political issue or a food issue. According to Bobo’s research, those who constantly evaluate their beliefs and are willing to change their mind are those who have the sharpest intellectual capability. This is called “intellectual humility” which is a sign of “curiosity, openness to new information, and ultimately, intelligence.” As we read his book, Bobo is asking us to rethink and be curious and intellectually humble when pondering our relationship with food.

To Decide or Not to Decide

I did not know that we can only make so many decisions in one day. Tired brains make poor decisions, according to Deborah Cohen, author of A Big Fat Crisis: The Hidden Influences Behind the Obesity Epidemic – and How We Can End It. “Decision fatigue” happens when our brain – or body – is tired and we just want to make the easiest choice possible.

Think about your decisions at the end of the day. It’s time for dinner and you are rushing to the grocery store between work and home. You have to make choices when browsing the 40,000 items along the aisles. This can be a scary place because we are taught to fear our food.

Tired and hangry, you make the simple decision to have pasta and tomato sauce for dinner. The aisle is full of an overwhelming array of different pasta sauces. Hmm….as you look at the labels that read gluten-free, GMO-free, hormone-free, you forget to look at the more critical label that shows the caloric, fat, and sugar contents. And, when our brains are overworked, we usually want to reward ourselves by buying a special treat like ice cream, cookies, or just one candy bar.

The Health Halo Effect

Have you ever noticed that reading one single word or phrase can influence our choices? This is the “halo effect” in action. For instance, we might see “lowfat” on the label and assume it is low in calories and then eat more than we should. Another example is the label, “natural”, which conjures up beautiful fields, sunny days, and produce coming straight from nature. Truth be told, the USDA has never defined “natural”.

According to Food Insight, the information hub created and curated by nutrition and food safety experts at the International Food Information Council nonprofit organization, 70 percent of consumers perceived that foods with the “natural” label were healthier.

Bobo recommends paying attention to your “halo” foods. “Low in sodium” might mean high in fat or “lowfat” might mean high in sugar. Once you understand what motivates you, then you can carefully select the foods that really are healthy.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” 

– Franklin D. Roosevelt

Bobo also reminds us that food is safer today than at any point in human history. He cites Hans Rosling, who wrote the book Factfulness. Our literacy, democratic government, parkland, and food production are just some of the categories that have gotten better over the years. Yet we still have unnecessary fears that signal our brains to worry. Why is this?

Bobo also talks about the availability bias. Our brains like to judge an event depending on how easily we can retrieve it from memory. Of course, when scary thoughts linger in our brain, they prevent us from changing our mind to something more scientifically based even if it is positive.

Alarming news is the media’s “clickbait” and so we are inundated with it causing us to irrationally fear things and worry. For instance, which is more dangerous: sharks or mosquitos? Mosquitoes spread disease and are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths annually. Shark attacks average about 80 a year. So why do we always think of Jaws when we swim in the ocean? Movies about sharks sell better than killer mosquito movies.

After reading the just first section of Bobo’s book, I know more about myself. I now know why I overbuy at the grocery store – especially when I am hangry. I know why when I am out to dinner with friends on a Saturday night and have had a couple glasses of wine, we dive into chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I also know why I might have a snack before dinner after a long day of traveling. What else do we have to guard against?

The Foodscape

If we cannot entirely trust our brains, can we trust the environmental factors that influence the quality and quantity of food we eat?  According to Bobo, apparently not.  The foodscape is any area that affects our food decisions such as at home, grocery stores, gas stations, shops, and restaurants as well as on social media, the radio, and television. Here are three of the most important factors that Bobo outlined which have adversely influenced our health.

SuperSize Me

It all started at the movie theater. In the 1960s, David Wallerstein wanted his patrons to eat more high-margin products, like popcorn, candy, and sodas. He realized that his customers were not going to get up in the middle of a movie and buy another bag of popcorn. Nor were they going to appear gluttonous and sit down with two bags.

What did Wallerstein do? He made everything bigger. Much to his excitement, sales of popcorn and Coca-Cola shot up. After his movie theater success, Wallerstein went on to work for McDonald’s, where Ray Kroc, McDonald’s CEO, came around to the “supersize” concept in 1972.

We all know what has happened since. But why do we eat so much anyway? As it turns out, our eyes and our stomach are not a good judge of what to eat. Jack Bobo details experiments where participants consumed soup from a tube where they couldn’t see how much they were eating. Because the stomach takes about 20 minutes to tell the brain it is full, they overate.

Our eyes are not much better. People tend to eat what is in front of them. Study after study on meals like macaroni and cheese, sandwich sizes for lunch, even fruits and vegetables, have shown that the bigger the portion, the more people eat.

It Is All About The Label

When I look back at pictures of the 1960s, everyone looks thin and fit. Yet, as a society, we know more about health, wellness, and food than ever. We know that sugar is bad for us. We know to eat healthy fats with omega-3s and limit processed saturated fats, like sausage and bacon. We even have the FDA-mandated Nutrition Labeling and Education Act. The hope with labeling was to encourage healthy food to be created by food companies and eaten by the consumer. So what gives?

Bobo says that it is because we really don’t read the labels! According to eye-tracking research, only 9% of people look at the calorie count. Apparently, we all lie to ourselves and think that we read the label, but we just buy what we know and like. Labeling didn’t work on restaurant menus either. Either it is ignored, or consumers look at the dollar per calorie ‘deal’ on food.

The Power of Socialization

Bobo points out that we eat more when we are with friends and family at a holiday meal (that one is obvious) or just on a casual Saturday night. Of course, this has been studied as well and the findings suggest that – the longer we sit, the more we eat. We also overindulge together to assuage the guilt. No one wants to be the only one ordering dessert.  This doesn’t mean that you should skip these fun events, it just means that you should pay attention to how much you are eating.

Transforming the Foodscape

As I see it, healthy eating is incredibly difficult. After reading his book, I will never go on “food autopilot” again. I now understand that, at times, I cannot be trusted. Especially with chocolate…

Luckily, I can take comfort knowing that I am not alone, and we have to engage our brain and our stomach when we encounter social media, restaurants, or even our local grocery store. But Bobo also points out that a healthy life is not just looking at food in isolation. He cites Blue Zones, specific regions where locals have exceptional longevity, to demonstrate simple elements to a healthy lifestyle.

In his final chapters, Bobo outlines several ways to weed your way through the complexity of food choices. He also encourages the food industry to take part in his movement to create healthy food options.

You can join Bobo and be part of the movement for healthy eating by following his suggested solutions in his book, which are both for you as a consumer and, just as importantly, those in the food industry.

All is not lost when it comes to our health. We hope Why Smart People Make Bad Food Choices readers feel empowered with a new level of awareness and understanding of why we all behave the way we do when it comes to our food choices.

I have outlined just a few of his concepts in this article to give you a flavor of his analysis of our food system. For more detail and clarity on his perspectives, we encourage you to read the book, which you can find on Amazon.

Happy reading!

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Saving Our Soil…One Billion Microbes at a Time

“We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

The Dirt

Soil microbes are hard to see and understand, yet we know that they have a significant impact on plant health, your health, and the Earth’s health. New microbial research and technologies are beginning to change how we understand and direct the soil microbiome to increase soil fertility and plant health, which then help our understanding of your microbiome.


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Pouring algae on the soil, sequencing soil DNA, and measuring soil diversity are just a few of the new technologies used to keep our soil from becoming just ‘dirt’. And it seems as though diversity is the key. When I hold a teaspoon of healthy soil in my hand I squint and try to see the billions of microbes. Apparently, in this little amount there are more microbes than all 7.8 billion people on earth today. This handful has greater diversity than all the animals and insects in the Amazon Rainforest. This is a powerful group made even more exciting when you think they originated from our celestial bodies.

Since the beginning of time, these soil microorganisms are fungi, insects, bacteria, algae, and more than happily coexist in the soil. They control soil pathogens, reduce disease outbreaks, keep plants nutritious and resilient, give plants the power to pull carbon out of the air, make land less prone to wind and water erosion, clean and filter water, and are a source of human medicines.

As a D2D reader, you have likely read about the projected increase of the global population to 9 billion people in just 30 years. That means more fruits, vegetables, and row crops needed to feed more animals and more humans. To achieve this growth, the traditional thought has been that farmers will need more and more pesticides and fertilizer to eliminate bugs and increase their yields. Or do they?

A Booming Agricultural Microbial Market

New entrants in the biostimulants space. Sources: iSelect Funds, IDTechEx.

Think of the microbiome in the soil like the one in your gut. Similar to your health, plants need diversity in the soil to keep you healthy and strong. Microbial technology is a serious solution that uses bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoans, and yeasts instead of conventional agrochemicals.

Companies in this niche produce biostimulants. These include biopesticides, which are natural materials like canola or baking soda that eliminate pests, and biofertilizers, natural fertilizer compounds such as manure, algae, or decayed material that increase the availability of nutrients to the plants.

Additionally, since microbial crop protection poses fewer risks using than conventional pesticides, the EPA generally requires less data and has shorter review times before the various solutions can be used in the field. This reduces the timeline to development by years and the cost of product development by millions of dollars.

According to Research and Markets, the global agricultural microbial market is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 12.5% and reach $11 billion by 2025 from approximately $6 billion in 2020.

Innovations in the microbiome tech space have to address the challenges of soil needs.  The goal is to increase yield and reduce pests, and weeds with less chemical inputs – all while enhancing the soil microbiome. While this is a highly fragmented market, it is dominated by just a few players.

Innovations in soil microbiome technology

Here are four examples of new technologies that make our soil healthier…

AgBiome partners with the microbial world to improve our planet.  Started in 2017, the company is focused on discovering and developing innovative biological and trait products for crop protection. On March 23rd, Mosaic Fertilizer Company and AgBiome announced a collaboration to develop biological alternatives for soil health.

AgBiome is sequencing a library of microbes sourced from environmental samples from across the globe. As of today, the North Carolina company has more than 90,000 sequenced microbes and identified 3,500 insect control genes from that collection. Their technology can discover microorganisms and proteins that kill insect pests, fungal pathogens, and weeds.

For instance, Howler, the first of AgBiome’s biological fungicides, harnesses the power of the plant microbiome to create an efficacious fungicide with multiple modes of action that provide preventative, long-lasting activity on a broad spectrum of soilborne and foliar diseases.

Biome Makers measures the biological quality of soil to deliver agronomic insights to farmers. Based in Sacramento, Biome Makers was created to solve a fundamental problem facing the future of food: How do we recover the microbial diversity in today’s modern agriculture system?

Using an AI system, Biome Makers assesses the health of a field based on a farmer’s current practices as well as the soil functionality for any crop. What is the right soil microbiome community for a specific farm and farmer?

Working with Bayer and about 70 other ag input manufacturers, they will help farmers understand what works well and how it affects their soil’s health. It’s about measuring crop health and functional biodiversity by using DNA sequencing and intelligent computing.

Their team reads more like a Silicon Valley group with experts in genetics, software engineering, microbiology, agronomy, and data science. We are not in Kansas anymore…

Pivot Bio provides a clean alternative to synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. In April 2020, the company raised $100 million co-led by Breakthrough Energy and Temasek. Their technology reduces nitrogen fertilizer and increases crop yields.

Fully half of the world’s food supply is dependent on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, yet overuse, misuse, and runoff can bring serious environmental impacts such as dead zones and C02 emissions. Our atmosphere is 78% nitrogen – and the only crops that can take it out of the air and convert it into a nutrient are soybeans, alfalfa, and cowpeas.

Wheat, corn, and rice don’t have this ability – therefore they need fertilizer.  As Pivot Bio explains: “Nitrogen is essential to life. It’s a building block of proteins, DNA and amino acids. When plants have the right amount of nitrogen, they grow well and yield abundantly. Pivot Bio makes nitrogen fixation as natural as breathing for the microbe. Microbes inhale nitrogen gas from the atmosphere and release ammonia to plants. Enabling nitrogen-producing microbes as a crop nutrition tool for farmers will transform agriculture.”

MyLand replicates algae in native soil to grow as fertilizer. “Building strength beneath the surface,” explains Board Member, Bill Buckner, in reference to the company’s purpose. MyLand takes live, native microalgae from the farm to improve soil health, increase crop yields, and capture carbon.

Each farm has its own naturally specific algae – just like we have our own gut microbiome. MyLand technicians go out and take samples and isolate which algae are the most suitable for multiplication. They grow the algae in small vessels with lights and correct temperature. They make millions of cells and it is put back in the soil through the farmer’s irrigation system.

As a result, farmers use approximately 25% less fertilizer, 15% less water and reduce tillage by 40%. Voila, yield increases by about 25% and revenue by 40%.

Beyond farming and onto human health

Direct contact with the soil is key. When my oldest son was just a toddler, he was my garden helper. He would happily eat handfuls of dirt and my pediatrician assayed my worries and told me it was good for him. Now I understand why. As humans have evolved over time, we have had a close relationship with the earth first through hunter-gatherers then through farming, and now to our children crawling and running around the garden.

Humans and soil share common bacteria such as lactobacilli which breaks down our food and soil’s organic matter. We can even look to soil to give us new antibiotics that would kill multidrug-resistant pathogens such as MRSA.

But for more than half the global population living in cities and suburbs, this gut connection to the soil is missing. We primarily receive our microbiomes from the food we eat.

The above chart illustrates the difference in human contact with the soil from pre-industrial days to today.

Hot topic: The link between soil health to human health

We eat what we sow, so to speak. The essential nutrients, such as hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, that we need to thrive as humans come from the soil (originally from the stars). In speaking with Dr. Stephen Wood, Sr. Scientist of Agriculture and Food Systems at The Nature Conservancy and Lecturer at Yale, “Very simply, plants receive their micro and macronutrients from the soil.

“In order for humans to thrive, we receive those same nutrients that come from the plants.” Dr. Wood highlighted studies undertaken in parts of Africa that show a correlation between low selenium and zinc in the soil with low levels in the blood of the local population who ate the local rice.

But he is quick to point out that this is not as simple as low levels of nutrients in plants equate to low levels of nutrition in humans. While there is emerging research, the actual evidence where “soil management impacts human health through changes in crop nutrient densities is small.”

In Africa, where nutrition and food scarcity are real issues, studies have been done but the correlation is not always strong. The chart below shows the inconsistencies of zinc in the soil versus in the corn, cowpea, millet, and sorghum.

Even so, we want healthy, not degraded soil, to produce a higher yield of crops to feed a growing population. It is because of the nutrients in the soil that the plants receive their nutrients. While industrial fertilizer gives specific nutrients to help crops grow, increasing the organic matter helps build the microbes in the soil to increase yield.

Regenerative agriculture practices such as cover cropping, no-till farming, and adding livestock from time to time all help increase the diversity and abundance of microorganisms.

How do changes in microbial soil affect the future?

There are benefits to increasing the microbial content of soil – but it is not a perfect science. The added microbes only live in the soil for about three months and can easily be taken over by other microbes. They are hard to apply – which is tough for small holder farmers. Finally, if too much is applied for too long, they can saturate the soil of salts and nutrients.

That said, the technologies keep improving. If we can grow our food with healthier soil and less fertilizer runoff and create better nutrients in our plants and soil we will have a healthier planet and healthier people.

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Climate-Smart Farming Paves the Way Toward Carbon Negative


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The purpose of AgMission, a 2020 partnership with the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) and the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers in Action (USFRA), is to collect the best research data related to greenhouse gases (GHGs). FFAR funds pioneering scientific research in critical areas of our food and agricultural systems. To support AgMission, FFAR is currently funding over $50 million to support climate change research. USFRA supports sustainable food systems through its broad network of U.S. farmers and ranchers.

To make intelligent decisions about bettering soil health and reducing GHGs in the atmosphere, AgMission will create a massive research platform that provides farmers the intel to farm according to the most effective and applicable carbon sequestration practices. Farmers have long known how various conservation practices protect the natural resources they rely upon for a living and which ones contribute to their long-term financial success.

But making decisions about sustainability and profitability requires more than a collection of ideas; it all begins with good, solid facts.

And that’s what AgMission wants to create.

How is this supposed to work?

Each year, 33.1 billion metric tons of GHGs hit the atmosphere globally, with 5.1 billion coming from the United States. China emits the most – sending up to 10 billion metric tons. Of course, this is not all terrible, as we need carbon to survive.  Without it, our landscape would look more like Mars. Carbon is found everywhere on Earth and is even 18% of our body weight.

According to NOAA, when carbon dioxide (CO2) goes into the atmosphere, about 50% remains there, while 25% is absorbed by plants and trees and 25% by the oceans. If farmers and ranchers could absorb at least 10%, it would certainly help the soil while removing GHGs.

2 million U.S. farmers and ranchers are responsible for growing our food and keeping us fed and healthy. They are environmental stewards for 44% of U.S. land. Globally, it’s more like 38%.

They have proven to be remarkably efficient and productive in delivering an amazing array of foodstuffs the world depends upon.  But rather than bask in the gratitude of a hungry world, farmers and ranchers have faced what seems to be relentless criticism – if not an outright attack by some – for contributing approximately 10% of U.S. carbon emissions and 36% of methane.

As you can see from the chart, crop cultivation, a.k.a. tilling the soil, and deforestation is the most significant contributor to GHGs, with livestock methane emissions as a close second.

Is it possible to bring ag-related GHGs down to a negative 4%? 

AgMission thinks so. If all the farmers in the United States adopted soil-smart farming systems such as no-till, cover crops, rotational grazing, manure management, methane-reducing animal feed, and variable-rate fertilizer application, then the soil would be healthier and more carbon would be pulled from the atmosphere.

Recently, The Nature Conservancy, with participating organizations such as the University of Oregon, Ohio State University, Woods Hole Research Center, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian, led a study to determine natural climate solutions for the United States.

They estimated farmers could reduce GHG emissions equivalent to 21% of what the U.S. emits each year. This is 11% more than what is estimated that the agricultural sector emits in the first place!

 

 

 

 

 

“The majority (63%) of this potential comes from increased carbon sequestration in plant biomass, with 29% coming from increased carbon sequestration in soil and 7% coming from avoided emissions of CH4 and N2”

 

 

 

 

For this to succeed, collaboration among all climate-oriented agricultural scientific researchers, as well as support from the global farming and ranching community, is critical. That is why AgMission will spearhead this effort with over $50 million in funding the research. This database for all farmers and ranchers will help them determine which carbon-sequestering methods would best suit their farm, crop, weather, environment, and soil health.

Sequestering carbon benefits the atmosphere, but also the soil. Think of soil like the foundation of a house. Carbon, like the wood frame, provides physical stability for the soil that improves oxygen, water drainage, and retention while reducing the risk of erosion and nutrient leaching.

What do farmers think?

Is it realistic to put this pressure on the farmers? Will they participate in the carbon exuberance? Rather than be offended, farmers and ranchers have responded with their usual ‘can-do’ spirit by supporting efforts to improve their practices to protect the environment and promote sustainability.

AgMission will consider this initiative to be successful if the land farmed and ranched becomes resilient to future climate-related shocks and stresses, food productivity increases, and the food supply chain is secure. This is a huge opportunity – and responsibility for farmers and ranchers across the country.

I spoke with two inspiring farmers, Meredith Ellis, a cattle rancher from Texas, and Anne Meis from Nebraska who grows corn, soybeans, and cattle, as well as serving as Chairwoman of USFRA and board member of the Nebraska Soybean Board. What did they think of AgMission’ s big hairy audacious goal (BHAG)?

Do you think about carbon sequestration when you farm?

Meredith: I ranch for the soil. We are part of a pilot program where our carbon is measured by the Ecosystems Services Market Consortium, a subsidiary of the Soil Health Institute. Our ranch is sequestering 2,500 tons of carbon (after enteric emissions) each year – equivalent to taking 551 cars off the road.

Anne: Every day we think about soil health. Our livelihoods depend on better production and healthy soil. Our goal is to grow crops and to continually try to regenerate that healthy soil.

What do you think about monetizing carbon?

Meredith: I am a progressive farmer and believe in the five principles of soil health, water quality and water quantity downstream, carbon, and biodiversity. When you can commoditize these products, then it will turn the farmer’s eye to more than just beef, rather focusing on additional products such as carbon, water, and biodiversity.

Everyone I have talked to wants to be part of the solution. But I am fearful of policy markets that can miss their goals. For instance, the California cap and trade policies were not incentivizing the conservation of existing grasslands and forests. So it was easy to sell that land, develop it, and release the carbon back into the atmosphere. Another example is the Black Land Prairie in Texas – it used to be 12 million acres. Now it is only five thousand.

Anne: The idea of measuring carbon is highly fragmented. We need an organized system so all this work can really take hold. This is the goal of AgMission.

Do you think farmers would find AgMission’s database as a valuable tool for best soil health practices? 

Meredith: Data sharing is absolutely critical for collaboration across all disciplines. The more information I have, the more accurate and effective my decision-making process can be moving forward. I urge everyone not to underestimate the enormous amounts of data we ranchers collect that can help greatly in our national and global sustainability goals.

Current data and modeling show my cattle operation is a carbon sink. Now let’s take the next step and answer the question: Why? What is giving me the biggest bang for my carbon buck and how can I improve that number?

Anne: USFRA and FFAR are leading the efforts to gather the science to measure carbon capture. Farmers work in a wide variety of soil types and ecosystems. There are many practices that contribute to healthy soil, efficient water use, and conservation. Farmers have always relied on science to help them make best practices decisions for their unique farms and now others are seeing value in the contributions farmers can make to ecosystem services.

Let’s hope this system evolves as incentive-based and not regulatory. Farmers want to use the best tools for best soil health practices for the best outcomes.

Data-sharing is a critical component of AgMission’ s objectives. How do you and other farmers feel about sharing their data? 

Meredith: I feel like the research community has not put enough effort into understanding the nuances of our operation and the data we collect and why. If anything, I feel a great urgency to share my data with the scientific community, specifically my biodiversity observations as it relates to our dwindling historic grassland and forestland ecosystems which my cattle all home. As willing as I am to share my data freely, I feel the need to remind the scientific community of the decades of knowledge and decision-making skills in a number of areas necessary to become a land steward. Ranchers have to maintain a rich dialogue with scientists and policymakers throughout the decision-making process in how to move forward – or any effort made behind a desk without a producer’s input will likely fail.

Anne: We are constantly analyzing our data and measuring our soil. We know there is a hesitancy among producers that data will be taken from them and then used to restrict and regulate us. That should not be the case. For instance, telling farmers that certain spots on their farm need to be restricted on specific fertilizer or pesticide regulations. We don’t want someone behind a desk telling us how to farm.

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Regenerative Ag in Your Own Backyard


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When Steve Hall bought his 43 acres of farmland in the Appalachian foothills more than a decade ago, he quickly discovered the difference between his dreams and farming reality. The land wasn’t as productive as he had hoped. “More rocks than dirt, really,” he remembers. But he talked with knowledgeable local producers. He sought out experts. He experimented, observed, and learned.

And in the intervening years, a lot has changed – the productivity of his land, and the attitudes of a lot of people who think and act like Steve.

Moving Beyond Gardening

Today, Steve and his two sons operate “Hall’s Regenerative Agriculture”, a consulting company that provides hands-on help for an increasing number of home farmers from the city, suburbs, and elsewhere on how to make their own contribution to the growing focus on sustainability and regenerative practices.

Colin Hall (left) and his father, Steve Hall, work with an expanding roster of clients to apply basic regenerative ag principles to home landscaping and gardening. Photo courtesy of Sonya Mull.

“I’ve worked with bank presidents and average homeowners,” Steve notes. “But they all seem to want the same thing – to use whatever space they have responsibly, not just to look nice or produce a little food. They want to feel like they are doing something worthwhile for the earth we all share.”

Steve has helped clients with as little as one-tenth of an acre, to some with dozens of acres, or more. “I help some folks in rural areas,” he observes, “but more and more it’s people in the suburbs, and even some in the city. It’s about the attitude and awareness people have of our world and our environment, more than how much land they have to work with.”

“The interest in this isn’t really so much a flood as a rising tide,” he notes.

Most of his clients, he says, look for diversity in plants, trees, and other growing things that not just produce some food but maintain the health of the larger ecosystem. “You see some strange combinations sometimes,” he adds. “You want perennials that come back year after year, giving up something edible but also co-existing with each other to replenish the ground and maintain a healthy balance.”

Making the right choices can mean having food from your own land “nine, and maybe even ten, months of the year in this area,” he notes. Maybe just as important, some of these planting configurations will continue to generate environmental benefits that span 50 to 70 years – and maybe more.

On this day, his clients are Ted and Sonya Mull, and their son Connor and daughter Avery. Ted is a medical doctor, his wife a nurse, and his kids two typical suburban high school students. They contacted Steve after realizing their plans to do some landscaping improvements could have a lot more than cosmetic value.

Short-Term Work for Long-Term Results

“It dawned on all of us that what we were doing was more important than just planting a few bushes, or getting our garden plans in order,” Ted reflects. “Maybe it was the effect of being locked away and having so much time to reflect. But we saw a chance to do something more important – something that mattered a lot more than how our place looked.”

Adopting the regenerative approach to home landscaping and gardening led to the addition of a wide variety of plants, all with beneficial environmental qualities.

Making their own small contribution to a healthy and sustainable environment was just the starting point, according to both parents. Ted explains, “Today, it’s so easy for us to forget what it takes to produce the food we eat every day.” He continues:

“We don’t see the effort and the expertise that goes into growing the food we need. Doing this helped remind the kids exactly what it takes to produce food. It teaches them about how connected we all are to the earth and how important it is to make sure we keep that earth healthy and thriving.”

“Covid has been tough on all of us,” Sonya adds. “There’s the isolation and distance from other people, of course. But for kids, there’s also the sense that things are out of control, that the future isn’t what it once seemed to be. Doing this has helped them see a kind of regeneration through nature. We’re doing things that speak to the future – a better future. It sounds kind of like Mary Poppins or something that usually will make teenagers roll their eyes. But they have gotten into this. It’s been great for them. For all of us.”

Avery, in fact, soon enlisted friends from school to be part of the regenerative project. Together, they planted trees, shrubs, and other growing things. And as they did so, they talked with Steve, and they learned about the environmental value of the things they planted.

The mix of plants and trees proved to be more diverse than anyone had considered. Beyond the usual suspects of cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, and other backyard garden staples, Steve advocates lots of berries – currants, goji berries, sunchokes, pawpaws, and more. Black walnut, pecan, maple, apricot trees — “and lots and lots of blueberry plants and apple trees,” Steve adds with a hearty laugh. “People love those, they are good for you, and they are critical to balance in so many situations.”

To the right: Avery Mull, Gabby Sutcliffe and Sarah Katy found that a home landscaping project could be valuable both to a sustainable local environment and their own understanding of regenerative agriculture. Photo courtesy of Sonya Mull.

Every situation is different and demands some thinking and careful planning. “The big thing is to understand how all different types of growing things interact with each other and the world around them,” Steve notes. “It’s a dance…planting the right things in the right places and treating them right. It’s thinking not just about right now but what happens next.”

Steve’s parting advice? “Don’t just go stick some things in the ground and expect to get the results you want. Think about it. Do some research. Ask somebody who knows more than you do. What you are doing is important, so take the time to do it right.” He also provided some great tips to introduce regenerative ag in our backyards, no matter the size…

10 Simple Tips for Home Regenerators:

  1. Plant trees in pairs to promote effective pollination
  2. Always place taller plants to the north so smaller plants get the sunlight, too
  3. Use eco-friendly sun-blockers to control weeds (cardboard, hemp mats, cocoa mulch, burlap)
  4. Don’t skimp on nitrogen fixers (such as beans, clovers, and lupins)
  5. Consider investing in a simple device to monitor nutrient levels in your soil
  6. Diversify what and when you plant to help stagger your harvests
  7. Monitor your water use carefully to avoid overwatering and water waste
  8. Consult your local ag extension agent or gardening expert to find out what is right for your situation. Also, ask about micronutrient accelerators — plants that help gather micronutrients and minerals important to local soil replenishment.
  9. If you use commercial products to nurture or protect your plants, always follow label directions closely
  10. Observe what works well and what doesn’t. Take good notes and learn from them. Share them with your neighbors.

For a more comprehensive look at how to make your home gardening and landscaping more regenerative, check out this “Food Forest” article at Modern Farmer.

Need more help or have a comment for Steve? Contact him at bolohall59@gmail.com.

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Covid’s Effect on New Tech in Our Food System


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Grocery delivery has boomed since COVID hit. Gone are the days of waving at the milkman from the kitchen window as he dropped your glass milk containers off for the week. Recent innovations will soon allow online supermarkets to bring food to your door in a sophisticated, temperature-controlled, bacteria-killing environment. How will they maintain perfectly chilled meat, produce, dairy, and other perishables?

The New “Big Box”

Walmart offers an option: together with HomeValet, they are testing temperature-controlled smart boxes that can be stationed outside your home so your groceries are delivered contact-free at any time of day, even without having to be home. According to HomeValet, the UV-C LED disinfection method creates “an inhospitable environment to microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, molds, and other pathogens.”

To the right: the smart box technology uses a UV-C light inside the box, where items are sanitized before removal to ensure cleanliness before you bring them inside.

Like HomeValet, many grocery retailers are experimenting with different ways to meet growing consumer demands, like providing online ordering, mobile apps, and QR (Quick Response) codes that let consumers pick up goods curbside, drive-through, via same or next-day home delivery, or even in secure lockers at convenient locations. While these options are exciting to see and are a welcomed change in efficiency and safety, they have significant implications for the greater supply chain.

Supply Chain Disruption Demands Flexibility

Here’s some context: shifts brought on by COVID-19 have put tremendous pressure on (and new opportunities for) our food supply chains. According to a customer research study, 54% of consumers bought fresh food online this past year, and 70% of shoppers intend to continue online grocery shopping for the foreseeable future.

What’s more, over 100,000 restaurants and bars in the US have closed permanently due to COVID, according to the National Restaurant Association. Fewer restaurants, lower bar-food demand, rising demand at the grocery store, and new delivery options create a market where grocery supply chains must be more flexible than ever.

Flexibility needs to come in many shapes and sizes: personal shoppers must know how to pick out the perfect tomato, shipping and packing technologies should be designed to handle last-minute shifts in distribution networks, and inventory planners need to keep track of what will be stocked in-store and what can ship directly to consumers. It is surmised that this need for elasticity will remain a critical component of a successful supply chain, even long after Covid has gone away.

We’re probably not taking off our masks and heading to concerts anytime soon. These changes may last years, making grocery delivery here to stay for the foreseeable future.

E-grocery businesses can only be effective if automation at the warehouse and distribution centers have the capability to shift from a business-to-business channel to a direct-to-consumer model. With 80% of consumers having grocery-shopped online since the start of Covid, being able to shift from one channel to another is critical. Significant automation is needed for delivery as well. With over 40% of essential items now being ordered online (think toilet paper), the delivery portion of supply chains has to accommodate larger volumes, as well as extra hours for cleaning and sanitizing.

A Look at Several Solutions

Now picture yourself picking up your favorite soup, and it’s the last one on the shelf. Behind you comes a little self-driving robot, scanning labels on shelves, checking stock levels, and alerting employees of low inventory. That is exactly what Simbe Robotics has developed. Schnucks Markets in the Midwest is one of the first to use the technology.

Meantime, Broad Branch Market — in partnership with Starship Technologies — has integrated their automation system with six-wheeled self-driving robots that have sensors aiding delivery to customers.

Almost 2,000 Walmart stores use Brain Corp’s robots to clean and sanitize, opening up employee hours for the workforce to focus on stocking and shipping online grocery orders.

Knock, knock! Who’s there? Robots with your food order!

Some major grocery chains are partnering with inventory management kings to help with grocery shipping and fulfillment. Amazon assists with same-day delivery at Whole Foods and Kroger’s, which are both rapidly expanding their networks to meet rising grocery delivery demands.

Other fulfillment solutions include the expansion of robotic handling. Albertsons Co., for example, has created a series of “micro fulfillment centers” providing a scalable model for rapidly filling thousands of grocery orders daily. These are large warehouses with integrated picking, packing, and shipping robots that provide more efficient work than human workers can offer in-store. The centers store popular items that have historically bottlenecked at a shipping level due to shipping delays. Having this type of inventory in an automated store warehouse has helped to avoid that bottleneck and helped turn the product around to consumers faster.

Thank goodness I can find my two-ply and burger meat in-store anytime now!

Narrowing the Transit Window

For the first time, in 2019, a self-driving truck delivered goods from Cupertino, CA to Quakertown, PA, almost 3,000 miles away. Plus.ai, based in California, has developed this truck to help out when there’s a shortage of drivers and provide a touchless option.

Talk about a change from the neighborhood milkman, now we will be waving to cars with no drivers! I’ll take it if it means increased safety, and increased turnaround time!

Much like the fulfillment challenges, narrowing the time to get products from the processor to the warehouse to the distribution center to the grocery to the consumer has created logistics strains. With next-day air shipping raising expectations for greater speed and “panic buying” necessitating a need for quick processor-to-retailer turnaround to keep shelves stocked, the previously ‘easy’ delivery planning is a thing of the past. Having speed-to-shelf also depends greatly on having inventory in the right locations, and having those locations align with available trucking capacity.

The ground-based transportation industry, which moves goods from processor to retailer to consumer, is under unique stress. They are dealing with staffing challenges due to nationwide emergency drivers needed elsewhere, drivers leaving the industry for higher-paying jobs with better benefits, and drivers making important decisions about pausing their employment to preserve their health amid Covid concerns. Trucking connects all links in the food chain.

Agility with Inventory

The key to addressing each link in the chain is to have end-to-end inventory visibility. This allows the entire supply chain to react quickly to demand without chain-wide disruption. A major component to this is labor flows and resource allocation—or identifying how to be most efficient. This will allow for our food orders to reach us faster and increase our likelihood of reordering. One way grocers are doing this is by cutting their product offerings. Because consumer brand loyalty has all but gone out the window with COVID — with over 75% of consumers having changed brands during the pandemic due to convenience, or availability — consumers are now just taking what they can get as grocers are implementing a more streamlined product offering.

According to a report cited by Food Dive, “the average number of product offerings in grocery stores declined 7.3% during the four weeks ended June 13 … The drop came across a range of product categories, with frozen down 8.5%, deli slipping 7.7%, meat posting a decline of 7.1%, and dairy falling 6.6%.” For example, some grocery stores now offer only four choices of toilet paper, where prior to COVID they carried about 40 varieties.

By trimming away less profitable products that may be more complicated to produce and/or ship, factories and distribution networks can cut down on labor and time. Room on grocery store shelves is then opened up to products and inventory that is more reliable and can quickly meet consumer demand. A good example of this comes from PepsiCo, which decided to stop producing one-fifth of its products during COVID for efficiency reasons and will maintain a 5% reduction in its Frito-Lay snack division.

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What Do the Suez Canal and Covid Have in Common?


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To understand how significant this event is, let’s paint the picture of both the vessel and the Canal.

The massive container-cargo vessel MV Ever Given is 1,300 feet long, about the length of the Empire State Building if it were tipped on its side. Its cargo load is also impressive: the ship can haul 18,300 trailer-size containers that make up an estimated 224,000 tons of all manner of goods. If you were to line those containers end-to-end on land, it would stretch from N.Y.C. down past Washington D.C.

The ship – bound from Malaysia to the Netherlands — encountered 46 mph winds that helped push the huge vessel aground on the Canal’s eastern bank.

In short order, the Ever Given had blocked the entire 984-foot width of the Canal – effectively stopping passage by any of the other 50 vessels that normally move through the Canal each day, Each year, almost 19,000 vessels that travel the Canal. As efforts to free the ship dragged on for a week, the back-up of waiting ships grew well into the hundreds – by some estimates, as many as 350 of these massive ships.

As the incident makes clear, the Suez Canal is one of the most critical global trade points. The Canal, built over a decade beginning in 1859, has become a significant shortcut for oil, gas, and other ocean-borne freight moving in international commerce, especially between Europe and Asia.

Rather than brave the long, tumultuous route around the southern tip of Africa, ships traversing the 120-mile Canal can save as many as 3,500 nautical miles and as much as two weeks in travel time – and cost.

Today, the Canal accounts for about 10-12 percent of international commerce. Lloyd’s List (the recognized Bible of the shipping industry) estimates the cost of the blockage to international trade at $9.6 billion every day – or $400 million every hour or $6.7 million every minute we waited for the Canal to reopen.

If the ship is now freed, what’s the big deal?

The spectacular sight of the motionless Ever Given makes for entertaining video and somber news reports.

But the significance of the event is much bigger than a single cable news cycle.

