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

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

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

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

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

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

Working for wolves

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

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

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

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

Recreating landscape links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Using science to drive policy 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As a gardener in the Midwest, I am surrounded by agricultural farmland and housing developments that have largely replaced the tallgrass prairie that provided habitat for pollinators and other wildlife prior to European settlement. I decided to devote some of my outside space to these essential creatures. But before I started, I needed to figure out which plants would thrive in my yard’s environment. 

Choosing plants native to the region is best as they are well suited to the local soil and climate. Pollinators have adapted to native plants; they have co-existed for hundreds of years. There are plenty of native plants to choose from that are attractive and provide pollinator habitat. 

“Be a planner, not a plopper,” says Cydney Ross, outdoor education program manager for Deep Roots KC, a Kansas City, Missouri nonprofit. 

Ross suggests taking photos at different times of the day for at least one season to find out how many hours of sunlight each part of your yard receives. Pollinators forage in areas with six to eight hours of full sunlight a day. 

I planted patches of pollinator habitat in my yards in Nebraska and Iowa, and for each location, I learned to pay attention to the hours of sunlight available after the trees have fully leafed out. When there are mature trees nearby, the hours of sunlight available can change quite a bit from early May to July.

Soil and moisture are other considerations. Ken Parker, a western New York-based native plant grower and consultant with Native Plant Guy Consulting, says fancy soil tests are unnecessary. Simply identify the type of soil that you have—for example, is it clay, loam or sandy? To determine soil type, I place a ball of wet soil similar to the consistency of Play-Doh in my hand. Sandy soil is gritty and hard to form a ball, whereas clay is much stickier. Loam tends to be a mix of the two and feels silky in your hand and forms a loose ball. 

Next, I observed where water pooled in my yard to identify areas that are especially wet. I mostly worked with sandy and loam soil and have noticed the plants that thrive in my area can change depending on soil conditions. Cream wild indigo and prairie dropseed are among the species that have grown better in my sandy soils, while a wide variety of plant species such as New England aster, wild bergamot and sideoats grama (a short prairie grass) grow well in loam soil. 

When planting native plants, it’s unnecessary to add amendments to the soil such as peat moss and fertilizer. These plants are hardy and do not need these supplements, which will just encourage weeds.

Once I understood sunlight, soil and moisture conditions, I was able to pick plant species that fit my yard’s environment.

State native plant societies are a good starting point for finding a local native plant organization and nursery that specializes in growing natives. These organizations and nurseries are good resources for learning about the habitat requirements of different species and how to plant them. I have ordered most of my native plants from regional nurseries in flats through the mail, and they have arrived in good condition. 

Established plants are advised for starting smaller pollinator gardens (less than roughly 250 to 500 square feet); they are more expensive than seed, but they will establish more quickly, reducing time spent weeding. 

I planted my first pollinator garden with a pre-made native grass and wildflower seed mix when I was in my 20s and a graduate student with a flexible schedule. I enjoyed spending time on my hands and knees with a plant ID guide getting to know which young seedlings were something I had planted and which were weeds that needed to be pulled. However, as I got older and wanted to spend less time weeding, I switched to planting small plants. I also like getting to mature plants quicker when starting with plants.

Parker recommends choosing an equal number of wildflower species that bloom in the early spring, summer and fall—he likes four flowering species during each season. “The more species you have, the more your habitat becomes a buffet” for different types of adult pollinators and larvae, which will also attract birds, he says. 

My current garden has patches of pollinator habitat with 20 native plant species; the wildflowers bloom from May through early October. In my sunny, steep front yard, I planted a five-foot-wide strip with taller species such as stiff goldenrod, wild bergamot and common milkweed in the back and the shorter prairie dropseed grass and smooth aster in the front. Monarch larvae feed on milkweed, but adult monarchs and many other pollinators feed on the nectar and pollen of a variety of flowering species––in the fall, the blooms of the stiff dropseed are alive with activity from small bees to butterflies.

Near my vegetable garden there’s prairie alumroot, sweet coneflower, Joe Pye weed and foxglove beardtongue. The beardtongue is among my favorite plants. Its tubular white flowers are especially popular with bumblebees and hummingbirds. 

Grasses and sedges (grass-like plants with fine leaves) provide texture, and their dense roots will occupy space, reducing weed establishment. I like to include clump-forming grasses such as little bluestem that are host plants for the larvae of skippers, a type of butterfly. I have also started planting more sedges around my flowering plants since they green up early in the growing season and deter rabbits from feeding on other plants. As garden designer Benjamin Vogt with Monarch Gardens in Lincoln, Nebraska, says, “Sedges are wildflower bodyguards.” 

Before the actual planting could begin, the area needs to be prepared by reducing weeds and grasses. This can be very labor intensive, but there are several methods that garden designers recommend––my favorite is sheet mulching for my gardens. 

Sheet mulching: Mow or weed whack your lawn and weeds short, then put layers of cardboard or newspaper down for several weeks; add mulch on top to keep the layers in place. Poke holes into the layers and insert your plants. 

Solarization: During the summer, staple clear plastic tarp into the lawn to use heat to kill the grass, weeds and weed seeds. Leave in place for two to three weeks in dry climates to several weeks in wetter climates until the vegetation is dead. Remove the plastic before adding your plants in the fall.

Herbicide: This is the most controversial method. Glyphosate is very effective at killing grass and weeds, but most pollinator experts avoid using it because of potential effects on human health, the environment and the pollinators they are trying to attract. 

Each of my gardens were planted over time. Ross suggests that planning in stages, even when converting large portions of a lawn to a pollinator habitat, keeps the project affordable and manageable. And starting with a small area allows you to confirm which species establish well and the weed control methods that work well before scaling up. Including native ground-spreading covers to serve as a living mulch can also reduce weeds.

In the first year, plants should put their energy into growing roots. To support their growth and to reduce weed competition, I add a one- to two-inch layer of mulch after planting and regularly water for the first two weeks if there isn’t regular rainfall. 

Over the second and third year, allowing the mulch to break down, trimming weeds and giving plants space to spread will allow the natives to replace the mulch. “They will find where they’re happiest,” says Parker.

The right garden preparation has paid dividends in creating an hospitable habitat lively with pollinators and other wildlife. My gourd plants are plentiful each year thanks to natural insect pollination. I watch birds feed on caterpillars in the spring and summer and the seed heads of sweet black-eyed Susan and Joe Pye weed in the fall and winter. It’s a small step to make my yard a more welcoming place for these creatures, but, selfishly, the pleasure I derive in seeing a butterfly float by on a summer breeze or bumblebees visit my flowers is immeasurable. 

The post Prepare a Slice of Your Yard For a Pollinator Garden appeared first on Modern Farmer.