While the Ever Given has been dredged, and is no longer blocking the Canal, consumers everywhere will be living with the after-effects of this situation for weeks – and possibly months to come.

Why? Because the ripple effects of closing the Canal will spread around the global trading system and once again highlight the delicate balance that exists within our modern supply chain for basic goods – oil, gas, food commodities, manufactured goods, and virtually all the elements of modern daily life.

Modern supply chains are much like carefully choreographed ballets. Each step in the chain depends upon the timely completion of the previous link. Just-in-time delivery is a cornerstone of the system. When deliveries are delayed, stocks may accumulate at production points, and shortages emerge at delivery points. Critical equipment and infrastructure – such as trucks, storage space, and so on – no longer function in the smooth, carefully-timed manner needed to keep the system moving smoothly.

Producers can’t sell, retailers can’t deliver. Consumers became intimately acquainted with these simple realities during the Covid pandemic.

How one ship affects the entire supply chain

As a result of this incident, hundreds of ships will be out of position as they wait at anchor or take on lengthier, costlier travel routes. A global shortage of containers (like those on the Ever Given) will become more pronounced. It will take weeks to sort out the imbalances and restore the system’s normal timetables and schedules. Freight rates are likely to increase, meaning the costs ultimately borne by consumers will rise, too.

Events such as this have a trickle-down effect that spreads across the entire supply chain. Given the importance of the Suez Canal in overall global commerce, the consequences of the shutdown aren’t likely to be confined to only a few, select products. The Canal is an important part of the global energy trade, with almost 10 percent of refined oil and 4 percent of crude flowing through the Suez Canal. Every day, about 600,000 barrels of oil bound from the Middle East to Europe and America travel the Canal.

Video coverage of the event helped everyone see the sheer scale of the problem. 

Most of the products onboard are exported from Asia to Europe and then shipped across the Atlantic to the U.S. For instance, coffee from Vietnam gets processed in Europe and then sent to U.S. grocery stores. But the roster of goods flowing through this trade artery also include furniture, clothing, manufactured goods, even some of the pulpwood that makes up many of the paper products consumers rely upon. (Flashing back to the great toilet paper shortages wrought by Covid.)

Canal traffic regularly includes everyday food staples, notably significant volumes of coffee, as well as livestock. As many as eight of the vessels delayed at the Canal are reported to be carrying animal cargoes. The Canal is a major trade route for many of the 1.6 billion live animals exported by the European Union each year, especially those bound for Asian markets hungry for animal protein. Thus the actual volume or live animal trade affected by this event could be significant. Hopefully, this event won’t prompt another meat shortage like last spring’s declining meat supply.

So what can the consumer expect?

What consumer products will be affected? And how will it all affect the supply and cost of the food we buy every day?

The consumer can expect once again to see some spot disruptions to normal supplies at the retail level. European consumers may bear the brunt of the disruptions, but the ripples will spread to other markets, too. The week-long delay was costly enough on its own.

But as we learned from our Covid experiences, the system will adapt. The Canal is now reopened. The problems we noted will be solved. The only uncertainty is exactly how long that process will take. The more important issue is when the system will return to its normal rhythm, as disruptions and backlogs ease and equipment moves back into normal positions.

This Visual Capitalist chart puts the various shipping choke points in perspective.

We may see some supply disruptions, but they are likely to be more isolated and temporary than systemic and sustained. Prices may spike in certain places for certain products, especially in the energy sector. But supply and demand remain generally in balance for basic commodities and staple goods. There is no need to stockpile.

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Avoiding conventional strawberries? Ask these questions first…


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Many regular food shoppers anxiously await the results of the Environmental Working Group’s annual “Dirty Dozen” list. Even if you don’t know what or who EWG is, you’re probably aware that conventional strawberries and other common produce items are supposedly loaded with toxic pesticides. With all the press this list gets, you might assume the research behind it must be scientifically credible, right? Well…

Developing Our ‘Reliability Radar’

Some of our everyday news sources, like social media, flood us with information. And unfortunately, much of it isn’t credible. Many websites try to cloud our objective reasoning by intentionally misrepresenting data to ‘sell’ a perspective, much like the sudden popularity of the celery juice diet that Hayley Philip previously wrote about.

So how can we build our analytical defenses back up? We’ve put together our own unique list — “The Discerning Dozen” — a compilation of tips to help you identify good science from pseudoscience. This way, you can be the judge when catchy news stories like The Dirty Dozen are released.

The Discerning Dozen explores four topics to help determine a site’s credentials: credibility, accuracy/transparency, bias, and quality.

In each, we’ll walk you through a few questions to ask about any article that will help you spot problems in the logic. We’ve even created an infographic to have handy for future readings!

Credibility: 

Though challenging to read, studies from .edu and .gov websites lay the foundation for good research. Try to stick with sources that use respected institutions to verify their practices and reporting. 

  1. Is it written by someone from a credible establishment? Reports and studies from recognizable institutions (academic, governmental, and/or medical) often have the most detail and are peer-reviewed, meaning other institutions have verified the research. Accredited medical journals with .org and .com sites, of course, can be good resources, too. Newbies to exhaustive reports can read the overviews typically found on the first page to understand the big picture. Still need an interpreter? Check out usefulscience.org; it’s a great resource for deciphering studies and has a simple, intuitive interface. Scholar.google.com is easy to navigate, too.
  2. Does it include knowledgeable industry experts and authors? Trustworthy reports and articles come from professionals with credentials in their related industry. These experts usually provide insight garnered from data, rather than opinion and specious claims.
  3. Which references does the report cite? Reliable research that’s not written by a credible establishment and doesn’t come from an industry expert should, at the very least, cite credible sources, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture or Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to substantiate any claims.

That’s a nice little circle of trust there, right? But as we know from life, few things are that easy…yes, there’s more to consider.

Accuracy/Transparency: 

So the site ends in .org or .com and it’s not a medical journal. What’s the next step to check its trustworthiness?

  1. Is it cherry-picking data? This is when an organization only shows data that supports their agenda but fails to address conflicting info or cites data out of context, and/or relies on outdated data since nothing more recent aligns with their purpose.
  2. Do other sites use the same facts? Hopefully, you can find the same information cited by other credible institutions.
  3. How much do they spend on researching their cause – and how much for marketing? All non-profits must publicly disclose financials on their site; you just have to dig for it. For instance, on EWG’s Statement of Activities page, 13% of their expenses went toward marketing and fundraising – not horrible. However, Functional Expenses reveals a much higher figure: in addition to fundraising, each subcategory also has its own marketing expenses. Furthermore, only a paltry 2% of their expenses is going to research and data. That’s not much funding for finding solutions to a problem, is it?

Click here to download infographic.

Bias:

Time to take a peek under the hood when the site’s validity is not easily determined.

  1. Do a domain double-check: Sites ending in .com and .org aren’t as regulated as the .gov and .edu sites of the world, so you’ll need to dig into the “about us” page for some background. Sometimes it’s hard to tell reputable foundations from organizations peddling questionable products or ideas. So be sure to read the bios of the management team and authors to determine reliability.
  2. Is there political pull? Any site can have an agenda, but not all of them explicitly state it. Advocacy websites, like PETA, are quite clear in their intentions. Reading the “About Us” page can tell you which policies, actions, campaigns, and lobbies they promote.
  3. Is it clear who wrote the article? This is a simple one we often overlook. If the author isn’t stated and/or doesn’t cite sources used for its research, then you can quickly determine it was written in-house to promote the organization’s stance.
  4. Is there only one answer? Does the author address alternative viewpoints on the topic? Good writers don’t omit or contest credible data that conflicts with their intent.

Quality: 

If you manufacture a product, you know about quality control – measures and precautions taken to ensure customers that everything is in good working order. This goes for websites, too…

  1. How’s the quality of the writing? Typos? Wrong words used? Time to check the author and his/her data.
  2. Don’t judge a site by its homepage. Does the site look rather simplistic? Or so polished and bursting with content that you feel like you found a goldmine of good material? No matter the design, the site is only as good as its underlying content, so vet it accordingly.
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EWG’s “Dirty” Little Secret: There’s No Science Behind It

Our founder speaks up about our right to choose whether to buy organic or conventional produce by empowering us to use facts substantiated by research institutions, not fears caused by a political group misusing data to fit their agenda.

Every year, an organization called the Environmental Working Group (EWG) comes out with its list of a “dirty dozen” fruits and vegetables that are supposedly “contaminated by some pesticide residue”. EWG’s goal is to get people to buy organic (and thus, more expensive) versions of these fruits and veggies rather than their conventional counterparts. They also make very clear on their website that this is also part of a political agenda and that they even spun off a political group, the “EWG Action Fund”, to lobby on their behalf.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog or checked out my bio, you’ll know I’m not opposed to organic food. In fact, I think both consumers and farmers should have a choice on what they want to eat and grow. I believe if you want to buy organic produce, it should be available to you.

However, whether you decide to buy organic or conventional fruits and veggies, I want you to be armed with facts, not fear. For many of us, the lines are really blurred as to what is better. Honestly, they are both allowed to use pesticides – they are simply different types that are allowed by the organic industry and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

So, to tell Americans not to eat produce because they might get sick and poison their families is actually adding to our nation’s health issues.  The majority of Americans either have cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, or are obese.

Of course, there is no magic bullet. But the American Heart Association Journal, concluded the following:

“Higher intakes of fruit and vegetables were associated with lower mortality; the risk reduction plateaued at ≈5 servings of fruit and vegetables per day. These findings support current dietary recommendations to increase intake of fruits and vegetables, but not fruit juices and potatoes.”

It is not just your mother telling you to eat your fruits and vegetables; there continues to be peer-reviewed evidence. In fact, the U.S. National Institute of Health said that eating more fruits and vegetables can reduce cancer, too:

“The epidemiologic experimental and clinical studies conducted…suggest that the risk of colon cancer and possibly other cancers also may be lowered by taking large amount of dietary fibers and other dietary components associated with high intake of grains, vegetables, and fruits. There is an inverse relation between incidence of colon cancer and the amount of fiber consumed.”

Additionally, the Annals of Internal Medicine did a study linking diet to cardiac health:

“Diets rich in fruits and vegetables given over 8 weeks were associated with lower levels of markers for subclinical cardiac damage and strain in adults without preexisting CVD [cardoivascular disease].”

The science behind EWG’s “Dirty Dozen” has been called into question. It’s just not true that there are “dirty” or “clean” foods based on whether they were grown conventionally or organically. My biggest concern with what EWG is doing, aside from it being scientifically questionable, is that it can negatively impact our health.

Eating your five daily servings of fruits and veggies can be transformative to your life and health. Don’t let EWG scare you or make it less likely you’ll buy affordable fruits and veggies – regardless of how they were farmed. Rest assured, both organic and conventional methods of farming are safe.

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Foster Brothers Farm: Covering Good Ground

We are pleased to have Bob Foster of Foster Brothers Farm write about the farm’s cover crop practices. Based in Middlebury, VT., the dairy farm supplies milk for Cabot cheese products through the Agri-Mark cooperative. The farm also recycles cow manure for their “Moo Doo” compost products sold around the Northeast. Foster is a member of the New England Dairy Association and serves on the Board of Directors for the Soil Health Institute.

When you drive past a farm field this winter, you might be curious about what’s growing there. Yes, growing. At our dairy farm and farms across the state, we’re growing plants on our fields — even in the winter. 

We keep the growing season going 365 days a year with cover crops, like winter rye (shown in the photo at the top of the page). You’ll see fields throughout Addison County and across Vermont green with cover crops still growing as long as the temperatures are around 30 degrees. When temperatures dip even colder or fields are covered in snow, winter rye will go dormant then renew growth in late winter.

Vermont recorded nearly 30% of its available cropland planted to cover crops in 2017 according to the Soil Health Institute, and we’re increasing that number every year. The U.S. average is only 5.6%.  

Covering Ground for Soil Health

Why does this matter? Farmers are covering what were once barren cornfields in the winter because we’ve seen the scientific benefits like carbon sequestration, reduced erosion and nutrient runoff, and flood mitigation. We pair that with reducing tilling or no-tilling in the spring for even greater gains in each of these areas. 

More people are now starting to understand these benefits, too, as documentaries like Kiss the Ground call attention to the fact that without healthy soil our society is in trouble.

Cover crops help us solve the issue of climate change because they are an amazing carbon sink. UVM Extension agronomists estimate that if all 80,000 acres of Vermont’s annual cropland had a cover crop, the carbon sequestration would be equivalent to taking over 51,000 cars off the road. 

To the left: Kirsten Workman, an Agronomy Outreach Specialist at UVM Extension, demonstrates the benefits of rolling cover crops and no-till planting for soil health at a field demonstration at Foster Brothers Farm in Middlebury.

George Foster of Foster Brothers Farm (far left in photo) volunteered to share the farm’s conservation practices as part of a tour of area farms with the Champlain Valley Farmer Coalition.

Another reason we use cover crops is to help the soil hold more water. As extreme weather events like heavy rain and flooding become more common, we need our soil to absorb that water and stay in place.

On an acre-by-acre average basis, developed land can contribute up to four times more phosphorus pollution through runoff than farmland and seven times more than forested or natural areas (Lake Champlain Basin Program). According to Food Solutions New England, 85% of the farmland in New England is managed by dairy farmers and is keeping land from being developed.

Putting it into Practice

At Foster Brothers Farm, we grow 900 acres of hay, 550 acres of corn, plus 300 acres of soybeans and small grains to feed our cows. In the spring, our winter cover crop needs to stop growing so it won’t compete with the corn we need to plant on the same field.

Farmers do this in several ways, depending on their goals and conditions. Some harvest the cover crop for feed for the cows, some flatten it down with machinery, some till it underground, and others will kill it with an herbicide like Round Up®, also known as glyphosate. At Foster Brothers, we’ve experimented with doing all of these methods.

The winter rye cover crop is pushed down by a roller-crimper on the front of the tractor. Corn is planted directly into the flattened winter rye at the same time using a no-till planter pulled behind the tractor.

On our farm, the biggest environmental benefits come when the cover crop is not tilled and is left to decompose into the earth, building organic matter, increasing water infiltration, and protecting the surface of our soil. Either rolling it down or using herbicides means there will be no tillage on the field, which dramatically reduces our carbon footprint and helps maintain healthier soil. We have seen this with our own eyes as we have watched our soil improve dramatically as we adopted this conservation cropping system of no-till and cover crops. 

Our soil is biologically active, and we want to take care of it just like we do our cows and people.

Managing Pesticide Use

We recognize that some people have concerns about the use of glyphosate. We don’t take the use of herbicides lightly. We are raising our families on our farms and we share the same concern for safety. We employ certified experts to ensure we utilize these tools safely and only when needed. The time, amount, and method of application of herbicides is extremely precise, specific to the crop, and regulated by EPA and the State of Vermont.

The U.S. EPA, European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), as well as other regulatory authorities in multiple countries, continuously review registered pesticide products and have repeatedly confirmed that glyphosate-based products can be used safely and are not carcinogenic when handled according to their label. 

Most farmers I know have reduced their use of longer-lasting and more toxic chemicals, instead favoring safer and less persistent chemicals to achieve the same goals. Glyphosate is one example of this. It is applied to a growing plant (the cover crop or target weed). It breaks down quickly and is safer for humans, animals, and the environment compared to other options when handled appropriately.

Looking to the Future of Farming

The latest biotechnology innovations enable farmers to practice more regenerative farming techniques and are just one tool that farmers can choose to use. 

I believe agriculture is at the heart of solving a lot of the issues we face like climate change, flooding, and the water quality in Lake Champlain, and there are many paths farmers can choose to get there. Farmers started on this path to improve soil health because protecting the environment is in our blood.

Most agriculturists aren’t out waving the flag about what they are doing. But, as people become more interested in how our food impacts the environment, it’s time we shared how we’re getting the job done while also providing people with things they can use, whether it’s milk, cheese, compost, or other farm products. 

When talking about sustainability, the media and research often focus solely on greenhouse gas emissions or one component of how we run our farms. Few think about the big picture including the positive impact local food production has on food security, nutrition, and our economy. 

The saying is ‘there is no such thing as free lunch,’ but dairy farmers are on track to continue to provide affordable, nutritious food with little impact on the environment. The movement we are building is nationwide and the dairy industry has set our sights on being carbon neutral by 2050.

Every farm has something to contribute and I’m proud to do my part.

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Lucy Stitzer x Farm Journal: Soil, Plant & Human Health

Thinking about Regenerative Ag with Lucy Stitzer, Dirt to Dinner and Nate Birt, Vice President of Trust In Food, a Farm Journal initiative, was originally published on Farm Journal’s AgWeb on March 2, 2021.

Nate Birt: We hear a lot these days about conservation, or sustainability, or regenerative ag. But soil health is really a fundamental building block underlying every ag system, no matter what terminology we use. It even made it into the Super Bowl this year! What are you observing about soil health in the world of food and ag, and what should farmers be paying attention to?

Lucy Stitzer: Chipotle’s marketing captures the idea of a cleaner, happier, more future facing farming. What does this mean exactly? 

Personally, I think that it all starts with the soil. When I first started learning about soil, I didn’t think it was very glamourous or exciting. But when I realized how alive it is – I started paying more attention.

Did you know that in one teaspoon of healthy soil – there live over 7.8 billion microbes – more than all humans on Earth today. Compare that little teaspoon with the human microbiome – and we have 100,000 billion microbes floating around our entire body – about the size of a mango. 

And these little organisms in the soil are more diversified than all the life – plants and insects – in the Amazon! Because of the Earth’s carbon dance of life, 10% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions are found in the soil. 

Healthy soil means a healthier environment and healthier humans. Regenerative Agriculture makes the soil healthier, have more nutrients, takes carbon out of the air, and retains water. This is different from the concept of sustainability which has broader meaning including animal welfare, human labor, and deforestation. Regenerative agriculture is primarily focusing on the soil itself, however many see it as the panacea to save the world from climate change by pulling carbon out of the air. But we can’t just get there with one type of farming and one answer.

What big-name companies or brands are stepping up their commitments to soil health and regenerative agriculture? What can we learn from these announcements as farmers? 

Walmart is committed to having zero emissions by 2040 – restoring 50 million acres of land will help them achieve their goals. Danone will help achieve their regenerative goals by helping farmers make the shift to regenerative ag by locking in long-term contracts with farmers to guarantee stable profit margins.

And Land O’Lakes, a farmer cooperative, has partnered with Microsoft to help farmers with their rural broadband which, in turn, enables them to have ‘intelligent agriculture solutions’ so farmers can keep their soil healthy by fully utilizing precision agriculture. NRCS is also trying to help farmers invest in conservation practices by providing federal financing, as well as from private capital.

“We seem to be divided on everything…let’s use food to bring people together.”

– Lucy Stitzer

Regenerative agriculture refers to the ability of farmers to strengthen ecosystems through their farming practices – yet you refer to the challenge of balancing regenerative practices as part of an entire food and ag system. What can the larger food and ag ecosystem do to support farmers holistically, including regenerative agriculture adoption?

I think companies, the government, and the entire ag ecosystem can recognize that there is not just one answer to growing our food. There is a tendency in our country to take sides. We seem to be divided on everything from immigration to impeachment to the welfare state to education and religion. Bringing the food to your dinner table doesn’t have to have the same divide. Let’s use food to bring people together – unite the country. There is not just one answer to growing food. Regenerative agriculture is a great answer for the soil – but it is not the only answer.  

Incorporating different agricultural practices into farming will certainly help the soil. But what we have to guard against is putting one type of farming on all farmers. Just as people are unique, so are farms — their soil microbiome, their environment. Every farmer should have a choice on how they grow our food. What works great in Kansas doesn’t work in Missouri. 

Finally, trading carbon credits created at the farm is beginning to be a reality. Farmers would have additional income by selling the carbon they have sequestered in their land. There is still a lot to iron out here – but it is being discussed as a way to reduce carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and provide additional farm income.  

It’s not as simple as every farmer adopting a cookie-cutter set of conservation practices or products. How should farmers be thinking about learning the lay of the land, then customizing sustainability to fit their needs? 

I am not a farmer – so my only thought here is for farmers to tell their story. Let people know how you grow your food, farm the land, use different technologies, take care of your soil and your watersheds.

Agriculture is being thrown under the bus as degrading the environment when the reality is that farmers are generally more environmentally conscious than most of us.

In addition, compared to any other industry, farming is the ONLY one that can be carbon neutral.  

What are you reading/watching/listening to that you’d recommend farmers check out? For example, The Wall Street Journal just published an excerpt from a new book this past weekend highlighting the accomplishments of precision agriculture and many ag sectors, such as livestock, in lowering environmental impact. 

On Saturday, Robert Paarlberg, an agricultural economist wrote an excellent piece in the WSJ reminding us that farming practices over the years has gotten better. Science and technology such as precision agriculture, seed genetics, and irrigation management, have helped reduce pesticides and fertilizers while yields have increased. Growing our meat and producing our milk takes less water, less feed, less land, and fewer animals than it did in the ’70s.  How can we continue this trajectory?  

A great page turner on soil is The Hidden Half of Nature, by David Montgomery and his wife, Anne Bikle. He is a professor of geomorphology at the University of Washington and she is a biologist and environmental planner. They write a fun and fascinating book about the soil microbiome.  I loved it and learned a lot. 

I also watched Kiss the Ground. It was thought provoking. It explained regenerative ag very well and highlighted Gabe Brown, a North Dakota regenerative farmer. However, I wish it had a more balanced view on the different types of farming. 

I would like to end with a couple questions for all of us. How can we use creative thinking, technology, and science to advance our food system? How can we push past political agendas and just ‘do the right thing’ for human and environmental health?

 

Check out Lucy’s full interview here:

 

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Don’t Look Now, But They’re Gaining on Us


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South America – led notably by Brazil and Argentina – has quietly emerged as a major producer of the basic crops and products that form the foundation of our global food system. Their productive capacity extends far beyond the sugar, citrus, cocoa, and other tropical and sub-tropical crops we often associate with any country south of our border. Brazil and Argentina also grow corn, soybeans, wheat, and other cornerstone commodities of the global food system. Four nations – Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay in South America, and the United States – together dominate global soybean trade.

South American producers are feeding expanding populations at home and abroad that want more and better food. And in the process, they have become major global competitors, especially as China begins to fill their soybean and corn deficit both from a growing economy and a rebound of hogs from the African Swine Flu.

Why does it matter? Because it helps meet the growing demand for food, primarily protein, from consumers everywhere. It drives the global markets that determine and maintain the delicate balance of commodity prices. It affects the income and well-being of the U.S. farm community. And ultimately, it influences the prices we all pay for the food on our tables.

Welcome to a Changing World

The headline went almost unnoticed in the major news media. But it attracted a lot of attention in the farming community when it appeared early in 2020 on various news wires…

Brazil to surpass the US as the world’s largest soy producer.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture noted that the 2019-20 Brazilian soybean crop would come in at an estimated 123.5 million metric tons (mmt), far above the weather-troubled U.S. crop of less than 100 mmt. To add to the concern in farm country, USDA also noted that an estimated 75 mmt of the Brazilian crop would find its way into export markets.

Since those reports, the picture hasn’t changed – except to become even more complicated. USDA projects that Brazilian farmers will plant, harvest, and export even larger amounts of soybeans in the 2020-21 marketing year that has just begun. And to make matters more complicated, Trade Market News increasingly speaks of Brazil as not only the world’s largest producer of soybeans, but the world’s largest exporter, as well.

Behind all the numbers, one message was clear: U.S. farmers are facing some tough competition to serve the growing demand for the soybeans and coarse grains needed to feed expanding animal herds around the world — especially the already huge (and still growing) market offered by China.

The Brazilian agricultural sector has grown robustly over the past decade and a half or so – and the Argentinian agricultural system remains a strong competitor in global agricultural markets. Together, these two nations make up an agricultural powerhouse, with rising clout in the world food picture.

A serious analysis of each country’s farming and food production systems would fill books. But just consider a snapshot of each.

Complicating the Picture

What makes South American producers so competitive?

A 2016 study by the U.S Department of Agriculture found that higher land and capital costs in the United States helped give both Brazil and Argentina significant advantages in overall farm-level production costs per acre for both corn and soybeans. Higher U.S. yields for corn helped offset the disadvantage somewhat, but these South American producers were found to have a per-acre price advantage that averaged 11 to 28 percent below U.S. costs.

U.S. corn farmers continue to have the overall price advantage, thanks to their superior per-acre productive capacity. But Argentine corn producers trail the United States by only 3 percent above U.S. costs (25 percent for Brazilian corn growers). Brazilian soybean farmers had a per-bushel cost advantage of 8.5 percent. Those kinds of advantages translate into very attractive prices for foreign buyers – and help explain the emergence of both countries as major factors in global corn and bean markets.

Not everything is rosy for the Brazilian and Argentine farm sectors, however. Nothing is guaranteed when it comes to farming and food, and experts also cite several continuing challenges to growth. Some offer rays of hope for better market opportunities for U.S. producers and exporters.

  • Global supply – and price — issues.

Worldwide stocks (basically soybeans in storage) of soybeans dropped again at the end of 2020, to a seven-year low of 140 million bushels. At the beginning of 2020, that figure was 575 million bushels.

And as economics dictate when supplies decrease and demand increases, prices have enjoyed a resurgence over recent months. Soybean prices that averaged about $9.50 in 2020 now sell for more than $13.50 – levels not seen in almost a decade.

In response, demand for corn as an animal feed also has increased worldwide, allowing U.S producers more opportunity to exploit their edge as the world’s largest and most efficient corn producer.

  • Brazilian supply issues. Brazil faces delivery problems for their soybean export commitments. Brazil is running low in stocks for their domestic customers. As a result, they have temporarily eliminated their 14% tariff for imported soybeans. They could import up to 1 million tons this year.
  • Investment. Not only have Brazilian farmers been willing to re-invest their new profitability in production expansion, but government assistance and foreign investment has helped fuel expansion of the country’s agricultural infrastructure. For example, a modern new road from key production areas around the Amazonian city of Manaus to vital export points has helped the flow of Brazilian crops from field to foreign customer. Soybean producers also have shown a willingness to invest in new, more drought-resistant seeds, and the inputs needed for optimal yields. The commitment to investment will be a key to continuing market competitiveness, as South American producers seek to match – or outperform — their northern counterparts in production efficiency.
  • Currency and economic challenges. The value of the Brazilian real has dropped by almost 30 percent over the past year, lowering the price of Brazilian exports and the cost of production inputs. Much of the continent continues to grapple with how to rebound from a lingering global economic downturn and the very real damage done by a global pandemic. Many have seen a sharp drop in economic vitality, but seem on the rebound now. Those efforts will be critical to attracting the investment that drives growth and modernization.
  • Political instability. Governments continue to struggle with the best means of dealing with political unrest triggered by allegations of government corruption, human rights abuses, economic and social injustice, and other public unrest that triggers fiery campaigns and heated public debate.
  • Environmental pressures, especially within Brazil. Deforestation in key parts of Brazil has accelerated in recent years, outraging the environmental community in an age of climate change. Some politicians and economists counter that more agriculture, logging, and mining are key steps in regenerating the economic health on which progress depends. The debate promises to grow only more intense.
  • American market resurgence. Efforts to resolve lingering trade disputes between the United States and China will be closely watched. USDA’s year-end projections for 2021 point to an expansion in U.S. soybean exports, as trade relations with China settle down and export levels rebound from the depressed levels of the past two years and return to the more traditional levels seen before the contentious trade dispute between the two countries. Soybean exports so far this marketing year are robust, supporting USDA projects that soybean sales to China will grow from the $17-18 billion levels of the past two years to more like $26 billion – above even the high levels reached in 2017.

Flying Down to Rio – and Beyond

Agriculture represents one of the mainstays of the Brazilian economy, despite the global economic downturn of the late 2000s and the more recent COVID pandemic.

Rising population and strong economic growth have created a robust domestic market for a wide and growing roster of food. But the real source of vitality in Brazilian agriculture rests in its enormous success in moving aggressively into global markets.

For decades, the country has developed market-oriented policies and improved farming and food production practices that have made it an international haven for investment.

The government actively supported the agricultural sector with a broad and extensive array of initiatives and policy changes – largely aimed at allowing Brazilian producers to compete for growing world markets food.

Programs helped producers diversify crops, improved their access to the capital needed to mechanize and purchase improved inputs, expanded agricultural research. provided targeted tax reductions and subsidies for select exports – and more.

Where are these exports going? Who are its most important trade partners?

Asian markets represent almost half the market for all Brazilian farm exports. And China is at the top of the list – as both Brazil’s largest export market and its largest supplier of total imports.

Reports from the Brazilian government in the first half of 2020 point to sharp increases in year-over-year sales. In January alone, China bought a record $3.8 billion in Brazilian farm exports, including $750 million in soybeans in that single month, according to their Minister of Foreign Trade. For perspective, that is more than the Pentagon is asking for its defense budget for the entire year.

In plain English, the Brazilian farm economy is growing despite all sorts of challenges, and its exports are going gangbusters, thanks in large part to strong demand from China and the rest of Asia. Brazil – and fellow South American country Argentina – are successfully capturing more and more of the markets important to American farmers and the U.S. agricultural system.

Don’t Cry for Argentina

Argentina shares many of the same characteristics of diverse climate and soil that make Brazilian agriculture so successful. The country produces a wide range of crops and animals, with a robust and growing wine industry.

The rich grasslands of the Pampas region once made Argentina a powerhouse in the production of cereals and cattle. But as the country increasingly urbanizes and other nations improve their competitiveness, Argentina has not seen the same level of dramatic growth and expansion as its South American neighbor. Great weather and strong global demand for soybeans, feed grains, and animal protein helped Argentina maintain a strong presence in the global market picture. However, export taxes and other government-directed efforts to manage markets risk further damage to Argentinian competitiveness.

Oilseeds represent the fastest-growing segment of the country’s exports, up 130 percent from 2018 to 2019.

Meat exports rose by half in the same period. Brazil remains Argentina’s most important trading partner overall.

China is Argentina’s second-largest export market, with Viet Nam, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia also buying large amounts of Argentine farm products.

The United States imports around $5 billion each year – mostly metals and minerals, and about $300 million for fruits and vegetables, and another $300 million in wine.

The Argentine government spurred internal controversy in early 2021 by announcing the two-month suspension of licenses for corn exports. The move was intended to conserve corn supplies for local animal feeding, but producers strongly opposed the measure, leading to the imposition of export quotas for corn. Concurrently, Argentina lowered export taxes on a long list of specialty crops, helping improve the price competitiveness of those producers.

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What Should I Eat in a Day?


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Food as fuel

Our bodies are amazing engines fueled by the food we eat. What are some amazing functions our engines do to live a healthy life? Our heart pumps about 7,500 liters of blood through 100,000 miles of blood vessels every day – which is why we want to avoid heart disease. In one second, 50,000 new cells have been shed and replaced.

And to keep our body functioning in tip-top shape, we want those cells to be strong and healthy. The more fruits, vegetables, and nutrient-dense foods we eat, the stronger our new cells will be, making our whole body healthier.

Bill Bryson put it eloquently: “Every day, it has been estimated, between one and five of your cells turn cancerous, and your immune system captures and kills them. Think of that. A couple of dozen times a week, well over a thousand times a year, you get the most dreaded disease of our age, and each time your body saves you. Occasionally, cancer develops, but overall most cells in the body replicate billions and billions of times without going wrong.”

You see, it is so much more than maintaining a certain body weight. It’s the difference between cells that can fight diseases and those that cannot.

Research shows that by following the USDA’s recommended nutrition guidelines, we are healthier, have stronger immune systems, and are less likely to develop diet-related illnesses. But why are vegetables healthy and chips not? What makes one food good for us and another bad? It’s all about what’s inside the food: vitamins, minerals, and amino acids.

The food groups

The USDA just updated its daily recommended nutritional allowances. But we start to ask ourselves questions, like “what does 5 to 7 servings of produce look like?”, “if I only eat 3 meals a day, how can I possibly get all of these servings in?” and “can I just do it all at once, like in a smoothie?”

According to the USDA Dietary Guidelines 2020-2025, healthy daily eating consists of a few key categories.

  • Vegetables: 2.5 cups, or 2.5 tennis balls
    • Dark green, red and orange, legumes, starchy – we need them all because each of them contains different vitamins and minerals including fiber, vitamins A, B6, C, and K, potassium, iron, cobalamin, and magnesium.
    • Aim for 2.5 cups per day. But note that not all veggie portions are created equal – double your amount of leafy greens that wilt when cooked, like spinach, and then round up!
  • Fruits: 2 cups, or 2 fists 
    • We mean whole fruits here. Apples, oranges, grapes, berries…you get the idea.
    • Necessary vitamins and minerals found in fruit are fiber, iron, vitamin C, and potassium.
  • Grains: 6 servings, or 1 cup of uncooked oatmeal, 2 slices of bread, and 1 cup of uncooked brown rice
    • Most of this should be whole grains, like brown rice, quinoa, oats, and whole-grain bread.
    • Limit your intake of refined grains – pasta, white rice, white bread. If you do eat them, look for enriched refined grains that put some of the vitamins and minerals back in.
    • Nutrients in whole grains include complex carbs, fiber, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folate, iron, magnesium, and selenium.
  • Dairy: 2-3 cups, or 1 12-oz. glass of milk and 1 cup of plain yogurt
    • This includes milk, yogurt, cheese, and fortified drinks, like soy milk.
    • Dairy contains fat, but several studies say we should not be limiting our daily intake of fats because they’re a necessary part of our diet. Rather, we should limit our intake of saturated fats.
    • Keep your saturated fat consumption under 10% of your daily calories. If that requires drinking low-fat milk instead of whole, don’t worry…it contains the same amount of vitamins and minerals.
    • If you have a sensitivity to dairy, supplement the vitamins and minerals you’re missing. For example, leafy green vegetables are also high in calcium, making them a viable option.
  • Protein: 50 grams, or 3 decks of cards
    • There are many different proteins to choose from: seafood, lean meats, poultry, eggs, legumes, nuts, seeds, soy — the options are endless!
    • Aim for at least 8 ounces of seafood a week.
    • Note that different proteins have different compounds, so be sure to read the label and opt for leaner proteins with less fat.
    • Keep in mind that nuts and seeds are high in calories due to their fat content.
    • Proteins also contain healthy fats, cobalamin, vitamins A, D, and B6, iron, fiber, and potassium.
    • A good rule of thumb is to eat one gram of protein for every kilogram of body weight (just divide your weight by 2.2 to convert it to kilograms)
  • Oils: 5 teaspoons, or 5 dice
    • Because of their fat and caloric density, a little bit goes a long way here.
    • Focus on heart-healthy oils, like olive oil, avocado oil, and canola oil.
    • Oils, especially olive oil, contain healthy omega-3 fatty acids. These are said to limit inflammation in our bodies and reduce our chances of developing diet-related illnesses, like heart disease and diabetes.
  • Limit saturated and trans fats, added sugars, and sodium
    • Read the nutritional and ingredients label to spot these in your foods.
    • Avoid processed meats as they contain more sodium, saturated fats, added sugars, and calories.
    • Less than 10% of our daily calories should be from added fats and sugars – the lower, the better.
    • The Dietary Guidelines also recommend keeping your sodium intake below 2300 mg.

We know this task is easier said than done, so our printable infographics are here to help!

   

What to eat

Now that we’ve told you the food groups to include in your diet, you’re probably wondering how on earth to accomplish this. Don’t worry! We’re going to give you examples of simple meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even snack time, that will help you reach your daily goals and make grocery shopping and meal preparations a lot easier.

Click on each of these categories to see our D2D-verified meal options that not only squeeze in a variety of nutrients within all food groups, but also adhere to an overall caloric intake of 2,000 a day when consumed with healthy snacks:

         

Healthy snacks can help you reach the rest of your daily caloric needs. A few good snack ideas are a banana with almond butter, an apple with a handful of whole nuts, 1 ounce of dark chocolate, or Greek yogurt with fruit.

Any of these meals can be mixed and matched every day. If you eat a breakfast high in protein, eat veggies with lunch. If you are on a non-dairy, plant-based, vegetarian, or vegan diet, find alternative ways to get protein. Treat your food as fuel for your body, and know what’s going in. Lastly, although getting nutrients from whole foods is best, if you feel deficient in certain nutrients, supplements like vitamins can help.

If you’re still unsure of what to buy, click on the image for a printable shopping guide you can take with you to the grocery store. If you want to take a look at my shopping list this week as a quick example, click here.

Remember to have variety in your fridge. Try to buy a couple of options from each category every week. For fruits and veggies, the more variety, the better!

What about other diets?