It’s no wonder, then, that longtime Maine senator and eventual governor Edmund Muskie helped to craft and pass the legislation that became the Clean Water Act of 1972, establishing regulations for discharging pollution into rivers and streams. But that legislation had unintended consequences. 

As regulations restricted the dumping of waste into waterways, states found themselves with a buildup of sewage and excrement. Municipal sewage plants have to process human waste, food particles and any chemicals, medicines and trace particles that make their way into their systems when we flush them down the drain. The resulting slurry is referred to as “sludge.”

“It’s what comes out of our wastewater treatment facilities, so it is anything we flush down the toilet, anything we flush down the drain,” says Sarah Woodbury, from Defend Our Health, a Maine-based nonprofit advocating nationally for equal access to safe and clean drinking water and food. “What is left over [after cleaning the wastewater] is like a mound of brown, sludgy material that is a combination of mostly human waste, and then whatever else ends up in that facility.

“They euphemistically call it biosolids,” says Woodbury, “because sludge doesn’t sound good—even though that’s what it is.”

Following the Clean Water Act and other environmental legislation in the 1970s and 1980s, the United States had a buildup of sludge and a newfound optimism in slogans such as  “reduce, reuse and recycle”. Since sludge is incredibly high in nitrogen, it seemed like the best way to reuse it was to spread it on farmland, where the chemicals in our waste could help our crops grow. Government pamphlets from the 1990s promoted sludge spreading to farmers as viable and safe, and municipalities offered to spread it for free on farmer’s fields. Sludge application has been practiced nationwide on farmland since the 1980s.

“It was used on many types of farmland,” says Shelley Megquier, with the Maine Farmland Trust. “It really makes sense to a lot of farmers to use it as a low-cost fertilizer and a way to add nitrogen and other nutrients to their soil.”

But there are more than just nutrients seeping in the soil from all of that sludge. While the sludge has gone through treatment facilities, which do filter out some heavy metals, many chemicals remain. They are the chemicals that wash off our non-stick pans, water-resistant fabrics and in our cleaning products. All of these contain PFAS—perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances—or forever chemicals. These are chemicals that are known to cause cancers, birth defects and fertility issues in humans; chemicals that do not dissolve or disintegrate over time but instead can leach into groundwater and crops, ending up in the food we eat.

In 2016, milk from a dairy farm in Arundel, Maine tested positive for high levels of PFAS. The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry began investigating PFAS contamination, and more dairy farms were found to have dangerously high levels of PFAS in their milk. It did not take long for the state to match up the farms with contaminated milk to the map of farms where sludge had been spread as fertilizer. Further testing has revealed the problem extends to all manner of crops throughout the state, as well as drinking water wells and irrigation systems. More than 60 farms were affected in Maine, a number that could continue to grow as testing continues. Nationwide, nearly 20 million acres of farmland have been treated with sludge, but it’s hard to find the level of contamination without extensive testing; some farms were treated multiple times with sludge and some only once. 

The state of Maine, along with  several organizations, including the Maine Farmland Trust and Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, jumped into action for impacted farmers. The group created the PFAS Emergency Relief Fund to help shoulder the costs of PFAS testing, remediation and filtration and the temporary farm closings caused by PFAS discoveries.  While more than 40  farms have been found to be impacted so far, less than a dozen were shut down due to the chemicals, thanks to the group’s work. However, Maine’s testing efforts are only the tip of the iceberg across the United States.

As a fertilizer, sludge provides farmers with an inexpensive way to enrich acres of soil. Only Michigan requires testing of sludge for PFAS contamination before it is used for farmland, although there are many state and federal efforts to ban PFAS at the source,which is the only guaranteed way to ensure they do not find their way into our food systems. 

Maine passed a state ban on the spreading of sludge as fertilizer in 2022, and Connecticut is currently working on similar legislation. But what might seem like a simple fix has a series of domino effects, forcing farmers to spend large amounts on other fertilizers and pressuring municipalities to find other ways to safely dispose of their waste. 

“Now, what is happening is all of the sludge [in Maine] is being landfilled,” says Woodbury. “It’s not a great option, it’s the best of a bunch of bad options. There’s not infinite space in a landfill. And, so, eventually, they’re going to have to figure that out, and what we need are destruction technologies. We desperately need destruction technologies.”

While sludge is the leading cause of PFAS contamination on farmland, the chemicals are also found in areas where firefighting foam has been spread and near Department of Defense sites. PFAS can leach into the groundwater and affect farms near sites such as these, not just land where the chemicals were directly applied. And some farms, particularly dairy farms, can be impacted by bringing in contaminants unknowingly. Misty Brook Farm in Albion, Maine purchased hay to feed its  dairy cows from an outside farm and later found out the hay was heavy with PFAS, resulting in the cows’  milk being contaminated.

If you suspect or know that sludge has been spread in your area, Sarah Alexander, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, recommends starting with a water test. “There are relatively simple, cheap tests, and so, for the homeowner or a farmer who is interested in understanding if this is something they need to be concerned with, we think that can be a good first step.”

A federal ban on the chemicals that end up on our fields is the most straightforward way to stop PFAS, and MOFGA is pursuing this end.

“We have filed our notice of intent to sue the EPA under the Clean Water Act,” says Alexander. “There has to be a known contaminant that is shown to be in sludge, and that contaminant causes human health impacts—which is well documented for PFAS. [The EPA] is required to take action under the Clean Water Act. And so, our notice of intent is to tell them they should have been taking action already and force them to regulate PFAS and sludge.”

Testing and the cessation of sludge spreading help to control the spread of PFAS in our food systems, but stopping PFAS at the source is the only way to remove them from our water and soil entirely.

“At the end of the day, the folks that have caused the problem should be on the hook for it,” says Woodbury. 

This story is part of our ongoing PFAS series, The PFAS Problem: Demystifying ‘Forever Chemicals’

The post Why Maine is Taking the Feds to Court Over Sludge appeared first on Modern Farmer.

At CAFOs, it is common to pool animal waste in one spot, called a manure lagoon. Anaerobic digestion creates a mixture of gases, which can be used for electricity or further processed into fuel for vehicles. The idea is to take advantage of these large quantities of waste to create something useful and reduce methane emissions, helping the climate along the way.

However, that’s not quite how it works out. In Lind, an overwhelming number of citizens showed up for a public hearing to discuss the change—the Wisconsin Examiner reported that there were so many attendees, they exceeded the capacity of the building and the meeting had to be canceled. Community organizers, under the group name Citizens Protecting Rural Wisconsin, argued that digesters aren’t the solution that they seem to be.

A new report by Friends of the Earth US and Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP) backs up that sentiment. The study suggests that methane digesters create incentives for the growth of industrial agriculture, further entrenching food systems that harm both people and the environment. These researchers, communities and advocates are working hard to resist the greenwashing of this technology—and sometimes they succeed. Vanguard Renewables, the company partnering with the dairy near Lind, officially withdrew its application to build in March. 