The USDA Nutrient Database, Harvard Health’s The Nutrition Source, CDC Division of Nutrition, among others,  each have their own perspective on the best way to meet our body’s nutritional needs, so we want to include a few other considerations for nutrition and long-term health.

But these sources agree that eating our recommended daily allowance of fruits and vegetables is crucial for long-term health. Produce has fiber, vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, and phytochemicals. If you eat five to seven servings of produce a day in lieu of processed food it can help you keep chronic diseases at bay. 

One diet method with proven long-term success is intermittent fasting, where you consume all meals within an 8-10 hour window. It can lead to healthier cell production and a reduction in long-term health diseases. Intermittent fasting can also improve endurance, coordination, brain health, balance, and muscle mass. 

There’s also been more attention on diets promoting a diverse microbiome, resulting in a healthier heart, immune system, inflammation, and even mood. The interesting thing about our gut bacteria is that it craves the foods you eat the most. If you eat fruits and vegetables, you want more. If you eat sugar and processed carbs, you want more. This is why many have gravitated toward a whole-plant-based diet.

The EAT-Lancet report is also in agreement with a mostly whole-plant-based diet with very limited amounts of meat. Contrarily, the paleo diet necessitates an increased consumption of meats and other protein-heavy foods to achieve optimal health. However, its effect on long-term health is contentious. And now, we have the added complexity of the paleo-vegan diet, or pegan diet – a mix of meat and vegetables, with less dairy, grains, legumes, sugar, and processed foods.

An Important Note…

The information in this post is to serve as a guideline. Everyone’s body is different and therefore requires different nutrient intakes. For example, someone who wants to increase their muscle mass will need more protein in their diet. And those who rigorously exercise daily will need more calories than someone with a sedentary lifestyle. Get to know your body and understand its needs. And consult a doctor or nutritionist before changing your diet plan.

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Building a Sustainable U.S. Beef System

We are pleased to introduce Sasha Gennet, Ph.D. as a guest columnist for Dirt to Dinner.

Sasha heads up The Nature Conservancy’s Sustainable Grazing Lands strategy in North America, where she leads an interdisciplinary team of science, conservation, policy, and communications experts to achieve widespread adoption of conservation management practices on U.S. grazing lands, as well as protection and conservation of working lands. (Above image courtesy of TNC.)


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I wasn’t one of the lucky kids who got to grow up on a ranch. No one back then would have expected me to work on livestock production and grazing lands. We lived in the suburbs, and I come from a family that had mostly worked in factories, not farming. I was even a vegetarian in my teenage years, on the grounds that I didn’t want to eat an animal if I didn’t know and feel good about how it was raised (which is still true).

My love for the outdoors and need to be near nature led to my early career as a botanist and restoration ecologist. Through my early jobs and in my graduate school research in grasslands and on ranches, I learned two key things about land stewardship:

  • Livestock is one of the best tools available for managing land to benefit soil, water, and biodiversity. Essentially, good grazing management in the right places is good for native plants and wildlife; grazing animals can help manage fire risk, and strong rural economies rooted in ranching help slow urban and agricultural sprawl.
  • Ranchers are deeply committed to protecting the natural resources that make their livelihoods possible. This is true of ranchers in California, the Great Basin, the Dakotas, Florida – all across our country. For example, Meredith Ellis, a second-generation rancher in Texas, uses soil health and sustainable grazing practices to help sequester carbon, withstand extreme weather events, safeguard water quality, and provide consumers with beef they can feel good about buying. You can check out her story here.

Those early years spent studying grasslands and working on ranches instilled a deep appreciation in me for the people who dedicate their lives to producing food and the many—often overlooked—contributions they make to land management.

Now, through my work with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), I’m lucky enough to partner with local ranchers to promote the conservation value of grazing lands and advance sustainability goals across the complex beef supply chain.

By partnering with family-owned cattle operations to test new on-ranch practices and collaborating with food companies to source sustainable beef products, we’re working to mainstream livestock production practices that actively restore and regenerate nature—practices that are good for ranchers and the environment.

To get there, we must first understand the value of what’s at stake, acknowledge the challenges that stand in our way and define a clear path forward.

The Vast Footprint of Working Wildlands

More than 770,000 cattle operations span the United States, and 90% are family-operated. The ranches and grazing lands where beef cattle live most of their lives total about 775 million acres nationwide. That’s the size of Alaska, Texas, California, and Montana combined.

These incredibly diverse lands include native grasslands—the least well protected habitat type on earth— like the iconic prairies of the Great Plains as well as the rangelands of the Great Basin and desert Southwest, savannah of California, and pastures in the Southeast.

This part of the U.S. agriculture system contributes $76 billion to our economy. But these private, public, and tribal grazing lands provide more than economic benefit and food. These “working wildlands” also provide wildlife habitat, secure freshwater, and help mitigate climate change by drawing more carbon into the soil.

Farmers and soil health practices are a big part of the picture, too, since most beef cattle are finished on grain after spending a large part of their lives on grazing lands. In fact, as much as one-third of the 90 million acres of corn grown in the U.S. ends up as feed.

There’s too much common ground between ranchers, farmers, and conservationists to not work together toward mutual goals. The people and families who care for these valuable lands are the backbone of rural economies and essential to a world where nature and people thrive.

Challenges and a Path Forward

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has worked for decades with farming and ranching communities to collaboratively advance conservation. We have supported numerous voluntary conservation easements, partnered with local organizations, supported federal funding for ranch stewardship and protection, and used our own lands to research and demonstrate how livestock can help regenerate nature.

While successful in many ways, those efforts have yet to ensure long-term conservation across these vast and varied lands and communities. In fact, many grasslands and rural communities that depend on these lands are experiencing greater challenges and risks than ever before: land values that outpace profitability from livestock grazing, more droughts and floods, and market shocks like we saw in 2020 due to COVID-19.

In recent years, TNC has expanded our work to engage more deeply with initiatives and companies in the beef supply chain, engaging and advancing robust sustainability programs.

Given its importance economically, and strong influence on natural resources, the beef industry—from farmers and ranchers to restaurants and retailers—is uniquely positioned to help safeguard and steward nature, while benefitting producers, rural communities, and consumers.   

So, what can the beef industry do to ensure a healthy environment, while ensuring ranchers and farmers sustain their livelihoods and deliver quality food products? A seemingly simple but essential first step is for leading companies to recognize that healthy, functioning ecosystems and thriving agriculture operations are the foundation of a secure and equitable food system. That then needs to lead to committing to improving the environmental and socio-economic sustainability of their supply chains, setting robust goals, and investing in implementation, including tackling climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

It also includes working diligently with civil society, producers, and other companies to define and identify a path to environmental and socio-economic sustainability, for example by actively participating in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef.

Collaboration Is Key

Several companies are making significant commitments. Last year, Walmart U.S. and Sam’s Club U.S. announced new aspirations to source fresh beef products more sustainably by 2025, with a focus on grazing management and soil health across an additional 12 million acres. This announcement came after TNC worked with Walmart to identify opportunities and actions to improve sustainability in its beef supply chain to help improve soil health and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

In collaboration with TNC and the University of Minnesota, McDonald’s analyzed their beef and chicken supply chains to identify climate mitigation opportunities. Based on this work, McDonald’s is now building programs with their suppliers to meet their company’s ambitious 31 percent greenhouse gas reduction goal.

Our work with McDonald’s and Walmart led to the development of a Roadmap for a Sustainable Beef System, which is helping more companies identify opportunities and take action to make improvements within their supply chain while tracking progress toward their environmental goals.

In essence, we’ve created a science-based approach that can help companies create solutions that are environmentally beneficial and economically favorable for producers while delivering a product that meets consumers’ expectations.

Sustainability needs to be the business-as-usual approach in the U.S. beef industry in order to ensure long-term food supply, economic security for ranchers and their communities, and a healthy environment for us all. Taking that a bit further, the food production process needs to actively restore and regenerate nature, and there’s no time to waste. Seeing two of the world’s largest purchasers of beef take proactive steps to achieve sustainability within their supply chains signals tremendous momentum in that direction.

But much more needs to be accomplished, quickly, and we can only get there by working together.

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Q&A with FFA’s Tyler Gardner

Future Farmers of America (FFA) is the premier youth organization preparing members for leadership and careers in the science, business, and technology of agriculture.

To support FFA’s members and their contribution to ag, Dirt to Dinner is please to introduce Tyler Gardner. Here is a Q&A from Tyler’s point of view.

Tyler Gardner is one hard-working college student. His education in ag started with working various positions at his family’s cranberry marsh. As his experience broadened, his mission evolved to produce healthy and sustainable food for generations to come.

Tyler, tell us a little bit about your background, family, and studies. 

I grew up and currently live on one of my family’s cranberry marshes in Pittsville, Wisconsin, a small town in central Wisconsin.

I am currently attending the University of Wisconsin River Falls and majoring in Agriculture Business. 

I hope to use my degree in Ag Business to obtain a job in the ag industry and eventually come back and work within the family’s business.  

What is your favorite part of working on your family farm?

My favorite part of working on my family’s farm is the feeling of pride and ownership. It is not just a job, but it’s a way of life for my family.

My father taught me from a young age the value of hard work and to never quit until the job gets done. These values have always stuck with me and it reminds me to keep working hard because someday that marsh could be mine.

It is also very rewarding to work throughout the summer months on a crop and then see your hard work pay off in the fall.

“It is just a great feeling of accomplishment to know that all the early mornings and late nights over the summer paid off to grow your cranberry crop. Seeing the final crop at the end of the year is by far the most rewarding feeling and it is one that is truly hard to describe unless you’re a grower.”

Tell us about your cranberry operation…how long has it been in the family? 

My family’s cranberry operation began back in the early 1990s with my uncle, Butch Gardner, and my father, Tom Gardner. The first cranberry bogs that they planted were on the marsh that I grew up on. They proceeded to grow the family business by building and planting more cranberry marshes in the Pittsville area. They then began to buy other marshes around the state. 

We currently operate around 2,000 acres of cranberry bogs. Along with growing cranberries, my family also has built cold storages and cranberry processing plants. This has streamlined the processing for our cranberry juice concentrate and sweetened dried cranberry products.

How is farming cranberries different from other crops? 

Cranberries are a crop that needs to be taken care of all year long, but once springs rolls back around that is when the cranberry vines come out of dormancy and they begin to start growing again. 

What is needed to grow cranberries is sandy soil, a large water source, and the correct climate. The cranberry’s root systems grow best in the sandy soil because cranberries need more acidic soil to grow in. The sandy soil also makes it ideal for drainage.

It sounds like cranberries can’t grow just anywhere…

Cranberries need to stay moist, but cannot be saturated for long periods, because it can create rotten fruit and damage the plant’s roots. We also need a large water source to grow cranberries, because in the summer months we need to irrigate the plants, and then in fall, we need the water to harvest the crop. We also never use any high-pressure wells, rather we reuse water from large bodies of water such as ponds and reservoirs.  Lastly, having the correct climate is the last most important part of growing this fruit.

Cranberries can only be grown in certain parts of the world because of their very specific climate needs. The area where I am from, for example, is a perfect area because cranberries need warm summer months for the growing season, the cool falls months to change their color, and the cold winter months so that they can go into dormancy until the next growing season.

How do you harvest your crop?

Harvest for this crop begins with the flooding of the cranberry beds. Our cranberry beds are in a rectangle shape with dikes and ditches surrounding them, this makes it possible to add and take water off the cranberry beds. Once there is about a foot or two of water in the cranberry bed, we then take a large rake attached to a tractor and drive into the cranberry bed and knock the berries off the vine.

Once they are all knocked off the vines then we added another two feet of water into the bed to completely flood the vines. Cranberries naturally have 4 little air pockets that allow them to float to the top of the water.

Then we take float boom to corral all the cranberries together and then we take a berry pump and pump the cranberries out of the bed and put them into semi-trucks to take the cranberries to market.

Cranberry vines produce a crop every year and usually do not need to be planted twice or every year. There are even some cranberry vines that are over 100 years old and still producing a crop. But the biggest reason why people do replant or renovate cranberry beds is to create a better producing bed with vines that are going to give them a better yield.  So yes, we do use the same vines (bushes) and reuse (plant) exiting vines into new beds. When we plant cranberry vines, we take the cuttings off existing cranberry vines and place them into the ground into a new bed. It takes about three years for these new cranberry vines to develop and start producing well. 

What is processing cranberries like? 

What makes our cranberry operation unique is that we can clean, store, and process our cranberries ourselves. The process for cranberries begins with the “cleaning station”. Cranberries are hauled into the station with semi-trucks and they are stored and cleaned. In the cleaning process, only the best berries are selected to be placed into storage. After the cranberries are cleaned and sorted, they are placed in large wooden boxes and then sent to the freezer where they stay until they are needed for processing. Fresh cranberries can stay in the freezer for up to two years before they are processed.

Cranberries are cleaned and sorted using machines such as shaker tables and specialty cleaning equipment made for cranberries. We don’t use robotics during the cleaning process, but before the cranberries go into further processing, we use robotics to sort out all the light-colored berries or any unusable cranberries that were not taken out during cleaning. 

The cranberries are then taken out of the freezer and transported to the proccing plant, where they are processed into jams, sauces, juices, and my favorite, sweetened dried cranberries. 

Tell us about your pest and weed management practices. 

Because of our abundant acreage across Wisconsin, we have hired and trained our scouting team. This way, we have resources for our growers year-round on all pest, weed, and other growth management practices. This team works hand-in-hand with each property manager to discuss, discover, and decide what is best for that particular property. 

Our scouting season starts in early May and goes until late August where the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) team surveys the marsh and identifies weeds as well as monitors pest pressure.

The team then correlates the information with growing degree days and pheromone traps and will conclude if anything is at an economic threshold—or is at the level where is it damaging your crops enough that you will see a decrease in yield.

If a weed or pest hit an economic threshold, the team and the manager will come together and decide on the best solution promptly. Because we are growing fruit for human consumption, we are extra cautious and sustainable in all our practices here at Gardner Cranberry.

What are some of your sustainable practices?

We take a lot of pride in our sustainable practices as a large cranberry grower in Wisconsin. All the fruit we grow is approved to the highest market standard and can be shipped anywhere in the world. The unique thing about cranberries is the large amount of water we recycle and reuse during all seasons of the year. We have reservoirs that hold our water for all irrigation, frost, and flooding events. These large reservoirs bring with them a diverse ecosystem that includes anything from floating peat bogs to native Tamarack trees and migratory birds.

Because our system is naturally integrated, our top priority is always to use sustainable and regenerative practices.

We understand our system works best when everything is in its natural state and can work together. During the springtime, we have an opportunity to do a spring flood to control our first major pest of the season – the spanworm. If the timing works out, we use our water to flood up the cranberry beds until the vines are fully submerged and we keep it on for 48 hours to kill any live insect activity in our vines.

This is a great regenerative option that we conduct at least once every season. By doing this, we naturally eliminate a large pest concern and we avoid using any alternative options.

We want consumers to understand that our family not only eats these cranberries, but we also live and work on these properties – it is essential for the land to be healthy, safe, and sustainable for generations to come.

~  ֍  ~

Stay tuned for more Future Farmers of America stories like this. If you would like to get involved with FFA, visit www.ffa.org.

If you’re a fellow FFA and want to share your story or tell us about an inspiring member, please email us at info@dirt-to-dinner.com – we’d love to hear your story!

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Regenerative Ag: The New ‘Sustainable’


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At a high level, Regenerative Agriculture is a system of farming practices based on decades of science and applied research that when combined, helps to enrich soils, increases biodiversity, improves watersheds, and ultimately harnesses carbon in the soil.

The premise of Regenerative Ag is to replicate nature instead of conquering it. It promises to increase yields, enhance the health and vitality of farms for generations to come, as well as provide resilience to climate instability. But not all farms apply these principles the same way. Because there is no stringent set of guidelines for what is considered “regenerative farming,” each operation will vary the application of these practices, as well as how they measure the success of their regenerative efforts.

Soil can save our planet? And reverse climate change? Regenerative ag is also a tool to reduce CO2. Even though agriculture, forestry, and land use account for approximately 18% of annual greenhouse gas emissions, these claims about soil are only partially true. Farming practices and soil health are just a piece of the puzzle to carbon emission reduction.

The Trailblazer: Gabe Brown

The face of the regenerative ag movement is North Dakota farmer Gabe Brown. After nearly losing his 1,760-acre family farm outside Bismark due to a series of massive hailstorms, blizzards, and successive crop failures, Brown turned it all around. Having been introduced to the central ideas of regenerative farming over the years, it was not until he aggregated his learnings and applied them simultaneously to his farmland that he was able to boost microbial activity in the soil, retain carbon, and restore ecological balance.

As Brown explains, regenerative ag is a real paradox: the best way to achieve it is to do less, not more. 

Gabe Brown used synthetic fertilizers like many other farmers in his area but decided to try something a little different when he removed them altogether. Brown then experimented with planting several one-acre plots with varying monoculture cover crops and then on one plot, he planted everything together in what he called a “biodiverse polyculture cocktail.” What he witnessed over two very dry and challenging months was that productivity was three times greater on the polyculture cocktail plot.

Since Gabe’s polyculture plot also realized higher yields than his neighbors, he was determined to find out how this was possible. His water filtration rates also skyrocketed, going from a one-half inch of water filtered per hour to one inch in only nine seconds. To further measure his success, he conducted carbon-retention testing using soil samples.

Given these dramatic results, Gabe no longer applies synthetic fertilizer. He practices rotationally grazing his livestock on these plots, leading to increased soil health and yield. Many farmers find they reduce synthetic fertilizers with this method, but few have gotten to the point of eliminating them altogether without negative yield effects.

Compared to the typical 10 to 30 tons of carbon stored in conventionally-farmed soils of the Northern Plains, Gabe has found “where we’ve done in-depth, significant testing, our soils have 96 tons of carbon per acre in the top 48 inches”.  Many agree that measuring carbon sequestration is the best hope for demonstrating the power of regenerative agriculture, though not all operations will have the ability to use this measurement technology.

What Makes Something “Regenerative”?

At the core, regenerative agriculture is the practice of farms finding various ways to draw substantial carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But it is much more than that: it enriches the soil by diversifying its microbiome, preventing erosion, and increasing its water. Regenerative ag can be done with a variety of methods, including no-till farming, crop rotation, and animal grazing, just to name a few. But all methods must adhere to these four key principles:

(1) improving soil, water, and biodiversity

(2) creating unique combinations of these farming practices to suit each operation

(3) ensuring these practices work for the landowner, farmer, producer, and all other stakeholders

(4) continually grow and evolve practices to reach maximum potential

How is the Success of Regenerative Agriculture Measured?

One of the more contentious debates within regenerative ag is how farmers measure the successes of their operations. However, efforts are in the works to make quantifying regenerative ag an affordable, relatively pain-free process.

Currently, the majority of farmers calculate their reductions of inputs and increased crop yieldsto determine the effectiveness of their particular regenerative ag practice. This includes decreased pesticide use which ultimately reduces overhead costs, increases yield, retains water in the soil, and enhances resilience to pests and drought.

Subsequent Investigations

Dirt to Dinner seeks to answer these questions in subsequent Regenerative Ag posts:

  • How does carbon make the soil healthier, and by how much? Who benefits – the farmer? The consumer? The environment?
  • What is in it for the farmer? And will the government mandate specific practices? A deeper dive into carbon credits versus incentives.
  • What does the ramp-up to becoming regenerative look like? How long does it take soil to be regeneratively productive?
  • What is the payback for farmers to compensate for the ramp-up period? Does the yield increase in all cases? Or is it location specific?
  • What are the stories of other farmers successfully practicing Regenerative Ag?

Have questions about Regenerative Agriculture that you would like answered? Let us know here.

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What is the Biden Era Agricultural Agenda?


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The Changing Cast of Players

The new Congress and Administration will feature some new names in key roles for shaping our nation’s food and agriculture system. And while some familiar from the Obama Administration, experienced old hands in ag matters also will show up on the leadership roster, they will have an agenda that differs significantly from the past four years – and just as likely, a different approach to the role of government.

On Capitol Hill, long-time House Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) is being replaced by Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.).

On the Senate side, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) is expected to return to her previously-held role during the Obama Administration as chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Another familiar name from the Obama Administration – Tom Vilsack — also has been tapped to return as Secretary of Agriculture. Some elements of the left-wing of the Democrat Party have been critical of his nomination due to his familiarity with traditional farm and food organizations, as well as his past comments on climate change and minority relations. But Vilsack brings extensive experience and knowledge of all aspects of the food system. He has enjoyed the support of a wide spectrum of the agricultural community throughout his extensive career in public service.

New Players, New Agenda

The new leadership group undoubtedly brings a lot of experience in food and agriculture to the table. But the challenges confronting the American food system are very different from just a few short years ago. The change in administration brought a new and updated set of priorities – and a very different view of the role of government in dealing with those challenges.

Expect to see Congress and the Biden Administration focus on:

  • Covid-19. Stemming the spread of the virus will be the most visible immediate priority not just for the agriculture committees but the entire government. Access to vaccines in rural areas will be high on the agenda, as will continuing economic support for those most damaged by the lockdown.
  • Climate change. Don’t look for omnibus “climate change” legislation from either ag committee as much as efforts to promote conservation and other regenerative environmental practices by farmers and ranchers through expansion of existing programs and additional incentives for responsible, environmentally beneficial farming practices, all carefully couched and presented as ‘climate change’ initiatives. Many immediate actions are likely to involve a flurry of executive orders rather than time-consuming and contentious legislation. The creation of a ‘carbon market’ for agriculture will be a popular item for debate.

While the focus on climate change comes as no surprise, the farm community anxiously awaits some sign of the approach to be taken. Farm leaders urge policymakers to think in terms of carrots rather than sticks. That is, they note that the farm community by and large is supportive of the broad effort to act responsibly on matters that affect the climate, and the environment.

Policies that incentivize and reward positive actions will work better than threats of punishment for failure to comply. That approach is best in unleashing the creative and entrepreneurial capabilities of the farm sector, far more than an imposition of rules and regulations devised solely or largely by bureaucrats.

  • Rural economic development and revitalization. After years of declining net farm income and massive direct government payments, both legislators and administration officials will be looking at bigger, more comprehensive packages to stimulate rural economic vitality. Look for initiatives to promote growth in ‘green’ jobs, expand health care services and improve broadband access.
  • Social equity. Congressional leaders, in particular, have been outspoken in the need to address perceived economic inequities, notably for smaller farm operators and minority farmers and ranchers. Prominent Democrats also have called for immediate attention to farm labor issues, to address matters of wages, work conditions, organizing rights, and other concerns.
  • Relations with China. No market remains more important to the economic interests of farmers and ranchers. Efforts to promote improved relations and fulfillment of ambitious purchase commitments by the Chinese will remain top priorities. But expect a more studied effort to assess overall U.S. China relations, of which agricultural interests are just one part of the bigger picture of future relations between the two countries. Also, look for greater movement toward a multilateral team approach – especially with the EU – from the Biden Administration…it will be a movement away from the bilateral approach of recent years to more emphasis on building coalitions capable of exerting influence on the Chinese.

  • Improved trade opportunities. The ‘America first’ approach of recent years is likely to evolve into a more traditional model of negotiation, built around ‘constructive engagement.’ Bilateral trade negotiations to open new market opportunities will no doubt continue. But also look for much more energy behind attempts to revive and rejoin broader trade initiatives and agreements, notably in the Pacific and among long-standing U.S. allies.
  • Don’t rock the boat. Basic farm programs and policies have worked well for years, providing Americans (and others around the world) with a steady supply of affordable, nutritious, safe, and expanding food choices. No one in government wants to change the basic direction of our farm and food policies or to risk radical changes that harm the hard-won framework of rules, protections, and incentives that makes such a system possible. But there is a strong new commitment to making the system work better for all those involved in the system, and to address the legitimate environmental issues and questions arising from the climate change debate.

Beyond the Agriculture Committees

The agriculture committees undeniably make up the center of gravity in crafting food and agricultural policy. But other parts of Congress also come into play.

  • Taxes. Any farmer will quickly point out that farming is a capital-intensive business. Finance and money management are critical skills – and a major area of interest, especially when candidates and elected officials in a new political era have made the issue of “revenue” a major target area for attention.

Continuing economic challenges from the pandemic, coupled with a generally more ambitious agenda of government initiatives, mean an almost certain review and revision of tax laws. It will likely involve examining a range of tax policies, including capital gains, gift taxes, inheritance taxes, accounting rules, and more.

For an economic sector largely based on family ownership and reliant on land values as a key element of their financial strength, these are highly important subjects. Expect the food and agriculture community to keep a close eye on the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, and the new Biden Administration’s role in shaping any changes to tax laws.

  • Technology. Advances in technology are sweeping across the global agricultural system. Congress is trying to keep pace. The current focus on communication technology is expanding to cover other areas, with the gradual emergence of a variety of science and technology groups advocating a re-think of how Congress deals with the need to better understand and constructively guide the sector’s expanding role in all aspects of life, from the farm to the dinner table. Keep an eye on this wild-card in the emerging new era of government.
  • Health care. The pandemic helped focus attention on the need to improve health-care delivery across the country, in particular in the rural areas underserved by the existing system. The Biden Administration has made economic revitalization of rural America a priority, and expansion of health care services and facilities should be a substantial component of that effort. Look for additional collaboration between the Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, as well as a greater collaborative effort among all health-related departments and agencies.

  • Infrastructure. Like health care, the broad issue of improving the nation’s crumbling infrastructure also will have implications for the agricultural community and all of rural America. Maintenance of roads and bridges is a key component of the modern food chain, and most local authorities will agree that more needs to be done to maintain and improve what already exists. The big question will be not so much where such efforts should be focused, but how to pay for them.
  • Research. The Department of Agriculture and congressional committees traditionally made science and research a key element of their policy agenda. The new administration has made “science-based” decision-making a fundamental plank of their campaign. The agricultural community is waiting anxiously to see exactly what that means, in terms of the decisions to be made regarding the role of genetics in expanding food production, and the willingness of the government to continue sharing the financial burden of aggressive research on food and environmental matters.
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Digging into the Biden Era Agricultural Agenda

The Changing Cast of Players

The new Congress and Administration will feature some new names in key roles for shaping our nation’s food and agriculture system. And while some familiar from the Obama Administration, experienced old hands in ag matters also will show up on the leadership roster, they will have an agenda that differs significantly from the past four years – and just as likely, a different approach to the role of government.

On Capitol Hill, long-time House Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) is being replaced by Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.).

On the Senate side, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) is expected to return to her previously-held role during the Obama Administration as chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Another familiar name from the Obama Administration – Tom Vilsack — also has been tapped to return as Secretary of Agriculture. Some elements of the left-wing of the Democrat Party have been critical of his nomination due to his familiarity with traditional farm and food organizations, as well as his past comments on climate change and minority relations. But Vilsack brings extensive experience and knowledge of all aspects of the food system. He has enjoyed the support of a wide spectrum of the agricultural community throughout his extensive career in public service.

A Rare Glimpse of Bipartisanship

Food and agricultural policy has been one of the few examples of functional bipartisanship, crafting farm bills running hundreds of pages. This daunting task demands cooperation and a willingness to listen and compromise, among dozens of committee members representing rural, suburban, and urban interests. They cover everything from production agriculture to nutrition to rural development to commodity markets to SNAP to bioenergy – and a long list of all the policy matters that make our food system function. Between farm bills, the committees wrestle with the same dynamics in dealing with individual legislative proposals that emerge in every Congress.

The unique world of food and agriculture has helped foster a spirit of bipartisanship not often found elsewhere on Capitol Hill. That’s not to say there aren’t sharp differences in ideology or priorities or approaches. And as the committee membership continues to become more inclusive and diverse – with expanding representation from outside the rural sector – the potential for sharp differences certainly increases.

These committees share and are united by a recognition of the critical importance of providing not just Americans but others around the world with the safe, nutritious and affordable food they need, produced responsibly and sustainably.

Together, they have built the framework of the rules of the road that make such a remarkable food system possible.

In such an environment, the leaders from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue become especially important to continuing the bipartisan process. They must be solid leaders – knowledgeable of both the broad issues and specific details of farm policy, and highly skilled in building bridges with committee members and the rest of the Congress. They have no choice in the matter. Farm legislation simply can’t pass without the support of a diverse congressional membership that increasingly is urban and suburban, not uniquely rural.

Both outgoing House Agriculture Committee Chair Rep. Collin Peterson and Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Sen. Pat Roberts are widely regarded as consummate diplomats and political bridge-builders. It’s now up to Rep. Scott and Sen. Stabenow to maintain that spirit in an era of the continuing partisan divide. With both committees divided into almost equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, that means their relationships with the ranking minority members of each committee will be very important.

In the House, that role goes to Rep. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania. As another long-standing member of the panel, Thompson also has extensive first-hand experience in farm-related legislation. He also brings a particularly strong focus on education, including support for wider educational opportunities at land-grant colleges and universities, as well as strong advocacy for expanded access to better health care, especially in rural areas.

On the Senate side, the role of ranking minority member will go to Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas. He also brings an extensive record of service on the committee, as well as the highly important Senate Appropriations Committee. He has served on various subcommittees deal with a spectrum of key food and agricultural issues, from production agriculture, conservation, nutrition, and research. His background as a small business owner and an expert in health care matters also are noteworthy.

New Players, New Agenda

The new leadership group undoubtedly brings a lot of experience in food and agriculture to the table. But the challenges confronting the American food system are very different from just a few short years ago. The change in administration brought a new and updated set of priorities – and a very different view of the role of government in dealing with those challenges.

Expect to see Congress and the Biden Administration focus on:

  • Covid-19. Stemming the spread of the virus will be the most visible immediate priority not just for the agriculture committees but the entire government. Access to vaccines in rural areas will be high on the agenda, as will continuing economic support for those most damaged by the lockdown.
  • Climate change. Don’t look for omnibus “climate change’ legislation from either ag committee as much as efforts to promote conservation and other regenerative environmental practices by farmers and ranchers through expansion of existing programs and additional incentives for responsible, environmentally beneficial farming practices, all carefully couched and presented as ‘climate change’ initiatives. Many immediate actions are likely to involve a flurry of executive orders rather than time-consuming and contentious legislation. The creation of a ‘carbon market’ for agriculture will be a popular item for debate. (D2D will look at climate-related issues in more depth in future posts.

While the focus on climate change comes as no surprise, the farm community anxiously awaits some sign of the approach to be taken. Farm leaders urge policymakers to think in terms of carrots rather than sticks. That is, they note that the farm community by and large is supportive of the broad effort to act responsibly on matters that affect the climate, and the environment.

Policies that incentivize and reward positive actions will work better than threats of punishment for failure to comply. That approach is best in unleashing the creative and entrepreneurial capabilities of the farm sector, far more than an imposition of rules and regulations devised solely or largely by bureaucrats.

  • Rural economic development and revitalization. After years of declining net farm income and massive direct government payments, both legislators and administration officials will be looking at bigger, more comprehensive packages to stimulate rural economic vitality. Look for initiatives to promote growth in ‘green’ jobs, expand health care services and improve broadband access.
  • Social equity. Congressional leaders, in particular, have been outspoken in the need to address perceived economic inequities, notably for smaller farm operators and minority farmers and ranchers. Prominent Democrats also have called for immediate attention to farm labor issues, to address matters of wages, work conditions, organizing rights, and other concerns.
  • Relations with China. No market remains more important to the economic interests of farmers and ranchers. Efforts to promote improved relations and fulfillment of ambitious purchase commitments by the Chinese will remain top priorities. But expect a more studied effort to assess overall U.S. China relations, of which agricultural interests are just one part of the bigger picture of future relations between the two countries. Also, look for greater movement toward a multilateral team approach – especially with the EU – from the Biden Administration – It will be a movement away from the bilateral approach of recent years to more emphasis on building coalitions capable of exerting influence on the Chinese.

  • Improved trade opportunities. The ‘America first’ approach of recent years is likely to evolve into a more traditional model of negotiation, built around ‘constructive engagement.’ Bilateral trade negotiations to open new market opportunities will no doubt continue. But also look for much more energy behind attempts to revive and rejoin broader trade initiatives and agreements, notably in the Pacific and among long-standing U.S. allies.
  • Don’t rock the boat. Basic farm programs and policies have worked well for years, providing Americans (and others around the world) with a steady supply of affordable, nutritious, safe, and expanding food choices. No one in government wants to change the basic direction of our farm and food policies or to risk radical changes that harm the hard-won framework of rules, protections, and incentives that makes such a system possible. But there is a strong new commitment to making the system work better for all those involved in the system, and to address the legitimate environmental issues and questions arising from the climate change debate.

Beyond the Agriculture Committees

The agriculture committees undeniably make up the center of gravity in crafting food and agricultural policy. But other parts of Congress also come into play.

  • Taxes. Any farmer will quickly point out that farming is a capital-intensive business. Finance and money management are critical skills – and a major area of interest, especially when candidates and elected officials in a new political era have made the issue of “revenue” a major target area for attention.

Continuing economic challenges from the pandemic, coupled with a generally more ambitious agenda of government initiatives, mean an almost certain review and revision of tax laws. It will likely involve examining a range of tax policies, including capital gains, gift taxes, inheritance taxes, accounting rules, and more.

For an economic sector largely based on family ownership and reliant on land values as a key element of their financial strength, these are highly important subjects. Expect the food and agriculture community to keep a close eye on the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, and the new Biden Administration’s role in shaping any changes to tax laws.

  • Technology. Advances in technology are sweeping across the global agricultural system. Congress is trying to keep pace. The current focus on communication technology is expanding to cover other areas, with the gradual emergence of a variety of science and technology groups advocating a re-think of how Congress deals with the need to better understand and constructively guide the sector’s expanding role in all aspects of life, from the farm to the dinner table. Keep an eye on this wild-card in the emerging new era of government.
  • Health care. The pandemic helped focus attention on the need to improve health-care delivery across the country, in particular in the rural areas underserved by the existing system. The Biden Administration has made economic revitalization of rural America a priority, and expansion of health care services and facilities should be a substantial component of that effort. Look for additional collaboration between the Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, as well as a greater collaborative effort among all health-related departments and agencies.

  • Infrastructure. Like health care, the broad issue of improving the nation’s crumbling infrastructure also will have implications for the agricultural community and all of rural America. Maintenance of roads and bridges is a key component of the modern food chain, and most local authorities will agree that more needs to be done to maintain and improve what already exists. The big question will be not so much where such efforts should be focused, but how to pay for them.
  • Research. The Department of Agriculture and congressional committees traditionally made science and research a key element of their policy agenda. The new administration has made “science-based” decision-making a fundamental plank of their campaign. The agricultural community is waiting anxiously to see exactly what that means – in terms of the decisions to be made regarding the role of genetics in expanding food production, and the willingness of the government to continue sharing the financial burden of aggressive research on food and environmental matters.
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Blue Zones: Long & Healthy Living


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Why are so many of us overweight, over-stressed, and prone to so many diseases? It’s easy to blame genetics or factors beyond our control. But as more and more studies pile up on the subject, we’re finding that the decisions we make every day affect our health much more so than our genetic makeup.

Living better and longer

Scientists and academics who have examined human longevity in-depth have identified locations called “Blue Zones.” These are geographic areas and cultural enclaves around the world with many citizens aged 90 and older. Here in the U.S., we have an average lifespan of only 78 years, so what’s the secret?

“Individuals get lucky, populations don’t,”  – Dr. Dan Buettner, longevity expert

Genetics indeed plays a role in making longer lives possible. But these studies suggest genetics is only about 20% of the equation. The remaining 80% is from epigenetics, where your lifestyle determines how your genes express themselves.

It comes down to a few simple yet powerful guidelines:

  • Eat a balanced and nutritious diet
  • Get plenty of physical exercise, and find ways to reduce stress
  • Stay mentally vibrant and intellectually engaged in life, and with others

Internationally recognized researcher, explorer, founder of Earthtreks, Inc., Emmy Award winner for co-producing PBS’s Scientific American, and most recently an author and American National Geographic Fellow, Dr. Dan Buettner, worked with the National Institute on Aging, pioneering incisive new research in the ways people everywhere pursue longer, healthier lives.

Dr. Buettner shared his discoveries in his book, Blue Zones: Lessons From the World’s Longest Lived where he interviewed 263 individuals from Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Ikaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California.

The “Power 9”

The nine common denominators discovered through this decade-long study were a series of lifestyle choices, not quick solutions, that are believed to slow our aging process.

  1. Moving naturally refers to our daily activities. Rather than setting aside an hour of the day to exercise, these populations are natural movers. They garden, they walk, they do housework both inside and outside, the commute on foot, their jobs are physical. Their everyday routines are much less sedentary than the typical American work-life cycle.
  2. The purpose of the Okinawans, called ikigai, is an understanding that they can make a difference in others’ lives every day. This motivation to live each day is fueled directly by a sense of purpose, a reason to get out there and live with meaning.
  3. Downshifting is a major takeaway from each culture, which often use a part of their day or week to seek rest. This “downshift” is the practice of managing their stress by ensuring rest. We know that stress can lead to chronic inflammation, which is associated with a variety of age-related diseases. The Okinawans take time each day to remember their ancestors, while the Ikarians commonly nap. Sardinians downshift by having daily happy hour, while Adventists rest on Sundays.
  4. The 80% Rule is a 2,500-year-old rule from Okinawa’s Confucian ancestors. They say the mantra before each meal to remind them to only eat to 80% capacity. That 20% gap is the difference between losing or gaining weight. People in the Blue Zones generally tend to eat their smallest meal in the late afternoon or early evening and then fast for the remainder of the day.

  1. Wine @ 5 refers to all Blue Zones, save for California, whose Adventist population does not drink alcohol. The trick is to keep drinks to 1 or 2 glasses per day, often with food and friends.
  2. Belonging is a critical part of the findings. All but five of the 263 centenarians who were interviewed belonged to some type of faith-based community. The denomination did not seem to matter. The research showed that attending a faith-based gathering four times per month added four to 14 years of life expectancy.
  3. Loved ones first is widely practiced in these communities by having their grandparents and great-grandparents live very close. Furthermore, these communities were known for committing to one partner for life, allowing them more time to invest in their children and to share love.
  4. The right tribe goes hand in hand with social circles. The world’s longest-living people were either born into or chose social groups that support healthy lifestyles. For example, the Okinawans created moais, which is a group of five friends that committed to each other for life. These groups proved to combat loneliness and decrease negative lifestyle factors.
  5. Eating practices for these locations included a diet rich in vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and nuts. Additionally, they also often practiced fasting, as well as decreased calorie intake. The Blue Zones also eat diets that are fish heavy, as a preferred protein. For example, in Icaria and Sardinia, fish is a staple and high in omega 3s.

Does location determine longevity?

National Geographic and Dr. Buettner did not originally set out to uncover these Blue Zones. In fact, they were embarking on what was originally designed to be an expedition to explore uniquely different areas of the world, only to find out that these 9 factors were major contributors to their longevity.

We know that there is no actual fountain of youth and that moving to these exotic places is not going to add years to your life. According to Buettner, these populations were not ‘trying’ to be healthy- they had not set out on a health quest to cleanse themselves, or create new ways of life. No, it was innate. The environment in which they lived was primarily natural, they worked near loved ones and knew their purpose. They broke bread with family and took the time to recharge.

Blue Zones, in partnership with Healthways, created what is called the Blue Zones Project which has set out to bring the Power 9 longevity principles to entire communities. To focus on changing environments, and creating long-term sustainable change for future generations.

This task is no small feat. Changing the way communities move, and share and eat and grow requires a lot of effort, as Buettner details:

“We work with restaurants, grocery stores, schools, and large employers to make healthier foods more accessible and less expensive. We also work with local community groups and religious institutions to create walking groups and other opportunities for residents to meet new people, create new connections, and improve their lives with volunteer work or new hobbies…we make it easier for people to move naturally, make new friends, and eat healthy.”

So far, the results have been dramatic. The first community work for this project was in Alberta Lea, MN. In a single year, the citizens added 2.9 years to their lifespans, with healthcare claims decreasing by 49%. There are now 42 Blue Zone project cities in the U.S. We look forward to seeing what changes these communities will actualize. According to Dr. Buettner:

“…through policy and environmental changes, the Blue Zones Project Communities have been able to increase life expectancy, reduce obesity, and make the healthy choice the easy choice for millions of Americans.”

Hope for the rest of us

And while we know this is one study, the initial results support other research for living longer. We know about some similar lifestyle suggestions such as meditation, the Mediterranean Diet, the importance of exercise, the need to have a purpose in life, and the critical component of love with family and friends.

We must, for the health of ourselves, and our children, focus on the whole body. From decreasing our stress to prioritizing our loved ones, to giving ourselves the time to relax and recharge, to not overeating and focusing more on the foods we eat than being full.

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Functional Water: All fun, no function?


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Functional waters are defined as enhanced waters that provide benefits outside of just sheer hydration. A sector that sprung onto the market in June 2016 when All Market Inc. launched Vita Coco, water in a box that touted the benefits of added electrolytes. From there, major players joined the scene—from PepsiCo to Coca-Cola to Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Nestle, and more.

The global market share for water has grown from $10 billion in 2017 and is projected to be upwards of $18 billion by 2025. With nearly half of all Americans drinking less than four cups of water on a daily basis, it seems this sector could be promising for a dehydrated America.

But what can functional water really provide beyond hydration?

These beverage companies are hoping to revolutionize the hydrating experience, making claims like: ensuring better sleep quality, body-detoxing properties, pH balance, and more. But, what’s the real scoop here? I know Gal Gadot wants me to drink Smart Water, Dwayne Johnson wants me to refresh with Voss, Gwyneth Paltrow suggests hydrating with Flow, and Jaden Smith tells me to opt for Just Water. And while I know that my favorite celebs would nevvvverrr lie to me, there may be some smoke and mirrors at play.

Let’s see what the real deal is, where science meets celebrity, and how to base our spending on fact, not fame.

Types of Functional Waters

One size does not fit all.

Functional waters come in many forms, from alkaline to hydrogen-rich, electrolyte-enhanced to superfood infused…each one touting its unique health benefits.

Can these really all be true?

Alkaline Water:

CLAIM: Alkaline water brands claim to help regulate our body’s pH levels. By drinking alkaline water, you can lower your bodies pH, strengthen your immune system, clean your colon, prevent aging, detoxify your system, lose weight, and prevent cancer.

ANSWER: FALSE.

EXPLANATION: Much like our research of the Alkaline diet, the theory that too much acidity in the body is harmful and creates a need to increase our pH level, is itself false. Furthermore, the claim that water can alter a human’s internal pH levels is also untrue.

The reality is that our bodies do a darn good job of maintaining our very tight pH levels. There are many metabolic ways our body rids itself of acids to keep our pH between 7.35 and 7.45. Our lungs control our body’s pH by releasing carbon dioxide each time we breathe out. Our body also rids itself of acid by secreting it through our skin and urine. Furthermore, our stomach acids neutralize the alkaline water we ingest.

POTENTIAL UPSIDE: A 2012 animal study found that alkaline water with a pH of 8.8 neutralized pepsin, a stomach enzyme involved in breaking down food proteins and producing stomach acid. This suggests that alkaline water might help soothe acid reflux—though the issue has not been studied in people yet.

TAKEAWAY: If alkaline water is going to get you to drink more water, go for it! Just don’t think that the money you are spending is going to alter your body’s acidity levels. But if you suffer from acid reflux, give it a try!

Hydrogen-Rich Water:

Hydrogen-rich water is regular water boosted with extra hydrogen molecules. Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic gas that binds to other elements like nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen and can form a variety of compounds like water.

CLAIM: Adding hydrogen molecules in water can provide extra antioxidants to protect our body against damage caused by free radicals. It can also decrease inflammation, boost athletic performance, and even slow down how our body ages.

ANSWER: Not to the extent of these claims.

EXPLANATION: Water molecules consist of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. The assertion of benefits from infusing water with additional hydrogen molecules lacks any scientific backing – and in fact may have been disproved by a recent four-week study in which 26 healthy people were asked to drink 20 ounces of hydrogen-rich glasses of water each day. When compared to results from a placebo group, the study found no indication of decreased oxidative stress or inflammation.

It is also important to note that there is currently no industry-wide standard for the amount of hydrogen that can be added to water. Should I worry about too much hydrogen? While a few studies have shown that too much hydrogen could lead to a build-up of hydrogen ions, which could cause muscle fatigue, these results are rare.

TAKEAWAY: If you enjoy drinking it, go for it! Just don’t think that the money you are spending is going to decrease inflammation and rid our body of free radicals.

Electrolyte Water:

Electrolyte Water is enhanced with electrolytes. But did you know that tap water and most other waters also contain trace amounts of electrolytes? Electrolytes themselves are minerals that help to conduct electricity when dissolved in water.

We have all heard of giving Pedialyte to kids who have the flu and need to add back electrolytes to get their energy level up. Well, here is what is happening: when electrolytes are distributed through fluid in our body, their electrical energy helps to control fluid balance, regulate blood pressure, and contract muscles like the heart.

CLAIM: Electrolyte waters can help to replenish electrolytes lost during physical activity, and help to increase energy.

ANSWER: YES in some cases.

EXPLANATION: Electrolyte water is most beneficial for those who are physically active, or those who have lost electrolytes due to sickness. During physical activity, the body loses sweat that contains sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. Electrolyte enhanced waters can provide a replenishment of those minerals lost through sweat. But unless you are an athlete or under the weather, why pay more? And be careful of sports drinks with electrolytes, like Gatorade, that contain a whopping 30-grams of sugar in a 20-ounce bottle. In addition to the added calories, these sugar-rich drinks can actually make symptoms worse.

TAKEAWAY: If you find that electrolyte-rich water helps you recover faster, try it out! Just don’t think that the money you are spending is going to have much of an effect unless you are an athlete or have been sick and need to replenish lost electrolytes.

Infused Water:

Water added flavors such as fruits, vegetables, or herbs tend to taste great and is a perfect alternative to sodas and other sugary drinks. But what is this gorgeous glass of lemon and cucumber water providing you outside of an Instagram-able moment, and a good smelling, better tasting vessel to get your daily water intake? Well, truth is, not much.

CLAIM: Clear Skin! Weight Loss! Detoxing!

ANSWER: No, no, and no.

EXPLANATION: We have seen claims saying that up to 20 percent of nutrients from added fruits will leech into the water and provide some of the benefits from eating the whole food. Even if that were true, why not just pop the strawberry or cucumber in your mouth and get 100 percent of the nutrients?

But I suppose that is neither here nor there. Take lemon water as an example. Infusing water with lemon raises the amount of Vitamin C and antioxidants – but only produces a very, very small change in its nutritional content.

If that is your goal, simply eat the whole food….but maybe not a lemon.

POTENTIAL UPSIDE: If you are drinking delicious, homemade infused water, you’re staying hydrated without adding sugar. And that right there is a benefit in itself. I have recently been cutting up lemon and rosemary sprigs and putting them in a pitcher of water at the front of my fridge. This serves not only as a reminder to keep hydrated but an easy tasty option to sip my water all day long.

TAKEAWAY: If infused water is going to get you to drink more water, go for it! Just don’t think that the pretty pitcher of pineapple counts as a serving of fruits. It doesn’t. Just eat the darn fruit, and drink a glass of pretty water because it tastes good, looks good, and smells good, not because it is better for you.

Just Plain, Old Tap Water:

The healthiest and most affordable choice. While it may not be the tastiest option, it is, simply put, all we really need. Our bodies are made up of 60 percent water and each and every drop of water helps us digest, eliminate waste, deliver oxygen to our system, lubricate our joints, regulate our temperature, and help our nutrients flow. Basically, every single one of the billions of cells in your body needs water to function. Drinking more water can also help you stay fuller longer, which can decrease the desire to consume unnecessary calories.

According to the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, men should drink about 15.5 cups each day or 3.7 liters, while women should strive for 11.5 cups each day or 2.7 liters.  If you are thirsty – you are a bit dehydrated. Check your urine to see if the color is yellow or dark yellow – then reach for the bottle or glass.

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Transparency in the Produce Aisle


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I have been working in the agriculture industry for a long time. Over 30 years to be exact. But it wasn’t until I entered the highly-perishable fresh produce sector a decade ago that I gathered a true appreciation for how complicated – and how powerful – a transparent supply chain can be.

For many deep-rooted and emotional reasons, consumers have a close relationship with their fresh produce, scanning the produce aisle high and low for just the right piece of fruit to take home. And if at a farmer’s market, they’ll often quiz the farmer on how the product was grown, what crop protection products were used, and when was it picked. Arguably, the consumer’s relationship with fruits and vegetables is the most complicated one in the supermarket.

Those are the old days. Or at least that is the past, and singular, view of how consumers connect with the most perishable of products in their shopping cart.

The promise of technology and its impact on transparency will forever change the produce aisle, just like moving from 3G to 5G technology.

Different Views on Produce

When I speak to consumers about transparency, they reflect with varied responses. Some will say they want to get to know the specific grower that produced the beans or apples. What type of land was the crop raised on? What chemicals were sprayed, if any? What similar products can I purchase from that particular farmer?

When I speak with growers, transparency means building deeper loyalty with retailers and the consumers they serve (with hopes the loyalty is returned). But equally important, it’s a way to keep track of the product in case of food safety inquiries and also ensuring the quality of food arriving at its final destination — a nudge for growers to improve transparency.

A Push for Transparency: Savings & Security

Like with most technologies, there must be a benefit for increased transparency to become more ubiquitous. The most tangible benefit is financial, of course. That could come in the form of cost savings by eliminating a portion of the supply chain, or through increased margin at the checkout stand demanded by a premium label.

At the same time, it could also be an opportunity to protect market share. We’ve all seen the many recalls for romaine lettuce. We’re told of a few brands and bar codes to be aware of, but how do they know? The ability to trace-back a product to a particular warehouse or field is very important for a retailer and the consumer.

In the case of a food safety incident, quick trace-back can mean the difference between a small recall involving one or two growers, or a larger investigation that involves tens of millions of dollars of impacted product. And, if consumers fall ill from the incident, a bruised reputation for the retailer or brand, regardless of the outcome.

A Tool for Telling a Story

According to a 2020 study by the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) and Label Insight, shoppers have higher expectations for transparency when shopping online compared to in-store. Think back to the early days of COVID-19. According to FMI, online grocery purchases soared to 27% of all grocery spending for the March/April period of this year, compared to 14% in February.

This increase in online sales will undoubtedly drive consumers’ interest in a more transparent system. Why? In the store, you can look and feel the product you are about to purchase. Online, you need something more to tell the complete story of a product – how it was grown, when it was picked, size, and other quality attributes. That’s where transparency fills the gaps.

When you go to a grocery store, what do you want to know about your fruits and veggies? Why would you pick a particular brand of berries over another? Or what is it that you like about a particular store’s produce section? We often look for certain benefits when we purchase a product. It starts with the basics of getting a good product at a fair price. But beyond that, transparency helps the consumer make a purchase.

According to IRI Research, “consumers are more concerned than ever about where their food comes from. They are not only making their concerns widely known on social media; they are editing their shopping lists based on those concerns”. Not a surprise to see that the food transparency trend is growing, especially in the younger generations.

A Demand from Millennials

The effect of transparency on purchase decisions is even starker among the Millennial generation. According to a Snacking Trends Report, this demographic is increasingly making purchasing decisions based on “the tenets of self, society, and planet”, which feeds into sustainability.

Millennials have a real connection to the betterment of the planet, and brands need to be careful not to miss this. They must embrace the new level of transparency that Millennials have elevated. Just “talking the talk” will no longer cut it.

Farmers Demanding Price Visibility & Insights

Farmer acceptance of transparency technology is growing for multiple reasons. In the case of fresh produce, transparency allows the grower to look for efficiencies in the supply chain. Not only with their operation, but in the part of the chain above and below them.

Through an open purchasing platform, a grower may learn what the distributor pays the manufacturer for inputs, which puts them in a better negotiating position with the distributor, or even directly with the manufacturer.

Going the other direction in the supply chain, a grower may be able to directly access consumer insights on their products and brand. In the past, that information may have been maintained by retailers or distributors that, in turn, passed it along to the grower. The net result of this shift is quicker and better-informed decisions about what to grow.

And more importantly, they can look for particular attributes to provide the highest return from the marketplace. Similar to the consumer, it often comes down to economics: can I increase my revenue or lower my costs through the use of new technology that pulls up the shades somewhere else in the supply chain?

Promising Technologies in the Works

New technology has a way of telling the story of ‘what’s possible’. Here are two promising examples:

Founded in 2013, a Californian company called safetraces developed DNA “barcodes” that can be added to fruits and vegetables via a liquid spray or wax. What’s so special about that? The company takes a small piece of synthetic DNA from organisms not typically found in the produce section – like seaweed – which they mix with trace amounts of sugar and create a sprayable solution. According to the company, the spray is odorless, tasteless, and poses no food safety risk.

If a problem with the product arises, the DNA on the surface can be swabbed and identified within minutes. Placing the DNA barcode directly on fresh produce significantly reduces the potential for traceback information to be lost. Produce boxes, which traditionally carry the tracking information, are discarded long before anyone catches on to a problem.

In a different twist on innovative traceability technology, software company HarvestMark partnered with iFood Decision Sciences to create a solution that allows consumers to not only view each step along the supply chain, but to provide feedback and reward those brands they feel are doing the best job of transparency.

The product information is collected and shared with the consumer on an item-level basis. The consumer has instant feedback linked to the product’s age, origin, and location. This allows the grower to see how a specific product performs on the grocery store shelf and then make short and long-term production decisions.

In addition to the quality and analytical measurements provided to the grower, like temperature control, inventory monitoring, and supplier notifications, this traceability system also provides a mechanism for product recall in case there is a food safety incident.

The real power of the HarvestMark technology comes through the integration of both the consumer and analytical supply-chain feedback. A highly perishable raspberry variety, for example, might have great flavor and visual appeal according to consumer feedback. Through the analytics of the traceability software across the supply chain, the grower can maximize the shelf-life of the raspberries and reduce perishability at the store level. The result is increased income for both the grower and the retailer…and a happy customer who returns for repeat business.

The promise of this technology will be optimized even further using blockchain applications, which enables the industry to share data up and down the supply chain while maintaining the integrity of the data at each source.

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Hillary E. Kaufman

Click to listen as Lucy interviews Hillary.

Hillary believes in the power of research to substantiate sound decision-making, especially when it comes to learning about our food system. Hillary’s earlier career centered on forecasting consumer trends and researching potential investment ideas in the healthcare and consumer goods spaces. But as her family grew, Hillary’s priorities shifted. So, in 2017, she enthusiastically joined D2D.

As a team member, Hillary manages the D2D website and makes sure readers have a great experience navigating all our content across our varied subjects, media experiences, and platforms. Given her love of cooking, she’ll write about the issues affecting our decision-making at the grocery store. This often includes all those gimmicky labels we see on our foods that make us falsely assume one product is superior. The worst offender to date? Non-GMO salt.

Hillary hopes her contribution to the site helps readers make research-driven food decisions for their families, as it has with hers.

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Hayley N. Philip

Click to listen as Hillary Kaufman interviews Hayley.

Hayley joined D2D in 2018 as Marketing Director. As the granddaughter of a farmer and growing up in California’s Central Valley, one of the nation’s most productive agricultural regions, Hayley’s interest in food, farming, and agriculture began at a young age. But it wasn’t until a few years ago when she was trying to make healthier meals for her family, that she realized the enormous challenge people faced in getting actual facts about our food and food system.

During that time, Hayley found herself navigating through a jungle of misinformation, misleading labels and “fake” diets and health claims. As her frustration mounted, Hayley wondered if the glut of food misinformation was contributing to millions of Americans now facing obesity and chronic illnesses (like Type 2 diabetes).

Determined to be part of the solution and help people use food to better their own health, Hayley jumped at the chance to be part of the D2D team.

Hayley also leads the team in debunking popular fad diets, fast-nutrition, and myths about ‘quick’ dietary fixes. Hayley also researches and writes about the intersectionality of regeneration and sustainable growing methods that will safely produce enough food for future generations.

Hayley is a graduate of the University of California Santa Barbara with degrees in Sociology and Marketing.  She moved to New York shortly after graduation, where she worked in sales and marketing for almost a decade before joining D2D.

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5 Steps to Healthier Living in 2022

Whether you’re looking for a quick bite of information or want to drop some knowledge on your dinnertime companions, here’s our Featured 5 of the Week! 

If you’re thinking about resolutions or want to become more focused on your health and immunity this year, we have some tips for you…

5. Cut Back on Sugar

This is a great first step to improving your overall health.

Sugar is something we talk about a lot here on D2D, and that’s because too much can wreak havoc on our bodies. It weakens our immune system, increases insulin, increases blood pressure, and can lead to diet-related illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. The first step in reducing your sugar intake is to find how much sugar is in your favorite foods. Many companies sneak sugar into seemingly healthy foods like granola and protein bars. Be sure to read the labels! Sneaky sugar includes fructose, glucose, and dextrose. If you see these on your label, be aware that this is just another word for sugar.

We also have lots of recipes with little to no-added-sugar and even healthier cocktails on our website. Less sugar doesn’t have to mean less fun – it’ll help increase your energy levels and help with your overall health!

4. Take Your Vitamins Every Day 

Many government officials report that mid-January will be a high-peak time for Covid resurgence, making this the time to strengthen our immune systems.

At D2D, we love our vitamins because they make us feel better and prevent us from getting sick and help us fight off illnesses quicker. Vitamins also help protect us against diseases like diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and cancer. Whether it’s vitamin D, vitamin C, Nootropics, or even Epicor, it’s so important to add vitamins into your daily health regimen. Think of it as your little sidekick to help fight off any unwanted sickness! But, be sure to talk to your doctor first to make sure you’re taking the right ones.

Protect both yourself and your family by taking your daily vitamins and strengthening your immune system. And, if you’re curious to know how vitamins work in our bodies, click here.

3. Fully Understand a Diet Before You Try It

New Year’s is usually a time where we like to try a new fad diet. But before you jump in, make sure you know everything there is to know about a diet before you start.

Tons of fad diets make their way through all social media channels. Whether it’s Keto, plant-based, vegan, vegetarian — it can feel like these diets tout themselves as “the healthiest!” However, it’s important to know how that diet is going to work with your body. For example, if you decide to take on a plant-based diet, understand that due to the lack of meat you’re consuming, your body will need more complex proteins from other sources.

Understand the difference between complete and incomplete proteins and know which one you’re eliminating and which you’re increasing. B12 is a vitamin found in almost solely animal foods. You may need to supplement B12 into your diet another way if you choose a plant-based diet. If you’re an athlete or lead an active lifestyle, understand that you may need more protein in your diet, so 100% plant-based proteins may not work for you.

We are not saying don’t try new diets, but you may do more damage to your body than good if it’s not the right diet for you.

2. Fuel Your MIND

Ok, let’s talk about your MIND now…

We all do everything we can to keep our health goals on track, but what about fueling your brain? Every 65 seconds, someone in the United States develops Alzheimer’s. But, you can lower your chances by incorporating some of these foods into your diet. Berries, leafy greens, whole grains, fish, even wine – all of these are known to help the brain in one way or another.

In a study done by Rush University, the MIND diet, much like the components of a Mediterranean diet, led to a 53% decreased risk of Alzheimer’s development for those who strictly followed it, and 35% for those who moderately followed it.

Fuel your body, but also make sure you’re fueling your brain. It is just as vital.

1. Be Mindful…

About your food, your exercise, everything!

The most important thing you can do in 2022 is be mindful about what you’re putting into your body. Food is a primary determinant of the strength of our immune systems, how much inflammation is in our body, and how we fight off viruses.

Read the labels. Understand what they mean. Know what’s going into your body. And, when in doubt, just eat more fruits and vegetables.

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5 Healthier Holiday Cocktails

Whether you’re looking for quick information, or want something to impress your friends at dinner, here’s our Featured 5 of the Week!

If there’s one thing we love during the holidays, it’s all of the festive cocktails! There’s nothing better than settling in for the night with a delicious holiday cocktail. But, many of them include extra calories, unwanted carbs, and lots of bad sugar. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of healthier holiday cocktails so we can all enjoy without having to worry about breaking our health goals!

5. Rosemary Gin Cocktail

This cocktail is so light and fresh, you’ll be adding this to your cocktail list for every season!

The Rosemary Gin Cocktail contains gin, grapefruit, simple syrup, and of course, rosemary. But, don’t be afraid – the simple syrup is made from Truvia! Rather than using a simple syrup from the store that’s all sugar, try making this super easy Truvia simple syrup. You won’t notice the difference in the taste, but your body will surely thank you.

This cocktail is perfect to enjoy with friends and they’ll be so impressed with your Truvia simple syrup! Get the recipe here.

4. Red Fox

The Red Fox is a take on a Vodka Cranberry, but much lighter. We first found this drink in while on a trip. Locals of the destination town often enjoy this drink while watching polo matches. When we found out it only contains 140 calories per drink, we knew we had to add it to this list!

With only 3 ingredients, this is perfect for anytime you’re craving a drink but don’t want to spend a lot of time making one. And, it’s holiday red so how can it get any more festive than this?

Impress everyone around you with this pretty, yet super easy and delicious cocktail! Check out the recipe here.

3. Hot Toddy

Picture this: It’s snowing outside. You have the fireplace going, tree lights on, under a blanket. What are you drinking? A Hot Toddy, of course!

There is nothing better than sipping a hot drink on a cold night. And, when hot cocoa just won’t cut it, this hits the spot and it won’t take you any more time to make. The Hot Toddy contains water, lemon juice, honey, and bourbon, with garnishes of apple slices and cinnamon. So light, so many great ingredients, and only 180 calories!

We will probably be making Hot Toddy’s all winter long! If you want to as well, here’s the recipe!

2. Light Tequila Sunrise

Looking for a holiday brunch cocktail? We’ve got you covered!

We all love a good tequila sunrise, but with all of the added sugar, it’s so hard to enjoy one without feeling at least a little bit guilty. That’s why this lighter version is perfect! It still keeps the great taste of a tequila sunrise, but with better ingredients, including fresh squeezed grapefruit or orange juice. It’s also only 150 calories – wow!

So, mix it up, pour it into a festive glass like this one and enjoy! Here’s the recipe.

1. Skinny Santa Claus-Mopolitan

Of course, we have to go with a classic for our number one healthier cocktail, and this one has Christmas written all over it!

This cocktail is sure to get even the Grinchiest of people into the holiday spirit! With only 3 ingredients and 130 calories, these are super easy to make and won’t come with the guilt that a regular cocktail would. They can also be personalized by adding lime juice to the rim then dipping in either Truvia or coconut flakes. It will give the perfect Santa Claus touch!

Whether you’re having a Christmas night with friends, family, or just watching movies by yourself, this is the perfect cocktail to enjoy! Get the recipe here.

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Will New Wheat and Barley Genomes Help Feed the World?


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By the time I am 60 years old in 2050, our global population will have increased to 9.7 billion people. That’s an additional ~2 billion human beings that will need to be fed. With over 275 million hectares (680 million acres) of irrigated land globally, researchers note that to grow enough food for our projected population increase, we will need crops to produce more output on existing land.

Experts estimate that to provide for the 2050 population forecast, annual cereal production will need to rise by 50% to about 3 billion tonnes. To do this, we must implement plant breeding technologies as one part of a comprehensive solution for global hunger.

A Genetic Breakthrough in High-Yield Crops

The big news, as reported in the journal Nature, is that researchers have sequenced new variations of genomes in barley and wheat. The international team includes scientists from the University of Adelaide’s Waite Research Institute, along with the 10+ Genome Project, spearheaded by Curtis Pozniak, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Pozniak is in collaboration with the International Barley Pan Genome Sequencing Consortium, led by Nils Stein, professor at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research.

Associate Professor Ken Chalmers at Adelaide University’s Waite Research Institution inspecting wheat grain.

What does that mean for society today? Because barley and wheat are staple crops on a global level, scientists may have found a way to produce the high yield necessary to feed more mouths within our lifetime. And it’s not just a boon to cereal production; these discoveries bring us one step closer to unlocking the entire gene set, otherwise known as pan-genome, in wheat and barley, which has ramifications for all future research in plant genomics and cereal farming.

Here’s how the research unfolded: Scientists conducting field tests in Chile found a way to increase the amount of protein (expansin) in the plants, which controls growth rate. The result: grains that were up to 12% larger than usual‚ with higher yields as well. In the past, there had always been a tradeoff between grain size and number.

This is especially good news because wheat provides about 20% of the calories consumed by humans, and the current yield is increasing at only about 1% annually — a far cry from the 50% needed to supply the population by 2050. Field results were a critical component, as they helped prove the effectiveness of these variations, by showing that the plants could perform under typical agricultural conditions. The teams of researchers are now working to make this research available to farmers and the greater food industry to help inform their decisions on crop production.

Consumer Acceptance is Key to Survival

Currently, more than 800 million people worldwide are chronically hungry, and about 2 billion are nutritionally deficient. This is a huge public health concern. What’s more, fertile land and water supply are becoming scarcer, and production increases are falling off — amplifying the need for more productive land.

United Nations World Food Program

Gene-editing technologies can only address global hunger and land and water availability if they’ve gained consumer trust. GMOs and gene-editing are some of the most studied plant technologies. They also have the capacity to increase yield and lower chemical fertilizer and pesticide use, provide crops with better resilience to poor climate conditions, ward off pests, reduce post-harvest loss, and produce more nutrient-dense foods.

And yet, even with 30 years of research and countless commercial applications proving that gene-edited or GMO crops are as safe as conventionally grown crops, there is still hesitation from mainstream culture.

What if you were to wake up at 60, 70 or 80 years old, and — instead of looking at flourishing families — you’re looking at 900 million people going hungry, land once used for playgrounds now dedicated to growing food, and the population still multiplying? While this may seem like a stretch, if we don’t accept plant breeding technology and realize its fundamental impact on food security, we may not meet increasing global food demands. More and more people will go hungry.

It seems like a luxury to even discuss consumer food production preference when people in developing countries are dying of starvation. With COVID running rampant, Africa is unable to make use of new plant technology, including GMOs, due to bottlenecks caused by the pandemic. This, as Ruramiso Mashumba, an African smallholder farmer shared with us, is not a matter of preference but truly, a matter of life and death.

So, while our issue here in the United States remains a social challenge of widespread consumer adoption, developing countries are struggling with political barriers, preventing them from using lifesaving technology.

We hope to see more plant technologies such as this emerge and we hope that consumers do their research and come to understand the safety and vital nature of these developments.

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5 Better-For-You Holiday Sweets

Whether you’re looking for quick information, or want something to impress your friends at dinner, here’s our Featured 5 of the Week!

The holidays are upon us and for many, it’s a time of love, peace, and eating too many sweets! We know the struggle of wanting to watch movies and eat cookies while not wanting to break your health goals. And, even though a treat is ok to eat once in a while, we have some holiday dessert ideas that won’t make you feel guilty the next morning:

5. Chocolate Banana Mug Cake

Sometimes there is nothing better than a warm, chocolatey cake on a cold night.

This mug cake is perfect for those nights when we’re cuddled in a blanket, watching a Hallmark Christmas movie, and looking for something quick to satisfy a sweet tooth. It has nutritious ingredients, like ground flaxseeds and bananas, and no added sugar. It also requires no messy clean-up because all the ingredients are cooked right in a mug in your microwave!

So, forget processed sweets like sandwich cookies and candy — this mug cake is healthier and more delicious than them all. Find the recipe here.

4. No-Bake Chocolate Oat Cookies

No-bake cookies get a serious upgrade with this recipe…

Honestly, what’s better than no-bake chocolate cookies? These cookies are chewy, chocolatey, and oh-so-delicious. Since they don’t require any baking time, they are fast and easy to make, and are perfect for your kids to help, too! These cookies are also free of any added sugar, using natural or sugar-free sweeteners such as pitted dates and Stevia.

Grab the family and have some fun making these no-bake cookies (and enjoy them without worrying about a sugar-high) and get the recipe here.

3. Naturally Sweet Pancakes

Picture this: it’s Christmas morning. The kids have just opened presents and now everyone’s hungry. What do you make? Naturally Sweet Pancakes!

These pancakes are perfect for Christmas morning because they are so versatile. You can add any of your favorite toppings and make them as festive as you’d like. They also get the day of overeating sweets off on the right foot because they don’t have any added sugar, but still taste great.

Forget sugary, processed pancakes, and give these a try. We promise you and your family won’t be disappointed!

2. No-Sugar-Added Chocolate Chip Cookies

Everyone’s favorite cookie but with less guilt…

We bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies every Christmas — it’s a staple sweet around our house during special times of the year. This recipe for chocolate chips with no-added-sugar makes such soft, gooey cookies that we don’t think we’ll ever go back to the original ones.

With only six ingredients and 12 minutes of baking time, these are so quick and easy to make that they can be done right on Christmas morning!

Check out the recipe and give them a try. However, these cookies do include nut butter, so be sure to avoid them if you have a nut allergy.

1. Nutty Coconut Balls

What’s more festive than a cookie that looks like an actual snowball?

Nutty coconut balls are probably one of our favorite cookies of all time and we especially enjoy them around the holidays. They are packed full of nutritious ingredients like cashews, almonds, and unsweetened shredded coconut, and even get their sugar from pitted dates or stevia, so there are no unwanted calories.

These are the perfect holiday cookie with both their look and their taste, and will look great on any holiday dessert table. Find the recipe here.

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Meeting Demand: A New Type of Salmon


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Innovation and creative thinking in the protein industry is ever-evolving. You may have read some of our posts on the perils of overfishing our oceans and rivers. So when I heard about the genetically-modified AquAdvantage salmon that addresses sustainability issues as well as the potential to bring income to rural America, I was immediately curious. Of course, I wondered whether it was regulated and what the testing looked like. So I dug deeper and learned a lot about how this fish is grown.

AquAdvantage – What is it?

AquAdvantage Salmon is the first genetically-modified salmon approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada. AquaBounty, the company behind AquAdvantage, has its unlikely farm in Indiana. Yes – the Midwest can grow salmon!

This fish is more sustainable and unique because it can grow to maturity in just 18 months, compared to 36 months for a traditionally farmed salmon. Both take significantly less time than their wild cousins, which can take 7 years.

Farmed and wild Atlantic salmon stop growing during the winter and when they are environmentally stressed. Wild salmon take so long to reach maturity because they are foraging for food, avoiding predators, and dealing with tough environmental conditions. Farmed salmon also have a tough time growing because, even though they are swimming in enclosed sea nets, they are still exposed to diseases, parasites, and sometimes water that is too warm.

30 years ago, the AquaBounty salmon was genetically modified to help survive their early, most vulnerable stages of growth. Just like a labradoodle dog — a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle — an AquAdvantage salmon is a combination of the Atlantic salmon, the Chinook salmon’s growth gene, and a gene promoter from an ocean pout. Not the most attractive fish in the ocean, the major benefit of the ocean pout is that their ‘promoters’ turn on the Chinook growth gene to make the fish grow all the time, as opposed to seasonal growth with the Atlantic salmon’s promoters. And if an ocean pout was on the menu, I would certainly try one, growth promoter and all.

What does the FDA say?

The FDA approved the AquAdvantage salmon as “safe and effective” under the new animal drug provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in November 2015.

The FDA studied this fish for over 25 years. The first 10 years were setting up the prenotification process before filing for approval. For the next 15 years, they wanted to prove three things: Is it safe for the fish? Is it safe for humans? Is it safe for the environment? The answer to all three was yes.

Finally, after all these years of research development and regulatory evaluation, the first fish is expected to be harvested in December 2020 at AquaBounty’s farm in Indiana.

There is no mystery involved here. You will know when you are eating an AquaBounty fish when you buy your fish at a market or grocery store. The USDA National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Act requires ‘mandatory standards for disclosing foods that are or may be bioengineered’. However, restaurants are not under an obligation to highlight genetically modified salmon on their menu.

Less Feed – Better Conversion Rate

One of the most remarkable attributes of this breed is that, despite its continual growth, it requires less daily food. The on-farm results with AquAdvantage salmon have confirmed the scientific studies and demonstrated that it is possible to produce one pound of fish with less than one pound of feed. This is compared to most farmed Atlantic salmon which take one pound of fish feed to grow one pound of fish.

Grown without antibiotics in Indoor Farms

All of these fish are – and will be – grown in highly-regulated fish farms. If you ever had a fish tank, this is not the same thing. Biofiltration units keep the water clean, fresh, and provide great conditions where this salmon can thrive. Because of the clean environment, the fish do not get sick or acquire sea lice, so they are always grown without antibiotics.

The tanks are completely contained without the possibility of a fish escaping into the wild. Yet they are big enough for the fish to jump and swim in schools – allowing them to be their natural selves.  They do not have to forage for food as they are fed just enough for them to grow and not too much to stimulate excessive waste.

AquaBounty’s indoor grow-out tanks prevent escapement and eliminate parasites that lead to disease.