The report

Anaerobic digesters are not typically things that you would ever see on a small, pasture-based dairy or farm. Digesters require a lot of manure to work, meaning that they are more poised to be installed on CAFOs that typically have hundreds or thousands of animals. This suggests that supporting biogas production incentivizes the growth of the CAFO industry. 

“If we put money towards biogas, we’re essentially helping to subsidize and further entrench industrial livestock production,” says Chris Hunt, deputy director at SRAP and a contributor to this report, “and essentially the worst possible ways of managing waste, which is manure lagoons.”

This growth was documented in the report, finding that herd size at the studied CAFOs with digesters grew 3.7 percent year over year—24 times the growth rate of typical dairies in the states they studied. 

“Once you have a digester in place, there’s an incentive to create more biogas, because there’s now a market for biogas,” says Hunt. “The only way of doing that is to create more waste. So, there’s an incentive to add more animals to herd size.”

Greenwashing

The Global Methane Pledge was launched at COP26, aiming to reduce global methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030, using 2020 levels as a baseline. In 2021, the US released its own methane reduction plan. Expanding manure biogas production was listed as a key way to reduce methane emissions in the agriculture sector. Between 2010 and 2020, the USDA Rural Business Cooperative Service supported grants and loans totaling $117 million toward anaerobic digesters.

This plan aims to develop the industry further. Not only does it commit the USDA to launch additional work into biogas policies and research, but existing Farm Bill conservation programs such as the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) will provide resources in service of manure biogas production. 

In 2020, manure accounted for about 9 percent of the US’s methane emissions. The greater source of methane from animal agriculture is through enteric fermentation—created through the process of digestion. This accounted for about 27 percent of US methane emissions. Using anaerobic digesters to produce biogas can only address that 9 percent, and it does nothing to reduce the 27 percent inherent to ruminant agriculture—animals such as cows, buffalo, goats and sheep.

The gases produced by anaerobic digestion are being used for electricity and to power vehicles, but as the report and other advocacy organizations argue, this doesn’t make it a clean fuel.

“When you burn this fuel as an end use, it’s essentially the same as burning fossil fuels,” said Kat Ruane of Food & Water Watch during a recent webinar about biogas production in California. “It produces similar pollutants, it harms the environment in the same way and you’re still pumping gas into the atmosphere that we really don’t need to be there. So, clearly, this cannot be a solution to climate change.”

Food & Water Watch did its own study on digesters in California feeding into the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) program. The leakage rates of these digesters could be as much as 15 percent. Food & Water Watch used satellite images of methane plumes overlaid with geographic information about where digesters in the LCFS program were located. They documented 16 dairy operations that emitted plumes, producing 59 plumes between March 2017 and July 2023. The emission rates of these plumes reached as high as 1,729 kilograms of methane per hour. A “super-emitter” in the imaging system is classified as just 10 kilograms of methane per hour.

“Another huge greenwashing problem with this technology is just the fact that it does not work,” said Ruane. “[It’s] an absolutely mind-boggling amount of pollution being produced under the guise of supposedly helping the climate.”

In addition to research, Food & Water Watch mobilizes people on issues related to food systems and factory farming. On its website, you can read about its various objectives and wins against industrialized farming as well as calls to action on these issues. Hunt of SRAP also encourages people directly dealing with the impact of factory farming on their community to reach out directly.

“If any of your readers are facing a factory farm, they should contact us,” says Hunt. “We provide free support to communities throughout the US to help them protect themselves from the damaging impacts of industrial livestock operations.” 

There’s no uniform approach for dealing with this issue, he says, as it depends a lot on regional factors, but SRAP provides resources such as the SRAP Help Hotline and SRAP Water Rangers Program, which offers free training on how to collect and analyze water samples, document pollution and report violations.

“There’s not really one universal secret. But this is what our organization does. So, I would encourage folks to reach out to us for help.” 

Digesters don’t erase factory farm concerns

Even if biogas production wiped out methane emissions completely, that’s still a narrow view of the factory farm problem, says Hunt.

“Biogas doesn’t solve the factory farm issue,” says Hunt. “Greenhouse gas emissions aren’t the only problems in factory farms. As someone who’s been working on this issue for 20 years, it’s actually one of the problems with factory farms that concerns me the least.”

He says that methane emissions are being misconstrued as the major problem caused by factory farms, and biogas has been used as the proxy for fixing all the problems explicitly with CAFOs. “But they don’t do that at all,” says Hunt.

Digesters don’t address worker or animal rights abuses at CAFOs, nor all of the environmental concerns. Moreover, many of the human health impacts are not mitigated by anaerobic digesters.

“When you have too many animals in one place, you’re going to have too much waste in one place, and that waste becomes a problem—that waste becomes a pollutant,” says Hunt. “So, these facilities pollute the air, pollute the water and threaten public health and spoil people’s drinking water. Adding digesters doesn’t actually fix that.”

As of 2020, there were more than 21,000 CAFOs in the US, and some are clustered geographically. In California’s San Joaquin Valley, for example, some people live next to as many as 25 CAFOs. 

The abundance of CAFOs in the San Joaquin Valley isn’t accidental, says Leslie Martinez, community engagement specialist at the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability (LCJA). The San Joaquin Valley has several historically Black communities that are now largely Latino, and the abundance of polluters is evidence of environmental racism—hazardous materials or operations being located or dumped in communities of color. Moreover, many of these communities are unincorporated, and this can make it more difficult for residents to advocate for themselves.

“First and foremost, I think it’s really important that people understand the health impacts that come with so many large animals being confined in one area,” says Martinez.

These impacts include sleep apnea, asthma and other respiratory issues, as well as not being able to go outside because of the intensity of the smell or due to being swarmed by flies. CAFOs present a threat of nitrate pollution, which can cause a variety of illnesses including blue baby syndrome. Manure contamination can also lead to severe pathogen-related illnesses such as listeriosis and tetanus. The SRAP and Friends of the Earth report posits that while anaerobic digesters achieve temperatures that can kill some pathogens, the real solution is not to have such high concentrations of animals in the first place.

Martinez, who was born and raised in Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley, works closely with other local organizers to do policy work against the LCFS rewarding CAFOs, such as trying to eliminate methane crediting. She encourages everyone to speak up on the impacts of dairies.

“Attend a workshop, speak up and be like, ‘As somebody who lives next to a dairy, as someone who lives next to a dairy with a digester, this is my reality of what I live with,’” says Martinez. “No one should be able to take away your right to clean air and clean drinking water and get away with it.”

On the LCJA website, you can read more about this work and find information for taking action. Small dairy farmers who’ve had success should share their stories, too, she says.

“Small farmers, rise up,” says Martinez. “There are success stories that I think need to be talked about. And I would love to hear what their solutions are to this epidemic of the CAFO industry.”