Stimulating Economic Growth in Rural America

So much of rural America has lost the benefits of agriculture. Bringing fish farms to parts of America is a way to boost economic growth, especially in the mountainous areas such as West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. It is an opportunity to bring jobs and income to areas that have lost their income in part due to bankruptcies in the farming sector, many in the dairy industry.

Riding my motorcycle around some of the beautiful Pennsylvania northern counties, all I see are fallow farms and beautiful, stately barns – falling apart.

AquaBounty has found that Indiana, where the company has its current U.S. farm, and other mid-west locations, are great examples of states committed to AgriTech.

AquaBounty actively works with local and state governments and agencies that are committed to AgriTech. They believe this is the future of agriculture as well as their state’s economic and employment growth.

AquaBounty also closely monitors the USDA Rural Economic Development Program as part of the site selection process.

Why do we need AquAdvantage?

In 2018, Atlantic salmon, second to shrimp, was the most valued farmed fish in the world. The upward projections continue and is expected to grow to 4 million tons by just 2023, from about 3.5 million tons in 2019. The U.S. imports about 400,000 tons of salmon every year. About 70% come from farms – mostly in Norway, Chile, Scotland, and Canada.

Salmon is particularly healthy — it is rich in minerals, micronutrients, omega-3 fatty acids, protein, and many vitamins. Not only is salmon good for you, but it is easy to cook for dinner, throw together in a salad, or even have as sushi. More and more consumers are enjoying the health, taste, and ease of cooking it at home.

However, we cannot catch them all with a fishing pole or a fishing boat or we will not have any left.

Remember the Atlantic Cod off the coast of Maine? As a D2D reader, you may have read about the sustainable importance of farmed fish versus wild-caught.

As the oceans become over-fished, there are many benefits to eating fish grown from responsibly managed fish farms and ocean fisheries.

With diligent oversight, these operations help meet demand while natural aquatic habitats improve from current overfished conditions.

What do consumers say about GMO fish?

Concerned about whether consumers would embrace a genetically engineered fish, the AquaBounty management team conducted extensive research to determine their reaction. Here are key points from Quantitative Research Executive Summary:

  • 53% of consumers’ initial impressions of the term GMO/GE are neutral to positive – many are conflicted
  • Respondents are neutral about purchasing products they regularly buy if labeled GMO/GE.
  • Almost three-quarters rank level of trust for government agencies to provide oversight/guidelines as Neutral to Trust Very Much
  • Top-ranked attributes for AquAdvantage Salmon: Chemical free, Nutritious, Antibiotic Free Consistent Access to Fresh Fish, Affordability, FDA Approved

What do NGOs and Political Figures say about a GMO Fish?

When the news came out, even our local fish market had loud ‘NO GMO SALMON HERE’ signs posted everywhere. Of course, it was not sold ‘here’ because the salmon was a couple of years away from being available….

Concern: Anti-GMO, NGOs, and other groups filed a legal challenge in March 2016 in the San Francisco federal court. The first challenge was whether the FDA’s animal drug authority could oversee genetically-engineered animals and fish. The second claim said that the FDA violated core environmental laws in the event these fish escaped into the wild.

Response: Judge Vince Chhabria of San Francisco affirmed that the FDA had the authority to oversee genetically-engineered animals and fish. For the second claim, while he understood that the FDA had thoroughly analyzed the exceptionally low probability of escape, they did not address the consequences if this breed of salmon were to establish a persistent population in the wild. Judge Chhabria ruled that AquaBounty can continue its operations in Prince Edward Island, Canada and Indiana. Nor did the Judge prevent AquaBounty from harvesting in December 2020.

AquAdvantage salmon cannot make the leap from a land-based indoor tank to the wild. All these facilities have tightly-closed septic and water systems to prevent eggs or fish from escaping.

In addition, all the fish will be sterile females and, unlike the protogynous sea bass, a female salmon cannot turn into a productive male, thus procreating with wild salmon – or any other fish for that matter. Once a salmon is sterile – it is sterile.

Other concerns such as those from The Consumer’s Union are worth mentioning as their issues are similar to GMOs overall.

Concern: More and more children are getting allergic reactions to different types of foods, like nuts and eggs. Since these salmon are GMOs, they must contribute to children’s allergies.  They are also an advocate of labeling.

Response: As we have mentioned in previous posts regarding GMOs, all GMOs are tested for allergies…in fact, every single allergy known to humans. AquAdvantage fish are no exception. It is also worth noting that the gene brought into the salmon is a growth promoter. There are no known allergies to naturally occurring growth hormones.

Response:  These GMOs are required to be labeled if they are sold at the fish market or grocery store. However, not at a restaurant.

Concern: GM Watch says that these hormones can cause cancer and the fish could have different protein levels. The concern is that the additional hormones create a hormone called IGF-1 that increases insulin and causes cancer.

Response: When you eat an AquAdvantage salmon, the growth gene from the Chinook salmon and the growth promoter from the ocean pout could not affect you or change your genes.  It is the same as eating any type of seafood. They all have growth hormones – otherwise, they would not grow!

The IGF-1 hormone is necessary for all vertebrae and mammals to mature. While the ocean pout hormone is different than the salmon hormone, this hormone does not produce more insulin in the human body. In truth, the IGF-1 hormone is present in humans already and a too low level might cause diabetes and other health issues.

Concern: This fish has a higher ratio of omega-6 fats to omega-3 fats, compared to other salmon that have more omega 3s.

Response: A different growth hormone does not affect the nutritional quality of this salmon. Also, most farmed fish are fed with by-catch. In this case, they are working with an algae product that produces the same fatty acid profile as fish.

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Behind the Scenes with a Local Beef Farmer


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“My ancestor’s life was tough, and their values of hard work passed down from generation to generation. We were taught to ‘stay by the stuff’ and keep a steady resolve to get through every major crisis that impacts your life. We have taught our children to wake up in the morning and do the very best job on the day they have been given.” 

– Dave Albert, owner of Misty Mountain Farms

Dave’s family has been farming the land for six generations, since his ancestor, John Wolfgang, first turned the soil in 1854. An immigrant from Germany, Wolfgang and his fiancé landed in Philadelphia. Once they married and acclimated to America, they pushed their few belongings in a wheelbarrow over 200 miles before settling on 110 acres in Trout Run. Clearing trees, picking rocks out of the soil, tilling the soil, and cultivating a crop was not an easy way of life in the 1800s (or even today).

Six generations later, the Alberts farm ~300 acres grazing multiple species of livestock, including Angus cattle, Texel/Suffolk sheep and lamb, and pastured poultry, including chickens and turkeys. To support this effort, they grow row crops of corn, soybeans, oats, barley, and canola. The main focus of tillable acreage is for forages and cover crops. The balance of their operation is dedicated to improving the pastures.

Soil Health Translates to Profitability

“A healthy soil will produce the same amount of yield, if not better, without any inputs such as pesticides and commercial fertilizer.”

Misty Mountain Farm is profitable because Dave believes that soil health is the foundation of any farming enterprise. With farm incomes generally down across the country, this is a big statement.

He utilizes no-till farming to grow corn, soybeans, and barley with limited inputs of commercial fertilizer. Imported poultry litter is readily available and he uses approximately 200 to 300 tons per year. When expanding his land holdings, it takes him about three years before the soil has enough organic matter to support the crops he harvests.

No-till means that Dave will simultaneously plant multiple cover crops such as rye, Austrian winter pea, eco-till radish, and multi-species clovers. These covers are planted post-harvest and stay on the fields until it is time to plant his corn and soybeans. He will plant the spring seeds right over the cover crops without turning the soil. The cover crops then turn into food for the trillions of soil microbiota and ultimately his row crops of corn and soybeans.

How does Dave know his soil is healthy? His definition is that he can achieve the same yield per acre as conventional farmers with little to no herbicides and pesticides.

The level of input determines soil health, which then allows the farmer to achieve target yields combined with optimal profitability. In addition, this summer was a drought year with only a couple of inches of rain a month. Yet his crops were healthy and strong because of the soil biodiversity. When it finally did rain, the ground absorbed the water like a sponge. He says you can tell a farm has unhealthy soil when there is a lot of mud on the road after a rain — a sign that the soil quality has deteriorated so much that it simply just washes away.

Organic or Conventional? Neither – Regenerative

“We live in a world where production and monoculture crops are the norm. To get the highest yield, you need the highest inputs but yet we have a market structure where profit is not there.”

Regenerative agriculture is when you not only protect the land but you make it better than when you first started farming. It enhances the ecosystem around the farm or ranch by enriching the soil, protecting and improving the watersheds, and increasing biodiversity — all while improving crop yields.

Dave is a student of agriculture. When Dave was a high school junior, he won first prize on a paper about cover crops at the state-level Future Farmers of America convention in Harrisburg. He then graduated from Penn State in 1984, with a degree in Animal Science. That is where he met Holly, who also grew up with an agricultural background.

In 2007, he was a participating member of a team of soil scientists who traveled to Europe to study organic waste recycling. Dr. Richard Stehouwer led this team, spending two weeks in Germany and Austria. While ferrying down the Rhine River on a lazy Sunday afternoon, Dave saw the town of Wiesbaden, Germany where his great, great, great grandfather, John Wolfgang Albert, was born. An unexpected highlight of the day for sure.

Dave spends his winter months reading and learning from soil experts such as Ray Archuleta, the founder of Understanding Ag, LLC, and Gabe Brown, a regenerative farmer from North Dakota, who has a 5,000-acre farm with 20% higher crop yield than the county average. 

Conservation: Protecting the Chesapeake Bay

Streaming right through Misty Mountain Farm is West Branch Murry Run, one of the five headwaters that ultimately flow into the Chesapeake Bay. One of the more pristine rivers, the Loyalsock was the 2018 Pennsylvania River of the Year.

However, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Chesapeake Bay was floundering under a high nutrient load from the hundreds of farms leaking their fertilizer, manure, and pesticides into the rivers that fall in the watershed area.

Recognizing this issue, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation set up a series of grants for farmers to keep the run-off clean by establishing buffer zones between the farm and the watersheds.

In 1999, the Alberts were the first in Lycoming County to fence an 80-foot buffer between their cattle and the stream. At this time, the stream was warm, semi-polluted, and had no trout. Instead of trout, which are an indication of cleanliness and purity, they found only a few chubs and crew fish.

Just buffering the stream produced dramatic improvements. So much so that in 2017, they celebrated a 100-person ‘field day’ that included the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Chesapeake Conservancy, Regional Conservation Partnership Program, and State Rep. Garth Everett. They enjoyed a Misty Mountain beef barbeque, talked about soil health and water quality, and examined the stream for a 9-year improvement.

Working with students from the Lycoming College Clean Water Institute, they shocked the stream, temporarily paralyzing the fish, to see what fish now inhabited the ecosystem. A brown trout popped up. Now, trout flourish in the cold, clear, and oxygenated water that provides not just places to hide but also clean gravel for their eggs.

How Dave Grows Beef

Dave’s proprietary cattle feed produces beef with such tenderness that ‘you can eat it with a spoon.’

The crops he grows feed his 150 head of cattle. In the summer, they graze on improved pasture and cover crops in his fields. For the wintertime, the cow-calf pairs are fed mostly forages and corn silage. The finished ration is fed year-round in a finishing barn post-weaning. Both spring-born and fall-born calves are weaned at 10 months of age.

Dave says the key to a high-quality eating experience is prepotent genetics for marbling, coupled with a consistent energy release in the rumen, to allow for a steady rate of gain and growth. Cattle are harvested at the peak of perfection in quality grade. Harvest weights average 675 lb. on the rail. Plating a ribeye steak that is manageable is key to his restaurant trade.

As we sat in the warm sunshine, his pregnant cows trotted over to see us and investigate if we had any food. We heard his bull over in the nearby field wanting to visit the cows. Dave is careful what breed he uses for his Angus cattle. When I asked him if he used antibiotics, he said, ‘sure’.

He continues, “the other day, I had a pregnant cow who was about to calve. She contracted pneumonia and was terribly sick. I gave her an antibiotic cocktail, she lived, and the calf lived. If I hadn’t, I would have lost both of them. It is inhumane to let them suffer.”

As a nice push to gain valuable nutrients on pasture, Dave raises poultry, including chicken and turkey.

Customer Transparency: Strong Local Market

“Consumers don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

For five generations, the Alberts have been selling their beef into the local market in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and the surrounding area. They use three local USDA-inspected processing plants to turn their cattle into cuts for both the local restaurants as well as the farmer’s market. Since Covid, the local market has boomed! Per-month sales have doubled over the previous year. Slaughter dates are now being held for all of 2021 and into 2022.

The consumer wants to know their farmer. Misty Mountain Farms has long enjoyed a loyal following. But since Covid, more of the consumers who previously shopped in local supermarkets have bought his beef from the local market. Dave and Holly meet with consumers to inform them how they raise and feed their cattle from the time they are born. Customers love the taste and consistency of the Alberts’ meat.

Here’s how the farm prepares the cattle’s feed for winter…somewhat meditative to watch!

Their customers’ trust in Dave and Holly has placed the couple in the education business. Dave says, “we meet people where they are at. We don’t make a judgment on their knowledge, we just make a product that keeps them coming and we explain how we get there.”

This shows how important the farmer’s brand has become. The consumer wants great taste and flavor, but also to trust their food producer. Dave could just as easily sell his cattle to one of the ‘big four’ meat processors. It would be sold to the grocery store market and get absorbed into the retail system. There, the very same consumer would see the ‘generic’ beef and walk away not knowing the unique care that Misty Mountain Farm takes to grow their cattle.

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5 Healthy Ways to Use Your Thanksgiving Leftovers

Whether you’re looking for quick information, or want something to impress your friends at dinner, here’s our Featured 5 of the Week!

Thanksgiving dinner is one of our favorite meals of the year! But, we always have so much food left over. And, with Thanksgivings being smaller this year due to Covid, there will probably be even more food to go around. We all know the typical turkey sandwich, but there are many other healthy ways to use these delicious leftovers. Here are some of our favorites!

5. Turkey Salad

This is one of the easiest ways to use your leftovers, and it can be more than just throwing sliced turkey on some greens!

Making a salad delicious is completely up to you, and with the amount of veggies eaten on Thanksgiving, there should be no shortage of toppings for this salad. Roasted sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, leftover green beans – add them all! You can even make croutons out of leftover stuffing and salad dressing from cranberry sauce. The options are endless!

So, if you’re still feeling super full the day after Thanksgiving, this salad is the perfect light lunch!

4. Turkey and Vegetable Soup

It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving if we weren’t making some kind of soup!

Making turkey soup is very easy and creates a cozy meal. To season your broth, you can use a mixture of low-sodium turkey broth and the carcass. Let it all come to a boil then simmer with your turkey meat and veggies. After you remove the carcass, it’ll be full of flavor.

This can be eaten on its own or with some whole-grain biscuits for a hearty and nutritious meal!

3. Air-Fried Thanksgiving Leftovers Eggrolls

Yes, we said eggrolls!

As long as they’re not deep-fried, eggrolls can be a great way to use Thanksgiving leftovers. Buy some eggroll wrappers from any grocery store (they’re usually in the produce section) and add turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, veggies – really any leftover you want! Roll it up and seal with water, and cook them in the air fryer at 350F for 6-7 minutes, flipping halfway.

For extra crispy eggrolls, spray them with cooking spray before air-frying them. Quick, easy, and delicious!

2. “Fancy” Turkey Sandwiches

Take a break from turkey on white bread with mayo and give these new sandwiches a try!

First, make some cranberry mayo using your leftover cranberry sauce. There’s a great recipe for it here. Warm up your turkey in the microwave and grab some multi-grain rolls. Spread some of the cranberry mayo on the roll and place your turkey on top. Now, you can just eat it like this and it will be delicious, but if you’re a toppings person, consider adding some avocado, lettuce, or brie cheese for extra flavor!

And, the best part about these sandwiches is that you can make them year-round by swapping out the leftover turkey with a turkey burger!

1. Turkey Stir-Fry

You’ve heard of chicken stir-fry, beef stir-fry, and shrimp stir-fry. Now, get ready for turkey stir-fry!

This is another super-easy way to use your leftover turkey. And, if you still go for a big turkey this Thanksgiving like we are, you’re going to need some recipes to use it up! Grab your fresh or frozen veggies and make the stir-fry just as you normally would. You can even add some leftover veggies if you have them. If you like rice in your stir fry, add some of that too, but consider using brown rice so you get your whole grains. Add the cooked turkey last and let it sit with the rest of the stir-fry until it’s warm and full of flavor.

There are so many ways to make stir-fry, so use your favorite recipe and just add some turkey at the end!

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Epicor: Strengthening our Immune Response

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As you may know, we do not normally write about supplements, let alone tout a specific product. As we enter the winter season, we want to be sure to enjoy all the fun activities. Here is a product that the D2D team, our friends and families, and many of us have been successfully taking over the past few years to boost our immunity.

EpiCor, a supplement derived from yeast, is gaining momentum in the marketplace for its immune function benefits. Clinical trials show that taking EpiCor, a yeast-based supplement, can strengthen your immune system and support a healthy gut.

EpiCor has undergone eight human clinical trials, all of which have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and have used a standard dose of 500 mg per day.

Six of the eight trials conform to the “gold standard” of clinical design in that they were randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trials.

Results show that EpiCor strengthens the immune system while it balances immune response.

What is Epicor?

Epicor is a postbiotic supplement made from fermented brewer’s yeast. This fermentation process creates metabolites, which include proteins, polyphenols, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, polysaccharides, and fiber.

EpiCor’s history began with Diamond V, an animal nutrition company located in Iowa. Embria Health Sciences, owned by Diamond V Mills, discovered the health benefits of EpiCor back in 1998 when farmers noticed increased animal health once they switched their animal feed to Diamond V’s products as part of their feed rations.

Simultaneously, the Diamond V employees manufacturing the yeast-based products also experienced improved health, simply from exposure. In fact, the employees’ health improved so much that their corporate health insurance company contacted management to make sure that they hadn’t switched health care providers because there were little to no healthcare claims.

Once this was brought to their attention, Diamond V management conducted a pilot study comparing workers exposed to the yeast and those who were not. Those exposed to the yeast had 65% more IgAs, antibody proteins that fight off antigens, in their saliva!

Sounds impressive, but what are IgAs, exactly?

This chart shows the difference in IgAs between the workers exposed to the fermented yeast while making the feed formulation and those working in the offices. Source: EpiCor.

IgA and Immune System Response

Let’s say you are at the grocery store, happily stopping your cart in the aisle to say hello to your neighbor. She smiles, her face mask slips, and then…. ACHOO! You have just been sneezed on. Now, what do you do? Of course, being polite, you find a way to gracefully end the conversation, all while frantically wondering if she is sick or was it just a sneeze.

Your body knows exactly what to do to protect you! We don’t think about it but, with every breath, we move large volumes of air through our nose and mouth. It is no surprise that we have millions of microbes (viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens) constantly entering our bodies. While no one likes to have a lot of mucus floating around in our head, the right amount of mucosal fluid serves as a ‘liquid wall’ between these outside invaders and your epithelial tissue, the protective lining inside our organs and glands.

Mucus lines our nose, trachea, lungs, esophagus, and intestines and serves as the first layer of defense to keep those pathogens out of our interior environment. As a point of interest, the entire mucosa in our body is about 400 square meters – about two times the size of a tennis court!

Floating through your tears, saliva, sweat, lungs, and gastrointestinal passages are antibodies called IgA (secretory immunoglobulin A) that help prevent the viruses from entering a host cell.

When a virus enters the host cell, it sits on the cell membrane, unlocks a cell door, and drops in its own RNA to infect it. Once the cell is infected, it rapidly makes at least tens of thousands of infected copies. In turn, each one of those cells makes tens of thousands of copies, and so on, and so on. This is why colds and flu can come on so quickly and spread so rapidly through our bodies.

You basically want a lot of IgAs. EpiCor may help increase our IgAs, thus giving us a stronger defense to protect our cells from getting infected with virus-causing colds, flus, and other sicknesses entering our airways.

Antibodies 101

To help you understand antibodies, here’s a brief tutorial on how we are protected against millions of pathogens we encounter daily. Antibodies like IgA are a critical line of defense throughout your body. We have five different types: IgA, IgE, IgG, IgM, and IgD. Each of them has a distinct function and location, but all are made by our millions of B lymphocyte white blood cells.

Like law enforcement protecting our neighborhoods, our B lymphocyte white blood cells constantly patrol our blood and lymph nodes for destructive pathogens trying to enter a cell. But just as law enforcement would have one strategy for a bank robber and another for a drug dealer, B cells send out a different antibody depending on the toxin or pathogen. For example, an antibody that kills a cold virus is different from one that kills a staph infection.

B cells are incredibly adaptable. If our body needs more of a certain type of antibody to fight a specific virus, the B cell can change the genetic structure of an antibody and turn it into what is needed. Let’s say the body has received an onslaught of a cold virus. The B cell that recognizes a cold’s antigens will start producing more antibodies. Additionally, if the body’s defense needs more IgAs, the B cell can change an IgM antibody into an IgA antibody.

Do you know why you become immune to a disease after you have contracted it or received a vaccine? B cells have memory. If they see a familiar pathogen, they will send out antibodies to kill it. Even if they encounter a similar but not exact pathogen, they will make antibodies to kill that, too.

EpiCor and Cell Invasions

What happens if a virus enters the cells and begins to replicate?  What does your body do then?

Enter the T cell. Produced in the bone marrow and maturing in the thymus, one of their many functions is to attack a cell once it has been compromised by a pathogen. One subset of T cells are NK cells (Natural Killer cells), which comprise about 20% of our white blood cells and can react to a pathogen within hours. They are like sharks, constantly patrolling the body, looking for infected or cancerous cells, and then destroying them.

The Effect of EpiCor on Natural Kill Cell Activation. Source: EpiCor.

In vitro data suggests EpiCor can help activate your Natural Killer Cells. This is the second layer of added protection if the virus escaped the antibodies created by the B cells.

EpiCor and Allergies

There are times when our immune system overreacts, which can lead to chronic inflammation. Allergies are caused by an overreaction to an allergen, such as pollen or animal hair. An increase in the immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibody causes sneezing, itchy eyes, and inflammation.

EpiCor may help keep the IgEs in balance, helping to ‘up regulate’ and ‘down regulate’ your immune system faster so your system doesn’t become as allergic or inflamed.

Source: EpiCor.

EpiCor Protects against Cellular Damage

As we mentioned earlier, EpiCor is made with fermented yeast. Fermentation happens when yeast and bacteria break sugars into alcohol or acids. This gives us beneficial pre-, pro-, and post-biotics for our digestive health. Consuming these products can help our body have more antioxidants.

Yeast produces complex sugar molecules called polysaccharides. One of these is called beta-glucan which is known to increase our antioxidants to help prevent cell damage by eliminating free radicals. Eating fruits and vegetables also help boost antioxidants, delivering the same benefits.

EpiCor’s prebiotic effects increase ‘good’ bacteria (such as bifidobacteria and lactobacilli), promoting better digestive health. But ‘good’ bacteria alone aren’t enough to help your intestine thrive.

An unhealthy diet of sugar, carbohydrates, and fats – without the right balance of lean meats, fruits, and vegetables – can lead to ‘bad’ bacteria overwhelming your microbiome. 

How to Take EpiCor

Each one of us has different genetics, epigenetics, immune systems, and lifestyles. Like a diet, your response to EpiCor will be different than mine. Similarly, the way that you administer it within your household may be different than ours. For example, at home, we take EpiCor every day. If we are around sick people or traveling, we double the dose. While it begins to work within two hours of taking it, effectiveness is best after 60 days. So it’s best to not skip a day!

If you’re looking for a bottle yourself, just know that EpiCor is a business to business company, so you’ll find several brands of supplements that include the recommended amount of 500mg in their products. As with any supplement, your physician can help guide you in this process.

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5 Considerations for Your Thanksgiving Turkey

Whether you’re looking for quick information, or want something to impress your friends at dinner, here’s our Featured 5 of the Week!

When Covid swept through our nation, it took red meat, milk, and a lot of toilet paper with it — showing shortages of products across the supply chain. With Thanksgiving so close, can we expect the same thing with our turkeys?

5. The Number of Turkeys Grown Did Not Change

Covid brought turkey production down a few percentage points this year by impacting supply and demand, thus slowing down parts of the supply chain. This created a back-up at the processing facilities in spring and early summer, which in turn did have an effect on the weight of some turkeys, however not enough for us to see any difference in the grocery stores.

When production slowed down, turkeys had to keep getting fed, so they gained more weight than companies originally thought they would, but it did not change the number of turkeys grown. We will still see the same amount of turkeys on the shelves at the same weights we usually see them.

4. Retailers Settled On Amounts and Prices Before Covid Hit

Every January, retailers negotiate with turkey producers on how many frozen turkeys they want to buy for the upcoming Thanksgiving and at what prices they will pay per pound. In late summer, they do the same thing for fresh turkeys.

This means that retailers will carry the same amount of turkeys, at a similar cost as they do every year since these decisions are pre-set.  Right now, frozen turkeys are already on the shelves and will continue to be stocked right up until Thanksgiving day. Fresh turkeys are just starting to appear now. So, there is no reason to go out and stock up on turkeys. There is plenty to go around!

3. Size May Matter

Many believe there will be a higher demand for smaller birds this year because Thanksgiving gatherings will be with immediate families rather than extended. Due to this projection, any families may keep dinners small to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Conversely, others believe that consumers will still get the same big turkey they normally do because they want to go all out this year due to a lack of normalcy. And, you know what big turkeys mean? More leftovers!

So, if you do want a small turkey or any of a certain size, it may be smarter to shop for one earlier rather than later. But, if you’re like us and still want that big turkey to have lots of yummy leftovers, shop as you normally would—both sizes will be available!

2. Frozen vs. Fresh

Like we said above, the amount of frozen and fresh turkeys hasn’t changed. Similarly, the window for producing fresh turkeys hasn’t changed either. The difference is that fresh turkeys have a limited shelf life. Between leaving the warehouse to being stocked at the grocery store and getting home to the consumer, there is a smaller window for fresh birds prior to needing to be cooked.

There is a common misperception among consumers that fresh is better. However, this is not always true, as there are definitely upsides to frozen. More nutrients may be retained in frozen birds, moisture is locked in so frozen turkeys tend to be less dry, and there is less of a chance for bacteria growth and food poisoning since the bird is stored in a temperature-controlled environment and the consumer controls the defrost process.

So if you’re thinking of getting a fresh bird this year, reconsider frozen. You may be surprised!

1. Do NOT Panic-buy!

The supply of turkeys from last year vs. this year has remained the same, so there is no reason to stock up on turkeys.

Both producers, processors, and grocery stores have done everything possible to make sure that every American has a turkey on their Thanksgiving table this year. Panic-buying will only cause local shortages — so shop smart, shop calmly, and make this holiday the best one yet!

For more information, check out the full article on Thanksgiving turkeys here. And be sure to safely cook your turkey with our tips here!

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Sustainable Seafood & Healthier Oceans


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Wandering the seafood counter in the grocery store can be overwhelming. There’s a global map at your fingertips of Pacific cod, Ecuadorian mahi-mahi, U.S. Gulf shrimp, New Zealand mussels, and Chilean swordfish. For a healthy dinner, should you choose fresh or frozen, or farmed or wild-caught? Conversely, when ordering online, are specific items like frozen wild Icelandic ocean perch or ahi poke cubes tasty? And how do you navigate sustainability and eco-friendly labels?

In the U.S., the fall season is highlighted with October as National Seafood Month. And with the approaching holidays, what better time to eat healthy, sustainable seafood and learn how wild-caught seafood can help to meet global food demand? We can use this information to make a difference in improving the health of our global oceans.

Challenges facing our ocean and seafood supply

As our population grows, we are faced with an enormous challenge of meeting the increased demand for overall protein.

By 2050, projections for global population and income growth suggest a future need for more than 500 megatonnes (Mt) of meat each year for our consumption – a substantial increase from today’s needed volume of 360 Mt.

To put this in perspective, this increase equates to producing the weight of approximately 780 billion servings of salmon, or about 16 million school buses, each year.

Seafood can actually provide a solution to these protein demands — one that can have a much lower carbon footprint than land-based meat production and fewer impacts on biodiversity.

Making healthy seafood choices depends on being informed, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming – in fact, it can be simple.

Let’s start with a quick guide to define common seafood terms seen in our grocery stores:

  • Sustainable marine fisheries provide some of our best tools to ensure healthy oceans while producing seafood. For instance, U.S. marine fisheries are scientifically monitored, regionally managed, and legally enforced under strict sustainability standards.
  • Wild-caught, or wild capture, refers to seafood directly caught or “harvested” from the sea, rivers, or other natural aquatic habitats. This includes sustainable marine fisheries, like wild cod.
  • Farm-raised means that the seafood was not captured in the wild, but grown in a farm, pen, or other systems. These systems can either be on land or in water.
  • Aquaculture refers to the broader category of farming aquatic species (both fresh and saltwater). The use of the term “aquaculture” generally encompasses farming that occurs both on land or in the sea, such as land-based tilapia farms.
  • Mariculture exclusively refers to species farmed within the marine environment or saltwater, such as seaweed or mussels grown on ropes in the ocean, or salmon pens near coastal areas. Mariculture is the correct term for sea-specific farming, even though “aquaculture” is often used here.

Aquaculture is a fast-growing part of our food system that can provide increasingly sustainable options for consumers and – when done right – can offer ecosystem restoration benefits for the planet. The below chart shows wild-capture fisheries as relatively stable when compared to aquaculture’s increase in supply, as reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Sustainable wild-capture marine fisheries

Globally, wild-capture fisheries are unbelievably unique in that no other large-scale food sector continuously removes a comparable sheer volume of wild animals from any natural habitat on earth. This demonstrates the incredible capacity of our oceans to regenerate so future generations may reap its benefits.

Wild-caught seafood holds enormous potential for increasing food supply, yet is heavily dependent on improving management practices in the ocean. Wild-capture provides both an opportunity and a threat to our oceans. Threats include overfishing, unsustainable labor practices on ocean vessels, throwing away bycatch, destruction of habitats (e.g., coral reefs), and ocean pollution.

Although these challenges exist, the status of world fisheries is far from a completely “doom and gloom” situation. Sustainable interventions provide our best opportunity to reform our global seafood system and create thriving, healthy marine ecosystems. If we effectively manage fisheries, marine ecosystems and species can recover.

Recent research supports this good news for well-managed global fisheries. New research published in early 2020 examined the status of 882 global fish stocks (the term for defined populations of fish) and found big improvements, especially in developed countries.

There are also bright spots in smaller-scale fisheries around the world. For example, Kenyan fisherwomen recently closed nearshore reef areas with the goal of helping octopus species recover. Upon returning to fish, the women caught far more octopus, leading to greater sales. Community-based interventions like this can support population recovery, protect valuable habitat, and even improve the livelihoods of coastal fishermen and women.

“Effective fisheries management is actually one of our strongest tools to conserving the health of our oceans,” says Carmen Revenga, who leads the Global Fisheries Strategy at The Nature Conservancy. “Science-based fisheries management and direct engagement with fishers, industry, and governments produce not only sustainable seafood, but benefit marine habitats and species while maintaining coastal communities and fishing-dependent jobs worldwide.”

Who monitors sustainable fisheries?

Before being sold at the grocery store, seafood is produced and regulated by a diverse group of fishermen and women, scientists, fish processors, lawmakers, technology providers, and NGOs. Each group tackles ocean challenges and drives seafood products towards sustainability.

Seafood eco-labels are one mechanism to ensure sustainability – and they can help guide you at the grocery store. For example, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) provides third-party assurance of seafood sustainability and supply chain traceability. Look for the MSC blue fish label to feel confident that your seafood purchase comes from sustainable sources. In addition, large retailers have made seafood and fishery sustainability commitments, from Whole Foods to Wal-Mart, which can help drive improvements down the supply chain.

Let’s look at the details of how MSC certification can spur action that benefits communities and the ocean ecosystem. The spiny lobster in the Bahamas is one of the island nation’s most important fisheries. Each year, around 6 million pounds of spiny lobster tails are sold in the $90 million fishery. Through a collaboration of stakeholders determined to ensure the sustainability of the fishery, the spiny lobster fishery became the first Bahamian, Caribbean fishery to obtain the recognized MSC seal of sustainability. Even after certification, this fishery must demonstrate continual improvements to ensure sustainability, such as refining the assessments of lobster populations and continuing to work on decreasing illegal fishing.

© Jeff Yonover / TNC

On the other hand, another important fishery in the Bahamas, Queen Conch, is experiencing a decline. Conch not only supports thousands of Bahamian fishers but is a national cultural emblem. It is featured in typical dishes and even displayed prominently on The Bahamas coat of arms. Bahamian conch is in decline due to overfishing, which has led to fewer individual conch in the water that can reproduce. A music video called “Conch Gone” draws attention to the plight of conch and the need for conservation measures – and what may happen if we aren’t careful. Today, scientists, fishermen, and government officials in the Bahamas are working to address challenges in the conch fishery.

Eyes on the ocean to ensure sustainability

Seafood certifications and regulations such as the U.S. Seafood Import Monitoring Program or E.U. Catch Certification Scheme provide mechanisms to reduce illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices. And new technologies are revolutionizing the ways we monitor compliance on the water and collect information.

Recent advances in electronic monitoring (EM), essentially video cameras, sensors, and GPS on fishing vessels, can provide verifiable data on where and how fish are caught and what types of fish are brought on board, including bycatch of unintended species, like sharks or turtles.

“Sustainability can’t happen without transparent supply chains – and this has to start right at the point where fish are caught,” says Mark Zimring, who leads The Nature Conservancy’s Large-Scale Fisheries Program. “Electronic monitoring provides a mechanism for transparency and accountability, while also providing better data so we can improve management of our fisheries”.

An example of EM in action can be found in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, a region that produces approximately 60% of the world’s tuna. This region also harbors incredible marine biodiversity, including sharks, turtles, and many fish species.

© Tim Calver / TNC

EM data from fishing vessels can be combined with data on locations of protected animals, such as sea turtles, to identify hotspots where fishing may threaten them. This information can be used to avoid certain areas while fishing in others – a win-win for sustainable tuna fishing and marine conservation. In addition to Western and Central Pacific nations, more and more countries are adopting EM at scale, including the Seychelles and New Zealand.

What you can do

The future of seafood can be bright if we acknowledge the challenges instead of shying away from them. Educating ourselves and purchasing seafood from sustainable sources supports businesses that are doing the right thing and can contribute to ensuring healthy oceans. Our choices directly impact the future of sustainable seafood and our oceans.

Here are a few ways we can make a difference:

  • Diversify your plate! Branch out from the familiar salmon and shrimp with other choices that are lower on the food chain, such as sardines, or bivalve shellfish such as clams or mussels. These less popular species can be really good for the ocean and good for you – and may often be more friendly on your budget. Friendly new recipes and seafood health tips can be found in the #EatSeafoodAmerica campaign by the Seafood Nutrition Partnership.
  • Find a local seafood supplier. To support local businesses and get fresh or frozen seafood delivered to you, check out Local Catch, an easy-to-use seafood finder to help you find local seafood in your area or learn about community-supported fisheries (or CSFs, a similar concept to a CSA produce box, but with seafood).
  • Order seafood online. Many seafood businesses have been heavily impacted by COVID-19 but are adjusting to online ordering when restaurant demand is lower. Look for websites that offer pick-up or home delivery, and help support their businesses during these challenging times. You can check out sites like Vital Choice, Monterey Abalone Co., and CrowdCow
  • Look for eco-labels or use a guide. Look for the Marine Stewardship Council blue fish label to ensure sustainability. Or, when considering new seafood choices, Seafood Watch has a user-friendly app to use at restaurants or the grocery store.
  • Learn more about the connections between seafood, healthy oceans, and the science behind wild-capture fisheries. Scroll through this interactive publication by the FAO about the global state of fisheries and aquaculture. Follow work by The Nature Conservancy and its partners to implement sustainable fishery management reforms around the world. For science updates, check out this Sustainable Fisheries blog by scientists at the University of Washington.
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Will We Still Have A Thanksgiving Turkey This Year?


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Thanksgiving is a day filled with gratitude and togetherness, with dinner as its crowning symbol of deep appreciation and thankfulness – for our family, our friends, our health, or all of the above mixed into the perfect holiday bite. Whether baked, grilled, smoked, or even deep-fried, you will find a big, delicious turkey on almost every table in the U.S.

So, with the upcoming holiday as important as ever while COVID-19 looms overhead, will we be able to get our hands on our table’s delicious centerpiece this year? We decided to find out.

The U.S. Turkey

Every year, a whopping 88% of Americans have turkey on Thanksgiving, accounting for 46 million turkeys consumed on this one day. All these birds are produced domestically which, when you think about it, seems completely appropriate.

In 2018, the U.S. produced 245 million turkeys, the equivalent to almost 8 billion pounds. That is about 15 miles of rail cars! Almost 20% of these turkeys are consumed on Thanksgiving.

In 2016, two-thirds of all turkeys produced in the U.S. were from just six states. Minnesota leads the way with the production of about 44 million turkeys, followed by North Carolina, Arkansas, Indiana, Missouri, and Virginia.

When I think of Thanksgiving turkeys, the first brand I think of is Butterball. That’s probably because Butterball leads the country in turkey production, producing about 1.3 billion pounds of turkey in 2019. Jennie-O Turkey Store, Honeysuckle White, and Stony Brook Farms round out the top four producers. Will these producers still be able to get us our turkeys this year?

We talked to a leading expert in the field, Thomas Windish from Cargill Protein, and here is what we know…

How has Covid changed turkey production?

Turkey production is down a few percentage points from last year. A small part of this is attributed to Covid’s effect on the entire supply chain, not the number of turkeys grown.

But this downward trend wasn’t unprecedented — total turkey production has dropped 15% since 1999. Whole-turkey consumption was already in decline because cooking a whole bird is a daunting task, especially for the younger generation of food buyers. These consumers want modified turkey products, such as boneless or ground turkey breasts, which is why these easier-to-cook, value-added turkeys have experienced such growth.

Similar to the other meat processing facilities, Covid changed the speed at which turkeys could be processed. This caused a backlog of supply, especially in spring and early summer. This also affected the weight of the turkeys – it’s a complex supply chain where companies can anticipate the weights of their turkeys.

But when production lines were disturbed or couldn’t run at all due to Covid, turkeys were fed more and they kept growing, giving companies larger birds than what they anticipated. However, it wasn’t enough to cause a change in the sizes of birds we’ll see this year.

This is something all companies had to work through, especially with decisions about turkey production being decided last September for this Thanksgiving. It’s all about adjusting to what’s happening in the world around us—flexibility is key.

Bigger turkeys are great, but will there be enough?

Every January, most retailers negotiate with turkey companies on how many frozen turkeys they will be ordering for that upcoming Thanksgiving and at what price. In late summer, retailers do the same for fresh turkeys. In fact, the set price and pound of turkeys being produced for Thanksgiving 2020 were set before Covid had much of an impact on the U.S.—good news for us!

Whether we run out of turkey or not will all depend on the retailer and their pricing strategies. In past years, grocery stores would have Thanksgiving marketing deals, decreasing the prices of turkeys per pound or even giving them away depending on how much money the customer would spend at the grocery store in preparation for the holiday. This strategy was great in year’s past; however, low prices on essential, or iconic, items during a pandemic where panic buying is the norm may cause areas of demand outstripping supply, leading to empty shelves in our supermarkets.

Experts don’t think retailers will be as aggressive to give away free or low-priced turkeys this year. However, a mid-November spike in Covid cases could change all that.

Right now, frozen turkeys are beginning to hit the shelves at grocery stores and you’re going to see a lot of them—but don’t run out and buy them all up! Shop as you normally would to avoid shortages and ensure everyone has a chance to have Tom Turkey grace their tables.

What can we expect when buying our turkey this year?

Many believe there will be a higher demand for smaller birds because of the pandemic, as Americans won’t have as big of a Thanksgiving this year due to social distancing and difficulty traveling. However, some experts believe that because our country has been faced with a total lack-of-normal life, they will go all-out for Thanksgiving this year, including buying the same-sized turkey they typically would and just having lots of leftovers.

“Our consumer research suggests that consumers are keen to make the holidays special this year in the face of Covid and with the impact it’s had on families. It also suggests that traditions and foods are the comforts and areas where consumers will not be making trade-offs or cuts to the budget.”

– Thomas Windish, Retail Channel President, Cargill Protein

Grocers may request smaller birds in their freezers, but not many turkey companies can accommodate these requests this late in the game. So, if you want a small bird, shop early! Sidenote: we’re big fans of leftovers here at D2D, so we will all continue to find us the biggest bird we can!

What’s the deal with fresh vs. frozen birds?

The window for producing fresh turkeys remains unchanged. They are headed to the grocery store about three weeks in advance of Thanksgiving. This is because fresh turkeys can only last so long until they have to be cooked.

Even though one out of six turkeys produced is sold as fresh and not frozen, consumer preference for fresh has increased over the last few years, mostly due to the popular saying, “fresh is best”. But does this hold true for meat? Surprisingly, for meat, this is simply not the case. There are a lot of benefits to frozen meat, in general. Fresh just sounds better to a consumer.

When you freeze beef or poultry, an intercellular breakdown occurs, making the meat more tender. And when you freeze fruits and vegetables, nutrients are better retained, making the levels higher than their fresh counterparts. Although no study has been done on frozen turkeys, we can assume the same may be true. However, we do know that moisture is retained far better in frozen turkeys than in fresh ones, leading to a more tender turkey dinner. Yum!

Companies take extra special care of frozen turkeys, too. They freeze them right away after the bird is harvested, cleaned, and packaged, and then store them in a temperature-controlled environment. This allows the consumer to control the thawing process at home.

With a fresh bird, the clock is ticking: by the time the retailer sells the turkey, it is crunch time. Companies have a lot more confidence in the safety of frozen birds because if fresh turkeys aren’t properly stored, handled, or cooked, they’re more prone to pathogen growth, causing a lovely family dinner to turn bad very quickly.

With that in mind, don’t forget to check out our guide on how to cook and handle your bird this Thanksgiving!

Turkey-shopping Take-aways

  • Do NOT panic buy!!! There are more than enough turkeys to go around. Stocking up on turkeys will just ruin Thanksgiving for other families.
  • If a moist turkey is top priority, buy a frozen bird
  • If you are looking for a specific size turkey, consider buying sooner. If you’re ok with any size, then proceed as you normally would.
  • And be sure to read about safe prepping and cooking practices so everyone can enjoy a delicious and healthy turkey this year!
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5 Healthier Candies To Enjoy This Halloween

Whether you’re looking for quick information, or want something to impress your friends at dinner, here’s our Featured 5 of the Week!

Halloween is here and I’m sure many of us are thinking the same thing – how can we indulge in a little candy this Halloween without totally ruining our health and fitness goals? Well, worry no more. We’re going to give you 5 healthier candies that you can eat in moderation this Halloween!

5. Fun-Sized Snickers Bar

Ok, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “How can a Snickers bar possibly be one of the healthier candies?!” Bear with us for a minute.

When it comes to healthier candy bars, you want to look for ones that have less sugar and less saturated fat. Snickers satisfy both of these categories when you opt for the “fun size” because let’s be honest, who needs a big candy bar anyway? A fun-sized Snickers is 80 calories and only has 1.5 grams of saturated fat and 9 grams of sugar. Many other candy bars are almost made up of entirely sugar, so this is a major improvement. This is also less sugar than some protein and granola bars which we perceive to be healthier for us!

Also, we’ve seen the commercials about satisfying your hunger with a Snickers. Although we always recommend a healthier option to satisfy hunger, Snickers has filling protein to leave you feeling more satisfied longer and less likely to go for more. So, on Halloween, we say it’s ok to indulge in one!

4. Peanut M&M’s

Again, you’re probably thinking, “another candy?! I thought these were terrible for our health!” Well, they’re bad if you eat them every day, but for a sweet treat on Halloween, they’re one of the better options.

The first word that sticks out to us is peanuts, and we know that nuts and legumes can be good for us when consumed in moderation. Because peanuts contain both protein and fiber, they help prevent blood sugar spikes that can lead to us wanting more and more. One fun-sized pack is 90 calories and contains 2 grams of saturated fat and 9 grams of sugar, so of course, we recommend to keep it at one for the night.

Think of this as a sweet treat while still getting some necessary nutrients for the day. Just remember, it’s a slippery slope to overindulging, so keep it at just one!

3. Better-For-You Gummy Candies

We all love a good gummy bear or Sour Patch Kid, but they are some of the worst candies for you. This may be a good alternative for you!

One brand that we just came across, Smart Sweets (sold on Amazon) is the healthier version of the gummy candies we know and love. They come in 6 different flavors – Sweet Fish, Sweet Chews, Peach Rings, Sour Blast Buddies, Gummy Bears, and Sour Gummy Bears, and contain only 80 calories and 3 grams of sugar per pack! The candies are sweetened entirely from Stevia and don’t contain any sugar alcohols either, giving them 76% less sugar than regular gummy candies.

There are lots of other brands of healthier gummies on the web, so be sure to check them all out!

2. Dark Chocolate

Our favorite! We’ve said it before, a small amount of dark chocolate may be able to help your body more than hurt it!

Studies have shown that eating a small amount of dark chocolate (about 6 grams a day, or 1 to 2 squares) has numerous benefits for our health, including lowering one’s risk of heart disease and diabetes. Dark chocolate contains flavanols that support nitric oxide production in the body, which helps improve blood flow. They also have been shown to lower blood pressure and inflammation. Flavanols can also help lower the risk of diabetes because it helps increase the production of insulin.

Dark chocolate is high in calories at 170 and in saturated fat with 7 grams, so it’s important to consume in moderation. Too much could lead to weight gain. But, on Halloween, feel free to indulge in this beneficial sweet!

1. Fruit!

Yes, fruit! Fresh fruit can be just as sweet and satisfying as candy on Halloween, especially if you prepare it in a fun way!

Fresh fruit, like berries, oranges, apples, etc., have natural sugar, making them a sweet treat without all the negative outcomes of added sugar and sugar alcohols. They also contain a lot of good nutritional components, like potassium and fiber, and vitamins and minerals, like vitamins A, B6, and C, and magnesium. Fruit is good for our digestive systems, our immune systems, and our overall health!

And, there are so many fun ways to use fruit to create different spooky things on Halloween! Below are a few of our favorites:

     

Pumpkin Fruit Cups                    Monster Teeth

 

         

Ghost Banana Pops                     “Candy Corn” Parfaits

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5 Top Issues Important to Farmers

We asked hundreds of farmers and ranchers across the United States to tell us their thoughts on the 2020 presidential election and the issues that matter most to them going forward to help us better tell their stories. Here are the 5 issues they said were most important as a farmer in America.

5. Farmer Subsidies

“Farmer subsidies” refers to the financial assistance they receive from the government, and over half of our respondents said farm income is one of their top concerns. This also includes economic support programs during an especially weak and unsettled farm economy.

Over a quarter of respondents included farmer subsidies in the top 3 most important issues to them. However, many said that they don’t want to live on government subsidies and that agriculture needs an open market and fair trade instead.

4. Educate a Disconnected Consumer

28% of our respondents put this category into the top 3 most important issues to them and it is an issue we are seeing become more prevalent among farmers and consumers alike.

Transparency is a reoccurring topic and, in terms of farming, it refers to consumers being aware of where their food came from, along with every step of the production process until it is on their table. Education also includes pesticide application, GMO crops, organic farming, and farming practices in general.

When asked about common misperceptions regarding farmers, some responses were:

“They (think we) play in the dirt all day.”

“That we are not astute business people. They do not recognize that we are managing multi-million-dollar business enterprises… and that we are better educated than the majority of the US population.”

3. Input Costs

35% of our total respondents included input costs in their top 3 issues American farmers face today. Many feel as though politicians underestimate the costs it takes to run a farm and they think farmers are much more profitable and wealthy than they actually are.

Farmers made it clear they don’t want to live on government subsidies. Lower input costs would help them achieve this and become profitable.

2. Global Free Trade

Global free trade was a common issue among many farmers and 37% of our respondents put it in their top three.

When asked to address further what either political party could do to help, many responded to support free trade. They also want less government intervention across all aspects of agriculture. Some wrote that they want to see an improvement in economic policy and stability in regard to both global trade and all of ag.

1. Trade with China

Trade with China was the most common issue we saw among farmers. 40% of our respondents included it in their top three.

Farmers are especially concerned about the unsettled state of relations with China. When asked about the most important thing either party could do to help farmers and ranchers in America, many responded to resolve the trade war with China.

COVID had a large effect on global trade, however, China still remains a vital participant. In 2018, China led the country with the highest amount of combined imports and exports at $5 trillion. We need trade with China and they need trade with us, and farmers recognize this.

To see the full Farmer and Rancher Election Survey results, click here.

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Farmer & Rancher Election Survey Results

Our thanks to the hundreds of farmers and ranchers who took time during a busy season to tell us what they think about how the two major political parties are addressing their interests and concerns in the 2020 election campaign. These responses will help D2D do even more to tell your story.

Given this heated political environment and neither presidential platform addressing highly-specific plans for agriculture and food production, we set out with a goal to better understand the issues affecting American farmers – their concerns, hopes, and thoughts about the next four years.

A look at our respondents

Our survey launched in late September and amassed 300 completions from U.S. farmers and ranchers. Respondents provided a good cross-section of the farm and ranch population. They tended to be:

  • 45 years of age or older, and overwhelmingly politically aware and engaged
  • Diverse, across all types of farms sizes and crops/livestock
  • Dispersed geographically with a heavy concentration in the Midwest, reflecting the overall national character of farming and ranching

Cutting to the chase

Overall, respondents believe the Republican party is stronger on general farm economics and trade, and earned consistently higher marks than the Democratic party across all areas of interest addressed in the survey. 

Furthermore, respondents believe Republicans better understand their professional challenges and that the party will better support them by promoting their sound farming practices.

Democrats fared relatively better on questions related to environmental protection, food safety, diet, and nutrition – but still trailed the GOP in each category.

Putting issues in order

Farmers and ranchers have a lot to say about the obstacles they face daily to sustain their way of life for their staff, families, livestock, and customers.

When presented with a specific laundry list of potential issues, three out of four respondents cited a trade-related matter as one of their three biggest worries today, especially the unsettled state of relations with China. Just over half said farm income was one of their top concerns, as reflected in both the cost of inputs and availability of subsidies and economic support programs during an especially weak and unsettled farm economy.

But which issue is most important?

When asked to write in detail about what either administration could do right now to help them, most respondents addressed anticipated needs, such as free trade and less government regulation. But a surprising number of respondents looked beyond particular policies and roadblocks and instead, demanded some diplomatic aplomb for the parties to work together and get these issues remedied.

Politicians’ biggest misperceptions

Despite many farmers and ranchers preferring the Republican take on key issues affecting their operations, respondents won’t be giving either political party a free pass on their approach to food and agriculture. They weren’t shy about offering advice to both candidates on how to better connect both politicians and the larger public with the people who produce the nation’s food.

In summary, they believe they are a very misunderstood group. Respondents felt that politicians think they don’t care about the environment, don’t understand the physical and financial demands to run a multi-faceted operation, and that they are just ‘dumb hicks wearing overalls’.

When asked what particular misperceptions about farming and ranching need to be addressed, respondents offered some often colorful comments:

“They [think we] play in the dirt all day.”

“That we are not astute business people. They do not recognize that we are managing multi-million-dollar business enterprises. They do not recognize that we know a balance sheet and that we are better educated than the majority of the US population.”

“We don’t want to have to live on government subsidies.”

Many respondents felt the average politician doesn’t see farming and ranching as a demanding profession that requires shrewd business and operational knowledge. Additionally, respondents believe they also fail to grasp the economic stakes of modern farming and the risks that come with it from so many directions.

Delivering a message to candidates

Farmers and ranchers also had some equally blunt advice to politicians when asked about what they’d tell the presidential candidates if they had the opportunity:

“We provide the best, safest, and cheapest supply of agricultural products in the world, but have to go through expensive risk to do so.”

“Production ag needs markets and fair trade, not subsidies, to succeed long-term.”

“You are both full of manure.” 

The overriding sentiment expressed in this open-ended question was that respondents felt as though the food system they operate every day for every American and countless others around the globe goes unnoticed by politicians and consumers alike. Farmers and ranchers remind us that “we in the middle of the country matter, too”, feeling forgotten or only catered to around election years.

And many expect better treatment for others, too — even presidential candidate to candidate. One piece of sage advice: “Get along with each other’s party…do what is best for America”.

Farmers remain resilient

Despite the litany of misperceptions that need to be addressed, the farmers and ranchers who responded to the D2D survey remain surprisingly optimistic about their future.

After almost seven years of declining income and sustained economic stress, seven in 10 respondents say they are optimistic about the future of their operations.

Making changes on the farm

When asked unaided about the biggest changes they’re currently facing in ag, most individual respondents described several ways they’ve continued their operations amid such instability. They’ve done everything, from cutting costs to utilizing marketing and technological strategies to adding new product lines and income sources.

Get ready…

So who do farmers foresee as president in 2021? Two-thirds of our respondents predict a victory for Donald Trump on Nov. 3.

In Closing

This feedback garnered from farmers and ranchers – our readers and friends—are not the end of the discussion, but just the beginning. Please stay tuned for further efforts to engage and empower our farmers and ranchers who sustain us and our families every day.

To review all quantitative responses in this survey, please click here. 

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5 Benefits of Apples

Whether you’re looking for quick information, or want something to impress your friends at dinner, here’s our Featured 5 of the Week!

Fall is upon us! And, with fall comes delicious, fresh apples! We all love an afternoon of apple-picking in the crisp weather, the smell of an apple pie in the oven, or even snacking on a crisp, locally-grown apple, but we sometimes overlook all of their nutritional benefits. An apple a day really can keep the doctor away and we’re going to tell you why!

5. Good For Your Gut

You’ve heard us talk before about how important a good gut microbiome is for our health.

Studies have shown that apples may promote a good gut microbiome. This is because apples are full of fiber, including pectin. Pectin acts as a prebiotic in our bodies, which is key for keeping our microbiome healthy and for promoting the growth of good new bacteria in our intestines.

Having a diverse microbiome leads to a high-functioning immune system, better digestion, and an overall healthier you, so eat those fiber-rich apples and know your gut is thanking you!

4. Good For Your Brain

You mean, eating apples can help our brains? Yes!

Studies have shown that apples and other apple-based products may help decrease mental decline by reducing the amount of ROS, or reactive oxygen species, in brain tissue. ROS can build up and cause brain damage, but the antioxidants and other properties in apples can help reduce this.

Furthermore, apple juice concentrate was found to prevent the decline of acetylcholine, which is linked to aging and oxidative stress. A decrease in acetylcholine has also been linked to Alzheimer’s disease, showing that apples may be able to reduce the risk of developing this disease.

However, it’s good to note that apple juice and other apple products may contain a lot of added sugar, something that is definitely not good for us. So, try to eat whole apples as much as possible!

3. Protection against Some Cancers

According to the CDC, cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S., contributing to 23% of overall deaths in 2012.

Apples contain fiber and many phytochemicals with antioxidant properties. Studies have shown that these antioxidant properties may protect a cell’s DNA from oxidative damage, a precursor to cancer; stop the spread of cancer cells; and prevent new ones from forming. Cancers linked to these effects are colon, breast, and lung cancer, but only for past smokers.

Anything we can do to reduce our risk of developing cancer is very important, and a healthy diet can be one of the best and easiest forms of protection.

2. Good for Weight Management

Many of us are always looking for that secret way to lose weight or keep bad weight off. Apples may be a great way to help!

Apples contain a lot of fiber, and, in addition to fueling our microbiome, it also helps keep us feeling fuller for longer. By eating an apple, the fiber content can help slow digestion and keep us satisfied so we don’t go looking for another snack to eat. Apples also have a low-energy-density at 0.63 calories per energy density, meaning they have fewer calories respective to their weight. In one study, participants who ate apple slices before each meal ended up eating 200 less calories a day than those who didn’t.

Rather than going for a cookie or a bag of chips, eat an apple! If you’re still feeling hungry after snacking on an apple, try adding a little nut butter. The extra protein might be just what your body needs!

1. Protection against Diet-related Illnesses

Diet-related illnesses include diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., and 34% of the deaths from heart disease could have been prevented by changes in health habits.

Plant chemicals in the apple peel, such as pectin, have been shown to protect free radicals in the heart and blood vessels from damage. They have also been shown to lower the amount of LDL, or “bad”, cholesterol in the body, and the number of triglycerides, both being key contributors to diet-related illnesses. Flavonoids in apples have antioxidant effects that have been shown to protect cells in the pancreas, which helps control the secretion of insulin in people with type 2 diabetes.

A healthy diet is so important in preventing the onset of these diseases and many more health conditions. So, along with apples, be sure to eat lots of fruits and vegetables.

And remember, fresh is always best, but if you’re looking for a special treat to spice up your apple intake, here is one of our favorite recipes for apple fritters!

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Trump vs. Biden: Comparing Ag Platforms

Everyone agrees it will be an important event for all Americans – a momentary pause, if not an end, to the endless argument about the future direction of the country. On November 3rd, we will select our President, our entire House of Representatives, and a third of our Senate.

When it comes to food and agriculture, what makes one presidential candidate different from the other? The significant farm issues are the economy, international trade relationships, China as a strong component but other countries as well; the Renewable Fuel Standard; rural broadband access; the regulatory environment, and COVID. What will be the key goals and objectives they set? What big ideas will drive their actions over the next four years? What is likely to change and what will stay the same?

Don’t expect any great epiphanies from reading party platforms. Such documents are great at grand philosophical statements, but light on the specifics that might risk offending some potential voter. But there are insights in there anyway, especially when combined with the public statements and media coverage that have emerged in this campaign.

Candidates’ Philosophies

We took a look at comparing the policies that would most affect food and agriculture from each of the candidates. We focused on trade, the economy, climate change, and immigration.

Biden/Harris:

America is in trouble, due largely to the missteps of the current administration. America must return to many of the approaches of the previous Democratic administrations, including:

  • a stronger focus on building consensus, stepping up government support and engagement in things that build a fairer society

  • governmental programs to protect individual rights, reduce anti-competitive practices among agricultural businesses, reform our criminal justice system, and expand access to health care, broadband, and other social services

  • more aggressive governmental regulations to climate change, and in the process spur a broad effort to generate new jobs, protect our environment and revive the economy with innovative environmental products and technologies

  • revive a spirit of international cooperation to boost trade

Trump/Pence:

America is on the right track, so let’s stick with what we have started:

 

  • take the tough steps needed to compete in a global marketplace, while shielding U.S. citizens, with subsidies, from the immediate adverse effects of such actions

  • keep current policies and programs and continue to reduce the governmental barriers that hold back enterprise and initiative

  • support worthwhile government programs but still rely on private enterprise and voluntary effort as the primary engines of progress in protecting the environment and managing financial risk

  • stand up for American interests first in the international arena, especially on matters of trade

Both platforms share some commonalities around the ideas of conservation. Their differing philosophies are on the role of the government as it pertains to conservation, trade, taxes, regulations, and immigration.

Plans for Trade

Biden/Harris:

  • seek international consensus: multilateral and bilateral before negotiating trade agreements

  • restore more traditional negotiating style and posturing with trade partners

  • revitalize focus on boosting ag exports; concerned about Brazil and Argentina taking place of U.S.

  • expand focus on workers’ rights and interests in trade negotiations

Trump/Pence:

  • take the tough steps needed to compete in a global marketplace, while shielding U.S. citizens, with subsidies, from the immediate adverse effects of such actions

  • maintain efforts to implement improved trade deals with China, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Britain, and E.U.

  • enforce tougher negotiating philosophy with focus on exports and long-term opportunities

  • continue direct aid to farmers while negotiating trade deals, currently at $32 billion

 Trump favors the aggressive use of higher tariffs as a tool for negotiating better trade deals. Biden prefers a more traditional approach of focusing on progressive tariff reductions.

Addressing Farm & Rural Economies

Biden/Harris:

  • raise taxes: income, capital gains, corporate tax rate; end stepped-up basis

  • provide more financial support for rural economy via initiatives and infrastructure modernization, including direct farm support, rural health care, broadband

  • support local trade between farmers and schools and hospitals

  • preserve and protect smaller operators from unfair, anti-competitive forces with a higher focus on FTC antitrust regulations such as the Clayton Act, Dodd-Frank, etc., trickling down to farm economy

  • enhance labor rights and protections; support union workers

  • provide more financial support for younger, beginning farmers/ranchers, and smaller farms

  • support Farm Bill and SNAP

Trump/Pence:

  • continue 2017’s tax plan that enables farmers to pass their farms to their next-generation farmers

  • preserve lower-tax environment

  • continue efforts to identify and remove regulatory and other barriers to support private initiative and innovation

  • support broadband throughout rural America

  • continue financial relief through direct payments to affected producers, as needed

  • maintain financial discipline in existing government programs

  • support Farm Bill and SNAP, but close loopholes that allow ‘able-bodied working-age adults’ collecting food stamps to move into a work environment to create a sense of fiscal independence

Trump offers a strategy to continue the ‘America First’ initiative, providing increased business opportunities by limiting regulatory barriers, while providing relief to those in need. Biden proposes tax increases to overhaul current systems in rural America, such as broadband access and healthcare. He also plans to strengthen antitrust enforcement.

Climate Change & Sustainability Affecting Ag

Biden/Harris:

  • Green New Deal is ‘a crucial framework’ for climate challenges

  • make American ag first in the world to achieve net-zero carbon emissions

  • increase research funding focused on zero-carbon and productivity-increase goals

  • support renewable fuels and ethanol mandates

  • expand financial incentives for programs that reduce greenhouse gases – conservation reserves, reduced tillage, ‘blue sink’ programs, regenerative ag

  • expand USDA’s Conservation Stewardship Program

  • promote development of new, innovative products and technologies related to environmental protection, reduced carbon footprint

Trump/Pence:

  • against Green New Deal due to added costs and reduced income for farmers and added regulations

  • maintain existing conservation programs, including Conservation Stewardship Program, based on voluntary participation

  • encourage regenerative ag, soil and farm technology, and clean water

  • continue to support Renewable Fuel Standard program, including ethanol

Both parties maintain conservation efforts as a priority and state that ’sound science’ is highly important in addressing food and ag issues, but neither is anxious to define exactly what ’sound science’ is, other than a broad philosophic concept.

While Biden looks to increase funding on its zero-carbon emission goal, Trump focuses its funding on renewable energy sources and fuel alternatives.

Immigration

Biden/Harris:

  • take immediate action to undo policies regarding wall construction on U.S. and Mexico border

  • reassert a commitment to asylum-seekers and refugees and investigate the root cause of irregular immigration

  • reexamine relationships in Central American nations as part of plan to deter violence causing influx of refugees

  • create doorway for seasonal farm labor and migrant workers

  • address path to citizenship for undocumented workers

Trump/Pence:

  • continue funding for construction of a wall to differentiate nation’s border with Mexico

  • close legal loopholes that enable illegal immigration

  • end chain migration and eliminate visa lottery program

  • continue work on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and move to a more merit-based immigration plan

Biden would work to reverse the Trump administration’s U.S.-Mexico wall construction and instead focus on refugees and irregular migration from the southern border. Trump would maintain a strong process for legalizing immigrants, including the continuation of his work on DACA. In a continued effort to deter illegal immigration, construction would resume on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Summing it all up…

Biden & Harris’ platform proposes a larger and more aggressive role for the federal government in guiding the system through wide-ranging policies and programs that overlap with wider social, environmental, and other policy objectives.

Trump & Pence maintain a more traditional role for the government in creating an environment that rewards individual initiative and competitiveness in pursuing many of the same ultimate goals — economic growth, environmental protection and sustainability, adaptation to changing societal needs, and expectations of our modern food system.

Was this information helpful to you? We want to know!

Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, or via connect@dirt-to-dinner.com!

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Nootropics: How to Eat for a Better Brain


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Today’s demanding lifestyle has us frequently on our toes, waiting for the next hurdle to jump over. It is no wonder about 450 million people worldwide suffer from mental illness, chronic fatigue, as well as some serious neurodegenerative diseases.

Just like your body, your brain needs the right fuel to perform at its peak. Nootropics, a class of cognition-enhancing compounds, are hailed as the newest type of brain medicine and can be found in medicines, supplements, and foods. Early applications of nootropics include uses to improve mental and physical performance and boost memory, increase focus, and enhance creativity and motivation.

Nootropics: Natural or Synthetic?

These so-called “smart drugs” are a relatively new class of drugs. They are part of a category known as PIEDs, or Performance and Image Enhancing Drugs, and are broadly categorized into three groups:

  • Stimulants, like amphetamines and methylphenidate, are synthetic drugs primarily prescribed to those diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorders, given their effectiveness with improving cognitive function. These are only available by prescription in the U.S.
  • Racetams, such as piracetam, are lab-made and can help our brain neurotransmitters, specifically glutamate and acetylcholine, function properly and effectively. They are known to boost memory in people with brain injuries, help with seizure control, depression, or age-related decline but do not affect otherwise healthy individuals.
  • Natural Compounds found in whole foods and supplements, like caffeine, ginseng, and creatine, are over-the-counter nootropics that are among the most popular agents of neuroenhancement. They are a healthy way to help with brain function without the unwanted side effects if consumed in moderation.

At D2D, we are focusing on the fascinating group of natural compounds, which are found in whole foods or available over-the-counter. These nootropics provide myriad benefits when consumed in a healthful way. But be aware: researchers are still working to define what constitutes “a healthful way” to consume nootropics.

Given its recent increase in demand, what problem are we all trying to solve here? Do we have poor concentration, memory, and lack of energy because we are eating a diet full of fats, sugars, and salt rather than fresh fruits and vegetables? Or can we enhance our brain function just by increasing the consumption of healthy foods? We believe that for the best brain and body performance, you need a healthy diet with lots of variety.

Nootropic supplements are unregulated and lack sufficient approvals to confirm efficacy. So instead, let’s focus on the natural nootropics found in foods, herbs and drinks, and what their potential health benefits are.

With only a handful of high-quality studies and no FDA oversight for supplements, it’s difficult to make an informed decision. We need more clinical data to see if nootropics have a measurable and lasting cognitive effect.

So don’t fall for any brands that claim to be cure-alls – know the science and the proven benefits.

What We Do ‘Noo’

Nootropics found in foods affect certain neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, GABA, serotonin, and acetylcholine, in various ways. They can help increase blood flow to the brain, support neurotransmitter health, regulate the amount of specific neurotransmitters, and increase brainwave activity. These “smart foods” target metabolic or nutritional components of brain function. They deal directly with memory and attention to create a clear, efficient pathway for all signals to reach the intended neurotransmitters. When neurotransmitters can function at peak efficiency, the result is overall increased cognitive function.

Your Morning Nootropics

Many everyday whole foods contain varying amounts, as well!

Caffeine. Let’s start here — Caffeine is a natural nootropic found in coffee, cocoa, tea, and certain nuts, like kola and guarana. It is a compound often added to energy drinks and sodas and is the most widely consumed psychoactive substance worldwide.

An intake of 40 to 200 mg a day, or between one and two cups of coffee, can increase alertness and decrease reaction time. This is especially helpful for those who are feeling fatigued, which is why your 6 a.m. cup hits much differently than your 2 p.m. cup. However, too much caffeine will do more harm than good, causing jittery, anxious feelings.

While the nootropics in coffee block the effects of adenosine, a brain chemical that makes you feel tired, it can also trigger the release of adrenaline, which can cause anxiety and sleeplessness.

L-theanine. Teas containing L-theanine, such as green tea, matcha, and black tea, can help calm an overactive brain. Green tea contains about 5mg of L-theanine per cup, while matcha and black tea contain about 46mg per cup. What does it do? Several studies have concluded that this type of nootropic can have a calming effect, while simultaneously not causing drowsiness. In roughly two cups of brewed green tea, you can increase your brain’s alpha waves, which can promote creativity. L-theanine, when coupled with caffeine, is even more effective. Supplement companies often combine these nootropics to create performance-enhancing supplements.

Ginkgo Biloba. This plant has an extract in its leaves that may positively affect your brain function. Most commonly, ginkgo biloba is taken as a supplement to improve memory and mental processing functions in adults. This is because it helps increase blood flow to the brain, making neurotransmitters more high-functioning.

Making a Nootropic-rich Meal

By adding in various whole foods, like eggs, salmon, and blueberries, your brain gets a boost of nootropic compounds at every meal!

  • Eggs are rich in choline. Choline can assist our brains with transmitting signals across our neuronal membranes. What in the world does that mean? Well, our bodies take in choline from eggs, and use it to produce a compound called acetylcholine. Acetylcholine aids the body in retaining memories and in achieving restful sleep. One egg provides 27% of your recommended daily value of choline!
  • Spinach is another incredible brain-boosting resource. With nutrients like lutein and zeaxanthin, it can help with quicker mental recall and increased memory capacity. Furthermore, a cup of spinach a day is adequate for absorbing nutrients to increase performance.
  • Salmon is a fatty fish that can improve one’s ability to send and receive messages in the brain. Because of its high DHA density and protein-packed profile, it helps keep the brain in tip-top shape. A 3-4 oz serving of salmon will cover your daily recommended intake.
  • Lean meats contain creatine, an amino acid that helps your body produce protein. Once creatine enters your brain, it binds itself to phosphate to create a molecule that can fuel your brain’s cells to help improve short-term memory and increase reasoning skills. Studies show that ingesting just 5g of creatine per day will have cognitive benefits without any side effects.
  • Turmeric, a long-used spice in Chinese medicine, also possesses incredible nootropic benefits. It helps trigger neurogenic creation and is often used to treat Alzheimer’s disease and stroke. About 2.5 grams a day is all it takes to capitalize on its benefits.
  • Blueberries are another natural nootropic. Super-high in antioxidants like anthocyanins, blueberries help boost cognitive function and protect the brain from damage caused by aging, as it rids the brain of free radicals. 500 mg or 2 cups of blueberries is a sufficient amount for nootropic results.
  • Dark chocolate is a flavanol-rich food made from cocoa beans. Cocoa beans increase blood flow to the brain, much like gingko biloba, and can actually trigger the production of new brain cells! Dark chocolate, made with 70% cocoa or higher, has shown to have these antioxidant effects.

Challenges of Nootropics

Addiction to nootropics is common, most typically in the stimulant or supplement category. But it also can be found in caffeine intake. Unfortunately, more is not always better, as in the example of nicotine. While nicotine can increase mental sharpness, its long list of side effects, including chest pains, headaches, abdominal discomfort, and anxiety and irritability, outweigh any potential positive benefits. The abuse of, or overuse of certain nootropics, like nicotine, amphetamines, or creatine, can cause severe dependence and significant health problems.

Let’s also not forget our golden rule here at D2D: variety and moderation. 

Don’t go out and overload on blueberries and coffee thinking it will turn you into Einstein.

Choose a healthy diet with a variety of different foods including fish, berries, leafy greens, and protein. The emerging new field of nootropics will be exciting to watch unfold as new studies are published. However, to truly maximize cognitive function, you must also focus on sleep, exercise, and brain-building activities to keep your mind sharp, as found by an Oxford University meta-analysis study. Also, keep your body healthy by eating good-for-you calories, rather than processed, unhealthy ones.

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5 Ways to Catch COVID

Whether you’re looking for quick information, or want something to impress your friends at dinner, here’s our Featured 5 of the Week!

5. Don’t Wash Your Hands

Washing hands? Please.

Every day, we come in contact with millions of germs through our hands. Healthcare workers carry about 5 million bacteria on each hand. Pathogens on hands can be very easily spread from person to person, either through direct or indirect contact. For example, if someone coughs or sneezes into their hands, then shakes your hand, you now have those germs. If someone coughs or sneezes into their hands then touches an elevator button, which then you touch, you, plus probably a dozen or so other people, now have those pathogens on your hands.

Now, imagine that person has COVID-19, and you don’t wash or sanitize your hands then touch your face. Congrats – your chances of contracting COVID-19 just skyrocketed!

4. Don’t Exercise

Exercise is incredibly important for a healthy immune system.

Exercise improves cardiovascular health, lowers blood pressure, controls weight, and fights off diseases. It is especially important to fight off diet-related illnesses, such as heart disease and diabetes. Exercise allows for better blood circulation, which in turn helps our immune system. More oxygen can get to cells and our bodies are overall healthier.

If a healthy and working immune system is not what you’re going for, we highly recommend staying clear of exercise. Sit on the couch, watch some TV. You’ll get COVID in no time.

3. No Mask, No Problem

Wearing a mask has become a very controversial topic, and we’re here to tell you that if you want COVID, take a pass on the mask.

The CDC has made it very clear that masks and face coverings can protect oneself from COVID-19. In fact, in Missouri, wearing a mask protected 2 hairstylists in a salon from contracting the virus. Because of this, it is now mandatory in most places to wear a mask. I know that I can’t enter any grocery store, restaurant, or any other building where I live without a mask.