A more sustainable future for dairy

As the SRAP and Friends of the Earth report states, “Only if one accepts the status quo model for industrial animal production as the baseline can it be argued that manure biogas has any benefits.” For Hunt, biogas production is not compatible with climate change solutions at all.

“I don’t think a sustainable future is compatible with the CAFO model,” he says. “You can spend millions of dollars and stick a digester on top of your lagoon, you can stunt the emissions a little bit that way. But you’re still left with all these other problems that are inherent in that model.”

“I don’t think a sustainable future is compatible with the CAFO model.”

Martinez encourages those who consume milk and dairy products to think critically about how these products get to your table. Collectively, she says, we need to think about what sustainability is and what we as consumers are willing to accept.

“Right now, people are saying that you having access to [these products] is more important than a young child being able to go outside and ride their bike or walk home from school,” says Martinez. “Because right now that’s kind of what the trade-off is.”

In her organizing, Martinez has been accused of being anti-dairy industry and anti-dairy farmer.

“But that is not true. I think that there is a place for dairies. And I think that that place for dairies is when you don’t have thousands of cows. It’s not sustainable,” she said in the Food & Water Watch webinar. “If we want to genuinely keep dairies around in California or in Wisconsin, wherever, they have to be truly sustainable. And that means making big changes.”

The post Biogas From Mega-Dairies Is a Problem, Not a Solution appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Witt’s home in South Egremont is a scant mile from Indian Line Farm, the nation’s first CSA; together, the pair of plots represents 28 total acres stemming from another of Witt’s passion projects. Since her founding of the nonprofit in 1980, the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires (CLTSB) has been creating lease agreements throughout the region, aimed at enabling occupants to build wealth (including equity in their improvements) on community-owned land—with the goal of creating an equitable, regenerative future for all. 

We spoke with Witt about the role community land trusts stand to play in the future of farming, especially as access to affordable farmland continues to dwindle. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

HVS: Let’s start with the basics. What is a community land trust?

SW: A CLT is a nonprofit, regionally based organization with open membership that acquires land, by gift or by purchase, creates a land-use plan that reflects needed land use in the community—from creating workforce housing and securing low-cost land access for farmers to keeping retail space locally owned—and embeds social and ecological objectives for each site.

HVS: How does a community land trust differ from a conservation land trust? 

SW: While conservation land trusts focus on keeping lands in their natural state, the CLT model deals with working lands. Its goal, to take the cost of land out of access to it, is achieved by leasing community-owned land at a very affordable rate for purposes described in a land-use plan. 

Community land trusts are organized to give equity in buildings and other improvements on the land, which are owned by the lessee, while conservation land trusts generally exclude housing and/or other buildings. 

[RELATED: Holding onto Farmland, One Land Trust at a Time]

HVS: What does this community-based approach aim to do?

SW: Achieving long-term security for farmers is among the biggest benefits of community land trust ownership of farmland. A lease, coupled with ownership of outbuildings and improvements including soil improvements, means farmers own all of what they put into their operation. When compared with handshake agreements and short-term leases, this model ultimately positions farmers to apply for grants unavailable to those without land security. 

Preserving farmland in perpetuity is another major benefit. Take Indian Line Farm, for instance: when founder Robyn Van En died unexpectedly in 1997, that farm could have easily been sold as another second, third or fourth home in the Berkshires, and a prime, fertile tract of bottomland for local agriculture would have been lost. Instead, the local community land trust raised donations to purchase the land value; the Nature Conservancy (which owned abutting wetlands) purchased an overall easement; and two local farmers—who had been working the land but lacked the assets to purchase the farm— took out a mortgage to buy the buildings. They have since paid back the debt of the mortgage; improved the house and the barns; built greenhouses and have a thriving business that provides food to local markets and consumers. 

HVS: What are the roadblocks here? What’s keeping more land from being used in this way?

SW: There’s a lot of farmland out there, much of which is tied up by easements and commodity crops—which neither fosters access for the small, diversified farms needed to strengthen the local food web nor does it enable housing on site for the farmer, which is critical. When farmland and housing are combined, it creates a farmstead providing land security and housing security for our small farmers. We’d like to encourage more cooperation between community land trusts and conservation land trusts in securing farmsteads. Conservation land trusts can play a key role in developing land-use plans with ecological considerations.

HVS: What can people do in their own communities to address this issue? 

SW: While the importance of donating “the back forty” (a remote piece of land that has yet to be cultivated) to conservation land trusts is well understood, we seek to encourage the same understanding of how to make donations of working lands—with buildings—to community land trusts. This practice allows donors to remain aligned with their priorities (to help local growers bolster the food supply, for instance) rather than risk leaving property to another type of nonprofit [that] might sell the donated land and buildings to the highest bidder in order to raise cash for other uses. It’s pretty powerful. 

HVS: What can I do today? 

SW: Learn how local land trusts are leading the way in conservation by discovering the active land trusts in your state. Join your community land trust and be a voice there. For a modest annual fee, everyone is welcome to exercise their civic engagement and participate in a community-led solution.

The post Q&A: How Community Land Trusts Help to Preserve Farmland appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Three years ago, Montoya started the Pollinator Advocates program. In that short time, she’s trained nearly 50 community members in-depth about the importance of native habitat for pollinators and reintroduced thousands of native plants to yards and parks around Boulder. 

“I am positive that [this led to] an empiric increase in the numbers of insects and hummingbirds in our neighborhoods,” she says. “We are currently working with entomologists on setting up surveys across the city.”

Montoya spent decades improving the well-being of people as a physician’s assistant, treating cancer and auto-immune diseases and supporting patient recovery with herbal remedies. But since retiring in 2015, she’s become dedicated to improving the well-being of “our Great Mother.” 

She first stumbled across a native bee house at the library in 2018 on a walk with her grandson. This prompted a research deep dive, learning from local experts and taking courses at the University of Colorado, and spiraled into community activism. 

“The more I read about these native bees and plants and ecosystems, the more I realized that the reason why pollinators were so in decline is because they lost habitat,” says Montoya. She looked around her own neighborhood—densely packed with houses and “dead sod.” An ecological graveyard.

Native pollinators need the relationships they have with native plant species to survive, like how monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed. We love songbirds, but they need healthy insect populations to thrive. Montoya points out that a pair of chickadees need 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to raise a clutch of young before they leave the nest. 

In 2019, Montoya started out by giving native plants (donated by Harlequin’s Gardens and Growing Gardens) to neighbors to encourage buy-in. She recruited volunteers to plant in “pocket parks,” small public spaces in densely populated neighborhoods, and would pass along what she’d learned about pollinators. Her Polish and Mexican Indigenous heritage helps her connect with people from diverse backgrounds, building a network of interested community members.