It seems pretty easy to us – wear a mask, don’t get COVID. Don’t wear a mask, get COVID.

2. No Vitamins

When in doubt, take your vitamins.

Vitamins are a great way to supplement your diet with nutrients that you’re not getting enough of in whole foods alone. New studies are showing that vitamin D is helping patients suffering from COVID-19. Vitamin D has been seen to reduce both complications and even the risk of death from the illness. Some COVID risk quizzes online even ask if you are taking vitamin D in one of their questions.

So, no vitamins, especially vitamin D, if you are looking to contract the virus.

1. Stick To An Unhealthy Diet

We posted a couple of weeks ago how important a healthy diet is to protect yourself from COVID-19.

A healthy diet is just as or more effective at fighting off illnesses than washing your hands, wearing a mask, etc. Eating healthy keeps our entire body running at tip-top shape. Fruits, vegetables, fish, water…these are all incredibly important to get essential nutrients that keep us healthy. Fast food, added sugars, and saturated fats are things you want to stay away from at all costs if you want to stay healthy.

However, if you are looking to indulge in those fats and sweets, just know you are putting your body more at risk of getting sick.

Want to step up your COVID game and protect yourself further? Check out our other articles on how to protect yourself!

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Chlorinated Chicken: Public Health or Politics?


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The United Kingdom says no to chlorinated chicken. But is their opposition based on science – or something else?

As I took my chicken breasts out of the package and put them in the baking dish, some of the chicken juice splashed into the sink. I dutifully scrubbed the sink and threw away the packaging, hoping no pathogens survived or dripped on the floor on the way to the garbage. I know I’m not the only one concerned about contamination in a food prep area. No one wants to get food poisoning.

To counter this concern, a small share of U.S. poultry processors use a mild sanitizing spray as the chicken pieces are getting washed which includes chlorine as part of their rigorous food safety procedures. Most scientists – as well as U.S. and even European food safety agencies — agree the practice poses no substantial health threat to people who consume the chicken.

But UK trade negotiators say ‘no’ to such a practice anyway, and use this reason to deny U.S. imports of lower-cost poultry into Great Britain. They argue such practices are inconsistent with the more stringent food standards they prefer. Better to focus on how poultry is grown, processed, and handled, they say. Focus on preventing a potential food safety problem more than on correcting it. to prevents E. Coli in cattle. U.S. trade officials say it’s just an excuse to close off an important export market for U.S. agriculture and to protect the UK industry.

As Mild as a Swimming Pool

On hearing some of the rhetoric in this debate, you would think U.S. chicken is coated in chlorine. That’s not the case.

We’ve all gone swimming in chlorinated pools.  It gets on our skin, goes in our mouth, and even up our noses. We certainly don’t mind that much because we know it’s cleaning the pool and for our overall benefit. Chlorinated water for sprays or rinses in chicken processing – much like the water in swimming pools and in many municipal water supplies – is used in only about 5 percent of processing plants, according to the National Chicken Council. Most of the chlorine used by the industry goes into cleaning and sanitizing equipment, not on chickens.

The industry makes much greater use of antimicrobial products to kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria and pathogens like salmonella. Used repeatedly and sequentially across the processing chain, these agents help minimize contamination and create a safety-first philosophy of seemingly redundant levels of sanitization.

It’s an important part of providing consumers with a safe supply of poultry.  If you eat undercooked chicken or other foods or beverages contaminated by raw chicken or its juices, you can get a foodborne illness, which is also called food poisoning.

To help consumers avoid microbes, chickens go through a ‘car wash’ where the industry routinely uses various FDA approved acidic washes in multiple stages of processing and chilling poultry, many with imposing and clinical names like paracetic acid (PAA), cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC), and acidified sodium chlorite (ASC).

Food safety experts, however, warn against a natural tendency to look at such imposing names as somehow dangerous substances. PAA, for example, is nothing more than an organic compound of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide, used by the poultry industry in concentrations that make it less acidic than lemon juice. CPC is an antiseptic commonly found in toothpaste, mouthwash, and nasal sprays. In addition, bromine and diverse organic acids are sometimes used. The industry simply does not rely on one ‘magic bullet’ antimicrobial agent – or some terrifying chemical cocktail out of a teenage sci-fi horror movie.

In most cases, the antimicrobials are used in very minute quantities – generally parts per million.  The amount can be visualized as “an inch out of nearly 16 miles,” or as “one minute in almost two years.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and its Food Safety and Inspection Service, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), and the international Codex Alimentarius Commission all have found no serious threat from safe levels of chlorinated water or chlorine washes. Various university studies have drawn similar conclusions.

Reasons for UK and EU opposition

These approaches the U.S. uses to potentially reduce harmful food contamination seem to have worked well. But even with these science-based arguments behind the U.S. poultry industry, the European Union and the United Kingdom have banned imports of chlorinated poultry for almost 25 years. Politicians there dismiss the science – even from their food-safety related agencies and scientists. Their reasoning follows largely political lines.

The UK and the EU generally prefer to argue for a food safety system focused very strongly on avoidance of contamination, much more so than dealing with actual contamination. Food safety policy focuses on all aspects of how animals are raised, handled, processed, and delivered, even if that might make the production process less efficient than the U.S. model. Indeed, many opponents of chlorinated chicken are in fact fundamentally opposed to what they see as the “industrialized farming” of the United States.

The UK imports large volumes of poultry products – worth close to a half-billion dollars – each year, almost half from the Netherlands and much of the remainder from other EU-based nations. While UK poultry production continues to grow each year, demand has recently outstripped the industry’s ability to meet it. The importance of trade is clearly recognized in the UK, and apparently increasing – prompting hopes for progress in the continuing trade debate with the United States.

The argument against U.S. chicken imports reflects a desire to preserve and protect the rural nature of much of the UK and EU countryside, with maintenance of long-standing food-based segments of the economy. 

Poultry is just one front in an on-going war to guard against the demise of a valued way of life. 

Likewise, these opponents also often cite the humane aspects of their preferred approach as a strong reason for an adamant trade position. Critics sometimes allege the defense of science-based sanitary practices is in reality advocacy for “U.S.-style industrialized farming” practices that compromise not just a valued way of life but the safety of workers in these labor-intensive facilities as well.

Science or Protectionism?

Those favoring a more liberalized approach to poultry trade often call such arguments a “weak defense of outright trade protectionism” – the use of non-science-based reasoning to insulate a special interest from the global competition that drives higher productivity across the food system – greater savings for consumers, and better access to the food consumers want.

But with the UK facing an uncertain future with its largest historic trading partner – the European Union – there’s hope for some kind of breakthrough. One option talked about quietly behind the scenes would allow some imports of U.S. chicken, but with a hefty tariff attached. That would buy some time to gauge public reaction to the new food option – and its effect on the existing UK poultry industry – and the larger agricultural system.

Consumer Considerations

The United States exported about $4.5 billion in poultry and eggs in 2017, and is the second-largest provider of broiler meat for the international market, with exports exceeding $4 billion annually. Growing global demand for animal protein, rising dietary and health concerns, and relatively rapid production cycles make the industry ripe for further growth – and additional economic opportunity for those capable of serving the demand.

U.S. producers want access to every possible market. And in one important respect, so should American poultry consumers. The economic vitality that exports help make possible for poultry producers help provide the money for further investment in producing more of the animal protein the world increasingly demands – and in making that process yield the safe, wholesome, and affordable product that makes food contamination a much lower risk for everyone.  

What happens next? It’s up to us…

Our highly-regulated food system in the U.S. is designed to provide us with food we want, at a price we can afford, and to safely consume it without fear of contamination. But’s it’s our job at home to prepare our foods in a way that maintains those rigorous practices.

Nearly one in six Americans suffer from some form of food poisoning each year. And while most cases are generally mild, following a few sound safety steps can help make sure you and your family members don’t become victims. Want to read more on the safe handling of poultry? Read this.

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5 Ways To Help Your Body During COVID-19

Whether you’re looking for quick information, or want something to impress your friends at dinner, here’s our Featured 5 of the Week!

Navigating through COVID-19 can be stressful. Stress causes the body to produce increased amounts of cortisol. While these can be beneficial in the short-term, in the long run, stress can wreak havoc on the body, weakening our immune systems. This is why we’re here to give you our advice on the 5 best ways to help you manage your stress and strengthen your immune system during COVID and all year round!

5. Meditation and Breathing

 One of the craziest things about humans is that when we are stressed out or anxious, sometimes we forget to breathe.

Meditation and breathing are incredibly important, and studies are showing that the benefits are endless. They can help decrease our stress levels, ease our anxiety, and put us into a more relaxed state of being. They have also been shown to help our emotional control and psychological well-being.

With the stress of schools returning, places opening back up, it can be a lot to handle. Allow yourself a few minutes every day to relax. It will help you become more present in life, combat COVID times with ease, and decrease stress levels, ultimately helping your immunity.

4. Turn off your Devices

Your phone. Your computer. Your tablet. Your TV. Just turn it off.

Over 90% of Americans have a smartphone and almost all of them rarely turn it off. Constantly being exposed to upsetting and stress-inducing content about the pandemic can wreak havoc on our bodies. By turning off our devices even just for an hour a day, it’s been shown we can create better connections with those around us, especially friends and family,  sleep better, and become present.

We all need a break once in a while, so go screen-free for some time every day, forget about the stressors of the outside world and pandemic, and see how much better and more present you feel.

3. Sleep

You knew it was coming. Sleep.

Sleep is so important when it comes to taking care of your body. It allows you to unwind, relax, and reset yourself to take on the next day. But, studies are showing that there is a relationship between stress and sleep. The hypothalamus in our bodies is key to regulating sleep. However, stress can activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system, leading to insomnia and sleepless nights, which can then lead to more stress.

Stress and sleep deprivation seems like a never-ending cycle, but you can break it. Make sure you’re getting the sleep you need every night – 7 to 9 hours for adults. It will make all the difference in your body, and help you tackle anything that comes your way.

2. Exercise

Exercise is probably one of the best things you can do for your body. It is so important to stay active during the day for both stress and your immune system.

Exercise is great for the body. It improves our cardiovascular health, lowers blood pressure, and keeps us healthy by controlling weight and fighting off diseases. Exercise helps our immune system by allowing for better blood circulation and contributing to an overall healthy body. Exercise can help with stress by decreasing both adrenaline and cortisol – the body’s stress hormones – and helping to produce endorphins, which are our mood boosters.

Your body will feel better. Your immunity will strengthen. Your waistline will shrink. Your mood will boost. And you’ll have the energy to take on anything.

1. Stay Connected

Between social distancing, working remotely, and protecting ourselves and others, it’s easy to feel both isolated and alone during COVID. That’s why staying connected to both friends and family is so critical for our mental health during the pandemic.

When we experience a lack of in-person contact, it can cause stress and loneliness, neither of which will help us fight a novel disease. But, with the technology we have today, it’s easy to get that face-to-face interaction without being in the same room. Between Google Hangout, Zoom, Skype, Facetime, Netflix Parties, Facebook video, and social gaming, the possibilities are endless. Sending a text or call is one thing, but getting face-to-face human connection can help the body and the mind.

So be sure to stay connected during COVID-19. And, if you are lucky enough to be surrounded by family or friends during the pandemic, be sure to check up on those who are by themselves. It will make all the difference.

The Bottom Line

The behaviors we have are just as important to protect ourselves from the virus as the food we eat. Be sure to take time for you during the pandemic, listen to your body, and become present in life’s everyday moments.

BONUS!

You may be wondering, “but where is the information about food?!” Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Take a look at last week’s Featured 5 to learn what foods you can eat to protect yourself from COVID. And, for more, check out our other articles about foods that can strengthen your immune system:

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Protein Quality: Animal vs. Plant-based


On the run? Listen to our post!

With a feeling of uncertainty infiltrating our lives lately, many of us are looking for concrete information to help us make it through this “new normal”. And what is more concrete than science? Because of this, we’re turning to research-backed studies and data to explain the differences between plant and animal proteins.

What we’ve found is that multiple sources of healthy proteins should be a part of our regular and varied diets. Any documentaries or overtly “over-the-top” productions that tell you otherwise, no matter how compelling, likely have an ulterior motive.

Let’s talk basic needs

To understand why protein conversations are so plentiful and ongoing, we must understand how essential protein is in our diets. Proteins are the building blocks of life. Every single cell in our body contains proteins.

The essential function of protein is to provide the body with energy to repair cells and make new ones. Without protein, and the capability to regenerate cells, our immune system weakens, inhibiting us from maintaining our health.

For a relatively active adult, protein should make up about 10% of our total calories, or a ¼ of your daily plate as shown here.

Now, our dietary needs are unique, so the USDA has created an online resource to help calculate their own daily nutrient recommendations.

There are two primary identifiers for what makes proteins higher quality:

  • the amino acid profile
  • its digestibility, or bioavailability

With this in mind, let’s explore both plant and animal protein sources.

Complete vs. incomplete proteins

Part of what makes plant and animal proteins different is whether or not they are considered “complete” proteins. What makes a protein complete? Its amino acid profile. Harvard School of Public Health explains it best:

“Some proteins found in food are ‘complete’, meaning they contain all twenty-plus types of amino acids needed to make new protein in the body.”

They go on to explain that “incomplete proteins” are lacking one or more of the nine essential amino acids, which our bodies can’t make from scratch. Typically, animal-based foods like meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy are great sources of complete protein, providing amino acids that your body simply cannot produce.

Plant-based foods, however, like nuts, seeds, grains, fruits and vegetables, while critical parts of any balanced diet, are not a sufficient choice as a sole protein source, as they lack one or more of the essential amino acids.

Does this mean vegans and vegetarians are not getting the amino acids they need? Not necessarily. They just have to be more strategic in their dietary choices. You can create a complete protein by combining one plant-based food with another that makes up for where the other lacks. For example, you need to combine the amino acids together to make a protein complete.

Take rice and beans for example: separately, they are not considered complete. Beans are missing an amino acid known as methionine; while rice – a grain – is lacking in lysine, another essential amino acid. But, according to the American Society for Nutrition, when consumed together, this would form a “Protein Complementation,” or a complete protein.

Not a fan of good ol’ rice and beans? Try one of my personal favorites: peanut butter and whole wheat bread, which can achieve the same complementation. Here is a chart that shows which amino acids different protein sources contain and, more importantly, what they are deficient in.

What else does meat have that plants don’t?

Nutrients in plant and animal proteins differ outside of just their amino acid composition. While eating fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains is part of any balanced diet, there are nutrients in animal protein that an all-plant diet just cannot provide in adequate amounts. Take Vitamin B12, for example – this is an essential nutrient that is almost exclusively found in animal foods – fish, meat, and eggs are some of the best options.

Think B12 isn’t that important? Think again. B12 aids in the development of red blood cells and helps to support and maintain nerve and brain function. Some studies have concluded that, without supplementation, vegetarians are at a high risk of B12 deficiency. This can cause weakness, fatigue, psychiatric and neurological disorders, and well as possible links to heart disease.

Vitamin D is another essential nutrient that serves many necessary functions. Also called the sunshine vitamin, it comes in two types – D2 found in plants and D3 count in animal-based foods. The best sources of D3 are fatty fish and egg yolks. Deficiencies in D3 have been linked to increased risk of cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, and most recently, COVID-19.

DHA or Docosahexaenoic (say that ten times fast!) acid, is an essential omega-3 fatty acid that is important for brain function. This is mainly found in fatty fish and certain types of microalgae. However – fear not, vegans! – you can take a supplement of algal oil, derived from microalgae, to ensure you are getting enough! There is always a way to find a balanced diet, if you are open to multiple forms of nutrient and protein consumption.

Other deficiencies include creatine, a molecule found primarily in muscle cells, which allows the body to easily access energy reserves for strength and endurance.

Digestibility and bioavailability

Plant protein and animal protein – though both “proteins” – are registered in the body differently. What do I mean by this? Well, when our body intakes any food, it can last for 36 to 72 hours in our twenty-five foot gastrointestinal tract. During this time, the body is breaking down the protein into building blocks, or as previously discussed, its amino acids. Depending on whether the protein is from animal or plant, that determines the rate at which they can be absorbed and the percentage that is available to be used within the body.

Because plant proteins must link up with another food or supplement that contains its missing amino acids to become complete, they absorb more slowly in the digestive tract. On the other hand, animal proteins are readily available for use at a much faster rate, with a much larger profile.

Why should we care how fast a protein is absorbed? Well, because it directly affects our metabolism. The amino acids that plants are deficient in are commonly known as branched-chain amino acids, or BCAA. Studies have shown that their lack of essential amino acids provides a lower anabolic effect, which means lower digestibility. For these reasons, it’s possible that 20 grams of protein from one source can be superior to the same amount from another source.

Protein bioavailability, or the ability of proteins to be absorbed and used, is formally based on a quality scoring system called PDCAAS and DIAAS.  Protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS) is a system that measures the quality of different sources of protein by analyzing how the human body can digest the total amount of protein. This system was developed in the early ’90s as a way to determine its quality. The digestate indispensable amino acid scoring system (DIAAS) is the newer method proposed by the Food and Agriculture Organization to replace the PDCAAS. The difference between the two is taking into account the anti-nutrients, or nutrients that can limit absorption of amino acids.

According the new DIAAS system, a score of >100 is a high-quality protein, 75-100 is a good-quality protein, and a score of <75 is a low-quality protein. Below is a chart of various animal and plant protein scores based on the new system.

As we can see, the highest quality proteins, providing the best bioavailability are animal proteins, while soy-based proteins are just slightly under the ‘high quality’ threshold. Foods like dairy, eggs, poultry, and meat are the most effective and efficient way to intake protein.

What about vegans and vegetarians?

Fear not: while animal proteins are the highest quality, there are ways for vegetarians and vegans to meet their essential amino acids needs. Eat higher amounts of plant foods, meaning greater portions, and strategically plan meals to ensure full amino acids profiles are met. According to the Kerry Health and Nutrition Institute, soy-based foods seem to have the highest ratings among plant proteins, so seek legumes like edamame, tofu, chenggukjang, and miso to combat potential deficiencies. A recent study from the U.S. Department of Food Science and Nutrition showed links between plant proteins in your diet and healthier markers for heart health and blood sugar management. Remember, a healthy diet is comprised of a balanced diet, including a variety of different foods, all in moderation.

Don’t fall for pretty productions

As a rule of thumb, for all things food-related or otherwise, we should always be wary of over-the-top claims and overtly “scary” statements. By nature, media is polarizing, be that the news, flashy articles, or well-made productions. Without a controversial stance, things simply wouldn’t sell. But we don’t want to be sold! We want the truth, the science! Well, the truth is, things are never as black and white as they are made out to be.

Our optimal diet lies somewhere between an all plant-based protein diet and an animal protein-only diet. There is no yes or no, right or wrong – it is all moderation and variation. While gram-for-gram, animal proteins are the most effective way to meet our nutritional requirements, both sources of protein can be nutritious and should be considered as a tool in your toolbox of healthy eating.

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5 Foods to Fight Off COVID-19

Whether you’re looking for quick information, or want something to impress your friends at dinner, here’s our Featured 5 of the Week!

Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. We’ve all heard these things as a response to protect ourselves from becoming infected with COVID-19. What we don’t hear is how a healthy and balanced diet is just as…or if not more effective at protecting ourselves against COVID and other illnesses! Here are 5 foods you can add to your diet right now to keep you healthy!

5. Berries

Experts say those who suffer from diet-related illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity are at higher risk of developing serious implications from COVID-19. Experts say that one thing all of these diseases have in common is systemic inflammation, meaning inflammation may be negatively affecting those infected with Covid.

Berries are a great food to incorporate into your diet to protect your body because they are anti-inflammatory. Berries contain an antioxidant called anthocyanins, which help to reduce inflammation in the body, as well as boost the immune system. They have also been shown to reduce one’s risk of heart disease.

Keeping your body protected against inflammation may be key not only during COVID-19, but to protect yourself against heart disease and other diet-related illnesses. Added bonus? They even help with brainpower!

4. Leafy Greens

Fresh vegetables from Hindinger FarmAll vegetables are very important to ensure a balanced diet, but leafy greens especially have the vitamins and minerals needed to help protect us against Covid.

Leafy greens, including broccoli, brussels sprouts, spinach, kale, and turnip greens, all are very high in vitamin C. We know that vitamin C supplements are incredibly important when it comes to helping our immune system, but a better way to ensure you’re getting your vitamin C intake is through food!

For adults, 65 to 95 mg of vitamin C is recommended every day. In one cup of cooked broccoli, there is around 102 mg of vitamin C. What an easy way to get your veggies and vitamin C!

Broccoli especially is also a great vegetable to eat to protect against COVID-19 because it’s a great source of vitamin A. Vitamin A is an anti-inflammatory and is critical in maintaining proper immune functioning in our bodies. It has been used to help fight against many infectious diseases, including measles. And, since broccoli contains 13% of our daily value of vitamin A, it is a no-brainer that we should be incorporating broccoli into our diets regularly!

3. Fish

Fatty fish, such as salmon, tuna, and mackerel, are full of nutrients and have many benefits for our bodies, protecting from COVID-19 being just one of them.

They are full of Omega-3 fatty acids, which help lower our LDL “bad” cholesterol, raise our HDL “good” cholesterol, and help lower inflammation in our bodies, which is critical during COVID-19. Fatty fish are also full of vitamin D, another key vitamin we need to help our immunity.

Vitamin D is known for regulating the immune system. Studies have shown that vitamin D can reduce one’s risk of contracting Covid. In one study, findings showed that participants with a vitamin D deficiency were almost 2 times greater to test positive for COVID-19 than those with sufficient levels of vitamin D.

One serving of farmed salmon contains about 66% of one’s daily value of vitamin D, so make sure to incorporate it into your diet!

2. Fermented Foods

yogurt with berriesFermented foods are foods that have good bacteria, or probiotics. They are essential for good gut health and our immune system!

Fermented foods contain microbes that help regulate the microbiome in our guts. They are essential for a healthy gut, and to help with gas, bloating, and diarrhea. They are also essential in immune response! Studies have shown that those who lacked fermented foods in their diets showed a decreased immune response. This decrease could ultimately affect one’s ability to fight off infections, including Covid.

A few great choices for fermented foods include sauerkraut, Greek yogurt, and kombucha. All of which contain lots of good bacteria!

1. WATER

We can’t believe that we even have to say this, but just drinking water can help your body get rid of toxins and keep your immune system running!

Our bodies are over 50% water. Water is essential for us to live, yet we sometimes take it for granted or just plain forget to drink it! On average, we should be drinking at least half of our body weight in ounces every single day. Now, this does not include tea, coffee, or any other mixed drink beverages. This is just straight water.

To give an idea of what this looks like, someone who weighs around 140 pounds should drink at least 70, but ideally 140 ounces of water a day to promote healthy body functioning and to maintain a healthy weight.

Water helps with body functioning by carrying oxygen to all the cells in our bodies, ensuring they have enough to run properly. Water also removes toxins to stop them from building up in the body which can cause us to get sick.

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How COVID Affects Global GM Crops

Dirt to Dinner is pleased to introduce accomplished Ghanian agriculture journalist, Joseph Opoku Gakpo, to Dirt to Dinner. A 2016 Cornell Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellow, Joseph contributes to the Multimedia Group Limited in Ghana, working with Joy FM, Joy News TV, and MyJoyOnline. He has a master’s degree in communications studies from the University of Ghana and is a member of the Ghana Journalists Association, where he was awarded the 2015 prize for Best Journalist in Poverty Alleviation Reporting for “Poor Millionaires,” his story about cocoa farmers. His main interest is telling the story of how farmers and rural residents struggle to survive, with the objective of bringing development to their communities.

The Dirt

The demand rising from COVID-19 has ramped up vaccines using various genetic modification technologies, but when it comes to agriculture, the inverse has been true. Covid significantly slowed down the global process to commercialize genetically modified (GM) crops, and no one feels it more than farmers in developing countries, like Kenya, Ghana, and Bangladesh, where significant progress quickly came to a screeching halt.

Although many countries have approved the fast track use of genetic modification in the production of COVID-19 vaccines, the contrary is the case when it comes to approvals for GM crops. Kenya, Ghana, and Bangladesh are some of the countries where efforts to get GM crops into the hands of farmers have either stalled, or timelines for approval been rescheduled because of COVID-19. Genetically engineered crops bring more food to a continent that struggles with food security. And these crops can grow with fewer pesticides, thus keeping us healthier while working in the fields.

“In Kenya, we have had regulatory delays in the continuation of the national performance trials on [insect-resistant] Bt maize,” Kenyan plant breeder Dr. Murenga Mwimali told Dirt to Dinner in an interview. “There were planned national performance trials in six sites in Kenya. However, with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated lockdowns, the activities by all stakeholders were all stopped.”

Bt maize has been genetically modified to produce a protein -safe for humans and other animals-but can kill the destructive stemborer insects that destroy maize crops. Bt crops have been shown to reduce pesticide use. Bt maize also often contains traits for drought tolerance, which can help increase productivity on farms by at least 10%.

It is Essential to Continue Moving Forward

Dr. Mwimali is worried the situation with COVID-19 will push back the expected time frame for commercializing GM maize for use by Kenya’s farmers. It is already being grown in South Africa, as well as the United States, Brazil, and Argentina, among other countries.

“It takes about 100-150 days to gain [government] approval but now it is taking longer and longer given the many requirements for a team of regulatory institutions to sit and approve the processes,” Dr. Mwimali explained. “This [approval] period may now double and the food and nutrition security of more than 80 percent of smallscale farmers will continue to suffer.”

Stakeholders, however, remain confident things will change in the months ahead as COVID-19-related lockdowns ease. Recently, Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and Fisheries, National Biosafety Authority, National Environment Management Authority, Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services, and other regulatory stakeholders have been meeting to brainstorm ways to proceed with the national performance trials on Bt maize.

“Despite the current COVID-19 situation, there is hope that the national performance trial activities on Bt maize will proceed with the teams observing the safety requirements by the Ministry of Health,” Dr. Mwimali said.

Dr. Rose Gidado, assistant director of the National Biotechnology Development Authority in Nigeria, said the situation there is no different. For some years now, the government has fast-tracked the adoption of GM crops and has approved Bt cotton and cowpea for commercialization.

Since last year, the multiplication of seeds has been ongoing to allow for the mass sale of GM seeds to farmers. But COVID-19 has slowed down activities so the farmer does not have access to the seeds. “The process is only affected by COVID-19 in terms of restricted movements, limited travels, and social distancing,” she told Dirt to Dinner. “You cannot do so much at this time. Things are moving at a slow pace.”

Dr. Gidado argues, however, that Nigeria needs GM crops now more than ever in the COVID-19 era.

“There is the need to step up production in order to measure up as well as prepare for the high demand for food in the country in the post-COVID-19 era,” Dr. Gidado said. “The potential for economic growth arising from the cultivation of genetically engineered crops in Nigeria is high with increased access to food, good health, and productivity. It will also attract foreign investments and earnings, leading to wealth creation.”

As the Nigerian government eases COVID-19 restrictions, work has begun to revive the GM crop commercialization processes. “We are still on track to produce GE cowpea,” she said. Insect-resistant cowpea is the country’s first GM food crop.

Complicated GMO regulations

The regulation of GM crops in much of the world is guided by the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, an international agreement currently ratified by about 170 countries to ensure the safe use of living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology. The protocol requires that products arising out of technologies like genetic modification be regulated based on the precautionary principle, which requires that countries pause and review new technologies extensively before they are adopted.

A lot of countries have thus passed new legislation that lays out extensive, in-depth and complicated processes that need to be exhausted before GM crops are approved for use. When plant researchers finish breeding a new GM seed, it has to be taken through trials in confined areas, then contained trials on a fairly large scale. If it passes both of those reviews, then governments authorize an environmental release, which allows it to be grown by farmers in several areas of a country.

The next step is applying for commercialization so farmers can legally access and cultivate the seeds. It can take more than a decade, and tens of millions of dollars, to bring a GM crop to market.

In Ghana, efforts to allow for the commercialization of GM crops started more than 10 years ago but crystalized in 2011 with the passage of the National Biosafety Act to guide the process. In 2018, Ghanaian scientists completed field trials on the insect-resistant Bt cowpea, the country’s first GM crop variety. This GM crop is expected to help farmers dramatically reduce their use of pesticides, while also enjoying better yields of this important staple food. “When you look at the conventional seeds, you can spray as much as eight times (a season). But with the Bt, you spray only two times.

“Just the two sprays can confer resistance in Bt crops like the eight sprays in the conventional,” Dr. Mumuni Abdulai, principal investigator in charge of the Bt cowpea project, explained.

After years of additional background work following completion of tests on the varieties, scientists were hoping to zoom into the final approval processes by applying to the National Biosafety Authority for environmental release of the variety in the first half of 2020. But the process stalled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The document is ready for submission. Everything is ready…if not because of COVID-19, we would have done it by now.”

Burkina Faso is the third West African country, apart from Ghana and Nigeria, that is working to get the Bt cowpea variety into the hands of farmers. Burkina Faso is hoping to use the GM cowpea project to re-establish itself as a nation that puts science first after its government halted the cultivation of Bt cotton in 2015. But the Bt cowpea approval process has slowed down there, just as in Ghana and Nigeria.

Farmers in Burkina Faso are calling on the government to fast-track the approvals for Bt cowpea in response to COVID-19. Burkina Faso farmer Wiledio Naboho said COVID-19 has negatively impacted production this year and farmers are counting on GM crops to help them increase productivity.

“Really, COVID-19 has impacted us as farmers negatively,” Naboho said. “First, it’s limited our access to quality seeds. And also, the few [seeds] we have are sold at a high price. Secondly, access to food is limited because of lockdown… So, COVID-19 came to add more sorrow to my people. I can tell a lot of families don’t have food to feed themselves.”

Of the 53 countries in Africa, only South Africa, Eswatini, and South Sudan farmers are currently growing GM crops commercially. More than 20 nations are currently undertaking trials on about eight GM crops, including banana, cassava, and maize, in preparation for their introduction into the food supply. The research and approval processes have slowed down in virtually all these countries as a result of COVID-19.

Situations elsewhere

The challenge in Africa is being experienced in Asia, as well. In the Philippines, the COVID-19 pandemic has added energy and vigor to the activities of anti-science groups campaigning against Golden Rice, a GM rice variety rich in vitamin A, a nutrient to prevent blindness and other serious health challenges in millions of children. In December 2019, the Philippines Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Plant Industry issued an official notice of permit approving Golden Rice for direct use in food, feed or processing.

In early August, the Stop Golden Rice Network launched its annual week-long line up of activities to protest plans to commercialize Golden Rice. “There are enough reasons to safely conclude that non-governmental organizations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are exploiting the dire situation of our food system during COVID-19”, Mr. Cris Panerio, one of the coordinators of the campaign claimed, even though Golden Rice is a philanthropic endeavor.  Such re-invigorated campaigns linking COVID-19 and GM crops will make it more difficult for the authorities to introduce the lifesaving varieties.

In Bangladesh, following the success of genetically modified Bt brinjal (eggplant), the country is also researching Golden Rice, potatoes resistant to the devasting late blight disease and pest-resistant Bt cotton. Bt brinjal, which is the first GM crop developed by public sector scientists for farmers in South Asia, increased farmer income by $658 per hectare over the four years between 2014 and 2018. GM rice, potato, and cotton are expected to make an even higher and better impact on the population, but COVID-19 is now serving as a distraction against its approval.

“COVID-19 is having a grave impact in Bangladesh and soon we might have more positive cases than Italy. It has slowed down the whole system and our economy. So, the government has many burning priorities other than speeding up the process of research and development of Golden Rice and other biotech crops,” Arif Hossain, executive director of Farming Future Bangladesh, told Dirt to Dinner. “We hope that our research system will resume all its activities in full swing after this pandemic. But right at this moment, the government is giving priorities to production, mechanization, and market value chain, along with large scale subsidy programs for farmers and others engaged in agriculture.”

The opposite appears to be the case in some South American countries. Over the last few months, reports indicate that the transitional government in Bolivia has approved 5 GM crops, including sugar cane and cotton, as part of its efforts to boost agriculture during the pandemic. A pilot project for GM wheat is also being planned.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic in Mexico, a group of researchers at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León have begun work on using bioinformatics and computational genetic engineering to possibly produce a tomato that can deliver an edible COVID-19 vaccine. In the US, very little movement has been seen on the GM crop front since the pandemic broke. Europe continues to resist the technology, though the United Kingdom is considering its adoption as part of its break from the European Union.

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5 Foods to Promote A Healthy Brain

 

Whether you’re looking for quick information, or want something to impress your friends at dinner, here’s our Featured 5 of the Week!

Did you know that certain foods can help slow the cognitive decline of the brain, combating the onset of diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s? We’re here to tell you 5 things that you should consider adding into your diet to feed your brain! It’s called the MIND Diet!

5. Chicken and Turkey

Chicken and turkey are both lean meats with a lot of great benefits. They are excellent sources of protein, healthy fats, and essential vitamins and minerals, including vitamin B.

We’ve heard of the B vitamin providing our bodies with energy, but did you know it can also help the brain? Specifically, choline, which is found in both chicken and turkey, is a B vitamin that accelerates the body’s creation of acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is a protein and it carries signals to different brain cells. It’s extremely important for memory, muscle control, and other brain and nervous system functions.

Eating chicken and/or turkey just two times a week can help your body get the proper amounts of choline, between 425-550 mg/day, and help get your brain in top condition!

4. Wine

Who doesn’t love a glass of red wine at the end of the day? Well, now you can feel better about your relaxing drink because it actually has great benefits for your body!

Drinking just one glass of wine a day, specifically red wine, can help in many different ways. First, a glass of red wine can help improve insulin sensitivity. This can decrease your risk of both diabetes and high blood pressure. A glass of red wine can also help decrease inflammation in the body and clear away toxins from the brain, especially toxins that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

So go ahead and have that glass of wine after a long day! Just remember, wine contains a lot of sugar, so be mindful of how much you’re putting into your body.

3. Berries

Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries – they all have great health benefits, but what are their effects when it comes to our mind? Don’t worry, it’s all good news!

Berries have many antioxidant properties. They also contain anthoyanis, which are plant compounds that help decrease inflammation, and flavonoids, which help strengthen the brain’s neuron connections. Both of these, plus other properties in berries, can help prevent age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, and also strengthen motor and cognitive functions, including communication and memory.

In regards to a healthy mind, berries should be consumed around 2 times a week, and don’t be afraid to switch it up! Try different berries or eat them in different ways!

2. Leafy Greens and Other Veggies

When it comes to vegetables and leafy greens, the nutritional values are endless! These nutrient-packed plants deliver so much goodness to our bodies AND to our minds!

Veggies are full of vitamins and phytonutrients, including carotenoids, flavonoids, and ellagic acid. Many of these are needed to create sphingolipids, which is a type of fat that contains an amino acid called sphingosine. Sphingolipids can be found packed in our brain cells, especially in nerve cells. Here, they help with structural functions and protect the cells from outside factors.

Veggies are also rich in antioxidants, including carotene and folate, and contain many vitamins and minerals, including vitamin K. Aside from also contributing to sphingolipid function, vitamin K is also anti-inflammatory and promotes cell growth.

However, some say that too much vitamin K can have an adverse effect on cognitive performance, but more research is needed to make any conclusions, so keep eating your veggies at least once a day and exercising your brain!

1. Whole Grains

Whole grains, we know we need them, but we didn’t know we needed them for our brain power too! Whole grains, which include barley, oats, quinoa, and brown rice, have three parts. These three parts are the bran, which is the nutritious outer layer, the germ, or the nutrient-rich center, and the endosperm, which contains a lot of starchy carbs. In a whole grain, all three of these compounds are included.

Like many other of the foods we’ve discussed, whole grains are rich in B vitamins and are anti-inflammatory. They help with blood flow in the body, including blood flow to the brain, increasing cognitive functioning and help with memory. Whole grains also contain high amounts of magnesium, which aids in the ability of brain cells use of energy.

Try to stay away from foods like white rice and white bread, and substitute them with whole grains. Whole grains are tasty and consuming them 3 times a day can help protect your brain and other parts of the body!

 

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Around the World at My Local Restaurant

Finally getting out for a meal makes me appreciate our amazing food system even more than usual – and marvel at how important trade is to it, and to the consumers who depend upon it.