The city-sponsored free Pollinator Advocates (PA) program she launched in 2021 is now “bigger than I could have imagined,” she says. “Time and again, it really keeps me going that so many people are drawn to the work.” The PA program is application-based and open to adults within Boulder, with 20 people per cohort. Organizers try to choose applicants with a mix of backgrounds and experience, to ensure diversity within the group. 

Participants commit to attending a weekly two-hour lecture from June through August with local experts—including professors, researchers and conservationists—who teach about native pollinators and plants, and they spend roughly 15 hours volunteering to plant and maintain pollinator habitat in the city. In the end, graduating PAs receive $150 worth of native plants for their own yards from Harlequin’s Gardens. 

Montoya’s favorite moments are when she’s out with a group of new PAs or volunteers and a bee lands on a flower. In her experience, it’s like watching a baby being born. “You’re gonna think I’m exaggerating,” her face is lit up, joyful, “but everyone goes ‘Ah! Look! It’s a bee! It’s here! It’s working!’ So, there’s little tiny miracles that I never thought I’d get to witness happening over and over again.”

But not everything is miraculous. One of Monotoya’s biggest challenges is that people have major fears of insects. Even nature documentaries “show insects as being these weird, aggressive, pinchy, bitey monsters.” When going into communities to talk about pollinators, she starts with the less anxiety-inducing species: butterflies and hummingbirds. If the conversation is going well, she’ll pull up a picture of a native bee—from the millimeter-long Perdita minima to metallic green sweat bees or a lumbering bumble bee. Seeing these insects in less frightening ways can open people’s minds to the benefits and beauty of native pollinators.

Montoya sees her work as climate action and a way to bring life and biodiversity back to our environment. “It’s a chance to right a wrong as humans,” she explains.

So, what can we all do to support native pollinators, especially farmers? Talk to your neighbors and advocate for pollinators, plus take these three actions. 

First, stop using chemical pesticides. “You’ll kill the very organisms both in the soil and flying around that you need,” says Montoya. She says that commercial pesticides contain toxins harmful to humans as well. She encourages people to opt for natural pest management options, such as creating a healthy ecosystem or killing invasive pests such as Japanese beetles by knocking them into a bucket of soapy water. For Montoya, the best pest management technique is creating a native habitat, as there are more beneficial insects that can prey on and outcompete harmful ones.

Second, plant regionally native plants around your garden or farm, being sure to have blooms across as much of the season as possible. “Plants that need the native soil don’t really need all the nutrients in a food garden bed,” she says, so she recommends 100 feet to 300 feet between your veggie beds and native plants so they all thrive. 

Third, leave some patches of bare soil—no mulch, no thick cover crop, no plastic—as the majority of native bee species nest in the ground. 

The post Meet the Woman Who Launched a Local Training Program to Save Native Bees appeared first on Modern Farmer.

We also asked readers what questions they had for agroforesty experts. Here’s what you wanted to know, with answers provided by Savanna Institute executive director Keefe Keeley:

Q: How can I incorporate agroforestry practices into my small home garden?

A: Agroforestry practices help us think about how woody, perennial shrub plants can be incorporated into farming systems, as well as how food production can be achieved in forested environments. This can help you with your gardening as well. If your yard or garden is heavily shaded, you may be able to grow plants or mushrooms used in forest farming, which takes place under a closed canopy. If you are limited by space, you could consider growing perennial woody shrubs such as elderberries or black currants, which can begin producing berries in 2-3 years. Agroforestry invites us to think about how systems connect. Your plants could help provide a windbreak or visual barrier, habitat for wildlife and pollinators and food for your table all at the same time.

Q: If you want to plant an orchard with a guild but are limited on resources, which plants should be prioritized?

A: While plant selection will vary based on your specific location and goals, some agroforestry species have notable intercropping potential. Black currants and pawpaws are two examples of shade-tolerant species that can grow well with other types of trees. You can see examples of groupings used by other farms on our website and YouTube channel.

Q: How do you keep deer from eating the trees and shrubs (aside from building a giant cage fence around each one)? We would like to reforest a section of our property, but can’t imagine caging that many trees.

A: We are experimenting with a few different deer-deterrent strategies at our demonstration farms. We have had success with using five-foot high tree tubes for each tree (which offers other benefits as well) and with 3D deer fence: two separate electrified fences set three to four feet apart. This creates “depth” and makes it difficult for the deer to jump over them.

Q: What equipment do you use to dig holes to plant trees? A spade and rocky ground is hard-going.

A: We use a variety of equipment for planting woody shrubs. Depending on what is being planted and the soil quality, this could include a trencher and tree planter pulled behind a tractor, a PTO-driven post hole digger or some of the modified precision ag equipment we are experimenting with on our demonstration farms. You can learn more and see examples on our YouTube channel.

Q: Any sources for chestnuts? Seems that most nurseries in Canada are always sold out.

A: One of the biggest challenges to expanding agroforestry is the shortage of plant material currently available for purchase and planting. That’s why we launched a nursery with our partners Canopy Farm Management, which offers tree planting and plant material in the region. As members of the Agroforestry Coalition, we also work with others across the country to improve nursery stock availability and production.

Q: I know chestnuts prefer well-drained soils. How can those of us on more poorly drained soil grow the highest-value tree crop? Is there any research about using swales or planting in fields with drainage tiles?

A: “We are working with Canopy Farm Management to develop a series of mapping tools to help people identify areas of their land that would be most suitable—or unsuitable—for different agroforestry crops. These will be available later this year. Drainage tiles (which are common in Midwest farm fields) are a concern for many growers. We do not have much research or experience growing chestnuts with drainage tiles, but we’re working to learn more.”

Q: What are three of the fastest-growing trees for an emerging Southern California food forest?

A: Since most of our work is focused on the US Midwest, I would refer you to some of our collaborators in the southwest region. This video by the Quivira Coalition featuring Roxanne Swentzell could offer some insights. 

Q: Is there a comparable program [to SI] to help new farmers enter into agroforestry, including forest farming, in [a] mountain area of Maryland?

A: We are partnering on a new Expanding Agroforestry Project with Virginia Tech, which is working in Maryland. You should also check out Appalachian Sustainable Development, which is working to support agroforestry and forest farming in your region.

In addition to reader questions, Keeley offered answers to three of the questions the Savanna Institute hears most frequently:

Q: Where can I find plants?

A: Talking with your local conservation specialists is often the best way to find plant sources that are a good fit for your location. The nation-wide Agroforestry Coalition has identified nursery stock and plant availability as a key bottleneck in expanding agroforestry production, so certain crops and varieties can be hard to find. We work closely with Canopy Farm Management, which offers agroforestry crops suited for the Midwest. For more nurseries in your area, check out the National Nursery and Seed Directory.

Q: Where/how can I sell my products?