But once again, I realize that I am a junkie. I take great pride in being a true “global food junkie.”  I LIKE it. I’ve eaten in fine Parisian restaurants, a mud hut in Ethiopia, a vendor’s stall in Nigeria, a city square in Bangalore, a BBQ shack in Lexington, North Carolina, the famous Carnivore in Nairobi, a Soviet hotel ‘restaurant’ before the fall of the wall,  a village festival outside Sevilla, a field workers’ shack in Zimbabwe, a university food hall, a Singapore food market, a Boundary Waters’ campfire…and somehow, I’m still alive.

And here I am in my local restaurant. I’m not so much enjoying the excellent food, marveling at the choices available to me on this menu, slavering in anticipation of the sheer epicurean joy in what I will be served, or savoring the sweet satisfaction of seeing other people again. I find myself thinking that here in a small town in the rural south, in a modest typical country restaurant, I’m really dining out in a much bigger, more diverse world than I’ve ever fully appreciated. I’m truly dining out – dining out not on the town, but on the great big world.

You see, in this modest meal at a small eating place on North Green Street in zip code 28655, I’m consuming food that connects to an entire world of food. What I’m eating and drinking here tonight has links around the globe.

I don’t mean that I’m fascinated by the thought of eating Italian food, or maybe something from a Latin culture or maybe even Icelandic. What amazes me as I sit here and think about it are all the farmers, ranchers, processors, manufacturers, merchants, distributors, and countless other people that make up all the links and combinations possible in a food system that has become amazingly international.

Let your mind wander with me as we select our dinner….

To start…

Okay, I’ll pass on the pre-dinner cocktail. But on a warm summer evening in the south, a Mimosa sure would have been nice. If I had one, I’d be drinking orange juice from Florida. Or maybe Brazil. Brazil exports more than $1 billion in OJ each year – about 10 times what the United States sells abroad. Even some European countries export more orange juice than we do, so who knows where the juice in that particular drink might come from.

But I will have a nice salad. I know this restaurant likes to feature locally produced foods, especially the fresh vegetables that grow so abundantly around here. But when they aren’t available, where does it come from?  Maybe California, or Arizona, or Florida. But it also could be from lush fields in Mexico, or maybe Canada. We import cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, asparagus, onions, squash, and a lot of other vegetables every year, from all across Latin and South America, and even China. If I add fresh and frozen fruit, the list of international suppliers is even longer. It’s a huge part of our food supply picture – about $9 billion each year in vegetables and produce, another $15 billion in fresh and frozen fruits.

I could have a small cup of gumbo to start instead, or maybe some of the fish stew this place is known for. That could include shrimp or bits of fish from across Asia or any number of other suppliers in the northern Atlantic and southern Pacific waters. The chunks of salmon in it might come not from Alaska but farms in the Nordic area. The sea bass could be from Chile. China, Norway, Sweden, Chile, Indonesia, India – all are major fish exporters to the world. We import about 90% of our seafood each year.

The dinner rolls in the basket on the table are made from wheat. I’d like to think the flour originated in the vast fields I’ve seen in the American Midwest. But the world trades just over 180 million tons of wheat each year. (Just for fun I did a quick mental calculation – that would give everyone in the world about 40 loaves of bread) so it must mean that wheat from the United States and a lot of other countries finds its way into bread everywhere. Consumers sitting at restaurants like I am tonight – or at home most other nights — could be eating wheat from Australia, Argentina, Canada, France, or Russia, or any of the 15 countries that account for over 90 percent of global wheat trade. Now the really mind-blowing part…

What should I have as my entrée?

I could go for the grilled salmon. That takes me back to the same international connections I made when contemplating the gumbo and fish stew. Salmon is the most-traded seafood in the world, after all. Almost $4 billion worth of salmon moves in international trade each year, as hungry consumers look for fresh and farmed supplies from Norway, Scotland, Chile, Russia, Canada, Japan, and other sources.

If I go for the nice sirloin on special tonight, I most likely will be eating a U.S.-produced cut of meat. But the Department of Agriculture acknowledges that perhaps 8 percent of our beef supply – and maybe a touch more, according to some — comes from outside our borders, probably Canada or Mexico, or Australia or lean meat from New Zealand.

If I go for the pork medallions, the international picture is even stronger. The United States imported $1.1 billion worth of pork in 2019. (Japan and China together imported over $9 billion worth, out of a global total of pork imports of $32 billion.)  Any way you look at it, that’s a lot of pig meat, so I can’t be surprised if some of it winds up on my plate.

If I go for the roasted chicken, the picture is more than a little convoluted. The United States is very good at producing poultry, and we export a lot of what we produce. Poultry is comparatively easy to produce in most parts of the world, albeit sometimes very inefficiently compared to our modern methods. But as much as 12 percent of global poultry meat consumption still depends on trade, according to USDA statistics.

Feeding what kind of mouths?

Which reminds me… the global food system really provides for a lot more than my needs or just human needs.

Our food system has to feed a lot more than human mouths, you realize. Corn and soybeans flow in an almost endless stream around the world to feed the cattle, pigs, chickens and other animals people demand for their tables. More than 70 billion – yes, billion – animals go to market each year around the world, not counting fish and other aquaculture. Corn, soybeans, and other feed grains and oils from the United States, Europe, South America, and other regions around the world keep their food flowing, too. And without that flow, providing the animal protein everyone wants simply wouldn’t be possible. I very likely wouldn’t have the choices available to me on this menu.

But let’s get back to my dinner…

Even the salt and pepper on the table have their global links. The world trades pepper worth over $4 billion each year. The United States is the largest pepper importer in the world, most coming from Vietnam, the largest exporter. If I want more exotic spices – say, those hot peppers I like so much, or even vanilla or oregano or sesame seeds or cinnamon, I have to look to suppliers outside the United States, too. My mind paused as I am now going way back to 130 BCE, thinking of the Silk Road which opened up trade between the East and West.

The global salt trade is even larger, although much of that is used in de-icing and industrial uses, not just for food purposes. The world’s leading exporter of salt is the Netherlands, selling about $278 million worth of salt into export markets in 2018. Germany sold another $206 million, Chile $189 million. This simple staple of life, which I so easily can take for granted, could have originated from 20 different countries, including my own.

The sugar and sweeteners in front of me tell a similar story. Sugar can come from beets or cane and is produced around the world. India and Brazil duke it out most years for the top-producer spot, but the European Union and various sub-tropical countries also contribute to a global sugar trade that normally runs about 55 million tons each year.  I am going back to my mental math and figured all that sugar would give everyone in the world 164 cans of Coca-Cola. Demand for sugar is so strong that China still imports large quantities every year, despite being the fifth largest sugar producer in the world (an estimated 10.6 million tons in 2019.)

Even if I grab the Stevia on the table as an alternative, I’m using a product that originates from the leaves of a shrub that grows in Argentina – or even China.

It all makes my head spin. So maybe I’ll skip the dessert, as enticing as the marble cake and its legendary chocolate icing (from cocoa beans that could be grown in Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, or even Mexico) may be.

Instead, I’ll go for a nice, soothing cup of tea to cap the meal. But do I select a tea grown in India or China? Maybe Japan or Sri Lanka, or Indonesia?

Maybe the main point I should focus on is actually fairly simple.  As much as we depend on our local food supplies, for a variety of practical and personal reasons, we live in an inter-connected global food system. The vast majority of the foods we consume every day have some direct or indirect connection to the world of global food trade. I’m really dining OUT!!!

What Trade Makes Possible

How did this happen?  Why did we create such a complex and amazingly efficient way of feeding ourselves?

It comes down to economics. International markets assure a steady supply of whatever food we want, whenever we want it, at the best price. It exists so everyone can have exactly what they want, when they want it, without regard for the local growing season or capacity to produce everything such a robust food offering demands. It makes it possible for me to have such an incredible selection of great food, year-round, at affordable prices, right here on North Green Street, or in my home.

We created a marvelous interlocking system of continuous gratification made possible by trade. Trade is the backbone of our modern food system, whether we think about it or not.

No wonder I’m a food junkie. No wonder my head spins. The global food system puts such a variety and quality in front of me every single day. Who could resist?

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Shrimp Scampi

Looking for something YUM for dinner, a side dish to elevate your entrée, or healthfully satisfy your sweet tooth? Check out our list of tried and true recipes  – you won’t be disappointed 😉

Want some free D2D stuff? Post a photo of your creation on instagram or twitter!

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Learning to live with – or without – Ethanol *Click for poll results!*

For several decades, we have watched a sometimes animated debate about ethanol – the alcohol made from plants such as corn and sugarcane that the government has mandated we add to gasoline used by the cars and other vehicles we drive every day. We built a big processing industry to produce ethanol, mostly from the corn that the United States produces so well and so abundantly.

On the surface, it seemed to make a lot of sense. It used a renewable resource. It helped us reduce dependence on foreign oil imports. It was supposed to be good for the air and our environment. It helped prop up corn prices and injected a lot of money into the rural economy.

But over the years, I couldn’t help but have this not-so-vague sense that something might not be quite right. More and more scientists popped up to debate the so-called environmental benefits. Engineers warned of the effects of ethanol on machinery. Lower-cost petroleum costs made ethanol increasingly non-economic. Experts argued the whole system might have net energy costs more than net energy gains. In addition, producing ethanol costs more to the environment than saving it.

To add to my unease, it simply bothered me enormously that we were devoting four of every 10 acres of the corn we produce to feeding machines, not people or animals. I kept asking myself a lot of questions. Is ethanol still the right thing to do? Have changes in the world around us made ethanol less appealing and less practical? Am I being told the complete story, or only a story cranked out by a well-funded, aggressive PR machine?

What’s the real story behind ethanol today?

What is ethanol, anyway?

In simple terms, ethanol is a form of alcohol – a volatile liquid produced from the natural fermentation of sugars. It’s been around for literally thousands of years, often used as a recreational beverage – also known as moonshine. It’s made from a very wide variety of plants – anything containing the starch and cellulose that provide sugars for fermentation.

Sugarcane is a common source material in production of ethanol in South America and other locations.

But in America, by far the most common source is good old corn.

Several decades ago, with growing concern everywhere about both our dependence on foreign energy sources and the protection of our environment, lawmakers found a way to make corn a part of the public-policy response. Lawmakers rushed to bring a vibrant ethanol industry to life. Tax breaks, subsidies, grants, loan guarantees – all these and more emerged to stimulate ethanol production. Farmers responded by making investments in a productive capacity. Investors poured massive amounts of money into new processing plants, handling equipment, and other necessary production tools.

Today, the ethanol industry appears to be on shaky ground. Competing commodity prices made the raw material for ethanol processes that much less competitive, tightening their operating margins. Lower gas prices have cut demand for ethanol substantially. Production plants, key economic cornerstones of rural communities, are seeking new markets or new products to produce. Some are closing down, and many are up for sale.

At the same time, the United States has stepped up its energy independence with fracking and other energy-development initiatives. Pandemic stay-at-home orders added to the problem by drastically reducing gasoline demand. By April 2020, production had dropped by almost half from its peak earlier in the year. Almost a third of ethanol plants had shut down, and another third were operating on reduced schedules.

What’s the right future for ethanol?

Ethanol critics argue for radical change – or an end to the program. To critics, ethanol’s day has passed and we should be glad.

  • Ethanol is non-economic and a drain on taxpayers. Even in the heyday of our fight to reduce dependence on foreign oil imports, we still had to pay ethanol producers (not the farmers) tens of billions in all sorts of subsidies and incentives to keep them afloat.
  • With oil prices below the cost of ethanol, ethanol no longer lowers gas prices. Our domestic energy production picture and global markets tell us we don’t need to mandate the addition of a more expensive component to gasoline.
  • A 10-percent ethanol blend in our gasoline may actually hinder rather than help fuel economy. The biofuels industry has long claimed that the ethanol blend can boost mileage by 1-3 percent. But some reports – including figures from the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy – contend the 10-percent ethanol blend can reduce fuel economy by 3-4 percent, and a 15 percent blend by as much as 4-5 percent. We could be adding as much as $10 billion to the fuel bill for American consumers, according to the Institute for Energy Research.
  • The energy gains from ethanol are illusory. Some studies contend that it takes as much as 29 percent more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than to produce a gallon of gasoline. The energy needed to refine ethanol may be greater than the energy it delivers.
  • Ethanol artificially raises commodity prices, and the prices consumers pay for food. Analysts at the Congressional Budget Office estimate that consumers may pay an additional $3.5 billion for food as a result of the program and its effect on commodity prices.
  • It’s more about politics than anything else. The ethanol program had at its core a desire to provide an appealing economic opportunity for a group very important to politicians seeking rural votes, especially in key primary election states.

But there’s another side to the debate. Ethanol supporters challenge many of the criticisms and point to other critical considerations. Supporters of ethanol say the rural economy needs ethanol more than ever – and so do food consumers, even if they don’t realize it.

  • We’re in too deep to quit now. Our country has made massive commitments to the ethanol industry, in good faith. We have invested literally billions of dollars in plants and equipment, and in the production tools and systems we need to serve a huge market for a crop critical to farmers and our economy. Farmers have built ethanol into their production and marketing plans and their budgeting. We just can’t let that investment go down the tubes.
  • Farmers need a vibrant ethanol industry for their economic security. Rural communities need the money generated by the industry up and down Main Street America. Investors need to know they can continue to place their money – and faith – in building a multifaceted agricultural system.
  • The ethanol industry is about a lot more than energy. By-products from its production have multiple other uses – such as livestock feed additives, other forms of alcohol, and other potential fuels, not to mention things like hand sanitizer and disinfectants. There is more at stake here for consumers than just fuel for our cars and other vehicles.
  • Economic risks to farmers and rural America from Covid make ethanol more important than ever. We need to make the investment – government and taxpayer dollars – necessary to preserving this critical element of our farm economy. We need to do that just as much as we need to keep Main Street restaurants and other businesses alive during a pandemic, using the same government tools and resources. In comparison to what we are spending to deal with Covid-19, the ethanol program is small change.
  • The energy picture can change quickly. The global and national energy picture isn’t carved in stone. The fracking industry is on edge because of low prices. Oil markets are in turmoil. The global economy eventually will open up and begin growing again – and energy demand will grow with it.
  • We must protect our environment in every way we can. Cutting greenhouse emissions should be a priority, and ethanol can help us do exactly that. Ethanol has real, important advantages over petroleum, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 39 percent compared to those of traditional gasoline. That alone makes the industry worth special effort to preserve it.
  • We should exploit our natural advantages. Producing ethanol from corn is another way to exploit the natural advantage the United States has in producing corn. U.S. farmers are the most productive corn farmers in the world. Maintaining an ethanol industry just helps us use that capability to our advantage.
  • Consumers need the healthy farm sector ethanol helps provide. Ethanol provides the economic support needed to keep many of the 400,000 farmers who grow corn in business. It helps them make the necessary investments in producing crops critical to our food system, and in the technology and equipment needed to drive continuing improvements in operational efficiency – and the lower food costs that come with them.

So which way forward?

We asked what you thought is the best solution: maintain the current ethanol program…or disassemble it? Below are your responses, and some of you even offered some alternative solutions worthy of serious consideration. Stay tuned to see your ideas implemented into our next ethanol post…it’s already in the works.

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Making the Case for Sustainable Aquaculture

While fish is still a secondary choice in protein in the U.S., coming in behind poultry, beef, and pork, it is projected to be a growing industry. How can we ensure our seafood comes from sustainable fish farms, like those in Europe, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia? And how will domestic production react to this need for more local, sustainable, and traceable ways to farm fish?

When it comes to seafood, the average American diet is about as limited as it gets.

We eat salmon, crabs, lobsters, shrimp, and scallops and that’s about it for most people, with some pollack and cod thrown in for good measure. You’re likely to get far more variety in a bowl of seafood stew at a restaurant than you do in the typical American’s seafood diet.

Not only do we lack variety, but volume as well. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the average American consumed a little over 16 pounds of seafood in 2018. Although that figure has been steadily rising for several years, it still pales in comparison to the 94 pounds of chicken, 58 pounds of beef, and 52 pounds of pork we consume every year.

The Food Marketing Institute’s 2019 Power of Seafood Survey found that 56% of Americans eat seafood twice a month. Freshness, flavor, and information about the product all play a major role in the decision to buy a piece a fish at the grocery store, along with the understanding of how to cook and enjoy it once they get home.

Some recent studies have suggested that a large and growing segment of the U.S. is interested in eating more shellfish and finfish (the industry term for fish like salmon and cod), provided they can find it at a price and quality they expect. This aligns with the EAT-Lancet Commission, as they fully support increasing seafood consumption for a healthy diet – as long as it’s sustainable.

Farmed fish – a “cleaner” option?

“The global demand for fish protein in people’s diets is growing and will continue to grow,” says Jacob Bartlett, CEO of Whole Oceans, a company raising sustainable Atlantic salmon in land-based facilities in Maine.

Companies like Whole Oceans hope to benefit from the rise of responsible fish farming by offering cleaner, more sustainable seafood than is commonly available from today’s aquaculture producers.

There has long been a difference between farmed and wild-caught when it comes to seafood. Many consumers perceive that wild-caught products are “cleaner” and more sustainable. Farmed fish, however, has a reputation more associated with dirty pens, sick fish, and an overuse of antibiotics to compensate for all this. In reality though, wild-caught fish is fraught with sustainability issues and farmed fish can be a clean alternative – depending on its country of origin.

To be fair, there are environmental pros and cons to wild and farmed seafood. Though wild-caught fish require fewer resources, it’s not a long-term alternative – 90% of wild-caught fish are either fully or overfished. Aquaculture – done safely and sustainably – is a great way to support a healthy diet and a healthy environment.

An unsustainable system

As of 2018, wild-caught and aquaculture (farmed) seafood each made up roughly half of the world’s fish consumption. But that balance is expected to tilt increasingly toward farmed fish, which is easier to scale and overall more sustainable. Major grocers like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s have been actively promoting its benefits to their customers.

But it hasn’t always been this way.

Aquaculture, or fish farming, was a $169 billion global industry as of 2015, and that’s on track to exceed $242 billion by 2022. It produces more than 80 million metric tons of fish annually from some 580 aquatic species and employs roughly 26 million workers around the world.

From 1990 to 2018, we’ve experienced:

+14% Rise in global capture fisheries production

+527% Rise in global aquaculture production

+122% Rise in total food fish consumption

Despite its size, however, the industry is largely concentrated in central and southeast Asia, with China dominating overall production, followed by Vietnam, India, Thailand, and others. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Asia-Pacific region accounts for more than 85% of all aquaculture production, followed by Africa at 10% and Latin America and the Caribbean at 4%.

The U.S. ranks surprisingly low in aquaculture production at 17th in the world as of 2017, which equates to just 0.2% of total production. This is no surprise because the U.S. imports more than 80% of the seafood we eat. Most of the imports – in the order of volume – are shrimp, Atlantic salmon, tilapia, and shellfish.

90% of the shrimp that Americans eat is imported from facilities in southeast Asia, while the vast majority of the farmed tilapia sold in this country comes from Latin America and Asia. Canada, Norway, Scotland, and Chile supply most of the salmon. Typically, smaller, more resilient species – tilapia, carp, trout, and salmon – are farmed, as their feed-to-growth ratio has been optimized through research and development.

No matter the farmed species, practices vary by country…and that’s part of the problem. Lax government oversight of the industry in countries like China, which make up the majority of all aquaculture producers, has created a two-tiered system: places like the U.S., Europe, Canada and elsewhere with industry practices with strict quality and environmental regulations, and those where the industry regulations are under-enforced.

Murky farming practices

This part of the aquaculture industry has a well-earned reputation for environmental contamination, poor working conditions, and poor health conditions for its fish. Raised in large, open-water pools, many of these unregulated farms are a hotbed for disease and pollution, and the chemicals and antibiotics often used to control these problems leach out into surrounding waters, affecting the local ecosystem, and just generally making matters worse.

That’s to say nothing about the working conditions at these facilities. For one thing, the parts of Southeast Asia – and now Africa – where much fish farming is conducted are a known hotbed for human trafficking, and a 2018 report by Human Rights Watch found widespread abuse in Thailand’s fishing industry, where migrants from all over the region are effectively sold into modern-day slavery.

Though the wild-caught seafood industry doesn’t have the safest labor practices, either. Because most fishing takes place in international waters, few regulations exist to keep the industry and its workers safe. It’s easy to exploit a vulnerable crew when out on the open seas for weeks at a time.

It’s a grim picture…no one wants to eat fish that was packed into filthy open-water pens, fed a diet of farm waste, and hopped up on antibiotics before being harvested, processed, frozen, and flown halfway around the world to market.

These practices raised questions as recently as 2012, when it was reported that fish being fed a diet of pig waste was being sold to the U.S. market. Contaminants ranging from fish waste to antibiotic-enhanced feed, to parasites, chemicals, and more have been known to leak out of open-water facilities, impacting wild populations in the area.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, farmed species can even escape from their pens and interbreed with local wild stocks, throwing off the gene pool and further spreading disease.

Higher quality comes at a price

Proper regulation and safe working conditions are costly, positioning quality fish against the prices that many of these international producers can offer for their seafood. Higher quality operators in the U.S. and elsewhere are finding it difficult to compete.

It’s no wonder that the idea of fresh, healthy seafood is so foreign to most Americans.

“Our seafood supply chain is worse than broken”, says Eric Pedersen, founder of Ideal Fish, which is raising branzino fish in Connecticut in a sealed, land-based facility that hopes to bridge this gap by shortening the supply chain to reduce costs.

“We almost have no domestic seafood supplies. Almost everything we eat in the U.S. has been imported from abroad, flown thousands of miles, which means a tremendous diminution in the quality, freshness, and shelf life of the seafood.”

At the same time, Pedersen says, often we don’t even know where it’s coming from. Neither do the retailers we’re buying it from and the restaurants that are preparing it.

“You walk into most grocery stores and go to the seafood counter and it’s a sad experience,” he says.

Traceability is another concern that domestic aquaculture providers are working to overcome. As it stands today, most people know very little about the seafood they eat. Wild-caught fish often goes straight from the boat to a wholesale fish market, either locally or in cities such as New York and Seattle, where most seafood enters the U.S.

From there, it can go anywhere, from restaurants to grocery suppliers, to meatpacking and more. Fish buyers are a knowledgeable bunch, often tasked by their employers to identify and purchase products that are fresh and healthy, but that information is lost once that fish is loaded onto trucks for their next step in the process.

Farming – a solution

By leveraging fish farming to source some of this fish, proponents hope to introduce new layers of traceability to this traditional system. Fish sourced from a particular facility and bound for a particular customer can be tagged and traced, from pool to plate, using everything from blockchain technology to direct sales, in ways that the fragmented fish supply chain never has before.

That’s why there has been a push in recent years for more aquaculture production in countries where it can be produced with more regulatory oversight such as Norway, Canada, and the U.S. (the U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees aquaculture operations in this country).

In May 2020, President Trump issued an executive order promoting American seafood competitiveness and economic growth to create jobs while eliminating illegal, unreported, and unsustainable wild-caught or farmed fish. This order also prompted offshore aquaculture as another solution for sustainable fish, resulting in the NOAA developing two out of the ten designated Aquaculture Opportunity Areas to develop fisheries.

Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping consumers and businesses make choices for a healthy ocean. They even have a smartphone app consumers can access while food shopping.

Ryan Bigelow, Senior Program Manager with Monterey Bay says, “There’s increasing interest in knowing more about our food, having local sources, and aquaculture could certainly fill that niche.”

He’s quick to admit that U.S.-based producers won’t be able to compete on price due to the costs associated with running sustainable, regulated facilities, but the truth is we as consumers should also be questioning our consumption habits.

“That $15 all-you-can-eat shrimp plate, how is that possible?” Bigelow asks. “What’s happening in those pens, on that production line, that makes it possible to raise an animal on the other side of the world and ship it over for less than it costs to grow here?”

As with many things, the COVID-19 outbreak brought this reality into stark relief. Why is the U.S. relying so much on a hazy, underground seafood supply chain involving thousands of international suppliers when the technology exists to farm fish safely and sustainably here at home, or in countries that take pride in their aquaculture production?

Due to the gross lack of safety standards in some of the countries we import from, the FDA in recent years has discovered chemicals, carcinogens, antibiotics (often expired), and pesticides. Even more alarmingly, of the imported seafood, the FDA inspects less than 1% of it. And of that 1% the U.S. regularly rejects 50 to 60% of imports.

What can you do? 

While regulations are being updated to increase imported food inspections to ensure quality, and efficacy, there are things we can do at the consumer level:

  • Check out Seafood Watch, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Guide – use their app at the seafood counter and see what you learn while you shop!
  • Look for packaging with Aquaculture Stewardship Council and Global Aquaculture Alliance labels that certify sustainable farms and seek out operations with best aquaculture practices worldwide
  • Beware of misleading statements on packaging, like “Prepared for” or “Packed by”, as this may not be the country of origin. Instead look for labels showing the fish are from the U.S., Canada, the European Union, Australia, or New Zealand as these countries have some of the safest seafood regulations.
  • Know your fish market! Buying from a local, trustworthy fishmonger can help to ensure the highest quality, as they will do the label and country sourcing for you.
  • Consider buying shrimp sourced from the U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico – it’ll be more expensive, but you can feel good about its quality and production.
  • Vary your seafood choices. Lower food-chain fish, like anchovies and sardines, are smaller and have had less time to accumulate contaminants than larger fish. Add farmed bivalve shellfish – oysters, clams, and mussels, to this list – eating lower trophic farmed fish is good for the environment and healthy for you.
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5 Benefits of Blueberries

Whether you’re looking for quick information or want something to impress your friends at dinner, here’s our Featured 5 of the Week!

Blueberries – they’re known as a Superfood due to their high nutritional benefits. We know they’re good for us, but what’s going on in those tiny berries? We’re here to tell you!

5. Help Strengthen Bones

Blueberries contain a ton of micronutrients, including iron, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, and more. Almost every micronutrient found in a blueberry is also found in our bones!

A study done on polyphenol intake from berries – including blueberries – on bone aging showed that polyphenols from berries had a positive effect on bone mass, leading to a decrease in the potential risk of age-related bone loss.

So, whether you suffer from low bone density or just want to make sure you can keep up with your kids and grandkids down the road, blueberries may be a great, natural source of polyphenol!

4. Low in Calories, High in Fiber

The million-dollar question – what snacks can I eat that are low in calories? Blueberries!

Blueberries are 85% water, and a cup of blueberries is only 84 calories. Now, we know that sometimes we need a little bit more to fuel our bodies and get through the day. BUT, the best thing about this low-calorie snack is that they are high in fiber – around 4 grams per cup!

We need fiber to keep us full throughout the day, which is another reason why blueberries are a great choice for your mid-afternoon snack…or at any time of the day!

3. Lower Cholesterol

We hear about cholesterol all the time, and most of us only know that Cheerios lower it because of the commercial. But blueberries are also a good choice if you want to lower your cholesterol!

A study conducted on both healthy people and those with existing metabolic problems examined if the polyphenols in blueberries had positive effects on lowering cardiovascular risk. They found that eating this fruit, among others, led to significant improvements in LDL “bad” cholesterol oxidation. Oxidative stress means there’s an excess of free radicals, which can damage cells. By preventing this in LDL “bad” cholesterol, it lowers one’s risk of heart disease.

Protect your cholesterol not with Cheerios, but with heart-healthy blueberries!

2. Anti-Inflammatory

Blueberries are an anti-inflammatory because they contain flavonoids, which can mean a lot of different (but good) things.

First, it means that blueberries can help boost our immune system. It’s important to note that we need some inflammation to protect ourselves from injury and infection. However, too much is not a good thing. Blueberries allow our bodies to fight against infection by lowering the excess inflammation that leads to poor blood circulation and other negative consequences.

Second, it means blueberries lower our risk of diet-related illnesses, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. When our bodies consume a lot of fat, our arteries run the risk of becoming inflamed, which inhibits good blood circulation. We need good blood circulation, especially to our brain and heart. Because blueberries are anti-inflammatory, they protect us against the diseases that come from a bad diet.

Third, it means blueberries are good for our brains! The same flavonoids that are anti-inflammatory are also needed for healthy brain function. In the brain, flavonoids help strengthen neuron connections, promoting healthy communication.

If you are at risk of developing a diet-related illness or Alzheimer’s, adding blueberries to your diet is one way to help protect yourself!

1. Antioxidants

Everything we’ve talked about above all comes down to the fact that blueberries are indeed an Antioxidant Superfood!

We learned above that free radicals can be potentially harmful to our bodies, leading to oxidative stress and an increase in LDL “bad” cholesterol. But, in a study done by Ronald Prior, they measured the plasma antioxidant capacity (AOC) of volunteers to see if foods with rich antioxidant properties were able to lower the level of free radicals in the body.

They found that when volunteers consumed a half-cup of berries, including blueberries, there was a distinct climb in AOC. There have been a few studies in animals that show the consumption of antioxidants can lower the amount of free radicals in the bodies, but less have been done on humans.

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5G’s Revolution: Will Ag be Ready?

Cropduster airplanes are a familiar sight in the skies over farms worldwide — spreading fertilizers, surveying crops, and keeping an eye on cattle herds. But, as drones and other unmanned aerial systems have grown in popularity, innovative companies have begun finding new uses for these “eyes in the sky.”

One example is SlantRange, a company based in San Diego that is working to improve agricultural efficiency and productivity by flying drones over farms and using remote sensing and analytics to provide on-demand crop performance data and real-time insights. Agriculture producers are using its platform to better target their precision ag efforts, doing everything from measuring stress conditions across fields, determining plant sizes, surveying infestations, and more.

It’s a powerful tool, but it’s facing one significant challenge: connectivity.

“At a bare minimum, we’re using imagery that can distinguish individual leaves in the field,” explains SlantRange CEO and co-founder Michael Ritter. “To do that, we’re talking about a resolution on the order of a centimeter or smaller, and that translates into several gigabytes of raw data per acre.”

Many farms, especially those in remote agricultural regions with poor internet service, just aren’t yet ready to handle this type of network load. To date, SlantRange has used mobile computing solutions – effectively setting up a local network in a truck and parking it near the field while its drone works to support the connection – but there is a better solution on the horizon that could throw open the doors to advanced new applications for agriculture: 5G.

With this next-generation technology, the company hopes to make “digital farming” a reality, implementing state-of-the-art cost and time-saving solutions, like:

  • Cameras capable of up to 5x the resolution of today’s hardware
  • Sensors that gather spectral band information to isolate key markers of plant health
  • Imagery that adapts to sunlight and weather conditions to ensure accurate prescription management and forecasting

All these benefits will make farming much more efficient. Less chemical applications, better crop knowledge, more efficient water usage, better crop breeding information.

What is 5G?

There has been a lot of talk around 5G in the news lately, but little discussion of the actual definition. Right now, your voice, the photos you share, and all data that leaves your computer travels through the atmosphere. It is all in one piece when it leaves your phone and computer – but then travels in a disarray of atoms through the air. It must come together in a readable or listable form at the receiving end.

The best way to explain this technology is to think of Legos. Legos, you say? Yes. Visualize 4G as a simple Lego airplane. It leaves intact, the parts fly through the air separately, and then must be put together right before it lands. Now take a table-sized Lego spaceship. 5G will allow this complex structure to leave, disassemble, fly through the air, and come together much faster than the airplane. The real value of 5G is that massive amounts of data will be transmitted through the air and at faster speeds.

At the most basic level, 5G is the fifth-generation mobile network that debuted in 2019, replacing the 4G networks that provide data connectivity to most current smartphones and mobile devices. Its big selling point is capacity and speed. 5G will extend high-speed mobile service into new areas, effectively bringing full, uninterrupted internet experiences to every customer – regardless of the rural destination. Farmers will be able to have instant access to all the crop, soil, and weather information on their fields.

Think of 5G like Wi-Fi, but instead of being tethered to your home or office, it’s available everywhere – all the time.

5G is expected to positively affect all industries, but may have a greater impact on the food industry, in particular. Logistics can finally go digital, supply chain tracking can be fully realized, energy companies will have better insights into the grid, and much more. 

5G on the farm

5G will be especially groundbreaking on the farm. “5G technology will allow farmers to cultivate their crops in a more ecologically responsible manner,” says Ryan Douglas, a cultivation consultant who works with cannabis companies. Access to this type of connectivity will greatly improve producers’ ability to track inventory, which is of particular concern for cannabis companies that need to keep up with regulatory tracking demands.”

But regulatory tracking is just the beginning. Douglas continues, “Drones equipped with 5G technology can be used to monitor large outdoor crops for nutrient deficiencies, pest infestations, and disease outbreaks. Problem areas can then be spot-treated, instead of applying fertilizer or pesticides to the entire crop.”

It will also enable 24/7 drone monitoring of fields, allowing farmers to pinpoint the exact moment to harvest based on supply chain needs and adjust fertilizer and irrigation needs on a plant-by-plant basis to maximize yields. Real-time soil analysis can help producers decide where and when to plant to ensure the best possible crop for their current and expected conditions, while autonomous tractors can manage the harvest themselves, circling the fields while the farmer sleeps based on data being gathered and analyzed by remote sensors.

Implementation in the Field

While the agriculture industry has been slow to adopt other new technologies, 5G is coming along at a good time, after many farmers have adopted farm management software, 4G sensors, and other new tools. They’ve seen the power of these platforms; the expanded bandwidth of 5G will only make them better.

Dr. Kuang-Ching Wang, a professor of engineering at Clemson University who was involved in the development of the first-generation Internet, explains, “we have been working closely with agriculture to push a vision of the future of food production, all the way from building smart farms, to connecting them through these new networking technologies, to all the other systems technologies that will be built on top of these network capabilities. Our goal is to make agricultural production much more efficient and also to integrate artificial intelligence into this whole picture.”

5G can bring a lot of promising applications to life, he says, by focusing on data-enabled systems to help make agriculture more efficient. For example, when developing smart farms, it’s one thing to invest in farm robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT). But, how do you deploy massive numbers of sensors into your environment and then consume the data that they collect right there? Not in an office somewhere, but right in the field. You need a powerful remote connection to make that happen.

It’s the same with automated agriculture. The technology exists to gather sensor data and manage automated harvesting systems, but it will take 5G coverage to get those robots all talking to each other and the farmer.

A number of startups are working to solve this problem, and legacy brands like John Deere are on board, as well, partnering last year with Verizon to expand the 5G use cases for agriculture. This built on John Deere’s 2017 acquisition of Blue River, an artificial intelligence company that is now developing new machine learning, deep learning, and robotics tools for the company’s farm equipment.

Challenges remain

There’s a lot of promise here, but another problem exists: 5G is just part of the puzzle. To get these new ag applications off the ground, the underlying fiber optic networks will have to be extended out to rural areas, as well. In addition, all the sensors that capture the data will have to be upgraded to handle the speed and data capacity.

“It’s a whole ecosystem that has to be transformed,” says Dr. Wang. “But the promising note is that we do see these efforts happening, not just driven by the 5G industry but rather by this new global awareness of the data-driven future of agriculture.

Getting the fiber to the farms is difficult, but there are some projects underway to make it happen.”

This includes the National Science Foundations’ Broadband 2021 effort to boost broadband infrastructure, as well as the $400 million the organization committed in 2016 in support of the White House’s Advanced Wireless Research Initiative, which continues to fund new wireless technologies and applications to support widespread adoption and more robust networks for commercial use. And in December 2019, the United States Department of Agriculture made $550 million in funding available to deploy high-speed broadband internet infrastructure in rural areas across the country. Just this month, the Federal Communications Commission voted to offer $16 billion in subsidies for rural broadband buildouts this year as part of its Rural Digital Opportunities Fund.

“There is a clear consensus that, for us, the next challenge is really not about just pushing a faster network or cooler applications in the cities,” Dr. Wang says, “but rather how you bring together complete broadband capabilities, including the rural communities.”

But is 5G Safe?

Further challenges exist within the field of personal safety.  Because the emerging 5G technology is essentially packed with higher levels of energy radiation than 4G, the major fear is the potentially adverse health effects on humans and animals.

The most pressing question that scientific and health organizations, like the World Health Organization, are currently exploring is finding out if the type of radiation emitted by 5G is safe non-ionizing waves, like radio waves and infrared, or harmful ionizing waves, like x-rays and gamma rays. Current studies on 5G’s radiation type are not clear cut.

Even if 5G emits non-ionizing radiation, we still have to consider how much more radiation we’ll be exposed to. The Environmental Health Trust believes that currently, “5G will require the buildout of literally hundreds of thousands of new wireless antennas in neighborhoods, cities and towns.” However, according to Dr. Steve Novella, a professor at Yale, and editor of Science Based Medicine, the amount of radiation we are talking about is a frequency less than light. “You go out in the sun, and you’re bathed in electromagnetic radiation that’s far greater than these 5G cell towers.”

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