A: In any farm enterprise, it’s important to identify market opportunities in advance and design your operation with these in mind. Farms using agroforestry sell products through the market channels all farms use—they just have more trees at work benefiting the crops and livestock on their farms. On some farms, the trees provide the primary crops: fruits, nuts, timber and other tree products. These farms sell their products through U-pick businesses, direct-to-consumer sales and regional wholesale distributors. Many tree crops are best sold as value-added products, which entails additional processing costs but can open up additional marketing opportunities.

Q: How do I find land to do agroforestry?

A: If you are thinking about planting tree crops, you will need long-term access to land to reap the full benefits of your investment. This is a significant obstacle for most beginning agroforestry farmers. Developing a detailed business plan and building relationships in your local community are important steps towards achieving this goal. Our new interactive guide, Designing An Effective Long-Term Agroforestry Lease, helps you work through key considerations for acquiring long-term access to land.

Do you have more questions for the Savanna Institute? Check out its “Ask an Agroforester” page for more frequently asked questions and to submit your own.

The post Your Questions About Agroforestry, Answered appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The human pressures on the river’s resources have come about through a combination of the valley as attractive farmland, significant urban growth and an influx of tourists wanting to hike, boat, bike and bird-watch. The population of Phoenix, which relies on water from a combination of the Verde and Colorado rivers, has grown to 4.75 million in 2024 from 221,000 in 1950, now the fifth largest city in the US, while climate change and agricultural demands have placed additional pressure on the river’s supply. 

Global environmental nonprofit The Nature Conservancy has been working on the Verde River for more than 50 years, and as the issue of low water flow became increasingly critical about 15 years ago, it began working with local communities to effect change and save water. This was the launch of Sinagua Malt, Arizona’s first malt house, a Certified B Corp public benefit corporation, which works by incentivizing farmers to transition from water-intensive summer crops such as corn and alfalfa to barley, by providing them with a stable market and offering local breweries and distilleries the opportunity to use locally sourced malt. This measure has saved more than 725 million gallons of Verde River water between 2016 and 2023, according to data from The Nature Conservancy—or more than 50 gallons per pint of beer.

Barley to the rescue

It was a 2015 meeting between The Nature Conservancy’s Kim Schonek and the Verde Conservation District’s Chip Norton that resulted in the game-changing plan to conserve the Verde River flow. The idea for Sinagua Malt came about through Schonek’s and Norton’s shared goals, approached from different perspectives. For Schonek, the key objective was elevating flows in the river, along with protecting farmland and ensuring its viability. Having tried fallowing agreements, where farmers were paid not to farm, and drip irrigation, which was hard for farmers to manage in large areas, they needed a new initiative. “We were also looking for a crop that would still be profitable while using significantly less water in the area—and barley was an obvious choice,” explains Schonek. 

Barley is planted in January and February, so it receives a lot of water from the winter rains as it irrigates. It dries out through May and is harvested in June, when the river is at its lowest. Conversely, alfalfa or corn need one foot of water per acre of irrigation during June, which places a significant burden on the river. 

Norton came to the issue of water flow through his work on habitat preservation in the Verde. During this time, Schonek and Norton had both built strong relationships with local farmers, and they were able to convince nearby Hauser Farms to take part. 

The initial test batch of 15 acres of Harrington two-row malt barley was planted and harvested in 2016, but it had to be sent to Austin for malting, as there were no malting houses in Arizona. When the returning malt was tested by local breweries, including Arizona Wilderness and Sedona Brewing, and found to be of saleable, usable quality, Norton and Schonek were left with a conundrum: The transportation costs and environmental impact of sending their barley all the way to Central Texas negated any savings for local farmers and brewers, as well as some of the benefit to the river. They needed to malt closer to the source, and the only way to do that was to build their own malt house.

Learn by doing

“It worked because Chip didn’t expect anyone else to do stuff—he just jumped in and did it. He was willing to be the guy to make it happen,” says Schonek. Norton came out of retirement to start the business. His background as a project manager in water and wastewater plant construction came in handy. “I had a great deal of experience with automated process equipment in my previous career, but I knew nothing about farming or grain processing,” he says. “My training as a maltster was essentially being thrown in the lake and learning to swim. It has been a steep learning curve.” 

After researching technique and recipes through various resources, including the equipment manufacturer and the Craft Maltsters Guild, Norton “just started doing it.” Although Norton says his first batch was “the easiest I’ve ever made,” it wasn’t long before the realities of running a malt house single-handedly set in. “Malting needs cool weather, and there was no air conditioning, which was very challenging in the summer as it was 95 degrees inside—I had to go and buy blocks of ice to throw in the steep water by hand to keep things cool,” he says. There was also a great deal to learn, and batches didn’t always go to plan. Norton says he “learned the correlation between fields that didn’t yield well by quality of barley, so good communication with farmers was crucial. I didn’t have a mentor so I had to self teach—so we learned which fields not to harvest, what techniques gave the best consistency of quality and, over time, we’re making good malt on a small pilot scale.”

Communication is key

Schonek emphasizes the importance of Norton’s persistence but also of strong communication and integrated goals shared between herself and Norton, the farmers and the brewers. “The brewers’ willingness to try malt that maybe wasn’t the greatest was critical,” she says. Sinagua’s stable of three to four breweries kept them at full capacity, until additional investors funded a new malthouse, which has scaled up production to 1,700 tons from 150 tons per year. Sinagua is now operating at a capacity where it is looking for new farms and new breweries and distilleries to work with. 

The Nature Conservancy measures the change in the Verde River watershed by evaluating the change in crop and how much water each crop uses. It compares the volume of water used to grow barley to that which alfalfa and corn require per acre to see the savings. Measurements are taken during the summer months when the river is at its lowest ebb, and the pair estimates that its initiative has saved 725 million gallons of water. They’ve been able to grow to 610 acres this year from 95 acres of barley produced in 2016. Sinagua Malt now works with five farms, including Hauser, the Yavapai-Apache Nation’s Cloverleaf Ranch and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community’s Hatler Farm. They estimate they will be able to supply upwards of 25 local breweries and distilleries by the end of 2024.

Schonek says there has definitely been more water in the last few years. “You can go boating again now,” she says, “and we expect the impact on the river to at least triple with the new production facility.”

“It’s a dream come true to have such a meaningful impact on the river flow,” says Norton. However, the pair is keen to highlight that there were things they could have done differently along the way and things that have been essential to making the project work. 

“Looking back, one more year of assessment before launching would have been beneficial,” says Norton. They both emphasize that you can’t second-guess the future, but that thorough planning, communication and responsibility are essential when working with multiple partners. “It is critical to listen to agricultural partners and understand what their options are—and to have partners who are on board with shared goals and willing to take some level of risk but also help them manage that risk,” says Schonek. The Nature Conservancy initially helped farmers manage the risk by offering compensation for failed batches, although this has now ceased. It also played an integral role in getting investment from donors, a process by which both Norton and Schonek had to present the venture as practical and profitable. The pair emphasizes goal alignment with other complementary initiatives, such as Friends of the Verde River’s Verde River Exchange Water Offset Program, to which Sinagua contributes, and The Nature Conservancy’s work on eliminating waste in water conveyance and ground water management to ensure the best possible outcomes. 

When it comes to solving the kind of social and environmental issue that the Verde River flow raised, persistence is the key for Norton. “To achieve results, you have to keep plugging away and not quit—things don’t fall in your lap,” he says. Schonek puts creative problem-solving at the forefront. “We can’t just do what we did last year or what we did a decade ago. We must learn from what we’ve done, scale up and invest in better infrastructure,” she says, highlighting the need for greater funding and policy work across the board. 

The post How Two Committed Conservationists Revitalized a River With Beer appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Gottenborg is working to create a habitat on his ranch that sustains the elk population. The ranch sits on the migratory path of the big animals, and every winter, hundreds of them travel through Eagle Rock looking for food as they move from higher to lower elevations. You could see their presence as a wildlife management success story or a nuisance, depending on how you look at them. Maybe a bit of both. 

“Elk can provide an indicator of how well habitats are functioning,” says Karie Decker, director of wildlife and habitat for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, which works to ensure the animals have the habitat they need to thrive. “They have a direct role on vegetation through herbivory and seed dispersal, create wallows and serve as prey and carrion for many other wildlife species.”

According to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, before Europeans settled in North America, more than 10 million elk were roaming around the US and parts of Canada, but due to overhunting and habitat loss, their numbers dwindled to 40,000 at the turn of the 20th century. 

That’s when conservationists and government agencies began efforts to restore elk populations through protected areas and regulated hunting. Today, Colorado is home to 280,000 elk, the biggest population in the world. Despite these efforts, maintaining that population is a challenge.

Threats to the elk include everything from climate change to manufactured barriers that can stifle their daily and seasonal movements, land development, traffic, increased human recreational activity, fencing and conflicts with human activities.

“In Colorado, elk and many other species had a very challenging winter in 2022-2023, with a deep snowpack for an extended period, significantly reducing the population in northwest Colorado,” says Decker. “Other challenges to elk across various states include development and the loss of habitat, lack of or low-quality forage, drought, disease and social tolerance.”

Eagle Rock Ranch has been in operation, primarily as a cow-calf operation, for more than 150 years, but Gottenborg, who runs the ranch with his wife, Jean Gottenborg, daughter Erin Michalski and son-in-law Matt Michalski, is relatively new to Eagle Rock, acquiring the ranch about 12 years ago. The elk came with it.

“My predecessor fought them for years,” says Gottenborg. “He did probably everything a landowner could legally do to chase elk off the property, with mixed results. He had propane cannons and salt and pepper shells, and he would get into these big arguments with the Forest Service and CPW [Colorado Parks and Wildlife].”

Elk are not small visitors. Males can weigh up to 700 pounds and stand five feet at the shoulder, females up to 500 pounds and 4-1/2 feet at the shoulder. 

“They are very large, determined eaters,” says Kara Van Hoose, Northeast Region public information officer for CPW. “They will devour hay and other grains left outside for domestic animals and livestock. Elk are known to be destructive in their pursuit of food, toppling over containers, ruining fences and other infrastructure and eating large swaths of crops.”

Still, the Gottenborgs decided to welcome the elk, hoping to make them a benefit to the ranch. Since buying the ranch, the Gottenborgs have been working to diversify their income with the goal of keeping themselves and other ranchers on the land and maintaining the open landscapes. They’ve dipped their toes into agritourism with curated experiences, including fly fishing, ranch tours and eco-tours, and they see the elk as another income stream.

Programs such as Elk Rent in Montana, from the nonprofit Property and Environment Research Center, and the USDA’s Migratory Big Game Initiative in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana pay landowners for providing elk habitat. While there isn’t a program set up yet to do the same in Colorado, the Gottenborgs are in talks with organizations that will pay for the elk to have forage access to their pastures in the winter.

During the winter months when the elk are migrating through the property, the Gottenborgs’ cattle are in Nebraska, so the Gottenborgs don’t need to worry about cows and elk competing for food. By the time the cows are back on the ranch, the elk have moved back up to higher ground. To make it easier for the elk to graze without the risk of getting caught in their fences, they’ve started making modifications to make it easier for them to move up and down the valley. 

“The hope here, too, is that my neighbors are watching me. That they’re following what we’re doing and we can expand the concept, so, eventually, there’s 10 or 12 miles of this valley opened up in terms of easier access,” says Gottenborg.

Elk-friendly fencing that can be laid down flat on the ground to support seasonal wildlife passage is expensive. Still, the Gottenborgs believe there is enough interest in the forage access that they’ll be able to make more modifications. They’re not laying down all of the fences, but they can easily track the migration patterns of the elk in the snow, so they lay down specific fencing sections while keeping their gates open.

In 2023, the Gottenborgs also installed five large, shallow-pool structures that hold fresh water with pumps powered by solar panels. The drinkers, as the Gottenborgs call them, provide water in the higher elevation pastures during the warmer months and the shoulder seasons where natural water sources aren’t present and help to distribute wildlife across the landscape better. They’re hoping to install additional drinkers this year.

“The elk have been here a long time, and we’re trying to change our approach to make them an asset,” says Gottenborg.

The post Meet the Ranchers Working to Sustain the World’s Largest Elk Population appeared first on Modern Farmer.

That’s how Bradley Aiken of Portland, OR began his response to our call for reader questions about where their food comes from. “My weekly visits to the local farmers’ markets still find an overabundance and reliance on plastic pint containers of berries, single-use plastic bags,and straws! I thought we were done with straws, really?”

Bradley’s lament probably feels familiar to most sustainability-minded consumers. Plastic is truly everywhere. Over just a few decades, it’s become an inescapable part of modern life, permeating nearly every aspect of our lives, from the food we eat (usually wrapped and bagged in plastic and often containing it) to the clothes we wear (60 percent of which are made from plastic) to the microplastics hiding just about everywhere, from clouds to human placentas to the Earth’s most remote corners.

“Plastic packaging is definitely a major source of plastic pollution, and it can seem totally overwhelming to folks when they go out to get food, especially since the great majority of our food is wrapped in plastic,” says Erica Cirino, communications manager for the advocacy group Plastic Pollution Coalition and author of Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis. “It’s estimated that more than 40 percent of all plastic produced is single-use plastic packaging, which is an astounding amount.”

Hey plastic, don’t touch my cheese

Before the advent of plastic packaging, food was packed in a variety of materials, from natural substances such as gourds and leaves to, most recently, glass bottles and jars, metal cans and tins and paper products. Today, plastic encases a large and growing percentage of our food: A recent survey of Canadian grocery stores found that 71 percent of all produce was packaged in plastic and that baby food had the highest share of plastic packaging, at 76 percent.

There are a few reasons why so much of our food is packaged in plastic. Perhaps most importantly, it’s cheaper to manufacture and transport than alternatives. And as the world grapples with an urgent energy transition, fossil fuel companies jittery about the prospect of decreasing demand for oil are looking to plastics as their next major profit driver—and are on track to triple global plastic production by 2060.

Plastic also gives the impression of cleanliness and sterility, and it has long been thought to extend the shelf life of food, a notion that industry groups tend to emphasize but that recent studies have called into question. “It’s a seemingly hygienic coating for foods to be mass produced, shipped around the world and then end up in the supermarket and eventually in your refrigerator,” says Cirino. “It’s just a very disconnected way of interacting with our foods.” 

Worse, she points out, are the health risks of widespread exposure to plastics. Made up of polymers and a dizzying array of chemical additives such as stabilizers, plasticizers, flame retardants and pigments, plastic’s impacts on the human body represent an active area of research. It’s known that many chemicals in plastics, including phthalates and bisphenols, can transfer and leach harmful chemicals that can cause an array of health issues, such as hormone disruption, cancer, diabetes and reproductive disorders. Less well understood are the effects of microplastics, which we can ingest through food and inhale at a rate of about 16 tiny pieces per hour, according to one study. 

“It’s a shame that we’re putting it around our food because we’re exposing ourselves, almost inadvertently, to these toxins,” says Cirino. “All these plastics have different chemical risks associated with them. None of them are good.”

Out of sight, out of mind 

How did we get here? Quite conveniently, as it turns out. Before the advent of plastics in the 20th century, people produced a fraction of the waste they do today; materials were usually repaired, reused or repurposed. It wasn’t until the post-World War II boom that a culture of disposability began to take hold, as new plastics technology allowed cheap packaging to enter the mainstream, finding a market of consumers increasingly motivated by convenience. 

It took some getting used to; historian Susan Strasser recalls how, at first, many consumers washed and saved the tins from disposable TV dinners because they were so unaccustomed to throwing things away after a single use. And it was a transition explicitly driven by the industry. “The future of plastics is in the trash can,” declared Lloyd Stouffer, editor of Modern Packaging Inc., in 1956. By 1963, Stouffer was congratulating plastics industry representatives on their progress. “You are filling the trash cans, the rubbish dumps and the incinerators with literally billions of plastics bottles, plastics jugs, plastics tubes, blisters and skin packs, plastics bags and films and sheet packages—and now, even plastics cans,” he said. “The happy day has arrived when nobody any longer considers the plastics package too good to throw away.” 

From the outset, industry groups pushed back against regulation and worked to redirect responsibility onto consumers, coining the term “litterbugs” and promoting recycling as the antidote to the rising tide of plastic waste. As a result, global plastic pollution, estimated at around 400 million tonnes per year, became everybody’s problem but theirs. 

“The whole idea of disposability is based on this idea that you can make something and not have to clear up after yourself,” says Oliver Franklin-Wallis, an investigative journalist and author of Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future. “You go back to the very earliest days of the plastics industry and they have always treated waste as an externality. And when I say that, it means it’s a cost borne by other people … If you are a plastics company, we as the taxpayer, we as society, clean up for you, which means that you get privatized profits and socialized consequences.”

The narrative that puts recycling forward as the solution is a comforting one for consumers. But the reality is much more complicated. For certain plastics, namely PET (as in beverage bottles) and HDPE (as in milk cartons), “we have relatively good end-of-life solutions,” says Franklin-Wallis—although “they’re not always done very effectively, particularly in the [United] States.” But the plastic picture is brimming with films and wraps and other forms that aren’t recyclable under current circumstances, and in general, much less plastic is recycled than any of us would like to believe. (In 2021, the US had a plastic recycling rate of less than six percent, according to one report.)

One culprit is a confusing labeling system that makes consumers think that things are recyclable when they’re not, leading to optimistic but misguided “wishcycling.” “The plastics industry has known for decades that [the labeling system] doesn’t work. It doesn’t help consumers. What it does is make consumers feel less guilty about buying things,” says Franklin-Wallis. “There’s lots of evidence to show that if you tell people that something is recyclable, they’ll feel less guilty in buying it and therefore they’ll buy more of it.” (Here’s a handy guide to those labels; only numbers 1 and 2 are widely recyclable.)

Less is more

Recycling correctly is one action consumers can take, but while it may feel good, it won’t solve the essential problem of too much plastic material clogging waterways, accumulating in soil and threatening human health. “People are recycling, and they are attempting to do what they were told was the right thing,” says Cirino. But, she says, increasing awareness of the inadequacy of recycling has begun to change people’s attitudes, leading them to seek out solutions such as reuse and refill.

Reusable takeout container systems have proliferated in recent years. Some areas have refill stores, where customers can bring their own bottles to stock up on bulk supplies such as dish soap and browse low-waste products such as metal straws and stainless steel bento boxes. But while consumer changes are an important part of the picture, individuals didn’t start the problem, and they won’t be able to fix it on their own. Effective regulation is key to stopping, as Modern Farmer reader Bradley put it, “plastic armageddon.”

“When you talk to people in the plastics industry, they will act as if consumers want this stuff. But actually consumers are never really given a choice,” says Franklin-Wallis. “If you give consumers the choice to choose more sustainable options, they almost always do that. They want to be able to recycle, they want [to] reuse, they don’t want to do things that are damaging for the planet. So, the challenge is forcing industry to [give people the option].”

Examples of effective legislation include bottle return schemes in countries such as Norway and Germany, which have 95- to 99-percent recycling rates for plastic bottles, and “extended producer responsibility” (EPR) laws, which shift some of the burden onto manufacturers, incentivizing things such as reducing packaging or investing in plastic recovery projects. “The solutions are out there and they’re scaled right now,” says Franklin-Wallis. “Quite often, the issue is either apathy or corporate opposition, and we need to kind of bust through both of those things.”

Throwaway culture is cheap, easy and convenient. Changing our consumer habits and challenging the interests of a powerful global industry is difficult. “There are no easy solutions,” says Franklin-Wallis. “There are only choices.” One choice that’s worth making, however small the impact? Buy less stuff—a lot less, if you’re able—and make do with what you already have. 

Click here to read our guide on how you can help reduce plastic waste, from things to do at home to how to support community and policy-level solutions.

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Thanks to Bradley Aiken for submitting his question for our “Digging In” series. Got a question about where your food comes from? Let us know what you’d like us to investigate next by filling out this form.

The post Digging In: Food’s Big, Plastic Problem appeared first on Modern Farmer.